Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

“I am no musician,” I returned, “to give you a musical counter to your picture. But I see a grave man tilling the ground in peace, and the form of Truth standing behind him, and folding her wings closer and closer over and around him as he works on at his day’s labour.”

“Very pretty,” said Mr Stoddart, and said no more.

“Suppose,” I went on, “that a person knows that he has not laid hold on the truth, is that sufficient ground for his making any further assertion than that he has not found it?”

“No. But if he has tried hard and has not found ANYTHING that he can say is true, he cannot help thinking that most likely there is no such thing.”

“Suppose,” I said, “that nobody has found the truth, is that sufficient ground for saying that nobody ever will find it? or that there is no such thing as truth to be found? Are the ages so nearly done that no chance yet remains? Surely if God has made us to desire the truth, He has got some truth to cast into the gulf of that desire. Shall God create hunger and no food? But possibly a man may be looking the wrong way for it. You may be using the microscope, when you ought to open both eyes and lift up your head. Or a man may be finding some truth which is feeding his soul, when he does not think he is finding any. You know the Fairy Queen. Think how long the Redcross Knight travelled with the Lady Truth—Una, you know—without learning to believe in her; and how much longer still without ever seeing her face. For my part, may God give me strength to follow till I die. Only I will venture to say this, that it is not by any agony of the intellect that I expect to discover her.”

Mr Stoddart sat drumming silently with his fingers, a half-smile on his face, and his eyes raised at an angle of forty-five degrees. I felt that the enthusiasm with which I had spoken was thrown away upon him. But I was not going to be ashamed therefore. I would put some faith in his best nature.

“But does not,” he said, gently lowering his eyes upon mine after a moment’s pause—“does not your choice of a profession imply that you have not to give chase to a fleeting phantom? Do you not profess to have, and hold, and therefore teach the truth?”

“I profess only to have caught glimpses of her white garments,—those, I mean, of the abstract truth of which you speak. But I have seen that which is eternally beyond her: the ideal in the real, the living truth, not the truth that I can THINK, but the truth that thinks itself, that thinks me, that God has thought, yea, that God is, the truth BEING true to itself and to God and to man—Christ Jesus, my Lord, who knows, and feels, and does the truth. I have seen Him, and I am both content and unsatisfied. For in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Thomas a Kempis says: ‘Cui aeternum Verbum loquitur, ille a multis opinionibus expeditur.’” (He to whom the eternal Word speaks, is set free from a press of opinions.)

I rose, and held out my hand to Mr Stoddart. He rose likewise, and took it kindly, conducted me to the room below, and ringing the bell, committed me to the care of the butler.

As I approached the gate, I met Jane Rogers coming back from the village. I stopped and spoke to her. Her eyes were very red.

“Nothing amiss at home, Jane?” I said.

“No, sir, thank you,” answered Jane, and burst out crying.

“What is the matter, then? Is your–”

“Nothing’s the matter with nobody, sir.”

“Something is the matter with you.”

“Yes, sir. But I’m quite well.”

“I don’t want to pry into your affairs; but if you think I can be of any use to you, mind you come to me.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Jane; and, dropping a courtesy, walked on with her basket.

I went to her parents’ cottage. As I came near the mill, the young miller was standing in the door with his eyes fixed on the ground, while the mill went on hopping behind him. But when he caught sight of me, he turned, and went in, as if he had not seen me.

“Has he been behaving ill to Jane?” thought I. As he evidently wished to avoid me, I passed the mill without looking in at the door, as I was in the habit of doing, and went on to the cottage, where I lifted the latch, and walked in. Both the old people were there, and both looked troubled, though they welcomed me none the less kindly.

“I met Jane,” I said, “and she looked unhappy; so I came on to hear what was the matter.”

“You oughtn’t to be troubled with our small affairs,” said Mrs. Rogers.

“If the parson wants to know, why, the parson must be told,” said Old Rogers, smiling cheerily, as if he, at least, would be relieved by telling me.

“I don’t want to know,” I said, “if you don’t want to tell me. But can I be of any use?”

“I don’t think you can, sir,—leastways, I’m afraid not,” said the old woman.

