A Reconstructed Marriage Part 4

My poor son! He is now entering the gates of temptation."

"I should not worry, mother. Robert is quite able to take care of himself."

Judging from the happy alacrity with which Robert left the train at Kendal Station, Isabel's opinion was well founded. He had no doubts about the road he was taking. He leaped into a cab, left his valise at the Crown Inn, and then rode rapidly down the long antique street to a pretty cottage standing with a church, or chapel, in a green croft surrounded by poplar trees.

The moon was full in the east, and the twilight still lingered in the west, and in that heavenly gloaming a woman walked lightly towards the little gate to welcome him. She had a tall, elastic, slender figure, and moved with swift, graceful steps; her white dress, in that shadowy mysterious light, giving her an ethereal beauty beyond description.

Robert took both her hands, kissed them pa.s.sionately, and led her to a little rustic bench under the poplars. For a few moments they sat there, and he filled his eyes and heart with her loveliness. Then they went into the cottage and he found--as Isabel had predicted--that tea was waiting for him. Theodora's mother, a woman of scrupulous neatness, simple and unadorned, was sitting at the table; she smiled and gave him her hand, and he sat down beside her.

"How is Mr. Newton?" asked Robert.

"He is in his study," she answered. "He will be here in a few minutes.

He does not wish us to wait for him."

Theodora was at Robert's right hand, and never before had he thought her beauty so bewildering. It had the magic of a countenance where the intellect was of a high order, and the perfect features were the portrait of a pure, translucent soul such as G.o.d loves. Her eyes transfigured her, but the process was not intentional. Her sensitive lips, her bright soft smile, her joyful heart, the fulness of her health and life, all these things were entrancing, and made still more so, by an unconsciousness sincere and natural as that of a bird, or a flower.

Robert Campbell might well feel his unworthiness, and tremble lest so great a blessing should escape him.

In a short time Mr. Newton entered. He had a tall, intellectual figure, with the stoop forward and piercing glance of one straining after things invisible. A singular unearthliness pervaded the whole man, and his spare form appeared to be the suitable apparel for a pure and exalted spirit. Prayer was his native air. He prayed even in his dreams.

After some inquiries about the journey, the conversation turned naturally to the subject of preaching. Robert Campbell remarked that, "Sunday newspapers, Sunday magazines, and above all Sunday trips down the river, had in Glasgow greatly injured Sabbath observance and weakened the influence of the pulpit."

"No, no, sir!" cried the preacher; "books, papers, amus.e.m.e.nts, nothing, can take the place of sermons. The _face to face_ element is indispensable. It is _the Word made Flesh_ that prevails. As soon as a real preacher appears, what crowds follow him! Not to go back to the preachers of old, consider only Farrar, Liddon, Spurgeon, Hyacinthe, Lacordaire, and the great American Beecher. Think of Spurgeon for thirty years preaching twice every Sunday to six thousand souls!"

"Then you believe, sir, the influence of the pulpit depends on the preacher?"

"Yes. If there is a good intelligent man in the pulpit, there will be good intelligent men in the pews."

"Then you would have only highly-cultured, up-to-date men in the pulpit?"

"I would not have men in the pulpit whom no one would think of listening to, out of the pulpit. The people want sermons that bring the pulpit near to the hearth, the table, and the counter; sermons of homely fertility, local allusions, and personal application, such as Christ gave them. Remember for a moment His everyday similes and parables: the lighting of a candle, the seeking of a piece of lost silver, the search for the lost sheep. That is one kind of sermon that always draws hearers. There is another kind that is irresistible to a very large number--sermons full of the spirit of Paul, reaching out to the Heavenly Church with its invisible rites and the splendor and music in the soul of the saints."

There was a silence, for the preacher was pursuing his thoughts, leaning forward with a burning look, drinking in the joy of his own spiritual vision.

Robert broke the pause by saying: "We Scots are used to logical and argumentative discourses," but he spoke in a much lower tone than was usual to him.

"Then your preachers must talk to their congregations in the pulpit, as they never would think of talking to them out of it."

"Well, we are not in favor of mingling sacred and material things; we believe it might have a tendency to bring preaching into contempt."

"Mr. Campbell," said Newton, "preaching is a great example of the survival of the fittest. If it could have been killed by contempt, or inefficiency, or ignorance, or too much book learning, or by any other cause, the imbecile sermons preached every Sunday through the length and breadth of the land would have killed it long ago."

"Do you then consider oratorical power a necessity to preaching, sir?"

"No. Other power can take its place, such as great piety, great sincerity, the simplicity of the Gospel, or the personal character of the preacher. I once heard Newman preach. He was far from what we are accustomed to call eloquent. One long sentence was followed by another equally long, separated by a sharp fracture like the utterance of a primitive saint or martyr; but also like a direct message from heaven.

And never, while I live, shall I forget the ecstasy of love and longing with which he cried out: 'Oh that I knew where to find Him! that I might come into His presence!' The church of St. Mary was crowded with young men, and I believe the heart of every one present burned within him, and he longed as I did, to fall down and kiss the feet of Christ."

