Mr. Cardew went off as usual away from what was before him.

"The duty of Christ's minister is, generally speaking, to take the other side—that is to say, to resist the verdicts passed by the world upon men and things. Preaching mere abstractions, too, is not by itself of much use. What we are bound to do is not only to preserve the eternal standard, but to measure actual human beings and human deeds by it. I sometimes think, too, it is of more importance to say this is right than to say this is wrong, to save that which is true than to assist into perdition that which is false. Especially ought we to defend character unjustly assailed. A character is something alive, a soul; to rescue it is the salvation of a soul!"

He stopped and seemed to wake up suddenly.

"Good-bye! God's blessing on you." He shook Tom's hand and was going out of the yard.

"There is just one thing more, sir: I do not want to leave Eastthorpe with such a character behind me—to leave in the dark, one may say, and not defend myself. It looks as if it were an admission I was wrong. I should, above everything, like to get to the bottom of it, and see who is the liar or what the mistake is."

"Nobody would listen to you, and if you were to make a noise Mr. Furze might prosecute, and with the evidence he has we do not know what the end might be; I will do my part, as I am bound to do, to set you right. But, above everything, Mr. Catchpole, endeavour to put yourself where the condemnation of the world and even crucifixion by it are of no consequence." Mr. Cardew gave Tom one more shake of the hand, mounted his horse, and rode off. He had asked Tom for no proofs: he had merely heard the tale and had given his certificate.

Mr Furze distinctly enjoined Orkid Jim to hold his tongue. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Furze wished to appear in court, and they were uncertain what Catharine might do if they went any further. Mr. Orkid Jim had the best of reasons for silence, but Mr. Humphries, the builder, of course repeated what he himself knew, and so it went about that Tom was wrong in his accounts, and all Eastthorpe affirmed him to be little better than a rascal. Mr. Cardew, with every tittle of much stronger and apparently irresistible testimony before him, never for a moment considered it as a feather's weight in the balance.

"But the facts, my good sir, the facts; the facts—there they are: the receipt to the bill; Jim's declaration; his brother's declaration; the marked coin; the absolute proof that Catchpole gave it to Butterfield, and he could not, as some may think, have changed silver of his own for it, for Mr. Furze paid him in gold, and there was not twenty shillings worth of silver in the till; what have you got to say? Do you tell me all this may be accident and coincidence? If you do, we may just as well give up reasoning and the whole of our criminal procedure."

Mr. Cardew did know the facts, the facts, and relying on them he delivered his judgment. Catharine, Phoebe, and Tom's father agreed with him—four jurors out of one thousand of full age; but the four were right and the nine hundred odd were wrong. In the four dwelt what aforetime would have been called faith, nothing magical, nothing superstitious, but really the noblest form of reason, for it is the ability to rest upon the one reality which is of value, neglecting all delusive appearances which may apparently contradict it.

Tom left Eastthorpe the next morning, and on that day Catharine received the following letter from her mother:

"MY DEAR CATHARINE,—I write to tell you that we have made an awful discovery. Catchpole has appropriated money belonging to your father, and the evidence against him is complete. (Mrs. Furze then told the story.) You will now, my dear Catharine, be able, I hope, to do justice to your father and mother, and to understand their anxiety that you should form no connection with a man like this. It is true that on the morning when we spoke to you we did not know the extent of his guilt, but we had suspected him for some time. It is quite providential that the disclosure comes—at the present moment, and I hope it will detach you from him for ever. Your father and I send our love, and please assure Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy of our regard.

"Your affectionate mother,

"AMELIA FURZE."

On the same morning Mr. Furze received the following note from Mr. Cardew:—

"DEAR SIR,—I regret to hear that a false charge has been preferred against my friend Mr. Catchpole. By my advice he has left Eastthorpe without any attempt to defend himself, but I consider it my duty to tell you he is innocent; that you have lost a faithful servant, and, what is worse, you have done him harm, not only in body, but in soul, for there are not many men who can be wrongfully accused and remain calm and resigned. You ask me on what evidence I acquit him. I know the whole story, but I also know him, and I know that he cannot lie. I beg you to consider what you do in branding as foul that which God has made good. I offer no apology for thus addressing you, for I am a minister of God's Word, and I have to do all that He bids. I should consider I was but a poor servant of the Most High if I did not protest against wrong-doing face to face with the doer of it.

"Faithfully yours,

"THEOPHILUS CARDEW."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Furze Were greatly incensed, and Mr. Cardew received the following reply, due rather to Mrs. than to Mr. Furze—

"SIR,—I am greatly surprised at the receipt of your letter. You have taken up the cause of a servant against his master, and a dishonest servant, too: you have taken it up with only an imperfect acquaintance with the case, and knowing nothing of it except from his representation. If you were the clergyman of this parish I might, perhaps, recognise your right to address me, although I am inclined to believe that the clergy do far more harm than good by meddling with matters outside their own sphere. How can we listen with respect to a minister who is occupied with worldly affairs rather than with those matters which befit his calling and concern our salvation? Sir, I must decline any discussion with you as to Mr. Catchpole's innocence or guilt, and respectfully deny your right to interfere.

"I am, sir,

"Your obedient servant,

"J. FURZE."

Catharine's first impulse was to go home instantly and vindicate Tom, but she did not move, and the letter remained unanswered. What could she say to her own parents which would meet the case or would be worthy of such a conspiracy? She would not be believed, and no good would be done. A stronger reason for not speaking was a certain pride and a determination to retaliate by silence, but the strongest of all reasons was a kind of collapse after she arrived at Chapel Farm, and the disappearance of all desire to fight. Her old cheerfulness began to depart, and a cloud to creep over her like the shadow of an eclipse. Young as she was, strange thoughts possessed her. The interval between the present moment and death appeared annihilated; life was a mere span; a day would go by and then a week, and in a few months, which could easily be counted, would come the end; nay, it was already out there, visible, approaching, and when she came to think what death really meant, the difference between right and wrong was worth nothing. Terrors, vague and misty possessed her, all the worse because they were not substantial. She could not put into words what ailed her, and she wrestled with shapeless clinging forms which she could hardly discern, and could not distangle from her, much less overthrow. They wound themselves about her, and although they were but shadows, they made her shriek, and at times she fainted under their grasp, and thought she could not survive. She had no peace. If soldiers lie dead upon a battle-field there is an end of them; new armies may be raised, but the enemy is at any rate weaker by those who are killed. It is not quite the same with our ghostly foes, for they rise into life after we think they are buried, and often with greater strength than ever. There is something awful in the obstinacy of the assaults upon us. Day after day, night after night, and perhaps year after year, the wretched citadel is environed, and the pressure of the attack is unremitting, while the force which resists has to be summoned by a direct effort of the will, and the moment that effort relaxes the force fails, and the besiegers swarm upon the fortifications. That which makes for our destruction, everything that is horrible, seems spontaneously active, and the opposition is an everlasting struggle.

At last the effect upon Catharine's health was so obvious that Mrs. Bellamy was alarmed, and went over to Eastthorpe to see Mrs. Furze. Mrs. Furze in her own mind instantly concluded that Tom was the cause of her daughter's trouble, but she did not mean to admit it to her. In a sense Tom was the cause; not that she loved him, but because her refusal of him brought it vividly before her that her life would be spent without love, or, at least, without a love which could be acknowledged. It was a crisis, for the pattern of her existence was henceforth settled, and she was to live not only without that which is sweetest for woman, but with no definite object before her. The force in woman is so great that something with which it can grapple, on which it can expend itself, is a necessity, and Catharine felt that her strength would have to occupy itself in twisting straws. It is really this which is the root of many a poor girl's suffering. As the world is arranged at present, there is too much power for the mills which have to be turned by it.

Mrs. Furze requested Mrs. Bellamy to send back Catharine at once in order that a doctor might be consulted. She returned; she did not really much care where she was; and to the doctor she went. Dr. Turnbull was the gentleman selected.



