Mrs. Yorke was one of those sweet, unreasoning souls who fancy themselves Protestant because they were born and trained to be called so, but who yield as unquestioning an obedience to their spiritual teachers as any Catholic in the world. She unconsciously obeyed the recommendation, "Don't be consistent, but be simply true." Absurdly illogical in her theology, she followed unerringly, as far as she knew, her instincts of worship, and the opinions that grew naturally from them. It would be hard to define what her husband thought and believed of Dr. Martin's sermon. He did not find it a feast of reason, certainly; but he swallowed it from a grim sense of duty, though with rather a wry face. The young ladies knew about as much of theology as Protestant ladies usually do, and that is—nothing. They left it all to the minister; and, provided he did not require them to believe anything disagreeable, were quite satisfied with him.
Coming home, they entertained their brother with a laughing account of their experience. The major had escorted Melicent to her seat, to the great amusement of the two sisters following. For Miss Yorke, sublimely conscious of herself, and that they were the observed of all observers, had walked with a measured tread, utterly irrespective of her companion; and the major, equally important, and slightly confused by his hospitable cares, had neglected to modify his usual short, quick steps. The result was, as Clara said, that "they chopped up the aisle in different metres," thus oversetting the gravity of the younger damsels following. Then their minds had been kept on the rack by an old gentleman in the pew in front of them, who went to sleep several times, following the customary programme: first a vacant stare, then a drooping of the eyelids, then a shutting of them, then several low bows, finally a sharp, short nod that threatened to snap his head off, followed by a start, and a manner that resentfully repudiated ever having been asleep.
"Poor old gentleman!" Mrs. Yorke said. "The day was warm, and Dr. Martin's voice lulling. How could he help it?"
"But, mamma," Clara answered, "he could have pinched himself; or I would have pinched him cheerfully."
A good many people called on them that week, and the family were surprised to find among them persons of cultivated minds. Beginning by wondering what they were to talk about with these people, they found that they had to talk their best.
They had made the mistake often made by city people, taking for granted that the finest and most cultivated minds are to be found in town. They forgot that city life fritters away the time and attention by a thousand varied and trivial distractions, so that deep thought and study become almost impossible. They neglect to observe that cities would degenerate if they were not constantly supplied with fresh life from the country; that the fathers that achieve are followed by the sons that dawdle, that the artist gives birth to the dilettante. 'Tis the country that nurses the tree which bears its fruit in the city. But, also, the country often hides its treasures, and the poet's fancy of "mute, inglorious Miltons" is as true as it is poetical.
In the country painting and sculpture and architecture are, it is true, only guessed at; but they have nature, which, as Sir Thomas Browne says, "is the art of God;" and books are appreciated there as nowhere else. The country reader dives like a bee into the poet's verse, and lingers to suck up all its sweetness; the city reader skims it like a butterfly. In the country the thinker's best thought is weighed, and pondered, and niched; in the city it is glanced at, and dismissed. In those retired nooks are women who quote Shakespeare over their wash-tubs, and read the English classics after the cows are milked, while their city sisters ponder the fashions, or listen to some third-rate lecturer, whose only good thought is, perhaps, a borrowed thought.
Still, all honor to that strong, swift life which grinds a man as under a millstone, and proves what is in him; which sharpens his sluggishness, breaks the gauze wings of him, and forces him out of a coterie and into humanity.
One day Dr. Martin called. Mrs. Yorke and her daughters, with Carl, were out searching for May-flowers, and there was no one at home to receive him but Mr. Yorke and Edith. Dr. Martin and the child met with great coldness, and instantly separated; but the two gentlemen kept up a conversation, though neither was quite at his ease. They needed a gentler companionship to bring them together. The minister was a man of good mind and education, and a kind heart; but his prejudices were strong and bitter, and the presence of that little "papist" disconcerted him. He soon took occasion, in answer to Mr. Yorke's civil inquiries respecting the churches in Seaton, to give expression to this feelings.
"We have, of course, a good many papists, but all of the lowest class," he said; "I have tried to do something for them; but they are so ignorant, and so enslaved by their priests, that it is impossible to induce them to listen to the Gospel."