CHAPTER XXIII.
When Alec Trenholme rose from the dead man's side he felt his shoulder taken hold of by a familiar hand. He knew at once that it was his brother. It was quite what he would have expected, that Robert should be there; it was surely his business to come after straying sheep.
The manslayer, awed and sobered by finding what he had done, had been easily overpowered. Even his comrades helped to bind him. He was a poor creature at best, and was now in the misery that comes with sudden reaction from the exaltation of strong drink.
Alec saw that his brother was limping, that he seemed in actual pain; he was anxious to know how this was, yet he did not say so. He asked rather if Robert thought that the old man had consciously awakened from his trance of expectation, and they both, in spite of all that pressed, stooped with a lantern some one had lit to look again at the dead face. Just as he might have looked when the heavens seemed to open above him, so he looked now. They talked together, wondering who he really was, as men find words for what is easiest to say, although not relevant to the moment's necessity.
So absorbing is the interest of death to those who live in peaceful times that, now that there was a lamp, all there required to slake their curiosity by lingering gaze and comment before they would turn away. Even the prisoner, when he saw the lantern flashed near the face of the dead, demanded to be allowed to look before they led him down the hill. His poor wife, who had expected his violence to fall only on herself, kept by him, hysterically regretting that she had not been the victim.
Yet, although all this had taken place, it was only a short time before the energy of a few, acting upon the paralysed will of others, had cleared the ground. The white-dressed women crossed the open to the descending path, huddling together as they walked, their eyes perforce upon the rough ground over which they must pick their steps. There was many a rift now in the breaking clouds above them, but only a few turned an upward passionate glance. Sophia moved away in their midst. Seeing her thus surrounded, Alec did not feel that he need approach.
"I don't know who she is," he said, pointing her out to Robert. "I happened, in a queer way, to come up here with her." He paused a moment. Some sentiment such as that she was a queen among women was in his mind, but it did not rise to his lips. "She would like your help better than mine," he added. "If you will see that she and her little sister are taken care of, I will stay here"—he gave a gesture toward the corpse—"till a stretcher comes."
"I will do my best to take care of them all," Robert Trenholme answered with a sigh.
Old McNider and his little boy walked behind the women. Robert, limping as he went, lifted the sleepy child in his arms and joined himself to the company. They went under the dripping trees, down, down the dark, slippery path. The white robes hardly glimmered in the darkness. Some of the women wept; some of them held religious conversation, using such forms of expression as grow up among certain classes of pious, people and jar terribly on unaccustomed ears. Those who talked at this time had less depth of character than those who were silent, and there was evinced in their conversation a certain pride of resistance to criticism—that is, they wished to show that if what they had looked for had not come that night, their expectation of it bad been reasonable, and that their greatest hopes would shortly be realised to the confounding of unbelievers. They did not know the manner of their spirit. Few who indulge in demonstration of piety as a relief to feeling ever perceive how easily the natural passions can flow into this channel.
Jesus wished to try their faith, said they, but they would not cast away their lamps; no, they must keep them trimmed and burning. They could not live unless they felt that dear Jesus might come for them any night.
"Blessed be His holy Name!" cried one. "When He comes the world will see Him Whom they have despised, and His saints they have looked down on, too, reignin' together in glory. Yes, glory be to Jesus, there'll be a turnin' of the tables soon."
To Trenholme it seemed that they bandied about the sacred name. He winced each time.
One woman, with more active intellect than some of the rest, began to dilate on the signs already in the world which proved the Second Advent was near. Her tone was not one of exulted feeling, but of calm reason. Her desire was evidently to strengthen her sisters who might be cast down. In her view all the ages of the history of the vast human race were seen in the natural perspective which makes things that are near loom larger than all that is far. The world, she affirmed, was more evil than it had ever been. In the Church there was such spiritual death as never before. The few great revivals there were showed that now the poor were being bidden from the highways to the marriage feast. And above all else, it was now proved that the coming of the Lord was nigh, because bands of the elect everywhere were watching and waiting for the great event. Her speech was well put forth in the midst of the weary descent. She did not say more than was needed. If there were drooping hearts among her friends they were probably cheered.
Then some more emotional talkers took up the exultant strain again. It was hard for Trenholme not to estimate the inner hearts of all these women by the words that he heard, and therefore to attribute all the grace of the midnight hour to the dead.
When they got to the bottom of the hill, the farmer, at the request of men who had gone first, had another waggon in readiness to take home the women who had come to the hill on foot or who had sent away their vehicles. Many of them did not belong to the village of Chellaston. It was evidently better that the lighter waggon which had come from Chellaston should go round now to the outlying farms, and that all the villagers should return in that provided by the farmer. Trenholme put in the child, who was now sleeping, and helped in the women, one by one. Their white skirts were wet and soiled; he felt this as he aided them to dispose them on the straw which had been put in for warmth. The farmer, an Englishman, made some wise, and not uncivil, observations upon the expediency of remaining at home at dead of night as compared with ascending hills in white frocks. He was a kind man, but his words made Winifred's tears flow afresh. She shrank behind the rest. Trenholme kissed her little cold hand when he had put her in. Then, last of all, he helped Sophia.
She had no words ready now to offer him by which to make amends. "You have hurt your foot?" she said.
He told her briefly that his foot had twisted under him, so that at first he had not been able to come on for the sprain, and he clasped her hand as he bade the waggon drive on.
Feeling the lack of apology on her own part she thought he had shown himself the greater, in that he had evidently pardoned her without it.
He did not feel himself to be great.
The cart jolted away. Trenholme stood in the farmyard. The light of a lantern made a little flare about the stable door. The black, huge barns, around seemed to his weary sense oppressive in their nearness. The waggon disappeared down the dark lane. The farmer talked more roughly, now that kindness no longer restrained him, of the night's event. Trenholme leaned against a white-washed wall, silent but not listening. He almost wondered he did not faint with the pain in his ankle; the long strain he had put upon the hurt muscle rendered it almost agonising, but faintness did not come: it seldom does to those who sigh for it, as for the wings of a dove, that they may go far away with it and be at rest. The farmer shut the stable door, put out the light, and Trenholme limped out the house with him to wait for his brother.