Perlycross: A Tale of the Western Hills

In the heat of foregone conclusion, and the terror created by the blacksmith's tale, and the sad condition of that faithful little Jess, the report had been taken as final. No further quest seemed needful; and at Squire Mockham's order, the empty space had been filled in at once, for fear of the excitement, and throng of vulgar gazers, gathering and thickening around the empty grave.

Such are the cases that make us wonder at the power of co-incidence, and the very strange fact that the less things seem to have to do with one another, the greater is their force upon the human mind, when it tries to be too logical.

Many little things, all far apart, had been fetched together by fine reasoning process, and made to converge towards a very fine error, with certainty universal.

Even that humble agent, or patient, little Jess– despised as a dog, by the many who have no delight in their better selves – had contributed very largely to the confluence of panic. If she could only have thrown the light of language on her woeful plight, the strongest clench to the blacksmith's tale would never have come near his pincers. For the slash that rewarded her true love fell, not from the spade of a Churchyard-robber, but from a poacher's bill-hook. This has already been intimated; and Mr. Penniloe must have learned it then; if he had simply taken time, instead of making off at five miles an hour, when Speccotty wanted to tell his tale. This should be a warning to Clergymen; for perhaps there was no other man in the parish, whose case the good parson would thus have postponed, without prospect of higher consolation. And it does seem a little too hard upon a man, that because his mind is gone astray unawares, his soul should drop out of cultivation!

That poor little spaniel was going home sadly, to get a bit of breakfast, and come back to her duty; when trespassing unwittingly upon the poacher's tricks, at early wink of daylight, she was taken for a minion of the Evil One, and met with a vigour which is shown too seldom, by even true sportsmen, to his emissaries. Perhaps before she quitted guard, she may have had a nip at the flowers on the grave, and dropped them back, when she failed to make sweet bones of them.

Without further words – though any number of words, if their weight were by the score, would be too few – the slowest-headed man in Perlycross might lay to his heart the second lesson, read in as mild a voice as Penniloe's, above. And without a word at all, he may be trusted to go home with it; when the job is of other folk's hands, but his own pocket.

"Never scamp your work," was preached more clearly by this long trouble, and degradation of an honourable parish, than if Mr. Penniloe had stood in the pulpit, for a week of Sundays, with the mouth of King Solomon laid to his ear, and the trump of the Royal Mail upon his lips.

CHAPTER XLIV.

AND ONE STILL FINER

If it be sweet to watch at ease the troubles of another, how much sweeter to look back, from the vantage ground of happiness, upon one's own misfortunes! To be able to think – "well, it was too bad! Another week would have killed me. How I pulled through it, is more than I can tell; for everybody was against me! And the luck – the luck kept playing leap-frog; fifty plagues all upon one another's back; and my poor little self at the bottom. Not a friend came near me; they were all so sorry, but happened to be frightfully down themselves. I assure you, my dear, if it had not been for you, and the thought of our blessed children, and perhaps my own – well, I won't say 'pluck,' but determination to go through with it; instead of arranging these flowers for dinner, you would have been wreathing them for a sadder purpose."

The lady sheds a tear, and says – "Darling Jack, see how you have made my hand shake! I have almost spoiled that truss of Hoya, and this Schubertia won't stand up. But you never said a word about it, at the time! Was that fair to me, Jack?" And the like will come to pass again, perhaps next year, perhaps next week.

But the beauty of country-life, as it then prevailed (ere the hungry hawk of Stock-exchange poised his wings above the stock-dove) was to take things gently, softly, with a cooing faith in goodness, both above us and around. Men must work; but being born (as their best friends, the horses, are), for that especial purpose, why should they make it still more sad, by dwelling upon it, at the nose-bag time? How much wiser to allow that turbulent bit of stuff, the mind, to abide at ease, and take things in, rather than cast them forth half-chewed, in the style of our present essayists?

Now this old village was the right sort of place, to do such things, without knowing it. There was no great leading intellect (with his hands returned to feet), to beat the hollow drum, and play shrill fife, and set everybody tumbling over his best friend's head. The rule of the men was to go on, according to the way in which their fathers went; talking as if they were running on in front, but sticking effectually to the old coat-tail. Which in the long run is the wisest thing to do.

They were proud of their church, when the Sunday mood was on, and their children came home to tell about it.

There she was. Let her stand; if the folk with money could support her. It was utterly impossible to get into their heads any difference betwixt the Church in the churchyard, and the one that inhabits the sky above. When a man has been hard at work all the week, let his wife be his better half on Sunday.

Nothing that ever can be said, or done, by the most ardent "pastor," will ever produce that enthusiasm among the tegs of his flock, which spreads so freely among the ewes, and lambs. Mr. Penniloe would not be called a Pastor; to him the name savoured of a cant conceit. Neither did he call himself a Priest; for him it was quite enough to be a Clergyman of the Church of England; and to give his life to that.

