And when the self-abhorring thrill
Is past as pass it must,
When tasks of life thy spirit fill,
Then be the self-renouncing will
The seal of thy calm trust. Lyra
Apostolica
By Christmas Day Archie Douglas was
in the Bay of Biscay; but even to Joanna it was not
a sorrowful day, for did not Herbert on that day crawl
back into his sitting-room, full dressed for the first
time, holding tight by her shoulder, and by every piece
of furniture on his way to the sofa, Rollo attending
in almost pathetic delight, gazing at him from time
to time, and thumping the floor with his tail?
He had various visitors after his arrival the
first being his Rector, who came on his way back from
church to give his congratulations, mention the number
of convalescents who had there appeared, and speak
of the wedding he had celebrated that morning, that
of Fanny Reynolds and her Drake, who were going forth
the next day to try whether they could accomplish
a hawker’s career free from what the man, at
least, had only of late learnt to be sins. It
was a great risk, but there had been a penitence about
both that Julius trusted was genuine. A print
of the Guardian Angel, which had been her boy’s
treasure, had been hung by Fanny in her odd little
bedroom, and she had protested with tears that it would
seem like her boy calling her back if she were tempted
again.
“Not that I trust much to that,”
said Julius. “Poor Fanny is soft, and
likes to produce an effect; but I believe there is
sterling stuff in Drake.”
“And he never had a chance before,” said
Herbert.
“No. Which makes a great
difference all indeed between the Publicans,
or the Heathens, and the Pharisees. He can’t
read, and I doubt whether he said the words rightly
after me; but I am sure he meant them.”
“I suppose all this has done great good?”
said Jenny.
“It will be our fault if it
do not do permanent good. It ought,” said
Julius, gravely. “No, no, Herbert, I did
not mean to load you with the thought. Getting
well is your business for the present
not improving the occasion to others.”
To which all that Herbert answered
was, “Harry Hornblower!” as if that name
spoke volumes of oppression of mind.
That discussion, however, was hindered
by Mrs. Hornblower’s own arrival with one of
her lodger’s numerous meals, and Julius went
off to luncheon. The next step on the stairs
made Herbert start and exclaim, “That’s
the dragoon! Come in, Phil.”
And there did indeed stand the eldest
brother, who had obtained a few days’ leave,
as he told them, and had ridden over from Strawyers
after church. He came in with elaborate caution
in his great muddy boots, and looked at Herbert like
a sort of natural curiosity, exclaiming that he only
wanted a black cap and a pair of bands to be exactly
like Bishop Bowater, a Caroline divine, with a meek,
oval, spiritual face, and a great display of delicate
attenuated fingers, the length of which had always
been a doubt and marvel to his sturdy descendants.
“Hands and all,” quoth
Philip; “and what are you doing with them?”
as he spied a Greek Testament in the fingers, and something
far too ponderous for them within reach. “Jenny,
how dare you?” he remonstrated, poising the
bigger book as if to heave it at her head. “That’s
what comes of your encouraging followers, eh?”
“Ah!” said Jenny, pretending
to dodge the missile, while Rollo exercised great
forbearance in stifling a bark, “Greek is not
quite so severe to some folks as dragoon captains
think.”
“Severe or not he might let
it alone,” said Phil, looking much disposed
to wrest away the little book, which Herbert thrust
under his pillow, saying
“It was only the Lesson.”
“Why can’t you read the
Lesson like a sensible man in its native English?
Don’t laugh, children, you know what I mean.
There’s no good in this fellow working his
brain. He can’t go up again before September,
and according to the Bishop’s letter to my father,
he is safe to pass, if he could not construe a line,
after what he did at Wil’sbro’.
The Bishop and Co. found they had made considerable
donkeys of themselves. Yes, ’tis the ticket
for you to be shocked; but it is just like badgering
a fellow for his commission by asking him how many
facets go to a dragon-fly’s eye, instead of how
he can stand up to a battery.”
