Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

“I am no musician,” I returned, “to give you a musical counter to your picture. But I see a grave man tilling the ground in peace, and the form of Truth standing behind him, and folding her wings closer and closer over and around him as he works on at his day’s labour.”

“Very pretty,” said Mr Stoddart, and said no more.

“Suppose,” I went on, “that a person knows that he has not laid hold on the truth, is that sufficient ground for his making any further assertion than that he has not found it?”

“No. But if he has tried hard and has not found ANYTHING that he can say is true, he cannot help thinking that most likely there is no such thing.”

“Suppose,” I said, “that nobody has found the truth, is that sufficient ground for saying that nobody ever will find it? or that there is no such thing as truth to be found? Are the ages so nearly done that no chance yet remains? Surely if God has made us to desire the truth, He has got some truth to cast into the gulf of that desire. Shall God create hunger and no food? But possibly a man may be looking the wrong way for it. You may be using the microscope, when you ought to open both eyes and lift up your head. Or a man may be finding some truth which is feeding his soul, when he does not think he is finding any. You know the Fairy Queen. Think how long the Redcross Knight travelled with the Lady Truth—Una, you know—without learning to believe in her; and how much longer still without ever seeing her face. For my part, may God give me strength to follow till I die. Only I will venture to say this, that it is not by any agony of the intellect that I expect to discover her.”

Mr Stoddart sat drumming silently with his fingers, a half-smile on his face, and his eyes raised at an angle of forty-five degrees. I felt that the enthusiasm with which I had spoken was thrown away upon him. But I was not going to be ashamed therefore. I would put some faith in his best nature.

“But does not,” he said, gently lowering his eyes upon mine after a moment’s pause—“does not your choice of a profession imply that you have not to give chase to a fleeting phantom? Do you not profess to have, and hold, and therefore teach the truth?”

“I profess only to have caught glimpses of her white garments,—those, I mean, of the abstract truth of which you speak. But I have seen that which is eternally beyond her: the ideal in the real, the living truth, not the truth that I can THINK, but the truth that thinks itself, that thinks me, that God has thought, yea, that God is, the truth BEING true to itself and to God and to man—Christ Jesus, my Lord, who knows, and feels, and does the truth. I have seen Him, and I am both content and unsatisfied. For in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Thomas a Kempis says: ‘Cui aeternum Verbum loquitur, ille a multis opinionibus expeditur.’” (He to whom the eternal Word speaks, is set free from a press of opinions.)

I rose, and held out my hand to Mr Stoddart. He rose likewise, and took it kindly, conducted me to the room below, and ringing the bell, committed me to the care of the butler.

As I approached the gate, I met Jane Rogers coming back from the village. I stopped and spoke to her. Her eyes were very red.

“Nothing amiss at home, Jane?” I said.

“No, sir, thank you,” answered Jane, and burst out crying.

“What is the matter, then? Is your–”

“Nothing’s the matter with nobody, sir.”

“Something is the matter with you.”

“Yes, sir. But I’m quite well.”

“I don’t want to pry into your affairs; but if you think I can be of any use to you, mind you come to me.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Jane; and, dropping a courtesy, walked on with her basket.

I went to her parents’ cottage. As I came near the mill, the young miller was standing in the door with his eyes fixed on the ground, while the mill went on hopping behind him. But when he caught sight of me, he turned, and went in, as if he had not seen me.

“Has he been behaving ill to Jane?” thought I. As he evidently wished to avoid me, I passed the mill without looking in at the door, as I was in the habit of doing, and went on to the cottage, where I lifted the latch, and walked in. Both the old people were there, and both looked troubled, though they welcomed me none the less kindly.

“I met Jane,” I said, “and she looked unhappy; so I came on to hear what was the matter.”

“You oughtn’t to be troubled with our small affairs,” said Mrs. Rogers.

“If the parson wants to know, why, the parson must be told,” said Old Rogers, smiling cheerily, as if he, at least, would be relieved by telling me.

“I don’t want to know,” I said, “if you don’t want to tell me. But can I be of any use?”

“I don’t think you can, sir,—leastways, I’m afraid not,” said the old woman.

