Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

“How is your mistress, Jane?” I said.

“Quite well, sir, thank you. I only wish she was here.”

“I wish she were. But perhaps she will come next year.”

“I think she will. I am almost sure she would have liked to come to-night; for I heard her say”–

“I beg your pardon, Jane, for interrupting you; but I would rather not be told anything you may have happened to overhear,” I said, in a low voice.

“Oh, sir!” returned Jane, blushing a dark crimson; “it wasn’t anything particular.”

“Still, if it was anything on which a wrong conjecture might be built”—I wanted to soften it to her—“it is better that one should not be told it. Thank you for your kind intention, though. And now, Jane,” I said, “will you do me a favour?”

“That I will, sir, if I can.”

“Sing that Christmas carol I heard you sing last night to your mother.”

“I didn’t know any one was listening, sir.”

“I know you did not. I came to the door with your father, and we stood and listened.”

She looked very frightened. But I would not have asked her had I not known that she could sing like a bird.

“I am afraid I shall make a fool of myself,” she said.

“We should all be willing to run that risk for the sake of others,” I answered.

“I will try then, sir.”

So she sang, and her clear voice soon silenced the speech all round.

   “Babe Jesus lay on Mary’s lap;      The sun shone in His hair:    And so it was she saw, mayhap,      The crown already there.   “For she sang: ‘Sleep on, my little King!      Bad Herod dares not come;    Before Thee, sleeping, holy thing,      Wild winds would soon be dumb.   “‘I kiss Thy hands, I kiss Thy feet,      My King, so long desired;    Thy hands shall never be soil’d, my sweet,      Thy feet shall never be tired.   “‘For Thou art the King of men, my son;      Thy crown I see it plain;    And men shall worship Thee, every one,      And cry, Glory! Amen.”   “Babe Jesus open’d His eyes so wide!      At Mary look’d her Lord.    And Mary stinted her song and sigh’d.      Babe Jesus said never a word.”

When Jane had done singing, I asked her where she had learned the carol; and she answered,—

“My mistress gave it me. There was a picture to it of the Baby on his mother’s knee.”

“I never saw it,” I said. “Where did you get the tune?”

“I thought it would go with a tune I knew; and I tried it, and it did. But I was not fit to sing to you, sir.”

“You must have quite a gift of song, Jane!” I said.

“My father and mother can both sing.”

Mr Brownrigg was seated on the other side of me, and had apparently listened with some interest. His face was ten degrees less stupid than it usually was. I fancied I saw even a glimmer of some satisfaction in it. I turned to Old Rogers.

“Sing us a song, Old Rogers,” I said.

“I’m no canary at that, sir; and besides, my singing days be over. I advise you to ask Dr. Duncan there. He CAN sing.”

I rose and said to the assembly:

“My friends, if I did not think God was pleased to see us enjoying ourselves, I should have no heart for it myself. I am going to ask our dear friend Dr. Duncan to give us a song.—If you please, Dr. Duncan.”

“I am very nearly too old,” said the doctor; “but I will try.”

His voice was certainly a little feeble; but the song was not much the worse for it. And a more suitable one for all the company he could hardly have pitched upon.

   “There is a plough that has no share,    But a coulter that parteth keen and fair.    But the furrows they rise    To a terrible size,    Or ever the plough hath touch’d them there.    ‘Gainst horses and plough in wrath they shake:    The horses are fierce; but the plough will break.   “And the seed that is dropt in those furrows of fear,    Will lift to the sun neither blade nor ear.    Down it drops plumb,    Where no spring times come;    And here there needeth no harrowing gear:    Wheat nor poppy nor any leaf    Will cover this naked ground of grief.   “But a harvest-day will come at last    When the watery winter all is past;    The waves so gray    Will be shorn away    By the angels’ sickles keen and fast;    And the buried harvest of the sea    Stored in the barns of eternity.”

Genuine applause followed the good doctor’s song. I turned to Miss Boulderstone, from whom I had borrowed a piano, and asked her to play a country dance for us. But first I said—not getting up on a chair this time:—

“Some people think it is not proper for a clergyman to dance. I mean to assert my freedom from any such law. If our Lord chose to represent, in His parable of the Prodigal Son, the joy in Heaven over a repentant sinner by the figure of ‘music and dancing,’ I will hearken to Him rather than to men, be they as good as they may.”

For I had long thought that the way to make indifferent things bad, was for good people not to do them.

