This report frightened John, who wrote back urgently for further particulars. Mrs. Wesley had indeed fallen into a low state of health, occasioned partly (as Kezzy declared in a letter) by "want of clothes or convenient meat," partly by the miasma from the floods. Ague was the commonest of maladies in the Isle of Axholme, and even the labourers fortified themselves against it with opium.

"Dear son John," replied the Rector sardonically, "we received last post your compliments of condolence and congratulation to your mother on the supposition of her near approaching demise, to which your sister Patty will by no means subscribe; for she says she is not so good a philosopher as you are, and that she can't spare her mother yet, if it please God, without great inconveniency. And indeed, though she has now and then some very sick fits, yet I hope the sight of you would revive her. However, when you come you will see a new face of things, my family being now pretty well colonised, and all perfect harmony—much happier, in no small straits, than perhaps we ever were in our greatest affluence."

Molly, while she helped to cook the miserable meals which could not tempt her mother's appetite, or looked abroad upon the desolate floods, saw with absolute clearness that this apparent peace was but the peace of exhaustion. Yet it was true that—thanks to her—the pinch of poverty had relaxed. The larger debts were paid: for some months she had not opened the door to a dunning tradesman. The floods, as by a miracle, had spared her crops and she had a scheme for getting her surplus vegetables conveyed to Epworth market. Already she had opened up a trade in fowls with a travelling dealer. "Molly," wrote her father, "miraculously gets money even in Wroote, and has given the first fruit of her earning to her mother, lending her money, and presenting her with a new cloak of her own buying and making, for which God will bless her."

Her secret dissent did not escape the Rector's eye, so alert for every sign of defiance: but in his expanding sense of success he let it pass. There was another, however, who divined it and watched it anxiously day after dreary day, for it answered a trouble in his own breast.

Johnny Whitelamb was now almost a man grown: but what really separated him from the Johnny Whitelamb of two years ago was no increase in stature or in knowledge. That which grew within him, and still grew, defying all efforts to kill it, was—a doubt. It had been born in him—no bigger then than a grain of mustard-seed—on the day when he sought Hetty to send her to the house where William Wright waited for her answer. Until then the Rector had been to him a divine man, in wisdom and goodness very little lower than the angels. And now—

He fought it hard, at first in terror, at length in cold desperation. But still the doubt grew. And the worst was that Molly guessed his secret. He feared to meet her eye. It seemed to him that he and she were bound in some monstrous conspiracy. He spent hours in wrestling with it. At times he would rise from table on some stammered excuse, rush off to the fields and there, in a hidden corner, fall on his knees and pray, or even lie at full length, his face hidden in the grasses, his body writhing, his ungainly legs twisting and untwisting. And still the doubt grew.

Everything confirmed it. He saw the suffering by which mother and daughters were yoked. He noted the insufficient food, the thin clothing, the wan cheeks, the languid tread. He no longer took these for granted, but looked into their causes. And the Rector's blindness to them, or indifference, became a terror to him—a thing inhuman.

He began to think him mad. Worse, he began to hate him: he, Johnny Whitelamb, who had taken everything at his hands—food, clothing, knowledge, even his faith in God! He accused himself for a monster of ingratitude, whose sins invited the sky to fall and blot him out. And still he could not meet Molly's eyes; still, in spite of checks and set-backs, the doubt grew.

It was almost at its worst one morning in late August, when the Rector invited him to lay by his drawings and walk beside him as far as Froddingham, where he had business to transact. (It was to pay over 5 pounds, and meet a note given by him in the spring to keep Charles in pocket-money.) Had Johnny been in a more charitable mood, the accent in which the old man proffered the invitation would have struck him as pathetic. For the Rector it was indeed a rare confession of weakness. But three weeks before his purblind nag Mettle had stumbled, flung him, trailed him a few yards on the ground with one foot in the stirrup, and come to a standstill with one hoof planted blunderingly on his other foot. It had been a narrow escape, had caused him excruciating pain, and he limped still. To walk, even with a stick, was impossible. But the money must be paid at Froddingham and he would trust no messenger. So he mounted the mare, Bounce, and set forth at a foot-pace, with Johnny striding alongside and noting how the white palsied hand shook on the rein. Johnny noted it without pity: for the doubt was awake and clamorous. If ever he hated his benefactor, he hated him that morning.

The morning was gray, with a blusterous south-west wind of more than summer strength; and the floods had subsided, but the Trent, barely contained within its banks, was running down on a fierce ebb-tide. They reached Althorpe, and while waiting for the horse-boat to cross to Burringham, Johnny found time to wonder at the force of two or three gusts which broke on the lapping water and drove it like white smoke against the bows of a black keel, wind-bound and anchored in mid-channel about fifty yards down-stream.

It turned out that the ferryman, who worked the horse-boat with his eldest son, had himself walked over to Bottesford earlier in the morning: and Johnny felt some uneasiness at finding his place supplied by a boy scarcely fourteen. Mr. Wesley, however, seemed in no apprehension, but coaxed Bounce to embark and stood with her amidships, holding her bridle, as the boat was pushed off. Johnny took his seat, fronting the elder lad, who pulled the stern oar.

They started in a lull of the wind. Johnny's first thought of danger had never been definite, and he had forgotten it—was busy in fact with the doubt—when, half-way across, one of the white squalls swooped down on them and the youngster in the bows, instead of pulling for dear life, dropped his oar with a face of panic.

Johnny felt the jerk, heard the Rector's cry of warning, and in two seconds (he never knew how) had leapt over the stern oar, across the thwarts, past the kicking and terrified Bounce—with whom the Rector was struggling as she threatened to leap overboard—and reached the bows in time to snatch the oar as it slipped over the side. But it had snapped both the thole-pins short off in their sockets and was useless. The boat's nose fell off and they were swept down towards the anchored hulk below. Johnny could only wait for the crash, and he waited: and in those few instants—the doubt being still upon him—bethought him that likely enough the Rector could not swim, or would be disabled by his lameness. And . . . was he sorry? He had not answered this question when the crash came—the ferry-boat striking the very stem of the keel, her gunwale giving way to it with a slow grinding noise, then with a bursting crack as the splinters broke inwards. As it seemed to him, there were two distinct bumps, and between them the boat filled slowly and the mare slid away into the water. He heard voices shouting on board the keel. The water rose to his knees and he sank in it, almost on top of Mr. Wesley. At once he felt the whirl of the current, but not before he had gripped the Rector's collar. The other hand he flung up blindly. By Providence the keel was freighted with sea-coal and low in the water, and as the pair slid past, Johnny's fingers found and gripped the bulwark-coaming. So for a half-minute he hung—his body and the Rector's trailing out almost on the surface with the force of the water, his arm almost dislocated by the strain—until a couple of colliers came running to help and hauled them on board, the Rector first. They had gripped the small boy as the boat sank, and he stood in the bows scared and dripping, but otherwise nothing the worse. His brother, it appeared, could swim like a fish and was already a good hundred yards downstream, not fighting the current, but edging little by little for the home shore. And astern of him battled the mare.

The colliers had a light boat on deck, but with it even in calm water they could have done little to help the poor creature, and on such a stream it was quite useless. They stood watching and discussing her as she turned from time to time, either as the tide carried her or in vain, wild efforts to stem it: the latter, probably, for after some ten minutes (by which time her head had diminished to a black speck in the distance) she seemed to learn wisdom from the example of the swimmer ahead, resisted no longer, and was finally cast ashore and caught by him more than half a mile below.

Johnny, seated on the grimy deck, heard the colliers discussing her struggles, but took no concern in them. His eyes were all for the Rector, who, after the first fit of coughing, lay and panted against his knees, with gaze fastened on the steel-gray sky above.

He had saved his life. But had he really desired to? The action had been instinctive merely: and a moment before he had been speculating on the Rector's death, assenting, almost hoping! Had he translated that assent into deed—had he been given time to obey the wicked whisper in his heart—he would now be the blackest criminal under heaven. God had interposed to save him from this: but was he any the less a sinner in intent?

How had he come to harbour the thought? For now again it was to him unthinkable as of old—yet in his madness he had thought it. There abode the memory, never to be escaped. He looked down on the venerable face, the water-drops yet trickling from the brow, usually tinted with exposure to sun and wind but now pale as old ivory. The old adoration, the old devotion surged back into Johnny's heart, the tide rose to his eyes and overflowed. "My master!" he groaned, "my master!" and a tear fell upon Mr. Wesley's hand.

Whether or not this aroused him, the old man sat up at once and looked about him. He showed no emotion at all.

"Where is the mare?" he asked.

One of the keelmen pointed down-stream, and the little party stared after her in silence until she staggered up the bank.

"All saved?" asked Mr. Wesley again. "My friends, before you put me ashore, I will ask you to kneel with me and give thanks for God's mercy to me a sinner." The men stared at him and at one another, not a little embarrassed. But seeing the Rector and Johnny already on their knees in the grime, they pulled off their caps sheepishly and knelt: and after a moment the frightened youngster in the bows followed suit.

"Almighty God, who aforetime didst uphold Thy great apostle in shipwreck and bring him safe to land, and hast now again interposed an arm to succour two of this company and me, the unworthiest of Paul's successors; though our merits be as nothing in comparison with his, and as nothing the usefulness whereto Thou hast preserved us, we bless Thee that Thy mercy is high and absolute, respecting not persons; we thank Thee for giving back the imperfect lives Thou mightest in justice have brought to an end; and we entreat Thee for grace so to improve the gift as through it to receive more fitly the greater one of everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our soul's Saviour. Amen.".

