A Singer from the Sea Part 17

Then he went home and thoroughly terrified Joan. The repressed animal pa.s.sion of a lifetime raged in him like a wild beast. He used words which horrified his wife, he kicked chairs and tables out of his way like a man drunk with strong liquor. He said he would go to St.

Merryn's and get his money, and follow Roland and Denas to the end of the world; and if they were not married, they should marry or die--both of them. He walked his cottage floor the night through, and all the powers of darkness tortured and tempted him.

For the first time in all their wedded life Joan dared not approach her husband. He was like a giant in the power of his enemies, and his struggles were terrible. But she knew well that he must fight and conquer alone. Hour after hour his ceaseless tramp, tramp, tramp went on; and she could hear him breathing inwardly like one who has business of life and death in hand.

Toward dawn she lost hold of herself and fell asleep. When she awoke it was broad daylight, and all was still in the miserable house.

Softly she opened the door and looked into the living-room. John was on his knees; she heard his voice--a far-off, awful voice--the voice of the soul and not of the body. So she went back, and with bowed head sat down on the edge of her bed and waited. Very cold was the winter morning, but she feared to make a movement. She knew it was long past the breakfast hour; she heard footsteps pa.s.sing, the shouts of the fishers, the cries of the sea-birds; she believed it to be at least ten o'clock.

But she sat breathlessly still. John was wrestling as Jacob wrestled; a movement, a whisper might delay the victory or the blessing. She almost held her breath as the muttered pleading grew more and more rapid, more and more urgent. Then there was a dead silence, a pause, a long deep sigh, a slow movement--and John opened the door and said softly, "Joan." There was the light of victory on his face; the cold strong light of a lifted sword. Then he sat down by her side; but what he told her and how she comforted him belong to those sacred, secret things which it is a sacrilege against love to speak of.

They went together to the cold hearth, and kindled the fire, and made the meal both urgently needed, and, as they ate it, John spoke of the duty before him. He had sworn at Jacob Trenager and knocked him down; he had let loose all the devils within him; he had failed in the hour of his trial, and he must resign his offices of cla.s.s leader and local preacher.

It was a bitter personal humiliation. How his enemies would rejoice!

Where he had been first, he must be last. After he had eaten, he took the plan out of the Bible and looked at it. As he already knew, he was appointed to preach at St. Clair the following evening. He had prepared his sermon on those three foggy days that began the week. He then thought he had never been so ready for a preaching, and he had the desire of a natural orator for his occasion. But how could he preach to others when he had failed himself? The flight of his daughter was in every mouth, and in some measure he would be held responsible for her sin. Was not Eli punished for his son's transgressions? The duty before him was a terrible one. It made his brown face blanch and his strong, stern mouth quiver with mental anguish.

But he laid the plan on the table and crossed out carefully all the figures which represented John Penelles. Then he wrote a few lines to the superintendent and enclosed his self-degradation. Joan wondered what he would do about the St. Clair appointment, for he had asked no one to take his place, and early in the afternoon he told her to get the lantern ready, as he was going there. She divined what he purposed to do, and she refused to go with him. He did not oppose her decision; perhaps he was glad she felt able to spare herself and him the extra humiliation.

Never had the little chapel been so crowded. All his mates from the neighbouring villages were present; for everyone had some share of that itching curiosity that likes to see how a soul suffers. A few of the leaders spoke to him; a great many appeared to be lost in those divine meditations suitable to the house of wors.h.i.+p. John's first action awakened everyone present to a sense of something unusual. He refused to ascend the pulpit. He pa.s.sed within the rails that enclosed the narrow sacred spot below the pulpit, drew the small table forward, and, without the preface of hymn or prayer, plunged at once into his own confession of unworthiness to minister to them. He read aloud the letter which he had received from his daughter, and averred his belief in its truthfulness. He told, with the minutest veracity, every word of his quarrel with Jacob Trenager. He confessed his shameful and violent temper in his own home; his hatred and his desire and purposes of revenge; and he asked the pardon of Trenager and of every member of the church which had been scandalized by the action of his daughter and by his own sinfulness.

His voice, sad and visibly restrained by a powerful will, throbbed with the burning emotions which made the man quiver from head to feet.

It was impossible not to feel something of the anguish that looked out of his large patient eyes and trembled on his lips. Women began to sob hysterically, men bent their heads low or covered their faces with their hands; an irresistible wave of sorrow and sympathy was carrying every soul with it.

But, even while John was speaking, a man rose and walked up the aisle to the table at which John stood. He turned his face to the congregation, and, lifting up his big hand, cried out:

"Be quiet, John Penelles. I be to blame in this matter. I be the villain! There isn't a Cornishman living that be such a Judas as I be.

'Twas under my old boat Denas Penelles found the love-letters that couldn't have come to her own home. Why did I lend my boat and myself for such a cruel bad end? Was it because I liked the young man? No, I hated him. What for, then?" He put his hand in his pocket, took out a piece of gold, and, in the sight of all, dashed it down on the table.

