The real crisis, I saw, was yet to come. Now that I had got religion (in my fashion, in God's fashion, for me) I knew that I was never destined to fulfil my Grandmother's purpose: to devote my life to preaching the Gospel in heathen lands. The first moment I thought of this after my baptism I realized with a shivering aversion how much more distasteful my long-decided future was than it had ever appeared before; I realized too in the old authentic way, that it was not God's will or purpose for me; and but for this, I was far too honest, in my new frame of mind, to have let my own distaste count for anything. I reflected how odd it was that through the great central act of my dedication, I had become unable to fulfil its ultimate purpose. But so it was. The same answer came to all my prayers, unspoken and afoot, or cried out on bended knees: His purpose for me was no missionary one, but my best endeavours in an ordinary life in the everyday workaday world. The conflict to come was not with Him, but with Grandmother.
What would she say when the day of decision came, and plans and details of my apostolic career could no longer be evaded or postponed? What would she say? How would she feel? And I, how should I face her scornful accusing eyes? The more I pictured the inevitable instant, the more I feared it.
And the everyday workaday life, where and what would it be? I had still the vaguest ideas on such matters, though I knew I should have to earn money and provide myself with bread: I, the mere dependent, the Charity Child as Aunt Jael so often described me. The question turned itself over and over in my brain. It was from an unexpected quarter that the answer came.
CHAPTER XXII: THE RETURN OF THE STRANGER
I used to visit my mother's grave. Any one not knowing my Grandmother might have thought she would be glad. But no—"Don't 'ee do it, my dear. Once in a way 'tis right enough may be. But don't 'ee be getting too fond of graveyards."
So I would gather flowers and put them on my mother's grave without saying a word to any one.
One Saturday morning in April, about a year after my baptism, I had picked primroses in the lanes, two great bunches, and was on my way back to the cemetery, which lay in Bear Road on the outskirts of the town, not very far above the Lawn. I was absorbed in my thoughts, talking away as usual to myself. But when I saw a horse coming up the road towards me I stepped aside almost into the ditch that ran along under the hedgerow, and stared as one does at whatever inspires fear. Horses came in my mind only second to cows as objects of prowling terror. As the horse came nearer I looked up at its rider.
My heart beat violently. I inordinately wanted him to recognize me. He glanced at me as he approached as any horseman might at a strange child on the roadside; there was no recognition in the deep-set eyes. He was sharper featured and less handsome than in my memory; but the friendliness and aristocratic distinction of the face were as I had retained them. Set on his horse, he looked something far above the world I knew. Recognize me he must; I would make him.