His voice steadied and strengthened as he read. Renewed contact with the minds of those vanished teachers gave him a delight which infused itself into the uttered words, and made them also joyful; and if the curate preached to no one else in the congregation, certainly he preached to himself, and before it was done had entered into a thorough enjoyment of the sermon.
A few in the congregation were disappointed because they had looked for a justification and enforcement of the confessional, thinking the change in the curate could only have come from that portion of the ecclesiastical heavens towards which they themselves turned their faces. A few others were scandalized at such an innovation on the part of a young man who was only a curate. Many however declared that it was the most interesting sermon they had ever heard in their lives—which perhaps was not saying much.
Mrs. Ramshorn made a class by herself. Not having yet learned to like Wingfold, and being herself one of the craft, with a knowledge of not a few of the secrets of the clerical—prison-house, shall I call it, or green-room?—she was indignant with the presumptuous young man who degraded the pulpit to a level with the dock. Who cared for him? What was it to a congregation of respectable people, many of them belonging to the first county families, that he, a mere curate, should have committed what he fancied a crime against them! He should have waited until it had been laid to his charge. Couldn't he repent of his sins, whatever they were, without making a boast of them in the pulpit, and exposing them to the eyes of a whole congregation? She had known people make a stock-in-trade of their sins! What was it to them whether the washy stuff he gave them by way of sermons was his own foolishness or some other noodle's! Nobody would have troubled himself to inquire into his honesty, if he had but held his foolish tongue. Better men than he had preached other people's sermons and never thought it worth mentioning. And what worse were the people? The only harm lay in letting them know it; that brought the profession into disgrace, and prevented the good the sermon would otherwise have done, besides giving the enemies of the truth a handle against the church. And then such a thing to call a sermon! As well take a string of blown eggs to market! Thus she expatiated, half the way home, before either of her companions found an opportunity of saying a word.
"I am sorry to differ from you, aunt," said Helen. "I thought the sermon a very interesting one. He read beautifully."
"For my part," said Bascombe, who was now a regular visitor from Saturdays to Mondays, "I used to think the fellow a muff, but, by Jove! I've changed my mind. If ever there was a plucky thing to do, that was one, and there ain't many men, let me tell you, aunt, who would have the pluck for it.—It's my belief, Helen," he went on, turning to her and speaking in a lower tone, "I've had the honour of doing that fellow some good. I gave him my mind about honesty pretty plainly the first time I saw him. And who can tell what may come next when a fellow once starts in the right way! We shall have him with us before long. I must look out for something for him, for of course he'll be in a devil of a fix without his profession."
"I am so glad you think with me, George!" said Helen. "There was always something I was inclined to like about Mr. Wingfold. Indeed I should have liked him quite if he had not been so painfully modest."
"Notwithstanding his sheepishness, though," returned Bascombe, "there was a sort of quiet self-satisfaction about him, and the way he always said Don't you think? as if he were Socrates taking advantage of Mr. Green and softly guiding him into a trap, which I confess made me set him down as conceited; but, as I say, I begin to change my mind. By Jove! he must have worked pretty hard too in the dust-bins to get together all those bits of gay rag and resplendent crockery!"
"You heard him say he had help," said Helen.
"No, I don't remember that."
"It came just after that pretty simile about gleaning in old fields."