“I will do my best, at all events,” was Arthur’s reply. He frequently, as before, rode out with Mary. They were sometimes joined by Harry Acton, a young man who had lately taken a farm in the neighbourhood, and who seldom failed when he met them to turn his horse’s head round, and accompany them on their ride. He was intelligent and well educated, and Arthur liked him from the first. Mary gave no opinion, but she did not object to his accompanying them. Mr Maitland, after hearing Arthur’s report, invited Mr Acton in to tea, and seemed favourably impressed with him. He only thought him rather grave, and was surprised that a young man accustomed to country life should not take any interest in races or sporting, and had even declined to join the hunt.
“Life is too short for idle amusement,” Harry observed to Mary one day. “I have abundance of exercise in attending to my farm, and I feel that I am responsible to God for the proper employment of my time.”
Mary thought that a little amusement now and then could not be wrong.
“Relaxation from business for our mental or bodily health may not be so,” answered Harry; “but when I reflect that I am responsible to God for every moment of my life, I cannot reconcile it to my conscience to spend time in pursuits which do not tend to honour and glorify Him.”
Mary had never heard such language used before; and though she had already learned to like him too much to quarrel with him, she was disposed to think him somewhat puritanical.
Still Harry Acton came and came again, and Mary looked forward to his visits with pleasure. Serious as his remarks were sometimes, he talked well on numerous subjects, and she confessed that he was very agreeable. Arthur liked him more and more, and was thankful to have found a companion who could enter into his feelings and views.
Mary and Arthur had ridden over one day to Lyndhurst, and were passing through, that picturesque village, when they saw a large number of people collected on the green beneath the wide-spreading trees which bounded one side of it. Approaching, they saw a person mounted on a small platform, which raised him above the assemblage. He was of a tall, commanding figure; and as he stood bareheaded, it was seen that his hair was slightly tinged with grey, thrown back from off his high and expansive forehead. He was giving out a hymn in a clear, full voice, which reached even to the distance they were from him.
“He is a Methodist of some sort,” observed Arthur. “I suppose, Mary, you do not wish to stop and hear him.”
“I should be sorry to pass by without ascertaining whether what he is saying is worth listening to,” answered Mary. “I like the tone of his voice, and I remember learning that hymn from our poor mother.”
It was “Rock of Ages cleft for me.”