The Revolution in Tanner's Lane Part 18

The picnics were generally on a Monday, as a kind of compliment to Mr. Broad, who was supposed to need rest and change on Monday, and who was also supposed not to be able to spare the time on any other day. About a month after the conversation recorded in the previous chapter Tanner's Lane was jogging along to Shott on one of its excursions. It was a brilliant, blazing afternoon towards the end of August. The corn stood in shocks, and a week with that sun would see it all stacked. There was no dreary suburb round Cowfold, neither town nor country, to shut out country influences. The fields came up to the gardens and orchards at the back of half the houses, and flowed irregularly, like an inundation, into the angles of the streets. As you walked past the great gate of the "Angel" yard you could see the meadow at the bottom belonging to Hundred Acres.

Consequently all Cowfold took an interest in agriculture, and knew a good deal about it. Every shopkeeper was half a farmer, and understood the points of a pig or a horse. Cowfold was not a town properly speaking, but the country a little thickened and congested.

The conversation turned upon the crops, and more particularly upon turnips and drainage, both of them a new importation. Hitherto all the parishes round had no drainage whatever, excepting along the bottoms of the ridges, and the now familiar red pipes had just made their appearance on a farm belonging to a stranger to those parts--a young fellow from Norfolk. Everybody was sceptical, and called him a fool. Everybody wanted to know how water was going to get through fifteen inches of heavy land when it would lie for two days where a horse trod. However, the pipes went in, and it so happened that the first wet day after they were laid was a Sunday. The congregation in Shott Church was very restless, although the sermon was unusually short. One by one they crept out, and presently they were followed by the parson. All of them had collected in the pouring rain and were watching the outfall in the ditches. To their unspeakable amazement the pipes were all running! Shott scratched its head and was utterly bewildered. A new idea in a brain not accustomed to the invasion of ideas produces a disturbance like a revolution. It causes giddiness almost as bad as that of a fit, and an extremely unpleasant sensation of having been whirled round and turned head over heels. It was the beginning of new things in Shott, the beginning of a breakdown in its traditions; a belief in something outside the ordinary parochial uniformities was forced into the skull of every man, woman, and child by the evidence of the senses; and when other beliefs asked, in the course of time, for admittance they found the entrance easier than it would have been otherwise.

The elderly occupants of the Tanner's Lane gigs and chaises talked exclusively upon these and other cognate topics. The sons and daughters talked about other things utterly unworthy of any record in a serious history. Delightful their chatter was to them. What does it signify to eighteen years what is said on such an afternoon by seventeen years, when seventeen years is in a charming white muslin dress, with the prettiest hat? Words are of importance between me and you, who care little or nothing for one another. But there is a thrice blessed time when words are nothing. The real word is that which is not uttered. We may be silent, or we may be eloquent with nonsense or sense--it is all one. So it was between George Allen and Miss Priscilla Broad, who at the present moment were sitting next to one another. George was a broad, hearty, sandy-haired, sanguine- faced young fellow of one and twenty, eldest son of the ironmonger.

His education had been that of the middle cla.s.ses of those days.

Leaving school at fourteen, he had been apprenticed to his father for seven years, and had worked at the forge down the backyard before coming into the front shop. On week-days he generally wore a waistcoat with sleeves and a black ap.r.o.n. He was never dirty; in fact, he was rather particular as to neatness and cleanliness; but he was always a little dingy and iron-coloured, as retail ironmongers are apt to be. He was now in charge of the business under his father; stood behind the counter; weighed nails; examined locks brought for repair; went to the different houses in Cowfold with a man under him to look at boiler-pipes, the man wearing a cap and George a tall hat. He had a hard, healthy, honest life, was up at six o'clock in the morning, ate well, and slept well. He was always permitted by his father to go on these excursions, and, in fact, they could not have been a success without him. If anything went wrong he was always the man to set it right. If a horse became restive, George was invariably the one to jump out, and n.o.body else thought of stirring. He had good expectations. The house in which the Allens lived was their own. Mr. Allen did a thriving trade, not only in Cowfold, but in all the country round, and particularly among the village blacksmiths, to whom he sold iron. He had steadily saved money, and had enlarged the original little back parlour into a room which would hold comfortably a tea-party of ten or a dozen.

Miss Priscilla Broad was framed after a different model. Her face was not much unlike that of one of those women of the Restoration so familiar to us in half a hundred pictures. Not that Restoration levity and Restoration manners were chargeable to Miss Priscilla.

