Chapter Eight.
A Little Mysterious.
Mary Stansfield pursued her quiet work at Bridgepath amongst the poor, being welcomed by all, but by none so cordially as by John Price and his family, who seemed quite different people now from what they used to be. And why? Just because they had exchanged resignation for God’s peace. Their characters and conduct were outwardly the same; but there was a new light in them and reflected from them, even the light that shines in hearts where Jesus dwells as a Saviour known and loved, a light which brightens the heavy clouds of earthly sadness and spans them with a rainbow of immortal hope. And not only so, but, in consequence of the entrance of this purer light, a change for the better was taking place in the bodily health of the poor bed-ridden man—for a wounded spirit had had a good deal to do with his physical infirmities—so that there seemed a likelihood that he would be able in time to leave his sick-bed and go forth once more, not indeed to laborious work, but to fill some light post which the colonel had in store for him.
It was on a lovely afternoon that he was sitting up in his arm-chair, dressed in clothes which he had never thought to put on again. He was listening to the gentle but earnest voice of Mary Stansfield, as she read to him from the Word of God, and spoke a few loving and cheering words of her own upon the passage she had selected. A shadow fell across her book; she looked up. The colonel and his nephew stood in the open doorway.
“Don’t let us interrupt you, Miss Stansfield,” said the former; “I was only looking round with my nephew, who has not been here before, to see how things are going on in Bridgepath. We will call again!”
They passed on, and Miss Stansfield resumed her reading. But somehow or other John Price’s attention seemed to wander—he looked disturbed, and fidgeted in his chair; and so his visitor, thinking that he had been read to as long as he could hear with comfort and profit in his weak state, closed the book, and rose to leave.
“Oh, don’t go, miss!” cried the old man in a distressed voice. “I’m so sorry; but something as I can’t exactly explain just took away my thoughts and troubled me when the colonel came to the door. But go on, go on, miss; I’m never tired of hearing the good news from your lips.”
“No, John,” replied Miss Stansfield; “I think we shall do for to-day. You are not strong enough yet to bear much strain of mind or body; and Colonel Dawson will be coming in directly, and will like to have a word with you, and so, I am sure, will Mr Horace; so I will say good-bye.”
The other looked scared and bewildered, and made no reply. “Poor John!” said his kind visitor to herself, as she left the cottage and went on her way; “I am afraid I have tired him. And yet I think there must be something more than that which troubles him.”
A few minutes later the colonel and his nephew entered John Price’s house. “Come in, Horace,” said Colonel Dawson; “you have not yet been introduced to one who will, I hope, be spared to be a great helper in the good work in Bridgepath, though he does not look much like a worker at present. But the Lord has been doing great things for him already, and, I doubt not, means to do greater things for him yet.”
The young man stepped forward up to the old man’s chair, and held out his hand to him. John Price grasped it eagerly with both his own thin, wasted hands, and looking at him with a half-astonished, half-distressed gaze, said abruptly, in a hoarse, choking voice, “What’s your name?”
“My name?” said the young man, smiling at his earnestness. “My name, old friend, is Horace Jackson.”
“Horace—Horace!” muttered the other in a tone of great excitement; “it must be—nay, it cannot be—and yet it must be. Are you sure, sir, your name’s Jackson?”
The young man, surprised at such a question, was about to reply, when the colonel, coming forward, stooped over the old man and whispered a few words in his ear. The poor invalid immediately sank back in his chair, and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment; then he sat up again, and took part in the conversation, but in a dreamy sort of way, keeping his face steadily turned away from his younger visitor. But as the colonel and his nephew were leaving the cottage, he fixed upon the latter a look so full of anxiety and interest, that it was quite clear that Horace Jackson had opened unwittingly a deep spring of feeling in John Price’s heart, which the old man found it almost impossible to repress. As his visitors retired, Colonel Dawson, looking back, put his finger on his lips, to which sign John Price slowly bent his head.
In a few minutes the colonel returned alone. “I have left my nephew at the school,” he said, “to give the children a questioning on what they have been lately learning; and now, John, I shall be able to clear up your doubts and fears, and to set your mind at rest on a subject which I see affects you deeply.” A long and interesting communication was then made by the colonel to his humble friend, at the close of which the invalid seemed as if he could have sprung out of his chair for very gladness, while the tears poured from his eyes, and his lips murmured words of thankfulness.
As Colonel Dawson was leaving, he turned and said with a smile, “Remember, John, not a word to any one at present—not till I give you leave.”
“All right, sir; you may depend upon me. The Lord be praised!” was the reply; and as the old man said the words, every wrinkle in his careworn face seemed running over with light. But for the present Horace Jackson did not call at his cottage again, though he now and then appeared in the village, and was to be seen on more than one occasion accompanying Miss Stansfield on her return from Bridgepath.
