“I have got something heavy on my conscience, sir,” continued Maine, in a hesitating way.
“If I can help you, Maine, I am sure you may trust me,” said the vicar.
“I know that, sir; I know that,” cried Maine, eagerly. “I want to speak out, but the thoughts of that poor gill keep me back.”
“That poor girl!” exclaimed the vicar, looking at the young man’s anguish-wrung countenance, and feeling startled for the moment. “Do you mean Daisy Banks?”
“No, no, sir; no, no. Miss Jessie there at the farm. I can’t bear for her to know. There, sir,” he exclaimed, hurriedly, “it’s got to come out, and I must speak, or I shall never get it said. You see, sir, when I was quite a boy, I was upon my own hands by the death of my father and mother. Then I drifted to Nottingham, where I was thrown amongst the lowest of the low; was mixed with poachers, and thieves, and scoundrels of every shape; always trying to get to something better, but always dragged back to their own level by my companions, who sneered at my efforts, and bullied me till my life was a curse, and I grew to feel more like an old man at eighteen than a boy.
“To make a long story short, sir, I could bear it no longer. I ran away from home—from that,” he said, grimly, “that was my home—and kept away, working honestly for a couple of years, when some of the old lot came across me to jeer me, laugh at me, and end by proposing that I should rob my employer and run off with them. I was seen talking to the wretches, dismissed in disgrace from my situation, and went back to blackguardism and scoundreldom for a whole year, because no one would give me a job of decent labour to do. Mr Selwood, sir, you don’t know how hard it is to climb the hill where honest people live—to get to be classed as one who is not always watched with suspicious eyes. It was a fearful fight I had to get there, against no one knows what temptations and efforts to drag me back. Sir, I got to honest work at last, and from that place came on here, where for years I’ve worked hopefully, and begun to feel that I need not blush when I looked an honest man in the face, nor dread to meet the police lest they should have learned something about my former life. In short, sir, I was beginning to feel that I need not go about always feeling that I had made a mistake in trying to leave my old life.”
The vicar sat at the table with his head resting upon his hand, and face averted, feeling that he was not the only man in Dumford whose heart was torn with troubles, and he listened without a word as John Maine went on.
“There, sir, I can’t tell you all the hopes and fears I have felt, as I have striven hard for years, hopefully too, thinking that after all there might be a bright future in store for me, and rest out here at the pleasant old farm; and now, sir,” he continued huskily, and with faltering voice—
“Some of the old lot have turned up and found you again, eh, Maine?”
“Yes, sir, that’s what it is,” said the young man, starting; “and I thought I’d make a clean breast of it to you, and ask you, sir, to give me a bit of advice.”