Chapter Twenty Two.
“The fall thou darest to despise
Maybe the slackened angel hand
Hath suffered it, that he may rise
And take a firmer, surer stand;
Or, trusting less to earthly things,
May henceforth learn to use his wings.”
Adelaide Procter.
When Winifred and Bessie had stopped at the post-office and taken their letters, some little remarks passed between the postmaster and his wife, who had gone out to the door and watched the two pretty, girlish figures hurried away by their impatient little pony into the green tangle of trees and hedges which a golden sunlight was brightening. It looked as if it were a sort of enchanted land, into which no storms could follow them; but Mrs Miller, who had a face which might have been intended to protest against sunshine, shook her head solemnly and said, coming back to the counter,—
“There’s trouble enough in the world, to be sure, and it’s hard when the Thorpe letters, as have gone together these years, has got to part company. But there’s no saying where the love of money will lead a poor human heart.”
“I’m not so sure about that matter as you are, Maria,” said her husband, cheerfully sorting his letters. “Young Mr Miles is too pleasant-spoken a young gentleman to do all the things they charge him with, in my opinion; and it’s always the way with you women, when once a bit of mud’s thrown, each of you wants to try her hand.”
“It isn’t to be expected you should know better,” said Mrs Miller gravely. “When you’re converted, you’ll understand more of the depravity of the human heart. It’s a bottomless pit,” she concluded, shaking her head.
“Um, um, um,” said her husband irreverently. “Then I ain’t one that’s always wanting to be poking into such places, and if I were you I’d come out for a bit into the fresh air. But,” he added, lowering his voice and giving a quick sign towards an inner room, “since he’s been here, you’re more than ever set against the old ways.”
“No,” said Mrs Miller calmly, “I am not altogether satisfied that he preaches the pure gospel. It’s rare to find one who does. But I am thankful not to be blind to shortcomings, like some. And I’m sorry for Mr Miles, but what could be expected from one who was so given over to the world?”
Her voice had been carefully lowered in tone, but David Stephens heard the first part of the conversation with vivid distinctness. Every word sank into his consciousness, not as something new,—for the subject was rarely absent from his thoughts,—but because they seemed to offer him a new opportunity for arguing the case, and for proving to himself yet again and again that he had done well in keeping silence about the letter. A strange complication existed in his mind. The self-deception which ensnared him was not that self-deception which conceals itself under false colours, for when he formed his resolution it was with the feeling that he was forever bidding farewell to his own peace of mind,—the voluntary acceptance of a crushing burden. It is difficult to conceive such a state, but there is no doubt that it existed in him,—whether the result of a too self-reliant creed, or owing to a stronger impulse of resistance than obedience, or to other of those secret springs which move men’s actions. In his struggle with Anthony Miles, his opponent had become a very embodiment of all the powers that league themselves against good, especially the good of other men’s souls. He had first heard him spoken of slightingly, without remembering the answer to the reproach which he might have afforded; but directly it flashed upon him he opened a pocket-book, in which were placed the few and tiny atoms of paper which he had preserved with the intention of examining, and had since forgotten. And then began the contest. Here in his hands he held, as he acknowledged, the means of clearing Anthony so as to re-establish him completely in the eyes of other men. But Anthony, triumphant and successful, represented a great antagonistic force to what David held to be his mission, and to forward which he would have thankfully endured even to the point of martyrdom. Anthony, on the contrary, with the suspicion of a dishonourable deed clinging to him, lost half his power, would cease to influence, and might no longer succeed in impressing his opinions upon Maddox, whose newly stirred fears inclined him to turn to Stephens, while an old feeling of respect yet bound him strongly to the Church, personified by the Vicar’s family. He was conscious of weighing a sin in himself against what seemed the advantage of feeble, starving souls, and he shrank from the burden with a cry of anguish, which—blame him as you will—had in it no creeping taint of hypocrisy. Only at rare times could he accept the excuses offered to his conscience,—that it was no crime of which Anthony was accused, that his interference would prove useless,—the truth generally stood out in keen cold outlines, and he would acknowledge to himself that he had done an accursed thing. Yet he would have held it a worse sin to have cast it from him. It was to save others. He might suffer; he might have lost his own soul,—he acknowledged it,—but it was that others might go in at the gate which he closed against himself. What could Anthony’s burden seem beside his own? The system in which his religious thought had been moulded had developed in Davids character both an extraordinary greatness and an extraordinary littleness; for while he longed with an ardent and intense love to save the souls about him, longed so that he would sacrifice his dearest hopes, his peace, his very integrity,—he yet appeared to himself to be fighting single-handed, to be alone in the tremendous struggle, sometimes as if our God himself were regarding it passively without stretching forth his hand to save. And this blank and awful solitude opened out before him, as the path in which he must walk, with bleeding feet, and now with the hateful companionship of a sin bound to him by a voluntary acceptance forever.