Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories

by Sarah S. Baker

AT THE PASTOR'S.

Monday morning had come, with work for the workers and pleasure for the pleasure-seekers. The curate at Kulleby was one of the workers, and yet Monday, instead of Sunday, was really his day of rest. His last sermon having been delivered, fairly given over to his hearers to be digested, the new one was not to be begun before Tuesday. There must be one day in the week in which to draw a free breath before the real labour of his life was to be recommenced. The introduction to the discourse once mastered, as the first link, he added day by day to the lengthening chain—a perpetual wearying weight to him, and, it might be supposed, to become so for his hearers.

This would be a mistake. Had the curate preached in Hebrew or Greek, the reverent faces would have been respectfully turned towards him, with the honest conviction that somehow or other the listeners were undergoing a helpful and uplifting process through what the curate was pleased to say to them. He was reverenced and beloved, as he well deserved to be, and was to his people the bearer of good tidings—the messenger of peace. He was the message to them, through what he was and what he was striving to be, and not through those painfully-produced sermons.

Now for the morning he had dropped the pastor, and was simply the family father.

The humble home of the curate was separated from the public road by a great grass plot, through which a wide walk went straight, without a curve or a compromise, from the gate to the foot of the high wooden steps that led to the ever-open door.

The Saturday evening rake-marks were on the loose sand of the path, for the family had on Sunday, though in their holiday garments, used the side gate that led to the entrance at the back of the house. The garden was large and well cared for. Now the weekly weeding was going on, the father sitting like a general at a distance from the battle, but in constant communication with the soldiers in full fight in the cause of order, fruitfulness, and prosperity. The four small boys who were working so busily were not under strict military discipline, for free conversation was allowed so long as the hands continued as busy as the tongues.

The curate sat on a roughly-made but comfortable garden sofa, and was knitting on a strong stocking in sweet composure. A gay-coloured parallelogram stared out from the grass beside him; for there, covered with a patchwork quilt, lay, in a great basket, the baby, the little girl, the pride of the household, fast asleep. So the curate could not be said to be exactly idle, though he was taking a delicious morning rest. His wife meanwhile—a large-hearted, practical woman—was making all things comfortable in the house, with the help of her efficient aide-de-camp, an orphan girl snatched from the influences of the poorhouse. Where a specially strong arm was required, the curate himself was at all times to be relied upon. He was not only a hewer of wood, but often a bearer of wood as well as of water. He was, too, an embodied guild of all mechanical trades, and might have been warranted to use skilfully at a pinch any tools whatever.

The curate gave a start as the click of the front gate was heard, and almost impatiently wondered who could be coming.

A tall young woman walked rapidly along the rake-marked walk, and dotted it at regular intervals with the distinct portrait of the soles of her strong and well-made boots.

She went up the steps decidedly, and entered the house without knocking, as any ordinary visitor might have done. In a moment more she appeared in the garden, with the curate's wife at her side. He stood up and bowed awkwardly, and then looked inquiringly at the new-comer. He recognized at once in her the stranger who had sat near the chancel the day before, though her dress was somewhat different from her Sunday attire. She wore a black sailor hat, from which she had that morning removed the uplifted wings that threatened to take the whole head-gear upward, and had left only the broad, bright band that wound round it. She wore a short, dark travelling dress that well displayed her new boots. The visitor did not wait for the curate to speak, but said quickly, "I will only detain you a moment. Can you tell me where widow Marget Erikson lives, the old woman who sat in front, on the side benches, in the church yesterday?"