He knelt for a minute, praying silently; then arose, dusted his knees and professed himself ready to be rowed ashore. The keelmen slid their deck-boat overside, and presently all embarked and were tided back to shore, the boat taking ground about fifty yards above the bend where Bounce stood shivering, caked in mud to her withers.

The Rector thanked the keelmen in few words while Johnny ran to fetch the mare. They were pulling back when he returned with her. The elder lad invited Mr. Wesley to the ferryman's cottage, to sit and dry his clothes: but he declined.

Johnny helped him to remount. Scarcely a word passed on their homeward way beyond a comment or two on poor Bounce, who had strained her near shoulder in her plunging battle for life and was all but exhausted. At the Parsonage door they parted, still in silence, and Johnny led the mare off to stable. He did not know if Mr. Wesley had observed his emotion, and his own heart was too full of love and remorse for any words.

But an hour later word came to him by Kezzy that her father wished to speak with him in the study. He went at once, wondering, and found the Rector seated as usual before his manuscripts, but alone.

"My lad," he began kindly, "you saved my life to-day."

Johnny attempted to speak, but could not.

"I know what you would say. We owe one another something, eh? But this is a debt which I choose to acknowledge at once. None the less I wish you to understand that although your conduct to-day hastens my proposal, it has been in my head for some time. Whitelamb, would you like to go to Oxford?"

Johnny gasped. "Sir—sir!" he stammered.

Mr. Wesley smiled. "I will speak to Jack. I think it can be managed if he will take you for his pupil, as no doubt he will. You cannot well be poorer than I was on the day when I entered my name at Exeter College. There, go away and think it over! There's no hurry, you understand: if you are to go, I must first of all hammer some Greek into you—eh? What is it?"

For Johnny had cast himself on his knees, and was sobbing aloud.

At supper Molly, to whom her mother had whispered the news, announced it to her sisters, who knew only of the accident and Johnny's hand in the rescue.

"Yes," said she, "we are all proud of him, and shall be prouder before long, when he goes to Oxford!"

"Why to Oxford?" asked Patty, not comprehending, and sought her mother's eyes for the interpretation. Mrs. Wesley smiled.

"Why, to be a great man," Molly went on; "perhaps in time as great as Jack or Charles." Johnny, in his usual seat by the chimney-corner, detected the challenge in her tone, but did not look up.

"Is it true?" persisted Patty. He stared into the fire, blushing furiously.

"It is true." Mrs. Wesley rose, and stepping to him laid a hand on his straggling dark hair. "What is more, he has deserved it, not to-day only but by his goodness over many years. The Lord shall be his illumination," she said gravely, quoting the motto of the University which (amazing thought!) was to be his University. "May the light of His countenance rest upon you, dear son."

She had never called him by that title before. He caught her hand and for the moment, in the boldness of a great love, clasped it between his own. Now he could look across at Molly: and she nodded back at him, her eyes brimful—but behind her tears they gave him absolution and released him from the doubt.



CHAPTER IV.

This was at the close of August, 1728, and the Rector's letter entreating his good offices for Johnny Whitelamb reached John Wesley on the eve of his taking Priest's Orders, for which he was then preparing at Oxford. He was ordained priest on September 22nd, and a week later had news from William Wright in London that Hetty's third child was born—and was dead.

This is how the father announced his loss:

"To the Revd. Mr. John Wesley, Fellow in Christ Church College, Oxon"

John smiled at the superscription, inaccurate in more ways than one.

"Dear Bro: This comes to Let you know that my wife is brought to bed and is in a hopefull way of Doing well but the Dear child Died—the Third day after it was born—which has been of great concerne to me and my wife She Joyns With me In Love to your selfe and Bro: Charles. From Your Loveing Bro: to Comnd— Wm. Wright.

"P.S. I've sen you Sum Verses that my wife maid of Dear Lamb Let me hear from one or both of you as Soon as you think Convenient."

And these are Hetty's verses inclosed.

A Mother's Address to Her Dying Infant

"Tender softness, infant mild, Perfect, purest, brightest Child! Transient lustre, beauteous clay, Smiling wonder of a day! Ere the last convulsive start Rend thy unresisting heart, Ere the long-enduring swoon Weigh thy precious eyelids down, Ah, regard a mother's moan! —Anguish deeper than thy own.

"Fairest eyes, whose dawning light Late with rapture blest my sight, Ere your orbs extinguish'd be, Bend their trembling beams on me!

"Drooping sweetness, verdant flower Blooming, withering in an hour, Ere thy gentle breast sustain Latest, fiercest, mortal pain, Hear a suppliant! Let me be Partner in thy destiny: That whene'er the fatal cloud Must thy radiant temples shroud; When deadly damps, impending now, Shall hover round thy destin'd brow, Diffusive may their influence be, And with the blossom blast the tree!"

Mr. Wright inclosed these verses complacently enough. Poetry in his eyes was an elegant accomplishment vaguely connected with scholarship and gentility: and he took pride in possessing a wife who, as he more than once assured his cronies in the parlour of the "Turk's Head" at the end of the street, could sit down and write it by the yard.

To please Hetty he read them through, pronounced them very pretty, and folded up the paper, remarking, "I'll send it off to your brother John. He likes this sort of thing, and when he learns 'twas written in your weak state he'll think it wonderful."

Of the anguish in the closing lines his eye detected, his ear heard, nothing.

Yet it was an anguish which daily touched despair in Hetty's heart. God had laid a curse on her, and would not be placated by the good behaviour on which she had built her hopes. She had borne three children, and not one had He suffered to live for a week. No matter how many she might bear, the same fate stood ready for them. Nor was this all. She saw Him smiting, through these innocent babes, at her husband's love. Little by little she felt it relaxing and sinking through carelessness into neglect: and the whole scheme of her atonement rested on his continuing fondness. She had never loved him, but his love was, if not infinitely precious, of infinite moment to her. She needed it to sustain her and keep her in the right way. She omitted no small attentions which might make home pleasant to him. She kept the house bright (they had moved into Frith Street and lived over the shop), and unweariedly coaxed his appetite with her cookery, in which—and especially in pastry-making—she had a born gift. The fumes of the lead-works at the back often took her own appetite away and depressed her spirits, but she never failed to rouse herself and welcome him with a smile. Also (but this was to please herself) sometimes by a word of advice in the matter of toilet or of clothes, oftener by small secret attentions with the needle, she had gradually reformed his habits of dress until now he might pass for a London tradesman of the superior class, decently attired, well shaven and clean in his person. He resigned himself to these improvements with much good-nature and so passed through his metamorphosis almost without knowing it. She practised small economies too; and he owned (though he set it down to his own industry) that his worldly affairs were more prosperous than ever they had been before his marriage. But the fumes of the lead-works affected his appetite, too, and his spirits: and when these flag a man has an easy and specious remedy in brandy-and-water. By and by it became a habit with him, when his men ceased work, to stroll down to the "Turk's Head" for a "stiffener" before his meal. The men he met there respected him for a flourishing tradesman and flattered him. He adored his wife still. In his eyes no woman would compare with her. But there was no denying he felt more at home in company which allowed him to tell or listen to a coarse story and stretch his legs and boast at his ease.

He was not aware of any slackening in affection. But Hetty noted it and fought against it, though with a sinking heart. She had counted on this babe to draw him back—if not to her, then at least to home. When told that it was dead, on an impulse she had turned her face at once to him and with a heart-rending look appealed for his forgiveness. He did not understand. Yet he behaved well, stroking her head and saying what he could to comfort her.

She was convinced now that she lay under God's curse, and by and by her weak thoughts connected this curse with her father's displeasure. If she could move her father to relent, it might be lifted from her. And so after many weeks of brooding she found courage to write this letter:

From Hetty to her Father

Honoured Sir,—Although you have cast me off and I know that a determination once taken by you is not easily moved, I must tell you that some word of your forgiving is not only necessary to me, but would make happier the marriage in which, as you compelled it, you must still (I think) feel no small concern. My child, on whose frail help I had counted to make our life more supportable to my husband and myself, is dead. Should God give and take away another, I can never escape the thought that my father's intercession might have prevailed against His wrath, which I shall then, alas! take to be manifest.

Forgive me, sir, that I make you a party in such happiness (or unhappiness) as the world generally allows to be, under God, a portion for two. But as you planted my matrimonial bliss, so you cannot run away from my prayer when I beseech you to water it with a little kindness. My brothers will report to you what they have seen of my way of life and my daily struggle to redeem the past. But I have come to a point where I feel your forgiveness to be necessary to me. I beseech you, then, not to withhold it, and to believe me your obedient daughter, Mehet. Wright.

The Answer

Daughter,—If you would persuade me that your penitence is more than feigned, you are going the wrong way to work. I decline to be made a party to your matrimonial fortunes, as you claim in what appears to be intended for the flower of your letter; and in your next, if you would please me, I advise you to display less wit and more evidence of honest self-examination. To that—which is the beginning of repentance—you do not appear to have attained. Yet it would teach you that your troubles, if you have any, flow from your own sin, and that for any inconveniences you may find in marriage you are probably as much to blame (at the very least) as your honest husband. Your brothers speak well of him, and I shall always think myself obliged to him for his civilities to you.

