UNKNOWN.

Otago Witness, Issue 824, 13 September 1867, Page 3

UNKNOWN.

a story:o ry: " Bsr the Anthor of "Akchje LovelV'^c. . OAPTEB. XIV. — CBUJJfiH AND CHAPEL. The next day was Sunday, and the ■^aews of Steven's 'return having spread "like wildfire from the head centre of the ''Blue Peter, half the female population of Broad Clithero flocked in new summer ' 'bonnets to the village Shiloh. to look, at I»inv It was five ' or six minutes after ■aratvice-time' when he reached the chapel — the well-remembered chapel, with its TBrea^her-Btained whitewashed walls, and :grea,t square windows, upon which in high *nd- stormy tides the spray beat across ■ ~i3\e narrow road from the Channel : and "BN»ven was conscious that a great many *&bons fluttered, a great many faces were raised above their hymn-books to give him demure looks of scrutiny as he •enfcered. He walked to the seat occupied by the Lawrences of old at the farther oead of the chapel, a side Beat, from whence 'Tw faced nearly the whole of the congre..gsfcion, and by the time the hymn was *ung and the minister had got half way iteough the readings, had realised ; but irfth a strangely blank sensation of disap.paintment; the life to which he had re- '" "turned, and the people who were henceforth to be his associates and his equals ! There was Polly Barnes, with apple-green rib- ' ~bons on her hat, sitting by her sheepish redrheaded lover's .side (for Polly, a -okurchwoman by birth, had taken openly £• dissent since her engagement) ; and Miss Lyte, the minister's mature sister, -ia a pink and lilac bonnet ; and old Tillyer andjhis wife ; and Mildrum of the Tillage «bqjp. All the old congregation in their ■©Id seats ; only with ten years more of life written on their faces, and with a .■whole mysterious world of difference, it ' seemed to Steven, between himself and •i&em) He sat perfectly still, wearing an edifying face of solemnity, the congregation thought, while the minister read, and Tiith thorough and stern humility took 'iimaelf to task for the disappointment, bordering close on keenest disgust, of which he was guilty. Who and what was lie- that he should look down upon the \hmnely meeting-house that had been good enough fcr his fathers, the homely vijlage people to whose class his fathers had belonged ? Was he educated ? was he retimed ? what single advantage over the "•thers coald he boast that, after ten years of the life of a savage, he should come ~back and find them and their service, their •ipilovely chapel, and its close atmosphere, .and the prospect of passing his life among them, bo irrepressibly repugnant? Were aofc they, in sober truth, the human *«reatures to whom his birth and his circumstances fitted him ? was not Katharine F*ae. — the unacknowledged cause of his • discontent — a vision, just as far above him ■a& the painted Virgin in the cathedral at Mexico was above the ignorant crowds "irhom he ÜBed to watch and pity, as they worshipped her from the pavement ] When the lessons were over came more -tinging, and Steven joined in it, aloud, *ad with as much of his heart as strenuous will, could command. The hymn chosen was a quaint old " Scripture Wish," much ia favor at Shiloh, of which the first verse ra& thus : Daniel's wisdom may we know, Jacob's wreutling Bpirit too. John's divine communion feel, Hoses' meekness, Martha's zeal. May we with young Timothy ET*ry sinful passion fly !" "Not very fine poetry ; but the voices of •the singers were in tune, 'their hearts in ; and fond recollections of his •childhood and of the days when his mother ~taught him this very hym began to swell in, Steven's breast, long before the five Terses were sung through. After this 'Came the prayer ; a long extempore prayer, perfectly simple, perfectly adapted to the •«ouLs of which the old minister for thirty years had had the ctire, and at its close a Jbiessing was asked openly upon Steven Lawrence's return ; an assurance given 'that however late an erring son might -come back to his Father's house, forgive"»es« and peace would be in store there for "kirn. Btill, if he did but ask for them ■aright. Steven, forgetful of the primitive habits ••? hia denomination, had in nowiße prepared himself for this kind of public ovation ; and felt more nervous than he had •erer done before a red Indian or grizzly "bear in his life, when he. had to stand up -again and face the congregation ; nearly all of whom — the proportion of women to men in Shiloh being about five to one — ■showed Bigns of recent tears. Might he be spared in the sermon ! This was all he thought, as he kept his eyes steadfastly fixed on his book, and mechanically lifted up his voice in another hymn. Being payed for, with the faces of the conjregation hidden from him, had been ordeal -enough. To be preaclied at, with every pan »f eyes in the chapel watching to see

