"It's three words of an intimation as I'd like to give--nothing of no importance; a meeting of the flock as some of us would like to call, if it's quite agreeable--nothing as you need mind, Mr. Vincent. We wouldn't go for to occupy your time, sir, attending of it. There wasn't no opportunity to tell you before. I'll give it out, if it's agreeable,"

said Tozer, with hesitation--"or if you'd rather----"

"Give it to me," said the minister quickly. He took the paper out of the b.u.t.terman's hand, who drew back uncomfortable and embarra.s.sed, wishing himself anywhere in the world but in the pulpit, from which that revolutionary doc.u.ment menaced the startled pastor with summary deposition. It was a sufficiently simple notice of a meeting to be held on the following Monday evening, in the schoolroom, which was the scene of all the tea and other meetings of Salem. This, however, was no tea-meeting. Vincent drew his breath hard, and changed colour, as he bent down under the shadow of the pulpit-cushion and the big Bible, and read this dangerous doc.u.ment. Meanwhile the flock sang their hymn, to which Tozer, much discomposed, added a few broken notes of tremulous ba.s.s as he sat by the minister's side. When Mr. Vincent again raised his head, and sat erect with the notice in his hand, the troubled deacon made vain attempts to catch his eye, and ask what was to be done. The Nonconformist made no reply to these telegraphic communications. When the sinking was ended he rose, still with the paper in his hand, and faced the congregation, where he no longer saw one face with a vague background of innumerable other faces, but had suddenly woke up to behold his battle-ground and field of warfare, in which everything dear to him was suddenly a.s.sailed. Unawares the a.s.sembled people, who had received no special sensation from the sermon, woke up also at the sight of Vincent's face. He read the notice to them with a voice that tingled through the place; then he paused. "This meeting is one of which I have not been informed," said Vincent. "It is one which I am not asked to attend. I invite you to it, all who are here present; and I invite you thereafter," continued the minister, with an unconscious elevation of his head, "to meet me on the following evening to hear what I have to say to you. Probably the business will be much the same on both occasions, but it will be approached from different sides of the question. I invite you to meet on Monday, according to this notice; and I invite you on Tuesday, at the same place and hour, to meet me."

Vincent did not hear the audible hum and buzz of surprise and excitement which ran through his startled flock. He did not pay much attention to what Tozer said to him when all was over. He lingered in his vestry, taking off his gown, until he could hear Lady Western's carriage drive off after an interval of lingering. The young Dowager had gone out slowly, thinking to see him, and comfort him with a compliment about his sermon, concerning the quality of which she was not critical. She was sorry in her kind heart to perceive his troubled looks, and to discover that somehow, she could not quite understand how, something annoying and unexpected had occurred to him. And then this uneasy companion, to whom he had bound her, and whose strange agitation and wonderful change of aspect Lady Western could in no way account for--But the carriage rolled away at last, not without reluctance, while the minister still remained in his vestry. Then he hurried home, speaking to no one. Mrs. Vincent did not understand her son all day, nor even next morning, when he might have been supposed to have time to calm down. He was very silent, but no longer dreamy or languid, or lost in the vague discontent and dejection with which she was familiar. On the contrary, the minister had woke up out of that abstraction. He was wonderfully alert, open-eyed, full of occupation. When he sat down to his writing-table it was not to muse, with his pen in his languid fingers, now and then putting down a sentence, but to write straight forward with evident fire and emphasis.

He was very tender to herself, but he did not tell her anything. Some new cloud had doubtless appeared on the firmament where there was little need for any further clouds. The widow rose on the Monday morning with a presentiment of calamity on her mind--rose from the bed in Susan's room which she occupied for two or three hours in the night, sometimes s.n.a.t.c.hing a momentary sleep, which Susan's smallest movement interrupted. Her heart was rent in two between her children. She went from Susan's bedside, where her daughter lay in dumb apathy, not to be roused by anything that could be said or done, to minister wistfully at Arthur's breakfast, which, with her heart in her throat, the widow made a pitiful pretence of sharing. She could not ask him questions. She was silent, too, in her great love and sorrow. Seeing some new trouble approaching--wistfully gazing into the blank skies before her, to discover, if that were possible, without annoying Arthur, or compromising him, what it was; but rather than compromise or annoy him, contenting herself not to know--the greatest stretch of endurance to which as yet she had constrained her spirit.

Arthur did not go out all that Monday. Even in the house a certain excitement was visible to Mrs. Vincent's keen observation. The landlady herself made her appearance in tears to clear away the remains of the minister's dinner. "I hope, sir, as you don't think what's past and gone has made no difference on me," said that tearful woman in Mrs. Vincent's hearing; "it ain't me as would ever give my support to such doings."

When the widow asked, "What doings?" Arthur only smiled and made some half articulate remark about gossip, which his mother of course treated at its true value. As the dark wintry afternoon closed in, Mrs.