“So I thought,” said Herbert;
“but I know now what it is to be in the teeth
of the battery without having done my best to get my
weapons about me.”
“Come now! Would any of
those poor creatures have been the better for your
knowing
“How many notes a sackbut has,
Or whether shawms have strings,”
or the Greek particles, which I believe
were what sacked you?”
“They would have been the better
if I had ever learnt to think what men’s souls
are, or my own either,” said Herbert, with a
heavy sigh.
“Ah! well, you have had a sharp
campaign,” said Phil; “but you’ll
soon get the better of it when you are at Nice with
the old folks. Jolly place lots of
nice girls something always going on.
I’ll try and get leave to take you out; but
you’ll cut us all out! Ladies won’t
look at a fellow when there’s an interesting
young parson to the fore.”
Herbert made an action of negation,
and his sister said
“The doctors say Nice will not
do after such an illness as this. Papa asked
the doctor there, and he said he could not advise it.”
“Indeed! Then I’ll
tell you what, Herbs, you shall come into lodgings
at York, and I’ll look after you there.
You shall ride Pimento, and dine at the mess.”
“Thank you, Phil,” said
Herbert, to whom a few months ago this proposal would
have been most seducing, “but I am going home,
and that’s all the change I shall want.”
“Home! Yes, Ellen is getting
ready for you. Not your room oh, no!
but the state bedroom! When will you come?
My leave is only till Tuesday.”
“Oh! I don’t know
how to think of the drive,” sighed Herbert wearily.
“We must wait for a fine day,
when he feels strong enough,” said Jenny.
“All right,” said Phil;
“but ten days or a fortnight there will be quite
enough, and then you’ll come. There are
some friends of yours, that only looked at me, I can
tell you, for the sake of your name eh,
Master Herbs?”
Herbert did not rise to the bait;
but Jenny said, “The Miss Strangeways?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t he
be flattered to hear of the stunning excitement when
they heard of Captain Bowater, and how the old lady,
their mother, talked by the yard about him?
You’ll get a welcome indeed when you come, old
fellow. When shall it be?”
“No, thank you, Phil,”
said Herbert, gravely. “I shall come back
here as soon as I am well enough. But there is
one thing I wish you would do for me.”
“Well, what? I’ll
speak about having any horse you please taken up for
you to ride; I came over on Brown Ben, but he would
shake you too much.”
“No, no, it’s about a
young fellow. If you could take him back to
York to enlist ”
“My dear Herbert, I ain’t a recruiting-sergeant.”
“No, but it might be the saving
of him,” said Herbert, raising himself and speaking
with more animation. “It is Harry Hornblower.”
“Why, that’s the chap
that bagged your athletic prizes! Whew!
Rather strong, ain’t it, Joan!”
“He did no such thing,”
said Herbert, rather petulantly; “never dreamt
of it. He only was rather a fool in talking of
them vaunting of me, I believe, as not
such a bad fellow for a parson; so his friends got
out of him where to find them. But they knew
better than to take him with them. Tell him,
Jenny; he won’t believe me.”
“It is quite true, Phil,”
said Jenny, “the poor fellow did get into bad
company at the races, but that was all. He did
not come home that night, but he was stupefied with
drink and the beginning of the fever, and it was proved perfectly
proved that he was fast asleep at a house
at Backsworth when the robbery was committed, and he
was as much shocked about it as any one more,
I am sure, than Herbert, who was so relieved on finding
him clear of it, that he troubled himself very little
about the things. And now he has had the fever
not very badly and he is quite well now,
but he can’t get anything to do. Truelove
turned him off before the races for hanging about
at the Three Pigeons, and nobody will employ him.
I do think it is true what they say his
mother, and Julius, and Herbert, and all
that he has had a lesson, and wants to turn over a
new leaf, but the people here won’t let him.