But what are your troubles? You do not name them. What hurt has matrimony done you? I know only that it has given you a good name. I do not remember that you were used to have so frightful an idea of it as you have now. Pray be more explicit. Restrain your wit if you wish to write again, and I will answer your next if I like it. Your father, S. Wesley.

On receiving this Hetty could not at once bethink her of having given any cause of offence. But she had kept a rough copy of her letter, and on studying it was fairly shocked by its tone, which now seemed to her almost flippant.

She marvelled at her maladroitness, which was the more singular because she had really written under strong emotion. She did not even now guess the secret of her failure; which was, that she had written entreating forgiveness of one whom she had not wholly forgiven. Nevertheless she tried again.

Hetty to her Father

Honoured Sir,—Though I was glad, on any terms, of the favour of a line from you, yet I was concerned at your displeasure on account of the unfortunate paragraph which you are pleased to say was meant for the flower of my letter. I wish it had not gone, since I perceive it gave you some uneasiness.

But since what I said occasioned some queries, which I should be glad to speak freely about, I earnestly beg that the little I shall say may not be offensive to you, since I promise to be as little witty as possible, though I can't help saying you accuse me of being too much so; especially these late years past I have been pretty free from that scandal.

You ask me what hurt matrimony has done me, and whether I had always so frightful an idea of it as I have now? Home questions, indeed! and I once more beg of you not to be offended at the least I can say to them, if I say anything.

I had not always such notions of wedlock as now, but thought that where there was a mutual affection and desire of pleasing, something near an equality of mind and person, either earthly or heavenly wisdom, and anything to keep love warm between a young couple, there was a possibility of happiness in a married state; but when all, or most of these, were wanting, I ever thought people could not marry without sinning against God and themselves.

You are so good to my spouse and me as to say you shall always think yourself obliged to him for his civilities to me. I hope he will always continue to use me better than I deserve in one respect.

I think exactly the same of my marriage as I did before it happened; but though I would have given at least one of my eyes for the liberty of throwing myself at your feet before I was married at all, yet, since it is past and matrimonial grievances are usually irreparable, I hope you will condescend to be so far of my opinion as to own that, since upon some accounts I am happier than I deserve, it is best to say little of things quite past remedy, and endeavour, as I really do, to make myself more and more contented, though things may not be to my wish.

Though I cannot justify my late indiscreet letter, yet I am not more than human, and if the calamities of life sometimes wring a complaint from me, I need tell no one that though I bear I must feel them. And if you cannot forgive what I have said, I sincerely promise never more to offend by saying too much; which (with begging your blessing) is all from your most obedient daughter, Mehetabel Wright.



CHAPTER V.

You who can read between the lines of these letters will have remarked a new accent in Hetty—a hard and bitter accent. She will suffer her punishment now; but, even though it be sent of God, she will appeal against it as too heavy for her sin.

Learn now the cause of it and condemn her if you can.

At first when her husband, at the close of his day's work, sidled off to the "Turk's Head," she pretended not to remark it. Indeed her fears were long in awaking. In all her life she had never tasted brandy, and knew nothing of its effects. That Dick Ellison fuddled himself upon it was notorious, and on her last visit to Wroote she had heard scandalous tales of John Romley, who had come to haunt the taverns in and about Epworth, singing songs and soaking with the riff-raff of the neighbourhood until turned out at midnight to roll homeward to his lonely lodgings. She connected drunkenness with uproarious mirth, boon companionship, set orgies. Of secret unsocial tippling she had as yet no apprehension.

Even before the birth of his second child the tavern had become necessary to Mr. Wright, not only at the close of work, but in the morning, between jobs. His workmen began to talk. He suspected them and slid into foolish, cunning tricks to outwit them, leaving the shop on false excuses, setting out ostentatiously in the wrong direction and doubling back on the "Turk's Head" by a side street. They knew where to find him, however, when a customer dropped in.

"Who sent you here?" he demanded furiously, one day, of the youngest apprentice, who had come for the second time that week to fetch him out of the "King's Oak." (He had enlarged his circle of taverns by this time, and it included one half of Soho.)

"Please you, I wasn't sent here at all," the boy stammered. "I tried the 'Turk's Head' first and then the 'Three Tuns.'"

"And what should make you suppose I was at either? Look here, young man, the workshop from Robinson down"—Robinson was the foreman—"is poking its nose too far into my business. If this goes on, one of these days Robinson will get his dismissal and you the strap."

"It wasn't Robinson sent me, sir. It was the mistress."

"Eh!" William Wright came to a halt on the pavement and his jaw dropped.

"Her uncle, Mr. Matthew, has called and wants to see you on particular business."

The business, as it turned out, was merely to give him quittance of a loan. The sum first advanced to them by Matthew Wesley had proved barely sufficient. To furnish the dwelling-rooms in Frith Street he had lent another 10 pounds and taken a separate bond for it, and this debt Hetty had discharged out of her household economies, secretly planning a happy little surprise for her husband; and now in the hurry of innocent delight she betrayed her sadder secret.

She had as yet no fear of him, though he was afraid of her. But at sight of him as he entered, all the joy went out of her announcement.

He listened sulkily, took the receipt, and muttered some ungracious thanks. Old Matthew eyed him queerly, and, catching a whiff of brandy, pulled out his gold watch. The action may have been involuntary. The hour was half-past ten in the morning.

"Well, well—I must be going. Excuse me, nephew Wright; with my experience I ought to have known better than to withdraw a busy man from his work."

He glanced at Hetty, with a look which as good as asked leave for a few words with her in private. But Mr. Wright, now thoroughly suspicious, did not choose to be dismissed in this fashion. So after a minute or two of uneasy talk the old man pulled out his watch again, excused himself, and took his departure.

"Look here," began Mr. Wright when he and Hetty were left alone: "You are taking too much on yourself."

He had never spoken to her quite so harshly.

"I am sorry, William," she answered, keeping her tears well under control. For months she had been planning her little surprise, and its failure hurt her cruelly. "I had no thought of displeasing you."

"Oh, I daresay you meant it for the best. But I choose to be master in my own house, that's all. Another time, if you have more money than you know what to do with, just come and consult me. I've no notion of being made to look small before your uncle, and I don't stomach it."

He turned away growling. He had spoken only of the repaid loan, but they both knew that this had nothing to do with his ill temper.

At the door he faced round again. "What were you talking about when I came in?" he asked suspiciously.

"Uncle was congratulating us. He is delighted to know that the business is doing so well and complains that he seldom gets sight of you nowadays, your hands are so full."

"And pray what the devil has it to do with him, how I spend my time?" He pulled himself up on the oath, and seeing her cheek flush, he too reddened, but went on, if anything, more violently. "You've a trick in your family of putting your fingers into other folks' pies: you're known for it. There's that Holy Club I hear about. Your clever brothers can't be content, any more than your father, to let honest folks alone, but are for setting right the whole University of Oxford. I warn you, that won't do with me. 'Live and let live' is my motto: let me alone and I'll let you alone. You Wesleys think mightily of yourselves; but you're neither king nor Parlyment, and that I'll have you learn."

It was not a dignified exit and he knew it: by brooding over it through the afternoon his temper grew more savage. That evening he spent at the "Turk's Head" and slouched home at midnight divided between contrition and bravado.

Hetty was in bed, pretending sleep. Had she known it, a word from her might have mended matters. Even had he found her in tears there was enough good nature in the man to have made him relent.

At sight of her beautiful face he felt half-inclined to awake her and have the quarrel cleared up. But, to begin with, he was not wholly certain of his sobriety. And she, too, distrusted it. He had wounded her family pride, to be sure: but what really kept her silent was the dread of discovering him to be drunk and letting him see that she had discovered it.

Yet she had great need of tears: for on more than one account she respected her husband, even liked him, and did most desperately long to be loved by him. After all, she had borne him children: and since they had died he was her only stay in the world, her only hope of redemption. Years after there was found among her papers a tear-blotted sheet of verses dating from this sorrowful time: and though the sorrow opens and shows ahead, as in a flash, the contempt towards which the current is sweeping her, you see her travel down to it with hands bravely battling, clutching at the weak roots of love and hope along the shore:

"O thou whom sacred rites design'd My guide and husband ever kind, My sovereign master, best of friends, On whom my earthly bliss depends: If e'er thou didst in Hetty see Aught fair or good or dear to thee, If gentle speech can ever move The cold remains of former love, Turn thou at last-my bosom ease, Or tell me why I fail to please.

"Is it because revolving years, Heart-breaking sighs, and fruitless tears Have quite deprived this form of mine Of all that once thou fancied'st fine? Ah no! what once allured thy sight Is still in its meridian height. Old age and wrinkles in this face As yet could never find a place; A youthful grace informs these lines Where still the purple current shines, Unless by thy ungentle art It flies to aid my wretched heart: Nor does this slighted bosom show The many hours it spends in woe.

"Or is it that, oppress'd with care, I stun with loud complaints thine ear, And make thy home, for quiet meant, The seat of noise and discontent? Ah no! Thine absence I lament When half the weary night is spent, Yet when the watch, or early morn, Has brought me hopes of thy return, I oft have wiped these watchful eyes, Conceal'd my cares and curb'd my sighs In spite of grief, to let thee see I wore an endless smile for thee.