“I am sorry to say, sir, that Master Brownrigg and his son has come to words about our Jane; and it’s not agreeable to have folk’s daughter quarrelled over in that way,” said Old Rogers. “What’ll be the upshot on it, I don’t know, but it looks bad now. For the father he tells the son that if ever he hear of him saying one word to our Jane, out of the mill he goes, as sure as his name’s Dick. Now, it’s rather a good chance, I think, to see what the young fellow’s made of, sir. So I tells my old ‘oman here; and so I told Jane. But neither on ‘em seems to see the comfort of it somehow. But the New Testament do say a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife.”

“But she ain’t his wife yet,” said Mrs Rogers to her husband, whose drift was not yet evident.

“No more she can be, ‘cept he leaves his father for her.”

“And what’ll become of them then, without the mill?”

“You and me never had no mill, old ‘oman,” said Rogers; “yet here we be, very nearly ripe now,—ain’t us, wife?”

“Medlar-like, Old Rogers, I doubt,—rotten before we’re ripe,” replied his wife, quoting a more humorous than refined proverb.

“Nay, nay, old ‘oman. Don’t ‘e say so. The Lord won’t let us rot before we’re ripe, anyhow. That I be sure on.”

“But, anyhow, it’s all very well to talk. Thou knows how to talk, Rogers. But how will it be when the children comes, and no mill?”

“To grind ‘em in, old ‘oman?”

Mrs Rogers turned to me, who was listening with real interest, and much amusement.

“I wish you would speak a word to Old Rogers, sir. He never will speak as he’s spoken to. He’s always over merry, or over serious. He either takes me up short with a sermon, or he laughs me out of countenance that I don’t know where to look.”

Now I was pretty sure that Rogers’s conduct was simple consistency, and that the difficulty arose from his always acting upon one or two of the plainest principles of truth and right; whereas his wife, good woman—for the bad, old leaven of the Pharisees could not rise much in her somehow—was always reminding him of certain precepts of behaviour to the oblivion of principles. “A bird in the hand,” &c.—“Marry in haste,” &c.—“When want comes in at the door love flies out at the window,” were amongst her favourite sayings; although not one of them was supported by her own experience. For instance, she had married in haste herself, and never, I believe, had once thought of repenting of it, although she had had far more than the requisite leisure for doing so. And many was the time that want had come in at her door, and the first thing it always did was to clip the wings of Love, and make him less flighty, and more tender and serviceable. So I could not even pretend to read her husband a lecture.

“He’s a curious man, Old Rogers,” I said. “But as far as I can see, he’s in the right, in the main. Isn’t he now?”

“Oh, yes, I daresay. I think he’s always right about the rights of the thing, you know. But a body may go too far that way. It won’t do to starve, sir.”

Strange confusion—or, ought I not rather to say?—ordinary and commonplace confusion of ideas!

“I don’t think,” I said, “any one can go too far in the right way.”

“That’s just what I want my old ‘oman to see, and I can’t get it into her, sir. If a thing’s right, it’s right, and if a thing’s wrong, why, wrong it is. The helm must either be to starboard or port, sir.”

“But why talk of starving?” I said. “Can’t Dick work? Who could think of starting that nonsense?”

“Why, my old ‘oman here. She wants ‘em to give it up, and wait for better times. The fact is, she don’t want to lose the girl.”

“But she hasn’t got her at home now.”

“She can have her when she wants her, though—leastways after a bit of warning. Whereas, if she was married, and the consequences a follerin’ at her heels, like a man-o’-war with her convoy, she would find she was chartered for another port, she would.”

“Well, you see, sir, Rogers and me’s not so young as we once was, and we’re likely to be growing older every day. And if there’s a difficulty in the way of Jane’s marriage, why, I take it as a Godsend.”

“How would you have liked such a Godsend, Mrs Rogers, when you were going to be married to your sailor here? What would you have done?”

“Why, whatever he liked to be sure. But then, you see, Dick’s not my Rogers.”

“But your daughter thinks about him much in the same way as you did about this dear old man here when he was young.”

“Young people may be in the wrong, I see nothing in Dick Brownrigg.”

