Читать книгу Into the Highways and Hedges - F. F. Montresor - Страница 9

Table of Contents

It was Meg's twenty-first birthday. She woke early, and went into the garden while the dew was still thick on the grass, and there was a wet haze, precursor of a broiling day, over everything.

"How old I am growing!" she thought, as she shut the door softly behind her and smiled with pleasure, and a most youthful sense of adventure, at being out at that hour. She buried her nose in a cluster of seven-sister roses, and their fragrant wet little faces covered hers with dew. Meg was too fond of flowers to pick them.

How lovely it was! The earth smelt so sweet, the spider's webs sparkled like silver traceries.

It was an enchanted land, seen through the mist; even the stones on the gravel path showed wonderful colours, though they felt cold through thin slippers.

The girl looked as if she had stepped out of a fairy story herself, while she wandered along with a soft wonder in her eyes. Her mind was filled with guesses as to what would happen to her in the year to come. A birthday was a fresh turning-point to Meg, from which she tried to peep down a vista of possibilities.

She leant over the garden gate presently, resting her round white arms on it, and gazing idly up the quiet road.

The flickering shadows played on her face, and made leafy patterns on her white dress, and the honeysuckle touched her shoulder caressingly.

Meg bent her head, and just put her lips to the fresh dew-washed flower, then started violently, for a harsh laugh greeted her childish action.

"Why, my pretty lady; you ought to have something better worth the kissing!" cried some one.

Meg stood erect, both offended and frightened, but much too proud to run away.

"What are you?" she said. And then a thrill of recollection came to her; the voice was the voice of the hungry tramp who had begged from her on the Dover beach. The woman scrambled up from the deep shadow of the hedge under which she had spent the night, and stepped into the road.

There was something gipsy-like about her bearing, and her cold eyes scanned the young lady sharply.

"There's no mistaking the nest you come from, my pretty," said she. "You've your father—and a handsome gentleman he is too—written all over you. You've got his smile too," as Meg's mobile face involuntarily brightened at the compliment. "Sweet as sugar-sticks, and proud as the devil. Hold out your hand, my lady, and let the gipsy read your life for you. Why, you ain't scared, are you?"

Meg hesitated a second, then stretched out her hand over the gate. The woman was dirty, and too free in her speech to please the little lady, who was used to being treated to low curtsies and deepest respect by her father's tenants; but then there was a taste of excitement about the fortune-telling, and Meg was half superstitious and half amused.

Her hand looked very white and delicate in the tramp's grimy fingers. The woman glanced from it to the girl's fair face, and began to prophesy with an earnestness and apparent belief in her own words, which were perhaps not wholly simulated. The blue veins stood out too clearly, and the lines on Meg's palm were deeply cut.

"You've more than one lover already," said the prophetess. "But your heart's not touched yet. There's a dark man who is set on having you, but you'll only bring him ill-luck. There's a woman who hates you because she's jealous. Take care, or she'll do you a mischief. There's a great change coming in your life soon—and——" But Meg snatched her hand away and stood ashamed. The preacher of the beach was coming up the hill.

She stepped back into the shadow in order that he might go by without seeing her: she did not care to be caught having her fortune told like a silly servant girl. She knew of no reason in the world why he should stop at the Ravenshill gate; and yet an absolute certainty that he would so stop, and that he would speak to her, came over her. Perhaps it was because he was walking with an evident purpose, looking neither to the right nor left; but she was hardly surprised, only slightly dismayed, as at a fulfilled presentiment, when the man turned as she expected, and came straight towards her.

His hand was on the latch before he saw Meg; then he went to the point without any preamble.

"I've come to bring you this," he said. "Will ye take it? It's yours by rights."

He was not in the least astonished, as Meg observed, at finding her there. Barnabas Thorpe possibly did not know how seldom Miss Deane was out at five in the morning; besides, it took a good deal to move him to wonder. "The Lord had led her," he supposed, which was sufficient explanation for anything.

Meg was rather awe-struck. She felt as if it were highly probable that this miraculously gifted preacher, who looked like a fisherman, but spoke with the authority of inspiration, might deliver some supernatural sign into her keeping. He drew a handkerchief out of his pocket; it was rolled into a tight ball, and he handed it to her without more ado. She could feel something cold and hard through the cotton.

