Two Years Ago Volume Ii Part 15

"Not that, for Heaven's sake!" said Tom, "or we shall have you blue next, my good fellow. I'd go myself, but they'd not hear me, for certain; I am no Christian, I suppose: at least, I can't talk their slang:--but I know who can! We'll send Campbell!"

Frank hailed the suggestion with rapture, and away they went: but they had an hour's good search from sufferer to sufferer before they found the Major.

He heard them quietly. A severe gloom settled over his face. "I will go," said he.

At six o'clock that evening, the meeting-house was filling with terrified women, and half-curious, half-sneering, men; and among them the tall figure of Major Campbell, in his undress uniform (which he had put on, wisely, to give a certain dignity to his mission), stalked in, and took his seat in the back benches.

The sermon was what he expected. There is no need to transcribe it. Such discourses may be heard often enough in churches as well as chapels. The preacher's object seemed to be--for some purpose or other which we have no right to judge--to excite in his hearers the utmost intensity of selfish fear, by language which certainly, as Tom had said, came under the law against profane cursing and swearing. He described the next world in language which seemed a strange jumble of Virgil's Aeneid, the Koran, the dreams of those rabbis who crucified our Lord, and of those mediaeval inquisitors who tried to convert sinners (and on their own ground, neither illogically nor over-harshly) by making this world for a few hours as like as possible to what, so they held, G.o.d was going to make the world to come for ever.

At last he stopped suddenly, when he saw that the animal excitement was at the very highest; and called on all who felt "convinced" to come forward and confess their sins.

In another minute there would have been (as there have been ere now) four or five young girls raving and tossing upon the floor, in mad terror and excitement; or, possibly, half the congregation might have rushed out (as a congregation has rushed out ere now) headed by the preacher himself, and ran headlong down to the quay-pool, with shrieks and shouts, declaring that they had cast the devil out of Betsey Pennington, and were hunting him into the sea: but Campbell saw that the madness must be stopped at once; and rising, he thundered, in a voice which brought all to their senses in a moment--

"Stop! I, too, have a sermon to preach to you; I trust I am a Christian man, and that not of last year's making, or the year before. Follow me outside, if you be rational beings, and let me tell you the truth--G.o.d's truth! Men!" he said, with an emphasis on the word, "you at least, will give me a fair hearing, and you too, modest married women! Leave that fellow with the shameless hussies who like to go into fits at his feet."

The appeal was not in vain. The soberer majority followed him out; the insane minority soon followed, in the mere hope of fresh excitement; while the preacher was fain to come also, to guard his flock from the wolf. Campbell sprang upon a large block of stone, and taking off his cap, opened his mouth, and spake unto them.

Readers will doubtless desire to hear what Major Campbell said: but they will be disappointed; and perhaps it is better for them that they should be. Let each of them, if they think it worth while, write for themselves a discourse fitting for a Christian man, who loved and honoured his Bible too much to find in a few scattered texts, all misinterpreted, and some mistranslated, excuses for denying fact, reason, common justice, the voice of G.o.d in his own moral sense, and the whole remainder of the Bible from beginning to end.

Whatsoever words he spoke they came home to those wild hearts with power. And when he paused, and looked intently into the faces of his auditory, to see what effect he was producing, a murmur of a.s.sent and admiration rose from the crowd, which had now swelled to half the population of the town. And no wonder; no wonder that, as the men were enchained by the matter, so were the women by the manner. The grand head, like a grey granite peak against the clear blue sky; the tall figure, with all its martial stateliness and ease; the gesture of his long arm, so graceful, and yet so self-restrained; the tones of his voice which poured from beneath that proud moustache, now tender as a girl's, now ringing like a trumpet over roof and sea. There were old men there, old beyond the years of man, who said they had never seen nor heard the like: but it must be like what their fathers had told them of, when John Wesley, on the cliffs of St. Ives, out-thundered the thunder of the gale. To Grace he seemed one of the old Scotch Covenanters of whom she had read, risen from the dead to preach there from his rock beneath the great temple of G.o.d's air, a wider and a juster creed than theirs. Frank drew Thurnall's arm through his, and whispered, "I shall thank you for this to my dying day:" but Thurnall held down his head. He seemed deeply moved. At last, half to himself,--

"Humph! I believe that between this man and that girl, you will make a Christian even of me some day!"

But the lull was only for a moment. For Major Campbell, looking round, discerned among the crowd the preacher, whispering and scowling amid a knot of women; and a sudden fit of righteous wrath came over him.

"Stand out there, sir, you preacher, and look me in the face, if you can!" thundered he. "We are here on common ground as free men, beneath G.o.d's heaven and G.o.d's eye. Stand out, sir! and answer me if you can; or be for ever silent!"

Half in unconscious obedience to the soldier-like word of command, half in jealous rage, the preacher stepped forward, gasping for breath,-- "Don't listen to him! He is a messenger of Satan, sent to d.a.m.n you--a lying prophet! Let the Lord judge between me and him! Stop your ears--a messenger of Satan--a Jesuit in disguise!"

