It Is Never Too Late to Mend — Chapter VI, part 2
I will go back, like the epic writers, and sketch one of their little garden scenes.
One evening, after watering them all, she sat down on a seat at the bottom of the garden, and casting her eyes over her whole domain, said, “Well, now, I do admire flowers; don't you, George?
” “That I do,” replied George, taking another seat, and coolly turning his back on the parterre, and gazing mildly into Susan's eyes.
“Why, he is not even looking at them!
” cried Susan, and she clapped her hands and laughed gleefully.
“Oh, yes, he is; leastways he is looking at one of them, and the brightest of the lot to my fancy.
” Susan colored with pleasure.
In the country compliments don't drip constantly on beauty even from the lips of love.
Then, suppressing her satisfaction, she said, “You will look for a flower in return for that, young man; come and let us see whether there is one good enough for you.
” So then they took hands, and Susan drew him demurely about the garden.
Presently she stopped with a little start of hypocritical admiration; at their feet shone a marigold.
Susan culled the gaudy flower and placed it affectionately in George's buttonhole.
He received it proudly, and shaking hands with her, for it was time to part, turned away slowly.
She let him take a step or two, then called him back.
“He was really going off with that nasty thing.
” She took it out of his buttonhole, rubbed it against his nose with well-feigned anger and then threw it away.
“You are all behind in flowers, George,” said Susan; “here, this is good enough for you,” and she brought out from under her apron, where she had carried the furtively culled treasure, a lovely clove-pink.
Pretty soul, she had nursed and watered and cherished this choice flower this three weeks past for George, and this was her way of giving it him at last; so a true woman gives--(her life, if need be).
George took it and smelled it, and lingered a moment at the garden gate, and moralized on it.
“Well, Susan, dear, now I'm not so deep in flowers as you, but I like this a deal better than the marigold, and I'll tell you for why; it is more like you, Susan.
” “Ay!
why?
” “I see flowers that are pretty, but have no smell, and I see women that have good looks, but no great wisdom nor goodness when you come nearer to them.
Now the marigold is like those lasses; but this pink is good as well as pretty, so then it will stand for you, when we are apart, as we mostly are--worse luck for me.
” “Oh, George,” said Susan, dropping her quizzing manner, “I am a long way behind the marigold or any flower in comeliness and innocence, but at least I wish I was better.
” “I don't. ” “Ay, but I do, ten times better, for--for--” “For why, Susan?
” Susan closed the garden gate and took a step toward the house.
Then, turning her head over her shoulder, with an ineffable look of tenderness, tipped with one tint of lingering archness, she let fall, “For your sake, George,” in the direction of George's feet, and glided across the garden into the house.
George stood watching her.
He did not at first take up all she had bestowed on him, for her sex has peculiar mastery over language, being diabolically angelically subtle in the art of saying something that expresses 1 oz.
and implies 1 cwt.
; but when he did comprehend, his heart exulted.
He strode home as if he trod on air and often kissed the little flower he had taken from the beloved hand, “and with it words of so sweet breath composed, as made the thing more rich;” and as he marched past the house kissing the flower, need I tell my reader that so innocent a girl as Susan was too high-minded to watch the effect of her proceedings from behind the curtains?
I hope not, it would surely be superfluous to relate what none would be green enough to believe.
These were Susan's happy days.
Now all was changed.
She hated to water her flowers now.
She bade one of the farm-servants look to the garden.
He accepted the charge, and her flowers' drooping heads told how nobly he had fulfilled it.
Susan was charitable.
Every day it had been her custom to visit more than one poor person; she carried meal to one, soup to another, linen to another, meat and bread to another, money to another--to all words and looks of sympathy.
This practice she did not even now give up, for it came under the head of her religious duties;
but she relaxed it.
She often sent to places where she used to go.
Until George went she had never thought of herself; and so the selfishness of those she relieved had not struck her.
Now it made her bitter to see that none of those she pitied, pitied her.
The moment she came into their houses it was, “_My_ poor head, Miss Merton; _my_ old bones do ache so.
” “I think a bit of your nice bacon would do ME good.