Her slim fingers trembled a little when they struggled with the knot; then she gave a scream of joyful surprise.

"Oh! it's father's locket!" she cried. There in her hand lay the diamond-circled miniature, her mother's face looking out from the midst of the shimmering stones, with the gentle wistful expression she remembered of old.

Meg had thought more of the setting than of the portrait, when it had lain in her baby hand; but the face had impressed itself on her memory all the same. Now it seemed to her like a birthday present from both parents.

Barnabas Thorpe watched her ecstasies disapprovingly; and when she lifted her beautiful eyes to his with a "Thank you, with all my heart," he said gravely:—

"You have not me to thank. I was only an instrument, and I'm thinking such stones as those are bought wi' too high a price."

"I don't understand you," said Meg.

In the pause that ensued, the tramp, who had been watching this curious episode with some interest, thought fit to put in her claim. "You must have been born with a caul, missy," said she. "For folk who lose diamonds don't generally get 'em back so easy. Let me just finish your fortune for you: it will be worth the telling."

"No, no," said Meg. "It was silly of me. I don't want to hear it now." She put her hand in her pocket, meaning to pay the woman and get rid of her; but, alas! it was empty.

"I'll wait here, honey, and you'll run in and fetch your purse, and then I'll tell you the rest," coaxed the gipsy, when the preacher interposed, "What do ye want playing with the devil?" he said. "I can't stand by and see a maid dabble wi' witchcraft. God has your fortune in His own hand. Leave it there. It's safe with Him."

"Oh, ay, you're one of the pious ones!" cried the woman angrily. "Down on a poor body for picking up a scrap here and there, while you're pocketing pounds yourself! Where did you get them diamonds from? What'll she give you for 'em? The pretty lady don't ask where you got 'em, 'cos for why, you're young and lusty, and she——"

"Off with you!" said Barnabas. And Meg was rather shocked to see him take her by the arms and march her down the hill. He did it good-naturedly enough, however.

When they reached the bottom, the woman wriggled out of his grasp, and shook her fist at Meg.

"Oh, it's all very fine! You may laugh, and welcome; but it's the wrong side of your mouth you'll laugh with one day," she shouted hoarsely, though Meg was in truth little inclined to be merry. "You'll leave your finery behind you. You'll run out of the garden into the highway. And you'll repent it every day of your life! You'll be cold and hungry and foot-sore; and you'll wish you were in your grave, and your people will say, 'She had better not have been born'. They love their name better than they love you; for there's none so cold-hearted as gentlefolk, and so you'll find. They will call you a disgrace to——"

"That'll do!" said the preacher. "Let the lady be. Cursing is an ill trade, missus. Which way are ye going?"

"I've told her her fortune, though she cheated me out of my due," said the tramp; and she strode off grumbling. She was not half so irate with the preacher as with the "fine lady," though it had been he who had practically interfered with her. She could understand Barnabas Thorpe's forcibly expressed rebukes, but Meg's shilly-shallying she put down to a mean desire to escape payment. "Gentlefolk were very mean," she muttered.

Meg still stood with the diamonds in her hand, when the preacher returned to the gate.

She wondered whether she ought to offer him a reward, or whether he considered himself above that. She wished that she had not got up quite so early, no one was awake to consult. Barnabas Thorpe shook his head at her embarrassed suggestion. "No, thank you," he said. "I never take money for doing the Lord's work; and your trinket there was given me to ease a poor soul whom Satan had in his clutches. Will ye come with me and see her? She's sore afflicted, and I doubt it's as much mind as body."

"Who is she?" said Meg.

"I'll tell ye," said the preacher, "if ye'll not set the police on her." And Meg reddened, and drew herself up.

"It is not likely I should do that," she said haughtily. "I have not the least desire to know her name, if she would rather I did not. I only asked that I might thank her for returning my locket. I value it very much. Please thank her for me. Good-morning!"

