The invitation was declined, and she did not press it.
So on Sunday, August 28th, Mr. Wesley took the services at Epworth while John stayed at home and preached his sermon in Wroote church.
From the pulpit he looked straight down into the tall Rectory pew, and once or twice his eyes involuntarily sought its occupants.
Once, indeed, he paused in his discourse. It was after the words-- "We are totally mistaken if we persuade ourselves that Christ was lenient towards sin. He made no hesitation in driving the money-changers from His Father"s temple even with a whip. But He discriminated between the sin and the sinner. The fig-tree He blasted was one which, bearing no fruit, yet made a false show of health: the Pharisees He denounced were men who covered rottenness with a pretence of religion; the sinners He consorted with had a saving knowledge of their vileness. Sin He knew to be human and bound up in our nature: all was pardonable save the refusal to acknowledge it and repent, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost testifying within us. If we confess our sins not only is He faithful and just to forgive them, but He promises more joy in Heaven over our repentance than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no repentance. And why? Because, as David foretold, a broken spirit is G.o.d"s peculiar sacrifice: "a broken and contrite heart, O G.o.d, thou wilt not despise." Yet we in this parish have despised it.
With sorrow I admit before you that in the household to which you should reasonably look for example and guidance, it has been despised. What then? Are we wiser than Christ, or more absolute?"
He paused. His mother sat stiff and upright with her eyes bent on the ground. Only Charles and Molly looked up--she with a spot of red on either cheek, he with his bright pugnacious look, his nostrils slightly distended scenting battle with delight. Emilia and Patty were frowning; Kezzy, who hated all family jars, fidgeted with her prayer-book.
The sermon ended and the benediction p.r.o.nounced, he fetched from the vestry the white surplice in which he had read the prayers, and came back to the pew in which the family waited as usual for the rest of the congregation to leave the church. Mrs. Wesley took the surplice, as she invariably took her husband"s, to carry it home and hang it in the wardrobe. They walked out. A fortnight before, his sisters had begun to discuss his sermon and rally him upon it as soon as they found themselves in the porch. To-day they were silent: and again at dinner, though John and his mother made an effort to talk of trivial matters, the girls scarcely spoke. Charles only seemed in good spirits and chattered away at ease, glancing at his brother from time to time with a droll twinkle in his eye.
Early next morning John set out for Epworth, having promised to relieve his father and visit the sick and poor there during the week.
At Scawsit Bridge he met the Rector returning. The two shook hands and stood for a minute discussing some details of parish work: then each continued on his way. Not a word was said of the sermon.
CHAPTER XV.
John remained at Epworth until Thursday evening. Dark was falling when he set out to tramp back to Wroote, but the guns of a few late partridge-shooters yet echoed across the common. A little beyond Scawsit Bridge a figure came over the fields towards him, walking swiftly in the twilight--a woman. He drew aside to let her pa.s.s; but in that instant she stretched out both hands to him and he recognised her.
"Hetty!"
She dropped her arms. "Are you not going to kiss me, Jack? Do you, too, cast me off?"
"G.o.d forbid!" he said, and lifted his face; for she was the taller by two inches. With a sob of joy she put out both hands again and drew his lips to hers, a palm pressed on either cheek.
"But what are you doing here?" he asked.
"My husband has business at Haxey. We came from Lincoln this morning, and just before sunset I crept over for a look at the house, hoping for a glimpse of you and Charles. They will not have me inside, Jack: father will not see me, and has forbidden the others.
But I saw Johnny Whitelamb. He told me that Charles was indoors, at work transcribing for father, and not easily fetched out; but that you were expected home from Epworth to-night. So I came to meet you.
Was I running? I dare say. I was thirsty to see your face, dear, and hear your voice."
"We have all dealt hardly with you, Hetty."
"Ah, let that be! I must not pity myself, you understand? Indeed, dear, I was not thinking of myself. If only I could be invisible, and steal into the house at times and sit me down in a corner and watch their faces and listen! That would be enough, brother: I don"t ask to join in that life again--only to stand apart and feed my eyes on it."
"You are not happy, then?"
"Happy?" She mused for a while. "My man is kind to me: kinder than I deserve. If G.o.d gives us a child--" She broke off, lowered her eyes and stammered, "You heard that I had--that one was born! Dead.
He never breathed, the doctor told me. I ought to be glad, for _his_ sake--and for William"s--but I cannot be."
