Thomas Wingfold, Curate V3

G >> George MacDonald >> Thomas Wingfold, Curate V3

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

Helen turned and glided back into the house, and neither knew she
had been there.

CHAPTER XVII.

DELIVERANCE.

All that could be done for Leopold by tenderest sisterly care under
the supervision of Mr. Faber, who believed in medicine less than in
good nursing, was well supplemented by the brotherly ministrations
of Wingfold, who gave all the time he could honestly spare from his
ordinary work to soothe and enlighten the suffering youth. But it
became clearer every week that nothing would avail to entice the
torn roots of his being to clasp again the soil of the world: he was
withering away out of it. Ere long symptoms appeared which no one
could well mistake, and Lingard himself knew that he was dying.
Wingfold had dreaded that his discovery of the fact might reveal
that he had imagined some atonement in the public confession he
desired to make, and that, when he found it denied him, he would
fall into despair. But he was with him at the moment, and his
bearing left no ground for anxiety. A gleam of gladness from below
the horizon of his spirit, shot up, like the aurora of a heavenly
morning, over the sky of his countenance. He glanced at his friend,
smiled, and said,

"It has killed me too, and that is a comfort."

The curate only looked his reply.

"They say," resumed Leopold, after a while, "that God takes the will
for the deed:--do you think so?"

"Certainly, if it be a true, genuine will."

"I am sure I meant to give myself up," said Leopold. "I had not the
slightest idea they were fooling me. I know it now, but what can I
do? I am so weak, I should only die on the way."

He tried to rise, but fell back in the chair.

"Oh!" he sighed, "isn't it good of God to let me die! Who knows what
he may do for me on the other side! Who can tell what the bounty of
a God like Jesus may be!"

A vision arose before the mind's eye of the curate:--Emmeline
kneeling for Leopold's forgiveness; but he wisely held his peace.
The comforter of the sinner must come from the forgiveness of God,
not from the favourable judgment of man mitigating the harshness of
his judgment of himself. Wingfold's business was to start him well
in the world whither he was going. He must fill his scrip with the
only wealth that would not dissolve in the waters of the river--that
was, the knowledge of Jesus.

It shot a terrible pang to the heart of Helen, herself, for all her
suffering, so full of life, when she learned that her darling must
die. Yet was there no small consolation mingled with the shock. Fear
vanished, and love returned with grief in twofold strength. She flew
to him, and she who had been so self-contained, so composed, so
unsubmissive to any sway of feeling, broke into such a storm of
passionate affection that the vexilla mortis answered from his
bosom, flaunting themselves in crimson before her eyes. In vain, for
Leopold's sake, the curate had sought to quiet her: she had resented
his interference; but this result of her impetuosity speedily
brought her to her senses, and set her to subdue herself.

The same evening Leopold insisted on dictating to the curate his
confession, which done, he signed it, making him and Helen attest
the signature. This document Wingfold took charge of, promising to
make the right use of it, whatever he should on reflection conclude
that to be; after which Leopold's mind seemed at ease.

His sufferings from cough and weakness and fever now augmented with
greater rapidity, but it was plain from the kind of light in his
eye, and the far look which was not yet retrospective, that hope and
expectation were high in him. He had his times of gloom, when the
dragon of the past crept out of its cave, and tore him afresh; but
the prospect of coming deliverance strengthened him.

"Do you really think," he said once to the curate, "that I shall
ever see Emmeline again?"

"Truly I hope so," answered his friend, "and could argue upon the
point. But I think the best way, when doubt comes as to anything you
would like to be true, is just to hide yourself in God, as the child
would hide from the dark in the folds of his mother's mantle."

"But aunt would say, if she knew, that, dying as she did, Emmeline
could not be saved."

"Some people may have to be a good deal astonished as to what can
and cannot be," returned the curate. "But never mind what people
say: make your appeal to the saviour of men about whatever troubles
you. Cry to the faithful creator, his Father. To be a faithful
creator needs a might of truth and loving-kindness of which our
narrow hearts can ill conceive. Ask much of God, my boy, and be very
humble and very hoping."

After all such utterances, Leopold would look his thanks, and hold
his peace.

"I wish it was over," he said once.

"So do I," returned the curate. "But be of good courage, I think
nothing will be given you to bear that you will not be able to
bear."

"I can bear a great deal more than I have had yet. I don't think I
shall ever complain. That would be to take myself out of his hands,
and I have no hope anywhere else.--Are you any surer about him, sir,
than you used to be?"

"At least I hope in him far more," answered Wingfold.

