MAINTAINS THAT FOR THE WRONG SIN-BURDENED MORTAL NO SLEEP IS SO SWEET AS THE LAST LONG SLEEP OF ALL.
There was deep joy in Mrs. Thomas Wanless's cottage that night—joy all the deeper for the pain that lay beneath it. Mrs. Wanless was not a demonstrative woman at any time, but that night she embraced her daughter again and again, and held her to her heart with passionate eagerness. Sarah was sad, and after the first momentary flash of delight, shrank back within herself. She went and looked at her child sleeping quietly in its grandmother's bed, but did not kiss or caress it. The joy of the parents was dimmed at sight of this indifference, but when Sarah had retired to rest, Thomas did his best to encourage his wife to hope. "It will soon be all right between mother and child," he prophesied, and this no doubt was their hope. It was long, however, ere they saw any fulfilment of it. In truth, shame took so deep a hold on Sarah's mind that she became a sort of terror to herself. She was so crushed by the past, so utterly incapable of rising out of the darkness that shrouded her mind, that it is probable she would again have fled from her father's roof had she not been prevented by illness. The life of false excitement she had led in London had sapped her constitution, and she had not long returned when her health began to give way. Fits of shivering seized her, then a hacking, dry cough, which could not be dislodged. Her complexion grew transparent, her eye preternaturally bright. She was, in a word, falling into consumption, and in all probability would not live long to endure her misery. This was doubtless the kindest fate that could now befall her, but it was a new grief to her parents when they awoke to consciousness of the fact that this lost one, so lately found again, was slowly vanishing from their sight for ever.
She herself grew happier in the prospect of early death, and from being silent and cold became gentle, opener in her manner, and more kindly to all around her, as if striving by her tender care of her child and her grateful affection for her parents to make the last days of her life on earth a sweet memory. After a time, too, as she became weaker, her heart moved her to talk of the past, and she bit by bit told her mother the story of her flight and her life in the great city. The sum of it all was misery, an agony of soul unspeakable, from which she ultimately found no escape save in drink. Her own motive in running away after Adelaide Codling was not very clear even to herself. Some vague idea of finding that other victim, and of rescuing her from the doom that she herself was stricken by, she had, but the governing motives were shame and pride. Once in the gate of Hell, which London is to tens of thousands every year, she tried to get access to Captain Wiseman, and haunted the entrance of his barracks for a week, but he came not. She did see him at a distance two or three times afterwards, but women such as she was now dared not approach so great a person in the open streets by day. With more persistence she sought for Adelaide Codling, but with no better success. The only occasion when she got near enough to speak to that poor girl was one day that they met by a shop door in Regent Street. Adelaide came forth gorgeously dressed, and carrying her head high just as Sarah passed. They recognised each other, and Sarah stopped to speak, but the other turned away her head with a toss like her mother's, and hurried off.
Soon the peasant's daughter had to abandon all thoughts of others, and face hunger for herself. Her money and trinkets found her in food and lodgings but for a few short days, and then she, having obtained no situation, had to leave the servants' home where she had at first found refuge, and—either starve or take to the streets. Her sin had branded her; she had no "references," and no hope. Had courage only been given her she would have died, but she dared not. It seemed easier to go forth to the streets. The raging "social evil" that mocks in every thoroughfare Christianity and the serene, tithe-sustained worshipping machinery of the State, offered her a refuge. There she could welter and rot if she pleased, fulfilling the excellent economy of life provided for us in these islands. The army composing this evil only musters some 100,000 in London, and is something altogether outside the pale of established and other Christian institutions.
That summer and winter when the lost Sarah faded away and died was a hard time for Thomas Wanless and his wife. Work was precarious, and thus, added to the pain of seeing their child fade away, was the bitter sense of inability to do all that was possible to prolong her life. Nearly all the labourer's savings had disappeared during Thomas's long quest. But they struggled on, complaining to none but God, nor did their trials break their trust in His help. They felt that the kindness with which all friends and neighbours treated them in their sorrow was a proof that the Divine Father of all had not forgotten them. And their daughter herself became a consolation to their grief-worn spirits. A sweet resignation took possession of her mind as she neared the end. The passions of life died away, and the clouds that had hidden her soul for the most part disappeared. Her parents might dream for moments, when her cheeks looked brighter than usual, that she would recover, but she herself knew that death was near, and thanked God.