Vincent's anxiety increased under the influence of the landlady's Sunday dress, in which she was visible progressing about the pa.s.sages, and warning her husband to mind he wasn't late. At last Mrs. Tufton called, and the minister's mother came to a true understanding of the state of affairs. Mrs. Tufton was unsettled and nervous, filled with a not unexhilarating excitement, and all the heat of partisanship. "Don't you take on," said the good little woman; "Mr. Tufton is going to the meeting to tell them his sentiments about his young brother. My dear, they will never go against what Mr. Tufton says: and if I should mount upon the platform and make a speech myself, there shan't be anything done that could vex you; for we always said he was a precious young man, and a credit to the connection; and it would be a disgrace to us all to let the Pigeons, or such people, have it all their own way." Mrs.

Vincent managed to ascertain all the particulars from the old minister's wife. When she was gone, the widow sat down a little with a very desolate heart to think it all over. Arthur, with a new light in his eye, and determination in his face, was writing in the sitting-room; but Arthur's mother could not sit still as he did, and imagine the scene in the Salem schoolroom, and how everybody discussed and sat upon her boy, and decided all the momentous future of his young life in this private inquisition. She went back, however, beside him, and poured out a cup of tea for him, and managed to swallow one for herself, talking about Susan and indifferent household matters, while the evening wore on and the hour of the meeting approached. A little before that hour Mrs. Vincent left Arthur, with an injunction not to come into the sick-room that evening until she sent for him, as she thought Susan would sleep. As she left the room the landlady went downstairs, gorgeous in her best bonnet and shawl, with all the personal satisfaction which a member of a flock naturally feels when called to a bed of justice to decide the future destiny of its head. The minister's fate was in the hands of his people; and it was with a pleasurable sensation that, from every house throughout Grove Street and the adjacent regions, the good people were going forth to decide it. As for the minister's mother, she went softly back to Susan's room, where the nurse, who was Mrs. Vincent's a.s.sistant, had taken her place. "She looks just the same," said the poor mother.

"Just the same," echoed the attendant. "I don't think myself as there'll be no change until----" Mrs. Vincent turned away silently in her anguish, which she dared not indulge. She wrapped herself in a black shawl, and took out the thick veil of c.r.a.pe which she had worn in her first mourning. n.o.body could recognise her under that screen. But it was with a pang that she tied that sign of woe over her pale face. The touch of the c.r.a.pe made her shiver. Perhaps she was but forestalling the mourning which, in her age and weakness, she might have to renew again.

With such thoughts she went softly through the wintry lighted streets towards Salem. As she approached the door, groups of people going the same way brushed past her through Grove Street. Lively people, talking with animation, pleased with this new excitement, declaring, sometimes so loudly that she could hear them as they pa.s.sed, what side they were on, and that they, for their part, were going to vote for the minister to give him another trial. The little figure in those black robes, with anxious looks shrouded under the c.r.a.pe veil, went on among the rest to the Salem schoolroom. She took her seat close to the door, and saw Tozer and Pigeon, and the rest of the deacons, getting upon the platform, where on occasions more festive the chairman and the leading people had tea. The widow looked through her veil at the b.u.t.terman and the poulterer with one keen pang of resentment, of which she repented instantly. She did not despise them as another might have done. They were the const.i.tuted authorities of the place, and her son's fate, his reputation, his young life, all that he had or could hope for in the world, was in their hands. The decision of the highest authorities in the land was not so important to Arthur as that of the poulterer and the b.u.t.terman. There they stood, ready to open their session, their inquisition, their solemn tribunal. The widow drew her veil close, and clasped her hands together to sustain herself. It was Pigeon who was about to speak.

CHAPTER XVI.

MR. PIGEON was a heavy orator; he was a tall man, badly put together, with a hollow crease across his waistcoat, which looked very much as if he might be folded in two, and so laid away out of mischief. His arms moved foolishly about in the agonies of oratory, as if they did not belong to him; but he did not look absurd through Mrs. Vincent's c.r.a.pe veil, as she sat gazing at the platform on which he stood, and taking in with eager ears every syllable that came from his lips. Mr. Pigeon said it was Mr. Vincent as they had come there to discuss that night. The managers had made up their minds as it was a dooty to lay things before the flock. Mr. Vincent was but a young man, and most in that congregation was ready to make allowances; and as for misfortunes as might have happened to him, he wasn't a-going to lay that to the pastor's charge, nor take no mean advantages. He was for judging a man on his merits, he was. If they was to take Mr. Vincent on his merits without no prejudice, they would find as he hadn't carried out the expectations as was formed of him. Not as there was anything to be said against his preaching; his preaching was well enough, though it wasn't to call rousing up, which was what most folks wanted. There wasn't no desire on the part of the managers to object to his preaching: he had ought to have preached well, that was the truth, for every one as had been connected with Salem in Mr. Tufton's time knew as there was a deal of difference between the new pastor and the old pastor, as far as the work of a congregation went. As for Pigeon's own feelings, he would have held his peace cheerful, if his dooty had permitted him, or if he had seen as it was for the good of the connection. But things was come to that pa.s.s in Salem as a man hadn't ought to mind his own feelings, but had to do his dooty, if he was to be took to the stake for it. And them were his circ.u.mstances, as many a one as he had spoken to in private could say, if they was to speak up.