"You lie, and you know that you lie!" answered Campbell, twirling slowly his long moustache, as he always did when choking down indignation. "But you have called on the Lord to judge; so do I. Listen to me, sir! Dare you, in the presence of G.o.d, answer for the words which you have spoken this day?"

A strange smile came over the preacher's face.

"I read my t.i.tle clear, sir, to mansions in the skies. Well for you if you could do the same."

Was it only the setting sun, or was it some inner light from the depths of that great spirit, which shone out in all his countenance, and filled his eyes with awful inspiration, as he spoke, in a voice calm and sweet, sad and regretful, and yet terrible from the slow distinctness of every vowel and consonant?

"Mansions in the skies? You need not wait till then, sir, for the presence of G.o.d. Now, here, you and I are before G.o.d's judgment-seat.

Now, here, I call on you to answer to Him for the innocent lives which you have endangered and destroyed, for the innocent souls to whom you have slandered their heavenly Father by your devil's doctrines this day!

You have said it. Let the Lord judge between you and me. He knows best how to make His judgment manifest."

He bowed his head awhile, as if overcome by the awful words which he had uttered, almost in spite of himself, and then stepped slowly down from the stone, and pa.s.sed through the crowd, which reverently made way for him; while many voices cried, "Thank you, sir! Thank you!" and old Captain Willis, stepping forward, held out his hand to him, a quiet pride in his grey eye.

"You will not refuse an old fighting man's thanks, sir? This has been like Elijah's day with Baal's priests on Carmel."

Campbell shook his hand in silence: but turned suddenly, for another and a coa.r.s.er voice caught his ear. It was Jones, the Lieutenant's.

"And now, my lads, take the Methodist Parson, neck and heels, and heave him into the quay pool, to think over his summons!"

Campbell went back instantly. "No, my dear sir, let me entreat you for my sake. What has pa.s.sed has been too terrible to me already; if it has done any good, do not let us break it by spoiling the law."

"I believe you're right, sir: but my blood is up, and no wonder. Why, where is the preacher?"

He had stood quite still for several minutes after Campbell's adjuration. He had, often perhaps, himself hurled forth such words in the excitement of preaching; but never before had he heard them p.r.o.nounced in spirit and in truth. And as he stood, Thurnall, who had his doctor's eye on him, saw him turn paler and more pale. Suddenly he clenched his teeth, and stooped slightly forwards for a moment, drawing his breath. Thurnall walked quickly and steadily up to him.

Gentleman Jan and two other riotous fellows had already laid hold of him, more with the intention of frightening, than of really ducking him.

"Don't! don't!" cried he, looking round with eyes wild--but not with terror.

"Hands off, my good lads," said Tom quietly. "This is my business now, not yours, I can tell you."

And pa.s.sing the preacher's arm through his own, with a serious face, Tom led him off into the house at the back of the chapel.

In two hours more he was blue; in four he was a corpse. The judgment, as usual, had needed no miracle to enforce it.

Tom went to Campbell that night, and apprised him of the fact. "Those words of yours went through him, sir, like a Minie bullet. I was afraid of what would happen when I heard them."

"So was I, the moment after they were spoken. But, sir, I felt a power upon me,--you may think it a fancy,--that there was no resisting."

"I dare impute no fancies, when I hear such truth and reason as you spoke upon that stone, sir."

"Then you do not blame me?" asked Campbell, with a subdued, almost deprecatory voice, such as Thurnall had never heard in him before.

"The man deserved to die, and he died, sir. It is well that there are some means left on earth of punishing offenders whom the law cannot touch."

"It is an awful responsibility."

"Not more awful than killing a man in battle, which we both have done, sir, and yet have felt no sting of conscience."

"An awful responsibility still. Yet what else is life made up of, from morn to night, but of deeds which may earn heaven or h.e.l.l?... Well, as he did to others, so was it done to him. G.o.d forgive him! At least, our cause will be soon tried and judged: there is little fear of my not meeting him again--soon enough." And Campbell, with a sad smile, lay back in his chair and was silent.

"My dear sir," said Tom, "allow me to remind you, after this excitement comes a collapse; and that is not to be trifled with just now. Medicine I dare not give you. Food I must."

Campbell shook his head.

"You must go now, my dear fellow. It is now half-past ten, and I will be at Pennington's at one o'clock, to see how he goes on; so you need not go there. And, meanwhile, I must take a little medicine."

"Major, you are not going to doctor yourself?" cried Tom.

"There is a certain medicine called prayer, Mr. Thurnall--an old specific for the heart-ache, as you will find one day--which I have been neglecting much of late, and which I must return to in earnest before midnight. Good-bye, G.o.d bless and keep you!" And the Major retired to his bed-room, and did not stir off his knees for two full hours. After which he went to Pennington's, and thence somewhere else; and Tom met him at four o'clock that morning musing amid unspeakable horrors, quiet, genial, almost cheerful.

"You are a man," said Tom to himself; "and I fancy at times something more than a man; more than me at least."

Tom was right in his fear that after excitement would come collapse; but wrong as to the person to whom it would come. When he arrived at the surgery door, Headley stood waiting for him.

"Anything fresh? Have you seen the Heales?"