As the child uttered these words, the widow put her hand to her heart, gave two or three rapid sobs--her bosom heaved, and her head fell back over a chair that was accidentally beside her. Mr. Clement caught her in time to prevent her from falling; he placed her upright on the chair, which he carried to, the little dresser, where he found a jug of water, the only drink she had to give her sick children. With this he bathed her temples and wet her lips, after which he looked upon the scene of death and affliction by which he was surrounded.
"Gracious Father," he exclaimed, "let, your mercy reach this most pitiable family! Look with eyes of pity and compassion upon this afflicted and bereaved woman! Oh, support her--she is poor and nearly heart-broken, and the world has abandoned her! Oh, do not abandon her, Father of all mercy, and God of all consolation!"
As he concluded, the widow recovered, and felt his tears falling upon her face. On looking she perceived how deeply he was affected. Her lips opened unconsciously with a blessing on him who shared in, and soothed her sorrows--her voice was feeble, for she had not yet recovered her strength; but the low murmur of her prayers and blessings rose like the sounds of sweet but melancholy music to heaven, and was heard there.
Mr. Clement then went over to the bed, and with his own hands smoothed it down for the little sick sister of the departed boy, adjusting the bed-clothes about her as well as he could, for the other children were too., young to do anything. He then divided the hair upon the lifeless child's forehead--contemplated his beautiful features for a moment--caught his little hand in his--let it fall--oh! how lifelessly!
he then shook his head, raised his eyes, and pointing to heaven, exclaimed--
"There--Mrs. Vincent, let your hopes lie there."
He then departed, with a promise of seeing her soon.
CHAPTER XII.--Interview between Darby and Mr. Lucre
--Darby feels Scriptural, and was as Scripturally treated--Mr. Lucre's Christian Disposition towards Father M'Cabe--A few Brands offer Themselves to be Plucked from the Burning--Their Qualification, for Conversion, as stated by Themselves.
Mr. Lucre, like almost every Protestant rector of the day, was a magistrate, a circumstance which prevented Mr. Clement from feeling any surprise at seeing a considerable number of persons, of both sexes, approaching the glebe. He imagined, naturally enough, that they were going upon law business, as it is termed--for he knew that Mr. Lucre, during his angel visits to Castle Cumber, took much more delight in administering the law than the gospel, unless, when ready made, in the shape of Bibles. When Darby, also, arrived, he found a considerable number of these persons standing among a little clump of trees in the lawn, apparently waiting for some person to break the ice, and go in first--a feat which each felt anxious to decline himself, whilst he pressed it very strongly upon his neighbor. No sooner had Darby made his appearance than a communication took place between him and them, in which it was settled that he was to have the first interview, and afterwards direct the conduct and motions of the rest. There was, indeed, a dry, knowing look about him, which seemed to imply, in fact, that they were not there without some suggestion from himself.
Darby was very well known to Mr. Lucre, for whom he had frequently acted in the capacity of a bailiff; he accordingly entered with something like an appearance of business, but so admirably balanced was his conduct on this occasion, between his usual sneaking and servile manner, and his privileges as a Christian, that it would be difficult to witness anything so inimitably well managed as his deportment. One circumstance was certainly strongly in his favor; Father M'Cabe had taken care to imprint with his whip a _prima facie_ testimony of sincerity upon his countenance, which was black, and swollen into large welts by the exposition of doctrinal truth which he had received at that gentleman's hands. Lucre, on seeing him, very naturally imagined he was coming to lodge informations for some outrage committed on him either in the discharge of his duty as bailiff, or, for having become a convert, a fact with which he had become acquainted from the True Blue.
"Well, O'Drive," said he, "what is the matter now? you are sadly abused--how came this to pass?"
Darby first looked upwards, very like a man who was conscientiously soliciting some especial grace or gift from above; his lips moved as if in prayer, but he was otherwise motionless--at length he ceased--drew a lone breath, and assumed the serenity of one whose prayer had been granted. The only word he uttered that could possibly be at all understood, was amen; which he pronounced lowly, but still distinctly, and in as unpopish a manner as he could.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he replied, "but now my heart's aisier--I hope I have overcome that feeling that was an me--I can now forgive him for the sake of the spread o' the gospel, and I do."
