London's Heart: A Novel. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

whom he had robbed. By daylight I was in the wronged man's house, by his bedside. This man loved money better than justice. I represented to him that he could not have both. He chose the first. I made terms with him, and sacrificed all but a bare pittance. Between us we compounded a felony. But I had not sufficient to pay the whole of his claim. I promised, however, to pay the rest as I could, and he took my word. Alfred, little by little I have been all my life since that time wiping off the debt of disgrace. One hundred pounds only remained to be paid, and very nearly that sum has been stolen from this iron box. Whoever stole that money stole the honour of our family!"

      A long pause ensued. A new day was dawning, and the faint light rested upon the solemn face of the dead woman, to whom peace had come at last. Alfred turned his eyes towards it, and shuddered. Then he turned to the old man, and said in a low voice,

      "And my father, sir?"

      "In this iron box are two papers," said the old man; "one from him, promising never to trouble his wife and children more, and one from the man he wronged, giving quittance of what is set down as a debt. Your father kept his word. I have never seen him since that time."

      Alfred kissed his mother's face, and covered it. Then he held out his hand to his grandfather, who took it in silence, and looked at him wistfully. But Alfred only said, humbly,

      "I am tired, sir. You have been very good to us, and I will try to deserve it."

      They went to the door, and the old man opened it, and saw Lily lying on the ground.

      "Lily!" he cried, in alarm.

      The girl slowly rose and stood before him. Her eyes were closed; she was asleep.

      "Lily, my darling!" he said, tenderly placing his arm round her, "Why have you been sleeping here?"

      The girl did not answer, but nestled in his arms as if she found comfort there. He led her into the room, and she accompanied him unresistingly.

      "She has been overwrought, poor child," said the old man in a troubled voice.

      They stood in silence for a few moments, almost fearing to speak; she still sleeping, with her sweet face turned towards the morning light, which, gradually growing brighter, illumined the strange group.

      CHAPTER VIII

      THE REVEREND EMANUEL CREAMWELL STOPS THE WAY

      The parish of Stapleton, of which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was pastor, was situated a very few miles from London, and contained, it is to be presumed (and not to do violence to the science of divine things), an equal number of human bodies and souls. The number-reckoning the two as one-was not large, and the tithes were small, a circumstance which it is waste of time to mention, for what minister loves his emoluments better than his church? And yet in common minds a mean suspicion is sometimes engendered as to the comparative value of one and the other in the eyes of the clergy. Without indorsing this suspicion-rejecting it, indeed, as the vilest of calumnies-it is curious to observe that, when a minister has a "call," the summons from heaven generally holds out the promise of an increased earthly income. It is a proof of the base depths of which the mind is capable, and the fact of the divine summons being very generally joyfully responded to, should engender a tittle of suspicion. But unfortunately there are in the world men to whose moral perception purity of motive is a human impossibility; to such men the flesh-pots of Egypt contain the most powerful argument it is possible to conceive.

      Stapleton was a tumble-down little parish, and bore unmistakable signs of being badly off. Everything in it and about it had been crumbling away for many generations. Magnates there were in it of course-most of them elderly gentlemen, with puffy faces and big stomachs, at whom the poor children of the parish, in dirty pinafores, their large eyes staring upwards, and their hands behind them, would gaze in worship. The predecessors of these great men were crumbling away in the picturesque old churchyard, making the soil rich for buttercups and daisies, with which the dirty children played and pelted one another. There were many picturesque bits of scenery about Stapleton; notwithstanding its poverty, it was not an undesirable living for a clergyman, and the patching-up and medicining of souls-which, according to doctrinal teaching, are always lame and diseased, coming into the world so, and so remaining-went on pretty much in the same way and quite as unsuccessfully as in most other parishes. Doctors for bodies and doctors for souls are so abundant, and increase and multiply so amazingly, that the human machine on two legs which walks the earth, and which Leigh Hunt's fish so very properly laughed at, may be said to be in a very bad state indeed.

      Such, at all events, the preaching of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell went to prove. According to his pulpit-doctrine, corruption was the normal state of man-and woman also, of course. This condition was bad enough in all conscience, but it was a miserable thing to be compelled to believe that it could never be bettered. The conviction was forced upon them by their pastor; his utterings were destructive of hope. He had preached to them a library of sermons, and middle-aged sinners of his congregation had grown old during his term. Inevitable time was pushing them nearer and nearer to the grave; but there was no more hope for them now than there had been long ago, when there were many years of life before them. Sinners then, sinners now. How was salvation to be obtained? They went to church, and listened to their pastor's words, but found no consolation in them. The refrain of his sermon was the same now as it had been the first day on which he ascended the pulpit, and preached to them not salvation but the other thing. As he and the members of his flock grew older, he grew more stern, and they more disconsolate. The time for them for reaching grace was getting very short, and still corruption held them fast, would not let them go indeed. When the Sabbath service was ended, they wended their way home, depressed and in the saddest of moods. For their pastor hurt and bruised the miserable sinners without mercy. He said, "This shall ye do out of fear of the Lord;" and no suggestion of love brought light to the benighted ones. He told them to cleanse their souls; he had told them to do this any time for twenty years, but he did not supply them with the divine soap and water necessary for the operation. He spoke in parables, and left them to draw the moral. He presented problems to them, hard nuts of divinity which they found it impossible to crack. He used the Bible like a catapult, and from this engine he, week after week, hurled terrible inflictions at their hands, until some impressionable souls grew to believe that God was a very dreadful creature, and that it would have been better for them if they had never been introduced into this world of sorrow, which was to be followed by another full of penalties.

      Not one of his parishioners loved him. But they thought he was a good man, notwithstanding-so good, indeed, that goodness became disagreeable in their eyes, and some of them deemed that it must be exceedingly pleasant to be naughty. The fact of this man having the charge of many precious souls (to use the stereotyped vernacular), and preaching the highest and holiest lessons for years to persons who did not, could not love him, was one of the strangest of anomalies. In his exhortations he seemed to declare, "I am sent to bruise, not to heal; here is a stone for you; here are vinegar and salt for your wounds; here are shadows and awful images to appal you, and to make your death-bed agonising; here are the waters of grace-taste them, and find them bitter!" After such exhortation, how could they love God? – how could they love His minister? Prisoners do not love their gaolers. And this man, having the charge of souls, held them in grim custody with the hard spirit of a gaoler.

      They writhed and suffered in his grasp, but they had no word to say against him. He was an eminently respectable man; had never been seen to smile; and they touched their hats to him, and paid him every deference. But it was remarkable that no person had ever been known to utter a word in praise of him. Women-especially women in humble life-did not like him; and he produced a curious effect upon children. Sometimes they cried when they saw him, and sometimes they stood aside as he passed, with a kind of fear on them-petrified as it were. The effect was something similar to that which Medusa's head might have produced upon them.

      His home was like his preaching. There was no light in it. It was dark and sombre. All the furniture was of dark wood; the paper on the walls of every room was dark. In the whole house, from roof to basement, there was nothing graceful in form or colour. The ornaments on the mantelshelf were ugly figures in dark wood and stone. Flowers were never seen in the house. The gas was never lighted until night had completely fallen. Nothing more oppressive can be conceived than the effect which this gloomy