Chapter Three.
The Rectory.
The Reverend Bernard Oliphant, rector of Waterland, was a man of good family and moderate fortune. At the time when this tale opens he had held the living eighteen years. He had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son, Hubert, was just three-and-twenty, and, having finished his course at Oxford with credit, was spending a year or two at home previously to joining an uncle in South Australia, Abraham Oliphant, his father’s brother, who was living in great prosperity as a merchant at Adelaide. Hubert had not felt himself called on to enter the ministry, though his parents would have greatly rejoiced had he seen his way clear to engage in that sacred calling. But the young man abhorred the thought of undertaking such an office unless he could feel decidedly that the highest and holiest motives were guiding him to it, and neither father nor mother dared urge their son to take on himself, from any desire to please them, so awful a responsibility. Yet none the less for this did Hubert love his Saviour, nor did he wish to decline his service, or shrink from bearing that cross which is laid on all who make a bold and manly profession of faith in Christ Jesus. But he felt that there were some who might serve their heavenly Master better as laymen than as ministers of the gospel, and he believed himself to be such a one. His two younger brothers, not feeling the same difficulties, were both preparing for the ministry. Hubert had a passionate desire to travel; his parents saw this, and wisely judged that it would be better to guide his passion than to combat it; so, when his uncle proposed to Hubert to join him in Australia, they gave their full consent. They knew that a strong expression of dissuasion on their part would have led him to abandon the scheme at once; but they would not let any such expression escape them, because they felt that they were bound to consult his tastes and wishes, and not merely their own. They knew that his faith was on the Rock of Ages; they could trust his life and fortunes to their God. For Bernard Oliphant and his wife had but one great object set before them, and that was to work for God. The rector was warm and impulsive, the fire would flash out upon the surface, yet was it under the control of grace; it blazed, it warmed, but never scorched, unless when it crossed the path of high-handed and determined sin. She was all calmness and quiet decision; yet in her character there ran a fire beneath the surface, sending up a glow into every loving word and deed. She had never been beautiful, yet always beautified by the radiance of true holiness. In her, seriousness had no gloom, because it was the seriousness of a holy love. She made even worldly people happy to be with her, because they felt the reality and singleness of her religion—it was woven up with every hour’s work, with every duty, with every joy. She lived for heaven not by neglecting earth, but by making earth the road to heaven. Her religion was pre-eminently practical, while it was deeply spiritual; in fact, it was the religion of sanctified common sense. The true grace of her character gained the admiration which she never sought. As some simple unadorned column rising in the midst of richly-carved sculptures arrests attention by its mere dignity of height and grace of perfect proportion, so in the unassuming wife of Bernard Oliphant there was a loftiness and symmetry of character which made people feel that in her was the true beauty of holiness.
And the children trod in the steps of their parents. Mary Oliphant was the youngest; she was now just eighteen—slight in make, and graceful in every movement. Her perfect absence of self-consciousness gave a peculiar charm to all that she said and did; she never aimed at effect, and therefore always produced it. You could not look into her face without feeling that to her indifference and half-heartedness were impossible things; and the abiding peace which a true faith in Christ alone can give, was on those lovely features in their stillness. Such was the family of the Reverend Bernard Oliphant.