CHAPTER XVIII

Dr. Turnbull was the doctor who, it will be remembered, lived in the square near the church. There was another doctor in Eastthorpe, Mr. Butcher, of whom we have heard, but Dr. Turnbull's reputation as a doctor was far higher than Mr. Butcher's. What Eastthorpe thought of Dr. Turnbull as a man is another matter. Mr. Butcher was married, church- going, polite, smiling to everybody, and when he called he always said, "Well, and how are we?" in such a nice way, identifying himself with his patient. But even Eastthorpe had not much faith in him, and in very serious cases always preferred Dr. Turnbull. Eastthorpe had remarked that Mr. Butcher's medicines had a curious similarity. He believed in two classes of diseases—sthenic and asthenic. For the former he prescribed bleeding and purgatives; for the latter he "threw in" bark and iron, and ordered port wine. Eastthorpe thought him very fair for colds, measles, chicken-pox, and for rashes of all sorts, and so did all the country round. He generally attended everybody for such complaints, but as Mr. Gosford said after his recovery from a dangerous attack, "when it come to a stoppage, I thought I'd better have Turnbull," and Mr. Gosford sent for him promptly.

Dr. Turnbull was born three or four years before the outbreak of the French Revolution. He was consequently a little older than the great Dr. Elliotson, whose memory some of us still piously cherish, and Dr. Elliotson and he were devoted friends. Dr. Turnbull was tall, thin, upright, with undimmed grey eyes and dark hair, which had hardly yet begun to turn in colour, but was a little worn off his forehead. He had a curiously piercing look in his face, so that it was impossible if you told him an untruth not to feel that you were detected. He never joked or laughed in the sickroom or in his consulting-room, and his words were few. But what was most striking in him was his mute power of command, so that everybody in contact with him did his bidding without any effort on his part. He kept three servants—two women and a man. They were very good servants, but all three had been pronounced utterly intractable before they went to him. Master and mistress dared not speak to them; but with Dr. Turnbull they were suppressed as completely as if he had been Napoleon and they had been privates. He was kind to them, it is true, but at times very severe, and they could neither reply to him nor leave him. He did not affect the dress nor the manners of the doctors who preceded him. He wore a simple, black necktie, a shirt with no frill, and a black frock-coat. The poor worshipped him, as well they might, for his generosity to them was unexampled, and he took as much pains with them and was as kind to them as if they were the first people in Eastthorpe. He was perhaps even gentler with the poor than with the rich. He was very apt to be contemptuous, and to snarl when called to a rich man suffering from some trifling disorder who thought that his wealth justified a second opinion, but he watched the whole night through with the tenderness of a woman by the bedside of poor Phoebe Crowhurst when she had congestion of the lungs before she lived with Mrs. Furze. He saved that girl and would not take a sixpence, and when the mother, overcome with gratitude, actually fell on her knees before him and clung to him and sobbed and could not speak, he lifted her up with a "Nonsense, my good woman!" and quickly departed. He was a materialist, and described himself as one: he disbelieved in what he called the soap-bubble theory, that somewhere in us there is something like a bubble, which controls everything, and is everything, and escapes invisible and gaseous to some other place after death. Consequently he never went to church. He was not openly combative, but Eastthorpe knew his heresies, and was taught to shudder at them. His professionally religious neighbours of course put him in hell in the future, but the common people did not go so far as that, although they could not believe him saved. They somehow confounded his denial of immortality with his own mortality, and imagined he would be at an end when he was put into the grave. As time wore on the attitude, even of the clergy, towards the doctor was gradually changed. They hastened to recognise him on week- days as he walked in his rapid, stately manner through the streets, although if they saw him on Sundays they considered it more becoming to avoid him. He was, as we have seen, a materialist, but yet he was the most spiritual person in the whole district. He took the keenest interest in science; he was generous, and a believer in a spiritualism infinitely beyond that of most of his neighbours, for they had not a single spiritual interest. He was spiritual in his treatment of disease. He was before his age by half a century, and instead of "throwing in" drugs after the fashion of Butcher, he prescribed fresh air, rest, and change, and, above everything, administered his own powerful individuality. He did not follow his friend Elliotson into mesmerism, but he had a mesmerism of his own, subduing all terror and sanative like light. Mr. Gosford was not capable of great expression, but he was always as expressive as he could be when he told the story of that dreadful illness.

"He come into the room and ordered all the physic away, and then he sat down beside me, and it was just afore hay-harvest, and I was in mortal fright, and I said to him, 'Oh, doctor, I shall die.' Never shall I forget what I had gone through that night, for I'd done nothing but see the grave afore me, and I was lying in it a-rotting. Well, he took my hand, and he said, 'Why, for that matter, my friend, I must die too; but there's nothing in it; you won't complain when you find out what death is. You won't die yet, though, and you'll get this lot of hay in at any rate; what a heavy crop it is!' and he opened the winder and looked out. The way he spoke was wonderful, and what it was which come into me when he said, 'I must die too,' I don't know, but all my terrors went away, and I lay as calm as a child. 'Fore God I did, as calm as a child, and I felt the wind upon me across the meadow while he stood looking at it, and I could almost have got up that minute. I warn't out of bed for a fortnight, but I did go out into the hayfield, as he said."

Why did Dr. Turnbull come to Eastthorpe? Nobody ever knew while he lived. The question had been put at least some thousands of times, and all kinds of inquiries made, but with no result. The real reason, discovered afterwards, was simply that he had bad health, and that he had fled from temptation in the shape of a woman whom he loved, but whom duty, as he interpreted it, forbade him to marry, because he considered it wicked to run the risk of bringing diseased children into the world.

This was the man to whom Catharine went. Mrs. Furze went with her. He was perfectly acquainted with Mrs. Furze, and had seen Catharine, but had never spoken to her. Mrs. Furze told her story, which was that Catharine had no appetite, and was wasting from no assignable cause. The doctor sounded her carefully, and then sat down without speaking. There was undoubtedly a weakness in one lung, but he was not satisfied. He knew how difficult it is to get people to tell the real truth to a physician, and that if a third person is present, it is impossible. He therefore asked Mrs. Furze if she would step into the next room. "A girl," he said, "will not say all she has to say even to her mother." Mrs. Furze did not quite like it, but obeyed.

"Miss Furze," said the doctor, "I imagine you are a person who would not like to be deceived: you have a slight tenderness in the chest; there is no reasonable cause for alarm, but you will have to be careful."

Catharine's face lighted up a little when the last sentence was half finished, and the careful observer noticed it instantly.

"That, however, is not the cause of your troubles: there is something on your mind. I never make any inquiries in such cases, because I know if I did I should be met with evasions."

Catharine's eyes were on the floor. After a long pause she said—

"I am wretched: I have no pleasure in life; that is all I can say."

"If there is no definite cause for it—mind, I say that—I may do something to relieve your distress. When people have no pleasure in living, and there is no concrete reason for it, they are out of health, and argument is of no avail. If a man does not find that food and light and the air are pleasant, it is of no use to debate with himself. Have you any friends at a distance?"

"None."

"What occupation have you?"

"None."

"It is not often that people are so miserable that they are unable to make others less miserable. If instead of thinking about yourself you were to think a little about those who are worse, if you would just consider that you have duties and attempt to do them, the effort might be a mere dead lift at first, but it would do you good, and you would find a little comfort in knowing at the end of the day that, although it had brought no delight to you, it had through you been made more tolerable to somebody. Disorders of the type with which you are afflicted are terribly selfish. Mind, I repeat it, I presuppose nothing but general depression. If it is more than that I can be of no use."

Catharine was dumb, and Dr. Turnbull's singular power of winning confidence was of no avail to extract anything more from her.

"I am sorry you cannot leave home. I shall give you no medicine. With regard to the chest, the single definite point, you know what precautions to take; as to the nervous trouble, do not discuss, ponder, or even directly attack, but turn the position, if I may so speak, by work and a determination to be of some use. If you were tempted by what you call wicked thoughts you would not nurse them. It is a great pity that people are so narrow in their notions of what wicked thoughts are. Every thought which maims you is wicked, horribly wicked, I call it. By the way, going to another subject, that poor girl, Phoebe Crowhurst, who lived at your house, is very ill again. She would like to see you."

