Into the Highways and Hedges

by F. F. Montrésor

"Then you were madder than I thought." Laura sat bolt upright to give force to her emphatic whisper. She had grown stout and matronly since the days when she had advised her sister to "marry any decently rich man who would be good to her," and her views had ripened. "If people marry for love, at least they have their cake, even though they may get through it pretty soon, and go hungry when it's eaten. I've sometimes thought that I hardly saw that side of the question enough when I was young. I was terribly afraid of sentiment. But you, Meg—you, who of all women I ever met were the most high-flown!—if you didn't love him, what possessed you?"

"It is an old story now," said Meg, colouring. "Let it be. Barnabas understands about it. No one else ever will." She was silent for a few minutes, thinking of that scene at Ravenshill which she had but half understood at the time. "It is only afterwards that we know what we have done! I wonder whether all things that have happened to us will be seen by us in the right colours and the right proportion, as soon as we are in the next world. Will they all seem to shift into different places, like the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope?"

"My dear," said Laura, with the twinkle that Meg remembered of old, "I am distinctly of the earth, earthy. I don't know, and I don't much care, about the next world; but I am curious about this one. I should like to hear what happened to the Meg I used to know. Where did he take you? Were you tolerably happy, or—or not?"

"I was happy when he was preaching," said Meg. "What shall I tell you?" She reflected a moment, and then began drawing word pictures of scenes by the way—of the tramps they had talked to; of the gipsies over whose fires they had sat; of meetings on heathery hills, and on village commons. She dwelt rather on the lighter side of her experiences, and her stories illustrated the gentler traits of the preacher's character—his tenderness for very old people and young children, and his hopefulness. She told how he had given a screw of tobacco to a dirty old tramp incarcerated in a far-off northern gaol, and how, on the beadle's rebuking him for his leniency, he had said: "She's ower ninety, man! ower deaf to hear the preachin' o' goodwill; but the 'baccy 'ull carry a bit o' th' message, an' she'll understan' that".

And she laughed a little over the minor perplexities that had beset her own path when she had struggled along by his side.

"It is different now, for I am older, and have grown accustomed to so much; but oh, Laura, I did not laugh then! So many funny things happened to me, small troubles that I had never reckoned on. For example, my boots wore out. I remember that we were walking along the bed of a stream, and every stone I trod on hurt me. You don't know how they hurt, when one's feet are blistered, and one's boots are in holes. It was only six weeks since I had left Aunt Russelthorpe's house, and it seemed too strange and unnatural to go to the preacher about that sort of thing. I couldn't ask him for money. I thought it would be easier to walk barefoot than to do that; and, after all, one can get through almost anything if one determines that one will. So I limped on, and should have reached the next village all right, if I hadn't trodden on a bit of broken glass. I was unlucky that day; it went through the hole right into my heel. I sat down on a stone and clenched my hands together; I was so afraid of fainting, and the sharp pain made me feel sick. I can see that valley now, with the purple heather and bracken glowing on each side, and the big boulders, and the brown stream brawling in the middle of it, and the preacher tramping steadily along, with his back to me. Of course, he discovered, after a time, that I was not by him, and turned back to look for me; and, just when he reached me, a round soft sheep with curly horns and a broad face jumped up close behind my stone and scuttled away up the hill. It startled me so that it shook the tears, which I had been trying to keep back, down my cheeks, and I found myself sobbing like a baby. Barnabas stood and stared at me; I had never done that sort of thing before, and he was immensely surprised. Then he said: 'You poor little soul, ye just doan't knaw what to do for weariness'. And he sat down and consoled me as if I had been ten instead of twenty-one; and cut my boot off with his pocket-knife, and took the splinter of glass out; and finally picked me up and carried me into the next village. From that day, he took only too much care of me; but he is always tender to any one who is unhappy."

Her thoughts had flown to another time when the difficulties of the life she had chosen had pressed on her more heavily than during those first experiences of physical discomfort.

"He thinks," she said in a low voice, "that no mistake and no sin can be so strong as God is. It is that belief which gives him power over those who have fallen very low. Of course most people agree with him in theory, but he is quite sure of it practically, which is different."

"He has need of his hopefulness," said Laura drily. She had just made up her mind to tell Meg of the arrest; but the nurse came in at that moment, and she put off breaking the news a little longer.

Meg gave up the baby reluctantly, and they went down into the lamp-lit dining-room; Laura very full of thought. This fanatical preacher, with his mania for "converting," with his pernicious views about the intrinsic evil of wealth, had done plenty of harm, she considered; and yet she allowed to herself that his influence was for good too. Margaret was morally a stronger woman now than she had been in her variable and emotional girlhood. Laura remarked also that, though no one could call her sister "pretty" in these days, yet the distinction which she had always possessed was hers still and in larger measure. Meg looked like a queen in disguise in her shabby dress. Alas! alas! and it was all wasted on a street "tuborator," who, at the best, was a mad enthusiast, and, at the worst, a shameful rogue!