Waterland was a rural parish in one of the midland counties. The rectory stood near one end of the village, which was like a great many other country villages. There were farm-houses, with their stack-yards and clusters of out-buildings, with their yew-trees and apple-orchards. Cottages, with low bulging white-washed walls and thatched roofs, were interspersed among others of a more spruce and modern build, with slated roofs, and neat little gardens. Then there were two or three shops which sold all things likely to be wanted in everyday village life, eatables and wearables nestling together in strange companionship; and, besides these, were houses which would not have been known to be shops, but for a faded array of peppermints and gingerbread, which shone, or rather twinkled, before the eyes of village children through panes of greenish glass. Of course there was a forge and a wheel-wright’s shop; and, equally of course, a public-house—there had been two, there was now but one, which could readily be known by a huge swinging sign-board, on which was the decaying likeness of a “Dun Cow,” supposed to be feeding in a green meadow; but the verdure had long since melted away, and all except the animal herself was a chaos of muddy tints. The “Dun Cow,” (a sad misnomer for a place where milk was the last beverage the visitors would ever think of calling for), was to many the centre both of attraction and detraction, for here quarrels were hatched and characters picked to pieces. The landlord had long since been dead, of the usual publican’s malady—drink fever. The landlady carried on the business which had carried her husband off, and seemed to thrive upon it, for there was never lack of custom at the “Dun Cow.” Just a stone’s-throw from this public-house, on the crest of the hill along which wound the village street, was the church, a simple structure, with a substantial square tower and wide porch. It had been restored with considerable care and taste by the present rector, the internal appearance being sufficiently in accordance with the proprieties of ecclesiastical architecture to satisfy all but the over-fastidious, and yet not so ornamental as to lead the mind to dwell rather on the earthly and sensuous than on the heavenly and spiritual. Behind the church was the rectory, a quaint old building, with pointed gables, deep bay-windows, and black beams of oak exposed to view. It had been added to, here and there, as modern wants and improvements had made expansion necessary. The garden was lovely, for every one at the rectory loved flowers: they loved them for their own intrinsic beauty; they loved them as God’s books, full of lessons of his skill and tender care; they loved them as resting-places for the eye when wearied with sights of disorder and sin; they loved them as ministering comfort to the sick, the aged, and the sorrowful to whom they carried them.
Such was the village of Waterland. The parish extended two miles north and south of the church, a few farms and labourers’ cottages at wide intervals containing nearly all the rest of the population that was not resident in the village.
It has been said that there were once two public-houses in Waterland, but that now there was but one. This was not owing to any want of success in the case of the one which had become extinct; on the contrary, the “Oldfield Arms” had been the more flourishing establishment of the two, and was situated in the centre of the village. Its sign, however, had long since disappeared; and it was now in the hands of the rector, its principal apartment having been transformed into a reading-room, and place for holding meetings. And how was this brought about? Simply thus. When Bernard Oliphant first came to Waterland, he found the “Oldfield Arms” doing a most excellent business; so far as that can be an excellent business which builds the prosperity of one upon the ruin of hundreds. People grumbled at the lowness of wages; wives were unable to procure money from their husbands for decent dress; children were half-starved and two-thirds naked; disease and dirt found a home almost everywhere; boys and girls grew up in ignorance, for their parents could not afford to send them to school; the men had no tidy clothes in which to appear at church. Yet, somehow or other, the “Oldfield Arms” was never short of customers; and customers, too, who paid, and paid well, sooner or later, for what they consumed. So the rector went among the people, and told them plainly of the sin of drunkenness, and pointed out the misery it brought, as their own eyes could see. They confessed the truth—such as he could manage to get hold of—and drank on as before. He was getting heart-sick and miserable. Preach as he might—and he did preach the truth with all faithfulness and love—the notices of ale, porter, and spirits, set up in flaming colours in the windows and on the walls of the “Oldfield Arms,” preached far more persuasively in the cause of intemperance.
One day he came upon a knot of men standing just at the entrance of the yard that led to the tap-room. They were none of them exactly drunk; and certainly none were exactly sober. There were some among them whom he never saw at church, and never found at home. He was grieved to see these men in high discussion and dispute, when they ought to have been busily engaged in some lawful calling. He stopped, and taking one of them aside whose home was specially miserable, he said,—
“James, I’m grieved to see you here, when I know how sadly your poor wife and children are in need of food and clothing.”
The man looked half angry, half ashamed, but hung down his head, and made no reply. The rest were moving off.
“Nay, my friends,” said the rector, kindly, “don’t go. I just want a word with you all. I want to say a few words of love and warning to you, as your clergyman. God has sent me here to teach and guide you; and oh, do listen to me now.”