I'M a poor sufferer, Miss Merton.
_My_ boy is 'listed.
I thought as how you'd forgotten _me_ altogether.
But 'tis hard for poor folk to keep a friend.
” “You see, miss, _my_ bedroom window is broken in one or two places.
John, he stopped it up with paper the best way he could, but la, bless you, paper baint like glass.
It is very dull for _me_.
You see, miss, I can't get about now as I used to could, and I never was no great reader.
I often wish as some one would step in and knock me on the head, for I be no use, I baint, neer a mossel.
” No one of them looked up in her face and said, “Lauks, how pale _you_ ha got to look, miss; I hopes as how nothing amiss haven't happened to _you_, that have been so kind to us this many a day.
” Yet suffering of some sort was plainly stamped on the face and in the manner of this relieving angel.
When they poured out their vulgar woes, Susan made an effort to forget her own and to cheer as well as relieve them.
But she had to compress her own heart hard to do it; and this suppression of feeling makes people more or less bitter.
She had better have out with it, and scolded them well for talking as if they alone were unhappy; but her woman's nature would not let her.
They kept asking her for pity, and she still gulped down her own heart and gave it them, till at last she began to take a spite against her pets;
so then she sent to most of them instead of going.
She sent rather larger slices of beef and bacon, and rather more yards of flannel than when she used to carry the like to them herself.
Susan had one or two young friends, daughters of farmers in the neighborhood, with whom she was a favorite, though the gayer ones sometimes quizzed her for her religious tendencies, and her lamentable indifference to flirtation.
But then she was so good and so good-humored, and so tolerant of other people's tastes.
The prattle of these young ladies became now intolerable to Susan, and when she saw them coming to call on her she used to snatch up her bonnet and fly and lock herself up in a closet at the top of the house, and read some good book as quiet as a mouse, till the servants had hunted for her and told them she must be out.
She was not in a frame of mind to sustain tarlatans, barege, the history of the last hop, and the prophecies of the next; the wounded deer shrunk from its gamboling associates, and indeed from all strangers, except John Meadows.
“He talks to me about something worth talking about,” said Susan Merton.
It happened one day, while Susan was in this sad and I may say dangerous state of mind, that the servant came up to her, and told her a gentleman was on his horse at the door, and wanted to see Mr. Merton.
“Father is at market, Jane.
” “Yes, miss, but I told the gentleman you were at home.
” “Me!
what have I to do with father's visitors?
” “Miss,” replied Jane mysteriously, “it is a parson, and you are so fond of them, I could not think to let him go away without getting a word with anybody; and he has such a face.
La, miss, you never saw such a face.
” “Silly girl, what have I to do with handsome faces?
” “But he is not handsome, miss, not in the least, only he is beautiful.
You go and see else.
” “I hate strangers' faces, but I will go to him, Jane; it is my duty, since it is a clergyman.
I will just go upstairs.
” “La, miss, what for?
you are always neat, you are--nobody ever catches you in your dishables like the rest of 'em.
” “I'll just smooth my hair.
” “La, miss, what for?
it is smooth as marble--it always is.
” “Where is he, Jane?
” “In the front parlor.
” “I won't be a moment.
” She went upstairs.
There was no necessity; Jane was right there; but it was a strict custom in the country, and is, for that matter, and will be till time and vanity shall be no more.
More majorum a girl must go up and look at herself in the glass if she did nothing more, before coming in to receive company.
Susan entered the parlor; she came in so gently that she had a moment to observe her visitor before he saw her.
He had seated himself with his back to the light, and was devouring a stupid book on husbandry that belonged to her father.
The moment she closed the door he saw her and rose from his seat.
“Miss Merton?
” “Yes, sir.
” “The living of this place has been vacant more than a month.
” “Yes, sir.
” “It will not be filled up for three months, perhaps.
” “So we hear, sir.
” “Meantime you have no church to go to nearer than Barmstoke, which is a chapel-of-ease to this place, but two miles distant.
” “Two miles and a half, sir.
” “So then the people here have no divine service on the Lord's day.