“I am sorry to say, sir, that Master Brownrigg and his son has come to words about our Jane; and it’s not agreeable to have folk’s daughter quarrelled over in that way,” said Old Rogers. “What’ll be the upshot on it, I don’t know, but it looks bad now. For the father he tells the son that if ever he hear of him saying one word to our Jane, out of the mill he goes, as sure as his name’s Dick. Now, it’s rather a good chance, I think, to see what the young fellow’s made of, sir. So I tells my old ‘oman here; and so I told Jane. But neither on ‘em seems to see the comfort of it somehow. But the New Testament do say a man shall leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife.”

“But she ain’t his wife yet,” said Mrs Rogers to her husband, whose drift was not yet evident.

“No more she can be, ‘cept he leaves his father for her.”

“And what’ll become of them then, without the mill?”

“You and me never had no mill, old ‘oman,” said Rogers; “yet here we be, very nearly ripe now,—ain’t us, wife?”

“Medlar-like, Old Rogers, I doubt,—rotten before we’re ripe,” replied his wife, quoting a more humorous than refined proverb.

“Nay, nay, old ‘oman. Don’t ‘e say so. The Lord won’t let us rot before we’re ripe, anyhow. That I be sure on.”

“But, anyhow, it’s all very well to talk. Thou knows how to talk, Rogers. But how will it be when the children comes, and no mill?”

“To grind ‘em in, old ‘oman?”

Mrs Rogers turned to me, who was listening with real interest, and much amusement.

“I wish you would speak a word to Old Rogers, sir. He never will speak as he’s spoken to. He’s always over merry, or over serious. He either takes me up short with a sermon, or he laughs me out of countenance that I don’t know where to look.”

Now I was pretty sure that Rogers’s conduct was simple consistency, and that the difficulty arose from his always acting upon one or two of the plainest principles of truth and right; whereas his wife, good woman—for the bad, old leaven of the Pharisees could not rise much in her somehow—was always reminding him of certain precepts of behaviour to the oblivion of principles. “A bird in the hand,” &c.—“Marry in haste,” &c.—“When want comes in at the door love flies out at the window,” were amongst her favourite sayings; although not one of them was supported by her own experience. For instance, she had married in haste herself, and never, I believe, had once thought of repenting of it, although she had had far more than the requisite leisure for doing so. And many was the time that want had come in at her door, and the first thing it always did was to clip the wings of Love, and make him less flighty, and more tender and serviceable. So I could not even pretend to read her husband a lecture.

“He’s a curious man, Old Rogers,” I said. “But as far as I can see, he’s in the right, in the main. Isn’t he now?”

“Oh, yes, I daresay. I think he’s always right about the rights of the thing, you know. But a body may go too far that way. It won’t do to starve, sir.”

Strange confusion—or, ought I not rather to say?—ordinary and commonplace confusion of ideas!

“I don’t think,” I said, “any one can go too far in the right way.”

“That’s just what I want my old ‘oman to see, and I can’t get it into her, sir. If a thing’s right, it’s right, and if a thing’s wrong, why, wrong it is. The helm must either be to starboard or port, sir.”

“But why talk of starving?” I said. “Can’t Dick work? Who could think of starting that nonsense?”

“Why, my old ‘oman here. She wants ‘em to give it up, and wait for better times. The fact is, she don’t want to lose the girl.”

“But she hasn’t got her at home now.”

“She can have her when she wants her, though—leastways after a bit of warning. Whereas, if she was married, and the consequences a follerin’ at her heels, like a man-o’-war with her convoy, she would find she was chartered for another port, she would.”

“Well, you see, sir, Rogers and me’s not so young as we once was, and we’re likely to be growing older every day. And if there’s a difficulty in the way of Jane’s marriage, why, I take it as a Godsend.”

“How would you have liked such a Godsend, Mrs Rogers, when you were going to be married to your sailor here? What would you have done?”

“Why, whatever he liked to be sure. But then, you see, Dick’s not my Rogers.”

“But your daughter thinks about him much in the same way as you did about this dear old man here when he was young.”

“Young people may be in the wrong, I see nothing in Dick Brownrigg.”

“But young people may be right sometimes, and old people may be wrong sometimes.”

“I can’t be wrong about Rogers.”

“No, but you may be wrong about Dick.”

“Don’t you trouble yourself about my old ‘oman, sir. She allus was awk’ard in stays, but she never missed them yet. When she’s said her say, round she comes in the wind like a bird, sir.”

“There’s a good old man to stick up for your old wife! Still, I say, they may as well wait a bit. It would be a pity to anger the old gentleman.”

“What does the young man say to it?”

