Into the Highways and Hedges Part 8

"Do ye say so?" said the preacher. "Ay, ye scatter temptation i' the way o' the poor, ye rich, an' are too soft-hearted to hear tell o' their fall!" after which they both relapsed into silence.

The sun was beginning to beat down on their heads, when they reached the little hamlet of River.

It consisted of one chalk road, on either side of which were very white cottages, which had a deceptive air of comfort and prettiness. Pink china roses cl.u.s.tered against their walls, and low-thatched roofs shone gold in the morning light.

The villagers were out in the fields: only one old man, and a baby with sore eyes and an eruption all over its face, stared open-mouthed at the oddly matched pair. Barnabas stooped to pa.s.s through the doorway of one of the cottages; and Meg following him would have tumbled down the one step into the room, if he had not held out his hand to save her.

She never forgot the sudden plunge out of sunshine into that dark room, close and hot, and yet with a damp smell about it.

Labourers' cottages sixty years ago were so bad that one wonders, when one thinks of them, that the wave of revolution that was pa.s.sing over Europe, did not utterly submerge us too!

Meg stood leaning against the door, watching the preacher; too shy to venture further. Her eyes dilated, and she turned whiter as she looked.

The damp clay floor, the sickening odour, the room that was bedroom and sitting-room as well, horrified her. Yet Barnabas had been in many a worse place, and this was no exceptionally bad case; indeed, it was decent compared to many a cottage in Kent. But Meg lived before the day of district visiting, and the world of poverty was a new world to her.

A woman was lying on a press bed in the farthest corner, her eyes shut.

Meg thought at first that she was dead. Her thin pinched little mother came hurrying from the inner room to meet them.

"She's had two more of them spasms since you left," she said to Barnabas. "I should think the next would about carry her off." She spoke in a querulous tone, as if the spasms were somehow the preacher's fault, but her face twitched nervously. She had small features like her daughter, and black eyes, and spoke with the south-country accent.

The woman on the bed stirred and then gave a quick choking sound, and Barnabas was by her side in an instant, supporting her in his arms. It was literally a fight for life!

The poor thing's eyes started, and the veins on her forehead swelled; Barnabas held her up with one arm, and fanned the air towards her mouth with the other hand.

"Open the window!" he shouted; but the window was apparently not made to open. Such a thing had never been done. "Take the poker and break the pane!" he said; and the woman hesitated. "I can't see as making a draught is good," she murmured; but Meg obeyed him at once. The green substance, grimed with dirt, did not break easily, but it gave at last; and Meg was thankful to turn her back on that awful sight.

When she looked again, Barnabas was blowing into Susan's lips, pausing every now and then to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, "Lord, help me!" The gasping breaths were getting easier, the grip of the clenched hands was relaxing; presently the patient fell back exhausted.

"She's going!" said the mother. "Lord, if I had a drop of brandy left, it might save her!"

The preacher covered his face with his hands a second,--he, perhaps, was a little exhausted too; then he stood upright, and put his hands on her forehead.

"Oh merciful Lord, heal her!" he cried. "Pour Thy strength into her!

Pour Thy strength into her! Let it flow through me to her now while I pray." He repeated the same words again and again at intervals. It seemed to Meg that his face was as the face of some strong healing angel, so bright with undoubting faith.

Presently the patient opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled. It might have been an hour that he had stood there. "I've got new life in me," she said. "I feel it;" and Barnabas fell on his knees.

"Now, the Lord be thanked," he said, "who has given us the victory over death, through Christ our Master." And Meg drew a breath of relief; she had felt as if he had been fighting some tangible enemy, and now the dreadful presence was routed--she almost fancied she saw it like a black shadow flee past her, out into the open air.

The fight was over.

"My maid," said Barnabas, "G.o.d has been good to you. You will not die, but live, and your sins are forgiven, both by Him and the woman you stole from: she has come to tell you so."

Meg came forward quickly and knelt by his side.

"Oh Susie," she said. "I am so sorry you have been unhappy all these years! and I would have forgiven you at once if I had only known. Why, I would lose all I have ten times over rather than that any one should be so unhappy!" And Susie looked at her with the black eyes that had such depths of sadness in them.

"It's Miss Meg! She always was a dear little lady, and so soft-hearted.

I thought if she could understand she wouldn't mind," she said. "And he was so hungry, it went to my heart to feel him hungry! but G.o.d was against me, and sent him to gaol to punish me, though I would have given my soul to save him. I was a bad girl, and they punished him for it--to--to--how was it?--because I stole? They are uncommon hard up above, but it's just justice, I suppose!"

