Windyridge Part 26

She did not say much on these excursions, but when she was directly spoken to she answered without confusion, and was quite unconscious that she occasionally addressed the squire as "love." He never betrayed any consciousness of it, but I once noticed a repressed smile steal over Webster's face as he sat upon the box.

Now it was that I saw the full beauty of the moorland which had made so strong an appeal to my father's heart. I felt my own strangely stirred, and my two companions were also full of emotion. I believe it spoke to each of us with a different voice, and had not quite the same message for any two of us. I have hardly a.n.a.lysed my own feelings, but I think the rich and yet subdued colouring got hold of my imagination, and the wildness of the scene impressed me powerfully.

I had always known these moors--known them from my childhood; but only as one knows many things--the moon or the Mauritius, for instance--from the description of others. The picture painted for me had been true to life, but not living; yet it had been sufficiently lifelike to make the reality strangely familiar. And now I looked at it with double vision--through my own eyes and my father's; and the thought of what he would have felt quickened my perceptions and attuned them to the spirit of my ancestors. The moors were sheeted in purple, brightened by clumps of golden gorse, and I could easily have followed the example of Linnaeus, who, when he first saw the yellow blossom, is said to have fallen on his knees and praised G.o.d for its beauty.

The squire had known the moors always. To him the scene speaks of home. I do not think the actual beauty of it impresses him greatly, perhaps because of its extreme familiarity, and it does not arouse in him the same sensation of pleasure or appeal to his artistic sense in the same degree as the grander scenery he has so lately left behind.

But this _contents_ him as nothing else does or could! It is as when one exchanges the gilded chairs of state for the old, familiar arm-chair which would appear shabby to some people, or the dress shoes of ceremony for the homely slippers on the hearth. He admits now that he is happier than he had ever been abroad, and that he is glad to spend the late evening of his days amid the friendly scenes of his youth and manhood.

As for Mother Hubbard, she is quite unconsciously a mixture of poet and prophet. Everything speaks to her of G.o.d.

"Yes, love," she said quite recently, "'He maketh everything beautiful in its season;'" and to her the country is always beautiful, because it is always as G.o.d made it. That is why she loves it so much, I am sure; and whether it glows and sparkles beneath the hot sun of August or lies dun and grey under the clouded skies of February it is always full of charm. To her, all G.o.d's paintings show the hand of the Master, whether done in monochrome or in the colours of the rainbow, and none of them fails to satisfy her.

And Nature preaches to her, but the sermons are always comforting to her soul, for her inward ear has never been trained to catch the gloomy messages which some of us hear so readily. But where she finds consolation I discover disquietude.

The horse had been pulled up at a point where the wide panorama stretched limitlessly before us, and for a time we had all been speechless. I had gathered a tiny bunch of heather and fastened it in my belt, and now stood, shading my eyes with my hand, as I looked across the billowy expanse. The squire had closed his eyes, but his face showed no trace of weariness, and I knew that he was happy.

Mother Hubbard broke the silence, as she sank back into her seat with a little sigh, and when I sat down Webster drove slowly on.

"It is nice to think, love, that though you have gathered and taken away a sprig of heather the landscape is still beautiful. And yet, you know, the little flowers you have plucked gave their share of beauty to the whole, and helped G.o.d to do His work. I think, love, that thought encourages me when I know that the Lord may soon stretch out His hand for me. Your little flowers have not lived in vain. Only their neighbours will miss them, but their little world would not have been quite as beautiful without them."

I think the squire was astonished, but he remained quite still, and I replied:

"That is very true, dear, but the heather has never thwarted its Maker's purpose, but has lived the life He designed, and so has perfectly fulfilled its mission. With man, alas! it is not so. He too often makes a sad bungle of life, and is so full of imperfections that he cannot add much to the beauty of the landscape."

Mother Hubbard shook her head and pointed to the moors. "Yet _that_ is very beautiful, love, isn't it?"

"It is perfect," I replied.

"Perfect, is it? Look at the little flowers at your waist. See, one little bell has been blighted in some way, and there are several which seem to have been eaten away in parts, and here and there some have fallen off. I wonder if you could find a sprig, love, where every bell and tiny leaf is perfect. Not many, I think. Yet you say the view is perfect, though the parts are full of imperfections."

The squire opened his eyes and bent them gravely upon her, but he did not speak, and she did not observe him.

"Ah, but, dear Mother Hubbard," I said, "the heather bells cannot help their imperfections. The blight and the insect, the claw of bird, the foot of beast, the hand and heel of man---how can they resist these things? But again I say, with man it is not so. He is the master of his destiny. He has freedom of will, and when he fails and falls and spoils his life it is his own fault."

"Not always, love," the gentle voice replied; "perhaps not often entirely his own fault. I used to think like that, but G.o.d has given me clearer vision now. Here is poor Sar'-Ann, not daring to show her face outside the door; covered with shame for her own sin and Ginty's.