Therefore, when the time came round, and the turn of the year was fit for it, this Parson of that humbler type was happy to finish, without fuss, the works that he had undertaken, with a lofty confidence in the Lord, which had come to ground too often. His faith, though fine, had never been of that grandly abstract quality, which expects the ravens to come down, with bread instead of bills, and build a nest for sweet doves gratis. To pay every penny that was fairly due, and shorten no man of his Saturday wage, towards the Sunday consolation; to perceive that business must not be treated as a purely spiritual essence; and to know that a great many very good people drip away (as tallow does from its own wick) from their quick flare of promises; also to bear the brunt of all, and cast up the toppling column, with the balance coming down on his own chest – what wonder that he had scarcely any dark hair left, and even the silver was inclined to say adieu?

When a man, who is getting on in years, comes out of a long anxiety, about money, and honour, and his sense of right, he finds even in the soft flush of relief that a great deal of his spring is gone. A Bachelor of Arts, when his ticks have been paid by a groaning governor, is fit and fresh to start again, and seldom dwells with due remorse upon the sacrifice Vicarious. His father also, if of right paternal spirit, soars above the unpleasant subject; leaves it to the mother to drive home the lesson – which she feels already to be too severe – and says, "Well, Jack, you have got your degree; and that's more than the Squire's son can boast of."

But the ancient M.A. of ten lustres, who has run into debt on his own hook, and felt the hook running into him, is in very different plight, even when he has wriggled off. Parson Penniloe was sorely humble, his placid forehead sadly wrinkled, and his kindly eyes uncertain how to look at his brother men, even from the height of pulpit; when in his tremulous throat stuck fast that stern and difficult precept – "Owe no man anything."

Even the strongest of mankind can scarcely manage to come up to that, when fortune is not with him, and his family tug the other way. The glory of the Lord may be a lofty prospect, but becomes a cloudy pillar, when the column is cast up, and will not square with cash in hand. Scarcely is it too much to say, that since the days of Abraham, it would have been hard to find a man of stronger faith than Penniloe, – except at the times when he broke down (in vice of matters physical) and proved at one break two ancient creeds —Exceptio probat regulam; and Corruptio optimi pessima.

While he was on the balance now, as a man of the higher ropes should be, lifting the upper end of his pole, that the glory of his parish shone again, yet feeling the butt inclined to swag, by reason of the bills stuck upon it, who should come in to the audience and audit but young Sir Thomas Waldron? This youth had thought perhaps too little of himself, – because those candid friends, his brother-boys had always spoken of his body so kindly, without a single good word for his mind – but now he was authorized, and even ordered, by universal opinion to take a much fairer view of his own value.

Nothing that ever yet came to pass has gone into words without some shift of colour, and few things even without change of form; and so it would have been beyond all nature if the events above reported had been told with perfect accuracy even here. How much less could this be so, in the hot excitement of the time, with every man eager to excel his neighbour's narrative, and every woman burning to recall it with her own pure imagination! What then of the woman, who had been blessed enough to enrich the world, and by the same gift ennoble it, with the hero, who at a stroke had purged the family, the parish, and the nation?

Nevertheless he came in gently, modestly, and with some misgivings, into the room, where he had trembled, blushed, and floundered on all fours, over the old gray Latin steps, which have broken many a knee-cap.

"If you please, sir," he said to his old tutor, who alone had taught him anything, for at Eton he had barely learned good manners; "my mother begs you to read this. And we are all ashamed of our behaviour."

"No, Tom, no. You have no cause for that. Your mother may have been a little hard at first. But she has meant to be just throughout. The misery she has passed through – none but herself can realise."

"You see, sir, she does not sing out about things, as most women do; and that of course makes it ever so much worse for her."

The young man spoke, like some deep student of feminine nature; but his words were only those of the good housekeeper at Walderscourt. Mr. Penniloe took them in that light, and began to read without reply.

"Truly esteemed and valued sir. With some hesitation of the mind I come to say that in all I have said and done, my mind has been of the wrong intelligence most largely. It always appears in this land of Britain, as if nobody of it could make a mistake. But we have not in my country such great wisdom and good fortune. Also in any other European land of which I have the acquaintance, the natives are wrong in their opinions sometimes.

"But this does not excuse me of my mistake. I have been unjust to you and to all people living around my place of dwelling. But by my dear son, and his very deep sagacity, it has been made manifest that your good people were considered guilty, without proper justice, of a wrong upon my husband's memory. Also that your good church, of which he thought so well in the course of his dear life, has treated him not with ignominy, but with the best of her attention, receiving him into the sacred parts, where the Priests of our religion in the times of truth conversed. This is to me of the holiest and most gracious consolation.

