"Poor thing! it"s his liver," said Mrs. Bateson, taking up the cudgels as usual on behalf of the bilious and oppressed. "You can see from his complexion that he is out of order, and that all that rich dinner will do him no good. It was his wife"s duty to see that he had something plain to eat, with none of them sauces and fal-lals, instead of playing the fine lady and making troubles out of nothing. I"ve no patience with her!"
"Still, he do look as if he"d a temper," persisted Mr. Bateson.
"And if he do, Caleb, what of that? If a man in his own house hasn"t the right to show a bit of temper, I should like to know who has? I"ve no patience with the women that will get married and have a man of their own; and then cry their eyes out because the man isn"t an old woman. If they want meekness and obedience, let "em remain single and keep lapdogs and canaries; and leave the husbands for those as can manage "em and enjoy "em, for there ain"t enough to go round as it is." And Mrs.
Bateson waxed quite indignant.
Here Tremaine took up his parable. "This weird figure, clothed in skins, and feeding upon nothing more satisfying than locusts and wild honey, is a type of all those who are set apart for the difficult and unsatisfactory lot of heralds and forerunners. They see the good time coming, and make ready the way for it, knowing all the while that its fuller light and wider freedom are not for them; they lead their fellows to the very borders of the promised land, conscious that their own graves are already dug in the wilderness. No great social or political movement has ever been carried on without their aid; and they have never reaped the benefits of those reforms which they lived and died to compa.s.s. Perhaps there are no sadder sights on the page of history than those solitary figures, of all nations and all times, who have foretold the coming of the dawn and yet died before it was yet day.""
"Did you ever?" exclaimed Mrs. Bateson _sotto voce_; "a grown man like that, and not to know John the Baptist when he sees him! Forerunners and heralds indeed! Why, it"s John the Baptist as large as life, and those as don"t recognise him ought to be ashamed of theirselves."
"Lucy Ellen would have known who it was when she was three years old,"
said Caleb proudly.
"And so she ought; I"d have slapped her if she hadn"t, and richly she"d have deserved it."
"It"s a comfort as Mr. Tremaine"s mother is in her grave," remarked Mrs.
Hankey, not a whit behind the others as regards shocked sensibilities; "this would have been a sad day for her if she had been alive."
"And it would!" agreed Mrs. Bateson warmly. "I know if one of my children hadn"t known John the Baptist by sight, I should have been that ashamed I should never have held up my head again in this world--never!"
Mr. Bateson endeavoured to take a charitable view of the situation. "I expect as the poor lad"s schooling was neglected through having lost his parents; and there"s some things as you never seem to master at all except you master "em when you"re young--the Books of the Bible being one of them."
"My lads could say the Books of the Bible through, without stopping to take breath, when they were six, and Lucy Ellen when she was five and a half."
"Well, then, Kezia, you should be all the more ready to take pity on them poor orphans as haven"t had the advantages as our children have had."
"So I am, Caleb; and if it had been one of the minor prophets I shouldn"t have said a word--I can"t always tell Jonah myself unless there"s a whale somewhere at the back; but John the Baptist----!"
When the inspection of the pictures had been accomplished, the company sat down to dinner in the large saloon; and Alan was slightly disconcerted when they opened the proceedings by singing, at the top of their voices, "Be present at our table, Lord." Elisabeth, on seeing the expression of his face, sorely wanted to laugh; but she stifled this desire, as she had learned by experience that humour was not one of Alan"s strong points. Now Christopher could generally see when a thing was funny, even when the joke was at his own expense; but Alan took life more seriously, which--as Elisabeth a.s.sured herself--showed what a much more earnest man than Christopher he was, in spite of his less orthodox opinions. So she made up her mind that she would not catch Christopher"s eye on the present occasion, as she usually did when anything amused her, because it was cruel to laugh at the frustration of poor Alan"s high-flown plans; and then naturally she looked straight at the spot where Chris was presiding over a table, and returned his smile of perfect comprehension. It was one of Elisabeth"s peculiarities that she invariably did the thing which she had definitely made up her mind not to do.
After dinner the party broke up and wandered about, in small detachments, over the park and through the woods and by the mere, until it was tea-time. Alan spent most of his afternoon in explaining to Elisabeth the more excellent ways whereby the poor may be enabled to share the pleasures of the rich; and Christopher spent most of his in carrying Johnnie Stubbs to the mere and taking him for a row, and so helping the crippled youth to forget for a short time that he was not as other men are, and that it was out of pity that he, who never worked, had been permitted to take the holiday which he could not earn.
After tea Alan and Elisabeth were standing on the steps leading from the saloon to the garden.
"What a magnificent fellow that is!" exclaimed Alan, pointing to the huge figure of Caleb Bateson, who was talking to Jemima Stubbs on the far side of the lawn. Caleb certainly justified this admiration, for he was a fine specimen of a Mershire puddler--and there is no finer race of men to be found anywhere than the puddlers of Mershire.
Elisabeth"s eyes twinkled. "That is one of your anaemic and neurotic Christians," she remarked demurely.
Displeasure settled on Alan"s brow; he greatly objected to Elisabeth"s habit of making fun of things, and had tried his best to cure her of it.
To a great extent he had succeeded (for the time being); but even yet the cloven foot of Elisabeth"s levity now and then showed itself, much to his regret.
"Exceptions do not disprove rules," he replied coldly. "Moreover, Bateson is probably religious rather from the force of convention than of conviction." Tremaine never failed to enjoy his own rounded sentences, and this one pleased him so much that it almost succeeded in dispelling the cloud which Elisabeth"s ill-timed gibe had created.
"He is a cla.s.s-leader and a local preacher," she added.