"Had I not practised every art, To oblige, divert and cheer thy heart, To make me pleasing in thine eyes, And turn thy house to paradise, I had not ask'd 'Why dost thou shun These faithful arms, and eager run To some obscure, unclean retreat, With vile companions glad to meet, Who, when inspired by beer, can grin At witless oaths and jests obscene, Till the most learned of the throng Begins a tale of ten hours long To stretch with yawning other jaws, But thine in rapture of applause?'

"Deprived of freedom, health and ease, And rivall'd by such things as these, Soft as I am, I'll make thee see I will not brook contempt from thee! I'll give all thoughts of patience o'er (A gift I never lost before); Indulge at once my rage and grief Mourn obstinate, disdain relief, Till life, on terms severe as these, Shall ebbing leave my heart at ease; To thee thy liberty restore To laugh, when Hetty is no more."

One morning William Wright awoke out of stertorous sleep with a heavy sense of something amiss, and opened his eyes to find Hetty standing beside the bed in nightgown and light wrapper, with a tray and pot of tea which she had stolen downstairs to prepare for him. After a second or two he remembered, and turned his face to the wall.

"No," said she, "you had better sit up and drink this, and we can talk honestly. See, I have brought a cup for myself, too."

She drew a small table close to the bed, and a chair, poured out the tea and seated herself—all with the least possible fuss.

"I suppose you know," she began, "that you struck me last night?"

His hand trembled as he took the cup, and again he turned away his eyes.

"You were drunk," she went on. "You called me by an evil name, too— a name I once called myself: but a name you would not have called me in your sober senses. At least, I think not. Tell me—and remember that you promised always to answer honestly: you would not have called me so in your sober senses? You do not think of me so?"

He set down the cup and stretched out a hand.

"My lass"—the words seemed to choke him.

"For I am not that. You married me knowing the worst; and ever since I have been a true wife to you. Well, I see that you are sorry. And you struck me, on the breast. I have a bruise there; but," she went on in a level lifeless tone, "there is no child to see his father's mark. You are sorry for that, too. But I understand, of course, that you were drunk. Many times now you have come home drunk, and next morning I pretended not to know it. I must not pretend now, since now to be clear about it is my only chance of comfort and your only chance of self-respect."

He groaned.

"Lass, I could cut my hand off for it! When a man gets overtaken—"

"No, no," her voice suddenly grew animated; "for God's sake, William, don't cry over it! You are not a David." She shivered, as a trick of memory brought back to her the night in the harvest field when she had broken out in wrath against her least admired of Biblical heroes—the same night on which she had first set eyes on this man, whose ring and whose bruise she wore.

"Do not use cheating words, either," she went on. "You were not overtaken by liquor; you went out to meet it, as you have gone night after night. Call it by the straight name. Listen: I like you well enough, William, to help you, if I can—indeed, I have tried. But there seems to be something in drink which puts aside help: the only fighting of any worth must come from the man himself—is it not so?"

"I have fought, lass."

"Drink up your tea, my man, and fight it again! Come home to me earlier, and with a firmer step, and each night will be a victory, better worth than all the cries and sobbings in the world."

He gazed at her stupidly as she put out a hand and laid it gently on his wrist. He covered his eyes.

"I—struck—you!" he muttered.

She winced. Startled by the sudden withdrawal of her touch, he lowered his hand and looked at her. Her eyes, though brimming, met his steadily.

"Tears are for women," she said. "I must cry a little: but see, I am not afraid."

For some months after this he fought the drink; fought it steadily. With Christmas came a relapse, through which she nursed him. To her dismay she found the fit, during the few days that it lasted, more violent than before, and thought of the house swept and garnished and the devil returning with others worse than himself. Her consolation was that at his worst now he seemed to turn to her, and depend on her—almost to supplicate—for help. The struggle left them both exhausted: but he had not attempted to beat her this time. She tried to persuade herself that this meant amendment, and that the outbreaks would grow rarer and at length cease altogether.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1731 his health improved, and with it his kindness to her. Indeed, she had not been so near happiness (or so she told herself) since her wedding day. Another child was coming. Hope, so often cut down, grew again in her heart. And then—

One forenoon in the second week of June—a torrid, airless day—he came home reeling. For the moment a black fear fell on her that she would be too weak to wrestle with this attack; but she braced herself to meet it.

The next day her uncle called. He was about to start on a long-planned journey to Epworth, taking his man with him; and having lately parted with his housekeeper, he had a proposal to make; that Hetty should sleep at Johnson's Court and look after the house in his absence.

She shook her head. Luckily her husband was out, drinking fiercely at some tavern, as she very well knew; but anything was better than his encountering Uncle Matthew just now.

"Why not?" the old man urged. "It would save my hiring a carekeeper, and tide me over until I bring back Patty with me, as I hope to do. Besides, after travelling in those wilds I shall want to return and find the house cheerful: and I know I can depend on you for that."

"And I promise that you shall have it. Send me but word of your coming, and all shall be ready for you that you require."

"But you will not take up your abode there?"

She shook her head again, still smiling: but the smile had lost connection with her thoughts. She was listening for her husband's unsteady step and praying God to detain it.

"But why not?" Uncle Matthew persisted. "It is not for lack of good will, I know. Your husband can spare you for a few days: or for that matter he might come with you and leave the house at night to young Ritson." This was Mr. Wright's apprentice, the same that had fetched him out of the "King's Oak "; an exemplary youth, who slept as a rule in a garret at the top of the house.

"Tom Ritson is not lodging with us just now: we have found a room for him two doors away." She had, indeed, packed off the youth at the first sign of his master's returning madness: but, lest Uncle Matthew should guess the true reason, she added, "Women in my state take queer fancies—likes and dislikes."

The old man eyed her for a while, then asked abruptly, "Is your husband drinking again?"

"How—what makes you—I don't understand," she stammered. Do what she might she could not prevent the come-and-go of colour in her face.

"Oh, yes you do. Tut, tut, my dear! I've known it every whit as long as you. Look here; would you like me to put off my journey for a few days?"

"On no account. There's not the least reason, I assure you, uncle."

He seemed content with this and talked for a little while of the journey and his plans. He had warned nobody at Epworth. "I intend it for a surprise," he explained; "to learn with my own eyes how they are faring." Emilia and Kezzy were at home now upon a holiday: for some months they had been earning their livelihood at Lincoln as teachers in a boarding-school kept by a Mrs. Taylor. He might even make a trip to Scarborough, to drink the waters there. He was gravely kind, and promised to deliver all Hetty's messages to her sisters.

"Well, well," he said as he rose to go, "so you won't come to me?"

"I cannot."

"Nevertheless I shall leave word that the house is to be open to you—in case of need." He looked at her meaningly, kissed her on the forehead, and so took his leave.

At the street door he paused. "And that poor soul is childless," he muttered. "She that should have been a noble mother of soldiers!"



CHAPTER VI.

From Mrs. Wesley to her son John.

Epworth, July 12th, 1731.

My brother Wesley had designed to have surprised us, and had travelled under a feigned name from London to Gainsborough; but there, sending his man for guide out to the Isle the next day, the man told one that keeps our market his master's name, and that he was going to see his brother, which was the minister at Epworth. The man he informed met with Molly in the market about an hour before my brother got thither. She, full of news, hastened home and told us her uncle Wesley was coming to see us; but we could hardly believe her. 'Twas odd to observe how all the town took the alarm and were upon the gaze, as if some great prince had been about to make his entry. He rode directly to John Dawson's [this refers to a local inn]: but we had soon notice of his arrival, and sent John Brown with an invitation to our house. He expressed some displeasure at his servant for letting us know of his coming: for he intended to have sent for Mr. Wesley to dine with him at Dawson's and then come to visit us in the afternoon. However, he soon followed John home, where we were all ready to receive him with great satisfaction.

His behaviour among us was perfectly civil and obliging. He spake little to the children the first day, being employed (as he afterwards told them) in observing their carriage and seeing how he liked them: afterwards he was very free, and expressed great kindness to them all.

He was strangely scandalised at the poverty of our furniture, and much more at the meanness of the children's habit. He always talked more freely with your sisters of our circumstances than with me; and told them he wondered what his brother had done with his income, for 'twas visible he had not spent it in furnishing his house, or clothing his family.

We had a little talk together sometimes, but it was not often we could hold a private conference, and he was very shy of speaking anything relating to the children before your father, or indeed of any other matter. I informed him, as far as I handsomely could, of our losses, etc., for I was afraid that he should think I was about to beg of him; but the girls, I believe, told him everything they could think on.

He was particularly pleased with Patty; and one morning, before Mr. Wesley came down, he asked me if I was willing to let Patty go and stay a year or two with him at London? "Sister," says he, "I have endeavoured already to make one of your children easy while she lives, and if you please to trust Patty with me, I will endeavour to make her so too." Whatever others may think, I thought this a generous offer, and the more so, because he had done so much for Sukey and Hetty. I expressed my gratitude as well as I could, and would have had him speak with your father, but he would not himself—he left that to me; nor did he ever mention it to Mr. Wesley till the evening before he left us.

He always behaved himself very decently at family prayers, and in your father's absence said grace for us before and after meat. Nor did he ever interrupt our privacy, but went into his own chamber when we went into ours.

