Into the Highways and Hedges Part 22

"Do 'ee want him made o' ice?" he said. "Why didn't ye give him a word or a kiss, la.s.s? Barnabas has no end of patience with ye. If ye were my wife----"

"What would you do?" said Meg, looking up with a sudden flash in her grey eyes. "Beat me? I have seen husbands do that; it generally answers, I suppose, if they go on long enough."

"Hullo! we've struck a bit o' fire this time. Thank the Lord for that!"

said Tom. "But ye've a nice opinion of us, haven't ye? Well, there's no knowing what atrocities I mightn't ha' gone in for, if a merciful Providence hadn't made it clear impossible for me to marry."

Nevertheless, when Meg came down the next day looking whiter and shyer than usual, he held out his hand to her with a kindly twinkle in his eyes. "Ye'd much better be friends wi' me, Barnabas' wife," he said.

"Happen ye'll improve our manners in time."

"I oughtn't to have been angry," said Meg quickly; for she was at least as susceptible to kindness as to unkindness. "I was all wrong, and one ought to obey one's husband."

"Oh! ye do plenty o' _that_," cried Tom. "Lord love ye, my dear, if ye obeyed him a bit less, an' liked him a bit more, Barnabas 'ud not quarrel wi' the change, and he might bide at home a spell."

Which last suggestion made Meg feel sick at heart, with a half self-reproachful, wholly miserable sensation, that fairly frightened her at times.

She went with the preacher that afternoon to a tiny hamlet, some miles off. She had not accompanied him of late, and it was strange to find herself alone with him again.

The marshes were still snow-covered in parts; the last vestige of green was frozen away, the ground lay stretched in drab and grey; save where, here and there, a salt-water pool showed black against the snow.

The preacher was on his way to baptise a child that had been born in one of a cl.u.s.ter of wooden huts, that were planted like brown mushrooms under the scant shelter of a group of alders.

His feet and Margaret's made a track all the way from the farm; and the girl kept glancing back at the double row of footprints, as though they had a fascination for her.

It struck Meg that the baptism was regarded as a sort of lucky charm, or incantation; but, when Barnabas stood outside the huts to preach, there was no doubt that, as usual, he carried his hearers with him.

Meg stood a little apart and watched him with new eyes.

She had thought of the message, not of the messenger, when she had first fallen under the spell of his enthusiasm. She tried now--and she found it strangely difficult--to keep possession of her soul; to stand aloof mentally, as well as actually, and to look on.

The man's reddish hair and beard and sunburnt face made a spot of colour in the leaden grey landscape; his vigorous personality was in strong contrast to the impersonal solemnity of the marsh. And his religion was personal too; it was the pa.s.sionate uncalculating loyalty of one who has seen his G.o.d in the Man of Sorrows, and cannot rest for following those blood-stained footsteps that have drawn so many after them, and have left so deep a print in the world's history.

The half-dozen men and women who surrounded Barnabas were of as low a type as Margaret had ever seen; a wizened, stunted race, dwarfed by marsh fever and unhealthy living. But more than one of them were moved to tears, at the words they heard. How much did they really understand of his discourse? and how much was due to the curiously overpowering and personal influence that Barnabas possessed? This power "from the Lord,"--was it indeed from the Lord? or would he have wielded it, whether "converted" or not, purely by reason of his undoubting decision, and splendid physical strength? What had turned his life into this channel? and what--her eyes turned again to the double line across the snow--O G.o.d, what was to come of it all, in the many years before them?

It was bitterly cold, and the grey mists clung around them on their walk home.

Born and bred in the marshes, the preacher knew his way blindfolded, but the pathless expanse had something awe-inspiring in it. Meg reflected aloud that strangers might be drowned in a salt pool, and be never heard of more, if left guideless.

"The wild ducks would scream over one, and there would be the end of everything!" she remarked.

"Dunnot say it, la.s.s! Ye'll not be wandering alone here when I'm not by, will 'ee?" cried the preacher, with a ring of pain in his voice; and her rea.s.surances seemed barely to satisfy him. Timothy had filled him with forebodings, though he had also brought matters to a climax.

It was partly to turn the subject that Meg asked him one of the questions that had filled her mind during his preaching.

The preacher reddened, so that, under all the sunburn, she could see the flush mount to his forehead.

"There are things it goes against a man to talk about," he said. "My Master knows where He found me." But, after a few minutes, he added wistfully: "But an' ye care to hear, Margaret, I'd tell ye anything".

The story came out rather jerkily then, while they struggled against the wind. Meg, seeing the effort the telling caused, was sorry she had asked; was touched, too, with a painful feeling of compunction at the eagerness of his desire to more than meet hers.