“But young people may be right sometimes, and old people may be wrong sometimes.”

“I can’t be wrong about Rogers.”

“No, but you may be wrong about Dick.”

“Don’t you trouble yourself about my old ‘oman, sir. She allus was awk’ard in stays, but she never missed them yet. When she’s said her say, round she comes in the wind like a bird, sir.”

“There’s a good old man to stick up for your old wife! Still, I say, they may as well wait a bit. It would be a pity to anger the old gentleman.”

“What does the young man say to it?”

“Why, he says, like a man, he can work for her as well’s the mill, and he’s ready, if she is.”

“I am very glad to hear such a good account of him. I shall look in, and have a little chat with him. I always liked the look of him. Good morning, Mrs. Rogers.”

“I ‘ll see you across the stream, sir,” said the old man, following me out of the house.

“You see, sir,” he resumed, as soon as we were outside, “I’m always afeard of taking things out of the Lord’s hands. It’s the right way, surely, that when a man loves a woman, and has told her so, he should act like a man, and do as is right. And isn’t that the Lord’s way? And can’t He give them what’s good for them. Mayhap they won’t love each other the less in the end if Dick has a little bit of the hard work that many a man that the Lord loved none the less has had before him. I wouldn’t like to anger the old gentleman, as my wife says; but if I was Dick, I know what I would do. But don’t ‘e think hard of my wife, sir, for I believe there’s a bit of pride in it. She’s afeard of bein’ supposed to catch at Richard Brownrigg, because he’s above us, you know, sir. And I can’t altogether blame her, only we ain’t got to do with the look o’ things, but with the things themselves.”

“I understand you quite, and I’m very much of your mind. You can trust me to have a little chat with him, can’t you?”

“That I can, sir.”

Here we had come to the boundary of his garden—the busy stream that ran away, as if it was scared at the labour it had been compelled to go through, and was now making the best of its speed back to its mother-ocean, to tell sad tales of a world where every little brook must do some work ere it gets back to its rest. I bade him good day, jumped across it, and went into the mill, where Richard was tying the mouth of a sack, as gloomily as the brothers of Joseph must have tied their sacks after his silver cup had been found.

“Why did you turn away from me, as I passed half-an-hour ago, Richard?” I said, cheerily.

“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t think you saw me.”

“But supposing I hadn’t?—But I won’t tease you. I know all about it. Can I do anything for you?”

“No, sir. You can’t move my father. It’s no use talking to him. He never hears a word anybody says. He never hears a word you say o’ Sundays, sir. He won’t even believe the Mark Lane Express about the price of corn. It’s no use talking to him, sir.”

“You wouldn’t mind if I were to try?”

“No, sir. You can’t make matters worse. No more can you make them any better, sir.”

“I don’t say I shall talk to him; but I may try it, if I find a fitting opportunity.”

“He’s always worse—more obstinate, that is, when he’s in a good temper. So you may choose your opportunity wrong. But it’s all the same. It can make no difference.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I would let him do his worst. But Jane doesn’t like to go against her mother. I’m sure I can’t think how she should side with my father against both of us. He never laid her under any such obligation, I’m sure.”

“There may be more ways than one of accounting for that. You must mind, however, and not be too hard upon your father. You’re quite right in holding fast to the girl; but mind that vexation does not make you unjust.”

“I wish my mother were alive. She was the only one that ever could manage him. How she contrived to do it nobody could think; but manage him she did, somehow or other. There’s not a husk of use in talking to HIM.”

“I daresay he prides himself on not being moved by talk. But has he ever had a chance of knowing Jane—of seeing what kind of a girl she is?”

“He’s seen her over and over.”

“But seeing isn’t always believing.”

“It certainly isn’t with him.”

“If he could only know her! But don’t you be too hard upon him. And don’t do anything in a hurry. Give him a little time, you know. Mrs Rogers won’t interfere between you and Jane, I am pretty sure. But don’t push matters till we see. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, and thank you kindly, sir.—Ain’t I to see Jane in the meantime?”

“If I were you, I would make no difference. See her as often as you used, which I suppose was as often as you could. I don’t think, I say, that her mother will interfere. Her father is all on your side.”