"That's what I did it for. One pound! A wisht beggarly bit of money!

Judas asked thirty pieces. I sold Paul Pyn for one piece, and it was too much--too much for such a ghastly, mean old rascal. I be cruel sorry--but there then! where be the good of 'sorry' now? That bit of gold have burnt my soul blacker than a coal! dreadful! aw, dreadful! I wouldn't touch it again to save my mean old life. And if there be a man or a woman in Cornwall that will touch it, they be as uncommon bad as I be! that is sure."

"Paul, I forgive you, and there is my hand upon it. A man can only be 'sorry.' 'Sorry' be all that G.o.d asks," said John Penelles in a low voice.

"I be no man, John. I be just a cruel bad fellow. I never had a child to love me or one to love. No woman would be my wife. I be kind of forsaken--no kith or kin to care about me," and, with his brown, rugged face cast down, he began to walk toward the door. Then Ann Bude rose in the sight of all. She went to his side; she took his hand and pa.s.sed out of the chapel with him. And everyone looked at the other, for Paul had loved Ann for twenty years and twenty times at least Ann had refused to be his wife. But now, in this hour of his shame and sorrow, she had gone to his side, and a sigh and a smile pa.s.sed from heart to heart and from face to face.

John stood still, with his eyes fixed on the piece of gold. It lay on the table like a guilty thing. All Pyn's sin seemed to have pa.s.sed into it. Men and women stood up to look at it where it lay--the wretched tool of a bad man. It was a relief when Jacob Trenager gave out a hymn, a greater relief that John Penelles went out while they were singing it. Brothers and sisters all wished to talk about John and John's trouble, but to talk to him in his grief and humiliation was a different thing. Only the old chapel-keeper watched him going along the rocky coast at a dangerous speed, his lantern swinging wildly to his big strides.

But a five-minutes' walk brought John to a place where he was alone with G.o.d and the sea. Oh, then, how he cried out for pity! for comfort! for help! for forgiveness! His voice was not the inaudible pleading of a man praying in his chamber; it was like the despairing call of a strong swimmer in the death-billows. It went out over the ocean; it went out beyond time and s.p.a.ce; it touched the heart of the Divinity who pitieth the sufferers, "even as a father pitieth his children."

There was a glow of firelight through his cottage window, but no candle. Joan was bending sorrowfully over the red coals. John was glad of the dim light, glad of the quiet, glad of the solitude, for Joan was only his other self--his sweeter and more hopeful self. He told her all that had pa.s.sed. She stood up beside him, she held his head against her breast and let him sob away there the weight of grief and shame that almost choked him. Then she spoke bravely to the broken-down, weary man:

"John, my old dear, don't you sit on the ash-heap like Job, and bemoan yourself and your birthday, and go on as if the devil had more to do with you than with other Christians. Speak up to your Heavenly Father, and ask Him 'why,' and answer Him like a man; do now! And go to Exeter in the morning, and make yourself sure that Denas be a honest woman.

I, her mother, be sure of it; but there then! men do be so bad themselves, they can't trust their own hearts, nor their own ears and eyes. 'I believe' will make a woman happy; but a man, G.o.d knows, they must go to the law and the testimony, or they are not satisfied. It's dreadful! dreadful!"

They talked the night away, and early in the morning John went to Exeter. With the proofs of his daughter's marriage in his hand, he felt as if he could face his enemies. Joan was equal to them without it. She knew they would find her out, and they found her singing at her work. Her placid face and cheery words of welcome nonplussed the most spiteful; the majority who came to triumph over her went away without being able to say one of the many evil thoughts in their hearts; and not a few found themselves hoping and wis.h.i.+ng good things for the bride.

But it was a great effort, and many times that day Joan went into the inner room, and buried her face in her pillow, and had her cry out. Only she confidently expected John to bring back the proofs of her child's marriage, and in that expectation she bore without weakening the slant eye, and the shrugged shoulder, and the denying looks of her neighbours. And of course John found no minister in Exeter who had married Denas Penelles and Roland Tresham; and it never once struck him that Denas had been married in Plymouth and found no time to write until she reached Exeter. Neither did Joan think of such a possibility; yet when her husband came in without a word and sat down with a black, stubborn face, she knew that he had been disappointed.

That night John held his peace, even from good; and Joan felt that for once she must do the same. So they sat together without candle, without speech, bowed to the earth with shame, feeling with bitter anguish that their old age had been beggared of love, and honour, and hope, and happiness; and, alas! so beggared by the child who had been the joy and the pride of their lives.

At the same hour Denas sat with Roland in one of the fine restaurants to be found in High Holborn. They had eaten of the richest viands, the sparkle of the champagne cup was in both their eyes, and they were going anon to the opera. Denas had a silk robe on and a little pink opera cloak. Her long pale gloves and her bouquet of white roses were by her side. Roland was in full evening dress. Their eyes flashed; their cheeks flamed with pleasant antic.i.p.ations. They rose from their dinner with smiles and whispered love-words; and Roland ordered with the air of a lord, "A carriage for the opera."