She never forgot her parentage; but there were the same kind of prettiness, the same sideways look, the same simper about the lips, and there were the same flat unilluminated eyes. She had darkish brown hair, which fell in rather formal curls on her shoulder, and she was commonly thought to be "delicate." Like her sister and brother, she had never been to school, on account of the "mixture,"

but had been taught by her mother. Her accomplishments included Scripture and English history, arithmetic, geography, the use of the globes, and dates. She had a very difficult part to play in Cowfold, for she was obliged to visit freely all Tanner's Lane, but at the same time to hold herself above it and not to form any exclusive friendships. These would have been most injudicious, because, in the first place, they would have excited jealousy, and, in the next place, the minister's daughter could not be expected to be very intimate with anybody belonging to the congregation. She was not particularly popular with the majority, and was even thought to be just a bit of a fool. But what could she have been with such surroundings? The time had pa.s.sed when religion could be talked on week-days, and the present time, when ministers' children learn French, German, and Latin, and read selected plays of Shakespeare, had not come. Miss Priscilla Broad found it very difficult, also, to steer her course properly amongst the young men in Cowfold. Mrs.

Broad would not have permitted any one of them for a moment to dream of an alliance with her family. As soon might a Princess of the Blood Royal unite herself with an ordinary knight. Miss Broad, however, as her resources within herself were not particularly strong, thought about little or nothing else than ensnaring the hearts of the younger Cowfold males--that is to say, the hearts which were converted, and yet she encouraged none of them, save by a general acceptance of little attentions, by little mincing smiles, and little mincing speeches.

"Such a beautiful day," said George, "and such pleasant company!"

"Really, Mr. Allen, don't you think it would have been pleasanter for you in front?"

"What did you say, my dear?" came immediately from her mother, the ever-watchful dragon just before them. She forthwith turned a little round, for the sun was on her left hand, and with her right eye kept Priscilla well in view for the rest of the journey.

In the chaise behind pretty much the same story was told, but with a difference. In the back part were Mr. Thomas Broad and Miss f.a.n.n.y Allen. The arrangement which brought these two together was most objectionable to Mrs. Broad; but unfortunately she was a little late in starting, and it was made before she arrived. She could not, without insulting the Allens, have it altered; but she consoled herself by vowing that it should not stand on the return journey in the dusk. Miss f.a.n.n.y was flattered that the minister's son should be by her side, and the minister's son was not in the least deterred from playing with Miss f.a.n.n.y by the weight of responsibility which oppressed and checked his sister. He did not laugh much; he had not a nature for wholesome laughter, but he chuckled, lengthened his lips, half shut his eyes; asked his companion whether the rail did not hurt her, put his arm on the top, so that she might lean against it, and talked in a manner which even she would have considered a little silly and a little odd, if his position, that of a student for the ministry, had not surrounded him with such a halo of glory.

Presently Shott Woods were reached; the parcels and hampers were unpacked, the fire was lit, the tea prepared, and the pastor asked a blessing. Everybody sat on the gra.s.s, save the reverend gentleman and his wife, who had chairs which had been brought on purpose. It would not have been considered proper that Mr. or Mrs. Broad should sit upon the gra.s.s, and indeed physically it would have been inconvenient to Mr. Broad to do so. He ate his ham in considerable quant.i.ties, adding thereto much plumcake, and excusing himself on the ground that the ride had given him an appet.i.te. The meal being over, grace was said, and the victuals that were left were repacked. About an hour remained before the return journey began. This was usually pa.s.sed in sauntering about or in walking to the springs, a mile away, down one of the gra.s.s drives. Mrs. Broad never for a moment lost sight of Thomas, and pressed him as much as possible into her service; but when Mrs. Allen announced that the young people had all determined to go to the springs, Mrs. Broad could not hold out.

Accordingly off they started, under strict orders to be back by eight. They mixed themselves up pretty indiscriminately as they left their seniors; but after a while certain affinities displayed themselves, George being found with Priscilla, for example, and Thomas with f.a.n.n.y. The party kept together; but Thomas and f.a.n.n.y lagged somewhat till they came to a little opening in the underwood, which Thomas said was a short cut, and he pressed her to try it with him. She agreed, and they slipped out of sight nearly, but not, quite, un.o.bserved. Thomas professed himself afraid f.a.n.n.y might be tired, and offered his arm. She again consented, not without a flutter, and so they reached a clearing with three or four paths branching from it. Thomas was puzzled, and as for f.a.n.n.y, she knew nothing. To add to their perplexity some drops of rain were felt.

