THE LEPER.

The faint, sweet, luminous jar of bow and string, as betwixt them they tore the silky air into a dying sound, came hovering--neither could have said whether it was in the soul only, or there and in the outer world too.

"What _is_ that?" said Tom.

"Mary!" Letty called into the other room, "there is our friend with the violin again! Don't you think Tom would like to hear him?"

"Yes, I do," answered Mary.

"Then would you mind asking him to come and play a little to us? It would do Tom good, I do think." Mary went up the one stair--all that now divided them, and found the musician with his sister--his half-sister she was.

"I thought we should have you in upon us!" said Ann. "Joe thinks he can play so as n.o.body can hear him; and I was fool enough to let him try. I am sorry."

"I am glad," rejoined Mary, "and am come to ask him down stairs; for Mrs. Helmer and I think it will do her husband good to hear him. He is very fond of music."

"Much help music will be to him, poor young man!" said Ann, scornfully.

"Wouldn't you give a sick man a flower, even if it only made him a little happier for a moment with its scent and its loveliness?" asked Mary.

"No, I wouldn't. It would only be to help the deceitful heart to be more desperately wicked."

I will not continue the conversation, although they did a little longer. Ann's father had been a preacher among the followers of Whitefield, and Ann was a follower of her father. She laid hold upon the garment of a hard master, a tyrannical G.o.d. Happy he who has learned the gospel according to Jesus, as reported by John--that G.o.d is light, and in him is no darkness at all! Happy he who finds G.o.d his refuge from all the lies that are told for him, and in his name! But it is love that saves, and not opinion that d.a.m.ns; and let the Master himself deal with the weeds in his garden as with the tares in his field.

"I read my Bible a good deal," said Mary, at last, "but I never found one of those things you say in it."

"That's because you were never taught to look for them," said Ann.

"Very likely," returned Mary. "In the mean time I prefer the violin--that is, with one like your brother to play it."

She turned to the door, and Joseph Jasper, who had not spoken a word, rose and followed her. As soon as they were outside, Mary turned to him, and begged he would play the same piece with which he had ended on the former occasion.

"I thought you did not care for it! I am so glad!" he said.

"I care for it very much," replied Mary, "and have often thought of it since. But you left in such haste! before I could find words to thank you!"

"You mean the ten lepers, don't you?" he said. "But of course you do. I always end off with them."

"Is that how you call it?" returned Mary. "Then you have given me the key to it, and I shall understand it much better this time, I hope."

"That is what I call it," said Joseph, "--to myself, I mean, not to Ann. She would count it blasphemy. G.o.d has made so many things that she thinks must not be mentioned in his hearing!"

When they entered the room, Joseph, casting a quick look round it, made at once for the darkest corner. Three swift strides took him there; and, without more preamble than if he had come upon a public platform to play, he closed his eyes and began.

And now at last Mary understood at least this specimen of his strange music, and was able to fill up the blanks in the impression it formerly made upon her. Alas, that my helpless ignorance should continue to make it impossible for me to describe it!

A movement even and rather slow, full of unexpected chords, wonderful to Mary, who did not know that such things could be made on the violin, brought before her mind's eye the man who knew all about everything, and loved a child more than a sage, walking in the hot day upon the border be-tween Galilee and Samaria. Sounds arose which she interpreted as the stir of village life, the crying and calling of domestic animals, and of busy housewives at their duties, carried on half out of doors, in the homeliness of country custom. Presently the instrument began to tell the gathering of a crowd, with bee-like hum, and the crossing of voice with voice--but, at a distance, the sounds confused and obscure. Swiftly then they seemed to rush together, to blend and lose themselves in the unity of an imploring melody, in which she heard the words, uttered afar, with uplifted hands and voices, drawing nearer and nearer as often repeated, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." Then came a brief pause, and then what, to her now fully roused imagination, seemed the voice of the Master, saying, "Go show yourselves unto the priests." Then followed the slow, half-unwilling, not hopeful march of timeless feet; then a clang as of something broken, then a silence as of sunrise, then air and liberty--long-drawn notes divided with quick, hurried ones; then the trampling of many feet, going farther and farther--merrily, with dance and song; once more a sudden pause--and a melody in which she read the awe-struck joyous return of one. Steadily yet eagerly the feet drew nigh, the melody growing at once in awe and jubilation, as the man came nearer and nearer to him whose word had made him clean, until at last she saw him fall on his face before him, and heard his soul rushing forth in a strain of adoring thanks, which seemed to end only because it was choked in tears.

The violin ceased, but, as if its soul had pa.s.sed from the instrument into his, the musician himself took up the strain, and in a mellow tenor voice, with a mingling of air and recitative, and an expression which to Mary was entrancing, sang the words, "And he was a Samaritan."

At the sound of his own voice, he seemed to wake up, hung his head for a moment, as if ashamed of having shown his emotion, tucked his instrument under his arm, and walked from the room, without a word spoken on either side. Nor, while he played, had Mary once seen the face of the man; her soul sat only in the porch of her ears, and not once looked from the windows of her eyes.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MARY AND MR. REDMAIN.