And so saying, I stepped up to Jane Rogers, and asked her to dance with me. She blushed so dreadfully that, for a moment, I was almost sorry I had asked her. But she put her hand in mine at once; and if she was a little clumsy, she yet danced very naturally, and I had the satisfaction of feeling that I had an honest girl near me, who I knew was friendly to me in her heart.

But to see the faces of the people! While I had been talking, Old Rogers had been drinking in every word. To him it was milk and strong meat in one. But now his face shone with a father’s gratification besides. And Richard’s face was glowing too. Even old Brownrigg looked with a curious interest upon us, I thought.

Meantime Dr Duncan was dancing with one of his own patients, old Mrs Trotter, to whose wants he ministered far more from his table than his surgery. I have known that man, hearing of a case of want from his servant, send the fowl he was about to dine upon, untouched, to those whose necessity was greater than his.

And Mr Boulderstone had taken out old Mrs Rogers; and young Brownrigg had taken Mary Weir. Thomas Weir did not dance at all, but looked on kindly.

“Why don’t you dance, Old Rogers?” I said, as I placed his daughter in a seat beside him.

“Did your honour ever see an elephant go up the futtock-shrouds?”

“No. I never did.”

“I thought you must, sir, to ask me why I don’t dance. You won’t take my fun ill, sir? I’m an old man-o’-war’s man, you know, sir.”

“I should have thought, Rogers, that you would have known better by this time, than make such an apology to ME.”

“God bless you, sir. An old man’s safe with you—or a young lass, either, sir,” he added, turning with a smile to his daughter.

I turned, and addressed Mr Boulderstone.

“I am greatly obliged to you, Mr Boulderstone, for the help you have given me this evening. I’ve seen you talking to everybody, just as if you had to entertain them all.”

“I hope I haven’t taken too much upon me. But the fact is, somehow or other, I don’t know how, I got into the spirit of it.”

“You got into the spirit of it because you wanted to help me, and I thank you heartily.”

“Well, I thought it wasn’t a time to mind one’s peas and cues exactly. And really it’s wonderful how one gets on without them. I hate formality myself.”

The dear fellow was the most formal man I had ever met.

“Why don’t you dance, Mr Brownrigg?”

“Who’d care to dance with me, sir? I don’t care to dance with an old woman; and a young woman won’t care to dance with me.”

“I’ll find you a partner, if you will put yourself in my hands.”

“I don’t mind trusting myself to you, sir.”

So I led him to Jane Rogers. She stood up in respectful awe before the master of her destiny. There were signs of calcitration in the churchwarden, when he perceived whither I was leading him. But when he saw the girl stand trembling before him, whether it was that he was flattered by the signs of his own power, accepting them as homage, or that his hard heart actually softened a little, I cannot tell, but, after just a perceptible hesitation, he said:

“Come along, my lass, and let’s have a hop together.”

She obeyed very sweetly.

“Don’t be too shy,” I whispered to her as she passed me.

And the churchwarden danced very heartily with the lady’s-maid.

I then asked him to take her into the house, and give her something to eat in return for her song. He yielded somewhat awkwardly, and what passed between them I do not know. But when they returned, she seemed less frightened at him than when she heard me make the proposal. And when the company was parting, I heard him take leave of her with the words—

“Give us a kiss, my girl, and let bygones be bygones.”

Which kiss I heard with delight. For had I not been a peacemaker in this matter? And had I not then a right to feel blessed?—But the understanding was brought about simply by making the people meet—compelling them, as it were, to know something of each other really. Hitherto this girl had been a mere name, or phantom at best, to her lover’s father; and it was easy for him to treat her as such, that is, as a mere fancy of his son’s. The idea of her had passed through his mind; but with what vividness any idea, notion, or conception could be present to him, my readers must judge from my description of him. So that obstinacy was a ridiculously easy accomplishment to him. For he never had any notion of the matter to which he was opposed—only of that which he favoured. It is very easy indeed for such people to stick to their point.

But I took care that we should have dancing in moderation. It would not do for people either to get weary with recreation, or excited with what was not worthy of producing such an effect. Indeed we had only six country dances during the evening. That was all. And between the dances I read two or three of Wordsworth’s ballads to them, and they listened even with more interest than I had been able to hope for. The fact was, that the happy and free hearted mood they were in “enabled the judgment.” I wish one knew always by what musical spell to produce the right mood for receiving and reflecting a matter as it really is. Every true poem carries this spell with it in its own music, which it sends out before it as a harbinger, or properly a HERBERGER, to prepare a harbour or lodging for it. But then it needs a quiet mood first of all, to let this music be listened to.