I called on Mr Brownrigg; but, as his son had forewarned me, I could make nothing of him. He didn’t see, when the mill was his property, and Dick was his son, why he shouldn’t have his way with them. And he was going to have his way with them. His son might marry any lady in the land; and he wasn’t going to throw himself away that way.

I will not weary my readers with the conversation we had together. All my missiles of argument were lost as it were in a bank of mud, the weight and resistance of which they only increased. My experience in the attempt, however, did a little to reconcile me to his going to sleep in church; for I saw that it could make little difference whether he was asleep or awake. He, and not Mr. Stoddart in his organ sentry-box, was the only person whom it was absolutely impossible to preach to. You might preach AT him; but TO him?—no.

CHAPTER X. MY CHRISTMAS PARTY

As Christmas Day drew nearer and nearer, my heart glowed with the more gladness; and the question came more and more pressingly—Could I not do something to make it more really a holiday of the Church for my parishioners? That most of them would have a little more enjoyment on it than they had had all the year through, I had ground to hope; but I wanted to connect this gladness—in their minds, I mean, for who could dissever them in fact?—with its source, the love of God, that love manifested unto men in the birth of the Human Babe, the Son of Man. But I would not interfere with the Christmas Day at home. I resolved to invite as many of my parishioners as would come, to spend Christmas Eve at the Vicarage.

I therefore had a notice to that purport affixed to the church door; and resolved to send out no personal invitations whatever, so that I might not give offence by accidental omission. The only person thrown into perplexity by this mode of proceeding was Mrs. Pearson.

“How many am I to provide for, sir?” she said, with an injured air.

“For as many as you ever saw in church at one time,” I said. “And if there should be too much, why so much the better. It can go to make Christmas Day the merrier at some of the poorer houses.”

She looked discomposed, for she was not of an easy temper. But she never ACTED from her temper; she only LOOKED or SPOKE from it.

“I shall want help,” she said, at length.

“As much as you like, Mrs. Pearson. I can trust you entirely.”

Her face brightened; and the end showed that I had not trusted her amiss.

I was a little anxious about the result of the invitation—partly as indicating the amount of confidence my people placed in me. But although no one said a word to me about it beforehand except Old Rogers, as soon as the hour arrived, the people began to come. And the first I welcomed was Mr. Brownrigg.

I had had all the rooms on the ground-floor prepared for their reception. Tables of provision were set out in every one of them. My visitors had tea or coffee, with plenty of bread and butter, when they arrived; and the more solid supplies were reserved for a later part of the evening. I soon found myself with enough to do. But before long, I had a very efficient staff. For after having had occasion, once or twice, to mention something of my plans for the evening, I found my labours gradually diminish, and yet everything seemed to go right; the fact being that good Mr Boulderstone, in one part, had cast himself into the middle of the flood, and stood there immovable both in face and person, turning its waters into the right channel, namely, towards the barn, which I had fitted up for their reception in a body; while in another quarter, namely, in the barn, Dr Duncan was doing his best, and that was simply something first-rate, to entertain the people till all should be ready. From a kind of instinct these gentlemen had taken upon them to be my staff, almost without knowing it, and very grateful I was. I found, too, that they soon gathered some of the young and more active spirits about them, whom they employed in various ways for the good of the community.

When I came in and saw the goodly assemblage, for I had been busy receiving them in the house, I could not help rejoicing that my predecessor had been so fond of farming that he had rented land in the neighbourhood of the vicarage, and built this large barn, of which I could make a hall to entertain my friends. The night was frosty—the stars shining brilliantly overhead—so that, especially for country people, there was little danger in the short passage to be made to it from the house. But, if necessary, I resolved to have a covered-way built before next time. For how can a man be THE PERSON of a parish, if he never entertains his parishioners? And really, though it was lighted only with candles round the walls, and I had not been able to do much for the decoration of the place, I thought it looked very well, and my heart was glad that Christmas Eve—just as if the Babe had been coming again to us that same night. And is He not always coming to us afresh in every childlike feeling that awakes in the hearts of His people?