Julius and Herbert want him to enlist, and I believe
he would, but his mother as they all do thinks
that the last degradation; but she might listen if
Captain Bowater came and told her about his own regiment cavalry
too and the style of men in it and
it is the only chance for him.”
Philip made a wry face.
“You see I took him up and let
him down,” said Herbert, sadly and earnestly.
“I really do believe,”
said Jenny, clenching the matter, “that Herbert
would get well much faster if Harry Hornblower were
off his mind.”
Phil growled, and his younger brother
and sister knew that they would do their cause no
good by another word. There was an odd shyness
about them all. The elder brother had not yet
said anything about Jenny’s prospects, and only
asked after the party at the Hall.
“All nearly well, except Frank’s
deafness,” said Jenny. “In a day
or two he is going up to London to consult an aurist,
and see whether he can keep his clerkship. Miles
is going with him, and Rosamond takes Terry up to
see his brother in London, and then, I believe, she
is going on to get rooms at Rockpier, while Miles comes
home to fetch his mother there.”
“Mrs. Poynsett!” with infinite wonder.
“Oh yes, all this has really
brought out much more power of activity in her.
You know it was said that there was more damage to
the nervous system than anything else, and the shock
has done her good. Besides, Miles is so much
less timid about her than dear Raymond, who always
handled her like a cracked teapot, and never having
known much of any other woman, did not understand
what was good for her.”
“Miles has more pith in him
than ever poor old Raymond had,” said Phil.
“Poor old Poynsett, I used to think he wanted
to be spoony on you, Joan, if he had only known his
own mind. If he had, I suppose he would have
been alive now!”
“What a pleasing situation for
Jenny!” Herbert could not help muttering.
“Much better than running after
ostriches in the wilderness,” quoth Philip.
“You ride them double, don’t you?”
“Two little negro boys at a
time,” replied Jenny, “according to the
nursery-book. Will you come and try, Phil?”
“You don’t mean to go out?”
“I don’t know,”
said Jenny; “it depends on how mamma is, and
how Edith gets on.”
Philip gave a long whistle of dismay.
Herbert looked at him wistfully, longing to hear
him utter some word of congratulation or sympathy
with his sister; but none was forthcoming. Philip
had disliked the engagement originally never
had cared for Archie Douglas, and was not melted now
that Jenny was more valuable than ever. She
knew him too well to expect it of him, and did not
want to leave him to vex Herbert by any expression
of his opinion on the matter, and on this account,
as well as on that of the fatigue she saw on her patient’s
features, she refused his kind offer of keeping guard
while she went in the afternoon to church, adding that
Herbert must rest, as Mrs. Duncombe was coming afterwards
to take leave of him.
Philip shrugged his shoulders in horror,
and declared that he should not return again till
that was over; but he should look in again
before he went home to settle about Herbert’s
coming to York.
“York!” said Herbert,
with a gasp, as Jenny brought his jelly, and arranged
his pillows for a rest, while the dragoon’s boots
resounded on the stairs. “Please tell
him to say no more about it. I want them all
to understand that I’m not going in for that
sort of thing any more.”
“My dear, I think you had better
not say things hotly and rashly; you may feel so very
differently by and by.”
“I know that,” said Herbert;
“but after all it is only what my ordination
vows mean, though I did not see it then. And
this year must be a penance year; I had made up my
mind to that before I fell ill.”
“Only you must get well,” said Jenny.
“That takes care of itself when
one is sound to begin with,” said Herbert.
“And now that I have been brought back again,
and had my eyes opened, and have got another trial
given me, it would be double shame to throw it away.”
“I don’t think you will do that.”
“I only pray that all that seems
burnt out of me by what I have seen, and heard, and
felt, may not come back with my strength.”
“I could hardly pray that for
you, Herbert,” said Jenny. “Spirits
are wanted to bear a clergyman through his work, and
though you are quite right not to go in for
those things, I should be sorry if you never enjoyed
what came in your way.”
“If I never was tempted.”
“It need not be temptation.