He staid from Thursday to the Wednesday after, then he left us to go to Scarborough, from whence he returned the Saturday se'nnight, intending to stay with us a few days; but finding your sisters gone the day before to Lincoln, he would leave us on Sunday morning, for he said he might see the girls before they—he and Patty—set forward for London. He overtook them at Lincoln, and had Mrs. Taylor, Emily, Kezzy, with the rest, to supper with him at the Angel. On Monday they breakfasted with him; then they parted, expecting to see him no more till they came to London, but on Wednesday he sent his man to invite them to supper at night. On Thursday he invited them to dinner, at night to supper, and on Friday morning to breakfast, when he took his leave of them and rode for London. They got into town on Saturday about noon, and that evening Patty writ me an account of her journey.

Dear Jackey, I can't stay now to talk about Hetty, but this-I hope better of her than some others do. I pray God to bless you. Adieu. S. W.

Hetty had been warned that her uncle and Patty would arrive on the Saturday. She did not expect them before evening; nevertheless, in the forenoon she sallied out, and stopping in the market on her way to buy a large bunch of roses, walked to Johnson's Court, where the door was opened to her by her own cook-maid—a fearless, middle-aged Scotswoman who did not mind inhabiting an empty house, and whom she had sent to Uncle Matthew on the eve of his departure, as well to get her out of the way as to relieve him of his search for a carekeeper.

Janet noted that her mistress's face was pale and her eyes unnaturally bright with want of sleep, but held her tongue, being ever a woman of few words. Together the two dressed the table and set out the cold viands in case the travellers should arrive in time for dinner. The rest of the meal would be sent in at a few minutes' notice from the tavern at the entrance of the court.

Having seen to these preparations and paid a visit of inspection to the bedrooms, she set out on her way back to Frith Street just as St. Dunstan's clock was striking eleven. She left, promising Janet to return before nightfall.

Night was dusking down upon the narrow court as she entered it again out of the rattle of Fleet Street. She had lost her springy gait, and dragged her legs heavily under the burden of the unborn child and a strain which during the past four or five days had become a physical torture. She came out of her own thoughts with an effort, to wonder if the travellers had arrived.

Her eyes went up to the windows of Uncle Matthew's parlour: and, while they rested there, the room within of a sudden grew bright. Janet had entered it with a lamp, and, having set it down, came forward to draw the curtains and close the shutters. At the same moment in the other window an arm went up to the curtain and the slim figure of Patty stood dark against the lamplight. She stood for a moment gazing out upon the court; gazing, as it seemed to Hetty, straight down upon her. Hetty came to a halt, crouching in the dusk against the wall. Now that she knew of their arrival she had no wish to greet either her sister or her uncle: nay, as her own dark shadow overtook her—the thought of the drunkard at home in the lonely house—she knew that she could not climb to that lighted room and kiss and welcome them.

As her sister's hand drew the curtain, she turned and sped back down the court. She broke into a run. The pedestrians in the dim streets were as ghosts to her. She ought not to have left him. Heaven alone knew how long this fit would last; but while it lasted her place was beside him. Twice, thrice she came to a dead stop, and panted with one hand at her breast, the other laid flat against a house-wall or the closed shutters of a shop, and so supporting her. Men peered into her face, passed on, but turned their heads to stare back at her, not doubting her a loose woman the worse for drink, but pierced with wonder, if not with pity, at her extraordinary beauty. She heeded them not, but always, as soon as she caught her breath again, ran on.

She turned the corner of Frith Street. Heaven knows what she expected to see—the house in a blaze, perhaps: but the dingy thoroughfare lay quiet before her, with a shop here and there casting a feeble light across the paving-stones. The murmur of the streets, and with it all sense of human help within call, fell away and were lost. She must face the horror alone.

The house was dark—all but one window, behind the yellow blind of which a light shone. She drew out her latchkey and at first fumbled at the opening with a shaking hand. Then she recalled her courage, found the latch at once, slipped in the key and pushed the door open.

No sound: the stairs stretched up before her into pitchy darkness. She held her breath; tried to listen. Still no sound but one in her ears—the thump-thump of her own overstrained heart. She closed the door as softly as she could, and mounted the first flight.

Hark! the sound of a step above, followed by a faint glimmer of light. At the turn of the stairs she looked up and faced him. He stood on the landing outside their bedroom door, with a candle held aloft. His eyes were blazing.

He must be met quietly, and quietly she went up. "See how quick I have been!" she said gaily, and her voice did not shake. She passed in by the open door. He followed her stupidly and set the candle down.

"They have arrived," she said, drawing off her mittens. Her eyes travelled round the room to assure her that no weapon lay handy, though for her own sake she had no wish to live.

"Come here," he commanded thickly.

"Yes, dear: what is it?"

"Where have you been?"

"Why, to Johnson's Court, as you know."

"Conspiring against me, eh?" He pushed his face close to hers: his reeking breath sickened her: but she smiled on, expecting him to strike.

"Come here!"—though she was close already. "Stand up. I'll teach you to gossip about me. You and your gentry, my fine madam. I'll teach you—I'll teach you!"

He struck now, blow after blow. She turned her quivering shoulders to it, shielding the unborn child.

He beat her to her knees. Still she curved her back, holding her arms stiffly before her, leaving her head and neck exposed. Would the next blow kill her? She waited.

The table went over with a crash, the light with it. He must have fallen across it: for, an instant later, she heard the thud of his head against the floor.

It seemed to her that she crouched there for an endless while, waiting for him to stir. He lay close beside her foot.

Her heel touched him as she rose. She groped for the tinder-box, found the candle, lit it, held it over him.

A trickle of blood ran from his right temple, where it had struck against the bed-post. His eyes were closed. She loosened his collar, put forth all her strength—her old maiden strength for a moment restored to her—and lifted him on to the bed.

By and by his lips parted in a sigh. He began to breathe heavily—to sleep, as she thought. Still the blood trickled slowly from his temple and on to the pillow. She stepped to the water-jug, dipped her handkerchief in it, and drawing a chair to the bedside, seated herself and began to bathe the wound.

When the bleeding stopped, as the touch of cold water appeared to soothe him, she fetched a towel and pressed it gently about his neck and behind his ears. He was sleeping now: for he smiled and muttered something. Almost she thought it was her own name.

Still she sat beside him, her body aching, her heart cold; and watched him, hour after hour.



CHAPTER VII.

"And my brothers visit her?"

Twilight with invisible veils closed around Epworth, its parsonage, and the high-walled garden where Molly, staff in hand, limped to and fro beside Johnny Whitelamb—promoted now to be the Reverend John Whitelamb, B.A. He had arrived that afternoon, having walked all the way from Oxford.

—"Whenever they visit London," he answered.

"Charles, you know, upheld her from the first; and John has come to admit that her sufferings have lifted her above man's judgment. They talk with her as with their equal in wit—"

"Why, and so she is!"

"No doubt: but it does not follow that John would acknowledge it. They report their Oxford doings to her, and their plans: and she listens eagerly and advises. To me the strange thing is, as she manages it, that her interest does not tie her down to sharing their opinions. She speaks always as a looker-on, and they recognise this. She keeps her own mind, just as she has always held to her own view of her marriage. I have never heard her complain, and to her husband she is an angel: yet I am sure (without being able to tell you why) that her heart condemns your father and will always condemn him."

"She knows what her punishment has been: we can only guess. Does the man drink still?"

"Yes; he drinks: but she is no longer anxious about him. Your Uncle Matthew told me that in his first attacks he used to be no better than a madman. Something happened: nobody seems to know precisely what it was, except that he fell and injured his head. Now the craving for drink remains, but he soaks harmlessly. No doubt he will kill himself in time; meanwhile even at his worst he is tractable, and obeys Hetty like a child. To do the man justice, he was always fond of her."

"Poor Hetty!"

"John has spoken to her once or twice about her soul, I believe: but he does not persist."

"H'm," said Molly, "you had better say that he is biding his time. John always persists."

"That's true," he owned with a laugh: "but I have never known him so baffled to all appearance. The fact is, she cannot be roused to any interest in herself. Of others she never ceases to think. It was she, for instance—when I could not afford to buy myself a gown for ordination—who started the notion of a subscription in the family." He was wearing the gown now, and drew it about him with another laugh. "Hence the majestic figure I cut before you at this moment."

"But we all subscribed, sir. You shall not slight my poor offering— all made up as it was of dairy-pence."

"Miss Molly, all my life is a patchwork made up of kind deeds and kind thoughts from one or other of you. You do not believe—"

"Nay, you love us all, John. I know that well enough."

For some reason a silence fell between them. Molly broke it with a laugh, which nevertheless trembled a little. "Then your gown should be a patchwork, too?"

"Why to be sure it is," he answered gravely; "and I wish the world could see it so, quartered out upon me like a herald's coat, and each quartering assigned—that is Mr. Wesley's, and that your mother's, and that, again, your brother John's—"

"And the sleeve Miss Molly's: I will be content with a sleeve. Only it must have the armorial bearings proper to a fourth daughter, with my simple motto—'Butter and New-laid Eggs.'"

The sound of their merriment reached Mrs. Wesley through an open window, and in the dim kitchen Mrs. Wesley smiled to herself.

"But," objected he, "the sleeve will not do. I do not wear my heart upon my sleeve, Molly." She turned her head abruptly. For the first time in his life he had dared to call her Molly, and was trembling at his boldness. At first he took the movement for a prompt rebuke: then, deciding that she had not heard, he was at once relieved and disappointed.

But be sure she had heard. And she was not angry: only—this was not the old Johnny Whitelamb, but another man in speech and accent, and she felt more than a little afraid of him.

