Chapter Twenty Three.
Unexpected Fruit.
The next day, after luncheon, the brothers, with their sister, started for Stringby, but not in very buoyant spirits. Walter had no thought of drawing back, nevertheless he felt an almost overwhelming shrinking from the task which he had undertaken. The loving smile, however, and gentle words of affectionate concern with which his aunt had cheered him as they set off were a source of much strength and comfort to him; they hovered around his heart like the shadowing wing of an angel whenever the scorching heat of his furnace of trial swept by anticipation across his shrinking spirit. He had thought it wiser not to confide to his mother either the cause of his shame or his intended amends.
The weather was clear and bright as they began their ride, but a smart shower burst upon them when they had accomplished half the distance, and forced them to go out of their way to take shelter. Would the preacher, distrusting the sky, have given up his work just for this afternoon? If so, what pain and humiliation Walter would be spared! Oh, how he clung for a few moments to the hope that it might be so! for then he would have made the amends and the sacrifice, and shown the moral courage, in intention, and, at the same time, would be spared the actual heavy trial itself. But then he dashed away these thoughts from him, and with an inward prayer nerved himself for the coming effort.
Amos, as he rode by his side, seemed to guess what was passing through his mind, and said, “Can I speak to the preacher for you, Walter? It will save you some pain, and, as I shall be speaking for another, I should not have the same difficulty that you might feel.” But this suggestion at once roused Walter out of all his fears. “No, no, dear Amos,” he cried, “no; I have put my foot in it, and I must go through with it. Your being with me will be a great help, and it would not be right for me to accept any further assistance from you.”
Little more was said on the way. Julia scarcely opened her lips, but there was a sweet peace on her fair face. She felt that her brother Walter was going to do the right thing, and, though she thoroughly sympathised with him in his natural shrinking from his task, she was satisfied that he could not now retreat if he would do what duty plainly called him to. So they trotted or cantered leisurely along, while the dashing of the waves, and their ceaseless ebb and flow, seemed to remind them of that love which, in the midst of the ceaseless ebb and flow of this world’s trials, and of man’s personal failures and advances in the life of holiness, ever comes, like the sea-breeze, in breathings of spiritual health and heavenly pity to the souls that are pressing onward and upward to the land unclouded by sin.
At last the watering-place was gained. It seemed to Walter and his sister more thronged than ever. Several large excursion trains had brought their many hundreds of eager and excited holiday-keepers. Esplanade, sands, and by-streets were swarming with passers to and fro. Would they meet Gregson and Saunders there? Most earnestly did Walter and his sister, and indeed Amos also, hope that they would not. However, little time was there for scanning the faces of those they met, for now they pressed rapidly forward, Walter leading the way, as he was anxious to plunge at once into his difficult work and get it over as speedily as possible. “You know,” he said to Amos with a faint smile, “it’s just like going to the dentist’s. When you get into his room, you don’t go and ask to look at his instruments,—those horrid pinchers, and pliers, and screw-looking things,—it’s quite bad enough to feel them; and the sooner the wrench comes the sooner it’ll be over. So now for my wrench.” As he said this, they came within sight of the place where the unhappy disturbance occurred in which he had taken a part. A crowd had gathered, on the outskirts of which, people were moving backwards and forwards, but there were no sounds of uproar or interruption as they reached it. All were very attentive. The preacher—the sight of whom caused the blood to rush into Walter’s face—was the same he had encountered before. The good man was standing on his stool giving out two lines of a well-known hymn. And then a noble volume of praise from those united voices rolled up towards heaven.
Walter could see in a moment that the preacher’s eye had rested on him, and that he remembered him. So, flinging his horse’s reins to his brother, he slipped off his saddle and elbowed his way vigorously through the crowd. “Stop, young man,” said the evangelist calmly and solemnly, as he saw Walter pressing forward. But Walter made his way close up to him, and, while the other was evidently perplexed as to the meaning of his conduct, said quietly to him, “I am not come here to-day to hinder or make game, but to ask pardon.” The other looked at him in amazement, and for a moment knew not what to say. Then, while there arose a strange buzz of surprise and excitement among the bystanders, Walter asked, “May I stand in your place for a minute, and say a few words to these people?” The good man was clearly taken quite aback by this request, and looked hard at him who had made it. Was this a scheme for turning the preacher and his work into open ridicule? The other members of the evangelist’s party seemed to think so, and advised him to refuse; that it was only a dodge on the young man’s part to get up a piece of extra rich entertainment for his friends, who, no doubt, would not be far off. The good man had come down from his stool while these remarks were being addressed to him. He hesitated, but when he turned to Walter and looked in his face his mind was made up at once; for there was something, he said, in that face which satisfied him that good would come out of his yielding to the request made, and not evil. So, while the spectators were looking on and listening with breathless expectation, he said, in a clear voice, audible to those on the utmost verge of the great assembly,—“Friends, before I address you, a young man has asked leave to occupy my place for a short time. He shall do so, for I have confidence in him that he will not abuse the liberty I give him.”
There was a murmur of approbation and intense interest as Walter mounted the stool and looked upon the sea of upturned faces round him. He was very pale, and his voice trembled at first, but soon grew calm and firm. “My friends,” he began, “I have come here to-day to do an act of justice. Some days ago I was a spectator in this place, as you are now. This good man, the preacher, stood then where I now stand. He had come here to try and do you good; I came, I am sorry to say, in a different spirit. Joining with others as wrong and foolish as myself, I interrupted and ill-treated this servant of the good Master, our Saviour. I am come to-day to make what amends I can. As I then publicly ill-treated him, so I now equally publicly ask his pardon for what I did then; and I earnestly beg you all to give him a patient hearing, and to encourage him in his work of love.”