I walked about amongst them, greeting them, and greeted everywhere in turn with kind smiles and hearty shakes of the hand. As often as I paused in my communications for a moment, it was amusing to watch Mr. Boulderstone’s honest, though awkward endeavours to be at ease with his inferiors; but Dr Duncan was just a sight worth seeing. Very tall and very stately, he was talking now to this old man, now to that young woman, and every face glistened towards which he turned. There was no condescension about him. He was as polite and courteous to one as to another, and the smile that every now and then lighted up his old face, was genuine and sympathetic. No one could have known by his behaviour that he was not at court. And I thought—Surely even the contact with such a man will do something to refine the taste of my people. I felt more certain than ever that a free mingling of all classes would do more than anything else towards binding us all into a wise patriotic nation; would tend to keep down that foolish emulation which makes one class ape another from afar, like Ben Jonson’s Fungoso, “still lighting short a suit;” would refine the roughness of the rude, and enable the polished to see with what safety his just share in public matters might be committed into the hands of the honest workman. If we could once leave it to each other to give what honour is due; knowing that honour demanded is as worthless as insult undeserved is hurtless! What has one to do to honour himself? That is and can be no honour. When one has learned to seek the honour that cometh from God only, he will take the withholding of the honour that comes from men very quietly indeed.

The only thing that disappointed me was, that there was no one there to represent Oldcastle Hall. But how could I have everything a success at once!—And Catherine Weir was likewise absent.

After we had spent a while in pleasant talk, and when I thought nearly all were with us, I got up on a chair at the end of the barn, and said:—

“Kind friends,—I am very grateful to you for honouring my invitation as you have done. Permit me to hope that this meeting will be the first of many, and that from it may grow the yearly custom in this parish of gathering in love and friendship upon Christmas Eve. When God comes to man, man looks round for his neighbour. When man departed from God in the Garden of Eden, the only man in the world ceased to be the friend of the only woman in the world; and, instead of seeking to bear her burden, became her accuser to God, in whom he saw only the Judge, unable to perceive that the Infinite love of the Father had come to punish him in tenderness and grace. But when God in Jesus comes back to men, brothers and sisters spread forth their arms to embrace each other, and so to embrace Him. This is, when He is born again in our souls. For, dear friends, what we all need is just to become little children like Him; to cease to be careful about many things, and trust in Him, seeking only that He should rule, and that we should be made good like Him. What else is meant by ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you?’ Instead of doing so, we seek the things God has promised to look after for us, and refuse to seek the thing He wants us to seek—a thing that cannot be given us, except we seek it. We profess to think Jesus the grandest and most glorious of men, and yet hardly care to be like Him; and so when we are offered His Spirit, that is, His very nature within us, for the asking, we will hardly take the trouble to ask for it. But to-night, at least, let all unkind thoughts, all hard judgments of one another, all selfish desires after our own way, be put from us, that we may welcome the Babe into our very bosoms; that when He comes amongst us—for is He not like a child still, meek and lowly of heart?—He may not be troubled to find that we are quarrelsome, and selfish, and unjust.”

I came down from the chair, and Mr Brownrigg being the nearest of my guests, and wide awake, for he had been standing, and had indeed been listening to every word according to his ability, I shook hands with him. And positively there was some meaning in the grasp with which he returned mine.

I am not going to record all the proceedings of the evening; but I think it may be interesting to my readers to know something of how we spent it. First of all, we sang a hymn about the Nativity. And then I read an extract from a book of travels, describing the interior of an Eastern cottage, probably much resembling the inn in which our Lord was born, the stable being scarcely divided fron the rest of the house. For I felt that to open the inner eyes even of the brain, enabling people to SEE in some measure the reality of the old lovely story, to help them to have what the Scotch philosophers call a true CONCEPTION of the external conditions and circumstances of the events, might help to open the yet deeper spiritual eyes which alone can see the meaning and truth dwelling in and giving shape to the outward facts. And the extract was listened to with all the attention I could wish, except, at first, from some youngsters at the further end of the barn, who became, however, perfectly still as I proceeded.

After this followed conversation, during which I talked a good deal to Jane Rogers, paying her particular attention indeed, with the hope of a chance of bringing old Mr Brownrigg and her together in some way.