Catharine left, and Mrs. Furze came in.

"Has anything unsettled your daughter lately?"

"No, nothing particular."

She thought of Tom, but to save Catharine's life she would not have acknowledged that it was possible for a Catchpole to have power to disturb a Furze. Had it been Mr. Colston now, the case would have been different.

"She needs care, but there is nothing serious the matter with her. She ought to go away, but I understand she has no friends at a distance with whom she can stay. Give her a little wine."

"Any medicine?"

"No, none; I should like to see her again soon; good morning."

Phoebe's home was near Abchurch, and Catharine went over to Abchurch to see her, not without remonstrance on the part of Mrs. Furze, Phoebe having been discharged in disgrace. Her father was an agricultural labourer, and lived in a little four-roomed, whitewashed cottage about a mile and a half out of the village. The living-room faced the north-east, the door opening direct on the little patch of garden, so that in winter, when the wind howled across the level fields, it was scarcely warmer indoors than outside, and rags and dish-clouts had to be laid on the door-sill to prevent the entrance of the snow and rain. At the back was a place, half outhouse, half kitchen, which had once had a brick floor, but the bricks had disappeared. Upstairs, over the living- room, was a bedroom, with no fireplace, and a very small casement window, where the mother and three children slept, the oldest a girl of about fourteen, the second a boy of twelve, and the third a girl of three or four, for the back bedroom over the outhouse had been given up to Phoebe since she was ill. The father slept below on the floor. Phoebe's room also had no fireplace, and great patches of plaster had been brought down by the rain on the south-west side. Just underneath the window was the pigstye. Outside nothing had been done to the house for years. It was not brick built, and here and there the laths and timber were bare, and the thatch had almost gone. Houses were very scarce on the farms in that part, and landlords would not build. The labourers consequently were driven into Abchurch, and had to walk, many of them, a couple of miles each way daily. Miss Diana Eaton, eldest daughter of the Honourable Mr. Eaton, had made a little sketch in water-colour of the cottage. It hung in the great drawing-room, and was considered most picturesque.

"Lovely! What a dear old place!" said the guests.

"It makes one quite enamoured of the country," exclaimed Lady Fanshawe, one of the most determined diners-out in Mayfair. "I never look at a scene like that without wishing I could give up London altogether. I am sure I could be content. It would be so charming to get rid of conventionality and be perfectly natural. You really ought to send that drawing to the Academy, Miss Eaton."

That we should take pleasure in pictures of filthy, ruined hovels, in which health and even virtue are impossible, is a strange sign of the times. It is more than strange; it is an omen and a prophecy that people will go into sham ecstasies over one of these pigstyes so long as it is in a gilt frame; that they will give a thousand guineas for its light and shade—light, forsooth!—or for its Prout-like quality, or for its quality of this, that, and the other, while inside the real stye, at the very moment when the auctioneer knocks down the drawing amidst applause, lies the mother dying from dirt fever; the mother of six children starving and sleeping there—starving, save for the parish allowance, for the snow is on the ground and the father is out of work.

Crowhurst's wages were ten shillings a week, and the boy earned half a crown, but in the winter there was nothing to do for weeks together. All this, however, was accepted as the established order of things. It never entered into the heads of the Crowhursts to revolt. They did not revolt against the moon because she was sometimes full and lit everybody comfortably, and at other times was new and compelled the use of rushlights. It was so ordained.

Half a mile beyond the cottage was a chapel. It stood at a cross-road, and no houses were near it. It had stood there for 150 years, gabled, red brick, and why it was put there nobody knew. Round it were tombstones, many totally disfigured, and most of them awry. The grass was always long and rank, full of dandelions, sorrel, and docks, excepting once a year in June when it was cut, and then it looked raw and yellow. Here and there was an unturfed, bare hillock, marking a new grave, and that was the only mark it would have, for people who could afford anything more did not attend the chapel now. The last "respectable family" was a farmer's hard by, but he and his wife had died, and his sons and daughters went to church. The congregation, such as it was, consisted nominally of about a dozen labourers and their wives and children, but no more than half of them came at any one time. The windows had painted wooden shutters, which were closed during the week to protect the glass from stone-throwing, and the rusty iron gate was always locked, save on Sundays. The gate, the door, and the shutters were unfastened just before the preacher came, and the horrible chapel smell and chapel damp hung about the place during the whole service. When there was a funeral of any one belonging to the congregation the Abchurch minister had to conduct it, and it was necessarily on Sunday, to his great annoyance. Nobody could be buried on any other day, because work could not be intermitted; no labourer could stay at home when wife or child was dying; he would have lost his wages, and perhaps his occupation. He thought himself lucky if they died in the night.

The chapel was "supplied," as it was called, by an Abchurch deacon or Sunday-school teacher, who came over, prayed, preached, gave out hymns, and went away. That was nearly all that Cross Lanes knew of the "parent cause." The supplies were constantly being changed, and if it was very bad weather they stayed at home. On very rare occasions the Abchurch minister appeared on Sunday evenings in summer, but that was only when he wanted rest, and could deliver the Abchurch sermon of the morning, and could obtain a substitute at home.

Crowhursts had been buried at Cross Lanes ever since it existed, but the present Crowhursts knew nothing of their ancestors beyond the generation immediately preceding. What was there to remember, or if there was anything worth remembering, why should they remember it? Life was blank, blind, dull as the brown clay in the sodden fields in November; nevertheless, the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world shone into the Crowhurst cottage—that Light greater than all lights which can be lit by priest or philosopher, as the sun is greater than all our oil-lamps, gas, and candles. When Phoebe first had congestion of the lungs, not a single note of murmuring at the trouble caused escaped a soul in the household. The mother sat up with her at night, and a poor woman half a mile off came in during the day and saw that things went all straight. To be sure, there was Dr. Turnbull. It was a long way out of his rounds, but he knew the Crowhursts well, and, as we have said, he watched over Phoebe as carefully as if she had been the daughter of a duke. Now Phoebe was ill again, but Dr. Turnbull was again there, and although her cough was incessant, the care of father, mother, brother, and sister was perfect in its tenderness, and their self- forgetfulness was complete. It was not with them as with a man known to the writer of this history. His wife, whom he professed to love, was dying of consumption. "I do not deny she suffers," he said "but nobody thinks of me." The sympathy of the agricultural poor with one another is hardly credible to fine people who live in towns. If we could have a record of the devotion of those women who lie forgotten under the turf round country churches throughout England, it would be better worth preserving than nine-tenths of our literature and histories. Surely in some sense they still are, and their love cannot have been altogether a thing of no moment to the Power that made them!

Catharine had never been to Phoebe's home before. At the Terrace she was smart, attractive, and as particular as her mistress about her clothes. Nobody ever saw Phoebe with untidy shoes or stockings, and even in the morning, before she was supposed to be dressed, her little feet were as neat as if she had nothing to do but to sit in a drawing-room. She was now lying on a stump bedstead with a patchwork coverlet over her, and to protect her from the draughts an old piece of carpet had been nailed on a kind of rough frame and placed between her and the door. Catharine's first emotion when she entered was astonishment and indignation. Therein she showed her ignorance and stupidity. The owner of the cottage did not force the Crowhursts to live in it. It was not he who directed that a girl dying of consumption should lie close to a damp wall in a room eight feet square with no ventilation. He had the cottage, the Crowhursts, presumably, were glad to get it, and he conferred a favour on them.

"Oh, Miss Catharine," said Phoebe, "this is kind of you! To think of your coming over from Eastthorpe to see me, and after what happened between me and Mrs. Furze! Miss Catharine, I didn't mean to be rude, but that Orkid Jim is a liar, and it's my belief that he's at the bottom of the mischief with Tom. You haven't heard of Tom, I suppose, Miss?"