She was a little frightened, and was anxious to try one of the most likely tracks which looked, she thought, as if it went to the springs, where they could take shelter in the cottage with the others. Thomas, however, was doubtful, and proposed that they should stand up in a shed which had been used for f.a.ggot-making. The rain, which now came down heavily, enforced his arguments, and she felt obliged to stay till the shower had ceased.

"Only think, f.a.n.n.y," he said, "to be here alone with you!"

He called her f.a.n.n.y now; he had always called her Miss Allen before.

"Yes," said she, not knowing what answer to make.

"You are cold," he added, with a little trembling in his voice and a little more light than usual in his eyes.

"Oh no, I am not cold."

"I know you are," and he took her hand; "why, it is quite cold."

"Oh dear no, Mr. Thomas, it is really not cold," and she made a movement to withdraw it, but it remained.

The touch of the hand caused his voice to shake a little more than before.

"I say you are cold; come a little closer to me. What will your mamma say if you catch a chill?" and he drew f.a.n.n.y a little nearer to him. The thick blood now drove through him with increasing speed: everything seemed in a mist, and a little perspiration was on his forehead. His arm found its way round f.a.n.n.y's waist, and he pressed her closer and closer to him till his hot lips were upon her cheek.

She made two or three futile attempts to release herself; but she might as well have striven with that brazen, red-hot idol who was made to clasp his victims to death. She was frightened and screamed, when suddenly a strong man's voice was heard calling "f.a.n.n.y, f.a.n.n.y."

It was her brother. Knowing that she and Thomas had no umbrellas, he had brought them a couple.

"But, f.a.n.n.y," he cried, "did I not hear you scream? What was the matter?"

"Nothing," hastily interposed Thomas; "she thought she saw it lighten." f.a.n.n.y looked at Thomas for a moment; but she was scared and bewildered, and held her peace.

The three went down to the rendezvous together, where the rest of the party had already a.s.sembled. Mrs. Broad had been very uneasy when she found that Thomas and f.a.n.n.y were the only absentees, and she had urged George the moment she saw him to look for his sister without a moment's delay. The excuse of the rain was given and accepted; but Mrs. Broad felt convinced from f.a.n.n.y's forward look that she had once more thrown herself in the way of her beloved child, her delicate Samuel. She was increasingly anxious that he should go to college, and his papa promised at once to transmit the application.

Meanwhile, in the few days left before the examination, he undertook to improve Thomas where he was weakest, that is to say, in Systematic Theology, and more particularly in the doctrine of the Comforter.

CHAPTER XIX--"THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS LIKE UNTO LEAVEN"

Mr. Isaac Allen, f.a.n.n.y's father, was an ardent Whig in politics--what in later years would have been called a Radical. He had been apprenticed in London, and had attended Mr. Bradshaw's ministrations there. He was the chosen friend of Zachariah Coleman; but although he loved Zachariah, he had held but little intercourse with him during his first marriage. There were family reasons for the estrangement, due princ.i.p.ally to a quarrel between Mrs. Isaac and the first Mrs. Zachariah. But after Mrs. Zachariah had died and her husband suffered so much Isaac was drawn to him again. He was proud of him as a martyr for a good cause, and he often saw him when he went to London on business.

It was in consequence of these London visits that books appeared on the little book-shelf in Cowfold Square which were to be found nowhere else in the town, at any rate not in the Dissenting portion of it. It was a little bookcase, it is true, for people in country places were not great readers in those days; but Sir Walter Scott was there, and upstairs in Mr. Allen's room there was Byron--not an uncut copy, but one well used both by husband and wife. Mrs. Allen was not a particularly robust woman, although she was energetic. Often without warning, she would not make her appearance till twelve or one o'clock in the day, and would have her fire alight in her bedroom and take her breakfast in bed. It was well understood when she was not at the table with the others that the house was to be kept quiet.

After a cup of tea--nothing more--she rose and sat reading for a good two hours. It was not that she was particularly unwell--she simply needed rest. Every now and then retreat from the world and perfect isolation were a necessity to her. If she forced herself to come downstairs when she ought to be by herself she became really ill.