For I thought with myself, if I could get them to like poetry and beautiful things in words, it would not only do them good, but help them to see what is in the Bible, and therefore to love it more. For I never could believe that a man who did not find God in other places as well as in the Bible ever found Him there at all. And I always thought, that to find God in other books enabled us to see clearly that he was MORE in the Bible than in any other book, or all other books put together.

After supper we had a little more singing. And to my satisfaction nothing came to my eyes or ears, during the whole evening, that was undignified or ill-bred. Of course, I knew that many of them must have two behaviours, and that now they were on their good behaviour. But I thought the oftener such were put on their good behaviour, giving them the opportunity of finding out how nice it was, the better. It might make them ashamed of the other at last.

There were many little bits of conversation I overheard, which I should like to give my readers; but I cannot dwell longer upon this part of my Annals. Especially I should have enjoyed recording one piece of talk, in which Old Rogers was evidently trying to move a more directly religious feeling in the mind of Dr Duncan. I thought I could see that THE difficulty with the noble old gentleman was one of expression. But after all the old foremast-man was a seer of the Kingdom; and the other, with all his refinement, and education, and goodness too, was but a child in it.

Before we parted, I gave to each of my guests a sheet of Christmas Carols, gathered from the older portions of our literature. For most of the modern hymns are to my mind neither milk nor meat—mere wretched imitations. There were a few curious words and idioms in these, but I thought it better to leave them as they were; for they might set them inquiring, and give me an opportunity of interesting them further, some time or other, in the history of a word; for, in their ups and downs of fortune, words fare very much like human beings.

