‘No; only some dry bones in a cave. But England will be different, of course.’
They prayed and praised, in the exultant fashion of the morning, all day long—with due intervals for refreshment. There were five services, I think, big and little. If there were not six, it was only because this Sunday did not happen to fall on the longest day.
‘I hope it is because we love God,’ said Victoria, ‘but I think it is just as much because we love one another. Or perhaps it is to bring Him nearer, so that we may love Him like the rest. He must not be too far off. I think that is why some of the poor wild people we read of take so long to convert. You must show them something, and let them feel the strong arm, and see the face of human love. They always want to worship the missionary first. Why not let them; and then pass it on, when they get stronger? Do you know, in spite of all my advantages, I could sometimes just fall down and say my prayers to a child, to things even—a rose-tree? It’s the old wickedness in our blood, I suppose. But mind, don’t you dare tell anybody; I should die of shame!’
I had begged to be excused from attendance at the remaining four services, on the ground that I preferred an open-air rite; and, on my assurance that this mode of devotion had the sanction of British custom, Victoria had consented to join me. We were wandering, talking, musing in long silences, picking wild-flowers, breathing the balmy air, basking in the warm light.
In one of these reveries I caught a strange gleam in Victoria’s eyes. ‘Tell me about the blessed Sabbaths in England,’ she murmured, placing her hand in mine.
O my England, my England! why cannot I speak of a thing we all must honour so? why, rather, do I pray for strength to keep the secret of thy Sabbaths well? Dread day of the division of classes, weekly vision of the Judgment, in its utter separation of the social sheep and goats, never one flock, alas! at any time, but now so clearly two. In this dark hour of remembrance, I hear the hoarse clappers of thy meeting-houses, vainly fanning the stagnant air in cities of the spiritual dead. I see thy funereal processions of the elect, wending to or from the conventicles, past groups of coster-boys, who wait for the opening of the houses, and expectorate on the pavement in patterns of the dawn of decorative art. It is all before me, the dingy squalor of thy miles of shuttered marts, the crying contrasts of thy Sunday finery, more hurtful to the eye than thy week-day rags! I hear thy muffin-bells in the deep silences, and thy hawkers’ wail; and, amid this worst of all spiritual destitution, the destitution of beauty, I ask myself, what is it that we have lost; what is it these little ones have found?
CHAPTER XI.
A SAIL.
I was roused next morning by the report of a gun, followed by a strange commotion in the village. I had barely time to dress, and join the Ancient in the sitting-room, when a man ran in, breathless, to announce a ship off the Point, and a Queen’s ship.
A Queen’s ship! No wonder the village was astir. A ship that might fly the Royal Standard, a ship that was English authority and English might! No work in the Island this day!
The Ancient put on his Sunday coat, and quietly took command. ‘How lucky the landing is easy this morning! Jonah, hurry off to the Point, with the white flag, and signal their cutter “All right!” Quintal, you go down to the landing, and see them over the breakers. Now, folks, who’s to take them in?’