The archdeacon’s sermon amplified what Margaret had that morning expressed, so as to carry on her sense of appropriateness in the offerings of the day being bestowed on distant lands.
But the ordeal was yet to come, and though blaming herself, she was anything but comfortable, as the world repaired to the Town Hall, the room where the same faces so often met for such diverse purposes—now an orrery displayed by a conceited lecturer, now a ball, now a magistrates’ meeting, a concert or a poultry show, where rival Hamburg and Dorking uplifted their voices in the places of Mario and Grisi, all beneath the benignant portrait of Nicholas Randall, ruffed, robed, square-toed, his endowment of the scholarship in his hand, and a chequered pavement at his feet.
Who knows not an S. P. G. meeting?—the gaiety of the serious, and the first public spectacle to the young, who, like Blanche and Aubrey, gaze with admiration at the rows of bonnets, and with awe at the black coats on the platform, while the relations of the said black coats suffer, like Ethel, from nervous dread of the public speaking of their best friends.
Her expectations were realised by the archdeacon’s speech, which went round in a circle, as if he could not find his way out of it. Lord Cosham was fluent, but a great many words went to very small substance; and no wonder, thought Ethel, when all they had to propose and second was the obvious fact that missions were very good things.
Dr. Hoxton pompously, Sir Henry Walkinghame creditably, assisted the ladies and gentlemen to resolve that the S. P. G. wanted help; Mr. Lake made a stammering, and Mr. Rivers, with his good-natured face, hearty manner, and good voice, came in well after him with a straightforward, speech, so brief, that Ethel gave Flora credit for the best she had yet heard.
Mr. Wilmot said something which the sharpest ears in the front row might, perhaps, have heard, and which resulted in Dr. Spencer standing up. Ethel hardly would have known who was speaking had her eyes been shut. His voice was so different, when raised and pitched, so as to show its power and sweetness; the fine polish of his manner was redoubled, and every sentence had the most graceful turn. It was like listening to a well-written book, so smooth and so fluent, and yet so earnest—his pictures of Indian life so beautiful, and his strong affection for the converts he described now and then making his eyes fill, and his voice falter, as if losing the thread of his studied composition—a true and dignified work of art, that made Dr. May whisper to Flora, “You see what he can do. They would have given anything to have had him for a lecturer.”
With half a sigh, Ethel saw Norman rise, and step forward. He began, with eyes fixed on the ground, and in a low modest tone, to speak of the islands that Harry had visited; but gradually the poetic nature, inherent in him, gained the mastery; and though his language was strikingly simple, in contrast with Dr. Spencer’s ornate periods, and free from all trace of “the lamp,” it rose in beauty and fervour at every sentence. The feelings that had decided his lot gave energy to his discourse, and repressed as they had been by reserve and diffidence, now flowed forth, and gave earnestness to natural gifts of eloquence of the highest order. After his quiet, unobtrusive beginning, there was the more wonder to find how he seemed to raise up the audience with him, in breathless attention, as to a strain of sweet music, carrying them without thought of the scene, or of the speaker, to the lovely isles, and the inhabitants of noble promise, but withering for lack of knowledge; and finally closing his speech, when they were wrought up to the highest pitch, by an appeal that touched them all home; “for well did he know,” said he, “that the universal brotherhood was drawn closest in circles nearer home, that beneath the shadow of their own old minster, gladness and mourning floated alike for all; and that all those who had shared in the welcome to one, given back as it were from the grave, would own the same debt of gratitude to the hospitable islanders.”
He ceased. His father wiped his spectacles, and almost audibly murmured, “Bless him!” Ethel, who had sat like one enchanted, forgetting who spoke, forgetting all save the islanders, half turned, and met Richard’s smiling eyes, and his whisper, “I told you so.”
The impress of a man of true genius and power had been made throughout the whole assembly; the archdeacon put Norman out of countenance by the thanks of the meeting for his admirable speech, and all the world, except the Oxford men, were in a state of as much surprise as pleasure.
“Splendid speaker, Norman May, if he would oftener put himself out,” Harvey Anderson commented. “Pity he has so many of the good doctor’s prejudices!”