"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.