It would not be if your mind were full of your work it
would only be refreshment. I don’t want
my boy to turn stern, and dry, and ungenial.
That would not be like your Rector.”
“My Rector did not make such
a bad start, and can trust himself better,”
said Herbert. “Come, Jenny, don’t
look at me in that way. You can’t wish
me to go to York, and meet those rattling girls again?”
“No, certainly not, though Sister
Margaret told Rosamond they had never had such a sobering
lesson in their lives as their share in the mischief
to you.”
“It was not their fault,”
said Herbert. “It was deeper down than
that. And they were good girls after all, if
one only had had sense.”
“Oh! ”
“Nonsense, Jenny,” with
a little smile, as he read her face, “I’m
not bitten no but they, and poor
Lady Tyrrell, and all are proof enough that it is
easy to turn my head, and that I am one who ought
to keep out of that style of thing for the future.
So do silence Phil, for you know when he gets a thing
into his head how he goes on, and I do not think I
can bear it now.”
“I am sure you can’t,”
said Jenny, emphatically, “and I’ll do
my best. Only, Herbie, dear, do one thing for
me, don’t bind yourself by any regular renunciations
of moderate things now your mind is excited, and you
are weak. I am sure Julius or Dr. Easterby would
say so.”
“I’ll think,” said
Herbert. “But if I am forgiven for this
year, nothing seems to me too much to give up to the
Great Shepherd to show my sorrow. ‘Feed
My sheep’ was the way He bade St. Peter prove
his love.”
Jenny longed to say it was feeding
the sheep rather than self-privation, but she was
not sure of her ground, and Herbert’s low, quiet,
soft voice went to her heart. There were two
great tears on his cheeks, he shut his eyes as if
to keep back any more, and turned his face inwards
on the sofa, his lips still murmuring over ’Feed
My sheep.’ She looked at him, feeling
as if, while her heart had wakened to new glad hopes
of earth, her brother, in her fulfilled prayer, had
soared beyond her. They were both quite still
till Mrs. Duncombe came to the door.
She was at the Rectory, her house
being dismantled, and she, having stayed till the
last case of fever was convalescent, and the Sisters
recalled, was to go the next day to her mother-in-law’s.
She was almost as much altered as Herbert himself.
Her jaunty air had given way to something equally
energetic, but she looked wiry and worn, and her gold
pheasant’s crest had become little more than
a sandy wisp, as she came quietly in and took the
hand that Herbert held out to her, saying how glad
she was to see him on the mend.
He asked after some of the people
whom they had attended together, and listened to the
details, asking specially after one or two families,
where one or both parents had been taken away.
“Poor Cecil Poynsett is undertaking them,”
was the answer in each case. Some had been already
sent to orphanages; others were boarded out till places
could be found for them; and the Sisters had taken
charge of two.
Then one widow was to ‘do for’
the Vicar, who had taken solitary possession of the
Vicarage, but would soon be joined there by one or
more curates. He had been inducted into the ruinous
chancel of the poor old church, had paid the architect
of the Rat-house fifty pounds (a sum just equalling
the proceeds of the bazaar) to be rid of his plans;
had brought down a first-rate architect; and in the
meantime was working the little iron church vigorously.
“Everything seems to be beginning
there just as I go into exile!” said Mrs. Duncombe.
“It seems odd that I should have to go from
what I have only just learnt to prize. But you
have taught mo a good deal ”
“Every one must have learnt
a good deal,” said Herbert wearily. “If
one only has!”
“I meant you yourself, and that
is what I came to thank you for. Yes, I did;
even if you don’t like to hear it, your sister
does, and I must have it out. I shall recollect
you again and again standing over all those beds,
and shrinking from nothing, and I shall hold up the
example to my boys.”
“Do hold up something better!”
“Can you write?” she said abruptly.
“I have written a few lines to my mother.”
