When the sinner, seeking life, at Thy feet shall fall ...
Hear then, in love, O Lord, the cry, from heaven, Thy dwelling-place on high.’
The voices ceased, the members knelt, prayed silently, rose again, the Class meeting was over....
Scarce a word passed between the two girls, as, unaccompanied, they found their way over the fields towards their homes, whilst slanting sunlight fell on them, and on the meadows, and on corn-fields ripening beneath the summer sun. At the gates of the yard they paused and kissed each other, then silently separated, and Annie went on to her home; her passionate thoughts still struggling beneath an impulse of duty which had been unknown to her before.
‘I will be good,’ thought poor Annie, desperately; ‘I willent meet him within the fields again; if he wants to have me he must come up to t’ house, and tell before mother all he has to say. I would ha’ told mother about him long ago, but I didn’t like sin’ he allays begged me not; it seemed so hard on him as is like a gentleman to be tied to me who am but a village girl. But I will be honest; I’ll have no double-dealing; I’ll give him up sooner than do wrong for him.’ As the words trembled on her lips she turned the handle of the cottage door; she entered and crossed the threshold of her home. And in an instant she stood still, struck with dismay—her father was there, he had returned once more.
[CHAPTER XIII
THE RETURN OF THE FATHER AND THE LAST OF THE RANTAN]
YES, there he sat, there could be no doubt about it—he sat in his wooden chair upon one side of the hearth, a wan, blear-eyed, crouching, shivering specimen, too visibly in a condition of tipsiness. Annie had been used to her father in every stage of drink, and could see at once at what phase he had arrived, a state of virtue and moral indignation, ready to be maudlin at the first opportunity. At a little distance, with pale, indignant looks, though not near each other, sat his wife and son—Jenny upright, silent, her lips stern and compressed, a strange expression for her timid face to wear. She did not draw close to Nat, nor he to her, rather they preferred to remain obviously apart—it was evident that if she was divided from her husband she was also for some reason separated from her son. Indeed there had been a painful scene that morning; as Annie, on her part, had good cause to know, though the religious excitement that she had since experienced had driven the scene of the morning from her mind. She stood by the door now, uncertain what to do, her pulses quivering, and her face aflame.
‘It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?—er—er—?’ cried Rob to her, addressing her as a stranger who had come into the house, ‘it’s a nice, good thing I should come into my dwellin’, an’ be welcomed i’ this way by my wife an’ son. There’s my wife she wo-ant kiss me for all I ask her to—she’s too good for me, happen—’ and here for a while he cried—‘or it’s like as she’s doin’ what she don’ want me to know, an’ is ashamed when an honest man comes ho-am.’
‘You needn’t go tellin’ your vile, wicked thoughts,’ cried Jenny, absolutely excited into speech; ‘or think as there’s any one at’ll believe ye, when ye set for to take away my character. Ye’ve been my disgrace an’ shame sin’ we were wed; an’ t’ boy, he’ll be like ye, it is like enough—if ye’d set about to train him and correct him, there might a bin some chance for him, but now there’s none.’