"Those terms convey no meaning to my mind."
"Don"t they? Well, they mean that Caleb not only loyally supports the government of Providence, but is prepared to take office under it,"
Elisabeth explained.
Alan never quarrelled with people; he always reproved them. "You make a great mistake--and an extremely feminine one--Miss Farringdon, in invariably deducting general rules from individual instances. Believe me, this is a most illogical form of reasoning, and leads to erroneous, and sometimes dangerous, conclusions."
Elisabeth tossed her head; she did not like to be reproved, even by Alan Tremaine. "My conclusions are nearly always correct, anyhow," she retorted; "and if you get to the right place, I don"t see that it matters how you go there. I never bother my head about the "rolling stock" or the "permanent way" of my intuitions; I know they"ll bring me to the right conclusion, and I leave them to work out their Bradshaw for themselves."
In the meantime Jemima Stubbs was pouring out a recital of her grievances into the ever-sympathetic ear of Caleb Bateson.
"You don"t seem to be enjoying yourself, my la.s.s," he had said in his cheery voice, laying a big hand in tender caress upon the girl"s narrow shoulders.
"And how should I, Mr. Bateson, not having a beau nor n.o.body to talk to?" she replied in her quavering treble. "What with havin" first mother to nurse when I was a little gell, and then havin" Johnnie to look after, I"ve never had time to make myself look pretty and to get a beau, like other gells. And now I"m too old for that sort of thing, and yet I"ve never had my chance, as you may say."
"Poor la.s.s! It"s a hard life as you"ve had, and no mistake."
"That it is, Mr. Bateson. Men wants gells as look pretty and make "em laugh; they don"t care for the dull, dowdy ones, such as me; and yet how can a gell be light-hearted and gay, I should like to know, when it"s work, work, work, all the day, and nurse, nurse, nurse, all the night?
Yet the men don"t make no allowance for that--not they. They just see as a gell is plain and stupid, and then they has nothing more to do with her, and she can go to Jericho for all they cares."
"You"ve had a hard time of it, my la.s.s," repeated Bateson, in his full, deep voice.
"Right you are, Mr. Bateson; and it"s made my hair gray, and my face all wrinkles, and my hands a sight o" roughness and ugliness, till I"m a regular old woman and a fright at that. And I"m but thirty-five now, though no one "ud believe it to look at me."
"Thirty-five, are you? B"ain"t you more than that, Jemima, for surely you look more?"
"I know I does, but I ain"t; and lots o" women--them as has had easy times and their way made smooth for them--look little more than gells when they are thirty-five; and the men run after "em as fast as if they was only twenty. But I"m an old woman, I am, and I"ve never had time to be a young one, and I"ve never had a beau nor nothing."
"It seems now, Jemima, as if the Lord was dealing a bit hard with you; but never you fret yourself; He"ll explain it all and make it all up to you in His own good time."
"I only hope He may, Mr. Bateson."
"My la.s.s, do you remember how Saint Paul said, "From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus"? Now it seems to me that all the gray hairs and the wrinkles and the roughness that come to us when we are working for others and doing our duty, are nothing more nor less than the marks of the Lord Jesus."
"That"s a comfortin" view of the matter, I don"t deny."
"There are lots o" men in this world, Jemima, and still more women, who grow old before their time working for other people; and I take it that when folks talk o" their wrinkles, the Lord says, "My Name shall be in their foreheads"; and when folks talk o" their gray hairs, He says, "They shall walk with Me in white: for they are worthy." And why do we mark the things that belong to us? Why, so as we can know "em again and can claim "em as our own afore the whole world. And that"s just why the Lord marks us: so as all the world shall know as we are His, and so as no man shall ever pluck us out of His Hand."
Jemima looked gratefully up at the kindly prophet who was trying to comfort her. "Law! Mr. Bateson, that"s a consolin" way of looking at things, and I only hope as you"re right. But all the same, I"d have liked to have had a beau of my own just for onst, like other gells. I dessay it"s very wicked o" me to feel like this, and it"s enough to make the Lord angry with me; but it don"t seem to me as there"s anything in religion that quite makes up for never havin" had a beau o" your own."
"The Lord won"t be angry with you, my la.s.s; don"t you fear. He made women and He understands "em, and He ain"t the one to blame "em for being as He Himself made "em. Remember the Book says, "as one whom his mother comforteth"; and I hold that means as He understands women and their troubles better than the kindest father ever could. And He won"t let His children give up things for His sake without paying them back some thirty, some sixty, and some an hundred fold; and don"t you ever get thinking that He will."
"As Jemima says, yours is a comfortable doctrine, Bateson, but I am afraid you have no real foundation for your consoling belief," exclaimed Alan Tremaine, coming up and interrupting the conversation.
"Eh! but I have, sir, saving your presence; I know in Whom I have believed; and what a man has once known for certain, he can never not know again as long as he lives."
"But Christianity is a myth, a fable. You may imagine and pretend that it is true, but you can not know that it is."
"But I do know, sir, begging your pardon, as well as I know you are standing here and the sun is shining over yonder."
Alan smiled rather scornfully: how credulous were the lower cla.s.ses, he thought in his pride of intellectual superiority. "I do not understand how you can know a thing that has never been proved," he said.
The giant turned and looked on his fragile frame with eyes full of a great pity. "You do not understand, you say, sir that"s just it; and I am too foolish and ignorant to be able to explain things rightly to a gentleman like you; but the Lord will explain it to you when He thinks fit. You are young yet, sir, and the way stretches long before you, and the mysteries of G.o.d are hidden from your eyes. But when you have loved and cherished a woman as your own flesh, and when you have had little children clinging round your knees, you"ll understand rightly enough then without needing any man to teach you."