Letty knew a great deal more of Thorsby’s life than had yet reached Woodburn, but she had buried it and the sorrow of it in her heart, and would not breathe a syllable of it except to God, which she did with most fervent prayers and scalding tears. Many a report had come to her from a most faithful quarter, and that was Thomas Barnsdale, the manager of Thorsby’s business, a man who regarded the concern and the reputation of his employer as his own. He was a Methodist in religion, and a great reader of books of general literature of a solid kind. He had grown up from a boy in the concern, and was ever at his post, and ever regardless of his own labour to conduct it to advantage. The unsteady life of Thorsby was all brought to his knowledge, and he had not hesitated to speak seriously to him and repeatedly, even at the risk of dismissal. He asked him earnestly to recollect the shortened life and injured name and fortunes of his father; and to act as he ought to do with such favour as God had showered on him in such a wife, and in such friends all round. Thorsby had taken these sermons, as he called them, not amiss, but he had not altered. Every day Mr. Barnsdale heard of some wild exploit of Thorsby and his comrades—practical jokes of the most daring and expensive kind. One of these they had carried on at the expense of a young surgeon of the town, whose vanity they had excited by a letter written to him as from a lady of fortune at Bristol, who had seen him at Castleborough, and fallen deeply in love with him. A long correspondence had been kept up between the young man and the imagined lady, the letters purporting to be from her having been duly posted, and the young surgeon’s received by an accomplice at Bristol. At length the dénouément was to take place. The lady was to meet him at Cheltenham; relays of horses were engaged for him at the lady’s cost all the way from Castleborough to Cheltenham, where he was to proceed in a private carriage, and there the marriage was to take place by special licence. All was found by the young man arranged as stated, and away he posted free-cost to Cheltenham, only to find at the appointed rendezvous a letter from the improvised lady, saying she had changed her mind.
This could not have been carried out except at an expense which none but very foolish and very mischievous fellows would have incurred, but the delight which it occasioned them, and the hints which they from time to time gave to the hoaxed inamorato, that they knew of the affair, seemed ample satisfaction to their perverted minds.
Time rolled on. Thorsby was looked very coldly on at Woodburn Grange, at Fair Manor, and by many leading and right-thinking people in Castleborough. Thomas Barnsdale felt it his duty to make Letty acquainted with the downward course of her husband, that it might not come in a more sudden and unexpected manner upon her. He could now counsel with her, and work with her in attempts to check this career, and it was a comfort to Letty to have such a faithful and reliable friend to open her distressed mind to.
Providence at length sent one of those contretemps which, if properly weighed, lead to retracement. Thorsby, attending the hunt, was thrown from his horse, and the shock that he received, owing probably to the state of his system from intemperance, produced pleurisy, and brought him to the brink of death. The physicians looked very gloomily on the case, and Thorsby, with that quick sensitiveness of feeling natural to him, fell into the greatest condition of terror and despair. He made the most touching and agonised confessions to his wife of his unworthiness of her, of his folly and wickedness. Poor Letty only too freely forgave him, and cheered him with hopes of life yet, or of forgiveness by an ever good God, if he was taken away. Thorsby begged that she would send for Mrs. Heritage that she might pray for him, and that through her he might send his avowal of deep contrition to Mr. Heritage and David Qualm. Letty at once sent the carriage for Mrs. Heritage, and that ever-ready minister of love was speedily at his bed-side.
The repeated conversations and prayers of this good woman produced in Thorsby a sense of remorse and kind of burning desire to live and enact a new and nobler life, which were very edifying. In a few days the doctors pronounced the crisis past, and Thorsby, in a calmer state, was insatiable of the readings in the New Testament which Letty afforded him. He recovered; but the effect of this serious danger and alarm remained. A new phase of character now revealed itself in him. He continued extremely burdened in spirit, and zealously religious. He abandoned his club associates, and accompanied his wife and Thomas Barnsdale to the meetings. But he could not satisfy himself with merely attending religious services, he felt himself compelled to stand forth and testify to the mercy of God in thus again raising him up. Town and neighbourhood were one day astonished beyond measure by seeing large placards posted all over Castleborough and the neighbouring villages that Mr. Henry Thorsby was going to preach at the Methodist Tabernacle.