"Tell me more of Hetty," she commanded, and resting one hand on her staff pointed to the south-west, where, over the coping of the wall, out of a pure green chasm infinitely deep between reddened clouds of sunset, the evening star looked down.

He knew the meaning of the sudden gesture. Had not Hetty ever been her Star?

"She is beautiful as ever. You never saw so sad a face: the sadder because it is never morose."

"I believe, John, you loved her best of us all."

"I worshipped her. To be her servant, or her dog, would have been enough for me. I never dared to think of her as—as—"

—"As you thought, for example, of her crippled sister, whom you protected."

"Molly!" He drew back. "Ah, if I dared—if I dared!" she heard him stammer, and faced him swiftly, with a movement he might have misread for anger, but for the soul shining in her eyes.

"Dare, then!"

"But I am penniless," said he, a few moments later. For him the heavens still spun and the earth reeled: but out of their turmoil this hard truth emerged as a rock from the withdrawing flood.

"God will provide for us. He knows that I cannot wait—and you—you must forget that I was unmaidenly and wooed you: for I did, and it's useless to deny it. But I have known—known—oh, for ever so long! And I have a short while to be happy!"

Either he did not hear or he let slip her meaning. His eyes were on the star, now almost level with the wall's coping.

"And this has come to me: to me—that was once Johnny Whitelamb of the Charity School!"

"And to me," she murmured; "to me—poor Grizzle, whom even her parents despised. The stars shine upon all."

"I remember," he said, musing, "at Oxford, one night, walking back to college with your brother John. We had been visiting the prisoners in Bocardo. As we turned into the Turl between Exeter and Jesus colleges there, at the end of the street—it is little more than a lane—beyond the spire of All Saints' this planet was shining. John told me its name, and with a sudden accord we stood still for a moment, watching it. 'Do you believe it inhabited?' I asked. 'Why not?' he said. 'Then why not, as this world, by sinners: and if by sinners, by souls crying for redemption in Christ?' 'Ay,' said he,' for aught we know the son of God may pass along the heavens adding martyrdom to martyrdom, may even at this moment be bound on a cross in some unseen planet swinging around one in this multitude of stars. But,' he broke off, 'what have we to do with this folly of speculation? This world is surely parish enough for a man, and in it he may be puzzled all his days to save his own soul out of the many millions.'"

"And father," murmured Molly, "designs him to take Epworth cure! But why are you telling me this?"

"Because I see now that if God's love reaches up to every star and down to every poor soul on earth, it must be something vastly simple, so simple that all dwellers on earth may be assured of it, as all who have eyes may be assured of the planet yonder; and so vast that all bargaining is below it, and they may inherit it without considering their deserts. Is not God's love greater than human? Yet, see, this earthly love has come to me—Johnny Whitelamb—as to a king. It has taken no account of my worth, my weakness: in its bounty I am swallowed up and do not weigh. To dream of it as holding tally with me is to belittle and drag it down in thought to something scarcely larger than myself. I share it with kings, as I share this star. Can I think God's love less magnificent?"

But Molly shrank close to him. "Dear, do not talk of these great things: they frighten me. I am so small—and we have so short a while to be happy!"



CHAPTER VIII.

Samuel Wesley to the Lord Chancellor.

Westminster, January 14th, 1733-4.

My Lord,—The small rectory of Wroote, in the diocese and county of Lincoln, adjoining to the Isle of Axholme, is in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and more then seven years since it was conferred on Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth. It lies in our low levels, and is often overflowed—four or five years since I have had it; and the people have lost most or all the fruits of the earth to that degree that it has hardly brought me in fifty pounds per annum, omnibus annis, and some years not enough to pay my curate there his salary of 30 pounds a year.

This living, by your lordship's permission and favour, I would gladly resign to one Mr. John Whitelamb, born in the neighbourhood of Wroote, as his father and grandfather lived in it, when I took him from among the scholars of a charity school, founded by one Mr. Travers, an attorney, brought him to my house, and educated him there, where he was my amanuensis for four years in transcribing my Dissertations on the Book of Job, now well advanced in the press; and drawing my maps and figures for it, as well as we could by the light of nature. After this I sent him to Oxford, to my son John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College, under whom he made such proficiency that he was the last summer admitted by the Bishop of Oxford into Deacon's Orders, and placed my curate in Epworth, while I came up to town to expedite the printing my book.

Since I was here I gave consent to his marrying one of my seven daughters, and they are married accordingly; and though I can spare little more with her, yet I would gladly give them a little glebe land at Wroote, where I am sure they will not want springs of water. But they love the place, though I can get nobody else to reside on it. If I do not flatter myself, he is indeed a valuable person, of uncommon brightness, learning, piety and indefatigable industry; always loyal to the King, zealous for the Church, and friendly to our Dissenting Brethren; and for the truth of this character I will be answerable to God and man. If therefore your lordship will grant me the favour to let me resign the living unto him, and please to confer it on him, I shall always remain your lordship's most bounden, most grateful, and most obedient servant,

Samuel Wesley, Sen.

The Lord Chancellor complied: and so, in February, with an income of but fifty pounds a year, increased to seventy by Mr. Wesley's kindness, but in good heart and hope and such love as can only be between two simple hearts that have proved each other, John Whitelamb and Molly took possession of the small parsonage.

They were happy: and of their happiness there is no more to be said, save that it was brief. In the last days of October Molly's child was born, and died: and a few hours later while the poor man held her close, refusing to believe, with a sigh Molly's spirit slipped between his arms and went to God.

To God? It tore the man up by the roots, and the root-soil of his faith crumbled and fell with the moulds upon her coffin. He went from her graveside back to the house and closed the door. Mrs. Wesley had urged him to return with the family to Epworth, and John, who had ridden from Oxford to preach the funeral sermon, shook him by the hand and added his persuasions. But the broken husband thanked him shortly, and strode away. He had sat through the sermon without listening to a word: and now he went back to a house lonely even of God.

He and Molly had been too poor to keep a servant: but on the eve of her illness a labourer's wife had been hired to do the housework and cook the meals. And seeing his lethargy, this sensible woman, without asking questions, continued to arrive at seven in the morning and depart at seven in the evening. He ate the food she set before him. On Sunday he heard the bell ringing from his church hard by. But he had prepared no sermon: and after the bell had ceased he sat in his study before an open book, oblivious.

Yet prayer was read, and a sermon preached, in Wroote Church that day. John Wesley had walked over from Epworth; and when the bell ceased ringing, and the minutes passed, and still no rector appeared, had stepped quietly to the reading-desk.

After service he walked across to the parsonage, knocked gently at the study door and entered.

"Brother Whitelamb," he said, "you have need of us, I think, and I know that my father has need of you. To-morrow I return to Oxford, and I leave a letter with him that he will wish to answer. Death has shaken him by the hand and it cannot guide a pen: he will be glad to employ his old amanuensis. What is more, his answer to my letter will contain much worth your pondering, as well as mine, for it will be concerned with even such a spiritual charge as you have this day been neglecting."

"Brother Wesley," answered the widower, looking up, "you have done a kind deed this morning. But what was your text?"

"My text was, 'Son of man, behold I take from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet shalt thou not mourn or weep, neither shall thy tears run down.'"

"I love you, brother: you have ever been kind indeed to me. Yet you put it in my mind at times, that the poor servant with one talent had some excuse, if a poor defence, who said 'I know thee, that thou art a hard man.'"

"Do I reap then where I have not sown, and gather where I have not strewn?"

"I will not say that. But I see that others prepare the way for you and will do so, as Charles prepared it at Oxford: and finding it prepared, you take command and march onward. You were born to take command: the hand of God is evident upon you. But some grow faint by the way and drop behind, and you have no bowels for these."

Silence fell between them. John Whitelamb broke it. "I can guess what your father's letter will be—a last appeal to you to succeed him in Epworth parish. Do you mean to consent?"

"I think not. My reasons—"

"Nay, it is certain you will not. And as for your reasons, they do not matter: they may be good, but God has better, who decides for you. Yet deal gently with the old man, for you are denying the dearest wish of his heart."

"May I tell him that you will come?"

"I will come when he sends for me."

Mr. Wesley's message did not arrive until a good fortnight later, during which time John Whitelamb had fallen back upon his own sorrow. He resumed his duties, but with no heart. From the hour of his wife's death he sank gradually into the rut of a listless parish priest—a solitary man, careless of his dress as of his duties, loved by his parishioners for the kindness of his heart. They said that sorrow had broken him; but the case was worse than this. He had lost assurance of God's goodness.

He could not, with such a doubt in his heart, go to his wife's family for comfort. He loved them as ever; but he could not trust their love to deal tenderly with his infidelity. No Wesley would ever have let a human sorrow interfere with faith: no Wesley (it seemed to him) would understand such a disaster. It was upon this thought that he had called John a hard man. He recognised the truth and that he was but brittle earthenware beside these hammered vessels of service.

Nevertheless, when in obedience to Mr. Wesley's message he presented himself at Epworth, he was surprised by the calm everyday air with which the old man received him. He had expected at least some word of his grief, some fatherly pressure of the hand. There was none. He knew, to be sure, that old age deadened sensibility. But, after all, his dear Molly had been this man's child, if not the best-beloved.