how hd took it, would be a thousandfold worse j and he listened, with eagerness in whic^ only a man who has been publicly offered up ra the same way can sympathise, to hear what text the minister would give but. . " lJ . • It was not, as his worst forebodings had predicted, any selection from the parable of the prodigal son, but a long, and as he hoped, totally inapplicable text from Nahum (chosen, doubtless, before his return hod been known), commencing " She is empty, and void and waste," ,and continuing — for long texts were always approved, of in Shiloh— to the end of the chapter. But Steven had forgotten the ! peculiar talent of the good old minister ! for applying any given portion of inspired truth to any given human exigency, when he built bis hopes on such a weak foundation as seeming irrelevancy. Beginning with an exposition of the circumstances ! under which the inspired .denunciation was given forth against sinful Nineveh, the old man through tortuous ways, and I with covert allusions that told the ears of the initiated what was coming, led his subject on to thq consideration of the wastes, spiritual and moral, that occur in our own times, in hearts given over to the world. He remarked upon the declension always to be traced in outward prosperity, whether of great nations or humble individuals, as habits of religion are neglected ; finally turning round and fixing his eyes full on Steven, he spoke, in words devoid neither of pathos nor of a certain rough eloquence, of the longforsaken duties, of the cold hearth to which a member of his flock had newly returned. He reminded them in plainest terms of how young Joshua, " drunken with wine," had been cut off in the midst of his sins and of his life ; told of the I mysterious wisdom which had guided I Steven back by death and sorrow, even as it had guided the Israelites by a ' pillar of fire of old ; and ended with a fervent prayer that affliction might not rise up a second time in Ashcot, that he who had I gone astray might prove a chosen one of God at the last, and execute the judgment of peace and truth within His gateß. * If a clergyman of the Church of England were to give a like welcome to one of his flock, nine-tenths, at least, of his hearers would be wounded by the indelicacy of such public plain-speaking. But to the simple congregatien of Shiloh the minister's sermon was a beautiful and a fitting one ; and as Steven, with downcast face and a sense of being horribly and altogether out of his place, sat and listened, many and earnest were the prayers sent up that he might profit by the miniflter's words and become a shining light, as his grandfather (when not otherwise engaged at sea) had been before him, of the little community. He lingered for some minutes in the chapel when the hymn succeeding the sermon was over, his head buried in his hands, as if in praj^er, almost the first hypocrisy of Steven's transparent life, and devoutly hoping that the crowd would be well dispersed by the time he left the chapel. But no such luck was in store for him. As soon as he got to the door he saw the whole congregation, from the minister downwards, standing about in groups upon the low sandy slope that separated Shiloh from the shore ; and before he had walked half a dozen steps his hands were being warmly seized, and " How d'ye do, Steven V 4< How are you, Master Lawrence"/" "Glad to ace you back, sir !" sounded on all sides, according to the sex, and age, and condition of the different speakers. Whatever asphyxia, bodily and mental, Steven had had to endure during the service, whatever indignation he had felt during the familiar personalities of the sermon, this hearty human kindness, the warmth of these friendly hand-pressures, of these honest voices, more than made up for it all. The minister, and the elders of the congregation, Mildrum of the shop, young Peter Nash with blushing little Polly at his side, all crowded round to offer him heartiest welcome and good wishes. Old laboring men, whom ten years scarcely seemed to have made a day older, held out their hard work-embrowned palms to hie j small children, prompted by their mothers, stretched up their hands for his acceptance. One sturdy little chap of three, the first-born child cf an old schoolmate, Steven, to the immense increase of his popularity, hoisted aloft on his strong shoulders and carried for half a mile or more along the road ; the whole of the congregation talking, as they followed in slow procession, of the wonderful way the minister had spoke up, and the miracle it was to see Steeve Lawrence, after all his wild ways, come back a decent and a God-fearing man at the last ! About half-way between the chapel and Ashcot farm a narrow footpath led away through shady orchards and blossoming hop-fields up to the parish church, and 1 into thißpath Steven'turned, after bidding a friendly good-bye to such of the Shiloh people as were still, in hia company. The

services of the church, according to country custom, were held at a later hour than those of the dissenters ; and when a long up-hill walk had brought him at last to Clithero churchyard, ■ the rector's gentlemanly unimpassioned voice, sounding through the open windows of the church, told him that the sermon was still going on. He stood for a minute or more, his hat in his ■ hand, to listen, then jumped across the rail that bounded the churchyard from the road, and made hia way through the long, lush grass to the vault, clobo under the chancel window, where the Lawrences for generations past had been buried.