"Stop!" said the preacher eagerly. "Don't turn away from one ye can help. I see I've angered ye, but it's not for me ye'll come. I'm not used to speaking to ladies. Happen I'm a bit rough. I didn't mean to be. But what can it matter what the messenger is? The message is the same. This woman asks your forgiveness in Christ's name. You can't refuse. Come to-morrow she may be gone to where she'll ask your forgiveness no more. Have ye so few sins of your own that ye can let her go unforgiven?"

"Oh, it wasn't that," said Meg, who, indeed, felt no difficulty in pardoning an unknown thief.

Barnabas opened the gate.

"It's not above a shortish walk," he said. "You'll come." And Meg stepped into the road. As the gate shut behind her with a click, she felt as if she had passed some invisible line, taken some more decisive step than she knew. The gipsy's prophecy touched the superstitious strain that was strong in her, but she would not turn back for all that. "I'll not give in to being afraid," thought she.

They walked on some way in silence, then Meg paused to take breath, and smiled in the midst of her earnestness, when she watched her conductor swinging along up the hill without noticing her defection, his head being fuller of the penitent he was hurrying to than of his strange companion.

Barnabas Thorpe had a tenderness for publicans and sinners, that had been broadened and deepened by much personal experience; but as for the rich and educated, his work had not lain in their direction, his warm human sympathy had had no chance of correcting his narrow theories there, and it is to be feared he looked upon them all as in very evil case, remembering always the saying about the rich man and the needle.

He was singularly illiterate considering his opportunities, for his father had been a great reader, and had sent or rather driven him to a good middle-class school.

He had read and re-read his Bible and the Pilgrim's Progress; but books in general had no charm for him, though the prophets of the Old Testament impressed him, and probably influenced his style in preaching. He would tramp miles over down or marsh, hill or dale, to speak a word, whether in or out of season, to some hesitating convert whom he had "almost persuaded". He never failed to know when his words had touched, or, as he would have put it, "when the spirit that spoke through him had drawn" any one.

He was a man of passionate temper, as the red tinge in his curly hair testified; but no mockery could hurt or opposition rebuff him in pursuit of his calling. All the superabundant vehemence of his nature was thrown into the fight for his "Master". The preacher was absolutely sincere, but he was also absolutely certain of his right to deliver his message when and wherever he felt "called". The sheer force of undoubting conviction impelled him, and coerced his hearers. Meg had felt that coercion on the beach; she was to see it again now.

He remembered her when he had reached the top of the hill, and paused. "I've been going too fast for ye," he said; "I clean forgot. I am sorry."

She noticed the burr in his speech, and the independence of his manner; but the frank honesty of his face disarmed her.

Children and women generally trusted the preacher, and she suddenly made up her mind to throw aside her shyness and talk to him.

"Why did you say my diamonds were bought with too high a price?" she asked.

The preacher turned and looked at her, as if half doubtful of the sincerity of the question. She expected a tirade on the wickedness of luxury; and perhaps such a sermon was on the tip of his tongue, but apparently he checked himself.

"I havena felt called to preach to the women who live in palaces and are clothed wi' fine linen," he said. "But I ha' seen ye before, and I believed the Master had called ye. If so, ye'll learn from Him that ye canna wear for an ornament what should be bread to the starving. If ye had seen what I have ye wouldna ha' asked me that."

"What have you seen?" said Meg; and the colour mounted to Barnabas Thorpe's high cheek bones, and his blue eyes lit up.

"I've seen the wicked flourish like a green bay tree," he said, "and I ha' seen the defenceless trodden down, and the bairns wailing for food. I ha' seen the rich man who tempts by his sinfu' waste, and the poor man who is tempted and falls, like the poor lass we are going to now."

"Where are we going?" asked Meg; "and how did you find her?"

It was a question that the generality of people would have asked before they set out. Meg had walked two miles, and her thin shoes were rubbed and her feet sore, before it occurred to her.

"Over to River. It's not more nor a mile on," said Barnabas Thorpe. "It was this way I was brought to her. I had been preaching on the Downs the other evening. It was getting to dusk, and I was going back to Dover, when a woman, who had been listening, followed me. 'Can you really cure diseases?' she asks, coming close behind. I said, 'Ay, if the Lord willed'. 'My daughter is sick,' she says, 'and I am not one that holds with doctors; for if a woman's to die she'll die, and if she's to live she'll live, and it stands to reason they can't do nothing against Them that's above.' 'And that's true,' I said."

