Mary Marston, George MacDonald [book club reads txt] 📗

Peter's plan, and the devil has been in the church ever since-Peter's Satan, whom the Master told to get behind him. They are poor prophets, and no martyrs, who honor money as an element of any importance in the salvation of the world. Hunger itself does incomparably more to make Christ's kingdom come than ever money did, or ever will do while time lasts. Of course money has its part, for everything has; and whoever has money is bound to use it as best he knows; but his best is generally an attempt to do saint-work by devil- proxy.

"I can't think where on earth-you got such a sackful of extravagant notions!" Mr. Redmain added.

"I told you before, sir, I had a father who set me thinking!" answered Mary.

"I wish I had had a father like yours," he rejoined.

"There are not many such to be had."

"I fear mine wasn't just what he ought to be, though he can't have been such a rascal as his son: he hadn't time; he had his money to make."

"He had the temptation to make it, and you have the temptation to spend it: which is the more dangerous, I don't know. Each has led to many crimes."

"Oh, as to crimes-I don't know about that! It depends on what you call crimes."

"It doesn't matter whether men call a deed a crime or a fault; the thing is how God regards it, for that is the only truth about it. What the world thinks, goes for nothing, because it is never right. It would be worse in me to do some things the world counts perfectly honorable, than it would be for this man to commit a burglary, or that a murder. I mean my guilt might be greater in committing a respectable sin, than theirs in committing a disreputable one."

Had Mary known anything of science, she might have said that, in morals as in chemistry, the qualitative analysis is easy, but the quantitative another affair.

The latter part of this conversation, Sepia listening heard, and misunderstood utterly.

All the rest of the day Mary was with Mr. Redmain, mostly by his bedside, sitting in silent watchfulness when he was unable to talk with her. Nobody entered the room except Mewks, who, when he did, seemed to watch everything, and try to hear everything, and once Lady Margaret. When she saw Mary seated by the bed, though she must have known well enough she was there, she drew herself up with grand English repellence, and looked scandalized. Mary rose, and was about to retire. But Mr. Redmain motioned her to sit still.

"This is my spiritual adviser, Lady Margaret," he said.

Her ladyship cast a second look on Mary, such as few but her could cast, and left the room.

On into the gloom of the evening Mary sat. No one brought her anything to eat or drink, and Mr. Redmain was too much taken up with himself, soul and body, to think of her. She was now past hunger, and growing faint, when, through the settled darkness, the words came to her from the bed:

"I should like to have you near me when I am dying, Mary."

The voice was a softer than she had yet heard from Mr. Redmain, and its tone went to her heart.

"I will certainly be with you, if God please," she answered.

"There is no fear of God," returned Mr. Redmain; "it's the devil will try to keep you away. But never you heed what any one may do or say to prevent you. Do your very best to be with me. By that time I may not be having my own way any more. Be sure, the first moment they can get the better of me, they will. And you mustn't place confidence in a single soul in this house. I don't say my wife would play me false so long as I was able to swear at her, but I wouldn't trust her one moment longer. You come and be with me in spite of the whole posse of them." "I will try, Mr. Redmain," she answered, faintly. "But indeed you must let me go now, else I may be unable to come to-morrow."

"What's the matter?" he asked hurriedly, half lifting his head with a look of alarm. "There's no knowing," he went on, muttering to himself, "what may happen in this cursed house."

"Nothing," replied Mary, "but that I have not had anything to eat since I left home. I feel rather faint."

"They've given you nothing to eat!" cried Mr. Redmain, but in a tone that seemed rather of satisfaction than displeasure. "Ring- no, don't."

"Indeed, I would rather not have anything now till I get home," said Mary. "I don't feel inclined to eat where I am not welcome."

"Right! right! right!" said Mr. Redmain. "Stick to that. Never eat where you are not welcome. Go home directly. Only say when you will come to-morrow."

"I can't very well during the day," answered Mary. "There is so much to be done, and I have so little help. But, if you should want me, I would rather shut up the shop than not come."

"There is no need for that! Indeed, I would much rather have you in the evening. The first of the night is worst of all. It's then the devils are out.-Look here," he added, after a short pause, during which Mary, for as unfit as she felt, hesitated to leave him, "-being in business, you've got a lawyer, I suppose?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Then you go to him to-night the first thing, and tell him to come to me to-morrow, about noon. Tell him I am ill, and in bed, and particularly want to see him; and he mustn't let anything they say keep him from me, not even if they tell him I am dead."