To all this Mrs. Vincent listened with the profoundest attention behind her veil. The schoolroom was very full of people--almost as full as on the last memorable tea-party, but the square lines of the gas-burners, coming down with two flaring lights each from the low roof, were veiled with no festoons this time, and threw an unmitigated glare upon the people, all in their dark winter-dresses, without any attempt at special embellishment. Mrs. Pigeon was in the foreground, on a side-bench near the platform, very visible to the minister's mother, nodding her head and giving triumphant glances around now and then to point her husband's confused sentences. Mrs. Pigeon had her daughters spread out on one side of her, all in their best bonnets, and at the corner of the same seat sat little Mrs. Tufton, who shook her charitable head when the poulterer's wife nodded hers, and put her handkerchief to her eyes now and then, as she gazed up at the platform, not without a certain womanly misgiving as to how her husband was going to conduct himself. The Tozers had taken up their position opposite. Mrs. Tozer and her daughter had all the appearance of being in great spirits, especially Phoebe, who seemed scarcely able to contain her amus.e.m.e.nt as Mr. Pigeon went on. All this Mrs. Vincent saw as clearly as in a picture through the dark folds of her veil. She sat back as far as she could into the shade, and pressed her hands close together, and was noways amused, but listened with as profound an ache of anxiety in her heart as if Pigeon had been the Lord Chancellor. As for the audience in general, it showed some signs of weariness as the poulterer stumbled on through his confused speech; and not a restless gesture, not a suppressed yawn in the place, but was apparent to the minister's mother. The heart in her troubled bosom beat steadier as she gazed; certainly no violent sentiment actuated the good people of Salem as they sat staring with calm eyes at the speaker. Mrs. Vincent knew how a congregation looked when it was thoroughly excited and up in arms against its head. She drew a long breath of relief, and suffered the tight clasp of her hands to relax a little. There was surely no popular pa.s.sion there.

And then Mr. Tufton got up, swaying heavily with his large uncertain old figure over the table. The old minister sawed the air with his white fat hand after he had said "My beloved brethren" twice over; and little Mrs. Tufton, sitting below in her impatience and anxiety lest he should not acquit himself well, dropt her handkerchief and disappeared after it, while Mrs. Vincent erected herself under the shadow of her veil. Mr.

Tufton did his young brother no good. He was so sympathetic over the misfortunes that had befallen Vincent's family, that bitter tears came to the widow's eyes, and her hands once more tightened in a silent strain of self-support. While the old minister impressed upon his audience the duty of bearing with his dear young brother, and being indulgent to the faults of his youth, it was all the poor mother could do to keep silent, to stifle down the indignant sob in her heart, and keep steady in her seat. Perhaps it was some breath of anguish escaping from her unawares that drew towards her the restless gleaming eyes of another strange spectator there. That restless ghost of a woman!--all shrunken, gleaming, ghastly--her eyes looking all about in an obliquity of furtive glances, fearing yet daring everything. When she found Mrs.

Vincent out, she fixed her suspicious desperate gaze upon the c.r.a.pe veil which hid the widow's face. The deacons of Salem were to Mrs. Hilyard but so many wretched masquers playing a rude game among the dreadful wastes of life, of which these poor fools were ignorant. Sometimes she watched them with a reflection of her old amus.e.m.e.nt--oftener, pursued by her own tyrannical fancy and the wild restlessness which had brought her here, forgot altogether where she was. But Mrs. Vincent's sigh, which breathed unutterable things--the steady fixed composure of that little figure while the old minister maundered on with his condolences, his regrets, his self-glorification over the interest he had taken in his dear young brother, and the advice he had given him--could not miss the universal scrutiny of this strange woman's eyes. She divined, with a sudden awakening of the keen intelligence which was half crazed by this time, yet vivid as ever, the state of mind in which the widow was. With a half-audible cry the Back Grove Street needlewoman gazed at the minister's mother; in poignant trouble, anxiety, indignant distress--clasping her tender hands together yet again to control the impatience, the resentment, the aching mortification and injury with which she heard all this maudlin pity overflowing the name of her boy--yet, ah! what a world apart from the guilty and desperate spirit which sat there gazing like Dives at Lazarus. Mrs. Hilyard slid out of her seat with a rapid stealthy movement, and placed herself unseen by the widow's side. The miserable woman put forth her furtive hand and took hold of the black gown--the old black silk gown, so well worn and long preserved. Mrs. Vincent started a little, looked at her, gave her a slight half-spasmodic nod of recognition, and returned to her own absorbing interest. The interruption made her raise her head a little higher under the veil, that not even this stranger might imagine Arthur's mother to be affected by what was going on. For everything else, Mrs. Hilyard had disappeared out of the widow's memory. She was thinking only of her son.

