"What is it, my brother?" asked the preacher. He too had risen and stood with his hand on Toyner's shoulder.
They were alone together, these two. The great crowd of the congregation had already gone away; those that remained were each one so intensely occupied with prayer or adoration that they paid no heed to others.
"I feel—light," said Toyner.
"Dear fellow," said the preacher, "the devil has gone out of you. You are free now because you are the slave of Christ. Begin your service to him by praising God!"
Toyner stayed a week longer in the place, lodging with the young preacher. Day and night they were close together. A change had come to Toyner. It was a miracle. The young preacher believed in such miracles, and because he believed he saw them often.
Toyner trembled and hoped, and at length he too believed. He believed that as long as he willingly obeyed God his old habits would not triumph over him. The physical health which so often comes like a flood and replaces disease at the shrines of idol temples, of Romish saints, or, at the many Protestant homes for faith-healing, had undoubtedly come to Bart Toyner. The stomach that had been inflamed and almost useless, now produced in him a regular appetite for simple nourishing food. The craving for strong drink had passed away, and with his whole mind and heart he threw himself into such service as he believed to be acceptable to God and the condition upon which he held his health and his freedom. At the end of the week Toyner went home to face the old life again with no safe-guard but the new inward strength. No one there believed in his reformation. He had lost money for his father in his last debauch; the man who was virtually a partner would not trust him again. He had a nominal business of his own, an agency which he had heretofore neglected, and now he worked hard, living frugally, and for the first time in his life earned his own living. The rules of conduct which the preacher had laid down for him were simple and broad. He was to see God in everything, accepting all events joyfully from His hand; he was so to preach Him in life and word that others would love Him; he was to do all his work as unto a God who beheld and cared for the minutest things of earth; he was to abstain, not only from all sin, but from all things that might lead to evil. At first he saw no contradiction in this rule of life; it seemed a plain path, and he walked, nay ran, upon it for a long distance.
Between Toyner and his old friends the change of his life and thoughts had made the widest breach. That outward show of companionship remained was due only to patient persistence on his part and the endurance of the pain and shame of being in society where he was not wanted and where he felt nothing congenial. There was a Scotch minister who, with the people of his congregation, had received and befriended the reformed man; but because of Toyner's desire to follow the most divine example, and also because of his love to Ann Markham, he chose the other companionship. It was a high ideal; something warred against it which he could not understand, and his patience brought forth no mutual love.
When six months had passed away, Toyner had gained with his neighbours a character for austerity in his personal habits and constant companionship with the rough and the poor. The post of constable fell vacant; Toyner's father had been constable in his youth; Toyner was offered the post now, and he took it.
The constable in such villages as Fentown was merely a respectable man who could be called upon on rare occasions to arrest a criminal. Crime was seldom perpetrated in Fentown, except when it was of a nature that could be winked at. Toyner had no uniform; he was put in possession of a pair of hand-cuffs, which no one expected him to use; he was given a nominal income; and the name of "constable" was a public recognition that he was reformed.
Toyner had had many scruples of mind before he took this office. The considerations which induced him to accept it were various. The austere demand of law and the service of God were very near together in his mind; nor are they in any strong mind ever separated except in parable.