” “No, sir, not for the present,” said Susan meekly, lowering her lashes, as if the clergyman had said, “This is a parish of heathens, whereof you are one.
” “Nor any servant of God to say a word of humility and charity to the rich, of eternal hope to the poor, and” (here his voice sunk into sudden tenderness) “of comfort to the sorrowful.
” Susan raised her eyes and looked him over with one dove-like glance, then instantly lowered them.
“No, sir, we are all under a cloud here,” said Susan sadly.
“Miss Merton, I have undertaken the duty here until the living shall be filled up; but you shall understand that I live thirty miles off, and have other duties, and I can only ride over here on Saturday afternoon and back Monday at noon.
” “Oh, sir!
” cried Susan, “half a loaf is better than no bread!
The parish will bless you, sir, and no doubt,” added she timidly, “the Lord will reward you for coming so far to us.
” “I am glad you think so,” said the clergyman thoughtfully.
“Well, let us do the best we can.
Tell me first, Miss Merton, do you think the absence of a clergyman is regretted here?
” “Regretted, sir!
dear heart, what a question.
You might as well ask me do father's turnips long for rain after a month's drought;” and Susan turned on her visitor a face into which the innocent venerating love her sex have for an ecclesiastic flashed without disguise.
Her companion smiled, but it was with benevolence, not with gratified vanity.
“Let me explain my visit.
Your father is one of the principal people in the village.
He can assist me or thwart me in my work.
I called to invite his co-operation.
Some clergymen are jealous of co-operation; I am not.
It is a good thing for all parties; best of all for those who co-operate with us; for in giving alms wisely they receive grace, and in teaching the ignorant they learn themselves.
Am I right?
” added he rather sharply, turning suddenly upon Susan.
“Oh, sir,” said Susan, a little startled, “it is for me to receive your words, not to judge them.
” “Humph!
” said the reverend gentleman rather dryly; he hated intellectual subserviency.
He liked people to think for them-selves; and to end by thinking with him.
“Father will never thwart you, sir, and I--I will co-operate with you, sir, if you will accept of me,” said Susan innocently.
“Thank you, then let us begin at once.
” He took out his watch.
“I have an hour and a half to spare, then I must gallop back to Oxford.
Miss Merton, I should like to make acquaintance with some of the people.
Suppose we go to the school, and see what the children are learning, and then visit one or two families in the village, so I shall catch a glimpse of the three generations I have to deal with.
My name is Francis Eden.
You are going to get your bonnet?
” “Yes, sir.
” “Thank you.
” They passed out through the garden.
Mr. Eden stopped to look at the flowers.
Susan colored.
“It has been rather neglected of late,” said she apologetically.
“It must have been very well taken care of before, then,” said he, “for it looks charming now.
Ah!
I love flowers dearly!
” and he gave a little sigh.
They reached the school, and Mr. Eden sat down and examined the little boys and girls.
When he sat down Susan winced.
How angry he will be at their ignorance!
thought Susan.
But Mr. Eden, instead of putting on an awful look, and impressing on the children that a being of another generation was about to attack them, made himself young to meet their minds.
A pleasant smile disarmed their fears.
He spoke to them in very simple words and childish idioms, and told them a pretty story, which interested them mightily.
Having set their minds really working, he put questions arising fairly out of his story, and so fathomed the moral sense and the intelligence of more than one.
In short, he drew the brats out instead of crushing them in.
Susan stood by, at first startled at the line he took, then observant, then approving.
Presently he turned to her.
“And which is your class, Miss Merton?
” Susan colored.
“I take these little girls when I come, sir.
“Miss Merton has not been here this fortnight,” said a pert teacher.
Susan could have beat her.
What will this good man think of me now?
thought poor Susan.
To her grateful relief, the good man took no notice of the observation; he looked at his watch.
“Now, Miss Merton, if I am not giving you too much trouble,” and they left the school.
“You wish to see some of the folk in the village, sir?
” “Yes.
” “Where shall I take you first, sir?
” “Where I ought to go first.
” Susan looked puzzled.
Mr. Eden stopped dead short.