And here is my sheet of Carols:—

    AN HYMNE OF HEAVENLY LOVE    O blessed Well of Love! O Floure of Grace!    O glorious Morning-Starre! O Lampe of Light!    Most lively image of thy Father’s face,    Eternal King of Glorie, Lord of Might,    Meeke Lambe of God, before all worlds behight,    How can we Thee requite for all this good?    Or what can prize that Thy most precious blood?    Yet nought Thou ask’st in lieu of all this love,    But love of us, for guerdon of Thy paine:    Ay me! what can us lesse than that behove?    Had He required life of us againe,    Had it beene wrong to ask His owne with gaine?    He gave us life, He it restored lost;    Then life were least, that us so little cost.    But He our life hath left unto us free,    Free that was thrall, and blessed that was bann’d;    Ne ought demaunds but that we loving bee,    As He himselfe hath lov’d us afore-hand,    And bound therto with an eternall band,    Him first to love that us so dearely bought,    And next our brethren, to His image wrought.    Him first to love great right and reason is,    Who first to us our life and being gave,    And after, when we fared had amisse,    Us wretches from the second death did save;    And last, the food of life, which now we have,    Even He Himselfe, in His dear sacrament,    To feede our hungry soules, unto us lent.    Then next, to love our brethren, that were made    Of that selfe mould, and that self Maker’s hand,    That we, and to the same againe shall fade,    Where they shall have like heritage of land,    However here on higher steps we stand,    Which also were with self-same price redeemed    That we, however of us light esteemed.    Then rouze thy selfe, O Earth! out of thy soyle,    In which thou wallowest like to filthy swyne,    And doest thy mynd in durty pleasures moyle,    Unmindfull of that dearest Lord of thyne;    Lift up to Him thy heavie clouded eyne,    That thou this soveraine bountie mayst behold,    And read, through love, His mercies manifold.    Beginne from first, where He encradled was    In simple cratch, wrapt in a wad of hay,    Betweene the toylfull oxe and humble asse,    And in what rags, and in how base array,    The glory of our heavenly riches lay,    When Him the silly shepheards came to see,    Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee.    From thence reade on the storie of His life,    His humble carriage, His unfaulty wayes,    His cancred foes, His fights, His toyle, His strife,    His paines, His povertie, His sharpe assayes,    Through which He past His miserable dayes,    Offending none, and doing good to all,    Yet being malist both by great and small.    With all thy hart, with all thy soule and mind,    Thou must Him love, and His beheasts embrace;    All other loves, with which the world doth blind    Weake fancies, and stirre up affections base,    Thou must renounce and utterly displace,    And give thy selfe unto Him full and free,    That full and freely gave Himselfe to thee.    Then shall thy ravisht soul inspired bee    With heavenly thoughts farre above humane skil,    And thy bright radiant eyes shall plainly see    Th’ idee of His pure glorie present still    Before thy face, that all thy spirits shall fill    With sweet enragement of celestial love,    Kindled through sight of those faire things above.    Spencer    NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP    Behold a silly tender Babe,      In freezing winter night,    In homely manger trembling lies;      Alas! a piteous sight.    The inns are full, no man will yield      This little Pilgrim bed;    But forced He is with silly beasts      In crib to shroud His head.    Despise Him not for lying there,      First what He is inquire;    An orient pearl is often found      In depth of dirty mire.    Weigh not His crib, His wooden dish,      Nor beast that by Him feed;    Weigh not his mother’s poor attire,      Nor Joseph’s simple weed.    This stable is a Prince’s court,      The crib His chair of state;    The beasts are parcel of His pomp,      The wooden dish His plate.    The persons in that poor attire      His royal liveries wear;    The Prince himself is come from heaven—      This pomp is praised there.    With joy approach, O Christian wight!      Do homage to thy King;    And highly praise this humble pomp      Which He from heaven doth bring.                             SOUTHWELL.    A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THREE SHEPHERDS    1. Where is this blessed Babe         That hath made       All the world so full of joy         And expectation;       That glorious Boy         That crowns each nation       With a triumphant wreath of blessedness?    2. Where should He be but in the throng,         And among       His angel-ministers, that sing         And take wing       Just as may echo to His voice,         And rejoice,       When wing and tongue and all         May so procure their happiness?    3. But He hath other waiters now.         A poor cow,       An ox and mule stand and behold,         And wonder       That a stable should enfold         Him that can thunder.    Chorus. O what a gracious God have we!    How good! How great! Even as our misery.     Jeremy Taylor.    A SONG OF PRAISE FOR THE BIRTH OF CHRIST    Away, dark thoughts; awake, my joy;      Awake, my glory; sing;    Sing songs to celebrate the birth      Of Jacob’s God and King.    O happy night, that brought forth light,      Which makes the blind to see!    The day spring from on high came down      To cheer and visit thee.    The wakeful shepherds, near their flocks,      Were watchful for the morn;    But better news from heaven was brought,      Your Saviour Christ is born.    In Bethlem-town the infant lies,      Within a place obscure,    O little Bethlem, poor in walls,      But rich in furniture!    Since heaven is now come down to earth,      Hither the angels fly!    Hark, how the heavenly choir doth sing      Glory to God on High!    The news is spread, the church is glad,      SIMEON, o’ercome with joy,    Sings with the infant in his arms,      NOW LET THY SERVANT DIE.    Wise men from far beheld the star,      Which was their faithful guide,    Until it pointed forth the Babe,      And Him they glorified.    Do heaven and earth rejoice and sing—      Shall we our Christ deny?    He’s born for us, and we for Him:      GLORY TO GOD ON HIGH.                          JOHN MASON.

CHAPTER XI. SERMON ON GOD AND MAMMON

I never asked questions about the private affairs of any of my parishioners, except of themselves individually upon occasion of their asking me for advice, and some consequent necessity for knowing more than they told me. Hence, I believe, they became the more willing that I should know. But I heard a good many things from others, notwithstanding, for I could not be constantly closing the lips of the communicative as I had done those of Jane Rogers. And amongst other things, I learned that Miss Oldcastle went most Sundays to the neighbouring town of Addicehead to church. Now I had often heard of the ability of the rector, and although I had never met him, was prepared to find him a cultivated, if not an original man. Still, if I must be honest, which I hope I must, I confess that I heard the news with a pang, in analysing which I discovered the chief component to be jealousy. It was no use asking myself why I should be jealous: there the ugly thing was. So I went and told God I was ashamed, and begged Him to deliver me from the evil, because His was the kingdom and the power and the glory. And He took my part against myself, for He waits to be gracious. Perhaps the reader may, however, suspect a deeper cause for this feeling (to which I would rather not give the true name again) than a merely professional one.

But there was one stray sheep of my flock that appeared in church for the first time on the morning of Christmas Day—Catherine Weir. She did not sit beside her father, but in the most shadowy corner of the church—near the organ loft, however. She could have seen her father if she had looked up, but she kept her eyes down the whole time, and never even lifted them to me. The spot on one cheek was much brighter than that on the other, and made her look very ill.