"Is that enough?"

"No. I want more."

"I wish I could come back and tell you that I am alive and all is
true."

"I would rather have the natural way of it, and get the good of not
knowing first."

"But if I could tell you I had found God, then that would make you
sure."

Wingfold could not help a smile:--as if any assurance from such a
simple soul could reach the questions that tossed his troubled
spirit!

"I think I shall find all I want in Jesus Christ," he said.

"But you can't see him, you know."

"Perhaps I can do better. And at all events I can wait," said the
curate. "Even if he would let me, I would not see him one moment
before he thought it best. I would not be out of a doubt or
difficulty an hour sooner than he would take me."

Leopold gazed at him and said no more.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE MEADOW.

As the disease advanced, his desire for fresh air and freedom grew
to a great longing. One hot day, whose ardours, too strong for the
leaves whose springs had begun to dry up, were burning them "yellow
and black and pale and hectic red," the fancy seized him to get out
of the garden with its clipt box-trees and cypresses, into the
meadow beyond. There a red cow was switching her tail as she
gathered her milk from the world, and looking as if all were well.
He liked the look of the cow, and the open meadow, and wanted to
share it with her, he said. Helen, with the anxiety of a careful
nurse, feared it might hurt him.

"What DOES it matter?" he returned. "Is life so sweet that every
moment more of it is a precious boon? After I'm gone a few days, you
won't know a week from an hour of me. What a weight it will be off
you! I envy you all the relief of it. It will be to you just what it
would be to me to get into that meadow."

Helen made haste to let him have his will. They prepared a sort of
litter, and the curate and the coachman carried him. Hearing what
they were about, Mrs. Ramshorn hurried into the garden to protest,
but protested in vain, and joined the little procession, walking
with Helen, like a second mourner, after the bier. They crossed the
lawn, and through a double row of small cypresses went winding down
to the underground passage, as if to the tomb itself. They had not
thought of opening the door first, and the place was dark and
sepulchral. Helen hastened to set it wide.

"Lay me down for a moment," said Leopold. "--Here I lie in my tomb!
How soft and brown the light is! I should not mind lying here,
half-asleep, half-awake, for centuries, if only I had the hope of a
right good waking at last."

A flood of fair light flashed in sweet torrent into the place--and
there, framed in the doorway, but far across the green field, stood
the red cow, switching her tail.

"And here comes my resurrection!" cried Leopold. "I have not had
long to wait for it--have I?"

He smiled a pained content as he spoke, and they bore him out into
the sun and air. They set him down in the middle of the field in a
low chair--not far from a small clump of trees, through which the
footpath led to the stile whereon the curate was seated when he
first saw the Polwarths. Mrs. Ramshorn found the fancy of the sick
man pleasant for the hale, and sent for her knitting. Helen sat down
empty-handed on the wool at her brother's feet, and Wingfold, taking
a book from his pocket, withdrew to the trees.

He had not read long, sitting within sight and call of the group,
when Helen came to him.

"He seems inclined to go to sleep," she said. "Perhaps if you would
read something, it would send him off."

"I will with pleasure," he said, and returning with her, sat down on
the grass.

"May I read you a few verses I came upon the other day, Leopold?" he
asked.

"Please do," answered the invalid, rather sleepily.

I will not pledge myself that the verses belonged to the book
Wingfold held before him, but here they are. He read them slowly,
and as evenly and softly and rhythmically as he could.

They come to thee, the halt, the maimed, the blind,
The devil-torn, the sick, the sore;
Thy heart their well of life they find,
Thine ear their open door.

Ah! who can tell the joy in Palestine--
What smiles and tears of rescued throngs!
Their lees of life were turned to wine,
Their prayers to shouts and songs!

The story dear our wise men fable call,
Give paltry facts the mighty range;
To me it seems just what should fall,
And nothing very strange.

But were I deaf and lame and blind and sore,
I scarce would care for cure to ask;
Another prayer should haunt thy door--
Set thee a harder task.

If thou art Christ, see here this heart of mine,
Torn, empty, moaning, and unblest!
Had ever heart more need of thine,
If thine indeed hath rest?

Thy word, thy hand right soon did scare the bane
That in their bodies death did breed:
If thou canst cure my deeper pain,
Then thou art Lord indeed.

Leopold smiled sleepily as Wingfold read, and ere the reading was
over, slept.

"What can the little object want here?" said Mrs. Ramshorn.

Wingfold looked up, and seeing who it was approaching them, said,

"Oh! that is Mr. Polwarth, who keeps the park gate."