Every now and then his speech was blown away from her; and once, when she lifted her face to listen, he paused a moment and said, with rather a sad smile: "But ye'll not understand it all, Margaret, any more than the snowflakes would". The snow was resting on her black hood at the time.

"When I was a boy, dad couldn't bear the sight o' me," he continued, stating the fact with an outspoken simplicity that was characteristic.

"It made him a bit sour to see me straight and hale, when Tom, as was worth a dozen o' me, was bent like a crooked stick. That was why I took to going over to Cousin Tremnell's whenever I could.

"Tom was keen on my getting schooling, though, and sent me over the marshes an' back every day, till I was too big a lad for any man to send. I wasn't fond o' learning, nor ain't now. It seems to me people stuff their minds too much wi' other men's thoughts. G.o.d's truth can't s.h.i.+ne through the tangle, and they doan't give their own souls the room to stretch in. I cut the books and ran away to sea, when I was sixteen, wi' a cargo of oranges.

"It were after I came back fro' my first voyage that I fell in love wi'

Cousin Tremnell's girl."

"I know," said Meg softly. "Cousin Tremnell told me."

There was a long pause; then: "She ran away to another man," he said shortly. "An' I followed, being wistful to kill him, an' mad wi' the longing for her. He had come fro' London, I knew; so I went there an'

walked about the streets looking for her all the day long; an' times I would strangle her an' I met her, an' times I would kiss her; but either way, he shouldna hold her ever again, nor should any other maid be th'

worse for him. I hankered so after the open flats when I was hemmed in by that cursed town, that I used to wake mysel' o' nights fighting wi'

the wall o' my room thinking an' I could knock it down I'd see G.o.d's world again the other side. I made my knuckles bleed, but the others thought it war drink, an' didn't interfere.

"It was like a nightmare, a horrible h.e.l.l! But I'll go back there yet; there are souls to save there too; an' the Master is there: ay, even i'

the lowest depth. It's a fearfu' place, Margaret; the very air o' London is foul wi' their iniquity; I was sick wi' the taste an' smell o' it.

Well, I traced her at last, and found her dead; I saw her coffin.

"They buried her in a great waste o' graves; I disremember what they call it. I hid among the stones, being possessed like the man i' the Bible, and scared lest they should take me away; and after they shut the gates I crept out an' sat by the side of her.

"The soft slush o' mud hardened to ice in the night; but I was hot, not cold, an' I wondered whether she couldna feel me through all the new-turned-up earth. It seemed as if she must. I bided all through the darkness, for she were always scared o' being alone at dusk; an' when the day broke, I saw the Lord. He came in the early morning, walking over the mounds.

"At first I didna know Him. He was dim like a shadow, through the orange fog; but He called me by name, 'Barnabas, Barnabas!' and my soul leaped up; an' He came nearer an' stood by her grave, an' touched me; and the devil went out o' me; and I got up to follow Him, and to call all who I met to follow Him, who is the very G.o.d, till the day when I see Him again."

The preacher's breath came quickly while he told the story. It was real to him, as the ground he trod on; no one could listen to it and doubt that.

But, after a moment, he recovered himself and looked at her with a kindly smile.

"No one knows this but Him and you," he said. "Nor ever will! I told ye, because ye asked me, my la.s.s; but doan't ye look sad; it war sixteen years ago, an' it war worth the pain."

The tears stood in his companion's eyes; she was both touched and puzzled.

"But it wasna to tell ye _that_ that I wanted ye to come wi' me to-day,"

he went on, after a pause. "I've summat else to say to 'ee, Margaret."

He looked away from her over the marshes, and his voice took the tone of dogged resolution that Meg was beginning to recognise.

"I'm going to leave you here and tramp to Lupcombe, an' happen I shall be away some months. They've got the black fever there, and I doubt they'll have a pretty bad bout. There was three houses struck last week, an' the game's only just beginning. I've fought wi' that fever once before, an' happen I'll be some help. The doctor was the very first down, an' the scare's terrible. I'm going to start this evening when I've seen ye home. I canna bear ye to be out o' earshot since that rascal----Margaret," and his voice changed, "it's just all I can do to leave ye!"

"Shall I come with you?" said Meg in a low voice. "I'm not afraid of any fever. Would you like me to come?"

"Are ye glad or sorry I'm going?" said the man suddenly. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked for a moment into her face.

"No," he said; "ye shan't come. G.o.d forgi'e me! but that 'ud be more nor I could stand. Look now, I want to give ye what I've saved. Here! I wish it was more, my girl; but anyhow, ye'll be beholden to no one wi' that; it 'ull more nor pay dad for your keep. Hold out your hands, la.s.s," and he held the money out to her.

"Oh, Barnabas, it's all wrong!" cried the girl sadly. "I wouldn't take it if I could help it."