As for the other minister's wife, poor Mrs. Tufton's handkerchief dropped a great many times during her husband's speech. Oh, if these blundering men, who mismanage matters so, could but be made to hold their peace! Tears of vexation and distress came into the eyes of the good little woman. Mr. Tufton meant to do exactly what was right; she knew he did; but to sit still and hear him making such a muddle of it all! Such penalties have to be borne by dutiful wives. She had to smile feebly, when he concluded, to somebody who turned round to congratulate her upon the minister's beautiful speech. The beautiful speech had done poor Vincent a great deal more harm than Pigeon's oration. Salem folks, being appealed to on this side, found out that they had, after all, made great allowances for their minister, and that he had not on his part shown a due sense of their indulgence. Somebody else immediately after went on in the same strain: a little commotion began to rise in the quiet meeting. "Mr. Tufton's 'it it," said a malcontent near Mrs.

Vincent; "we've been a deal too generous, that's what we've been; and he's turned on us." "He was always too high for my fancy," said another.

"It ain't the thing for a pastor to be high-minded; and them lectures and things was never nothing but vanity; and so I always said." Mrs.

Vincent smiled a wan smile to herself under her veil. She refused to let the long breath escape from her breast in the form of a sigh. She sat fast, upright, holding her hands clasped. Things were going against Arthur. Unseen among all his foes, with an answer, and more than an answer, to everything they said, burning in dumb restrained eloquence in her breast, his mother held up his banner. One at least was there who knew Arthur, and lifted up a dumb protest on his behalf to earth and heaven. She felt with an uneasy half-consciousness that some haunting shadow was by her side, and was even vaguely aware of the hold upon her dress, but had no leisure in her mind for anything but the progress of this contest, and the gradual overthrow, accomplishing before her eyes, of Arthur's cause.

It was at this moment that Tozer rose up to make that famous speech which has immortalised him in the connection, and for which the Homerton students, in their enthusiasm, voted a piece of plate to the worthy b.u.t.terman. The face of the Salem firmament was cloudy when Tozer rose; suggestions of discontent were surging among the audience. Heads of families were stretching over the benches to confide to each other how long it was since they had seen the minister; how he never had visited as he ought; and how desirable "a change" might prove. Spiteful glances of triumph sought poor Phoebe and her mother upon their bench, where the two began to fail in their courage, and laughed no longer. A crisis was approaching. Mrs. Tufton picked up her handkerchief, and sat erect, with a frightened face; she, too, knew the symptoms of the coming storm.

Such were the circ.u.mstances under which Tozer rose in the pastor's defence.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Tozer,--"and Mr. Chairman, as I ought to have said first, if this meeting had been const.i.tuted like most other meetings have been in Salem; but, my friends, we haven't met not in what I would call an honest and straight-forward way, and consequently we ain't in order, not as a free a.s.sembly should be, as has met to know its own mind, and not to be dictated to by n.o.body. There are them as are ready to dictate in every body of men. I don't name no names; I don't make no suggestions; what I'm a-stating of is a general truth as is well known to every one as has studied philosophy. I don't come here pretending as I'm a learned man, nor one as knows better nor my neighbours. I'm a plain man, as likes everything fair and aboveboard, and is content when I'm well off. What I've got to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, ain't no grumbling nor reflecting upon them as is absent and can't defend themselves. I've got two things to say--first, as I think you haven't been called together not in an open way; and, second, that I think us Salem folks, as ought to know better, is a-quarrelling with our bread-and-b.u.t.ter, and don't know when we're well off!

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen! them's my sentiments! we don't know when we're well off! and if we don't mind, we'll find out how matters really is when we've been and disgusted the pastor, and drove him to throw it all up. Such a thing ain't uncommon; many and many's the one in our connection as has come out for the ministry, meaning nothing but to stick to it, and has been drove by them as is to be found in every flock--them as is always ready to dictate--to throw it all up. My friends, the pastor as is the subject of this meeting"--here Tozer sank his voice and looked round with a certain solemnity--"Mr. Vincent, ladies and gentlemen, as has doubled the seat-holders in Salem in six months' work, and, I make bold to say, brought one-half of you as is here to be regular at chapel, and take an interest in the connection--Mr. Vincent, I say, as you're all collected here to knock down in the dark, if so be as you are willing to be dictated to--the same, ladies and gentlemen, as we're a-discussing of to-night--told us all, it ain't so very long ago, in the crowdedest meeting as I ever see, in the biggest public hall in Carlingford--as we weren't keeping up to the standard of the old Nonconformists, nor showing, as we ought, what a voluntary church could do. It ain't pleasant to hear of, for us as thinks a deal of ourselves; but that is what the pastor said, and there was not a man as could contradict it. Now, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what is the reason? It's all along of this as we're doing to-night. We've got a precious young man, as Mr. Tufton tells you, and a clever young man, as n.o.body tries for to deny; and there ain't a single blessed reason on this earth why he shouldn't go on as he's been a-doing, till, Salem bein' crowded out to the doors (as it's been two Sundays back), we'd have had to build a new chapel, and took a place in our connection as we've never yet took in Carlingford!"

Mr. Tozer paused to wipe his heated forehead, and ease his excited bosom with a long breath; his audience paused with him, taking breath with the orator in a slight universal rustle, which is the most genuine applause. The worthy b.u.t.terman resumed in a lowered and emphatic tone.