"Nobody can well mistake him," returned Mrs. Ramshorn. "Everybody
knows the creature."

"Few people know him really," said Wingfold.

"I HAVE heard that he is an oddity in mind as well as in body," said
Mrs. Ramshorn.

"He is a friend of mine," rejoined the curate. "I will go and meet
him. He wants to know how Leopold is."

"Pray keep your seat, Mr. Wingfold. I don't in the least mind him,"
said Mrs. Ramshorn. "Any FRIEND of yours, as you are kind enough to
call him, will be welcome. Clergymen come to know--indeed it is
their duty to be acquainted with all sorts of people. The late dean
of Halystone would stop and speak to a pauper."

The curate did however go and meet Polwarth, and returning with him
presented him to Mrs. Ramshorn, who received him with perfect
condescension, and a most gracious bow. Helen bent her head also,
very differently, but it would be hard to say how. The little man
turned from them, and for a moment stood looking on the face of the
sleeping youth: he had not seen him since Helen ordered him to leave
the house. Even now she looked angry at his presumption in staring
at her brother. But Polwarth did not see her look. A great
tenderness came over his face, and his lips moved softly. "The Lord
of thy life keep it for thee, my son!" he murmured, gazed a moment
longer, then rejoined Wingfold.

They walked aside a few paces.

"Pray be seated," said Mrs. Ramshorn, without looking up from her
knitting--the seat she offered being the wide meadow.

But they had already done so, and presently were deep in a gentle
talk, of which at length certain words that had been foolhardy
enough to wander within her range, attracted the notice of Mrs.
Ramshorn, and she began to listen. But she could not hear
distinctly.

"There should be one bishop at least," the little man was saying,
"or I don't know but he ought to be the arch-arch-bishop,--a poor
man, if possible,--one like the country parson Chaucer sets up in
contrast with the regular clergy,--whose main business should be to
travel about from university to university, from college to college,
from school to school, warning off all young men who did not know
within themselves that it was neither for position, nor income, nor
study, nor influence, that they sought to minister in the temple,
from entering the church. As from holy ground, he would warn them
off."

Mrs. Ramshorn fancied, from certain obscure associations in her own
mind, that he was speaking of dissenting ministers and persons of
low origin, who might wish to enter the church for the sake of
BETTERING THEMSELVES, and holding as she did, that no church
preferment should be obtained except by persons of good family and
position, qualified to keep up the dignity of the profession, she
was not a little gratified to hear, as she supposed, the same
sentiments from the mouth of such an illiterate person as, taking no
note of his somewhat remarkable utterance, she imagined Polwarth to
be. Therefore she proceeded to patronize him yet a little farther.

"I quite agree with you," she said graciously. "None but such as you
describe should presume to set foot within the sacred precincts of
the profession."

Polwarth did not much relish Mrs. Ramshorn's style, and was
considerably surprised at receiving such a hearty approval of a
proposed reformation in clerical things, reaching even to the
archiepiscopal, which he had put half-humorously, and yet in
thorough earnest, for the ear of Wingfold only. He was little enough
desirous of pursuing the conversation with Mrs. Ramshorn: Charity
herself does not require of a man to cast his precious things at the
feet of my lady Disdain; but he must reply.

"Yes," he said, "the great evil in the church has always been the
presence in it of persons unsuited for the work there required of
them. One very simple sifting rule would be, that no one should be
admitted to holy orders who had not first proved himself capable of
making a better living in some other calling."

"I cannot go with you so far as that--so few careers are opened to
gentlemen," rejoined Mrs. Ramshorn. "Besides--take the bar, for
instance: the forensic style a man must there acquire would hardly
become the pulpit. But it would not be a bad rule that everyone, for
admission to holy orders, should be possessed of property sufficient
at least to live upon. With that for a foundation, his living would
begin at once to tell, and he would immediately occupy the superior
position every clergyman ought to have."

"What I was thinking of," said Polwarth, "was mainly the experience
in life he would gather by having to make his own living; that,
behind the counter or the plough, or in the workshop, he would come
to know men and their struggles and their thoughts--"

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Ramshorn. "But I must be under some
misapprehension! It is not possible you can be speaking of the
CHURCH--of the clerical PROFESSION. The moment that is brought
within the reach of such people as you describe, that moment the
church sinks to the level of the catholic priesthood."

