"I have been praying with them. Don"t be frightened. I am not likely to forget the lesson of this afternoon."
"Then go to bed. It is full twelve o"clock."
"Not yet, I fear. I want you to see old Willis. All is not right."
"Ah! I thought the poor dear old man would kill himself. He has been working too hard, and presuming on his sailor"s power of tumbling in and taking a dog"s nap whenever he chose."
"I have warned him again and again: but he was working so magnificently, that one had hardly heart to stop him. And beside, nothing would part him from his maid."
"I don"t wonder at that:" quoth Tom to himself. "Is she with him?"
"No: he found himself ill; slipped home on some pretence; and will not hear of our telling her."
"n.o.ble old fellow! Caring for every one but himself to the last." And they went in.
It was one of those rare cases, fatal, yet merciful withal, in which the poison seems to seize the very centre of the life, and to preclude the chance of lingering torture, by one deadening blow.
The old man lay paralysed, cold, pulseless, but quite collected and cheerful. Tom looked, inquired, shook his head, and called for a hot bath of salt and water.
"Warmth we must have, somehow. Anything to keep the fire alight."
"Why so, sir?" asked the old man "The fire"s been flickering down this many a year. Why not let it go out quietly, at three-score years and ten? You"re sure my maid don"t know?"
They put him into his bath, and he revived a little.
"No; I am not going to get well; so don"t you waste your time on me, sirs! I"m taken while doing my duty, as I hoped to be. And I"ve lived to see my maid do hers, as I knew she would, when the Lord called on her. I have,--but don"t tell her, she"s well employed, and has sorrows enough already, some that you"ll know of some day--"
"You must not talk," quoth Tom, who guessed his meaning, and wished to avoid the subject.
"Yes, but I must, sir. I"ve no time to lose. If you"d but go and see after those poor Heales, and come again. I"d like to have one word with Mr. Headley; and my time runs short."
"A hundred, if you will," said Frank.
"And now, sir," when they were alone, "only one thing, if you"ll excuse an old sailor," and Willis tried vainly to make his usual salutation; but the cramped hand refused to obey,--"and a dying one too."
"What is it?"
"Only don"t be hard on the people, sir; the people here. They"re good-hearted souls, with all their sins, if you"ll only take them as you find them, and consider that they"ve had no chance."
"Willis, Willis, don"t talk of that! I shall be a wiser man henceforth, I trust. At least I shall not trouble Aberalva long."
"Oh, sir, don"t talk so; and you just getting a hold of them!"
"I?"
"Yes, you, sir. They"ve found you out at last, thank G.o.d. I always knew what you were and said it. They"ve found you out in the last week; and there"s not a man in the town but what would die for you, I believe."
This announcement staggered Frank. Some men it would have only hardened in their pedantry, and have emboldened them to say: "Ah! then these men see that a High Churchman can work like any one else, when there is a practical sacrifice to be made. Now I have a standing ground which no one can dispute from which to go on, and enforce my idea of what he ought to be."
But, rightly or wrongly, no such thought crossed Frank"s mind. He was just as good a Churchman as ever--why not? Just as fond of his own ideal of what a parish and a Church Service ought to be--why not? But the only thought which did rise in his mind was one of utter self-abas.e.m.e.nt.
"Oh, how blind I have been! How I have wasted my time in laying down the law to these people: fancying myself infallible, as if G.o.d were not as near to them as He is to me--certainly nearer than to any book on my shelves--offending their little prejudices, little superst.i.tions, in my own cruel self-conceit and self-will! And now, the first time that I forget my own rules; the first time that I forget almost that I am a priest, even a Christian at all! that moment they acknowledge me as a priest, as a Christian. The moment I meet them upon the commonest human ground, helping them as one heathen would help another, simply because he was his own flesh and blood, that moment they soften to me and show me how much I might have done with them twelve months ago, had I had but common sense!"
He knelt down and prayed by the old man, for him and for himself.
"Would it be troubling you, sir?" said the old man at last. "But I"d like to take the Sacrament before I go."
"Of course. Whom shall I ask in?"
The old man paused awhile. "I fear it"s selfish: but it seems to me I would not ask it, but that I know I"m going. I should like to take it with my maid, once more before I die."
"I"ll go for her," said Frank, "the moment Thurnall comes back to watch you."
"What need to go yourself, sir? Old Sarah will go, and willing."
Thurnall came in at that moment.
"I am going to fetch Miss Harvey. Where is she, Captain?"
"At Janey Headon"s, along with her two poor children."
"Stay," said Tom, "that"s a bad quarter, just at the fish-house back.
Have some brandy before you start?"
"No! no Dutch courage!" and Frank was gone. He had a word to say to Grace Harvey, and it must be said at once.
He turned down the silent street, and turned up over stone stairs, through quaint stone galleries and balconies such as are often huddled together on the cliff sides in fishing towns; into a stifling cottage, the door of which had been set wide open in the vain hope of fresh air.
A woman met him, and clasped both his hands, with tears of joy.
"They"re mending, sir! They"re mending, else I"d have sent to tell you.
I never looked for you so late."
There was a gentle voice in the next room. It was Grace"s.
"Ah, she"s praying by them now. She"m giving them all their medicines all along! Whatever I should have done without her?--and in and out all day long, too; till one fancies at whiles the Lord must have changed her into five or six at once, to be everywhere to the same minute."
Frank went in, and listened to her prayer. Her face was as pale and calm as the pale, calm faces of the two worn-out babes, whose heads lay on the pillow close to hers: but her eyes were lit up with an intense glory, which seemed to fill the room with love and light.
Frank listened: but would not break the spell.
At last she rose, looked round and blushed.
"I beg your pardon, sir, for taking the liberty. If I had known that you were about, I would have sent: but hearing that you were gone home, I thought you would not be offended, if I gave thanks for them myself.
They are my own, sir, as it were--"
"Oh, Miss Harvey, do not talk so! While you can pray as you were praying then, he who would silence you might be silencing unawares the Lord himself!"
She made no answer, though the change in Frank"s tone moved her; and when he told her his errand, that thought also pa.s.sed from her mind.