Meg took the wasted hands in hers; she could not preach, the problem was beyond her; but she laid her cheek against Susan's for a moment, and the preacher said gently, "You see _she's_ not hard, and the Lord who made her merciful must be more merciful Himself. He's better nor the things He makes." Then he rose from his knees. "Good-bye," he said simply, "I'd keep that window open, and let the air in, Mrs. Kekewich. I've often noticed it's got a deal of healing in it."

Meg followed him out of the cottage; they were outside when Mrs.

Kekewich regained the use of her tongue, and ran after them to pour out a volley of thanks to both. Meg blushed. Barnabas Thorpe took off his hat reverently when she said "G.o.d bless you".

Meg told her aunt exactly what had happened the moment she got home; she was too proud ever to stoop to petty concealments, but she knew that if she waited her courage would cool. Uncle Russelthorpe chuckled behind his newspaper (they were at breakfast) and Aunt Russelthorpe was, not unnaturally, very wroth.

"It's high time this sort of thing were stopped," she said. "As for her not going to b.a.l.l.s, or wearing trinkets any more, she _shall_ go!"

"Meg's much the most amusing of the three," said Uncle Russelthorpe; "and nothing makes a faith grow like a little persecution."

CHAPTER V.

So Margaret Deane was numbered amongst Barnabas Thorpe's converts; and of all the inexplicable miracles that the man was said to work, society counted that the most extraordinary.

Mrs. Russelthorpe was not a popular woman, and she was too proud to elicit much sympathy; but, on the whole, public opinion sided with her, rather than with her niece.

Barnabas Thorpe was essentially the people's preacher; and even his greatest admirers felt that it was unbecoming of him "to try and convert the gentry".

As a matter of fact he was less presumptuous than they fancied; and, far from being triumphant, experienced at times a most unusual qualm of pain at this unexpected result of his teaching.

Years ago in the days of his boyhood, long before he had, to use his own phrase, "been taken by religion," he had once plunged his hand into a spider's web with intent to save a b.u.t.terfly that got entangled. He had broken the creature's wing in trying to free it, and the mishap had stuck in his memory, because both as child and man he had been unusually pitiful to physical suffering. That bygone episode was fantastically a.s.sociated in his mind with Miss Deane.

There was no doubt to him that but one answer was possible to the "What shall I do to be saved?" of man or woman cursed by riches. "Leave all that thou hast" seemed the inevitable prelude to "Follow me".

He had quoted that reply on the Downs to a group in the midst of which stood Margaret, in the soft grey dress which was the most quakerish garment she possessed.

He had seen her wince at the words as if they startled or hurt her; and had had a quick feeling of compunction, such as he had experienced when he had found the b.u.t.terfly's purple and gold down staining his over-strong and clumsy fingers.

No one in after days would have believed it, but it was none the less true, that Meg's evident sensitiveness rather deterred than encouraged him in his dealings with her, till an incident, grotesque enough in itself, changed his att.i.tude, and he felt himself suddenly challenged by the world through the mouth of a worldly woman. The combative instinct was thoroughly roused then, and his doubts fled. It was a very small link in the chain that was to bind his life and Margaret's, but nevertheless it was a link.

Barnabas was one day sitting by the roadside carving, when Mrs.

Russelthorpe, coming through the great gates of Ravenshill, saw, and made up her mind to deliver her opinion to this impertinent preacher.

Barnabas was chiselling a little chalk head with his pocket knife; he was intent on his occupation, his hair and beard were powdered with white dust, and he looked up only now and then to speak to a child who was eagerly watching him, and for whose benefit the image was being fashioned.

Mrs. Russelthorpe deliberately paused in front of him, and studied him through her gold eyegla.s.s. Meg had never thought about the _man_, she had seen only the preacher, but the elder woman recognised that this was no weak opponent or hysterical babbler.

She lifted her silk skirt--she was never hurried or awkward in her movements,--and drew out of the pocket that hung round her waist a sovereign, which she held out to him.

"We are in your debt," she said, "for the trouble you had in returning my niece's locket. It was exceedingly honest of you. You had better take the money, my good fellow;" for the preacher had raised his head with an expression of utter amazement, which would have confused a less intrepid woman. "I am sure"--a little patronisingly--"that you quite deserve it."

"No--thanks," said Barnabas shortly. "In the part I come from we don't fancy it 'exceedingly honest' not to steal, nor look to be paid for not being rascals." And he went on with his work.

"Tut, tut!" said Mrs. Russelthorpe. "You cannot afford to fling away gold, I am sure." And she dropped the sovereign on to the man's hand.