"Yes, he is in London. He is doing very well."

"Oh, I am very thankful. I am afraid you will find the room very close, Miss. Don't stay if you are uncomfortable."

Catharine replied by taking a chair and sitting by the bedside. There was somewhat in Phoebe's countenance, Catharine knew not what, but it went to her heart, and she bent down and kissed her upon the forehead. They had always been half-friends when Phoebe was at the Terrace. The poor girl's eyes filled with tears, and a smile came over her face like the sunshine following the shadow of a cloud sweeping over the hillside. Mrs. Crowhurst came into the room.

"Why, mother, what are you doing here? You ought to be abed. Where is Mrs. Dunsfold?"

"Mrs. Dunsfold is laid up with the rheumatics, my dear. But don't you bother; we can manage very well. I will stay with you at night, and just have a bit of sleep in the mornings. Your sister can manage after I've seen to father's breakfast and while I'm a-lying down, and if she wants me, she's only got to call."

The mother looked worn and anxious, as though, even with Mrs. Dunsfold's assistance, her rest had been insufficient.

"Mrs. Crowhurst," said Catharine, "go to bed again directly. If you do not, you will be ill too. I will stay with Phoebe, at least for to-night, if anybody can be found to go to Eastthorpe to tell my mother I shall not be home."

"Miss Catharine! to think of such a thing! I'm sure you shan't," replied Mrs. Crowhurst; but Catharine persisted, and a message was sent by Phoebe's brother, who, although so young, knew the way perfectly well, and could be trusted.

The evening and the darkness drew on, and everything gradually became silent. Excepting Phoebe's cough, not a sound could be heard save the distant bark of some farmyard dog. As the air outside was soft and warm, Catharine opened the window, after carefully protecting her patient. Phoebe was restless.

"Shall I read to you?"

"Oh, please, Miss; but there is nothing here for you to read but the Bible and a hymn-book."

"Well, I will read the Bible. What would you like?"

Phoebe chose neither prophecy, psalm, nor epistle, but the last three chapters of St. Matthew. She, perhaps, hardly knew the reason why, but she could not have made a better choice. When we come near death, or near something which may be worse, all exhortation, theory, promise, advice, dogma fail. The one staff which, perhaps, may not break under us, is the victory achieved in the like situation by one who has preceded us; and the most desperate private experience cannot go beyond the garden of Gethsemane. The hero is a young man filled with dreams and an ideal of a heavenly kingdom which he was to establish on earth. He is disappointed by the time he is thirty. He has not a friend who understands him, save in so far as the love of two or three poor women is understanding. One of his disciples denies him, another betrays him, and in the presence of the hard Roman tribunal all his visions are nothing, and his life is a failure. He is to die a cruel death; but the bitterness of the cup must have been the thought that in a few days—or at least in a few months or years—everything would be as if he had never been. This is the pang of death, even to the meanest. "He that goeth down to the grave," says Job, "shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more." A higher philosophy would doubtless set no store on our poor personality, and would even rejoice in the thought of its obliteration or absorption, but we cannot always lift ourselves to that level, and the human sentiment remains. Catharine read through the story of the conflict, and when she came to the resurrection she felt, and Phoebe felt, after her fashion, as millions have felt before, that this was the truth of death. It may be a legend, but the belief in it has carried with it other beliefs which are vital.

The reading ceased, and Phoebe fell asleep for a little. She presently waked and called Catharine.

"Miss Catharine," she whispered, drawing Catharine's hand between both her own thin hands, "I have something to say to you. Do you know I loved Tom a little; but I don't think he loved me. His mind was elsewhere; I—saw where it was, and I don't wonder. I makes no difference, and never has, in my thoughts,—either of him or of you. It will be better for him in every way, and I am glad for his sake. But when I am gone and I shan't feel ashamed at his knowing it—please give him my Bible; and you may, if you like, put a piece of my hair in that last chapter you have been reading to-night."

"Phoebe, my Phoebe, listen," said Catharine: "I shall never be Tom's wife."

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as that I am here with my head on your pillow."

"I am sorry."

She then became silent, and so continued for two hours. Catharine thought she was asleep, but a little after dawn her mother came into the room. She knew better, and saw that the silence was not sleep, but the insensibility of death. In a few minutes she hurried Catharine downstairs, and when she was again admitted Phoebe lay dead, and her pale face, unutterably peaceful and serious, was bound up with a white neckerchief. The soul of the poor servant girl had passed away—only a servant girl—and yet there was something in that soul equal to the sun whose morning rays were pouring through the window. She lies at the back of the meeting-house amongst her kindred, and a little mound was raised over her. Her father borrowed the key of the gate every now and then, and, after his work was over, cut the grass where his child lay, and prevented the weeds from encroaching; but when he died, not long after, his wife had to go into the workhouse, and in one season the sorrel and dandelions took possession, and Phoebe's grave became like all the others—a scarcely distinguishable undulation in the tall, rank herbage.



CHAPTER XIX

Catharine left the cottage that afternoon, and began to walk home to Eastthorpe. She thought, as she went along, of Phoebe's confession. She had loved Tom, but had reached the point of perfect acquiescence in any award of destiny, provided only he could be happy. She had faced sickness and death without a murmur; she had no theory of duty, no philosophy, no religion, as it is usually called, save a few dim traditional beliefs, and she was the daughter of common peasants; but she had attained just the one thing essential which religion and philosophy ought to help us to obtain, and, if they do not help us to obtain it, they are nothing. She lived not for herself, nor in herself, and it was not even justice to herself which she demanded. She had not become what she was because death was before her. Death and the prospect of death do not work any change. Catharine called to mind Phoebe's past life; it was all of a piece, and countless little incidents unnoticed at the time obtained a significance and were interpreted. She knew herself to be Phoebe's superior intellectually, and that much had been presented to her which was altogether over Phoebe's horizon. But in all her purposes, and in all her activity, she seemed to have had self for a centre, and she felt that she would gladly give up every single advantage she possessed if she could but depose that self and enthrone some other divinity in its place. Oh the bliss of waking up in the morning with the thoughts turned outwards instead of inwards! Her misery which so weighed upon her might perhaps depart if she could achieve that conquest. She remembered one of Mr. Cardew's first sermons, when she was at Miss Ponsonby's, the sermon of which we have heard something, and she cried to herself, "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death!"

Strange, but true, precisely at that moment the passion for Mr. Cardew revived with more than its old intensity. Fresh from a deathbed, pondering over what she had learned or thought she had learned there—the very lesson which ought to have taught her to give up Mr. Cardew—she loved him more than ever, and was less than ever able to banish his image from her. She turned out of her direct road and took that which led past his house—swept that way as irresistibly as a mastless hull is swept by the tide. She knew that Mr. Cardew was in the habit of walking out in the afternoon, and she knew the path he usually took. She had not gone far before she met him. She explained what her errand had been, and added that she preferred the bypath because she was able to avoid the dusty Eastthorpe lane.

"I do not know these Crowhursts," said Mr. Cardew; "they are Dissenters, I believe."

The subject dropped, and Catharine had not another word to say about Phoebe.

"You look fatigued and as if you were not very well."

"Nothing particular; a little cough at times, but the doctor says it is of no consequence, if I only take care."

"You have been up all night, and you are now going to walk back to Eastthorpe?"

"Yes, the walk will refresh me."

He did not ask her to go to his house. Catharine noticed the omission; hoped he would not—knew he would not.

"Have you heard anything of your father's assistant, Mr. Catchpole?"

"Yes, he likes that situation which you obtained for him so kindly."

"Is he quite happy?"

"Yes, I believe so."

"I encountered Mr. Colston, junior, a few minutes ago. He was on his way to Eastthorpe. I am afraid I was rather rude to him, for, to tell you the truth, I did not want his society. He is not an interesting young man. Do you care anything for him?"

"Nothing."