"Son Whitelamb, my hand is weary, and there is much to write. Help me to my dearest wish on earth—the only wish now left to me: help me that Jack may inherit Epworth cure when I am gone. Hear what he objects: 'The question is not whether I could do more good there or here in Oxford, but whether I could do more good to myself; seeing wherever I can be most holy myself, there I can most promote holiness in others. But I can improve myself more at Oxford than at any other place.' The lad must think I forget my logic. See you, he juggles me with identical propositions! First it is no question of doing good to others, but to himself; and anon when he does most good to himself he will do most good to others. Am I a dead dog, to be pelted with such sophisms? Son Whitelamb, is your pen ready?"

"Of what avail is it?" John Whitelamb asked himself. "These men, father and son, decide first, and, having decided, find no lack of arguments. It is but pride of the mind in which they clothe their will. Moreover, if there be a God, what a vain conflict am I aiding! seeing that time with Him is not, and all has been decided from the beginning."

Yet he took down the answer with his habitual care, glancing up in the pauses at the old face, gray and intense beneath the dark skull-cap. The letter ended:

"If you are not indifferent whether the labours of an aged father for above forty years in God's vineyard be lost, and the fences of it trodden down and destroyed; if you have any care for our family, which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropped; if you reflect on the dear love and longing which this dear people has for you, whereby you will be enabled to do God the more service; and the plenteousness of the harvest, consisting of near two thousand souls, whereas you have not many more scholars in the University; you may perhaps alter your mind, and bend your will to His, who has promised, if in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths."



CONCLUSION.



CHAPTER I.

"Unto him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness."

All the world has heard how John Wesley rode, eight years later, into Epworth; and how, his father's pulpit having been denied to him, he stood outside upon his father's tomb and preached evening after evening in the warm June weather the gospel of Justification by Faith to the listening crowd. Visitors are shown the grit slab, now recut and resting on a handsome structure of stone, but then upon plainest brickwork; and are bidden to notice, in the blank space below the words "Their works do follow them," two rough pieces of ironstone which mark where the preacher's feet rested.

Eight evenings he preached from it, and on the third evening chose for his text these words: "Unto him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness."

Under a sycamore by the churchyard wall at a little distance from the crowd a man stood and listened—a clergyman in a worn black gown, a man not old in years but with a face prematurely old, and shoulders that already stooped under the burden of life—John Whitelamb. He watched between fear and hope to be recognised. When the preacher mounted the slab, stroked back his hair and, turning his face towards the sycamore, fixed his eyes (as it seemed) upon the figure beneath it, he felt sure he had been recognised: a moment later he doubted whether that gaze had passed over him in forgetfulness or contempt.

He felt himself worthy of contempt. They had been too hard for him, these Wesleys. They had all departed from Epworth, years before, and left him, who had been their brother, alone with his miserable doubts. No letters, no message of remembered affection or present good will, ever came from them. He had been unfaithful to his religion: they had cast him off. For seven years he had walked and laboured among the men and women here gathered in the midsummer dusk: but the faces to which he had turned for comfort were faces of the past—some dead, others far away.

So the preacher's voice came to him as one rending the sepulchre. "Son of man, can these bones live?" Yes, the bones of Christ's warrior beneath the slab—laid there to rest in utter weariness—were stirring, putting forth strength and a voice that pierced his living marrow. Ah, how it penetrated, unlocking old wells of tears!

He listened, letting his tears run. Only once did he withdraw his eyes, and then for a moment they fell on John Romley, loitering too, on the outskirts of the crowd by the churchyard gate and plainly in two minds about interfering. Romley was curate of Epworth now, delegate of an absentee sporting rector: and had in truth set this ball rolling by denying John Wesley his pulpit. He had miscalculated his flock; this stubborn English breed, so loyal in enmity, loving the memory of a foe who had proved himself a man. He watched with a loose-lipped sneer; too weak to conquer his own curiosity, far too weak to assert his authority and attempt to clear the churchyard of that "enthusiasm" which he had denounced in his most florid style last Sunday, within the church.

John Whitelamb's gaze travelled back to the preacher. Up to this he had heard the voice only, and the dead man in his grave below speaking through that voice. Now he listened to the words. If the dead man spoke through them, what a change had death wrought—what wisdom had he found in the dust that equals all! What had become of the old confident righteousness, the old pride of intellect? They were stripped and flung aside as filthy rags. "Apart from faith we do not count. We are redeemed: we are saved. Christ has made with us no bargain at all except to believe that the bargain is concluded. What are we at the best that He should make distinctions between us? We are all sinners and our infinitesimal grades of sin sunk in His magnificent mercy. Only acknowledge your sin: only admit the mercy; and you are healed, pardoned, made joint heirs with Christ—not in a fair way to be healed, not going to be pardoned in some future state; but healed, pardoned, your sins washed away in Christ's blood, actually, here and now."

He heard men and women—notorious evil-livers, some of them—crying aloud. Ah, the great simplicity of it was beyond him!—and yet not perhaps beyond him, could he believe the truth, in the bygone years never questioned by him, that Jesus Christ was very God.

He waited for the last word and strode back to his lonely home with a mind unconvinced yet wondering at the power he had witnessed, a heart bursting with love. He sat down to write at once: but tore up many letters. With Christ, to believe was to be forgiven. If Christ could not be tender to doubt, how much less would John Wesley be tender? It was not until Friday that he found courage to dispatch the following:

Dear Brother,—I saw you at Epworth on Tuesday evening. Fain would I have spoken to you, but that I am quite at a loss to know how to address or behave to you.

Your way of thinking is so extraordinary that your presence creates an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world. God grant you and your followers may always have entire liberty of conscience. Will you not allow others the same?

Indeed I cannot think as you do, any more than I can help honouring and loving you. Dear sir, will you credit me? I retain the highest veneration and affection for you. The sight of you moves me strangely. My heart overflows with gratitude; I feel in a higher degree all that tenderness and yearning of bowels with which I am affected towards every branch of Mr. Wesley's family. I cannot refrain from tears when I reflect, This is the man who at Oxford was more than a father to me; this is he whom I have heard expound, or dispute publicly, or preach at St. Mary's, with such applause; and—oh, that I should ever add—whom I have lately heard preach at Epworth, on his father's tombstone!

I am quite forgot. None of the family ever honour me with a line. Have I been ungrateful? I have been passionate, fickle, a fool; but I hope I never shall be ungrateful.

Dear sir, is it in my power to serve or oblige you in any way? Glad I should be that you would make use of me. God open all our eyes and lead us into truth wherever it be! John Whitelamb.

The answer was delivered to him that same evening. It ran:

Dear Brother,—I take you at your word, if indeed it covers permission to preach in your church at Wroote on Sunday morning next. I design to take for text—and God grant it may be profitable to you and to others!—"Ask, and it shall be given you."



CHAPTER II.

From Epworth John Wesley rode on to Sheffield, and then southward through Coventry, Evesham and Painswick to Bristol, preaching as he went, sometimes thrice a day: from Bristol to Cardiff and back; and so, on Sunday evening, July 18th, towards London. On Tuesday morning he dismounted by the door of the Foundry, having left it just two months before.

To his surprise it was opened by Hetty: but at once he guessed the reason.

"Mother?"

"Hist! The end is very near—a few hours perhaps." She kissed him. "I have been with her these five days, taking turns with the others. They are all here—Emmy and Sukey and Nancy and Pat. Charles cannot be fetched in time, I fear."

"He was in North Wales when he last wrote."

"Listen!"—a sound of soft singing came down the stairway. "They are singing his hymn to her: she begs us constantly to sing to her."

"Jesu, Lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly While the nearer waters roll—"

Sang the voices overhead as John followed his sister into the small sitting-room.

"What do the doctors say?"

"There is nothing to be said. She feels no pain; has no disease. It is old age, brother, loosening the cords."

"She is happy?"

"Ah, so happy!" Hetty's eyes brimmed with tears and she turned away.

"Sister, that happiness is for you too. Why have you, alone of us, so far rejected it?"

"No—not now!" she protested. "Speak to me some other time and I will listen: not now, when my body and heart are aching!"

Her sisters sang:

"Other refuge have I none; Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, ah! leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me! All my trust on Thee is stay'd, All my help from Thee I bring: Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing!"

She stepped to the door with a feeble gesture of the hands. She knew that, worn as he was with his journey, if she gave him the chance he would grasp it and pause, even while his mother panted her last, to wrestle for and win a soul—not because she, Hetty, was his sister; simply because hers was a soul to be saved. Yes, and she foresaw that sooner or later he would win: that she would be swept into the flame of his conquest: yet her poor bruised spirit shrank back from the flame. She craved only to be let alone, she feared all new experience, she distrusted even the joy of salvation. Life had been too hard for Hetty.

He followed her up the stairs to his mother's room, and entering commanded his sisters with a gesture to sing the hymn to an end. They did so. Mrs. Wesley lay propped on the pillows, her wasted face turned to the light, a faint smile on her lips. For a little while after the hymn ended she lay silent with no change on her face. They doubted if she saw John or, seeing, had recognised him. But by and by her lips moved and she murmured his name.

"Jacky!"

He stepped to the bedside, and with his hand covered the transparent hand with its attenuated marriage ring.

"I like them—to sing to me," she whispered. "When—when I am released—sing—a psalm of praise to God. Promise me."

He pressed her hand for reply, and her eyes closed peacefully. She seemed to sleep.

It was not until Friday that the end came. Shortly before eleven that morning she waked suddenly out of slumber with lips muttering rapidly. They, bending close, caught the words "Saviour—dear Saviour—help—at the last." By the time they had summoned John, though the muttering continued, the words were unintelligible: yet they knew she was praising God.