"But it ain't to be," said Tozer, looking round him with a tragic frown, and shaking his head slowly. "Them as is always a-finding fault, and always a-setting up to dictate, has set their faces again' all that.

It's the way of some folks in our connection, ladies and gentlemen; a minister ain't to be allowed to go on building up a chapel, and making hisself useful in the world. He ain't to be left alone to do his dooty as his best friends approve. He's to be took down out of his pulpit, and took to pieces behind his back, and made a talk and a scandal of to the whole connection! It's not his preaching as he's judged by, nor his dooty to the sick and dyin', nor any of them things as he was called to be pastor for; but it's if he's seen going to one house more nor another, or if he calls often enough on this one or t'other, and goes to all the tea-drinkings. My opinion is," said Tozer, suddenly breaking off into jocularity, "as a young man as may-be isn't a marrying man, and anyhow can't marry more nor one, ain't in the safest place at Salem tea-drinkings; but that's neither here nor there. If the ladies haven't no pity, us men can't do nothing in that matter; but what I say is this," continued the b.u.t.terman, once more becoming solemn; "to go for to judge the pastor of a flock, not by the dooty he does to his flock, but by the times he calls at one house or another, and the way he makes hisself agreeable at one place or another, ain't a thing to be done by them as prides themselves on being Christians and Dissenters. It's not like Christians--and if it's like Dissenters the more's the pity. It's mean, that's what it is," cried Tozer, with fine scorn; "it's like a parcel of old women, if the ladies won't mind me saying so. It's beneath us as has liberty of conscience to fight for, and has to set an example before the Church folks as don't know no better. But it's what is done in our connection," added the good deacon with pathos, shaking his forefinger mournfully at the crowd. "When there's a young man as is clever and talented, and fills a chapel, and gives the connection a chance of standing up in the world as it ought, here's some one as jumps up and says, 'The pastor don't come to see me,' says he--'the pastor don't do his duty--he ain't the man for Salem.' And them as is always in every flock ready to do a mischief, takes it up; and there's talk of a change, and meetings is called, and--here we are! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here we are! We've called a meeting, all in the dark, and give him no chance of defending himself; and them as is at the head of this movement is calling upon us to dismiss Mr. Vincent. But let me tell you," continued Tozer, lowering his voice with a dramatic intuition, and shaking his forefinger still more emphatically in the face of the startled audience, "that this ain't no question of dismissing Mr.

Vincent; it's a matter of disgusting Mr. Vincent, that's what it is--it's a matter of turning another promising young man away from the connection, and driving him to throw it all up. You mark what I say.

It's what we're doing most places, us Dissenters; them as is talented and promising and can get a better living working for the world than working for the chapel, and won't give in to be worried about calling here and calling there--we're a-driving of them out of the connection, that's what we're doing! I could reckon up as many as six or seven as has been drove off already, and I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what's the good of subscribing and keeping up of colleges and so forth, if that's how you're a-going to serve every clever young man as trusts hisself to be your pastor? I'm a man as don't feel no shame to say that the minister, being took up with his family affairs and his studies, has been for weeks as he hasn't crossed my door; but am I that poor-spirited as I would drive away a young man as is one of the best preachers in the connection, because he don't come, not every day, to see me? No, my friends! them as would ever suspect such a thing of me don't know who they're a-dealing with; and I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, as this is a question as must come home to every one of your bosoms. Them as is so set upon their own way that they can't hear reason--or them as is led away by folks as like to dictate--may give their voice again' the minister, if so be as they think fit; but as for me, and them as stands by me, I ain't a-going to give in to no such tyranny! It shall never be said in our connection as a clever young man was drove away from Carlingford, and I had part in it. There's the credit o' the denomination to keep up among the Church folks--and there's the chapel to fill, as never had half the sittings let before--and there's Mr.

Vincent, as is the cleverest young man I ever see in our pulpit, to be kep' in the connection; and there ain't no man living as shall dictate to me or them as stands by me! Them as is content to lose the best preaching within a hundred miles, because the minister don't call on two or three families in Salem, not as often as they would like to see him,"

said Tozer, with trenchant sarcasm, "can put down their names again' Mr.

Vincent; but for me, and them as stands by me, we ain't a-going to give in to no such dictation: we ain't a-going to set up ourselves against the spread of the Gospel, and the credit o' the connection, and toleration and freedom of conscience, as we're bound to fight for! If the pastor don't make hisself agreeable, I can put up with that--I can; but I ain't a-going to see a clever young man drove away from Salem, and the sittings vacant, and the chapel falling to ruin, and the Church folks a-laughing and a-jeering at us, not for all the deacons in the connection, nor any man in Carlingford. And this I say for myself and for all as stands by me!"

The last sentence was lost in thunders of applause. The "Salem folks"

stamped with their feet, knocked the floor with their umbrellas, clapped their hands in a furore of enthusiasm and sympathy. Their pride was appealed to; n.o.body could bear the imputation of being numbered among the two or three to whom the minister had not paid sufficient attention.