"What has happened your face?--you are sadly abused!"
"A small taste o' parsecution, sir, which the Lord put into Father M'Cabe's horsewhip--heart I mane--to give me, bekaise I renounced his hathenism, and came into the light o' thruth--may He be praised for it!"
Here followed an upturning of the eyes after the manner of M'Slime.
"Do you mean to tell me, O'Drive, that this outrage has been committed on you by that savage priest, M'Cabe?"
"It was he left me as you see, sir--but it's good to suffer in this world, especially for the thruth. Indeed I am proud of this face," he continued, blinking with a visage so comically disastrous at Mr. Lucre, that had that gentleman had the slightest possible perception of the ludicrous in his composition, not all the gifts and graces that ever were poured down upon the whole staff of the Reformation Society together, would have prevented him from laughing outright. "Of course you are come," pursued Lucre, "to swear information against this man?"
"I have prayed for it," said Darby in a soliloquy, "and I feel that it has been granted. Swear information, sir?--I'll strive and do betther than that, I hope; I must now take my stand by the Bible, sir; that will be the color I'll hoist while I live. In that blessed book I read these words this mornin', 'love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and parsecute you.' Sir, when I read these words, I felt them slidin'
into my heart, and I couldn't help repeatin' them to myself, ever since--and, even when Father M'Cabe was playin' his whip about my ears, I was as hard at work prayin' for his sowl."
This, we have no doubt, was perfectly true, only we fear that our blessed convert forgot to state the precise nature and object of the prayer in question, and to mention whether it was to the upper or lower settlement he consigned the soul alluded to. This Christian spirit of Darby's, however, was by no means in keeping with that of Mr. Lucre, who never was of opinion, in his most charitable of moods, that the gospel should altogether supersede the law. On this occasion, especially, he felt an acuteness of anxiety to got the priest within his power, which the spirit of no gospel that ever was written could repress. M'Cabe and he had never met, or, at least, never spoke; but the priest had, since the commencement of the new movement, sent him a number of the most ludicrous messages, and transmitted to him, for selection, a large assortment of the most comical and degrading epithets. Here, then, was an opportunity of gratifying his resentment in a Christian and constitutional spirit, and with no obstacle in his way but Darby's inveterate piety. This, however, for the sake of truth, he hoped to remove, or so modify, that it would not prevent him from punishing that very disloyal and idolatrous delinquent.
"Those feelings, O'Drive, are all very good and creditable to you, and I am delighted indeed that you entertain them--but, in the meantime, you owe a duty to society greater than that which you owe to yourself.
This man, this priest--a huge, ferocious person I understand he is--has latterly been going about the parish foaming and raging, and seeking whom he can horsewhip."
"That's thruth, sir, poor dark hathen--an', sir--jist beggin' your pardon for one minute, half a minute, sir--you know we're desired when an inimy strikes us upon one cheek to turn the other to him; well, as I said, sir, I found myself very Scriptural this whole day, so when he hit me the first welt on this cheek, I turns round the other, an' now look at the state it's in, sir--but that's not all, sir, he tuck the hint at once, and gave it to me on both sides, till he left me as you see me.
Still, sir, I can forgive him, and I have done it."
"That, as I said, reflects great credit on your principles--but, in the meantime, you can still retain these principles and prosecute him.
Your lodging informations against him does not interfere with your own personal forgiveness of him at all--because it is in behalf of, and for the safety of society that you come forward to prosecute now."
Darby, who in point of fact had his course already taken, shook his head and replied, falling back upon the form of M'Slime's language as much as he could--
"I feel, sir," he replied, "that I'm not permitted."
"Permitted!" repeated the other. "What do you menu?"
"I'm not permitted from above, sir, to prosecute this man. I'm not justified in it."
"Quite ridiculous, O'Drive, where did you pick up this jargon of the conventicle--but that reminds me, by the by--you are not a convert to the Established Church. You belong to the Dissenters, and owe your change of opinions to Mr. M'Slime."
"If I don't belong to the Established Church now, sir," replied Darby, "I won't be long so."
"Why," inquired the other, "are you not satisfied with the denomination of Christians you have joined?"