In a little while the voice ceased and she lay staring calmly upwards. From three to four o'clock the last cords were loosening. Suddenly John arose, and lifting his hand in benediction, spoke the words of the Commendatory Prayer: "O Almighty God, in whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prison; we humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant, our dear Mother, into Thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour, most humbly beseeching Thee that it may be precious in Thy sight. . . ."

It was Hetty who bent low, took the inert hand, and after listening for a while laid it softly down on the coverlet. All was over: yet she listened until the voices of the watchers, released by her signal, rose together—

"Hark! a voice divides the sky— Happy are the faithful dead In the Lord who sweetly die—"

She raised her face as if to entreat for yet a moment's respite. But their faces were radiant, transfigured with the joy of their faith. And then suddenly, certainly, in their rapture she saw the purpose and end of all their common sufferings; want, hunger, years of pinching and striving, a thousand petty daily vexations, all the hardships that had worn her mother down to this poor corpse upon the bed, her own sorrowful fate and her sisters' only less sorrowful—all caught up in the hand of God and blazing as a two-edged sword of flame. Across the blaze, though he was far away, she saw the confident eyes of Charles smiling as at a prophecy fulfilled. But the hand outstretched for the sword was John's, claiming it by right indefeasible. She, too, had a right indefeasible: and before the sword descended to cleave the walls of this humble death chamber and stretch over England, her heart cried and claimed to be pierced with it. "Let it pierce me and cut deep, for my tears, too, have tempered it!"

From the Journal of Charles Wesley for the year 1750:

"March 5th. I prayed by my sister Wright, a gracious, tender, trembling soul; a bruised reed which the Lord will not break.

"March 14th. I found my sister Wright very near the haven"; and again on Sunday, the 18th: "Yet still in darkness, doubts and fears, against hope believing in hope.

"March 21St. At four I called on my brother Wright, a few minutes after her spirit was set at liberty. I had sweet fellowship with her in explaining at the chapel those solemn words, 'Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thy everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.'

"March 26th. I followed her to her quiet grave, and wept with them that weep."



EPILOGUE.

Early in December, 1803, in the cool decline of a torrid day, a small British force—mixed regulars and sepoys—threaded its way among the mountains of Berar. It moved slowly and with frequent halts, its pace regulated by the middle of the column, where teams of men panted and dragged at the six guns which were to batter down the hill fortress of Gawul Ghur: for roads in this country there were none, and all the long day ahead of the guns gangs laboured with pick and shovel to widen the foot-tracks leading up to the passes.

Still farther ahead trudged and halted the 74th regiment, following a squadron of the 19th Light Dragoons, and now and again the toilers on the middle slope, taking breath for a new effort and blinking the sweat from their eyes, would catch sight of a horseman on a ridge far overhead, silhouetted against the pale blue sky for a moment while he scanned a plateau or gully unseen by them. Now and again, too, in such pauses, the clear air pulsed with the tramp of the rearguard in the lower folds of the hills—sepoys and comrades of the 78th and 94th.

Though with arms, legs and loins strained almost to cracking, the men worked cheerfully. Their General had ridden forward with his staff: they knew that close by the head of the pass their camp was already being marked out for them, and before sleeping they would be fed as they deserved.

They growled, indeed, but good-humouredly, when, for the tenth time that day, they came to the edge of a gully into which the track plunged steeply to mount almost as steeply on the farther side: and their good humour did them the more credit since the General had forbidden them to lock the wheels, on the ground that locking shook and weakened the gun-carriages.

With a couple of drag-ropes then, and a dozen men upon each, digging heels in the slope, slipping, cursing, back-hauling with all their weight, the first gun was trailed down and run across the gully. As the second began its descent a couple of horsemen came riding slowly back from the advance-guard and drew rein above the farther slope to watch the operation.

About a third of the way down, the track, which trended at first to the left, bent abruptly away to the right, from the edge of a low cliff of rock; and at this corner the men on the drag-ropes must also fling themselves sharply to the right to check the wheels on the verge of the fall. They did so, cleverly enough: but almost on the instant were jerked out of their footholds like puppets. Amid outcries of terror and warning, the outer wheel of the gun broke through the crumbling soil on the verge, the ropes flew through their hands, tearing away the flesh before the flesh could cast off its grip; and with a clatter of stones the gun somersaulted over the slope. With it, caught by the left-hand rope before he could spring clear, went hurling a man. They saw his bent shoulders strike a slab of rock ripped bare an instant before, and heard the thud as he disappeared.

As they ran to view the damage, the two riders came cantering across the gully and joined them. By good fortune, at the base of the rock there welled a tiny spring and spread itself in a miniature bog before making up its mind to leap down the mountain-side and feed the infant waters of the Taptee. Into this plashy soil the gun had plunged and the carriage lay some yards away up-ended on a broken wheel, but otherwise uninjured. Beside the carriage, when the General reached it, an artillery sergeant and three of the team of No. 2 gun were lifting the injured man.

"Badly hurt?"

The sergeant saluted. "We doubt it's over with him, sir. His back's broken, seemingly."

The General turned away to examine the face of the cliff, and almost at once gave vent to a low whistle.

"See here, Ellerton, the rock is caverned and the gun must have broken through the roof. It doesn't look to me like a natural cavern, either. Hi! half a dozen of you, clear away this rubbish and let me have a nearer look."

The men turned to and heaved away the fallen stones under which the water oozed muddily.

"Just as I thought! Nature never made a hole like this."

An exclamation interrupted him. It came from one of the relief party who had clambered into the cavern and was spading there in the loose soil.

"What is it?"

"A skeleton, sir!—stretched here as natural as life."

The General dismounted and clambered to the entrance, followed by his staff officer. As they reached it, the man stooped again and rose with something in his hand.

"Eh? A begging-bowl?"

"Not a doubt of it," said the staff officer, as his chief passed it to him. He examined it, turning it slowly over in his hands. "It's clear enough, though curious. We have struck the den of some old hermit of the hills, some holy man—"

"Who pitched his camp here for the sake of the water-spring, no doubt."

"Queer taste," said the staff officer sagely. "I wonder how the deuce he picked up his food."

"Oh, the hill-men hereabouts will travel leagues to visit and feed such a man."

"That doesn't explain why his bones lie unburied."

"No." The General mused for a moment. "Found anything else?" he demanded sharply.

The searchers reported "Nothing," and wished to know if they should bring the skeleton out into the light.

"No: cover him up decently, and fall in to limber up the gun!" He took his horse's bridle and walked back to the group about the injured man.

"Who is he?"

He was told, a corporal of the 94th who had volunteered for the gun team two days before. The sergeant who reported this added diffidently, "He had half a dozen of his religious mates in the team. He's a Wesleyan Methodist, sir, begging your pardon."

"Are you one?"

The sergeant saluted.

"He was the best man in his company and—and," he added with a touch of awe, "he was converted by Charles Wesley himself—at Bristol in 'eighty, so he's told us—and him aged but sixteen."

The General bent with sudden interest as the dying man opened his eyes. After scanning his face for a moment or two he said gently:

"My man, they tell me you knew Charles Wesley."

The corporal painfully bent his brows, on which the last sweat was gathering. "Is that—the General?" he gasped with a feeble effort to salute. Then his brain seemed to clear suddenly and he answered, not as soldier to commanding officer, but as man to man. "He converted me. Praise be to God!"

"You are going to him. You know?"

The corporal nodded.

"And you may take him a message from me: for he once did me a handsome turn, too—though not in that way. You may tell him—for I watched you with the guns to-day—that I pass you for a good soldier. You may tell him and his brother John that I wish to command no better followers than theirs. Now, is there anything I can do for you?"

The man looked up into the eyes of the sergeant bending over him, muttered a word or two, slowly drew his palm up to his forehead; and so, with the self-same salute, parted from his earthly captain and met his eternal Captain in Heaven.

"What did he say?" asked the General.

"He was wishful not to be put away without a hymn, sir," answered the sergeant, drawing himself erect to "Attention" and answering respectfully through his captain who had drawn near, having limbered up his gun.

The General nodded and turned away to watch the lowering of the remaining guns. A new track had been cut and down it they were trailed without accident. One by one they crossed the gully. Then the rear regiments hove in sight with the ambulance. The dead man was lifted in and his carrying-party, Wesleyans all, fell into rank behind the light wagon as that, too, moved on.

"Ellerton," said the General suddenly as he gazed after them, "did you hear what I said to that poor fellow just now?"

"Yes, General, and wondered."

"It was true, though. If it hadn't been for Charles Wesley, I should never be here commanding these troops. Wesley or Wellesley, sir— spell the name as you will: the man who adopted my great-grandfather spelt it Wesley: and he moved heaven and earth to make Charles Wesley his heir before he condescended to us. The offer stood open for years, but Charles Wesley refused it. I never heard why."

What—the hymn-man?"

"Even so. Odd story, is it not?"

The man who was to be the great Duke of Wellington stared for a moment, lost in thought, at his rear-guard mounting the farther slope of the gully. And as the British guns rolled onward into the dusk, back from the glimmering pass were borne the words of Wesley, Handel's music wafting them on its majestic wings:

"Rejoice, the Lord is King! Your Lord and King adore: Mortals, give thanks and sing And triumph evermore. Lift up your heart, lift up your voice— Rejoice! again I say, Rejoice!"

THE END