And what a beautiful life these two lived! I know a little pair in a little town, with not much more money than the Asquiths, and connections much less important, and surroundings much less pretty—a pair who have only a little house in a street, with unlovely houses of the poor about them, instead of comely cottages, who do very much the same, all honour to them! The Asquiths flung themselves upon that parish, and took the charge of it with a rush, out of the calm elderly hands which had for years managed it so easily. I do not undertake to say that they did no harm, or that they were always wise; nobody is that I have ever come in contact with: but if there is any finer thing in the world than to maintain a brave struggle with all that is evil on account of others, on account of the poor, who so often cannot help themselves, I don’t know what it is. These two laid siege to all the strongholds of ill in the village—and evil, or the Evil One if you please to put it so, has many such strongholds—with all the energies of their being. They fought against wickedness, against disorder, against disease, against waste, and dirt, and drink; against the coarse habits and unlovely speech of the little rural place. They made a chivalrous attempt to turn all those rustics into ladies and gentlemen—into what is better, Christian men and women, into good and pure and thoughtful persons, considering not only their latter end, as the parson had always bidden them to do, but also their present living and all their habits and ways. The curate had been working very steadily, in this sense, since he came to Horton; but when he had, so to speak, Mary’s young enthusiasm, her feminine practicalness, yet scorn of the practical and contempt of all the limits of possibility, poured into him, stimulating his own strength, the result was tremendous. The parish for a moment was taken by surprise, and in its astonishment was ready to consent to anything the young innovators desired. It would sin no more, neither be untidy any more; it would abandon the public-house and wash its babies’ faces three times in the day; it would put something in the savings-bank every Saturday of its life, and open all its windows every morning, and pursue every smell to the death. All this and more it undertook in the consternation caused by that sudden onslaught: and for a little time, with those two active young people in constant circulation among the cottages, giving nobody any peace, scolding, praising, persuading, contrasting, encouraging, helping too in that incomprehensible way in which the poor do help the poor, a great effect was produced. As for going to church, that was the first and easiest point; and here Mary came in with her music, which the curate did not understand, influencing the choice of the hymns, and getting up choir practices, and heaven knows how many other seductions—artful temptations to the young to do well instead of doing ill—sweetnesses and pleasures to make delightful the narrow way.
“You think you are doing an immense deal,” said Uncle Hugh, “but you’ll find it won’t last.”
“Why shouldn’t it last?” cried Mary. “They are so much happier in themselves. Don’t you think a man must feel what a difference it makes when he comes home sober, and finds a nice supper waiting him on Saturday nights; and then to go out to church with all the children, neat and clean, round him, instead of lounging, dirty, at the door with his pipe?”
“Perhaps it is more comfortable,” said the rector, shaking his head. “I should think so, certainly; but it isn’t human nature, my dear. You will find that he will rather have his fling at the public-house, though he feels wretched next morning. He likes to see his children nice; but better still he likes his own pleasure. You’ll find it won’t last.”
“We must be prepared for a few downfalls,” said the curate. “I tell Mary that we must not expect everything to go on velvet. Some of them will fall away; but with patience, and sticking to it, and never giving in——”
“Never giving in!” cried Mary. “Why, uncle, you don’t suppose I am so silly as to think we could build Rome in a day. We quite look for failures now and then,” she said, with her bright face. “We should almost be disappointed if we had no failures; shouldn’t we, Henry? for then it wouldn’t look real; but with patience and time everything can be done.”
The rector only shook his head. He did not say, as he might have done, that it was very presumptuous of these young people to think they could do more in a few months than he had done in his long incumbency. The rector’s wife was very strong on this point, and quite angry with Mary and the curate for their ridiculous hopes; but Mr. Prescott himself felt, perhaps, that his reign had been an indolent one, and that he had not done all he might. But he shook his head; for, after all, though he had been indolent, he knew human nature better than they did. He was not angry with them; but he had seen such crusades before, and had various sad experiences as to the dying out of enthusiasm, and the failure of hope. And the rector, who was a kind man in his heart, knew through the ladies of the family that the time was approaching when Mary would be “not very strong,” and apt to flag in other matters besides that of listening to her husband’s sermon. And he knew, also, that the conditions of life would change for them; that the young wife would find work of her own to do, which could not be put aside for the parish; and that “patience and time,” on which they calculated, were just what they would not have to give: for when babies began to come, and all their expenses were increased, how were they to go on with one hundred and sixty-five pounds a year? The rector said to himself that he would not discourage them, that they should do what they would as long as they could. But he foresaw that the time would come when Mr. Asquith would be compelled to seek another curacy with a little more money, and when Mary, instead of being the good angel of the parish, would have to be nurse and superior servant-of-all-work at home.
“Poor things!” he said to his wife. “It is sad when you have to acknowledge that you are no longer equal to the task you have set for yourself.”
“I don’t call them poor things,” said Mrs. Prescott. “I think them very presuming, Hugh, after you have spent so many years here, to think they can bring in new principles and make a reformation in a single day.”
“We might have done more, my dear. We have taken things very quietly; most likely we could have done more.”