During this time the Vicar—poor old man—came oftener than ever to the labourer's cottage. He could not be said to assert himself against his wife in doing so, for he came as if by a power stronger than his own wrecked will. When he was seated by the labourer's fireside, he seemed to be at peace. Often for an hour at a time he hardly spoke, but just sat still and looked with a sad kindliness, pathetic to behold, on the wasting form before him, and either stroked her hand held in his own, or gently patting the golden head of the little lass that now began to toddle to his knee. And when the visit was over, the cloud settled down upon him again. He went forth dejected, a hopeless-looking being, and crawled helplessly back to the Vicarage. He called on the morning of Sarah's death. She sank gently to rest on a raw February morning nearly eight months after her return, and within a week of her twenty-first birthday. When Mr. Codling was told, he stood for a moment as if dazed, and then asked to be led to Sarah's bedside. There he stood, gazing long, with bent head, till the tears rose and blinded him. With them the higher emotions of his soul welled up within him, and he turned and took the hand of Wanless, who stood by his side.
"Thomas, my friend," he said, "I envy your daughter that rest. I, too, long to be as she is. Life has become all a waste desert to me; oh, so dreary, dreary." Then, after a pause, he went on—"And I envy you, Thomas, for have you not cause to rejoice that Sarah has died in her father's house forgiven? Had it been but so with my Adelaide; oh, had it been but so, I think—I—hope would not have been lost to me. But I wish I were dead—yes, dead and forgotten," and, letting go the hand he had held, he knelt down by the bedside, buried his face, and wept as he had wept only by his daughter's grave.
Unhappy old man. Who shall judge him; who say that the All-pitying had not forgiven? Calming himself presently, the aged Vicar rose to his feet, and looked again on the dead face, so different in its white purity and smile of peace from the one he had looked on in London. He bent and kissed it, and then suffered the grief-worn but calm old labourer to lead him quietly away. "God bless you and comfort you, sir, and give you His peace," was all that Thomas trusted himself to utter; but sorrow had made these men brothers indeed.
Although Thomas and his wife knew in their hearts that Heaven had been merciful to their child and to themselves in taking her away, their sorrow was nevertheless keen. Nay, in some senses it was keener, because the "might have been" rose before the mind. Here was in truth a waif—a lost one—mercifully removed from further sorrow, but had there been no wreck, how short would her life have seemed, how sad its early close. In Wanless's life, therefore, few days were darker than the day on which he laid Sarah to rest beside the long-lost little ones in the old churchyard. It was little consolation to him that half the village gathered reverently to the funeral, and yet as he thought of the other grave by which he had stood not many months before, his spirit was somehow soothed. The contrast must have struck the Vicar likewise, but he made no sign. He insisted, however, on reading the burial service himself, in spite of the remonstrances of his young curate, who usually did this work. Bareheaded and trembling, pale, and feeble looking, with his white thin hair fluttering in the icy breeze, the sight of their old pastor that day drew tears to many eyes. His tremulous voice seemed more solemn to the listeners that day than ever before, and they loved and pitied the frail old man. More than one villager remarked to his neighbour as they left the grave that he "did not think Mr. Codling would be long in following Sally Wanless."
It was in truth to be so. The Vicar did not live long after, but his was not the next burial. Before he went—months before—old Squire Wiseman died and was buried in the family vault, with the pomp and circumstance that became his station. No one sorrowed at his death, but the lack of grief was hidden by the abundance of display. All the army of underlings were put in mourning at the new squire's expense. Cecil was now lord of the Grange, and one of his first steps was to make it too hot a place for his mother, by filling it with debased men and women—titled fledglings and their harpies, horsey men, and sharpers. The wealthy marriage his mother had sought for him never came off. An Irish peer, needy as Wiseman, but with a more marketable commodity in the shape of his title, had swooped down and carried off the prize. The carpet or "turf" soldier consequently came to his inheritance buried in debt, but that seemed to make him only the more extravagant. His true place was the gutter, but the land was entailed, tenants were squeezable, and though hard up, the new squire floundered on, cursing and a curse.