Meg was startled into a faint exclamation at this wholesale condemnation of doctors, but he went on unheeding.

"'But if you come who don't mess about with physics, but just call on Them,' she said, 'perhaps They'll hear you and cure her.' So I went. I found the poor thing labouring for breath and sore afflicted, and in great terror of death, seein' her conscience was laden wi' heavy sin." He paused. "Ye'll no' be hard on her?" he said pleadingly.

"No, of course not," said Meg.

"She was nursery-maid in Mr. Russelthorpe's house sixteen years back. Her name is Susan Kekewich."

"I remember her," said Meg, her thoughts flying back to that far-away time. "She came up to London with us, and cried nearly as much as I did in the coach. She was quite young, and I think she was pretty. She was very kind to me."

"Ay, was she?" said Barnabas. "I could fancy so. She wasn't meant to go wrong. Poor maid! but there is many one's heart aches for. It seems she saw her master give you the trinket one night."

"I know the rest," said Meg; "and she came into my room at night, and put her hand under my pillow and stole it. I was too frightened to scream. I thought she was Lazarus."

"It was not for herself," said Barnabas eagerly. "Her lover was starving; he'd lost his place; they thought he was one of them that set fire to the ricks in Hampshire that winter; he was a poor creature, and afraid to stand a trial, tho' innocent as a baby of that piece of work; and he hung about in hiding in London, and came and begged at the kitchen door for scraps, and she had given him all she could, and hadn't a penny left, and he thought that if he could get beyond the sea, he might start again and make a home for her. She was anxious to get him off, and the devil tempted her. She knew the lad was sinking lower, loafing round, afeart o' the daylight, and wi' no decent place to put his head in that city of iniquity. She went out meaning to sell the diamonds, and to give him the price, and afore she was three paces fro' the door she got a message fro' her lad to say he was in gaol for stealing a loaf; but she didn't go back to the house. Happen she thought they'd ha' found her out, and couldn face it. Happen she was a bit mazed. She just lived on her savings till they were gone; an' ye can guess the rest. Her lover got the gaol-fever, and made no fight against it; he was dead within the week. She was afeared to sell your locket then, and afeared to give it back. She buried it once, and then got a fancy that the wind 'ud blow the earth away, and the rain 'ud wash it clear, and couldna keep hersel' fro' the place till she had it up again. She's a bit out o' her mind about it by now with the constant thinking; and her mother says as she believes her lover's death turned her queer for a time, an' she wasn't wholly responsible. She drifted away fro' the streets, and wandered home i' the end."

Meg shuddered. "It's a dreadful story," she said. "Too dreadful to think of."

"Do ye say so?" said the preacher. "Ay, ye scatter temptation i' the way o' the poor, ye rich, an' are too soft-hearted to hear tell o' their fall!" after which they both relapsed into silence.

The sun was beginning to beat down on their heads, when they reached the little hamlet of River.

It consisted of one chalk road, on either side of which were very white cottages, which had a deceptive air of comfort and prettiness. Pink china roses clustered against their walls, and low-thatched roofs shone gold in the morning light.

The villagers were out in the fields: only one old man, and a baby with sore eyes and an eruption all over its face, stared open-mouthed at the oddly matched pair. Barnabas stooped to pass through the doorway of one of the cottages; and Meg following him would have tumbled down the one step into the room, if he had not held out his hand to save her.

She never forgot the sudden plunge out of sunshine into that dark room, close and hot, and yet with a damp smell about it.

Labourers' cottages sixty years ago were so bad that one wonders, when one thinks of them, that the wave of revolution that was passing over Europe, did not utterly submerge us too!

Meg stood leaning against the door, watching the preacher; too shy to venture further. Her eyes dilated, and she turned whiter as she looked. The damp clay floor, the sickening odour, the room that was bedroom and sitting-room as well, horrified her. Yet Barnabas had been in many a worse place, and this was no exceptionally bad case; indeed, it was decent compared to many a cottage in Kent. But Meg lived before the day of district visiting, and the world of poverty was a new world to her.

A woman was lying on a press bed in the farthest corner, her eyes shut. Meg thought at first that she was dead. Her thin pinched little mother came hurrying from the inner room to meet them.