I prayed to our God to grant me the honour of speaking a true word to them all; which honour I thought I was right in asking, because the Lord reproached the Pharisees for not seeking the honour that cometh from God. Perhaps I may have put a wrong interpretation on the passage. It is, however, a joy to think that He will not give you a stone, even if you should take it for a loaf, and ask for it as such. Nor is He, like the scribes, lying in wait to catch poor erring men in their words or their prayers, however mistaken they may be.

I took my text from the Sermon on the Mount. And as the magazine for which these Annals were first written was intended chiefly for Sunday reading, I wrote my sermon just as if I were preaching it to my unseen readers as I spoke it to my present parishioners. And here it is now:

The Gospel according to St Matthew, the sixth chapter, and part of the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses:—

“‘YE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON. THEREFORE I SAY TO YOU, TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR YOUR LIFE.’

“When the Child whose birth we celebrate with glad hearts this day, grew up to be a man, He said this. Did He mean it?—He never said what He did not mean. Did He mean it wholly?—He meant it far beyond what the words could convey. He meant it altogether and entirely. When people do not understand what the Lord says, when it seems to them that His advice is impracticable, instead of searching deeper for a meaning which will be evidently true and wise, they comfort themselves by thinking He could not have meant it altogether, and so leave it. Or they think that if He did mean it, He could not expect them to carry it out. And in the fact that they could not do it perfectly if they were to try, they take refuge from the duty of trying to do it at all; or, oftener, they do not think about it at all as anything that in the least concerns them. The Son of our Father in heaven may have become a child, may have led the one life which belongs to every man to lead, may have suffered because we are sinners, may have died for our sakes, doing the will of His Father in heaven, and yet we have nothing to do with the words He spoke out of the midst of His true, perfect knowledge, feeling, and action! Is it not strange that it should be so? Let it not be so with us this day. Let us seek to find out what our Lord means, that we may do it; trying and failing and trying again—verily to be victorious at last—what matter WHEN, so long as we are trying, and so coming nearer to our end!

“MAMMON, you know, means RICHES. Now, riches are meant to be the slave—not even the servant of man, and not to be the master. If a man serve his own servant, or, in a word, any one who has no just claim to be his master, he is a slave. But here he serves his own slave. On the other hand, to serve God, the source of our being, our own glorious Father, is freedom; in fact, is the only way to get rid of all bondage. So you see plainly enough that a man cannot serve God and Mammon. For how can a slave of his own slave be the servant of the God of freedom, of Him who can have no one to serve Him but a free man? His service is freedom. Do not, I pray you, make any confusion between service and slavery. To serve is the highest, noblest calling in creation. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, yea, with Himself.

“But how can a man SERVE riches? Why, when he says to riches, ‘Ye are my good.’ When he feels he cannot be happy without them. When he puts forth the energies of his nature to get them. When he schemes and dreams and lies awake about them. When he will not give to his neighbour for fear of becoming poor himself. When he wants to have more, and to know he has more, than he can need. When he wants to leave money behind him, not for the sake of his children or relatives, but for the name of the wealth. When he leaves his money, not to those who NEED it, even of his relations, but to those who are rich like himself, making them yet more of slaves to the overgrown monster they worship for his size. When he honours those who have money because they have money, irrespective of their character; or when he honours in a rich man what he would not honour in a poor man. Then is he the slave of Mammon. Still more is he Mammon’s slave when his devotion to his god makes him oppressive to those over whom his wealth gives him power; or when he becomes unjust in order to add to his stores.—How will it be with such a man when on a sudden he finds that the world has vanished, and he is alone with God? There lies the body in which he used to live, whose poor necessities first made money of value to him, but with which itself and its fictitious value are both left behind. He cannot now even try to bribe God with a cheque. The angels will not bow down to him because his property, as set forth in his will, takes five or six figures to express its amount It makes no difference to them that he has lost it, though; for they never respected him. And the poor souls of Hades, who envied him the wealth they had lost before, rise up as one man to welcome him, not for love of him—no worshipper of Mammon loves another—but rejoicing in the mischief that has befallen him, and saying, ‘Art thou also become one of us?’ And Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, however sorry he may be for him, however grateful he may feel to him for the broken victuals and the penny, cannot with one drop of the water of Paradise cool that man’s parched tongue.