Occasionally the fire was alight in the evening, too, and she would be off the moment tea was over, Isaac frequently joining her then, although he never remained with her in the morning. She was almost sure to escape on the day following any excitement or undue worry about household affairs. She knew Sir Walter Scott from end to end, and as few people knew him. He had been to her, and to her husband too, what he can only be to people leading a dull life far from the world. He had broken up its monotony and created a new universe! He had introduced them into a royal society of n.o.ble friends. He had added to the ordinary motives which prompted Cowfold action a thousand higher motives. Then there was the charm of the magician, so sanative, so blessed, felt directly any volume of that glorious number was opened. Kenilworth or Redgauntlet was taken down, and the reader was at once in another country and in another age, transported as if by some Arabian charm away from Cowfold cares. If anywhere in another world the blessings which men have conferred here are taken into account in distributing reward, surely the choicest in the store of the Most High will be reserved for His servant Scott! It may be said of others that they have made the world wise or rich, but of him it must be said that HE, MORE THAN ALL, HAS MADE THE WORLD HAPPIER-- wiser too, wiser through its happiness.

Of the influence of Byron nothing more need be said here, because so much has been said before. It may seem strange that the deacon of a Dissenting chapel and his wife could read him, and could continue to wait upon the ministrations of the Reverend John Broad; but I am only stating a fact. Mrs. Allen could repeat page after page of Childe Harold, and yet she went diligently to Tanner's Lane. Part of what was read exhaled in the almost republican politics of the Allen household; but it had also its effect in another direction, and it was always felt by the Broads that the Allens were questionable members of the flock. They were gathered into the fold on Sunday, and had the genuine J. B. on their wool, but there was a cross in them. There was nothing which could be urged against them. No word of heresy ever escaped them, no symptom of disbelief was ever seen and yet Mr. Broad often desired exceedingly that they were different, was never at ease with them, and in his heart of hearts bitterly hated them. After all that can be said by way of explanation, there was much in this concealed animosity of Mr. Broad which was unaccountable. It was concealed because he was far too worldly-wise to show it openly; but it was none the less intense. Indeed, it was so intense as to be almost inconsistent with Mr. Broad's cast of character, and his biographer is at a loss to find the precise point where it naturally connects itself with the main stem from which branch off the rest of his virtues and vices. However, there it was, and perhaps some shrewder psychologist may be able to explain how such a pa.s.sion could be begotten in a nature otherwise so somnolent.

For this literary leaven in the Allen's household, as we have said, Zachariah was answerable. Mrs. Allen loved him as she loved her father, and he wrote to her long letters, through which travelled into Cowfold Square all the thought of the Revolution. He never went to Cowfold himself, nor could he ever be persuaded to let little Pauline go. She had been frequently invited, but he always declined the invitation courteously on the ground that he could not spare her.

The fame of her beauty and abilities had, however, reached Cowfold, and so it came to pa.s.s that when Mr. Thomas Broad, junior, being duly instructed in the doctrine of the Comforter, entered the Dissenting College in London, he determined that at the first opportunity he would call and see her. He had been privately warned both by his father and mother that he was on no account to visit this particular friend of the Allens, firstly, because Zachariah was reputed to be, "inclined towards infidelity," and secondly, because, summing up the whole argument, he was not "considered respectable."

"Of course, my dear, you know his history," quoth Mrs. Broad, "and it would very much interfere with your usefulness if you were to be intimate with him."

Little Pauline had by this time grown to be a woman, or very nearly one. She had, as in nine times, perhaps, out of ten is the case, inherited her temperament from her mother. She had also inherited something more, for she was like her in face. She had the same luxuriantly dark hair--a wonder to behold when it was let down over her shoulders--the same grey eyes, the same singularly erect att.i.tude, and lips which, although they were not tight and screwed up, were always set with decision. But her distinguishing peculiarity was her inherited vivacity, which was perfectly natural, but frequently exposed her--just as it did her mother--to the charge of being theatrical. The criticism was as unjust in her case as in that of her mother, if by being theatrical we mean being unreal. The unreal person is the half-alive languid person. Pauline felt what she said, and acted it in every gesture. Her precious prompt.i.tude of expression made her invaluable as a companion to her father. He was English all over and all through; hypochondriacal, with a strong tendency to self-involution and self-absorption. She was only half English, or rather altogether French, and when he came home in the evening he often felt as if some heavy obstruction in his brain and about his heart were suddenly dissolved. She and her mother were like Hercules in the house of Admetus. Before Hercules has promised to rescue Alcestis we feel that the darkness has disappeared.

