In the evening Robert got an explanation of that sudden stiffening in his auditor of the afternoon, which had perplexed him. He and the vicar were sitting smoking in the study after dinner, and the ingenious young man managed to shift the conversation on to the Leyburns, as he had managed to shift it once or twice before that day, flattering himself, of course, on each occasion that his manœuvres were beyond detection. The vicar, good soul, by virtue of his original discovery, detected them all, and with a sense of appropriation in the matter, not at all unmixed with a sense of triumph over Mrs. T., kept the ball rolling merrily.
'Miss Leyburn seems to have very strong religious views,' said Robert, à propos of some remark of the vicar's as to the assistance she was to him in the school.
'Ah, she is her father's daughter,' said the vicar genially. He had his oldest coat on, his favourite pipe between his lips, and a bit of domestic carpentering on his knee at which he was fiddling away; and, being perfectly happy, was also perfectly amiable. 'Richard Leyburn was a fanatic—as mild as you please, but immovable.'
'What line?'
'Evangelical, with a dash of Quakerism. He lent me Madame Guyon's Life once to read. I didn't appreciate it. I told him that for all her religion she seemed to me to have a deal of the vixen in her. He could hardly get over it: it nearly broke our friendship. But I suppose he was very like her, except that, in my opinion, his nature was sweeter. He was a fatalist—saw leadings of Providence in every little thing. And such a dreamer! When he came to live up here just before his death, and all his active life was taken off him, I believe half his time he was seeing visions. He used to wander over the fells and meet you with a start, as though you belonged to another world than the one he was walking in.'
'And his eldest daughter was much with him?'
'The apple of his eye. She understood him. He could talk his soul out to her. The others, of course, were children; and his wife—well, his wife was just what you see her now, poor thing. He must have married her when she was very young and very pretty. She was a squire's daughter somewhere near the school of which he was master—a good family, I believe—she'll tell you so, in a ladylike way. He was always fidgety about her health. He loved her, I suppose, or had loved her. But it was Catherine who had his mind; Catherine who was his friend. She adored him. I believe there was always a sort of pity in her heart for him too. But at any rate he made her and trained her. He poured all his ideas and convictions into her.'
'Which were strong?'
'Uncommonly. For all his gentle, ethereal look, you could neither bend nor break him. I don't believe anybody but Richard Leyburn could have gone through Oxford at the height of the Oxford Movement, and, so to speak, have known nothing about it, while living all the time for religion. He had a great deal in common with the Quakers, as I said; a great deal in common with the Wesleyans; but he was very loyal to the Church all the same. He regarded it as the golden mean. George Herbert was his favourite poet. He used to carry his poems about with him on the mountains, and an expurgated Christian Year—the only thing he ever took from the High Churchmen—which he had made for himself, and which he and Catherine knew by heart. In some ways he was not a bigot at all. He would have had the Church make peace with the Dissenters; he was all for upsetting tests so far as Nonconformity was concerned. But he drew the most rigid line between belief and unbelief. He would not have dined at the same table with a Unitarian if he could have helped it. I remember a furious article of his in the Record against admitting Unitarians to the Universities or allowing them to sit in Parliament. England is a Christian State, he said; they are not Christians; they have no right in her except on sufferance. Well, I suppose he was about right,' said the vicar with a sigh. 'We are all so half-hearted nowadays.'