“Why, he says, like a man, he can work for her as well’s the mill, and he’s ready, if she is.”

“I am very glad to hear such a good account of him. I shall look in, and have a little chat with him. I always liked the look of him. Good morning, Mrs. Rogers.”

“I ‘ll see you across the stream, sir,” said the old man, following me out of the house.

“You see, sir,” he resumed, as soon as we were outside, “I’m always afeard of taking things out of the Lord’s hands. It’s the right way, surely, that when a man loves a woman, and has told her so, he should act like a man, and do as is right. And isn’t that the Lord’s way? And can’t He give them what’s good for them. Mayhap they won’t love each other the less in the end if Dick has a little bit of the hard work that many a man that the Lord loved none the less has had before him. I wouldn’t like to anger the old gentleman, as my wife says; but if I was Dick, I know what I would do. But don’t ‘e think hard of my wife, sir, for I believe there’s a bit of pride in it. She’s afeard of bein’ supposed to catch at Richard Brownrigg, because he’s above us, you know, sir. And I can’t altogether blame her, only we ain’t got to do with the look o’ things, but with the things themselves.”

“I understand you quite, and I’m very much of your mind. You can trust me to have a little chat with him, can’t you?”

“That I can, sir.”

Here we had come to the boundary of his garden—the busy stream that ran away, as if it was scared at the labour it had been compelled to go through, and was now making the best of its speed back to its mother-ocean, to tell sad tales of a world where every little brook must do some work ere it gets back to its rest. I bade him good day, jumped across it, and went into the mill, where Richard was tying the mouth of a sack, as gloomily as the brothers of Joseph must have tied their sacks after his silver cup had been found.

“Why did you turn away from me, as I passed half-an-hour ago, Richard?” I said, cheerily.

“I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t think you saw me.”

“But supposing I hadn’t?—But I won’t tease you. I know all about it. Can I do anything for you?”

“No, sir. You can’t move my father. It’s no use talking to him. He never hears a word anybody says. He never hears a word you say o’ Sundays, sir. He won’t even believe the Mark Lane Express about the price of corn. It’s no use talking to him, sir.”

“You wouldn’t mind if I were to try?”

“No, sir. You can’t make matters worse. No more can you make them any better, sir.”

“I don’t say I shall talk to him; but I may try it, if I find a fitting opportunity.”

“He’s always worse—more obstinate, that is, when he’s in a good temper. So you may choose your opportunity wrong. But it’s all the same. It can make no difference.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I would let him do his worst. But Jane doesn’t like to go against her mother. I’m sure I can’t think how she should side with my father against both of us. He never laid her under any such obligation, I’m sure.”

“There may be more ways than one of accounting for that. You must mind, however, and not be too hard upon your father. You’re quite right in holding fast to the girl; but mind that vexation does not make you unjust.”

“I wish my mother were alive. She was the only one that ever could manage him. How she contrived to do it nobody could think; but manage him she did, somehow or other. There’s not a husk of use in talking to HIM.”

“I daresay he prides himself on not being moved by talk. But has he ever had a chance of knowing Jane—of seeing what kind of a girl she is?”

“He’s seen her over and over.”

“But seeing isn’t always believing.”

“It certainly isn’t with him.”

“If he could only know her! But don’t you be too hard upon him. And don’t do anything in a hurry. Give him a little time, you know. Mrs Rogers won’t interfere between you and Jane, I am pretty sure. But don’t push matters till we see. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, and thank you kindly, sir.—Ain’t I to see Jane in the meantime?”

“If I were you, I would make no difference. See her as often as you used, which I suppose was as often as you could. I don’t think, I say, that her mother will interfere. Her father is all on your side.”

I called on Mr Brownrigg; but, as his son had forewarned me, I could make nothing of him. He didn’t see, when the mill was his property, and Dick was his son, why he shouldn’t have his way with them. And he was going to have his way with them. His son might marry any lady in the land; and he wasn’t going to throw himself away that way.

I will not weary my readers with the conversation we had together. All my missiles of argument were lost as it were in a bank of mud, the weight and resistance of which they only increased. My experience in the attempt, however, did a little to reconcile me to his going to sleep in church; for I saw that it could make little difference whether he was asleep or awake. He, and not Mr. Stoddart in his organ sentry-box, was the only person whom it was absolutely impossible to preach to. You might preach AT him; but TO him?—no.