“Would that have been the end, Aubrey?”
The reply was barely audible. “No, I suppose not.”
“Take up your burden instead, my son, and bear it by God’s grace. He does not refuse that, even when the burden is heaped and bound by our own hands. Unlike men, His compassion faileth never. He has maybe emptied thine heart, Aubrey, that He may fill it with Himself.”
Aubrey made no reply, but Mr Marshall did not think that a bad sign.
“Well, come now,” said he, rising from the bank, and in a more cheerful tone. “Let us go to Shoe Lane, and see if Agnes hath any supper for us. The prodigal son was not more welcome to his old father than you shall be to my poor lodging, for so long a time as may stand with your safety and conveniency. My Lady Oxford, you say, was to give my Lady Lettice to know how things went with you? but methinks it shall do none ill if I likewise visit her this evening. ‘Two heads are better than one,’ and though ’tis said ‘o’er many cooks spoil the broth,’ yet three may be better than two.”
The feeling of humiliation which grew and deepened in Aubrey’s mind, was one of the best things which could have come to him. Vanity and self-sufficiency had always been his chief failings; and he was now finding, to his surprise, that while his chosen friends surrounded him with difficulties, the people whom he had slighted and despised came forward to help him out of them. He had looked down on no one more than on Mr Marshall, and Agnes had received a share of his contempt, partly because of her father’s calling and comparative poverty, partly because she was not pretty, and partly because she showed no power of repartee or spirit in conversation. In Aubrey’s eyes she had been “a dull, humdrum thing,” only fit to cook and sew, and utterly beneath the notice of any one so elevated and spirituel as himself.
During the last few hours, Aubrey’s estimate of things in general had sustained some rude shocks, and his hitherto unfaltering faith in his own infallibility was considerably shaken. It suffered an additional blow when Mr Marshall led him into his quiet parlour, and he saw Agnes seated at her work, the supper-table spread, and a cheerful fire blazing upon a clean hearth. An expression of slight surprise came into her eyes as she rose to greet Aubrey.
“You see, daughter, I have brought home a guest,” said her father. “He will tarry with us a little season.”
Then, stepping across the room, he opened a closed door, and showed Aubrey another chamber, the size of the first, across which a red curtain was drawn.
“This is my chamber, and shall be also yours,” said he: “I pray you use it freely. At this end is my study, and beyond the curtain my bedchamber. I somewhat fear my library may scarce be to your liking,” he added, an amused smile playing round his lips; “but if you can find therein anything to please you, I shall be glad.—Now, daughter, what have we here? We so rarely have guests to supper, I fear Mr Louvaine may find our fare somewhat meagre: though ‘better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.’”