“Do you remember what you said
that night, when you had to hold that poor man in
his delirium, and his wife was so wild with fright
that she could not help?”
“I am not sure what you mean.”
“You said it three or four times. It was
only ”
“I remember,” said Herbert,
as she paused; “it was the only thing I could
recollect in the turmoil.”
“Would it tire you very much
to write it for me in the flyleaf of this Prayer-Book
that Mr. Charnock has given me?”
Herbert pulled himself into a sitting
posture, and signed to his sister to give him the
ink.
“I shall spoil your book,” he said, as
his hand shook.
“Never mind,” she said,
eagerly, “the words come back to me whenever
I think of the life I have to face, and I want them
written; they soothe me, as they soothed that frightened
woman and raving man.”
And Herbert wrote. It was only ’The
Lord is a very present help in trouble.’
“Yes,” she said; “thank
you. Put your initials, pray. There thank
you. No, you can never tell what it was to me
to hear those words, so quietly, and gravely, and
strongly, in that deadly struggle. It seemed
to me, for the first time in all my life, that God
is a real Presence and an actual Help. There!
I see Miss Bowater wants me gone; so I am off.
I shall hear of you.”
Herbert was exhausted with the exertion,
and only exchanged a close pressure of the hand, and
when Jenny came back, after seeing the lady to the
door, she thought there were tears on his cheek, and
bent down to kiss him.
“That was just the way, Jenny,”
his low, tired voice said. “I never could
recollect what I wanted to say. Only just those
few Psalms that you did manage to teach me before
I went to school, they came back and back.”
Jenny had no time to answer, for the
feet of Philip were on the stairs. He had been
visiting Mrs. Hornblower, and persuading her that
to make a dragoon of her son was the very best thing
for him great promotion, and quite removed
from the ordinary vulgar enlistment in the line till
he had wiled consent out of her. And though
Philip declared it was blarney, and was inclined to
think it infra dig. to have thus exerted his eloquence,
it was certain that Mrs. Hornblower would console
herself by mentioning to her neighbours that her son
was gone in compliment to Captain Bowater, who had
taken a fancy to him.
The relief to Herbert was infinite;
but he was by this time too much tired to do anything
but murmur his thanks, and wish himself safe back
in his bed, and Philip’s strong-armed aid in
reaching that haven was not a little appreciated.
Julius looked in with his mother’s
entreaty that Philip, and if possible his sister,
should come up to eat their Christmas dinner at the
Hall; and Herbert, wearily declaring that sleep was
all he needed, and that Cranky would be more than
sufficient for him, insisted on their accepting the
invitation; and Jenny was not sorry, for she did not
want a tete-a-tete with Philip so close to her patient’s
room, that whatever he chose to hear, he might.
She had quite enough of it in the
walk to the Hall. Phil, with the persistency
of a person bent on doing a kind thing, returned to
his York plan, viewing it as excellent relaxation
for a depressed, over-worked man, and certain it
would be a great treat to ‘little Herb.’
He still looked on the tall young man as the small
brother to be patronized, and protected, and dragged
out of home-petting; so he pooh-poohed all Jenny’s
gentler hints as to Herbert’s need of care and
desire to return to his work, until she was obliged
to say plainly that he had entreated her to beg it
might not be argued with him again, as he was resolved
against amusement for the present.
Then Phil grew very angry both with Herbert and Jenny.
“Did they suppose he wanted the boy to do anything
unclerical?”
“No; but you know it was by
nothing positively unclerical that he was led aside
before.”
Phil broke out into a tirade against
the folly of Jenny’s speech. In his view,
Herbert’s conduct at Wil’sbro’ had
confuted the Bishop’s censure, and for his own
part, he only wished to amuse the boy, and give him
rest, and if he did take him to a ball, or even out
with the hounds, he would be on leave, and in another
diocese, where the Bishop had nothing to do with him.
Jenny tried to make him understand
that dread of the Bishop was the last thing in Herbert’s
mind. It was rather that he did not think it
right to dissipate away a serious impression.
