Luke's wife

by Evelyn R. Garratt

FOR LUKE'S SAKE.

Luke paced up and down the lawn of his pretty Rectory. The moon was shedding its silver light on grass and trees; the flowers were flinging their perfume around him; a nightingale trilled out its song from a tree in the distance; but it all meant nothing to Luke. His soul was crying out for crowds of human beings; for his fellow men; for the rush and excitement of city life; for the tumult and whirl of London.

The silence of this summer night broken only by the song of the nightingale was almost unbearable. The thought of his village church sparsely filled with farmers and their wives, and labourers, who listened to him with their mouths open in astonishment at the oratory of their new "parson," the remembrance of the cottages nestling on the hill below the Rectory, with their walls covered with roses and honey suckle, and whose occupants he had already visited several times during his short stay among them, had no charm for him.

He longed for strenuous work in courts and alleys, for congregations of people who could appreciate his sermons; he pined for London platforms and enthralled listeners to his eloquence. He felt he was wasted, utterly wasted in this quiet village on the hill that Rachel so loved.

Yes, Rachel loved it. That was the only compensation. Gradually it seemed that her health was returning. The open air life and comparative rest from worry were doing their work; and only a few minutes before, she had left him rejoicing in all the beauty of their surroundings, its peace and quietness. She revelled in the flowers and trees and soft green grass.

When Luke had told her two months ago of the Bishop's offer of Stagland, the news had struck her as so wonderful that she had burst into tears. She knew that a few more months in Trowsby would mean that she would have to say goodbye to husband and child and leave them to get through life alone; and the lifting of that burden seemed almost too good to be true. Moreover, living at Stagland meant an end to the perpetual struggle of keeping within their means, an end too of housework, for which she was entirely unfit. She decided before many hours were over to take the faithful little Polly as nursemaid and to help in the house, with another general servant. They would be able to grow their own vegetables and fruit, and no doubt Luke would do a certain amount of work in the garden with a man to help. The whole plan seemed ideal to Rachel. She lay awake thinking of it at night and panting for the fresh air of the country.

At times, however, she wondered if she ought to let Luke sacrifice himself to the extent of living in the country. Would he be able to endure it? Would he have enough to occupy his time? Was it right that a young and strong man should take a country living and spend his best years among fields and hedges instead of courts and alleys?

She looked anxiously at his face when he did not know that her eyes were upon him, and was afraid that she detected a shade of sadness in its expression. Luke, however, was very careful not to let her know by his words how almost unbearable the thought of the country was to him. But when Rachel was not with him he gave way to his miserable thoughts.

He had been inexpressibly touched by the warmth of feeling displayed by some of the members of his congregation at Trowsby when they heard that he was leaving them. As is often the case, he learnt then for the first time that which would have immensely encouraged him had he known it before, that he had helped so many of them spiritually. It made leaving them all the harder, though at the same time it warmed his heart to find that he had been used far more than he had imagined for the good of their souls. The last two Sundays at Trowsby, the Church had been full to overflowing, and he had again the wonderful feeling of being able to sway men's minds.

As he paced up and down in the moonlight, he lifted his eyes to the starlit sky and cried to God to forgive all his past unsatisfactoriness and to make him once more of use in the world.