From John and Joan these events were mercifully hidden. It is only G.o.d who can bear the awful light of omniscience and of omnipresence. The things we cannot see! The things we never know! Let us be unspeakably grateful for this blessed ignorance! For many a heart would break that lives on if it only knew--if it only saw--how unnecessary was its love to those it loves so fondly!

CHAPTER IX.

A PIECE OF MONEY AND A SONG.

"Tis but a Judas coin, though it be gold; The price of love forsworn, 'tis full of fears And griefs for those who dare to hold; And leaves a stain, only washed clean with tears."

"Behold and listen while the fair Breaks in sweet sounds the willing air; She raised her voice so high, and sang so clear, At every close she made the attending throng Replied, and bore the burthen of the song; So just, so small, yet in so sweet a note, It seemed the music melted in the throat."

--DRYDEN.

The piece of money left by Pyn might have been a curse; no one would touch it. While the women stood in groups talking of poor John Penelles and Denas, the men held an informal meeting around the table on which it lay.

"This be the communion table," said Jacob Trenager; "some one ought to take the money off it. And I think it be best to carry the gold to the superintendent; he will tell us what to do with it;" and, after some objections, Jacob took charge of the sinful coin, and the next morning he went up the cliff to St. Penfer with it.

The preacher heard the story with an intense interest. "Jacob," he answered, "I suppose there be none so poor in your village as to feel it might do them good?"

"Man, nor woman, nor child, would buy a loaf with it, sir; none of us men would let them. If Denas Penelles have gone out of the way, sir, she be a fisher's daughter, and the man and the money that beguiled her be hateful to all of us."

"Your chapel--is it not very poor?"

"Not poor enough to take the devil's coin, sir."

"Well, Jacob, I cannot say that I feel any more disposed to use it than you do. We know it was the wage of sin, and neither the service of G.o.d nor the poor will be the better for it. I think we will give it back to the young man. It may help to show him how his fellows regard the thing he did."

"That be the best way of all, sir. But he be in London, and hard to find no doubt."

"I will take it to his sister. I do not hold her quite guiltless."

So Jacob threw the sovereign on the preacher's desk, and it lay on the green baize, a yellow, evil-looking thing. For men love to make their thoughts palpable to their senses, and this bit of gold was visible sin--part of the price of a desolated home.

It was singular to see this same personification troubling the educated preacher as well as the unlearned fisherman. The Rev. William Farrar, when left alone with the unwelcome coin, looked askance at it.

He did not like to see it on his desk, he had a repugnance to touch it. Then he forced himself to lift the sovereign, and by an elaborate fingering of the coin convince his intellect that he had no foolish superst.i.tion on the subject. Anon he took out his purse for its safe keeping, but suddenly, after a moment's hesitation, he snapped the clasp tight, and threw the bit of money on the chimney-piece. For a momentary flash of thought had brought vividly before him the sinful Babylonish garment which troubled the camp of Israel. Perhaps that sinful money might be equally malign to his own household.

He had resolved to take it to Mrs. Burrell in the afternoon, for the morning was his time for study and writing. But he found it impossible to think of his sermon. That sovereign on the mantelpiece was in all his thoughts. His back was to it, and yet he saw the dull s.h.i.+ning disc. In spite of his reason and his faith, in spite of a very strong will and of a practiced command over himself, he felt the presence of the rejected coin to be a weight and an influence he could not pretend to ignore.

So he resolved to leave every other duty and go to Burrell Court, though it was a long walk, and the thick misty Cornish rain had begun to fall. Indeed, there was nothing but a vapourish shroud, a dim, grey chaos, as far as his eye could reach. The strip of road on which he trod was apparently the only land left to tread on--all the rest of creation had disappeared in a spectral mist. But above the mist the lark was singing joyously, singing for the song's sake, and the melody went down into his heart and preached him a better sermon than he was ever likely to write.

Listening to it, he reached, before he was aware, the great gates of the Court. Mrs. Burrell was at home, and he sent a request for an interview. Elizabeth instantly suspected that he had come on some affair relating to that wretched business. She was in trouble enough about it, but she was also proud and reticent, and not inclined to discuss Roland with a stranger.

Quite intentionally she gave to her manner a good deal of that haughtiness which young wives think dignity, but which is in reality the offensive freshness of new-made honour. The preacher offered her his hand, but she did not see it, being fully occupied in arranging the long train of cashmere, silk, and lace which, in those days, made morning dresses a misnomer.

"I am the Wesleyan preacher from St. Penfer, Mrs. Burrell."

"Can I do anything for you, sir? though really, if yours is a charitable visit, I must remind you that my own church looks to me for all I can possibly afford."