"I should like to see the picture you have formed of the man for whom you would care. I do not remember"—speaking slowly and dreamily—"ever to have seen a woman who would frame a loftier ideal."

He unconsciously came nearer to her; his arm moved into hers, and she did not resist.

"What is the use of painting pictures when reality is unattainable?"

"Unattainable! Yes, just what I imagined: you paint something unattainable to ordinary mortality. It is strange that most men and women, even those who more or less in all they do strive after perfection, seem to be satisfied with so little when it comes to love and marriage. The same sculptor, who unweariedly refines day after day to put in marble the image which haunts him, forms no such image of a woman whom he seeks unceasingly, or, if he does, he descends on one of the first twenty he meets and thinks he adores her. There is some strong thwarting power which prevents his search after the best, and it is as if nature had said that we should not pick and choose. But the consequences are tremendous. I honour you for your aspirations."

"You give me credit for a strength I do not possess, Mr. Cardew. I said 'unattainable.' That was all. I did not say how."

They had come to a gate which led out of the field into the road, and they paused there. They leaned against the gate, and Mr. Cardew, although his arm was withdrawn from Catharine's, had placed it upon the top rail so that she felt it. The pressure would not have moved an ounce weight; there were half a dozen thicknesses of wool and linen between the arm and her shoulder, but the encircling touch sent a quiver through every nerve in her and shook her like electricity. She stood gazing on the ground, digging up the blades of grass with her foot.

"Do you mean," said Mr. Cardew, "that you have ever seen him, and that—"

The pressure behind her was a little more obvious; he bent his head nearer to hers, looked in her face, and she leaned back on the arm heavily. Suddenly, without a word, she put both her hands to her head, pushed aside her hair, and stood upright as a spear.

"Good-bye," she said, with her eyes straight on his. Another second and she had passed through the gate, and was walking fast along the road homewards alone. She heard behind her the sound of wheels, and an open carriage overtook her. It was Dr. Turnbull's, and of course he stopped.

"Miss Furze, you are taking a long walk."

She told him she had been to see Phoebe, and of her death.

"You must be very tired: you must come with me." She would have preferred solitude, but he insisted on her accompanying him, and she consented.

"I believe I saw Mr. Cardew in the meadow: I have just called on his wife."

"Is she ill?"

"Yes, not seriously, I hope. You know Mr. Cardew?"

"Yes, a little. I have heard him preach, and have been to his house when I was living at Abchurch."

"A remarkable man in many ways, and yet not a man whom I much admire. He thinks a good deal, and when I am in company with him I am unaccountably stimulated, but his thinking is not directed upon life. My notion is that our intellect is intended to solve real difficulties which confront us, and that all intellectual exercise upon what does not concern us is worse than foolish. My brain finds quite enough to do in contriving how to remove actual hard obstacles which lie in the way of other people's happiness and my own."

"His difficulties may be different from yours."

"Certainly, but they are to a great extent artificial, and all the time spent upon them is so much withdrawn from the others which are real. He goes out into the fields reading endless books, containing records of persons in various situations. He is not like any one of those persons, and he never will be in any one of those situations. The situation in which he found himself that morning at home, or that in which a poor neighbour found himself, is that which to him is important. It is a pernicious consequence of the sole study of extraordinary people that the customary standards of human action are deposed, and other standards peculiar to peculiar creatures under peculiar circumstances are set up. I have known Cardew do very curious things at times. I do not believe for one moment he thought he was doing wrong, but nevertheless, if any other man had done them, I should have had nothing more to say to him."

"Perhaps he ought to have his own rules. He may not be constituted as we are."

"My dear Miss Furze, as a physician, let me give you one word of solemn counsel. Nothing is more dangerous, physically and mentally, than to imagine we are not as other people. Strive to consider yourself, not as Catharine Furze, a young woman apart, but as a piece of common humanity and bound by its laws. It is infinitely healthier for you. Never, under any pretext whatever, allow yourself to do what is exceptional. If you have any originality, it will better come out in an improved performance of what everybody ought to do, than in the indulgence in singularity. For one person who, being a person of genius, has been injured by what is called conventionality—I do not, of course, mean foolish conformity to what is absurd—thousands have been saved by it, and self-separation means mischief. It has been the beginning even of insanity in many cases which have come under my notice." The doctor paused a little.

"I am glad Mrs. Cardew is better," said Catharine. "I did not know she had been ill."

"There is a woman for you—a really wonderful woman, unobtrusive, devoted to her husband, almost annihilating herself for him, and, what is very noteworthy, she denies herself in studies to which she is much attached, and for which she has a remarkable capacity, merely in order that she may the better sympathise with him. Then her care of the poor in his parish makes her almost a divinity to them. While he is luxuriating amongst the cowslips, in what he calls thinking, she is teaching the sick people patience and nursing them. She is a saint, and he does not know half her worth. It would do you a world of good now, Miss Furze, to live with her for six months if she were alone, but I am not quite sure that his influence on you would be wholesome. I was alarmed about her, but she will not die yet if I can help it. I want her to recover for her own sake, but also for her husband's and for her friends' sake. Perhaps I was a little too severe upon the husband, for I believe he does really love her very much; at least, if he does not, he ought."

"Ought? Do you think, Dr. Turnbull, a man ought to love what he cannot love?"

"Yes, but I must explain myself. I have no patience with people who seem to consider that they may yield themselves to something they know not what, and allow themselves to be swayed by it. A man marries a woman whom he loves. Is it possible that she, of all women in the world, is the one he would love best if he were to know all of them? Is it likely that he would have selected this one woman if he had seen, say, fifty more before he had married her? Certainly not; and when he sees other women afterwards, better than the one he has chosen, he naturally admires them. If he does not—he is a fool, but he is bound to check himself. He puts them aside and is obliged to be satisfied with his wife. If it were permissible in him in such a case to abandon her, a pretty chaos we should be in. It is clearly his duty, and quite as clearly in his power, to be thus contented—at least, in nine cases out of ten. He may—and this is my point—he may wilfully turn away from what is admirable in his own house, or he may turn towards it. He is as responsible for turning away from it, or turning towards it, as he is for any of his actions. If he says he cannot love a wife who is virtuous and good, I call him not only stupid, but wicked—yes, wicked: people in Eastthorpe will tell you I do not know what that word means, because I do not go to church, and do not believe in what they do not believe themselves, but still I say wicked—wicked because he can love his wife, just as he can refrain from robbing his neighbour, and wicked because there is a bit of excellence stuck down before him for him to value. It is not intended for others, but for him, and he deserts the place appointed him by Nature if he neglects it."

"You have wonderful self-control, Dr. Turnbull. I can understand that a man might refrain from open expression of his love for a woman, whatever his passion for her might be, for, if he did not so restrain himself, he might mar the peace of some other person who was better than himself, and better deserved that his happiness should not be wrecked; but as for love, it may be beyond him to suppress it."

"Well, Miss Furze," replied the doctor, smiling, "we are going beyond our own experience, I hope. However, what I have said is true. I suppose it is because it is my business to cure disease that I always strive to extend the realm of what is subject to us. You seem to be fond of an argument. Some day we will debate the point how far the proper appreciation even of a picture or a melody is within our own power. But I am a queer kind of doctor. I have never asked you how you are, and you are one of my patients."

"Better."

"That is good, but you must be careful, especially in the evening. It was not quite prudent to sit up last night at the Crowhursts', but yet, on the whole, it was right. No, you shall not get down here; I will drive you up to the Terrace."

He drove her home, and she went upstairs to lie down.

"Commonplace rubbish!" she said to herself; "what I used to hear at Miss Ponsonby's, but dressed up a little better, the moral prosing of an old man of sixty who never knew what it was to have his pulse stirred; utterly incapable of understanding Mr. Cardew, one of whose ideas moves me more than volumes of Turnbull copybook."