"Say rather, to the level of Jeremy Taylor," returned Polwarth, "who
was the son of a barber; or of Tillotson, who was the son of a
clothier, or something of the sort, and certainly a fierce
dissenter. His enemies said the archbishop himself was never
baptized. By-the-way, he was not ordained till he was thirty--and
that bears on what I was just saying to Mr. Wingfold, that I would
have no one ordained till after forty, by which time he would know
whether he had any real call or only a temptation to the church,
from the base hope of an easy living."

By this time Mrs. Ramshorn had had more than enough of it. The man
was a leveller, a chartist, a positivist--a despiser of dignities!

"Mr.--, Mr.--, I don't know your name--you will oblige me by
uttering no more such vile slanders in my company. You are talking
about what you don't in the least understand. The man who does not
respect the religion of his native country is capable of--of--of
ANYTHING.--I am astonished, Mr. Wingfold, at your allowing a member
of your congregation to speak with so little regard for the feelings
of the clergy.--You forget, sir, when you attribute what you call
base motives to the cloth--you forget who said the labourer was
worthy of his hire."

"I hope not, madam. I only venture to suggest that, though the
labourer is worthy of his hire, not every man is worthy of the
labour."

Wingfold was highly amused at the turn things had taken. Polwarth
looked annoyed at having allowed himself to be beguiled into such an
utterly useless beating of the air.

"My friend HAS some rather peculiar notions, Mrs. Ramshorn," said
the curate;" but you must admit it was your approval that encouraged
him to go on."

"It is quite as well to know what people think," answered Mrs.
Ramshorn, pretending she had drawn him out from suspicion. "My
husband used to say that very few of the clergy had any notion of
the envy and opposition of the lower orders, both to them
personally, and to the doctrines they taught. To low human nature
the truth has always been unpalatable."

What precisely she meant by THE TRUTH it would be hard to say, but
if the visual embodiment of it was not a departed dean, it was at
least always associated in her mind with a cathedral choir, and a
portly person in silk stockings.

Here happily Leopold woke, and his eyes fell upon the gate-keeper.

"Ah, Mr. Polwarth! I am so glad to see you!" he said." I am getting
on, you see. It will be over soon."

"I see," replied Polwarth, going up to him, and taking his offered
hand in both his. "I could almost envy you for having got so near
the end of your troubles."

"Are you sure it will be the end of them, sir?"

"Of some of them at least, I hope, and those the worst. I cannot be
sure of anything but that all things work together for good to them
that love God."

"I don't know yet whether I do love God."

"Not the father of Jesus Christ?"

"If God is really just like him, I don't see how any man could help
loving him. But, do you know? I am terrified sometimes at the
thought of seeing MY father. He was such a severe man! I am afraid
he will scorn me."

"Never--if he has got into heavenly ways. And you have your mother
there too, have you not?"

"Oh! yes; I didn't think of that. I don't remember much of her."

"Anyhow, you have God there, and you must rest in him. He will not
forget you, for that would be ceasing to be God. If God were to
forget for one moment, the universe would grow black--vanish--rush
out again from the realm of law and order into chaos and night."

"But I have been wicked."

"The more need you have, if possible, of your Father in heaven."

Here Mrs. Ramshorn beckoned the attendance of the curate where she
sat a few yards off on the other side of Leopold. She was a little
ashamed of having condescended to lose her temper, and when the
curate went up to her, said, with an attempt at gaiety:

"Is your odd little friend, as you call him, all--?"

And she tapped her lace-cap carefully with her finger.

"Rather more so than most people," answered Wingfold. "He is a very
remarkable man."

"He speaks as if he had seen better days--though where he can have
gathered such detestable revolutionary notions, I can't think."

"He is a man of education, as you see," said the curate.

"You don't mean he has been to Oxford or Cambridge?"

"No. His education has been of a much higher sort than is generally
found there. He knows ten times as much as most university men."

"Ah! yes; but that goes for nothing: he hasn't the standing. And if
he had been to Oxford, he never could have imbibed such notions.
Besides--his manners! To speak of the clergy as he did in the
hearing of one whose whole history is bound up with the church!"

She meant herself, not Wingfold.

"But of course," she went on, "there must be something VERY wrong
with him to know so much as you say, and occupy such a menial
position! Nothing but a gate-keeper, and talk like that about
bishops and what not! People that are crooked in body are always
crooked in mind too. I dare say now he has quite a coterie of
friends and followers amongst the lower orders in Glaston. He's just
the sort of man to lead the working classes astray. No doubt he is a
very interesting study for a young man like you, but you must take
care; you may be misunderstood. A young clergyman CAN'T be too
cautious--if he has any hope of rising in his profession.--A
gate-keeper, indeed!"