Clithero, churchyard commands one of the fairest bird's eye views on all that fair east coast of Kent. In the liquid noon light Steven could trace every wellremembered landmark of his boyish years ; the marshes of Thanet, with their broad acres of tasselled reed-grass rippling in its early summer bloom; the pale grey. i line of coast from the Downß to Pegwell : I the far-away Goodwin Sands (which even now he could not look at without a dozen romances of storm and wreck, and gallant lifeboat rescue rising before his mind), the gauzy outline of Canterbury cathedral ; the undulating course of the distant Thames. ... If the dead can be affected by their place of burial, Burely none in England sleep sweeter sleep than those who lie in this upland yard ; earth, sea, and sky above and around them ; and the little Saxon church, with its quiet twelfth-century face that has seen the rising and the setting of so many forgotten beliefs, to watch thenrest ! Steven stood, bareheaded still, beside the Lawrences* vault, whose inscriptions old Barbara's hands had kept free of moss or rust, and felt, with a sense of remorse for the heresy, a great deal more "in church" under this blue sky, and with pure oxygen filling his lungs, than he had done in Shiloh. When the Etrmon was ended came a psalm ; no hymn of modern composition, but a good old Tate and Brady : the organ deftly played, and a rich, woman's voice leading the shrill trebles of the childish choir. The voice was Katharine's ; for whatever her Eomish predilections, Miss Fane was still a devout supporter openly of the Church of England ; and as he listened every pulse of the yeoman's heart was set in quickened motion. I don't know — he did not know I himself — whether any hope of Katharine having returned, and of his seeing her, had mixed with his pious desire to visit the old grave in Clithero churchyard : probably he was in a state already in which some leaven of his madness made its way into every action, every thought of his life ! All he knew was that he was standing here in the sunshine, listening to her voice and feeling himself in heaven, and that he would have been quite content if the whole remaining fifty-one verses of the paraphrase had been sung. Mercifully for the congregation, who were not lovers, but hungry agriculturist* — impartial dispassionate Christians, who went to the distant church, or near-at-hand meeting-house, indifferently, and guided chiefly by weather — forty-nine of the verses were omitted. After this came the young rector's measured Oxfordtrained voice again, giving benediction : then, after a decent pause, could be heard the clatter of hob-nailed shoes on the stone floor, and a minute later the old clerk pushed open the inner door of the porch ; scattering, with a fierce rush, a knot of irreverent babies who were placidly making daisy-chains in the shade ; and church was out.

Steven waited under shelter of the chancel yew until, according to the regulations of village etiquette, the whole congregation had left ; first the poor people from the body of the church ; then the school children and the gentry's servants from the gallery ; then the farmer* — very few of this class were church people in Glithero — and finally " the gentry" themselves ; a tall, weak-faced young man whom, from the family likeness and universal doffing of hats, Steven took to be Lord Haverstock ; after him the Squire and Dora ; and lastly Katharine with the young rector, already divested of his gown, walking at her aide.

Dora Fane, Steven's senses told him, wore a bright silk and a butterfly kind of bonnet, and held a white parasol above her head. Of Katharine all he could tell was that she looked fresher and fairer than ever in her summer dress, aud that a more earnest glow than usual was on her face as she turned it and listened graciously to the handsome young rector's talk. Here was another of her slaves, he thought ; the same horrible pain rising in his breast as he had felt when he saw her with George Gordon. Peer or parson, fine London gentleman or rough-hewn yeoman, this girl brought them all alike to her feet, and smiled upon them all ! He went back quickly, without turning to look at her again, the way that he had come across the churchyard ; and when he got into the road found the Miss Fanes and the Squire, without the rector, about a dozen yards distant on the right

Katharine advanced towards him with. an outstretched hand. "Mr Lawrence, surely you were not in church? I'm soglad we have met you. ' Dot and I only camerback late last night Papa, this is Steven Lawrence. Now, should you haverecognised him V

' ' Recognised him ? Of course I' Bhould, 7 *" cried tho Squire, a'stout rosy little man,. with wide-open good-humored eye* and. three-cornered grey whiskers, much more like a- yeoman, to look at, than Stefien. " The ladies talked me into believing you so altered, Lawrence, I thought I mustn't trust my own eyes wheml met you, And now I see no change in you at all, except your growth.' You're as like your grandfather as two peas, allowing for difference of age. How do you find the farm ? A. good deal run to waste, eh ? Well, I gare you a hint through Miss Dora's letter. No eye like a master's, Lawrence, yo» know — no eye like a master's."

-Mr Hilliard was shaking Steven'* hand heartily all this time, and had really welcomed him ont of the warmth of Ms heart j but something patronising — in his tone: rather than what he said, jarred on Katharine ; more, to speak the truth, than on Steven, who was not keenly sensitive in such matters, and indeed was thinkingmuch more of her just then than of the Squire, or of how the Squire chose lam words.