“Come, guess,” said he, with a radiant smile, “and don't look so scared.
I'll forgive you if you guess wrong.
” Susan looked this way and that, encouraged by his merry smile.
She let out--scarce above a whisper, and in a tone of interrogation, as who should say this is not to be my last chance since I have only asked a question not risked an answer-- “To the poorest, Mr. Eden?
” “Brava!
she has guessed it,” cried the Reverend Frank triumphantly; for he had been more anxious she should answer right than she had herself.
“Young lady, I have friends with their heads full of Latin and Greek who could not have answered that so quickly as you; one proof more how goodness brightens intelligence,” added he in soliloquy.
“Here's a cottage.
” “Yes, sir, I was going to take you into this one, if you please.
” They found in the cottage a rheumatic old man, one of those we alluded to as full of his own complaints.
Mr. Eden heard these with patience, and then, after a few words of kind sympathy and acquiescence, for he was none of those hard humbugs who tell a man that old age, rheumatism and poverty are strokes with a feather, he said quietly: “And now for the other side; now tell me what you have to be grateful for.
” The old man was taken aback and his fluency deserted him.
On the question being repeated, he began to say that he had many mercies to be thankful for.
Then he higgled and hammered and fumbled for the said mercies, and tried to enumerate them, but in phrases conventional and derived from tracts and sermons; whereas his statement of grievances had been idiomatic.
“There, that will do,” said Mr. Eden smiling, “say nothing you don't feel; what is the use?
May I ask you a few questions,” added he, courteously; then, without waiting for permission, he dived skillfully into this man's life, and fished up all the pearls--the more remarkable passages.
Many years ago this old man had been a soldier, had fought in more than one great battle, had retreated with Sir John Moore upon Corunna, and been one of the battered and weary but invincible band who wheeled round and stunned the pursuers on 'that bloody and glorious day.
Mr. Eden went with the old man to Spain, discussed with great animation the retreat, the battle, the position of the forces, and the old soldier's personal prowess.
Old Giles perked up, and dilated, and was another man; he forgot his rheumatism, and even his old age.
Twice he suddenly stood upright as a dart on the floor, and gave the word of command like a trumpet in some brave captain's name; and his cheek flushed, and his eye glittered with the light of battle.
Susan looked at him with astonishment.
Then when his heart was warm and his spirits attentive Mr. Eden began to throw in a few words of exhortation.
But even then he did not bully the man into being a Christian; gently, firmly, and with a winning modesty, he said: “I think you have much to be thankful for, like all the rest of us.
Is it not a mercy you were not cut off in your wild and dissolute youth?
you might have been slain in battle.
” “That I might, sir; three of us went from this parish and only one came home again.
“You might have lost a leg or an arm, as many a brave fellow did; you might have been a cripple all your days.
” “That is true, sir.
” “You survive here in a Christian land, in possession of your faculties;
the world, it is true, has but few pleasures to offer you--all the better for you.
Oh, if I could but make that as plain to you as it is to me.
You have every encouragement to look for happiness there, where alone it is to be found.
Then courage, corporal; you stood firm at Corunna--do not give way in this your last and most glorious battle.
The stake is greater than it was at Vittoria, or Salamanca, or Corunna, or Waterloo.
The eternal welfare of a single human soul weighs a thousand times more than all the crowns and empires in the globe.
You are in danger, sir.
Discontent is a great enemy of the soul.
You must pray against it--you must fight against it.
” “And so I will, sir; you see if I don't. ” “You read, Mr. Giles?
” Susan had told Mr. Eden his name at the threshold.
“Yes, sir; but I can't abide them nasty little prints they bring me.
” “Of course you can't. Printed to sell, not to read, eh?
Here is a book.
The type is large, clear and sharp.
This is an order-book, corporal.
It comes from the great Captain of our salvation.
Every sentence in it is gold; yet I think I may safely pick out a few for your especial use at present.
” And Mr. Eden sat down, and producing from his side pockets, which were very profound, some long thin slips of paper, he rapidly turned the leaves of the Testament and inserted his markers; but this occupation did not for a moment interrupt his other proceedings.