"M'Slime, sir, converted me--as you say--but I've great objections--and between you and me, I, fear it's not altogether safe for any man to take his religion from an attorney."
A smile, as much as he could condescend to, passed over the haughty, but dignified features of Mr. Lucre.
"O'Drive," said he, "I did not think you possessed so much simplicity of character as I perceive you do--but touching the prosecution of this man--you must lodge information, forthwith. You shall bring the warrant to Mr. M'Clutchy who will back it, and put it into the hands of those who will lose little time in having it executed."
"I am sorry, sir, that my conscience doesn't justify me in doin' what you wish."
"What do you mean by conscience, sir?" asked the other, getting warm, "if you have a conscience you will have no scruple in punishing a man who is an open enemy to truth, to the gospel, and to the spread of it through a benighted land. How can you reconcile it to your conscience to let such a man escape."
"Simply by forgiving him, sir--by lettin' the great, big, ignorant hathen, have the full benefit of a gospel forgiveness. That's what I mean, sir, and surely it stands to sense that I couldn't prosecute him wid these feelin's, barrin' I'd go against the Word."
"O'Drive," said Lucre, evidently mortified at Darby's obstinacy, "one of two things is true; either you are utterly ignorant, perhaps, with every disposition to know them, of the sanctions and obligations of religion, or you are still a Papist at heart, and an impostor. I tell you, sir, once more, that it is upon religious grounds that you ought to prosecute this wild priest; because in doing so, you render a most important service to religion and morality, both of which are outraged in his person. You ought to know this. Again, sir, if you are a Protestant, and have thoroughly cast Popery from your heart, you must necessarily be a loyal man and a good subject; but if you refuse to prosecute him, you can be neither the one nor the other, but a Papist and an impostor, and I've done with you. If Mr. M'Clutchy knew, sir, that you refused to prosecute a priest for such a violent outrage upon your person, I imagine you would not long hold the situation of bailiff under him."
Darby looked into the floor like a philosopher solving a problem.
"I see, sir," said he, "I see--well--you have made that clear enough sartinly; but you know, sir, how could you expect such deep raisoning upon these subjects from a man like me. I see the duty of it now clearly; but, when, sir, on the other hand if I prosecute him, what's to become of me? Will you, sir, bear my funeral expenses?"
"Every penny, O'Drive," replied the other, eagerly. "Tut," he exclaimed, checking himself, "I--I--I thought you meant the expenses of the prosecution."
"It's much the same, sir," replied Darby, "the one will be sure to follow the other. You know the state the country's in now, sir, and how the people on both sides are ready to skiver one another about this religion, and rents and tithes, and dear knows what besides. As it is, sir," he proceeded, "you see that I dursn't walk the road without these," and he produced the pistols as he spoke, "but what chance, sir, would I have if I prosecuted a priest? Why, my life wouldn't be worth two hours' purchase."
Mr. Lucre himself could not help feeling and admitting the truth of this, but as he could devise no plan to obviate the dangers alluded to, he still scrupled not to urge the prosecution.
"Sir," said Darby starting, as if a gleam of light had shot across his brain, "a thought has just struck me, and I hope it was something from above that sent it. If there was any kind of situation, sir, that I could fill, and that would keep me in a place of safety where the hathens couldn't get at me, everything would be right; and be the same token, sir, now that I think of it, isn't the under gaoler-ship of Castle Cumber vacant this minute."
Lucre who, in fact, had set his heart on prosecuting and punishing the priest, would have gladly made Darby governor of the best gaol in his majesty's dominions, rather than lose this opportunity of effecting his purpose.
"Rest contented, O'Drive," he replied, "you shall have it--I pledge myself that you shall have it. My influence is sufficient for much more than so paltry a trifle as that. And now for the informations."
"Ah, sir," replied the other, "that wouldn't mend the matter a bit. Let it go once abroad that I swore them, and I'd never see to-morrow night.
No, sir, if you wish him properly prosecuted,--and I think I ought to know how to do it, too;--but if you wish him properly punished, place me first out of harm's way--out o' the reach o' the hathens; put me into the situation before we take a single step in the business, then I'll be safe and can work in it to some purpose."