His debts should have ruined him, but they merely ruined his tenants, impoverished the land, and made those driven to depend on him as beggarly as their master. The weight of this rottenness lay heaviest of all on the labouring poor, who stood undermost in the social scale. Poor farmers meant less labour, badly tilled soil, reduced wages, and the hinds became a picture of misery. All Ashbrook parish suffered for the sins of this sprig of the aristocracy. What of that! Are the sacred, priest-sanctioned, bishop-blessed rights of property to be interfered with because the people want bread? That would be contrary to all law and order, as established by these delicate perverters of the Hebrew Scriptures.
No; better far let the people starve; let the mortgages squeeze those who do not own; make the fair earth bestowed on man—to be cultivated, tended, and rendered fruitful—a waste howling desert, peopled by wild animals, for whose shooting, wealthy pelf-rakers from the centres of trade are ready to pay high rents. Next to our heaven-bestowed Poor Law, the Law of Entail, which binds the land to a name or a family, has been the greatest factor for evil in the national life of England. It has preserved our "institutions;" gives continuity to our history, men assert. Perish the people then, but hold fast to this sheet anchor. "It preserves scoundrels from justice, and the fate they have earned," by reformers. What of that? These men have the right to be abominable—you and I, the workers and the sweaters, the privilege only to bear their abominations.
It has always struck me, though, that the fetish machinery of the English Establishment is imperfect in one particular. While in actual fact all "lord" bishops, and most preachers therein, determinedly oppose whatsoever would emancipate the people from their bondage, the best of them never daring to strike boldly at the root of the evils that threaten England with extinction, that fill the land with misery, that huddle the bulk of our population into the fever dens of her cities—it has struck me, I say, that their liturgy is incomplete, almost hypocritical. A prayer like this should be inserted among the collects of the day, instead, say, of the collect for peace, which comes so ill from the lips of men whose ambition is usually to train some of their children as licensed men-slayers. Let the lawn-sleeved "lord" bishops look to it, then, and take this hint:—
"Sanctify might, O Lord, against right, and make it stronger and stronger. Bless iniquities in high places, and cause the hypocrisy of princes to be exalted in the eyes of the people. Protect the nobility and gentry in their harlotry, and let holiness be measured by the fineness of the garments. Grind the poor in their poverty, and cause them to pay that they owe not. And O Lord, we beseech Thee, suffer not the oppressed to have justice, lest they rise up against us and refuse to give us the tithes we have filched from the indignant. These things do, O Lord, and our lips shall praise Thee."
If you will honestly pray thus, serene "lord" bishops, much-wrangling, gorgeously-embroidered deans, vicars, and incumbents, you will earn the respect of honest men. Whatever you do, I beseech you go not on as you do now, lest the people should one day act. They think not a little even now.
Fare ye well, then, Cecil Wiseman, sham soldier, horse racer, blasphemer, drunkard, seducer, sot, farewell! The upper world "society" protects you, the Church shields you, nay, the priest must e'en bow when you abduct his daughter, and the very Jews themselves, wholesome scourge of your class though they be, cannot utterly ruin you—here. Go your ways—I leave you to God. What witness, think you, will that diseased body, that bloated face and hang-dog look of yours, bear against you in the judgment? In that day your very victims may pity you.
And has not the judgment already come on your mother—cast out, despised, lonely, poor as she is? Alone, she lives in her little jointure house at Kenilworth, white-haired, feeble, full of bitterness of spirit. All the glory of her life has gone. The meanest servant in Warwickshire may look down on her with commiseration. Your sins have torn what heart she had, and she begins to awake to the fact that the law of compensation, the dim foretaste of divine justice, can reach even such as she. To her likewise let us bid adieu.