The Vicar's Daughter Part 55

Sometimes they went up to this house, and wondered what was in it. 'They never knew, but saw the angels come. The knights were out all day, and only came home for meals. And they wondered what _on earth_ the angels were doin', goin' in the house. They found out _what_--what, and the question was--I'll explain what it was. Ernest, come here." (_Ernest remarks to the audience_, "I'm curate," _and to Charles_, "Well, but, Charles, you're going to explain, you know;" _and Charles resumes_.) "The fact was, that this was--if you'd like to explain it more to yourselves, you'd better look in your books, No. 1828. Before, the angels didn't speak loud, so the knights couldn't hear; _now_ they spoke louder, so that the knights could visit them, 'cause they knew their names. They hadn't many visitors, but they had the knights in there, and that's all."

I am still very much afraid that all this nonsense will hardly be interesting, even to parents. But I may as well suffer for a sheep as a lamb; and, as I had an opportunity of hearing two such sermons myself not long after, I shall give them, trusting they will occupy far less s.p.a.ce in print than they do in my foolish heart.

It was Ernest who was in the pulpit and just commencing his discourse when I entered the nursery, and sat down with the congregation. Sheltered by a clothes-horse, apparently set up for a screen, I took out my pencil, and reported on a fly-leaf of the book I had been reading:--

"My brother was goin' to preach about the wicked: I will preach about the good. Twenty-sixth day. In the time of Elizabeth there was a very old house. It was so old that it was pulled down, and a quite new one was built instead. Some people who lived in it did not like it so much now as they did when it was old. I take their part, you know, and think they were quite right in preferring the old one to the ugly, bare, new one. They left it--sold it--and got into another old house instead."

Here, I am sorry to say, his curate interjected the scornful remark,--

"He's not lookin' in the book a bit!"

But the preacher went on, without heeding the attack on his orthodoxy.

"This other old house was still more uncomfortable: it was very draughty; the gutters were always leaking; and they wished themselves back in the new house. So, you see, if you wish for a better thing, you don't get it so good after all."

"Ernest, that _is_ about the bad, after all!" cried Charles.

"Well, it's _silly_," remarked Freddy severely.

"But I wrote it myself," pleaded the preacher from the pulpit; and, in consideration of the fact, he was allowed to go on.

"I was reading about them being always uncomfortable. At last they decided to go back to their own house, which they had sold. They had to pay so much to get it back, that they had hardly any money left; and then they got so unhappy, and the husband whipped his wife, and took to drinking. That's a lesson." (_Here the preacher's voice became very plaintive_), "that's a lesson to show you shouldn't try to get the better thing, for it turns out worse, and then you get sadder, and every thing."

He paused, evidently too mournful to proceed. Freddy again remarked that it was _silly_; but Charles interposed a word for the preacher.

"It's a good _lesson_, I think. A good _lesson_, I say," he repeated, as if he would not be supposed to consider it much of a sermon.

But here the preacher recovered himself and summed up.

"See how it comes: wanting to get every thing, you come to the bad and drinking. And I think I'll leave off here. Let us sing."

The song was "Little Robin Redbreast;" during which Charles remarked to Freddy, apparently by way of pressing home the lesson upon his younger brother,--

"Fancy! floggin' his wife!"

Then he got into the pulpit himself, and commenced an oration.

"Chapter eighty-eight. _The wicked_.--Well, the time when the story was, was about Herod. There were some wicked people wanderin' about there, and they--not _killed_ them, you know, but--went to the judge. We shall see what they did to them. I tell you this to make you understand. Now the story begins--but I must think a little. Ernest, let's sing 'Since first I saw your face.'

"When the wicked man was taken then to the good judge--there were _some_ good people: when I said I was going to preach about the wicked, I did not mean that there were no good, only a good lot of wicked. There were pleacemans about here, and they put him in prison for a few days, and then the judge could see about what he is to do with him. At the end of the few days, the judge asked him if he would stay in prison for life or be hanged."

