“Not at all,” said the rector; and, following the manager to the cage, he stepped into it without any suspicion that this was a trick on the part of Mr. Peat to insure his volunteer’s services being recognized.
He found the ascent a very different thing from the descent. The steady upward motion was not unpleasant, and long before the surface was reached his eyes, accustomed to darkness, detected a pale gleam of light stealing downward, and could distinguish the damp brickwork gliding by. Presently the light grew stronger—grew dazzling in its wonderful whiteness. “We are going up nicely,” his companion murmured, remembering in his gratitude that the ascent, which was a trifle to him even with shattered nerves, might be unpleasant to the other—“we are nearly there.”
And so they were; and slowly and gently they rose into the broad daylight and the sunshine which seemed to proclaim to the rector’s heart that sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
Standing densely packed round the pit’s mouth was a great crowd—a crowd, at any rate, of many hundreds. They greeted the appearance of the cage with a quick drawing-in of the breath and a murmur of pity. Lindo’s face and hands were as black as any collier’s; his dress seemed at the first glance as theirs. But as he helped to lift his injured companion out and carry him to the stretcher which stood at hand, the word who he was ran round; and, though no one spoke, the loudest tribute could scarcely have been more eloquent than the respect with which the rough assemblage fell away to right and left that he might pass out to the trap which had been thoughtfully provided—first to carry him to the vicarage for a wash, and afterward to take him home. His heart was full as he walked down the lane, every man standing uncovered, and the women gazing on him with unspoken blessings in their eyes.
A very few hours before he had felt at war with the world. He had said, not perhaps that all men were liars, but that they were unjust, full of prejudice and narrowness, and ill-will; that, above all, they judged without charity. Now, as the pony-cart rattled down the road through the cutting, and the sunny landscape, the winding river, and the plain round Claversham opened before him, he felt far otherwise. He longed to do more for others than he had done. He dwelt with wonder on the gratitude which services so slight had evoked from men so rough as those from whom he had just parted; and unconsciously he placed the balance in their favor to the general account of the world, and acknowledged himself its debtor.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE RECTOR’S DECISION.
The church clock was striking nine as the rector, jogging along behind the little pony, came in sight of the turnpike-house outside the town. He had no overcoat, and the drive had chilled him; and, anxious at once to warm himself and to reach the rectory as quietly as possible, he bade the driver stop at the gate and set him down. The lad had been strictly charged to see the parson home, and would have demurred, but Lindo persisted good-humoredly, and had his way. In two minutes he was striding briskly along the road, his shoulders squared, and the night’s reflections still running like a rich purple thread through the common stuff of his every-day thoughts.
In this mood, which the pure morning air and crisp sunshine tended to favor and prolong, he came at a corner plump upon Mr. Bonamy, who, like all angular, uncomfortable men, was an early riser, and had this morning chosen to extend his before-breakfast walk in the direction of Baerton. The lawyer’s energy had already been rewarded. He had met Mr. Keogh, and learned not only the earlier details of the accident—which were, indeed, known to all Claversham, for the town had sat up into the small hours listening for wheels and discussing the catastrophe—but had further received a minute description of the rector’s conduct. Consequently his thoughts were already busy with the clergyman when, turning a corner, he came unexpectedly upon him.
Lindo met his glance and looked away hastily. The rector had been anxious to avoid, by going home at once, any appearance of parading what he had done, and he would have passed on with a brief good-morning. But the lawyer seemed to be differently disposed. He stopped short in the middle of the path, so that the clergyman could not pass him without rudeness, and nodded a jerky greeting. “You have not walked all the way, I suppose, Mr. Lindo?” he said, his keen small eyes reading the other’s face like a book.
“No,” the rector answered, coloring uncomfortably under his gaze. “I drove as far as the turnpike, Mr. Bonamy.”