That was worse than before.
She was threatened with the most serious displeasure
of her father and mother, if she encouraged Herbert
in the morbid ascetic notions ascribed to Dr. Easterby.
“It was always the way with
the women they never knew where to stop.”
“No,” said Jenny, “I
did not know there was anywhere to stop in the way
of Heaven.”
“As if there were no way to
Heaven without making a fool of oneself.”
This answer made Jenny sorry for her
own, as needlessly vexatious, and yet she recollected
St. Paul’s Christian paradoxes, and felt that
poor Herbert might have laid hold of the true theory
of the ministry. At any rate, she was glad that
they were at that moment hailed and overtaken by the
party from the Rectory, and that Phil pounced at once
on Julius, to obtain his sanction to giving Herbert
a little diversion at York.
Julius answered more warily, “Does he wish it?”
“No; but he is too weak yet, and is hipped and
morbid.”
“Well, Phil, I would not put
it into his head. No doubt you would take very
good care of him, but I doubt whether your father would
like the Bishop to hear of him under the
circumstances going to disport himself
at the dragoon mess. Besides, I don’t think
he will be well enough before Lent, and then of course
he could not.”
This outer argument in a man’s
voice pacified Phil, as Julius knew it would, much
better than the deeper one, and he contented himself
with muttering that he should write to his father about
it, which every one knew he was most likely not to
do.
Who could have foretold last Christmas
who would be the party at that dinner? Mrs.
Poynsett at the head of her own table, and Miles in
the master’s place, and the three waifs from
absent families would have seemed equally unlikely
guests; while of last year’s party Charlie
was in India, Tom De Lancey with the aunts in Ireland,
Cecil at Dunstone. Mrs. Duncombe was perfectly
quiet, not only from the subduing influence of all
she had undergone, but because she felt herself there
like an intruder, and would have refused, but that
to leave her at home would have distressed her hostess.
Mrs. Poynsett had never seen her before, and after
all she had heard about her, was quite amazed at the
sight of such an insignificant little person as she
was without her dash and sparkle, and in a dress which,
when no longer coquettish, verged upon the slovenly.
Poor thing, she was waiting till the
Christmas visit of the elder Mrs. Duncombe’s
own daughter was over, so that there might be room
for her, and she was thankful for the reprieve, which
left her able to spend Christmas among the privileges
she had only learnt to value just as she was deprived
of them. She looked at Mrs. Poynsett, half in
curiosity, half in compunction, as she remembered how
she had helped to set Cecil against her.
“But then,” as she said
to Rosamond, in going home, “I had prejudices
about the genus belle-mere. And mine always knew
and said I should ruin her son, in which, alas! she
was quite right!”
“She will be pleased now,” said Rosamond.
“No, indeed, I believe she had
rather I were rapidity personified than owe the change
to any one of your Rector’s sort. I have
had a letter or two, warning me against the Sisters,
or thinking there is any merit in works of mercy.
Ah, well! I’ll try to think her a good
old woman! But if she had only not strained the
cord till it snapped, how much happier Bob and I should
have been!”
What a difference there is between
straining the cord for one’s self and for other
people! So Julius could not help feeling when
Herbert, in spite of all that could be said to him,
about morbid haste in renunciation, sent for the village
captain of the cricket-club, and delivered over to
him the bat, which had hitherto been as a knightly
sword to him, resigning his place in the Compton Poynsett
Eleven, and replying to the dismayed entreaties and
assurances of the young farmer that he would reconsider
his decision, and that he would soon be quite strong
again, that he had spent too much time over cricket,
and liked it too well to trust himself at it again.
That was the last thing before on
a New Year’s Day, which was like an April day,
Herbert came into church once more, and then was carried
off in the Strawyers carriage, lying back half ashamed,
half astonished, at the shower of strange tears which
the ecstatic shouts and cheers of the village boys
had called forth.