Pauline was loved by her father with intense pa.s.sion. When she was a little child, and he was left alone with a bitter sense of wrong, a feeling that he had more than his proper share of life's misery, his heart was closed, and he cared for no friendship. But the man's nature could not be thus thwarted, and gradually it poured itself out in full flood--denied exit elsewhere--at this one small point. He rejoiced to find that he had not stiffened into death, and he often went up to her bedside as she lay asleep, and the tears came, and he thanked G.o.d, not only for her but for his tears. He could not afford to bring her up like a lady, but he did his best to give her a good education. He was very anxious that she should learn French, and as she was wonderfully quick at languages, she managed in a very short time to speak it fluently.

CHAPTER XX--THE REVEREND THOMAS BROAD'S EXPOSITION OF ROMANS VIII. 7

Such was the Coleman household when Mr. Thomas Broad called one fine Monday afternoon about three months after he had been at college. He had preached his first sermon on the Sunday before, in a village about twelve miles from London in a north-easterly direction, somewhere in the flat regions of Ess.e.x. Mr. Thomas was in unusually good humour, for he had not broken down, and thought he had crowned himself with glory. The trial, to be sure, was not very severe. The so-called chapel was the downstairs living-room of a cottage holding at a squeeze about five-and-twenty people. Nevertheless, there was a desk at one corner, with two candles on either side, and Mr. Thomas was actually, for the first time, elevated above an audience. It consisted of the wheelwright and his wife, both very old, half a dozen labourers, with their wives, and two or three children. The old wheelwright, as he was in business, was called the "princ.i.p.al support of the cause." The "cause," however, was not particularly prosperous, nor its supporters enthusiastic. It was "supplied"

always by a succession of first-year's students, who made their experiments on the corpus vile here. Spiritual teaching, spiritual guidance, these poor peasants had none, and when the Monday came they went to their work in the marshes and elsewhere, and lived their blind lives under grey skies, with nothing left in them of the Sunday, save the recollection of a certain routine performed which might one day save them from some disaster with which flames and brimstone had something to do. It was not, however, a reality to them. Neither the future nor the past was real to them; no spiritual existence was real; nothing, in fact, save the most stimulant sensation. Once upon a time, a man, looking towards the celestial city, saw "The reflection of the sun upon the city (for the city was of pure gold), so exceeding glorious that he could not as yet with open face behold it, save through an instrument made for that purpose;" but Mr. Thomas Broad and his hearers needed no smoked gla.s.s now to prevent injury to their eyes. Mr. Thomas had put on a white neckerchief, had mounted the desk, and had spoken for three-quarters of an hour from the text, "The carnal mind is at enmity with G.o.d."

He had received during the last three weeks his first lectures on the "Scheme of Salvation," and his discourse was a reproduction of his notes thereon. The wheelwright and his wife, and the six labourers with their wives, listened as oxen might listen, wandered home along the lanes heavy-footed like oxen, with heads towards the ground, and went heavily to bed. The elder student who had accompanied Mr.

Thomas informed him that, on the whole, he had acquitted himself very well, but that it would be better, perhaps, in future to be a little simpler, and avoid what "may be called the metaphysics of Redemption."

"No doubt," said he, "they are very attractive, and of enormous importance. There is no objection to expound them before a cultivated congregation in London; but in the villages we cannot be too plain--that, at least, is my experience. Simply tell them we are all sinners, and deserve d.a.m.nation. G.o.d sent His Son into the world.

If we believe in Him we shall be saved; if not, we shall be lost.

There is no mystery in that; everybody can understand it; and people are never weary of hearing the old old gospel."

Mr. Thomas was well contented with himself, as we have said, when he knocked at Zachariah's door. It was opened by Pauline. He took off his hat and smiled.

"My name is Broad. I come from Cowfold, and know the Allens very well. I am now living in London, and having heard of you so often, I thought I should like to call."

"Pray come in," she said; "I am very glad to see you. I wish my father were here."

He was shown into the little front room, and after some inquiries about his relations Pauline asked him where was his abode in London.

"At the Independent College. I am studying for the ministry."