“There is a pipe--you don't smoke, I hope?
” “No, sir; leastways not when I han't got any baccy, and I've been out of that this three days--worse luck.
” “Give up smoking, corporal, it is a foul habit.
” “Ah, sir!
you don't ever have a half-empty belly and a sorrowful heart, or you wouldn't tell an old soldier to give up his pipe.
” “Take my advice.
Give up all such false consolation, to oblige me, now.
” “Well, sir, to oblige you, I'll try; but you don't know what his pipe is to a poor old man full of nothing but aches and pains, or you wouldn't have asked me,” and old Giles sighed.
Susan sighed, too, for she thought Mr. Eden cruel for once.
“Miss Merton,” said the latter sternly, his eye twinkling all the time, “he is incorrigible; and I see you agree with me that it is idle to torment the incurable.
So” (diving into the capacious pocket) “here is an ounce of his beloved poison,” and out came a paper of tobacco.
Corporal's eyes brightened with surprise and satisfaction.
“Poison him, Miss Merton, poison him quick, don't keep him waiting.
” “Poison him, sir?
” “Fill his pipe for him, if you please.
” “That I will, sir, with pleasure.
” A white hand with quick and supple fingers filled the brown pipe.
“That is as it should be.
Let beauty pay honor to courage; above all to courage in its decay.
” The old man grinned with gratified pride.
The white hand lighted the pipe, and gave it to the old soldier.
He smiled gratefully all round and sucked his homely consolation.
“I compound with you, corporal.
You must let me put you on the road to heaven, and, in return, I must let you go there in a cloud of tobacco--ugh!
” “I'm agreeable, sir,” said Giles dryly, withdrawing his pipe for a moment.
“There,” said Mr. Eden, closing the marked Testament, “read often in this book.
Read first the verses I have marked, for these very verses have dropped comfort on the poor, the aged and the distressed for more than eighteen hundred years, and will till time shall be no more.
And now good-by, and God bless you.
” “God bless you, sir, wherever you go!
” cried the old man with sudden energy, “for you have comforted my poor old heart.
I feel as I han't felt this many a day.
Your words are like the bugles sounding a charge all down the line.
You must go, I suppose; but do ye come again and see me.
And, Miss Merton, you never come to see me now, as you used.
” “Miss Merton has her occupations like the rest of us,” said Mr. Eden quickly; “but she will come to see you--won't she?
” “Oh, yes, sir!
” replied Susan, hastily.
So then they returned to the farm, for Mr. Eden's horse was in the stable.
At the door they found Mr. Merton.
“This is father, sir.
Father, this is Mr. Eden, that is coming to take the duty here for a while.
” After the ordinary civilities Susan drew her father aside, and, exchanging a few words with him, disappeared into the house.
As Mr. Eden was mounting his horse, Mr. Merton came forward and invited him to stay at his house whenever he should come to the parish.
Mr. Eden hesitated.
“Sir,” said the farmer, “you will find no lodgings comfortable within a mile of the church, and we have a large house not half occupied.
You can make yourself quite at home.
” “I am much obliged to you, Mr. Merton, but must not trespass too far upon your courtesy.
” “Well, sir,” replied the farmer, “we shall feel proud if you can put up with the like of us.
” “I will come.
I am much obliged to you, sir, and to your daughter.
” He mounted his horse and bade the farmer good morning.
Susan came out and stood on the steps and curtsied low--rustic fashion--but with a grace of her own.
He took off his hat to her as he rode out of the gate, gave her a sweet, bright smile of adieu, and went down the lane fourteen miles an hour.
Old Giles was seated outside his own door with a pipe and a book.
At the sound of horses' feet he looked up and recognized his visitor, whom he had seen pass in the morning.
He rose up erect and saluted him, by bringing his thumb with a military wave to his forehead.
Mr. Eden saluted him in the same manner, but without stopping.
The old soldier sat down again and read and smoked.
The pipe ended--that solace was not of an immortal kind--but the book remained; he read it calmly but earnestly in the warm air till day declined.