They all stood still, and looked at him respectfully. He went on:—
“Don’t you see that drinking habits are bringing misery into the homes of the people in our parish—ay, into your own homes? You must see it. You must see how drunkenness stores up misery for you here and hereafter. What will become of you when you die, if you go on as you are doing now? What will become of your families? What will—”
At this moment there was a loud shout of “Hoy! hoy!” from the lips of a carter who was coming with a brewer’s dray out of the inn-yard. The man had just been depositing several full casks, and was now returning with the empty ones. He did not see the rector at first; but when the group made way for him, and his eyes fell on Mr Oliphant, he touched his hat as he was passing, and said,—
“I beg pardon, sir; I did not know as you was there.” Then suddenly pulling up his horse, he added— “Oh, if you please, sir, master bid me say he’s very sorry he hasn’t any of the ale you’ve been drinking ready just now, but he hopes you’ll let me leave this barrel of stout, it’s in prime order, he says.”
“Very well,” replied Mr Oliphant; “you may leave it.”
Then he turned again to the men: they were moving off. He would have taken up his earnest appeal where he left it; but somehow or other he felt a difficulty in speaking, and the deep attention was evidently gone from his hearers. He hesitated. They were already dispersing: should he call them back? He felt as if he could not. He turned sadly towards home, deeply vexed and chafed in his spirit. He blamed the ill-timed interruption of the carter; and yet he felt that there was something else lurking in the background with which he felt dissatisfied—something which wanted dragging out into the light.
“And yet it’s so foolish!” he said to himself, as he walked slowly up the street. “My drinking in moderation has nothing in common with their drinking immoderately. Why should my use of intoxicating liquors fetter me in dissuading these poor creatures from their abuse? They ought to see the difference.” Then a voice, deeper in the heart, whispered— “They ought; but they do not, and their souls are perishing. They are your people: you must deal with them as they are, not as they ought to be.”
That night the rector’s sleep was very troubled.
It was about a week later that he was again near the “Oldfield Arms,” when a spruce-looking man—his wine-merchant’s agent—came out of the inn door, and walked up the street. Two men were standing with their backs to the rector just outside the yard. He was about to pass on; when he heard one say,—
“What a sight of wine some of them parsons drink! Yon fine gent couldn’t afford all them gold chains and pins if it warn’t for the parsons.”
“Ay,” said the other, “it’s the parsons as knows good wine from bad. I heerd yon chap say only this morning: ‘Our very best customers is the clergy.’”
“Well,” rejoined the other, “I shouldn’t mind if they’d only leave us poor fellows alone, and let us get drunk when we’ve a mind. But it do seem a little hard that they may get drunk on their wine, but we mustn’t get drunk on our beer.”
“Oh, but you know, Bill,” said the other, “this here’s the difference. When they get drunk, it’s genteel drunk, and there’s no sin in that; but when we poor fellows get drunk, it’s wulgar drunk, and that’s awful wicked.”
Bernard Oliphant was deeply pained; he shrank within himself.
“It’s a cruel libel and a coarse slander,” he muttered, and hastened on his way. “Am I answerable,” he asked himself, “for the abuse which others may make of what I take moderately and innocently? Absurd! And yet it’s a pity, a grievous pity, that it should be possible for such poor ignorant creatures to speak thus of any of our holy calling, and so to justify themselves in sin.”
Yes, he felt it to be so, and it preyed upon his mind more and more. He mentioned what he had heard to his wife.
“Dear Bernard,” she replied, “I have thought a great deal lately on this subject, especially since you told me about your speaking to those men when you were interrupted by the drayman. I have prayed that you and I might be directed aright; and we shall be. But do not let us be hasty. It does seem as though we were being called on to give up, for the sake of others, what does us personally no harm. But perhaps we may be wrong in this view. A great many excellent Christians, and ministers too, are moderate drinkers, and never exceed; and we must not be carried away by a mistaken enthusiasm to brand their use of fermented drinks as sinful because such frightful evils are daily resulting from immoderate drinking. We must think and pray, and our path will be made plain; and we must be prepared to walk in it, cost what it may.”