And now it began to be rumoured about in the neighbourhood that an attachment was springing up between the colonel’s nephew and Mary Stansfield; and all true-hearted people rejoiced, knowing what a blessing the union of two such earnest workers would prove, as, of course, they would one day, if spared, succeed to the Riverton estate. The world, however, was both surprised and disgusted, having hoped “better things” of the young man. As for the Wilders, they were full of dark and bitter sayings on the subject—the younger Mr Wilder especially, who was never tired of remarking to his acquaintance, when the subject was broached, that “Miss Stansfield had contrived to play her cards well.” This observation was not lost on the busy-bodies and scandal-mongers who abounded in Franchope, as they do in most country-towns, where there is not so much of active business stirring as will furnish sufficient material for gossip to those who love to act as unpaid news-agents in publishing their neighbours’ real or supposed more private doings from house to house.
There happened to live at the outskirts of the little town an elderly lady possessed of singular activity in all her members, especially that most unruly one, the tongue. Give her a little bit of local news or a hard saying to report, and she would never rest till she had distributed the information throughout her entire acquaintance, with a little garnish of her own to the savoury dish, according to the taste or appetite of her hearers. Loved by none, feared by all, her calls were received with apparent cordiality, partly from a natural relish in many for questionable news, and partly from a desire to stand well with one who had the reputations of her neighbours and associates more or less in her power. Young Wilder’s remark on Miss Stansfield’s engagement was a choice morsel of scandal to old Mrs Tinderley, and was duly reported in every house to which she had access. But that was not all. Meeting Mary Stansfield herself one day near her aunt’s house, Mrs Tinderley grasped her warmly by the hand—though hitherto they had never done more than just exchange civil greetings by word of mouth—and congratulated her upon her happy prospects. Miss Stansfield, who knew the old lady’s character well, was about to pass on, after a word or two of civil acknowledgment, but the other would not let her part from her so hastily.
“My dear,” she exclaimed in an earnest half-whisper, “isn’t it really shameful that people should say the ill-natured things they do, calling you a hypocrite, and selfish of all things in the world? And young Mr Wilder too—to think of his saying that ‘you’ve played your cards well.’ Really, it’s too bad. But, my dear Miss Stansfield, if I were you I wouldn’t mind it.”
The old lady paused, expecting to see a blush of vexation and annoyance on her young companion’s face; but she was disappointed.
“Thank you, Mrs Tinderley,” replied Mary Stansfield. “I suppose you mean well by repeating to me these foolish remarks. I can assure you that I do not mind them, as my conscience quite acquits me in the matter, and my happiness in no degree depends on the judgment of those who have made or reported them.”
So saying, she went quietly on her way, leaving poor Mrs Tinderley in a state of utter bewilderment.
To Colonel Dawson the attachment, which was soon avowed on his nephew’s part, was a matter of the sincerest satisfaction; as it was also to the elder Miss Stansfield, who had learned to take great pleasure in the society of Horace Jackson, and to see in him those excellences of a true Christian character which would make him a suitable husband to her invaluable niece. She was pained, however, at the hard things which had been said on the subject, as reported to her by an acquaintance of Mrs Tinderley’s, and spoke to the colonel on the subject.
“I am sure, Colonel Dawson,” she said, “dear Mary is without blame in this matter. The idea of her acting selfishly or ‘playing her cards,’ such a thing is altogether preposterous. I cannot imagine how people can be so wicked as to make such cruel and unjust remarks.”
“Ah, my dear friend,” replied the colonel, smiling, “let it pass, the world will have its say. I am sure your dear niece will have no wish, as I know she has no need, to vindicate her character from such aspersions. She has just gone straight forward in the path of duty, and has met Horace while in that path; and to my mind there would be somewhat of selfishness, or, at any rate, of undue self-consciousness, on her part were she to trouble herself, or to allow her friends to trouble themselves, to defend her conduct in this matter. We are, of course, as Christians, to abstain from all appearance of evil, and to give no handle to the enemies of the truth against us or our profession; but it does not, therefore, follow that we are to decline a path which plainly opens before us in God’s providence, just because that path may be a smooth one, or may lead to a position of wealth and influence. To choose another path which will gain us high credit for self-denial, because we turn away from that which is naturally more attractive to ourselves, may after all be only another though subtler form of selfishness. Surely the right course is just to go in honesty of purpose unreservedly where God’s hand is plainly guiding us and he will take care both of our character and of his own cause in connection with that character, as he orders everything else that is really essential to the welfare and usefulness of each of his own dear children.”