All the adherents of the Pigeon party deserted that luck-less family sitting prominent upon their bench, with old Mrs. Tufton at the corner joining as heartily as her over-shoes would permit in the general commotion. There they sat, a pale line of faces, separated, by their looks of dismay and irresponsive silence, from the applauding crowd, cruelly identified as "them as is always ready to dictate." The occasion was indeed a grand one, had the leader of the opposition been equal to it; but Mrs. Pigeon only sat and stared at the new turn of affairs with a hysterical smile of spite and disappointment fixed on her face. Before the cheers died away, a young man--one of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation connected with Salem--jumped up on a bench in the midst of the a.s.sembly, and clinched the speech of Tozer. He told the admiring meeting that he had been brought up in the connection, but had strayed away into carelessness and neglect--and when he went anywhere at all on Sundays, went to church like one of the common mult.i.tude, till Mr.

Vincent's lectures on Church and State opened his eyes, and brought him to better knowledge. Then came another, and another. Mrs. Vincent, sitting on the back seat with her veil over her face, did not hear what they said. The heroic little soul had broken down, and was lost in silent tears, and utterances in her heart of thanksgiving, deeper than words. No comic aspect of the scene appeared to her; she was not moved by its vulgarity or oddity. It was deliverance and safety to the minister's mother. Her son's honour and his living were alike safe, and his people had stood by Arthur. She sat for some time longer, lost in that haze of comfort and relief, afraid to move lest perhaps something untoward might still occur to change this happy state of affairs--keen to detect any evil symptom, if such should occur, but unable to follow with any exactness the course of those addresses which still continued to be made in her hearing. She was not quite sure, indeed, whether anybody had spoken after Tozer, when, with a step much less firm than on her entrance, she went forth, wiping the tears that blinded her from under her veil, into the darkness and quiet of the street outside. But she knew that "resolutions" of support and sympathy had been carried by acclamation, and that somebody was deputed from the flock to a.s.sure the minister of its approval, and to offer him the new lease of popularity thus won for him in Salem. Mrs. Vincent waited to hear no more. She got up softly and went forth on noiseless, weary feet, which faltered, now that her anxiety was over, with fatigue and agitation. Thankful to the bottom of her heart, yet at the same time doubly worn out with that deliverance, confused with the lights, the noises, and the excitement of the scene, and beginning already to take up her other burden, and to wonder by times, waking up with sharp touches of renewed anguish, how she might find Susan, and whether "any change" had appeared in her other child. It was thus that the great Salem congregational meeting, so renowned in the connection, ended for the minister's mother. She left them still making speeches when she emerged into Grove Street. The political effect of Tozer's address, or the influence which his new doctrine might have on the denomination, did not occur to Mrs. Vincent.

She was thinking only of Arthur. Not even the darker human misery by her side had power to break through her preoccupation. How the gentle little woman had shaken off that anxious hand which grasped her old black dress, she never knew herself, nor could any one tell; somehow she had done it: alone, as she entered, she went away again--secret, but not clandestine, under that veil of her widowhood. She put it up from her face when she got into the street, and wiped her tears off with a trembling, joyful hand. She could not see her way clearly for those tears of joy. When they were dried, and the c.r.a.pe shadow put back from her face, Mrs. Vincent looked up Grove Street, where her road lay in the darkness, broken by those flickering lamps. It was a windy night, and Dr. Rider's drag went up past her rapidly, carrying the doctor home from some late visit, and recalling her thoughts to her own patient whom she had left so long. She quickened her tremulous steps as Dr. Rider disappeared in the darkness; but almost before she had got beyond the last echoes of the Salem meeting, that shadow of darker woe and misery than any the poor mother wist of, was again by Mrs. Vincent's side.

CHAPTER XVII.

"YOU are not able to walk so fast," said Mrs. Hilyard, coming up to the widow as she crossed over to the darker side of Grove Street, just where the house of the Miss Hemmings turned its lighted staircase-window to the street; "and it will not harm you to let me speak to you. Once you offered me your hand, and would have gone with me. It is a long long time ago--ages since--but I remember it. I do not come after you for nothing. Let me speak. You said you were a--a minister's wife, and knew human nature," she continued, with a certain pause of reverence, and at the same time a gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt, varying for a moment the blank and breathless voice in which she had spoken. "I want your advice."

Mrs. Vincent, who had paused with an uncomfortable sensation of being pursued, recovered herself a little during this address. The minister's mother had no heart to linger and talk to any one at that moment, after all the excitement of the evening, with her fatigued frame and occupied mind; but still she was the minister's mother, as ready and prepared as Arthur himself ought to have been, to hear anything that any of the flock might have to say to her, and to give all the benefit of her experience to anybody connected with Salem, who might be in trouble. "I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Vincent; "my daughter is ill--that is why I was making so much haste; but I am sure, if I can be of any use to any member of--I mean to any of my son's friends"--she concluded rather abruptly. She did not remember much about this woman, who was strangely unlike the other people in Salem. When was that time in which they had met before? The widow's mind had been so swept by the whirlwind of events and emotions, that she remembered only dimly how and where it was she had formerly seen her strange companion.