“Yes,” said her husband; “I am getting more and more convinced that there is something exceptional in this matter—that we cannot deal with this sin of drunkenness as we deal with other sins. But we will wait a little longer for guidance; yet not too long, for souls are perishing, and ruin is thickening all round us.”
They had not to wait long; their path was soon made clear.
It was on a bitter and cheerless November evening that Mr Oliphant was returning to the rectory from a distant part of his parish. He was warmly clad; but the keen wind, which drove a prickly deluge of fine hail into his face, seemed to make its way through every covering into his very bones. He was hurrying on, thankful that home was so near, when he suddenly stumbled upon something in the path which he had not noticed, being half blinded by the frozen sleet. With difficulty he saved himself from falling over this obstacle, which looked in the feeble moonlight like a bundle of ragged clothes. Then he stooped down to examine it more closely, and was horrified at hearing a low moan, which showed that it was a living creature that lay on the path. It was plainly, in fact, some poor, half-frozen fellow-man, who lay coiled together there, perishing of cold in that bitter night. The rector tried to raise the poor wretch from the ground, but the body hung like a dead weight upon him.
“Come,” he said, “my poor fellow; come, try and rouse yourself and get up. You’ll die if you lie here.”
The miserable bundle of humanity partly uncoiled itself, and made an effort to rise, but sunk back again. Mr Oliphant shouted for help. The shout seemed partly to revive the prostrate creature, and he half raised himself.
“Come,” said the rector again,— “come, lean on my arm, and try and get up. You’ll die of cold if you stay here.”
“Die!” said a thick, unearthly voice from out of that half-frozen mass of flesh and blood. “In Adam all die.”
“Who and what are you?” cried the rector, in extreme astonishment and distress.
“What am I? Ah, what am I?” was the bewildered, scarce audible reply.
By this time help had arrived. Two men came up, and assisted Mr Oliphant to raise the poor man, and support him to the “Oldfield Arms,” where he was immediately put to bed; one of the men being sent off by the rector to fetch the nearest medical man, while he himself gave orders that everything should be done to restore the unhappy sufferer to warmth and consciousness.
“Please, Mrs Barnes,” said he to the landlady, “be so good as to send up to the rectory, and let me know, when the doctor comes, if he says that there is any danger. If his report is favourable, I will leave a night’s rest to do its work, and will look in again early to-morrow. And pray let the poor man have everything that he needs, and send up to the rectory if you are short of anything.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs Barnes. “I will see that he is properly looked to.”
The rector then went home, and in another hour received a message from the inn that the doctor had been, and that there was no danger of any immediately fatal result; that he would call again on his patient the following morning, and should be glad to meet the rector at the inn.
Accordingly, the following day at the appointed hour Bernard and the doctor went up together into the sick man’s room. As they opened the door they were astonished to hear the patient declaiming in a loud voice,—
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
Bernard’s heart grew sick. Could it be? Could this miserable creature be one of his own profession? Were these words the ramblings of one who had been used to officiate as a Church minister? And, if so, what could have brought him to such a state of utter destitution? The doctor seemed to read his thoughts, and shook his head sadly. Then, putting his mouth to his ear, he said,—
“It’s the drink; the smell of spirits is still strong on him.”
“Poor wretched creature!” said Mr Oliphant. “Can it be that the love of drink has brought a man of position and education to such a state as this? What can be done for him?”
“Not much at present,” was the reply, “beyond keeping him quiet, and nursing him well till the fever has run its course. And one thing is clear—we must keep all intoxicants from him. They are downright poison to a man of his constitution; and should he get hold of any spirits before his health is thoroughly established again, I would not answer for his life.”
The rector called Mrs Barnes, and told her what the doctor had said, adding,—
“You must find a trustworthy nurse for him—one who will strictly attend to the doctor’s orders.”
The landlady promised she would do so; and the rector left the sick-chamber with a sorrowful look and troubled heart.
In ten days’ time the patient was well enough to sit up in bed and converse with Mr Oliphant.
