Crying for the Light Volume I Part 7

'Oh no,' I replied; 'that is the offertory, and the parson gives the money to the poor.'

'Does he?' said Hodge. 'I've never heard of his giving any money away, and he has never been near me, though I've lived five years in his parish.'

I explained that the late parson was old and infirm, but that the new parson would do better; and then Hodge admitted that he had heard as how he had called on a neighbour who was ill, and had left two half-crowns.

Hodge is not a teetotaler, but drinks a table-beer which his wife brews.

As to public-house beer, he declares it is poison, and never touches a drop. He pays to the Foresters five-and-sixpence a quarter, and shilling for his wife, and that secures him in case of sickness ten shillings a week and medical attendance for his wife and family. He goes to bed at nine o'clock, and that means a good deal of saving in the matter of coals and candles. He frankly admitted that he had made, and could make, no provision for old age. He had one grievance. His master was a Liberal, but he had told him now that schooling was free he must pay two shillings more for his rent; 'and that ain't very liberal,' he said.

Then we talked about the farmers. They were very hard on the men. When harvest time came, that was the miserablest time of the year, for the big farmer goes round to the small farmers and tells them what he is going to pay, and then the men stand out, and are idle and walking about, while a lot of foreigners-that is, people from parts adjacent-come, who are bad workers and get drunk, and are very disagreeable to have anything to do with. There ought to be no large farmers who cannot properly attend to the farms, and who keep hunters and go out hunting. He would have no hunting at all, as it destroyed the crops to have a lot of men galloping over them. Farmers could not make their farms pay, as they did not keep enough men to pull up the weeds, and he had seen fields where the thistles were as high again as the barley, and instead of carting barley the farmer had to cart weeds, and that could not pay. Again, he thought it was madness to send the manure of towns into the sea when it was wanted on the land. Farmers were very unreasonable, and that was a pity.

How could a farmer expect his men to work well if they were paid starvation wages? They even starved the horses. Many a farmer on a Sunday, or when the horses were idle, took off a feed of corn from the horses. Why, did not a farmer want his dinner on a Sunday when he was not working, and was it not the same with the horses? He had seen some farmers hunting, and their horses were nothing but bags of bone.

'Well, what do you think of allotments of two or three acres?' said I.

Hodge evidently had a poor opinion of them. If he had one, he would not have the time nor the strength to work on it, though his wife might help him, as she was used to outdoor work; and then there was the ploughing, how could that be done? Could not, I asked, a farm be cut up into allotments, and one person make a living by ploughing for the others?

No, he did not think that could be done, as you could never get a lot of people to be all of one mind in that respect. It was not much use giving an agricultural labourer more than forty rods to attend to. He did not keep bees, as his master did not like them, but his father-in-law did, and he made a good deal of money by them. One thing he did by which he made a little money, and that was to breed canaries. Once upon a time he caught a blackbird and took it home. Then he sold it for five shillings, and when his wife missed the bird he put a shilling to it and bought a canary. His master's brother gave him another; and as they laid eggs and hatched them he sold canaries, and thus made a little.

Hodge is an active politician, and attends all the Liberal gatherings of the district; but his politics are of the dimmest kind. He is attracted by the word Liberal-that is all. What he desires is to see a better understanding between the masters and men. He has got beyond the Church parson, evidently, but the farmer may yet win him back. I question whether the farmer will have sense enough to take the trouble to do that, easy though the task may be. In the majority of cases it is only a question of a shilling a week and a few kind words. Hodge has no wish to be driven off the land. He would rather remain where he is. He knows very little of the town, and is rather afraid of its wickedness and its filthy slums. All he requires is a little more consideration, a little more kindly treatment on the part of his employer. He is a good fellow, and he deserves it. But one sighs as one thinks

'Of the rarity Of Christian charity Under the sun.'

But this is a digression. I now return to the Hodge of half a century ago.

It was late that night before the villagers went to bed, everyone had so much to say. There had not been such an excitement there since old Campbell, missionary to Africa, had told the people all about the poor Hottentots.