"Your daughter is ill?" said Mrs. Hilyard; "that is how trouble happens to you. You are a good woman; you don't interfere in G.o.d's business; and this is how your trouble comes. You can nurse her and be about her bed; and when she wakes up, it is to see you and be grateful to you. But my child," she said, touching the widow's arm suddenly with her hand, and suppressing painfully a shrill tone of anguish in her voice which would break through, "does not know me. She opens her blue eyes--they are not even my eyes--they are Alice's eyes, who has no right to my child--and looks at me as if I were a stranger; and for all this time, since I parted with her, I have not heard--I do not know where she is. Hush, hush, hush!" she went on, speaking to herself, "to think that this is me, and that I should break down so at last. A woman has not soul enough to subdue her nerves for ever. But this is not what I wanted to say to you. I gave Miss Smith your son's address----"

Having said this, she paused, and looked anxiously at the widow, who looked at her also in the windy gleams of lamplight with more and more perplexity. "Who is Miss Smith?" asked poor Mrs. Vincent. "Who are--you?

Indeed, I am very sorry to seem rude; but my mind has been so much occupied. Arthur, of course, would know if he were here, but Susan's illness has taken up all my thoughts; and--I beg your pardon--she may want me even now," she continued, quickening her steps. Even the courtesy due to one of the flock had a limit; and the minister's mother knew it was necessary not to yield too completely to all the demands that her son's people might make upon her. Was this even one of her son's people? Such persons were unusual in the connection. Mrs. Vincent, all fatigued, excited, and anxious as she was, felt at her wits' end.

"Yes, your son would know if he were here; he has taken my parole and trusted me," said the strange woman; "but a woman's parole should not be taken. I try to keep it; but unless they come, or I have news---- Who am I? I am a woman that was once young and had friends. They married me to a man, who was not a man, but a fine organisation capable of pleasures and cruelties. Don't speak. You are very good; you are a minister's wife. You don't know what it is, when one is young and happy, to find out all at once that life means only so much torture and misery, and so many lies, either done by you or borne by you--what does it matter which? My baby came into the world with a haze on her sweet soul because of that discovery. If it had been but her body!" said Mrs. Vincent's strange companion, with bitterness. "A dwarfed creature, or deformed, or---- But she was beautiful--she is beautiful, as pretty as Alice; and if she lives, she will be rich. Hush, hush! you don't know what my fears were," continued Mrs. Hilyard, with a strange humility, once more putting her hand on the widow's arm. "If he could have got possession of her, how could I tell what he might have done?--killed her--but that would have been dangerous; poisoned what little mind she had left--made her like her mother. I stole her away. Long ago, when I thought she might have been safe with you, I meant to have told you. I stole her out of his power. For a little while she was with me, and he traced us--then I sent the child away. I have not seen her but in glimpses, lest he should find her. It has cost me all I had, and I have lived and worked with my hands," said the needlewoman of Back Grove Street, lifting her thin fingers to the light and looking at them, pathetic vouchers to the truth of her story. "When he drove me desperate," she went on, labouring in vain to conceal the panting, long-drawn breath which impeded her utterance, "you know? I don't talk of that. The child put her arms round that old woman after her mother had saved her. She had not a word, not a word for me, who had done---- But it was all for her sake. This is what I have had to suffer. She looked in my face and waved me away from her and said, 'Susan, Susan!' Susan meant your daughter--a new friend, a creature whom she had not seen a week before--and no word, no look, no recognition for me!"

"Oh, I am very sorry, very sorry!" said Mrs. Vincent, in her turn taking the poor thin hand with an instinct of consolation. Susan's name, thus introduced, went to the mother's heart. She could have wept over the other mother thus complaining, moaning out her troubles in her compa.s.sionate ear.

"I left them in a safe place. I came home to fall into your son's hands.

He might have been sure, had it come to that, that no one should have suffered for me" said Mrs. Hilyard, with again a tone of bitterness.

"What was my life worth, could any man suppose? And since then I have not heard a word--not a word--whether the child is still where I left her, or whether some of his people have found her--or whether she is ill--or whether--I know nothing, nothing! Have a little pity upon me, you innocent woman! I never asked pity, never sought sympathy before; but a woman can never tell what she may be brought to. I am brought down to the lowest depths. I cannot stand upright any longer," she cried, with a wailing sigh. "I want somebody--somebody at least to give me a little comfort. Comfort! I remember," she said, with one of those sudden changes of tone which bewildered Mrs. Vincent, "your son once spoke to me of getting comfort from those innocent young sermons of his. He knows a little better now; he does not sail over the surface now as he used to do in triumph. Life has gone hard with him, as with me and all of us.