We may imagine the laughter, the jibes and scoffs which ran amongst his old associates and the profaner portion of the population at this announcement. Thorsby turned preacher! Saul amongst the prophets! Balaam’s ass about to open its mouth; were but a few of the witticisms afloat. All his old associates were resolved to go and hear Saint Harry’s conventicle whinings, which they prophesied would last as many nights as days. At Woodburn, the state of mind on the hearing of this news it would be difficult to analyse. Astonishment was great, but not the uppermost feeling. As Church-people, there was a touch of shame, of disgust, of mortification at Thorsby exhibiting himself as an amateur preacher of dissent. Something of all these, and something more. Would it last? David Qualm, when he heard of it, and who, by the by, was all right again, and still riding that ticklish pony, said, “Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.” After that great effort of oracular speech, he closed his mouth again and was silent for a week.
But David Qualm’s utterance had an uneasy echo in the minds of many, and the inmates of Woodburn Grange were amongst them. Letty, however, said, “Anything, anything, rather than that old life of his,” and her family, therefore, waited for what time should bring forth. On the Sunday named, there was a general stream of life flowing towards the tabernacle. Every possible atom of space in it was crowded. Many of the leading people of the place were seen amongst the expectant concourse. Letty herself was not there. The trial to her nerves was too severe.
The regular minister opened the service by prayer and a hymn, and then Thorsby ascended the pulpit, opened his Bible, and took his text from the Psalms—“Thou hast brought me up from the gates of hell.” The silence was profound. He then began by reference to his past life and his late illness. There was no nervousness, no hesitation about him, as in one unaccustomed to such a public display. He said, doubtless much wit and many pleasant sarcasms had been and would be expended over the change which had taken place in him. He would only say, let those thus disposed only come into the crisis through which he had passed, and they would then hear what he had to say. Now he boldly came forth to return thanks to God for his mercy to him, and devote his life to the service of Christ, the friend of sinners. He then drew a picture of his past condition; of the valley of the shadow of death, of the terrors of Almighty judgment through which he had passed, and appealed to his hearers to follow his example, and think nothing of scorn, or ridicule, or persecution for the advocacy of the most momentous interests of the human race. As he proceeded he warmed into a tone of eloquence which surprised every one; and before he had done, few were the eyes that were not drowned in tears.
As the vast congregation streamed away from the chapel, many of the old members of it said they had heard many wonderful sermons in that chapel from great preachers, but nothing like that. Many said they had no idea that Thorsby had so much in him; and all admitted that at all events he had discovered a new and amazing talent in himself, and would, if he held on, be truly a burning and a shining light. The ascent of such a brilliant meteor into the religious horizon of Methodism produced immediately numerous calls to visit other towns—Sheffield, Manchester, Leeds, &c. &c.,—and everywhere the same enthusiasm was excited by Thorsby’s addresses. He might have gone from town to town on a triumphal round of religious service; much time he was, in a measure, obliged to devote to such engagements, and well was it for him that he had a man like Thomas Barnsdale to attend to his business affairs. For some months Thorsby continued to astonish and electrify the public by his impassioned discourses. Fair Manor expressed a quiet hope that it would continue. Woodburn Grange was in a condition of mind fit subject for metaphysical plumblines to explore, half astonished and half acquiescent in the strange phenomenon. Letty, with tears and smiles, when there, continued to say, “Anything, anything, so that Harry continues as steady and kind as now.”
Betty Trapps alone expressed no enthusiasm, and avowed no faith in this grand metamorphosis. She had heard Mr. Thorsby, she said, at Hillmartin Chapel. It was very fine what he said, but then she knew that he awlis could talk finely, even when he made so many “skits” on the Methodists. For her part she looked on this as a judgment on him for his fleering at good people so often. She and Sukey Priddo had seen something that satisfied them.