A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day Part 85

"I can't help it: now you are out, it is rather insipid. There, you see I can pay compliments as well as you."

Then she made a graceful inclination and moved away.

Compton felt his heart ache at parting. He took a thought and ran quickly to a certain part of the field.

Ruperta and her attendant walked very slowly homeward.

Compton caught them just at their own gate. "Cousin!" said he, imploringly, and held her out a nosegay of cowslips only.

At that the memories rushed back on her, and the girl seemed literally to melt. She gave him one look full of womanly sensibility and winning tenderness, and said, softly, "Thank you, cousin."

Compton went away on wings: the ice was broken.

But the next time he met her it had frozen again apparently: to be sure she was alone; and young ladies will be bolder when they have another person of their own s.e.x with them.

Mr. Angelo called on Sir Charles Ba.s.sett to complain of a serious grievance.

Mr. Angelo had become zealous and eloquent, but what are eloquence and zeal against s.e.x? A handsome woman had preached for ten minutes upon a little mound outside the village, and had announced she should say a few parting words next Sunday evening at six o'clock.

Mr. Angelo complained of this to Lady Ba.s.sett.

Lady Ba.s.sett referred him to Sir Charles.

Mr. Angelo asked that magistrate to enforce the law against conventicles.

Sir Charles said he thought the Act did not apply.

"Well, but," said Angelo, "it is on your ground she is going to preach."

"I am the proprietor, but the tenant is the owner in law. He could warn _me_ off his ground. I have no power."

"I fear you have no inclination," said Angelo, nettled.

"Not much, to tell the truth," replied Sir Charles coolly. "Does it matter so very much _who_ sows the good seed, or whether it is flung abroad from a pulpit or a gra.s.sy knoll?"

"That is begging the question, Sir Charles. Why a.s.sume that it is good seed? it is more likely to be tares than wheat in this case."

"And is not that begging the question? Well, I will make it my business to know: and if she preaches sedition, or heresy, or bad morals, I will strain my power a little to silence her. More than that I really cannot promise you. The day is gone by for intolerance."

"Intolerance is a bad thing; but the absence of all conviction is worse, and that is what we are coming to."

"Not quite that: but the nation has tasted liberty; and now every man a.s.sumes to do what is right in his own eyes."

"That mean's what is wrong in his neighbor's."

Sir Charles thought this neat, and laughed good-humoredly: he asked the rector to dine on Sunday at half-past seven. "I shall know more about it by that time," said he.

They dined early on Sunday, at Highmore, and Ruperta took her maid for a walk in the afternoon, and came back in time to hear the female preacher.

Half the village was there already, and presently the preacher walked to her station.

To Ruperta's surprise, she was a lady, richly dressed, tall and handsome, but with features rather too commanding. She had a glove on her left hand, and a little Bible in her right hand, which was large, but white, and finely formed.

She delivered a short prayer, and opened her text:

"Walk honestly; not in strife and envying."

Just as the text was given out, Ruperta's maid pinched her, and the young lady, looking up, saw her father coming to see what was the matter. Maid was for hiding, but Ruperta made a wry face, blushed, and stood her ground. "How can he scold me, when he comes himself?" she whispered.

During the sermon, of which, short as it was, I can only afford to give the outline, in crept Compton Ba.s.sett, and got within three or four of Ruperta.

Finally Sir Charles Ba.s.sett came up, in accordance with his promise to Angelo.

The perfect preacher deals in generalities, but strikes them home with a few personalities.

Most clerical preachers deal only in generalities, and that is ineffective, especially to uncultivated minds.

Mrs. Marsh, as might be expected from her s.e.x, went a little too much the other way.

After a few sensible words, pointing out the misery in houses, and the harm done to the soul, by a quarrelsome spirit, she lamented there was too much of it in Huntercombe: with this opening she went into personalities: reminded them of the fight between two farm servants last week, one of whom was laid up at that moment in consequence.

"And," said she, "even when it does not come to fighting, it poisons your lives and offends your Redeemer."

Then she went into the causes, and she said Drunkenness and Detraction were the chief causes of strife and contention.

She dealt briefly but dramatically with Drunkenness, and then lashed Detraction, as follows:

"Every cla.s.s has its vices, and Detraction is the vice of the poor. You are ever so much vainer than your betters: you are eaten up with vanity, and never give your neighbor a good word. I have been in thirty houses, and in not one of those houses has any poor man or poor woman spoken one honest word in praise of a neighbor. So do not flatter yourselves this is a Christian village, for it is not. The only excuse to be made for you, and I fear it is not one that G.o.d will accept on His judgment-day, is that your betters set you a bad example instead of a good one. The two princ.i.p.al people in this village are kinsfolk, yet enemies, and have been enemies for twenty years. That's a nice example for two Christian gentlemen to set to poor people, who, they may be sure, will copy their sins, if they copy nothing else.

"They go to church regularly, and believe in the Bible, and yet they defy both Church and Bible.

"Now I should like to ask those gentlemen a question. How do they mean to manage in Heaven? When the baronet comes to that happy place, where all is love, will the squire walk out? Or do they think to quarrel there, and so get turned out, both of them? I don't wonder at your smiling; but it is a serious consideration, for all that. The soul of man is immortal: and what is the soul? it is not a substantial thing, like the body; it is a bundle of thoughts and feelings: the thoughts we die with in this world, we shall wake up with them in the next. Yet here are two Christians loading their immortal souls with immortal hate. What a waste of feeling, if it must all be flung off together with the body, lest it drag the souls of both down to bottomless perdition.

"And what do they gain in this world?--irritation, ill-health, and misery. It is a fact that no man ever reached a great old age who hated his neighbor; still less a _good_ old age; for, if men would look honestly into their own hearts, they would own that to hate is to be miserable.

"I believe no men commit a sin for many years without some special warnings; and to neglect these, is one sin more added to their account.

Such a warning, or rather, I should say, such a pleading of Divine love, those two gentlemen have had. Do you remember, about eight years ago, two children were lost on one day, out of different houses in this village?" (A murmur from the crowd.)

"Perhaps some of you here present were instrumental, under G.o.d, in finding that pretty pair." (A louder murmur.)

"Oh, don't be afraid to answer me. Preaching is only a way of speaking; and I'm only a woman that is speaking to you for your good. Tell me--we are not in church, tied up by stait-laced rules to keep men and women from getting within arm's-length of one another's souls--tell me, who saw those two lost children?"

"I, I, I, I, I," roared several voices in reply.

"Is it true, as a good woman tells me, that the innocent darlings had each an arm round the other's neck?"

"Ay."