"She's had two more of them spasms since you left," she said to Barnabas. "I should think the next would about carry her off." She spoke in a querulous tone, as if the spasms were somehow the preacher's fault, but her face twitched nervously. She had small features like her daughter, and black eyes, and spoke with the south-country accent.

The woman on the bed stirred and then gave a quick choking sound, and Barnabas was by her side in an instant, supporting her in his arms. It was literally a fight for life!

The poor thing's eyes started, and the veins on her forehead swelled; Barnabas held her up with one arm, and fanned the air towards her mouth with the other hand.

"Open the window!" he shouted; but the window was apparently not made to open. Such a thing had never been done. "Take the poker and break the pane!" he said; and the woman hesitated. "I can't see as making a draught is good," she murmured; but Meg obeyed him at once. The green substance, grimed with dirt, did not break easily, but it gave at last; and Meg was thankful to turn her back on that awful sight.

When she looked again, Barnabas was blowing into Susan's lips, pausing every now and then to ejaculate, "Lord, help me!" The gasping breaths were getting easier, the grip of the clenched hands was relaxing; presently the patient fell back exhausted.

"She's going!" said the mother. "Lord, if I had a drop of brandy left, it might save her!"

The preacher covered his face with his hands a second—he, perhaps, was a little exhausted too; then he stood upright, and put his hands on her forehead.

"Oh merciful Lord, heal her!" he cried. "Pour Thy strength into her! Pour Thy strength into her! Let it flow through me to her now while I pray." He repeated the same words again and again at intervals. It seemed to Meg that his face was as the face of some strong healing angel, so bright with undoubting faith.

Presently the patient opened her eyes, looked at him, and smiled. It might have been an hour that he had stood there. "I've got new life in me," she said. "I feel it;" and Barnabas fell on his knees.

"Now, the Lord be thanked," he said, "who has given us the victory over death, through Christ our Master." And Meg drew a breath of relief; she had felt as if he had been fighting some tangible enemy, and now the dreadful presence was routed—she almost fancied she saw it like a black shadow flee past her, out into the open air.

The fight was over.

"My maid," said Barnabas, "God has been good to you. You will not die, but live, and your sins are forgiven, both by Him and the woman you stole from: she has come to tell you so."

Meg came forward quickly and knelt by his side.

"Oh Susie," she said. "I am so sorry you have been unhappy all these years! and I would have forgiven you at once if I had only known. Why, I would lose all I have ten times over rather than that any one should be so unhappy!" And Susie looked at her with the black eyes that had such depths of sadness in them.

"It's Miss Meg! She always was a dear little lady, and so soft-hearted. I thought if she could understand she wouldn't mind," she said. "And he was so hungry, it went to my heart to feel him hungry! but God was against me, and sent him to gaol to punish me, though I would have given my soul to save him. I was a bad girl, and they punished him for it—to—to—how was it?—because I stole? They are uncommon hard up above, but it's just justice, I suppose!"

Meg took the wasted hands in hers; she could not preach, the problem was beyond her; but she laid her cheek against Susan's for a moment, and the preacher said gently, "You see she's not hard, and the Lord who made her merciful must be more merciful Himself. He's better nor the things He makes." Then he rose from his knees. "Good-bye," he said simply, "I'd keep that window open, and let the air in, Mrs. Kekewich. I've often noticed it's got a deal of healing in it."

Meg followed him out of the cottage; they were outside when Mrs. Kekewich regained the use of her tongue, and ran after them to pour out a volley of thanks to both. Meg blushed. Barnabas Thorpe took off his hat reverently when she said "God bless you".

Meg told her aunt exactly what had happened the moment she got home; she was too proud ever to stoop to petty concealments, but she knew that if she waited her courage would cool. Uncle Russelthorpe chuckled behind his newspaper (they were at breakfast) and Aunt Russelthorpe was, not unnaturally, very wroth.

"It's high time this sort of thing were stopped," she said. "As for her not going to balls, or wearing trinkets any more, she shall go!"

"Meg's much the most amusing of the three," said Uncle Russelthorpe; "and nothing makes a faith grow like a little persecution."