Pulse stirred! The young are often unjust to the old in the matter of pulsation, and the world in general is unjust to those who prefer to be silent, or to whom silence is a duty. Dr. Turnbull's pulse was unmistakably stirred on a certain morning thirty years ago, when he crept past a certain door in Bloomsbury Square very early. The blinds were still all drawn down, but he lingered and walked past the house two or three times. He had come there to take a last look at the bricks and mortar of that house before he went to Eastthorpe, under vow till death to permit no word of love to pass his lips, to be betrayed into no emotion warmer than that of man to man. His pulse was stirred, too, when he read the announcement of her marriage in the Times five years afterwards, and then in a twelvemonth the birth of her first child. How he watched for that birth! Ten days afterwards she died. He went to the funeral, and after the sorrowing husband and parents had departed he remained, and the most scalding tears shed by the grave were his. It was not exactly moral prosing, but rather inextinguishable fire just covered with a sprinkling of grey ash.

With that dreadful capacity which some people possess, for the realisation of that which is not present, the parting with Mr. Cardew came before Catharine as she shut her eyes on her pillow: the arm was behind her—she actually felt it; his eyes were on hers; she was on fire, and once more, as she had done before, she cursed herself for what she almost called her cowardice in leaving him. She wrestled with her fancies, turned this way and that way; at times they sent the blood hot into her face, and she rose and plunged it into cold water. She was weary, but sleep was impossible. "Commonplace rubbish!" she repeated: "of what use is it to me?" She was young. When we grow old we find that what is commonplace is true. We must learn to bear our troubles patiently, says the copper-plate line for small text, and the revolving years bring nothing more. She heard outside a long-drawn breath, apparently just under the door. She opened it, and found Alice, her retriever. Alice came in, sat down by the chair, and put her head on her mistress's lap, looking up to her with large, brown, affectionate eyes which spoke almost. There is something very touching in the love of a dog. It is independent of all our misfortunes, mistakes, and sins. It may not be of much account, but it is constant, and it is a love for me, and does not desert me for anything accidental, not even if I am a criminal. That is because a dog is a dog, it may be said; if it had a proper sense of sin it would instantly leave the house. Perhaps so, perhaps not: it may be that with a proper sense of sin it would still continue to love me. Anyhow, it loves me now, and I take its fidelity to be significant of something beyond sin. Alice had a way of putting her feet on her mistress's lap, as if she asked to be noticed. When no notice was taken she generally advanced her nose to Catharine's face—a very disagreeable habit, Mrs. Furze thought, but Catharine never would check it. The poor beast was more than usually affectionate to-day, and just turned Catharine's gloom into tears. She was disturbed by a note from Dr. Turnbull. He thought that what she needed was rest, and she was to go to bed and take his medicine. This she did, and she fell into a deep slumber from which she did not wake till morning.

Mr. Cardew, when Catharine left him, walked homewards, but he went a long distance out of his way, much musing. As he went along something came to him—the same Something which had so often restrained Catharine. It smote him as the light from heaven smote Saul of Tarsus journeying to Damascus. His eyes were opened; he crept into an outhouse in the fields, and there alone in an agony he prayed. It was almost dark when he reached his own gate, and he went up to his wife's bedroom, where she lay ill. He sat down by the bed: some of her flowers were on a little table at her side.

"I am so ignorant of flowers, Doss (the name he called her before they were married); you really must teach me."

"You know enough about them."

He took her hand in his, put his head on the pillow's beside her, and she heard a gasp which sounded a little hysterical.

"What is the matter, my dear? You are tired. You have walked a long way."

She turned round, and then without another word he rose a little, leaned over her, and kissed her passionately. She never knew what his real history during the last year or two had been. He outlived her, and one of his sorrows when she was lying in the grave was that he had told her nothing. He was wrong to be silent. A man with any self-respect will not be anxious to confess his sins, save when reparation is due to others. If he be completely ashamed of them he will hold his tongue about them. But the perfect wife may know them. She will not love him the less: he will love her the more as the possessor of his secrets, and the consciousness of her knowledge of him and of them will strengthen and often, perhaps, save him.



CHAPTER XX

Mrs. Cardew recovered, but Dr. Turnbull recommended that as soon as she could be moved she should have an entire change, and at the end of the autumn she and her husband went abroad.

That winter was a bad winter for Mr. Furze. The harvest had been the worst known for years: farmers had no money; his expenses had increased; many of his customers had left him, and Catharine's cough had become so much worse that, except on fine days, she was not allowed to go out of doors. For the first time in his life he was obliged to overdraw his account at the bank, and when his wife questioned him about his troubles he became angry and vicious. One afternoon he had a visit from one of the partners in the bank, who politely informed him that no further advances could be made. It was near Christmas, and it was Mr. Furze's practice at Christmas to take stock. He set to work, and his balance- sheet showed that he was a poorer man by three hundred pounds than he was a twelvemonth before. Catharine did not see him on the night on which he made this discovery. He came home very late, and she had gone to bed. At breakfast he was unlike himself—strange, excited, and with a hunted, terrified look in the eyes which alarmed her. It was not so much the actual loss which upset him as the old incapacity of dealing with the unusual. Oh, for one hour with Tom! What should he do? Should he retrench? Should he leave the Terrace? Should he try and borrow money? A dizzy whirl of a dozen projects swung round and round in his brain, and he could resolve on nothing. He pictured most vividly and imagined most vividly the consequences of bankruptcy. His intellectual activity in that direction was amazing, and if one-tenth part of it could have been expended on the consideration of the next best thing to be done, not only would he have discovered what the next best thing was, but the dreadful energy of his imagination would have been enfeebled. He was sitting at his desk at the back of the shop with his head propped on his elbows, when he heard a soft footstep behind him. He turned round: it was Catharine.

"Dearest father," she said, "what is the matter? Why do you not tell me?"

"I am a ruined man. The bank refuses to make any further advances to me, and I cannot go on."

Catharine was not greatly surprised.

"Look at that," he said. "I don't know what to do; it is as if my head were going wrong. If I had lost a lot of money through a bad debt it would be different, but it is not that: the business has been going down bit by bit. There is nothing before us but starvation."

Catharine glanced at the abstract of the balance-sheet.

"You must call your creditors together and make a proposal to them. You will then start fair, and we will reduce our expenses. Nothing will be easier. We will live at the shop again; you will be able to look after things properly, and everything will go right—it will, indeed, father."

She was very tender with him, and her love and counsel revived his spirits. Suddenly she was seized with a fit of coughing, and had to sit down. He thought he saw a red stain on the pocket-handkerchief she put to her mouth.

"You shall not stay in this cold shop, my dear; you ought not to have come out."

"Nonsense, father! There is nothing the matter. Have you a list of your creditors?"

"Yes; there it is."

She glanced at it, and to her amazement saw Mr. Cardew's name down for 100 pounds.

"Mr. Cardew, father?"

"Yes; he came in one day, and said that he had some money lying idle, and did not know what to do with it. I was welcome to it if I wanted it for the business."

A statement was duly prepared by Mr. Askew, Mr. Furze's solicitor; the usual notice was sent round, and the meeting took place in a room at the Bell. A composition of seven-and-sixpence in the pound was offered, to be paid within a twelvemonth, with a further half-crown in two years' time, the debtor undertaking to give up his house in the Terrace.

"Considering," said the lawyer, "that the debts owing to the estate are nearly all good, although just now it is difficult to realise, I think, gentlemen, you are safe, and I may add that this seems to me a very fair proposal. My client, I may say, would personally have preferred a different course, and would like to bind himself to pay in full at some future time, but I cannot advise any such promise, for I do not think he would be able to keep it."

"I shall want some security for the half-crown," said Mr. Crook, representative of the firm of Jenkins, Crook, and Hardman, iron merchants in Staffordshire.

"Can't say as I'm satisfied," said Mr. Nagle, brass founder. "The debtor takes an expensive house without any warranty, and he cannot expect much consideration. I must have ten shillings now. Times are bad for us as well as for him."

Mr. Furze turned very white and rose to speak, but Mr. Askew pulled him down.

