“Then I won’t waste more of your time,” he answered. “You speak, I suppose, what you believe according to reason; but I wouldn’t say you were a very good advertisement even for reason, Knox. I know your eyes will be opened about that man sooner or later. I can only trust that he’s one by himself. I stand on the old paths and I believe most of us here do the same. But if we’re going to set up Kellock and his ways as a model, then I don’t see myself what’s to become of civilisation, or religion either.”
He departed, completed his rounds and confessed to disappointment at the result. Still he had mustered a respectable following and the document he left at Matthew Trenchard’s private house that evening was signed by twenty-eight men and women in more or less responsible positions.
To his everlasting surprise and indignation, Mr. Pinhey never heard of the protest again. He might as well have dropped it into the Dart, or posted it on the west wind.
A week passed and nothing happened. Nicholas had met the master frequently and found him just as usual—cheery, practical, busy. He fumed in secret. He told Robert Life and old Mr. Amos Toft, who mixed the size, that were it not for the fact that he only wanted a year to qualify for his pension, he would resign.
Mrs. Trivett and Philander Knox discussed the matter on an occasion when they met at close of work. It was the day on which Lydia had to announce her decision with respect to her admirer, and they both knew the time had come.
“We’ll give the Corkscrew a miss and go round the pond,” he said. “You can’t talk climbing that Jacob’s ladder of a hill—at least I can’t.”
Her heart sank, for she had desired to make the painful interview as brief as possible. But the event proved that Lydia need not have feared, for Mr. Knox took her black news in an unexpected spirit.
They spoke first, however, of Medora and Jordan Kellock.
“I never heard the like,” said Lydia. “It shows the danger of doing such things and not counting the cost. They was so wrapped up in their own affairs that they never saw it takes three people to make a divorce, and now that injured man is opening their eyes. It’s all as wrong as wrong can be, yet where are you going to put the blame?”
“I’m not going to put the blame anywhere,” answered Mr. Knox. “There’s a lot too much meddling, in my opinion, and if they’re only left alone, those three people may work out their own salvation in their own way. I’m fed up with ’em: one would think the welfare of Dene hung on their capers. To hear old Pinhey, you’d say it depended on our opinion about ’em whether we’d ever get to heaven ourselves. Where you can’t help, don’t worrit. They’re all right; but what about me? This is the appointed time, Lydia, and I hope I may add that this is the day of salvation.”