Half-way down the High Street stood the Spread Eagle-as times went, a respectable public-house, licensed to let post-horses, and warranted to provide suitable accommodation for man or beast. It is true, on the outside was painted a fierce creature, intended for a bird, with an eye and a beak enough to frighten anyone, but all was peace and harmony within. The landlady had a way of serving up mulled porter at all hours which seemed particularly attractive to her customers, especially in winter, and as the coach to London changed horses there, a good many people were in the habit of dropping in 'quite promiscuous,' as some of us say. On the evening of the sermon, the bar-parlour was unusually full. The landlady's niece had been to hear the young divine, and her verdict was favourable.

'Here's a pretty go,' said the Rector, who had dropped in quite accidentally, as he joined the group: 'that young Wentworth is going to drive the people crazy. As I came past I saw all the parish there. I am sure Sir Thomas' (the owner of the next village) 'will be very angry when he hears of it.'

'Right you are!' cried the surgeon; 'but the young fellow won't stop here long, you may depend upon it. He is far too good for the meetingers.'

'I wish the whole pack of them would clear off,' continued the Rector; 'they give me no end of trouble. If I go into a cottage, I find they have been there before me. It is just the same with the schools; they get all the children. My predecessor did not mind it, but I do.'

'Ah,' said the landlady, 'I've heard my mother speak of him. He and the clerk had always a hot supper here on a Sunday night. Ah, he was a gentleman, and behaved as such.'

'Rare times, them was,' said an old farmer, joining in the conversation.

'I remember how we used to pelt them meetinger parsons with rotten eggs.

It was rare fun to break their windows while they were preaching, and to frighten the women as they came out. One day we were going to burn the parson's house down.'

'And why did you not?' asked the surgeon.

'Because the Rector's wife was ill,' was the reply, 'and the Rector asked us not to make a noise near the house. But I was sorry we did not then finish the job outright. They'd all have gone. Says I, if you want to get rid of the wasps, burn their nests. I've no patience with a lot of hypocrites, professing to be better than other people.'

'Well, gentlemen,' said the landlady's niece, a privileged person, as she was both young and good-looking, 'all I can say is, young Mr. Wentworth preached a capital sermon to-night. A better sermon I never heard.

There was no reading out of a book. It was all life-like. There was no drawling or hesitation. He spoke out like a man.'

The aunt looked solemn. This would never do. The Spread Eagle had always supported Church and State, and she was not going to change at her time of life. It was too bad to find heresy in her own flesh and blood.

'Well,' said she, 'of course I don't go to meetin', and I'm very sorry to hear what I've heard to-night.'

'Well, we will forgive the young lady,' said the Rector condescendingly, with a familiar nod, 'on condition that she does not do it again.'

'Agreed,' said the surgeon. 'I go to church,' he continued, 'because it's respectable; because my father went there before me; because, if I did not, I should never be asked to dine at the Hall; because, as it is, I find it hard to make both ends meet, and should lose all my practice if I went to meeting.'

'Besides,' added the Rector, 'it is your duty to support the inst.i.tutions of your country, and to set the people a good example. I am not much of a Churchman myself. I had rather have been a country squire, but my father said I must either take the family living or starve, so, as starving is not in my way, here I am.'

'And a better parson we don't want,' said the old farmer enthusiastically.

'Well, I try to do my duty in the situation in which Providence has placed me,' said the Rector, with a truly edifying air.

'We knows that,' said the farmer, 'You've allus a bottle for a friend, and you give us short sermons, and when we want to get up a race or a bit of sport, you are always ready to lend us a helping hand, and that is more than the meetingers ever do. I hates 'em like p'ison. All their talk is of eddication and religion-good things in their way, but not to be overdone. My best ploughman can't read a bit, and what good will larnin' do him, I should like to know.'

And here the farmer, red in the face, paused for a reply. In the meanwhile the Rector called for the Sunday paper, which had reached there that evening. The surgeon set off to attend a patient in labour-his princ.i.p.al employment in that healthy district, where the people kept good hours and breathed good air-and the bar-parlour of the Spread Eagle resumed its Sabbatic quiet. Only one should-be sleeper lay awake that night, and that was the village pastor's son. He was to go on probation to Sloville. There was no minister there, and the people wanted one.