A few rudiments of righteousness lurked, in their original undevelopment, but still in a measure active, in the being of Mr.

Redmain: there had been in the soul of his mother, I suspect, a strain of generosity, and she had left a mark of it upon him, and it was the best thing about him. But in action these rudiments took an evil shape.

Preferring inferior company, and full of that suspicion which puts the last edge upon what the world calls knowledge of human nature, he thought no man his equal in penetrating the arena of motive, and reading actions in the light of motive; and, that the fundamental principle of all motive was self-interest, he a.s.sumed to be beyond dispute. With this candle, not that of the Lord, he searched the dark places of the soul; but, where the soul was light, his candle could show him nothing--served only to blind him yet further, if possible, to what was there present. And, because he did not seek the good, never yet in all his life had he come near enough to a righteous man to recognize that in something or other that man was different from himself. As for women--there was his wife--of whom he was willing to think as well as she would let him! And she, firmly did he believe, was an angel beside Sepia!--of whom, bad as she was, it is quite possible he thought yet worse than she deserved: alas for the woman who is not good, and falls under the judgment of a bad man!--the good woman he can no more hurt than the serpent can bite the adamant. He believed he knew Sepia's self, although he did not yet know her history; and he scorned her the more that he was not a hair better himself. He had regard enough for his wife, and what virtue his penetration conceded her, to hate their intimacy; and ever since his marriage had been scheming how to get rid of Sepia--only, however, through finding her out: he must unmask her: there would be no satisfaction in getting rid of her without his wife's convinced acquiescence. He had been, therefore, almost all the time more or less on the watch to uncover the wickedness he felt sure lay at no great depth beneath her surface; and in the mean time, and for the sake of this end, he lived on terms of decent domiciliation with her. She had no suspicion how thin was the crust between her and the lava.

In Cornwall, he began at length to puzzle himself about Mary. Of course she was just like the rest! but he did not at once succeed in fitting what he saw to what he entirely believed of her. She remained, like Sepia, a riddle to be solved. He was not so ignorant as his wife concerning the relations of the different cla.s.ses, and he felt certain there must be some reason, of course a discreditable one, for her leaving her former, and taking her present, position. The attack he had in Cornwall afforded him unexpected opportunity of making her out, as he called it.

Upon this occasion it was also that Mary first ventured to expostulate with her mistress on her neglect of her husband. She heard her patiently; and the same day, going to his room, paid him some small attention--handed him his medicine, I believe, but clumsily, because ungraciously. The next moment, one of his fits of pain coming on, he broke into such a torrent of cursing as swept her in stately dignity from the room. She would not go near him again.

"Brought up as you have been, Mary," she said, "you can not enter into the feelings of one in my position, to whom the very tone even of coa.r.s.e language is unspeakably odious. It makes me sick with disgust.

Coa.r.s.eness is what no lady can endure. I beg you will not mention Mr.

Redmain to me again."

"Dear Mrs. Redmain," said Mary, "ugly as such language is, there are many things worse. It seems to me worse that a wife should not go near her husband when he is suffering than that he should in his pain speak bad words."

She had been on the point of saying that a thin skin was not purity, but bethought herself in time.

"You are scarcely in a position to lay down the law for me, Mary," said Hesper. "We will, if you please, drop the subject."

Mary's words were overheard, as was a good deal in the house more than was reckoned on, and reached Mr. Redmain, whom they perplexed: what could the young woman hope from taking his part?

One morning, after the arrival of Mewks, his man, Mary heard Mr.

Redmain calling him in a tone which betrayed that he had been calling for some time: the house was an old one, and the bells were neither in good trim, nor was his in a convenient position. She thought first to find Mewks, but pity rose in her heart. She ran to Mr. Redmain's door, which stood half open, and showed herself.

"Can _I_ not do something for you, sir?" she said.

"Yes, you can. Go and tell that lumbering idiot to come to me instantly. No! here, you!--there's a good girl!--Oh, d.a.m.n!--Just give me your hand, and help me to turn an inch or two."

Change of posture relieved him a little. "Thank you," he said. "That is better. Wait a few moments, will you--till the rascal comes?"

Mary stood back, a little behind him, thinking not to annoy him with the sight of her.

"What are you doing there?" he cried. "I like to see what people are about in my room. Come in front here, and let me look at you."

Mary obeyed, and with a smile took the position he pointed out to her.

Immediately followed another agony of pain, in which he looked beset with demons, whom he not feared but hated. Mary hurried to him, and, in the compa.s.sion which she inherited long back of Eve, took his hand, the fingers of which were twisting themselves into shapes like tree-roots.

With a hoa.r.s.e roar, he dashed hers from him, as if it had been a serpent. She returned to her place, and stood.

"What did you mean by that?" he said, when he came to himself. "Do you want to make a fool of me?"