Tell him, if I get no news I will break my parole. I cannot help myself--a woman's honour is not her word. I told him so. Say to your son----"

"My son? what have you to do with my son?" said Mrs. Vincent, with a sudden pang. The poor mother was but a woman too. She did not understand what this connection was. A worn creature, not much younger than herself, what possible tie could bind her to Arthur? The widow, like other women, could believe in any "infatuation" of men; but could not understand any other bond subsisting between these two. The thought went to her heart. Young men had been known before now to be mysteriously attracted by women old, unbeautiful, unlike themselves. Could this be Arthur's fate? Perhaps it was a danger more dismal than that which he had just escaped in Salem. Mrs. Vincent grew sick at heart. She repeated, with an asperity of which her soft voice might have been thought incapable, "What have you to do with my son?"

Mrs. Hilyard made no answer--perhaps she did not hear the question. Her eyes, always restlessly turning from one object to another, had found out, in the lighted street to which they had now come, a belated postman delivering his last letters. She followed him with devouring looks; he went to Vincent's door as they approached, delivered something, and pa.s.sed on into the darkness with a careless whistle. While Mrs. Vincent watched her companion with doubtful and suspicious looks through the veil which, once more among the lights of Grange Street, the minister's mother had drawn over her face, the unconscious object of her suspicion grasped her arm, and turned to her with beseeching eyes. "It may be news of my child?" she said, with a supplication beyond words. She drew the widow on with the desperation of her anxiety. The little maid had still the letter in her hand when she opened the door. It was not even for Mr.

Vincent. It was for the mistress of the house, who had not yet returned from the meeting at Salem. Mrs. Vincent paused upon the threshold, compa.s.sionate but determined. She looked at the unhappy woman who stood upon the steps in the light of the lamp, gazing eagerly in at the door, and resolved that she should penetrate no farther; but even in the height of her determination the widow's heart smote her when she looked at that face, so haggard and worn with pa.s.sion and anxiety, with its furtive gleaming eyes, and all the dark lines of endurance which were so apparent now, when the tide of emotion had grown too strong to be concealed. "Have you--no--friends in Carlingford?" said the widow, with hesitation and involuntary pity. She could not ask her to enter where, perhaps, her presence might be baleful to Arthur; but the little woman's tender heart ached, even in the midst of her severity, for the suffering in that face.

"Nowhere!" said Mrs. Hilyard; then, with a gleam out of her eyes which took the place of a smile, "Do not be sorry for me; I want no friends--n.o.body could share my burden with me. I am going back--home--to Alice. Tell Mr. Vincent; I think something must happen to-night," she added, with a slight shiver; "it grows intolerable, beyond bearing.

Perhaps by the telegraph--or perhaps---- And Miss Smith has this address. I told you my story," she went on, drawing closer, and taking the widow's hand, "that you might have pity on me, and understand--no, not understand; how could she?--but if you were like me, do you think you could sit still in one place, with so much upon your heart? You never could be like me--but if you had lost your child----"

"I did," said Mrs. Vincent, drawing a painful breath at the recollection, and drawn unwittingly by the sight of the terrible anxiety before her into a reciprocation of confidence--"my child who had been in my arms all her life--G.o.d gave her back again; and now, while I am speaking, He may be taking her away," said the mother, with a sudden return of all her anxiety. "I cannot do you any good, and Susan may want me: good-night--good-night."

"It was not G.o.d who gave her back to you," said Mrs. Hilyard, grasping the widow's hand closer--"it was I--remember it was I. When you think hardly of me, recollect--I did it. She might have been--but I freed her--remember; and if you hear anything, if it were but a whisper, of my child, think of it, and have pity on me. You will?--you understand what I say?"

The widow drew away her hand with a pang of fear. She retreated hurriedly, yet with what dignity she could, calling the little maid to shut the door.

When that strange face, all gleaming, haggard, and anxious, was shut out into the night, Mrs. Vincent went up-stairs very hastily, scarcely able to give her alarmed withdrawal the aspect of an orderly retreat. Was this woman mad to whom she had been speaking so calmly? In her agitation she forgot all the precautions with which she had intended to soften to her son the fact of her attendance at that meeting of which he had not even informed her. Pursued by the recollection of that face, she hastened to Arthur, still in her bonnet and veil. He was seated at the table writing as when she left him; but all the minister's self-control could not conceal a certain expectancy and excitement in the eyes which he raised with a flash of eager curiosity to see who it was that thus invaded his solitude. "Mother! where have you been?" he asked, with irritation, when he perceived her. His impatience and anxiety, and the great effort he had made to subdue both, betrayed him into a momentary outburst of annoyance and vexation. "Where have you been?" he repeated, throwing down his pen. "Surely not to this meeting, to compromise me, as if I had not trouble enough already!" This rude accost put her immediate subject out of Mrs. Vincent's mind: she went up to her son with deprecating looks, and put her hand fondly on his head. The tears came into her eyes, not because his words offended or grieved her, but for joy of the good news she had to tell; for the minister's mother was experienced in the ways of man, and knew how many things a woman does for love which she gets no thanks for doing. Her boy's anger did not make her angry, but it drove other matters, less important, out of her head.

"Oh, Arthur, no one saw me," she said; "I had my veil down all the time.