Was he to succeed? Did he sufficiently realize the import of his message? Had he so mastered the truth that he could commend it in all its fulness and beauty to others? These were questions which gave him-as they do all in such a position-great searchings of heart. At college Wentworth had difficulties which were only to be put away, said his teachers, by Christian work. They, good people, had had doubts themselves, but they had lived them down, and so they went to their daily task quite satisfied, and they reaped the benefit of acquiescence as they became more and more celebrated for wisdom and piety, and as more and more they lost the meaning of Scriptural language in conventional and orthodox formula. Subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles was not imposed on the young divine; but he was expected, nevertheless, to adopt a certain creed, and repeat it. Students at his college were not expected to study truth, but only as it appeared in a human, rather than a Divine, form. Any attempt at independent inquiry was rejected as heresy of the most odious kind. Happy were they who never had their minds darkened by doubt, who, according to their own ideas, were taught of the Spirit; who found every difficulty solved by prayer: to whom Deity revealed Himself, as He did to the Jews of old, as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night; who felt that their G.o.d was a jealous G.o.d, consuming with eternal fire the reprobate; who believed that G.o.d was angry with them if they took a walk in the fields on a Sunday, or kept studying secular affairs one moment after twelve (Greenwich time) on a Sat.u.r.day night. To this cla.s.s Wentworth did not belong. He was wont to regard the Creator of the world as a Father in heaven-as a G.o.d of love-who had filled all this wide earth with beauty for man to grasp and enjoy. Pious people said he lacked unction. But he was anxious for action, as all young men are, for real life and real work, and desirous 'to settle,' as the phrase is. His father was poor, and could not afford to keep him at home. He had finished his college career-with acceptance.

No one had a word to say against him, and none doubted his ability. At Sloville the people were supposed to be profoundly orthodox. It was hard indeed to send such a young man there, yet it was agreed that Wentworth should go there on probation.

CHAPTER VI.

AT SLOVILLE AGAIN.

It was with rather a heavy heart young Wentworth found himself in the ancient town of Sloville, amongst some hard and elderly deacons, who had little sympathy with him or his ways. Everything in the Dissenting creed was dull and dreary. At that time there were no athletic sports-no outlet for that vigorous animal life which is common alike to saints and sinners, to the young preacher as well as to the young layman. Now, when even curates devote themselves to lawn tennis, a freer life is tolerated, and we do not find fault with even an ordained parson who can run, or play cricket, or display animal as well as intellectual or moral vigour.

At the time this history refers to, this was not the case, and much did the Church suffer and the world gain in consequence. Young people must have amus.e.m.e.nts. It is unnatural to ask them to give them up.

Amus.e.m.e.nts are not only lawful but necessary. But at Sloville this was denied, and our young minister was always in hot water. It is true that he did not dance-that was an outrage on the feelings of the Church too awful to contemplate-but it was known that he enjoyed a game of chess.

It was whispered that he had confessed to a knowledge of whist, and had been heard to own to a little time wasted on billiards. If he had said bagatelle, people would not have so much minded. The senior deacon had a bagatelle-board himself in his own house; not that he played, he was far too serious for that, but his young people required amus.e.m.e.nt, and he was forced to give way. But billiards!-that was quite another matter. That was a game played by wicked men in public-houses and at London clubs.

Men had been ruined at it, families had been beggared by it; even suicides had been the result. No, that was not a game on which you could pray for a blessing. Yet Mr. Wentworth had been heard to say that he knew something even of that atrocious game. They were very bilious, and therefore very pious, these good deacons. We have improved a little since then, but types of them are still to be found scattered all over the land.

Under this strict regime, as was to be expected, there was not a little restlessness at Bethesda, as the chapel was called. The young preacher was popular, but not, alas! with the soberer and elder portion of the congregation. The deacons were sorely puzzled how to act; some questioned whether the young student had the root of the matter in him, and many were their meetings. Let us go amongst them, as they are at tea, and in the house of one of them, the leading tradesman of the town, a dear old deacon, who from the time he had known the Lord, as he termed it, had never known a doubt, and to whom no sermon was tolerable that did not begin with ruin and end with regeneration and redemption. The house in which he resided was one of the most respectable in the High Street.