"It was G.o.d"s goodness. Look at Sukey, now; how much of her time her children take up."
She drew back sharply and peered at him through the dusk.
"Now that time is restored to you," he went on, "you have nothing to do but to serve G.o.d without distraction, till you are sanctified in body, soul and spirit."
"Jacky, dear," she asked hoa.r.s.ely, "have they taught you at Oxford to speak like that?"
He was offended, and showed it. "I have been speaking up for you; too warmly for my comfort. Father and mother, and indeed all but Molly, will have it that you talked lightly to them; that your penitence was feigned. I would not believe this, but that, as by marriage you redeemed your conduct, so now you must be striving to redeem your soul. If you deny this, I have been in error and must tell them so."
For a while she stood considering. "Brother," she said, "I will be plain with you. Since this marriage was forced upon me, I have tried--and, please G.o.d, I will go on trying--to redeem my conduct.
But of my soul I scarcely think at all."
"Hetty, this is monstrous."
"I pray," she went on, "for help to be good. With tears I pray for it, and all day long I am trying to be good and do my duty. As for my soul, sometimes I wake and see the need to be anxious for it, and resolve to think of it anxiously: but when the morning comes, I have no time--the day is too full. And sometimes I grow rebellious and vow that it is no affair of mine: let them answer for it who took it in charge and drove me to tread this path. And sometimes I tell myself that once I had a soul, and it was sinful; but that G.o.d was merciful and destroyed it, with its record, when He destroyed my baby. The doctor swore to me that it never drew a separate breath; no, not one. Tell me, Jack! A child that has never breathed can know neither heaven nor h.e.l.l--questions of baptism do not touch it-- it goes out of darkness into darkness and is annihilated. Is that not so? So I a.s.sure myself, and sometimes I think that by the same stroke G.o.d wiped out the immortal part of me with its sins, that my body and brain go on living, but that the soul of your Hetty will never come up for judgment, for it has ceased to be."
"Monstrous!"
"You understand," she went on wearily, "that this is but one of my thoughts. My heart denies it whenever I long to creep back to Wroote and listen to the old voices and be a child once more. But I am showing you what is the truth--that upon one plea or another I put my soul aside and excuse myself from troubling about it."
"Sadder hearing there could not be. You have an imperishable soul, and owe it a care which should come before your duty even to your husband."
"Ah, Jack, you may be a very great man: but you do not understand women! I wonder if you ever will? For now you do not even begin to understand."
He would have answered in hot anger, but a noise on the path prevented him. Four sportsmen came wending homeward in the dusk, shouldering their guns and laughing boisterously. In the loudest of the guffaws he recognised the voice of d.i.c.k Ellison.
"Hallo!" The leader pulled himself up with a chuckle.
"Here"s pretty goings-on--the little parson colloguing with a wench!
d.i.c.k, d.i.c.k, aren"t you ashamed of your relatives?"
"Ashamed of them long ago," stuttered d.i.c.k, lurching forward. He had been making free with the flask all day. "Who is it?" he demanded.
"Come, my la.s.s--no need to be shy with me! Let"s have a look at your pretty face." The fellow plucked at Hetty"s hood. John gripped his arm, was flung off with an indecent oath, and gripped him again.
"This lady, sir, is my sister."
"Eh?" d.i.c.k Ellison peered into Hetty"s face. "So it is, by Jove!
How d"ye do, Hetty?" He turned to his companion. "Well, you"ve made a nice mistake," he chuckled.
The man guffawed and slouched on. In two strides John was after him and had gripped him once more, this time by the collar.
"Not so fast, my friend!"
"Here, hands off! This gun"s loaded. What the devil d"you want?"
"I want an apology," said John calmly. "Or rather, a couple of apologies." He faced the quartette: they could scarcely see his face, but his voice had a ring in it no less cheerful than firm.
"So far as I can make out in this light, gentlemen, you are all drunk. You have made one of those foolish and disgusting mistakes to which men in liquor are liable: but I should suppose you can muster up sense enough between you to see that this man owes an apology."
"What if I refuse?"
"Why then, sir, I shall give myself the trouble to walk beside you until your sense of decency is happily restored. If that should not happen between this and your own door, I must leave you for the night and call upon you to-morrow."
"This is no tone to take among gentlemen."
"It is the tone you oblige me to take."