"I hope tho farm won't take up k* much of your thoughts that you'll have no time to come to the Dene V puttingher hand as she said this within the Squire's arm. "You know you promised us in London that we should see a great deal. of you !" and her fingers gave a little significant pressure which bade her stepfather give weight immediately to what ehe said.

"Yes, Lawrence, of course ;" for, like most men, the Squire was in a state o£ abject subjection to Katharine. "Of course wo shall expect you to be a goodneighbour. Now, what's to-morrow? Monday. . Well, will you come and dine with us tofmorrow ! Six o'clock, and no ceremony, you know ; just come as yout are, and help us to eat our leg of mutton, and we'll have a talk over parish matters afterwards."

Steven accepted the invitation witbt most unconventional readiness, and witht a glow of pleasure on his handsome face,. Dot having first interpolated some pleasant little insincerity of her own ; and then the Squire's carriage drove up, and Katharine gave him her hand again and her smile as they drove away, and Steven wai left looking after her, with a nimbus of gold cast around Clithero churchyard, and the dusty road, and every other prosaic object of this prosaic world.

" He's a good-looking lad, that," said. the Squire, as they were driving home through the lanes. "If Lawrence was Sv gentleman, we should have a good many of the young ladies breaking their hearts. about him— eh, Dot?"

" Unfortunately, he isn't a gentleman/*" retorted Dot, upon whose temper four-and-twenty hours of the country were already telling. " I think Lord Haverstock, in spite of his being a lord, a nraeli better-looking man than Steven Lawrence. Yes, lam Bincero. 1 can't get up these sylvan tastes, as Katharine can, at a moment's notice. I cannot appreciate men who walk about with rough brown hands and no gloves !" And Dot tlirew herself back into her corner of the carriage, and, sighed — thinking, no doubt, of the pretty little white hands and lavender gloves e>£ Mr Clarendon Whyte.

Katharine's face flushed. "I think Steven Lawrence iB a gentleman, papa,** ehe cried. "If I did not think so, I shouldn't ask him to come to our house. To my mind, he is far more refined, in. his absence of all pretence, than many a» man who understands every observance of what is called society, and when he comeß to the Dene, I, for one, will make' him. feel that 1 look upon him aa an. equal !" Here Bhe stopped short.

" Kate," remarked the Squire, "if yctt want to be a friend to the young man, as no doubt you do, put all these ideas about ' gentlemen ' out of your head, or at all events don't put them into his. The Lawrences are not gentlemen in any sense of the word whatever. Old Isaac Lawrence, this lad's grandfather, used just to wear a smock-frock and live with his men, and I don't think Joshua Lawrence or hi» son took much by trying to get ont of their own condition. This young Steven* seems a fine, plain-spoken fellow, and I shall be glad to be a friend to him ; but if you are going to turn his head with any of your skin-deep democracy, Kate, thekindest thing I could do would be to bidL him never set his foot within my doois. To go to meeting-house, associate witfe. his equals, and work the plough with hist own hands, is the way to bring round. Ashcot — not playing at any new-fangled, nonsensical principles of equality and fraternity, with you for a playmate, Kate." " You are thoroughly prejudiced, papa," cried Katharine, hotly. "Nothing short of all our heads being cut off wilt

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convince you, as it convinced the people it* France once, that opinions are pro-j aistin^&ona' oil ij&tasj, are passing away, even in this blessfed . *weald of Kent, as everywhere else in the ,-wprid<". . ' . ;..,., "i The difference - between you • two ah&?»ys {Wins to "me to be ihi ," erie I Dot, •who, little .burthened though she was ■with either sympathy .or' imagination,. .could make sharp enough hits, at times, .",in,her judgments. on better people than „ Jh,er.self r— " one plays at democracy, and is an. .aristocrat, heart and soul; and the other plays at conservatism, and is a radical in practice. We'll see> at the end of ,thfiee months, who is the truest friend to .purjploughman protege, Uncle Frank, or . ,you t Katharine I" ■»"jWe will see," said Katharine, but . qiot .without wincing in her heart at the prophecy Dot's words contained. "For . -you, Dotj I know very well Steven Law,ren<se, without "kid gloves, as you say, and, earning his bread with his own brown hands, can never be anything but Steven ■ Lawrence, yeoman. •• You measure every . coin, Dot. by the stamp, not the metal !" VOf course I do," said Dot. "So must v any one with a grain of sense, I should Bay, Silver is silver everywhere, but a shilling, won't pass current out of England, .or. a franc out. of France, will it"? It seems to me, Kate, that the stamp, not the«inetal, is exactly what does make the market value of most things !" In saying . which she spoke with the most complete and unaffected sincerity. Belief in the existence of any thing or quality, to whose value a market test tfould not apply, was an act- of faith quite beyond, the. narrow reach of Dot's souL (To be continued.) '