"I beg, gentlemen, you will not take extreme measures. Ten shillings now would mean a sale of furniture, and perhaps ruin. My client has been a good customer to you."

"I am inclined to agree with Mr. Nagle," said Mr. Crook. "Sentiment is all very well, but I do not see why we should make the debtor a present of half a crown for a couple of years. For my own part, if I want to be generous with my money, I have plenty of friends of my own to whom to give it."

There was a pause, but it was clear that Mr. Nagle's proposal would be carried.

"I am authorised," said a tall gentleman at the back of the room, whom Mr. Askew knew to be Mr. Carruthers, of Cambridge, head of the firm of Carruthers, Doubleday, Carruthers and Pearse, one of the most respectable legal firms in the county, "to offer payment in full at once."

"It is a pity," said Mr. Nagle, "that this offer could not have been made before. We might have been saved the trouble of coming here."

"Pardon me," replied Mr. Carruthers; "my client has been abroad for some time, and did not return till last night."

The February in which the meeting of Mr. Furze's creditors took place was unusually wet. There had been a deep snow in January, with the wind from the north-east. The London coaches had, many of them, been stopped both on the Norwich, Cambridge, and Great North roads. The wind had driven with terrible force across the flat country, piling up the snow in great drifts, and curling it in fantastic waves which hung suspended over the hedges and entirely obliterated them. Between Eaton Socon and Huntingdon one of the York coaches was fairly buried, and the passengers, after being near death's door with cold and hunger, made their way to a farmhouse which had great difficulty in supplying them with provisions. Coals rose in Abchurch and Eastthorpe to four pounds a ton, and just before the frost broke there were not ten tons in both places taken together. Suddenly the wind went round by the east to the south-west, and it began to rain heavily, not only in the Eastern Midlands, but far away in the counties to the west and south-west through which the river ran. The snow and ice melted very quickly, and then came a flood, the like of which had not been seen in those parts before. The outfall has been improved since that time, so that in all probability no such flood will happen again. The water of course went all over the low-lying meadows. For miles and miles on either bank it spread into vast lakes, and the only mark by which to distinguish the bed of the stream was the greater rush and the roar. Cottages were surrounded, and people were rescued by boats. Every sluice and mill-dam were opened, but the torrent poured past them, and at Cottington Mill it swept from millpool to tail right over the road which divided them, and washed away nearly the whole garden. When the rain ceased the worst had to come, for the upper waters did not reach Eastthorpe until three or four days later. Then there was indeed a sight to be seen! The southern end of Eastthorpe High Street was actually two feet under water, and a man in a boat—event to be recorded for ever in the Eastthorpe annals—went from the timber yard on one side of the street through the timber-yard gates and into the coal- yard opposite. Parts of haystacks, trees, and dead bodies of sheep and oxen drove down on the yellow, raging waves, and were caught against the abutments of the bridge. At one time it was thought that it must give way, for the arches were choked; the water was inches higher on the west side than on the east, and men with long poles stood on the parapet to break up the obstructions.

At last the flood began to subside, and on the afternoon of the day of the creditors' meeting Mr. Orkid Jim appeared at the boathouse at the bottom of Rectory Lane and asked to be taken across. The stream was still very strong, but the meadows were clear, and some repair was necessary to the iron work of a sluice-gate just opposite, which Jim wished to inspect before the men were set to work.

"Don't know as it's safe, Mr. Jim," said the boatman. "It's as much as ever I can get through. It goes uncommon strong against the willows there."

"You'll get through all right. I'll give yer a hand. I don't care to go a mile round over the bridge."

"Yes, that's all very well, Mr. Jim, but I don't want my boat smashed."

"Smashed! I am a lucky one, I am. No harm comes to any boat or trap as long as I'm in it."

The boatman consented. Just as he was about to push off, another man came down and asked for a passage. It was Tom Catchpole. Jim stared, but said nothing to him. The boatman also knew Tom, but did not speak. Jim now had half a mind to alter his intention of crossing.

"I don't know as I'll go," said he. "It does look queer, and no mistake."

"Well, don't keep me a-waitin', that's all."

Jim took his seat and went to the stern. Tom sat in the bow, and the boatman took the sculls. He had to make for a point far above the island, so as to allow for the current, and he just succeeded in clearing it. He then began to drift down to the landing-place in the comparatively still water between the island and the mainland.

Jim stood up with a boathook in his hand and laid hold of an overhanging willow in order to slacken their progress, but the hook stuck in the wood, and in an instant the boat was swept from under him and he was in the water. He went down like a stone, for he could not swim, but rose again just as he was passing. Tom leaned over the side, managed to catch him by the coat-collar and hold his head above water. Fortunately the boat had swung round somewhat, and in a few seconds struck the bank. It was made fast, and in an instant Jim was dragged ashore and was in safety.

"That's a narrow squeak for you, Mr. Jim. If it hadn't been for Mr. Catchpole you'd have been in another world by this time."

Jim was perfectly sensible, but his eyes were fixed on Tom with a strange, steady stare.

"Hadn't you better be moving and take off them things?"

Still he did not stir; but at last, without a word, he turned round and—slowly walked away.

"That's a rum customer," observed the boatman; "he might have thanked us at least, and he hasn't paid me. Howsomever, I shan't forget it the next time I see him."

Tom made no reply: gave the man double his usual fare and went across the meadow. He had no particular object in coming to Eastthorpe, excepting that he had heard there was to be a meeting of Mr. Furze's creditors, and he could not rest until he knew the result. He avoided the main street as much as possible, but he intended to obtain his information from Mr. Nagle at the Bell.

As to Jim, he went home, changed his clothes and went out again. He walked up and down the street, and presently met Tom.

"Mr. Catchpole," he said, "will you please come along o' me?"

There was something of authority in the tone of Jim's voice, and yet something which forbade all fear. Tom followed him in silence, and they went to the Terrace. Mr. Furze was not at home, but Jim knew he would back directly, and they waited in the kitchen, Tom much wondering, but restrained by some strange compulsion—he could not say what—not only to remain, but to refrain from asking any questions. Directly Mr. Furze returned, Jim went upstairs, with Tom behind him, and to the amazement of Mr. and Mrs. Furze presented him in the dining-room.

"What is the meaning of this?" said Mrs. Furze.

"Mrs. Furze," said Jim, "will you please excuse me, and allow me to speak for this once? I don't see Miss Catharine here. I want yer to send for her. Wot I've got to say, I mean to say afore you all."

Catharine was in her bedroom. She came down wrapped up in a shawl, and Jim stood up.

"Mr. Furze, Mrs. Furze, Miss Catharine, and you, Mr. Catchpole, you see afore you the biggest liar as ever was, and one as deserves to go to hell, if ever any man did. Everything agin Mr. Catchpole was all trumped up, for he never had Humphries' money, and it was me as put the marked sovereign in his pocket. I was tempted by the devil and by—but the Lord 'as 'ad mercy on me and 'as saved my body and soul this day. I can't speak no more, but 'ere I am if I'm to be locked up and transported as I deserve."

"Never," said Tom.

"You say never, Mr. Catchpole. Very well, then: on my knees I axes your pardon, and you won't see me agin." Jim actually knelt down. "May the Lord forgive me, and do you forgive me, Mr. Catchpole, for being such a—" (Jim was about to use a familiar word, but checked himself, and contented himself with one which is blasphemous but also orthodox)—"such a damned sinner."

He rose, walked out, left Eastthorpe that night, and nothing more was heard of him for years. Then there came news from an Eastthorpe man, who had gone to America, that Jim was at work at Pittsburg; that he was also a preacher of God's Word, and that by God's grace he had brought hundreds to a knowledge of their Saviour.