"I will," said Mary, and, stroking the thin hand that lay outside the counterpane, turned and left him.

"Don't tell any one you are gone," he called after her, with a voice far from feeble. "I don't want any of their damned company."


CHAPTER LIII.

A FRIEND IN NEED.


Mary left the house, and saw no one on her way. But it was better, she said to herself, that he should lie there untended, than be waited on by unloving hands.

The night was very dark. There was no moon, and the stars were hidden by thick clouds. She must walk all the way to Testbridge. She felt weak, but the fresh air was reviving. She did not know the way so familiarly as that between Thornwick and the town, but she would enter the latter before arriving at the common.

She had not gone far when the moon rose, and from behind the clouds diminished the darkness a little. The first part of her journey lay along a narrow lane, with a small ditch, a rising bank, and a hedge on each side. About the middle of the lane was a farmyard, and a little way farther a cottage. Soon after passing the gate of the farmyard, she thought she heard steps behind her, seemingly soft and swift, and naturally felt a little apprehension; but her thoughts flew to the one hiding-place for thoughts and hearts and lives, and she felt no terror. At the same time something moved her to quicken her pace. As she drew near the common, she heard the steps more plainly, still soft and swift, and almost wished she had sought refuge in the cottage she had just passed-only it bore no very good character in the neighborhood. When she reached the spot where the paths united, feeling a little at home, she stopped to listen. Behind her were the footsteps plain enough! The same moment the clouds thinned about the moon, and a pale light came filtering through upon the common in front of her. She cast one look over her shoulder, saw something turn a corner in the lane, and sped on again. She would have run, but there was no place of refuge now nearer than the corner of the turnpike-road, and she knew her breath would fail her long before that. How lonely and shelterless the common looked! The soft, swift steps came nearer and nearer.

Was that music she heard? She dared not stop to listen. But immediately, thereupon, was poured forth on the dim air such a stream of pearly sounds as if all the necklaces of some heavenly choir of woman-angels were broken, and the beads came pelting down in a cataract of hurtless hail. From no source could they come save the bow and violin of Joseph Jasper! Where could he be? She was so rejoiced to know that he must be somewhere near, that, for very delight of unsecured safety, she held her peace, and had almost stopped. But she ran on again. She was now nigh the ruined hut with which my narrative has made the reader acquainted. In the mean time the moon had been growing out of the clouds, clearer and clearer. The hut came in sight. But the look of it was somehow altered-with an undefinable change, such as might appear on a familiar object in a dream; and leaning against the side of the door stood a figure she could not mistake for another than her musician. Absorbed in his music, he did not see her. She called out, "Joseph! Joseph!" He started, threw his bow from him, tucked his violin under his arm, and bounded to meet her. She tried to stop, and the same moment to look behind her. The consequence was that she fell-but safe in the smith's arms. That instant appeared a man running. He half stopped, and, turning from the path, took to the common. Jasper handed his violin to Mary, and darted after him. The chase did not last a minute; the man was nearly spent. Joseph seized him by the wrist, saw something glitter in his other hand, and turned sick. The fellow had stabbed him. With indignation, as if it were a snake that had bit him, the blacksmith flung from him the hand he held. The man gave a cry, staggered, recovered himself, and ran. Joseph would have followed again, but fell, and for a minute or two lost consciousness. When he came to himself, Mary was binding up his arm.

"What a fool I am!" he said, trying to get up, but yielding at once to Mary's prevention. "Ain't it ridic'lous now, miss, that a man of my size, and ready to work a sledge with any smith in Yorkshire, should turn sick for a little bit of a job with a knife? But my father was just the same, and he was a stronger man than I'm like to be, I fancy."

"It is no such wonder as you think," said Mary; "you have lost a good deal of blood."

Her voice faltered. She had been greatly alarmed-and the more that she had not light enough to get the edges of the wound properly together.

"You've stopped it-ain't you, miss?"

"I think so."

"Then I'll be after the fellow."

"No, no; you must not attempt it. You must lie still awhile. But I don't understand it at all! That cottage used to be a mere hovel, without door or window! It can't be you live in it?"

"Ay, that I do! and it's not a bad place either," answered Joseph. "That's what I went to Yorkshire to get my money for. It's mine-bought and paid for."

"But what