"Wasn't it something like that David wanted to be?" said the curate.

"Mr. Wingfold, I never allow any such foolish jests in my hearing.
It was a DOOR-keeper the Psalmist said--and to the house of God, not
a nobleman's park."

"A verger, I suppose," thought Wingfold.--"Seriously, Mrs.
Ramshorn, that poor little atom of a creature is the wisest man I
know," he said.

"Likely enough, in YOUR judgment, Mr. Wingfold," said the dean's
widow, and drew herself up.

The curate accepted his dismissal, and joined the little man by
Leopold's chair.

"I wish you two could be with me when I am dying," said Leopold.

"If you will let your sister know your wish, you may easily have
it," said the curate.

"It will be just like saying good-bye at the pier-head, and pushing
off alone--you can't get more than one into the boat--out, out,
alone, into the infinite ocean of--nobody knows what or where," said
Leopold.

"Except those that are there already, and they will be waiting to
receive you," said Polwarth. "You may well hope, if you have friends
to see you off, you will have friends to welcome you too. But I
think it's not so much like setting off from the pier-head, as
getting down the side of the ocean-ship, to laud at the pier-head,
where your friends are all standing looking out for you."

"Well! I don't know," said Leopold, with a sigh of weariness. "I'm
thankful sometimes that I've grown stupid. I suppose it's with
dying. I didn't use to feel so. Sometimes I seem not to know or care
anything about anything. I only want to stop coughing and aching and
go to sleep."

"Jesus was glad to give up his spirit into his Father's hands. He
was very tired before he got away."

"Thank you. Thank you. I have him. He is somewhere. You can't
mention his name but it brings me something to live and hope for. If
he is there, all will be well. And if I do get too tired to care for
anything, he won't mind; he will only let me go to sleep, and wake
me up again by-and-by when I am rested."

He closed his eyes.

"I want to go to bed," he said.

They carried him into the house.

CHAPTER XIX.

RACHEL AND LEOPOLD.

Every day after this, so long as the weather continued warm, it was
Leopold's desire to be carried out to the meadow. Once at his
earnest petition, instead of setting him down in the usual place,
they went on with him into the park, but he soon wished to be taken
back to the meadow. He did not like the trees to come between him
and his bed: they made him feel like a rabbit that was too far from
its hole, he said; and he was never tempted to try it again.

Regularly too every day, about one o'clock, the gnome-like form of
the gate-keeper would issue from the little door in the park-fence,
and come marching across the grass towards Leopold's chair, which
was set near the small clump of trees already mentioned. The curate
was almost always there, not talking much to the invalid, but
letting him know every now and then by some little attention or
word, or merely by showing himself, that he was near. Sometimes he
would take refuge from the heat, which the Indian never felt too
great, amongst the trees, and there would generally be thinking out
what he wanted to say to his people the next Sunday.

One thing he found strange, and could not satisfy himself
concerning, namely, that although his mind was so much occupied with
Helen that he often seemed unable to think consecutively upon any
subject, he could always foresee his sermon best when, seated behind
one of the trees, he could by moving his head see her at work beside
Leopold's chair. But the thing that did carry him through became
plain enough to him afterwards: his faith in God was all the time
growing--and that through what seemed at the time only a succession
of interruptions. Nothing is so ruinous to progress in which effort
is needful, as satisfaction with apparent achievement; that ever
sounds a halt; but Wingfold's experience was that no sooner did he
set his foot on the lowest hillock of self-congratulation than some
fresh difficulty came that threw him prostrate; and he rose again
only in the strength of the necessity for deepening and broadening
his foundations that he might build yet higher, trust yet farther:
that was the only way not to lose everything. He was gradually
learning that his faith must be an absolute one, claiming from God
everything the love of a perfect Father could give, or the needs he
had created in his child could desire; that he must not look to
himself first for help, or imagine that the divine was only the
supplement to the weakness and failure of the human; that the
highest effort of the human was to lay hold of the divine. He
learned that he could keep no simplest law in its loveliness until
he was possessed of the same spirit whence that law sprung; that he
could not love Helen aright, simply, perfectly, unselfishly, except
through the presence of the originating Love; that the one thing
wherein he might imitate the free creative will of God was to will
the presence and power of that will which gave birth to his. It was
the vital growth of this faith, even when he was too much troubled
to recognize the fact, that made him strong in the midst of
weakness; when the son of man in him cried out, Let this cup pass,
the son of God in him could yet cry, Let thy will be done. He could
"inhabit trembling," and yet be brave.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12