This story may be deemed impossible by the ordinary cultivated reader, but he will please to recollect John Bunyan's account of the strange behaviour of Mr. Tod. "At a summer assizes holden at Hertford," says Bunyan, "while the judge was sitting up on the bench, comes this old Tod into court, clothed in a green suit, with his leathern girdle in his hand, his bosom open, and all in a dung sweat, as if he had run for his life; and being come in, he spake aloud as follows: 'My Lord,' said he, 'here is the veriest rogue that breathes upon the face of the earth. I have been a thief from a child. When I was but a little one I gave myself to rob orchards, and to do other such like wicked things, and I have continued a thief ever since. My Lord, there has not been a robbery committed these many years, within so many miles of this place, but I have been either at it, or privy to it!' The judge thought the fellow was mad, but after some conference with some of the justices, they agreed to indict him; and so they did of several felonious actions; to all of which he heartily confessed guilty, and so was hanged with his wife at the same time." I can also assure my incredulous literary friends that years ago it was not uncommon for men and women suddenly to awake to the fact that they had been sinners, and to determine that henceforth they would keep God's commandments by the help of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. What is more extraordinary is that they did keep God's commandments for the rest of their lives. Fear of hell fire and hope of heaven may have had something to do with their reformation, but these were not the sole motives, and even if they were, the strength of mind necessary in order to sacrifice the present for the sake of something remote—a capacity which lies, we are told, at the basis of all virtue—was singular.



CHAPTER XXI

Tom was restored to his former position, and Mr. Furze's business began to improve. Arrangements were made for the removal from the Terrace, and they were eagerly pressed forward by Catharine. Her mother pleaded that they could not leave till June; that even in June they would sacrifice a quarter's rent, but Catharine's reply was that they would pay no more if they went beforehand. Her father was anxious to please her, and the necessary alterations at the shop were taken in hand at once, and towards the beginning of May were completed. She was not allowed to move to the High Street with her father and mother; it was thought that the worry and fatigue would be too much for her, and it was settled, as the weather was wonderfully warm, and bright for the time of year, that she should go over to Chapel Farm for a week. At the end of the week she would find the furniture all in its place and her room quite straight.

Mrs. Bellamy called for her, and she reached the farm in safety, and looking better. The next morning she begged to be taken for a drive. Mr. Bellamy had to go over to Thingleby, and she was able to go with him. It a lovely sunny day, one of those days which we sometimes have in May, summer days in advance of the main body, and more beautiful, perhaps, than any that follow, because they are days of anticipation and hope, our delight in the full midsummer being sobered by the thought of approaching autumn and winter. When they reached the bridge Mr. Bellamy remembered that he had forgotten his cheque-book and his money, and it was of no use to go to Thingleby without them.

"Botheration! I must go back, my dear."

"Leave me here, Mr. Bellamy; you won't be long. Let me get out, though, and just turn the mare aside off the road on to the grass against the gate; she will be quite quiet."

"Had you not better sit still? I shall be back in a quarter of an hour."

"If you do not mind, dear Mr. Bellamy, I should so like to stand on the bridge. I cannot let the gig stay there."

"Well, my dear, you shall have your own way. You know," he said, laughing, "I've long ago given up asking why my Catharine wants anything whatsomever. If she wishes it that's enough for me."

Catharine dismounted, and Mr. Bellamy walked back.

She went to the parapet and once more looked up the stream. Once more, as on a memorable day in August, the sun was upon the water. Then the heat was intense, and the heavy cumulus clouds were charged with thunder and lightning. Now the sun shone with nothing more than warmth, and though the clouds, the same clouds, hung in the south-west, there was no fire in them, nothing but soft, warm showers. She looked and looked, and tears came into her eyes—tears of joy. Never had a day been to her what that day was. She felt as if she lay open to all the life of spring which was pouring up through the earth, and it swept into her as if she were one of those bursting exultant chestnut buds, the sight of which she loved so in April and May. Always for years when the season came round had she gathered one of those buds and carried it home, and it was more to her than any summer flower. The bliss of life passed over into contentment with death, and her delight was so great that she could happily have lain down amid the hum of the insects to die on the grass.

When they came back to the farm Mr. Bellamy observed to his wife that he had not seen Catharine looking better or in better spirits for months. Mrs. Bellamy said nothing, but on the following morning Catharine was certainly not so well. It was intended that she should go home that day, but it was wet, and a message was sent to Eastthorpe to explain why she did not come. The next day she was worse, and Mrs. Bellamy went to Eastthorpe and counselled Mr. and Mrs. Furze to come to the Farm, and bring Dr. Turnbull with them. They all three came at once, and found Catharine in bed. She was feverish, and during the night had been slightly delirious. The doctor examined her carefully, and after the examination was over she turned to him and said—

"I want to hear the truth; I can bear it. Am I to die?"

"I know you can bear it. No man could be certain; but I believe the end is near."

"How much time have I?"

He sat down by the bedside. "Perhaps a day, perhaps a week. Is there anybody you wish to see?"

"I should like to see Mr. Cardew."

"Mr. Cardew!" said Dr. Turnbull to himself; "I fancied she would not care to have a clergyman with her; I thought she was a little beyond that kind of thing, but when people are about to die even the strongest are a little weak."

"She always liked Mr. Cardew's preaching," said Mrs. Furze, sobbing, "but I wish she had asked for her own rector. It isn't as if Mr. Cardew were her personal friend."

It was Saturday evening when the message was dispatched to Abchurch, but Mr. Cardew was fortunately able to secure a substitute for the morrow; Sunday morning came. Mrs. Furze, who had been sitting up all night, drew down the blinds at dawn, but Catharine asked, not only that they might be drawn up again, but that her bed might be shifted a little so that she might look out across the meadow and towards the bridge. "The view that way is so lovely," said she. It was again a triumphal spring day, and light and warmth streamed into the sick chamber.

Presently her mother went to take a little rest, and Mr. Cardew was announced almost immediately afterwards. He came upstairs, and Mrs. Bellamy, who had taken Mrs. Furze's place, left the room. She did not think it proper to intrude when the clergyman visited anybody who was dying. Mr. Cardew remained standing and speechless.

"Sit down, Mr. Cardew. I felt that I should like to see you once more."

He sat down by the bedside.

"Do you mind opening the window and drawing up the blind again? It has fallen a little. That is better: now I can see the meadows and away towards the bridge foot. Will you give me a glass of water?"

She drank the water: he looked steadily at her, and he knew too well what was on her face. Her hand dropped on the bed: he fell on his knees beside her with that hand in his, but still he was dumb, and not a single article of his creed which he had preached for so many years presented itself to him: forgiveness, the atonement, heaven—it had all vanished.

"Mr. Cardew, I want to say something."

"Wait a moment, let me tell you—you have saved me."

She smiled, her lips moved, and she whispered—

"You have saved me."

By their love for each other they were both saved. The disguises are manifold which the Immortal Son assumes in the work of our redemption.

* * * * *

Tom henceforth wore the ring on his finger. Mr. Cardew resigned his living, and did not preach for many years. When pressed for an explanation he generally gave his health as an excuse. Later in life he took up work again in a far distant, purely agricultural parish, but his sermons were of the simplest kind—exhortations to pity, consideration, gentleness, and counsels as to the common duties of life. He spent much of his time in visiting his parishioners and in helping them in their difficulties. Mrs. Cardew, as we have said, died before him, but no woman ever had a husband more tender and devoted than hers in these later years. He had changed much, and she knew it, but she did not know exactly how, nor did she know the reason. It was not the kind of change which comes from a new theory or a new principle: it was something deeper. Some men are determined by principles, and others are drawn and directed by a vision or a face. Before Mr. Cardew was set for evermore the face which he saw white and saintly at Chapel Farm that May Sunday morning when death had entered, and it controlled and moulded him with an all-pervading power more subtle and penetrating than that which could have been exercised by theology or ethics.



Footnotes:

{1} "Not now nor of yesterday are they, but for ever they live, and no one knows whence to date their appearance."—Sophocles, "Antigone."

{2} "You, yourself, some time or other, overcome by the terror-speaking tales of the seers, will seek to fall away from us."—Lucritius, "De Rerum Natura."

THE END