"Therefore I entreat you to accept, for the uses of so good a building, the little sum herewith committed to your care, which flows entirely from my own resources, and not from the property of my dear husband, so much engaged in the distribution of the law. When that is disengaged, my dear son Rodrigo, with my approbation will contribute from it the same amount for the perfection of the matter."

"One, two, three, four, five. And every one of them a hundred pounds! My dear Tom, I feel a doubt – "

Mr. Penniloe leaned back and thought. He was never much excited about money, except when he owed it to, or for the Lord.

"I call it very poor amends indeed. What would ten times as much be, after all that you have suffered? And how can you refuse it, when it is not for yourself? My mother will be hurt most dreadfully, and never think well again of the Church of England."

"Tom, you are right;" Mr. Penniloe replied, while a smile flitted over his conscience. "I should indeed convey a false impression of the character of our dear mother. But as for the other £500 – well – "

"My father's character must be considered, as well as your good mother's." Sir Thomas was not strong at metaphor. "And I am sure of one thing, sir. If he could have known what would happen about him, and how beautifully every one behaved, except his own people – but it's no use talking. If you don't take it, I shall join the Early Methodists. What do you think of that, sir? I am always as good as my word, you know."

"Ah! Ah! It may be so;" the Curate answered thoughtfully, returning to the mildness of exclamation from which these troubles had driven him. "But allow me a little time for consideration. Your mother's very generous gift, I can accept without hesitation, and have no right to do otherwise. But as to your father's estate, I am placed in a delicate position, by reason of my trusteeship; and it is possible that I might go wrong; at any rate, I must consult – "

"Mrs. Fox, sir, from Foxden!" Thyatira Muggridge cried, with her face as red as a turkey's wattle, and throwing the door of the humble back-room as wide as if it never could be wide enough. For the lady was beautifully arrayed.

"I come to consult, not to be consulted. My confidence in myself has been misplaced;" said the mother of Jemmy and Christie, after making the due salutation. "Sir Thomas, I beg you not to go. You have some right to a voice in the matter; if as they tell me at Old Barn, you have conquered your repugnance to my son, and are ready to receive him as your brother-in-law."

"Madam, I was a fool," said Tom, offering his great hand with a sheepish look. "Your son has forgiven me; and I hope that you will. Jemmy is the finest fellow ever born."

"A credit to his mother, as his mother always thought. And what is still better for himself, a happy man, in winning the affections of the sweetest girl on earth. I have seen your dear sister – what a gentle darling!"

"Nicie is very well in her way, madam. But she has a strong will of her own. Jemmy will find that out, some day. Upon the whole, I am sorry for him."

"He talks in the very same way of his sister. If young men listened to young men, none of them would ever marry. Oh, Mr. Penniloe, you can be trusted at any rate, to look at things from a higher point of view."

"I try sometimes; but it is not easy. And I generally get into scrapes, when I do. But I have one consolation. Nobody ever takes my advice."

"I mean to take it," Mrs. Fox replied, looking into his gentle eyes, with the faith which clever women feel in a nature larger than their own. "You need not suppose that I am impulsive. But I know what you are. When every one else in this stupid little place condemned my son, without hearing a word, there was one who was too noble, too good a Christian, to listen to any reason. He was right when the mother herself was wrong. For I don't mind telling you, as I have even told my son, that knowing what he is, I could not help suspecting that he – that he had something to do with it. Not that Lady Waldron had any right whatever – and it will take me a long time to forgive her, and her son is quite welcome to tell her that. What you felt yourself was quite different, Sir Thomas."

"I can't see that my mother did any harm. Why, she even suspected her own twin-brother! If you were to bear ill-will against my mother – "

"Of such little tricks I am incapable, Sir Thomas. And of course I can allow for foreigners. Even twenty years of English life cannot bring them to see things as we do. Their nature is so – well, I won't say narrow. Neither will I say 'bigoted,' although – "

"We quite understand you, my dear madam." Mr. Penniloe was shocked at his own rudeness, in thus interrupting a lady, but he knew that very little more would produce a bad breach betwixt Walderscourt and Foxden. "What a difference really does exist among people equally just and upright – "

"My dear mother is as just and upright as any Englishwoman in the world, Protestant or Catholic," the young man exclaimed, having temper on the bubble, yet not allowing it to boil against a lady. "But if his own mother condemned him, how – I can't put it into words, as I mean it – how can she be in a wax with my mother? And more than that – as it happens, Mrs. Fox, my mother starts for Spain to day, and I cannot let her go alone."

"Now the Lord must have ordered it so," thought the Parson. "What a clearance of hostile elements!" But fearing that the others might not so take it, he said only – "Ah, indeed!"

"To her native land?" asked Mrs. Fox, as a Protestant not quite unbigoted; and a woman who longed to have it out. "It seems an extraordinary thing just now. But perhaps it is a pilgrimage."