It was entered by the side door, and not through the shop-that was of itself a sign of gentility. On the present occasion, all the company have come in by the private door, and, dressed in black, you might have taken them for a gathering of the brethren, so thoroughly clerical was their look and demeanour. Of course, they were all professors, as they were called, not of music or mathematics, but of religion. The head of the party, in whose parlour they were seated, and of whose hospitality they were partaking, was the senior deacon of the Independent Chapel.

His parents were very poor, but they had sent him to school, and were specially careful that he should be a Sunday scholar. In a little while he became a Sunday-school teacher, and that was a feather in his cap, and helped him to pray and make speeches in public. One of the friends thus gained was a small shopkeeper, who in consequence took Ned Robins, as he was called, into his employ. The lad was steady, of a cold temperament, very selfish, and ambitious to rise in the world. He had no wish nor temptation to be otherwise. He was always at his post, never went to the public-house, never wanted to go to a race, or a fair, or a rowing match, never wished for a holiday, and, consequently, never took one. He had married his master's daughter; he had courted her on a Sunday when they went to chapel together-that is, they sat in the same pew and sang out of the same hymn-book-and as everyone said they ought to make a match of it, they did so accordingly. By that match he became proprietor of the business, which grew as the town grew, so as to become really worth having. His boys were in the business; his daughters, with the exception of one of them, rather prettier than the rest, were all members of the church, and had married other tradesmen in the town. A good tea did he give his friends, in the best parlour, with the very best tea-things.

Truly, he had much to be thankful for. He had never dishonoured a bill, and his good name was unquestioned. If he occasionally sold adulterated articles, that was the fault of the manufacturer, not his. His favourite verse was,

'Not more than others I deserve, Yet G.o.d has given me more.'

-apparently quite unaware that, in saying so, he cast a slur upon his Maker.

In the parlour itself there was every sign of comfort, in the way of easy-chairs, and sofas, and good mahogany. Over the fireplace was a good-sized looking-gla.s.s. Opposite to it was a bookcase, inside the gla.s.s shutters of which was a set of _Evangelical Magazines_, well bound, a Matthew Henry's Commentary, an ill.u.s.trated 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and a large folio copy of Fleetwood's 'Life of Christ.' For the young people there were Cowper's Poems, those of Jane Taylor, and Milton's 'Paradise Lost.' Perhaps the best-thumbed volume in the collection was the 'Cookery Book,' for neither the master nor his wife approved of starving the tabernacle or mortifying the flesh when their pleasure lay in an opposite direction. In the way of ornament the room boasted of portraits of a murdered missionary and a leading London divine, who had been popular in his denomination in his day, and oil-paintings of the master of the house and his missus, by no means flattering to either. The windows were lined with heavy curtains that kept out the cold. The fire burnt brightly on the hearth. The seductive tea-urn sent its rich aroma all round. Plum-cake and hot b.u.t.tered toast, to say nothing of m.u.f.fins, were plentiful, while a real Yorkshire ham tempted one to cut and come again.

The deacon and his wife loved to be happy in their way, and it was with pardonable pride they sat down to the feast, and gathered around them their chapel friends. They fell bravely to work, as soon as the compliment had been pa.s.sed of asking the eldest of the visitors to say grace. The one selected was a chemist, the other who returned thanks was a farmer, who, if goodness was tested by a tendency to sleep all sermon-time, was a saint indeed. His drowsiness, he admitted, was an infirmity, but it was one against which he seemed to make no effort. He was wide-awake enough when he had a horse to buy or a bullock to sell.

After the guests had satisfied the wants of their inner man, and discussed the state of the weather, and the corn-market and the crops, they began discoursing. Let us listen to them.

'Well,' said Jones, the farmer, 'I don't think that young man who preached on Sunday was the sort of man we want for Bethesda. It was all very fine, and, if I had not been a Christian, I should have enjoyed it myself.'

'Mere morality,' said Stephens, the chemist and druggist, 'not a word for the poor sinner.'

'Yet the chapel was crammed full at night, and I hear we shall have a larger congregation next Sunday.'

'And a deal of good that will do us. Larnin' and eloquence will never save a soul. If the root of the matter an't there, what's the use of them? We don't want a lot of giddy creatures coming along and crowdin'

up the place. I'll be bound to say that young man is a Neologist.'