Conversation akin to this sweetened the simple meal, and after it Robert and Theodora walked up and down the pretty lane running past the Chapel Croft. It had a hedge of sweet-briar which perfumed the warm, still air, and the full moon made everything beautiful, and Theodora loveliest of all. And though it was near the Sabbath, Robert did not hold his sisters' creed regarding love-making at that time. He could no more help telling Theodora how beautiful she was, and how he loved her excellencies and her beauty, than he could help breathing.

It was no new tale. He had told it to her ever since they first met. But this night he felt he must venture all, to win all. The light on her face, the sweet gentleness of her voice, the touch of her hand on his arm, all these things urged him to ask that question, which if asked from the heart, is never forgotten. Theodora answered it with a shy but loving honesty. The little word which made all things sure was softly spoken, and then the purple Bible was given, and clasping it between their hands, they made over it their solemnly happy promises of eternal love and faithfulness. And what conversation followed is not to be written down; it was every word of it in the delicious, stumbling patois of love.

The next morning Robert went to the Methodist Chapel with Theodora, but his Calvinism was in no degree prejudiced by the Arminian sermon, for he did not hear a word of it. He was listening to the tale of love in his heart, Theodora sat at his side, and he would not have changed places with the king on his throne. Love had thrown the gates of life wide open for the Queen of Love to enter in, and for the first time in all his thirty years of existence, he knew what it was to be joyful.

He left Kendal on Monday afternoon and went to Sheffield, and did much profitable business there. And he was so gay and good-natured that many thought they had misjudged him on former occasions, and that after all he was really a fine fellow. Others wondered if he had been drinking, and no one but a woman, the wife of one of his business friends with whom he dined, had the wit to see, and to say:

"The man is in love, and the girl has accepted him--poor thing!"

"Why 'poor thing,' Louise?"

"Because he will get out of love some day, and then----"

"Then, what?"

"He will be the old Robert Campbell, a little older, a little more selfish, a little more sure of his own infallibility, and a great deal worse-tempered."

"That will depend on the girl, Louise."

"And on circ.u.mstances! Generally speaking, women may write themselves circ.u.mstances' 'most obedient servants.' They can't help it."

In spite, however, of the disagreeable journey between Sheffield and Glasgow, Campbell reached home in very good spirits. It was then four o'clock in the afternoon, and he resolved to sleep a couple of hours before seeing any one. He thought after dinner would be as good a time as any for the communication he had to make to his family. Something of a bl.u.s.terer among men, he feared the woman he called mother. His sisters he had never taken seriously, but he remembered they would come close to Theodora, and that it might be prudent to have their good will. They certainly could make things unpleasant if they wished to do so.

He had always been able to sleep, on his own order to sleep, and was proud of the circ.u.mstance; but this afternoon he had somehow lost this control. Sleep would not obey his demand, yet he lay still, because he had resolved to spend two hours in bed; nevertheless he rose unrested, and decidedly anxious.

Dinner was served at seven, and he entered the dining-room precisely at that hour. His place was prepared for him, but the women knew better than to fret him with exclamations, or with inquiries of any kind. He was permitted to take his chair as silently as if he had never missed a meal with them. And though this behavior was in exact accord with his own desires, it did not suit him that night. He had seen a different kind of family life at the Newtons', and no man is so self-reliant as to find kind inquiries effusive and tiresome, if the kindness and interest is lavished on himself.

He was, however, good-tempered enough to praise the dinner, and to say "Scotch broth and good Scotch collops were pleasant changes from the roast beef of old England, her Yorks.h.i.+re pudding and cherry pies." Mrs.

Campbell smiled graciously at this compliment, and answered:

"I consider collops, Robert, as the most nutritive and delicious of all the ways in which beef is cooked. I attribute my good health to eating them so regularly, and though Jepson is constantly complaining of McNab's extravagance and ill-temper, I always say, 'I don't care, Jepson, what faults McNab has, she can cook collops.' Very few can make a good dish of collops, so I think I am right."

"Tell Jepson I say he is to let McNab alone. How did you like Dr.

Robertson's last _protege_?"

"I did not go to church. I was not well. The girls were there."

"What is your opinion, Isabel?"

"That he is very like the lave of the doctor's wonderfuls. Mrs.

Robertson told us, he had astonished his college by the tenderness of his conscience and his spirituality; and when I asked her the particulars, she said he had utterly refused to study the Latin Grammar because it contained nothing spiritual. Greek and Hebrew, of course, for they were necessary to a right reading of the Scriptures; but the Latin Grammar had no spiritual relations with literature of any kind--far from it. From what he had been told it was both idolatrous and immoral in its outcome. I suppose he is from Argyle, for when there was talk of expelling him for not conforming to rules, he wrote to the Duke, and the great Duke stood by the lad, and complimented him on his tender conscience, and the like, and took him under his own protection--and so on. Mrs. Robertson is of the opinion, he may come to be the Moderator of the a.s.sembly with such backing."

"And what do you think?"

"I would not wonder if he did. He has the conceit for anything, and he is a black Celt, and very likely has their covetous eye and greedy heart. He will get on, no doubt of it. Why not? The great Duke at his back, and himself always pus.h.i.+ng to the front."

"I thought he was nice-looking," said Christina timidly. "His fine black eyes were fairly ablaze when he was preaching."

"He is a ferocious Calvinist," added Isabel.

"Well, he had fine eyes and was good-looking," persisted Christina.