“My poor friend,” said the rector, “I grieve to see you in your present state, especially as I cannot but perceive that you have seen better days, and moved among people of education. However, there is great cause to thank God that he has so far spared your life.”
A deep flush overspread the sick man’s face as he replied,—
“Yes, indeed, I owe you, my dear sir, a debt of gratitude I can never repay. You say the truth—I have seen better days. I was sought after in good society once, little as you might think it.”
“I can believe it,” said the rector, quietly. “But do not distress yourself by referring to the past, if it gives you pain.”
“As to that,” replied the other, “it matters to me little now what I once was; but it may interest you to know, and may serve as a warning. I was a popular preacher once. I was an ordained minister of the Church of England. Crowds flocked to my church. I threw all my energies into my preaching. I was a free man then; at least I believed myself so. While I proclaimed the love of God to sinners, I also preached vehemently against sin. I never felt myself more at home than when I was painting the miserable bondage of those whom Satan held in his chains. I could speak with withering scorn of such as made a profession while they were living in any known wickedness. I was specially severe upon the drunkard’s sin. But preaching such as mine, and in a large church, was very exhausting. I found that I wanted support; so I began with an egg beaten up with brandy, and took it just before going into the pulpit. This made me doubly fervent; some of my hearers thought me almost inspired. But the exhaustion was terrible at the end; so I added another glass of egg and spirits after the sermon. Then I found that, somehow or other, I could not preach in the evening after taking much solid food; so I substituted liquids for solids, and lived on Sundays almost entirely on malt liquors and spirits. When these failed to keep me up to the mark, I had to increase the quantity. At last I saw that my churchwarden began to look a little strangely and suspiciously at me; ugly sayings reached my ears; the congregation began to thin. At last I received a letter from a Christian man of my flock, telling me that himself and many others were pained with the fear that I was beginning to exceed the bounds of strict temperance: he urged total abstinence at once; he was a total abstainer himself. I was startled—prostrated—humbled to the very dust. I reflected on the quantity of intoxicants I was now taking daily, and I shuddered. I thanked my friendly adviser with tears, and promised to return to strict moderation. Total abstinence I would not hear of; it was quite out of the question. I could no more do without alcoholic stimulants then than I can do now.”
He paused, and fixed a peculiar look on Mr Oliphant; who, however, did not, or would not, understand it. So he went on:—
“I tried moderation; but it would not do. I prayed for strength to be moderate; but I know now that I never really desired what I prayed for. It was too late to be moderate; my lust had got the bit between its teeth, and I might as well have pulled at the wind. I went from bad to worse. Desertion, disgrace, ruin, all followed. Everything has gone—church, home, money, books, clothes—the drink has had them all, and would have them again if they were mine at this moment. For some years past I have been a roaming beggar, such as you found me when you picked me up in the road.”
He said all this with very little emotion; and then lay back, wearied with his exertions in speaking.
“And have you any—” The rector did not know how to finish the sentence which he had begun after a long pause.
“Have I any family? you would ask,” said the other. “I had once. I had a wife and little child; my only child—a little girl. Well, I suppose she’s better off. She pined and pined when there was next to nothing to eat in the house; and they tell me—for I was not at home when she died—that she said at the last, ‘I’m going to Jesus; they are not hungry where he is.’ Poor thing!”
“And your wife?” exclaimed Bernard, his blood running cold at the tone of indifference in which this account was given.
“Oh, my wife? Ah, we did not see much of one another after our child’s death! I was often from home; and once, when I returned, I found that she was gone: they had buried her in my absence. She died—so they said—of a broken heart. Poor thing! it is not unlikely.”
Mr Oliphant hid his head in his hands, and groaned aloud. He had never before conceived it possible—what he now found to be too true—that long habits of drunkenness can so utterly unhumanise a man as to reduce him to a mere callous self, looking upon all things outside self as dreamy and devoid of interest, with but one passion left—the passion for the poison which has ruined him.
At last the rector raised his head, and said slowly and solemnly,—
“And if God spares you, will you not strive to lead a new life? Will you not pray for grace to conquer your besetting sin?”