Here arose some inquiries among the congregation as to what the wicked, of whom the prisoner was one, had done that was wrong; to which Charles replied,--

"Oh! they murdered and killed; they stealed, and they were very wicked altogether. Well," he went on, resuming his discourse, "the morning came, and the judge said, 'Get the ropes and my throne, and order the people _not_ to come to see the hangin'.' For the man was decided to be hanged.

Now, the people _would_ come. They were the wicked, and they would _persist_ in comin'. They were the wicked; and, if that was the _fact_, the judge must do something to them.

"Chapter eighty-nine. _The hangin'_.--We'll have some singin' while I think."

"Yankee Doodle" was accordingly sung with much enthusiasm and solemnity.

Then Charles resumed.

"Well, they had to put the other people, who persisted in coming, in prison, till the man who murdered people was hanged. I think my brother will go on."

He descended, and gave place to Ernest, who began with vigor.

"We were reading about Herod, weren't we? Then the wicked people _would_ come, and had to be put to death. They were on the man's side; and they all called out that he hadn't had his wish before he died, as they did in those days. So of course he wished for his life, and of course the judge wouldn't let him have _that_ wish; and so he wished to speak to his friends, and they let him. And the nasty wicked people took him away, and he was never seen in that country any more. And that's enough to-day, I think. Let us sing 'Lord Lovel he stood at his castle-gate, a combing his milk-white steed.'"

At the conclusion of this mournful ballad, the congregation was allowed to disperse. But, before they had gone far, they were recalled by the offer of a more secular entertainment from Charles, who re-ascended the pulpit, and delivered himself as follows:--

"Well, the play is called--not a proverb or a charade it isn't--it's a play called 'The Birds and the Babies.' Well!

"Once there was a little cottage, and lots of little babies in it. n.o.body knew who the babies were. They were so happy! Now, I can't explain it to you how they came together: they had no father and mother, but they were brothers and sisters. They never _grew_, and they didn't like it. Now, _you_ wouldn't like _not_ to _grow_, would you? They had a little garden, and saw a great many birds in the trees. They _were_ happy, but didn't _feel_ happy--that's a funny thing now! The wicked fairies made them unhappy, and the good fairies made them happy; they gave them lots of toys.

But then, how they got their living!

"Chapter second, called 'The Babies at Play.'--The fairies told them what to get--_that was it!_--and so they got their living Very nicely. And now I must explain what they played with. First was a house. _A house._ Another, dolls. They were very happy, and felt as if they had a mother and father; but they hadn't, and _couldn't_ make it out. _Couldn't--make--it--out!_

"They had little pumps and trees. Then they had babies' rattles. _Babies'

rattles._--Oh! I've said hardly any thing about the birds, have I? an' it's called '_The Birds and the Babies!_' They had lots of little pretty robins and canaries hanging round the ceiling, and--_shall_ I say?"--

Every one listened expectant during the pause that followed.

"_--And--lived--happy--ever--after._"

The puzzle in it all is chiefly what my husband hinted at,--why and how both the desire and the means of utterance should so long precede the possession of any thing ripe for utterance. I suspect the answer must lie pretty deep in some metaphysical gulf or other.

At the same time, the struggle to speak where there is so little to utter can hardly fail to suggest the thought of some efforts of a more pretentious and imposing character.

But more than enough!

CHAPTER XLI.

"DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE."

I had for a day or two fancied that Marion was looking less bright than usual, as if some little shadow had fallen upon the morning of her life. I say _morning_, because, although Marion must now have been seven or eight and twenty, her life had always seemed to me lighted by a cool, clear, dewy morning sun, over whose face it now seemed as if some film of noonday cloud had begun to gather. Unwilling at once to a.s.sert the ultimate privilege of friendship, I asked her if any thing was amiss with her friends. She answered that all was going on well, at least so far that she had no special anxiety about any of them. Encouraged by a half-conscious and more than half-sad smile, I ventured a little farther.

"I am afraid there is something troubling you," I said.

"There is," she replied, "something troubling me a good deal; but I hope it will pa.s.s away soon."

The sigh which followed, however, was deep though gentle, and seemed to indicate a fear that the trouble might not pa.s.s away so very soon.

"I am not to ask you any questions, I suppose," I returned.

"Better not at present," she answered. "I am not quite sure that"--