Oh yes, love, she has spoiled her life. But think of how she has been brought up: in a little cottage where there was a big family and only two rooms; where the father was coa.r.s.e and the boys--poor little fellows--imitated him; and the mother, though she has a kind heart, is vulgar and often thoughtless; where decency has been impossible and woman's frailty has been made a jest. It has not been Sar'-Ann's fault, love, that she has been placed there. She had no voice in the selection of her lot. She might have been in your home and you in hers. That little bunch of heather would have been safe yet if it had not been growing by the roadside where you stood."

"Then G.o.d is responsible for Sar'-Ann?" I asked.

"G.o.d is her Father, and He loves her very dearly," she replied simply.

"There are lots of questions I cannot answer, love, but I am sure He will not throw Sar'-Ann away because she has been blighted and stained."

The squire broke in now, and there was just a little tremor in his voice as he spoke:

"'And when the vessel that he made of the clay was marred in the hands of the potter he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.'"

Mother Hubbard's eyes lit up. "Yes, sir," she said, "and I do not think he grieved too much because the first design went wrong. He just made it again another vessel. Perhaps he meant at first to make a very beautiful and graceful vessel, but there were imperfections and flaws in the material, so he made it into a homely jug; and yet it was useful."

"Oh, Mother Hubbard!" I said, "there are all sorts of imperfections and flaws in your logic, and I know people who would shake it to pieces in a moment."

"Well, love, perhaps so; but they would not shake my faith:

"'To one fixed ground my spirit clings, I know that G.o.d is good.'"

"Stick to that, Mrs. Hubbard," said the squire earnestly; "never let go that belief. Faith is greater far than logic. I would sooner doubt G.o.d's existence than His goodness. Problems of sin and suffering have oppressed my brain and heart all my life, but like you I have got clearer vision during these later days. The clouds often disperse towards the sunset, and my mental horizon is undimmed now. You and I cannot explain life's mysteries, but G.o.d can, and meanwhile I hold

"'That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When G.o.d hath made the pile complete.'"

"Tennyson was not Paul," I remarked.

"Why should he have been?" he asked. "He was a Christian seer, none the less, and he had the heavenly vision."

"But you cannot call his theology orthodox," I persisted; "is it in any sense Biblical?"

"Whence came his vision and inspiration if not from G.o.d?" he replied.

Then he turned to Mother Hubbard: "Thank you, thank you much," he said; "I shall not forget your parable of the heather."

CHAPTER XXIV

ROGER TREFFIT INTRODUCES "MISS TERRY"

I had a letter from Rose this morning. The lucky girl has got another holiday and is apparently having a fine time at Eastbourne. She says the chief insisted that her trip north was not a holiday, but a tonic.

If so, it was a very palatable one, I am sure, from the way she took it. Whilst, therefore, I am exposing plates and developing negatives, she is enjoying refres.h.i.+ng sea-breezes, and listening to good music.

It appears her chief recommended Eastbourne, and I gather from her letter that he is there himself with his family.

So is the Cynic! The courts are closed for the most part, but he told me a while ago that there were one or two Old Bailey cases in which he was interested which would prevent him from going very far away, and he is taking week-ends on the south coast. It is curious that he should have hit upon Eastbourne--quite by accident, Rose a.s.sures me--and that they should have met so early. I am not surprised that they should have been together for a long ramble over the downs, though I imagine they would have liked it better without the presence of a third party.

Rose is not very clear about it, but apparently there were three of them. What a nuisance for them both!

The Cynic does not expect to be in Windyridge again before the end of this month. I always think September seems a particularly long month, and yet it has only thirty days.

Meantime the village is affording me further opportunities of studying Mother Hubbard's theories of human nature and discovering the germ of goodness in things evil. It is a difficult hunt!

Little Lucy Treffit's father has come home, and the fact has a good deal of significance for Lucy and her mother. I cannot bear the sight of the silly man. He struts about the village as though he were doing us a favour to grace it with his presence. He puts a thumb in each arm-hole of his waistcoat, wears a constant smile on his flabby face when in public, and nods at everybody as he pa.s.ses, in the most condescending way imaginable.

He is quite an under-sized man, but broad all the way down; it looks as though at some time in his life, when he may have been very soft and putty-like, a heavy hand had been placed on his head, and he had been compressed into a foot less height. What gives reality to the impression is the extreme length of his trousers, which hang over his boots in folds.

The delight of his eyes and the joy of his heart is neither wife nor child, but a smooth-haired terrier which brings in the living, such as it is.

During the summer months Roger and his dog frequent the popular seaside resorts and give beach entertainments of "an 'igh-cla.s.s character" to quote Roger himself. In the winter months they secure engagements at music-halls, bazaars, school-entertainments and the like, when the income is more precarious.

Ordinarily the man is not home until October, but unfortunately the dog's health broke down in the latter part of August, and Roger came home to save the cost of lodgings, and to get drink on credit. For, almost alone among the villagers, this man gets drunk day by day with marked consistency; and if he is irritating when sober he is nothing less than contemptible when intoxicated. He then becomes more suave than ever, and his mouth curves into a smile which reaches his ears, but he is more stupid and obstinate than the proverbial mule. And the worst of it is he drinks at home, for the nearest inn is above a mile away, so his unhappy wife has a rough time of it. Yet he is not actively unkind to her; he does not beat her body--he merely starves and wounds her soul.