The wretched man did not answer for a while. Then he said,—
“I have only one thing to live for, and that is the drink. I cannot live without it. Oh, I implore you to let me have some spirits! You do not, you cannot, know how I crave them, or in pity you would not withhold them from me.”
Mr Oliphant rose.
“Compose yourself, my poor friend,” he said. “I dare not grant your request; it might be your death. Farewell for the present. May God, with whom all things are possible, help you through your present trouble, and enable you in the end to conquer.”
The wretched man called imploringly after him; but he closed the door, and summoning Mrs Barnes, begged her to look well after him, and to see that the nurse did all in her power to keep him calm, and to soothe him to rest.
Two days after this he called again.
“How is your patient to-day, Mrs Barnes?” he said to the landlady, whom he met on the landing.
“I cannot quite tell you, sir, for I have not been in to see him this morning. He was so much better yesterday that the doctor said Mrs Harper might go home. I went to look at him after he had taken his tea, and I found old Jane Hicks with him. She had called to speak with Mrs Harper, and the poor gentleman got her to go and borrow him a newspaper which he wanted to see. I think I heard her come back twice since Mrs Harper left; but perhaps he wanted something else. He said I had better not wake him very early, as he thought he should sleep well; so I haven’t disturbed him yet.”
A strange misgiving crept over the rector.
“Let us go in at once,” he said.
They knocked at the bed-room door—there was no answer; they opened it softly and went in. The sick man lay on his back, apparently asleep, but when they came closer they saw that he was dead. A stain on the sheet attracted Mr Oliphant’s notice; he hastily turned it down, uncovering the hands; in the right was a bottle—it had held spirits; there was nothing in it now.
So died the miserable victim of drink; so died the once flourishing professor; so died the once acceptable preacher.
Mr Oliphant knelt by the bed-side and poured out his heart to God in prayer, entreating to be directed aright, and to be kept from ever in any degree disgracing his profession as this unhappy man had done. He was reminded that he was not alone by the sobs of the landlady, who had fallen on her knees near him.
“Mrs Barnes,” he said, on rising, “I have resolved, God helping me, to be a total abstainer from this day forward. I have nothing to do with the consciences of others, but for myself I feel that I shall be a happier and a wiser man if I wholly abstain from those stimulants which have power to make such a shipwreck as this.”
She did not answer except by tears and a deep sigh; and he made his way sadly and thoughtfully home.
From that day forward the drink was wholly banished from the rectory; there was no difference of opinion between Bernard and his wife—they would bring up their children without the ensnaring stimulant. Mr Oliphant showed his colours at once; and he preached as well as practised total abstinence, not in the place of the gospel, but as a handmaid to the gospel. And Mrs Barnes was the first who joined him.
“I’ve long hated selling beer and spirits,” she said. “I’ve seen the misery that the drink has brought even into our little village. But I didn’t see my way nor my duty plain before, but I see them now. You’ve set me the example, sir; and, please God, I’ll follow. You know my poor master left me the farm for my life, and I shall be happier there with a little than I could be if I were to stop here and be making ever so much.”
She kept to her resolution. So the “Oldfield Arms” was closed, to the astonishment of all the neighbours. What was the foolish woman about? Had she lost her senses? Why, the inn was doing a capital business. Sir Thomas Oldfield himself came down on purpose from Greymoor Park, when he heard what she was going to do, and tried to talk and laugh her out of it. But she was firm. The house was her own freehold, and she would neither use it herself as an inn, nor let any one else rent it for the same purpose. Of course, she was a fool in the eyes of the world, but she did not care for that; and any one who saw her bright face as she walked about her farm, would have perceived that, whether fool or no, she had the enjoyment of peace in her heart.
But the “Oldfield Arms” was not long without a tenant. The rector took it, as we have before said, and used it partly as shops, and the large public room as a reading-room. And thus it was that the “Dun Cow” remained without a rival as the dispenser of strong drink to the inhabitants of Waterland.