Gildas Haven. A story

Front matter

Uniform with " Gildas Haven." Crown 8.., cloth. PRICE S'6 EACH. ST. WYNFRITII. By E. Everett-Greex. 2nd Edition. " It is a pretty story delicately and carefully written, of life in an almshouse." — The Stur. JONATHAN MERLE. A West Country Story of the Times. By Elisabeth Boyd Bayly. 5th Edition " Rich in character and incident, and as charming in substance as it is elevated in tone. In general character it frequently and pleasantly reminds us of the work of Dr. George MacDonald." — Spectator. ALFREDA HOLME. A Story of Australian Life. By Elisabeth Boyd Bayly. 3rd Edition. " It is not often that we meet with a narrative of experiences so full of freshness and force as are to be found in this excellent ' Story of Social Life in Australia.'" — Temperance Record. ZACHARY BROUGH'S VENTURE. By Elisabeth Boyd Bayly. 2nd Edition.

" We have nothing but unstinted praise for this book." — Cambridge Independent Press. FORESTWYK ; or TEN YEARS AFTER (Sequel to "Zachary Brough's Venture"). (In Prepai ation) PHŒBE DEACON. By Hum Myddi.eton. GILDAS HAVEN. By M. S. Haycraft. A NOBLE WIFE. By Tohn Saunders, Author of " Israel Mort," "Abel Drake's Wife," &c. THE MINISTER'S MAN. By G M. Fairburn. ( In Preparation) London: Jarrold ami Sons, 10 n, Warwick Lane, E.C. A STORY .BY M. S. HAYCRAFT Aitthor of " Lindenholm," "Amaranth's Garden," etc., etc. LONDON JARROLD & SONS, 10 & n, WARWICK LANE, E.C. [All rights reserved] 1S96 CONTENTS. CHAPTFTt PAOB I. On Meadthorpe Moor... ... ... 7 IL An Official Visitation ... ... 17 III. Rehoboth Anniversary ... ... 27 IV. ""When Greek Meets Greek" ... 37 V. " That Man will be the Death of Me " 47 VI.

Mr. Hornby's Reproof ... ... 57 VII. Kitty Demsey's Quilt ... ... ... 67 VIII. Fellow Refugees ... ... ... 77 IX. A Good Samaritan ... ... ... 88 X. The "Lost Chord" ... ... 96 XL "Quiet in the Nest" ... ... ... 106 XII. "I Ought to ask your Pardon" ... 118 XIII. In the Starlight ... ... ... CONTENTS. PAGE C-TAPTER XIV. The Curate's Resolve ... ... 139 XV. Miss Bell's Praise-meeting ... ... 148 XVI. How the Call comes to Gildas ... 158 XVII. "You will Stay till the Last?" ... 168 XVIII. His " Gift of God " 178 XIX. LiGnT at Eventide ... ... ... 189 XX. Miss Stretton Scents Heresy ... 198 XXI. Life at Rosebrake ... ... ... 209 XXII. " He that hath Mercy on them shall LEAD THEM "... ... ...

Chapter I. On Meadthorpe Moor

A RAINY day, in the heart of November. Hour by **■ hour the downpour has been steady and incessant. Beneath grey, leaden skies the labourer went forth patiently to toil in the early morn, and noontide struck from the old ivied church to the music of plashing drops upon bare furrows and amid the yellow leaves. But now it is sunset-time, and there is a beautiful calm over field and wood. The rain has ceased ; a soft breeze shakes the wet, swaying boughs, revealing here and there a gleam of crimson berry, or the failing splendour of blackberry leaves shining late within the hedges. The grey of the sky has dissolved into faint purple, flecked with gold, like the crown of summer pansies ; and Meadthorpe Vestry Hall, in itself a plain, substantial, matter-of-fact sort of structure, stands out in the distance like a fairy-palace, against a back ground of shifting amber clouds.

Jasper Ruthven, crossing the moor where in brighter days the breezy heather twines the bracken, looks long and rejoicingly towards the western horizon. His is a life keenly in touch with Nature's influences ; and this fair sunset " in the falling of the year," at the end of the cheerless day, is full for him of joy and spirit-rest, of mighty though unspeakable inspiration. Not that he forgets — he never can — the little fretting cares of the everyday round, the possibility of losing his situation at the Grammar School, the uncertainty as to the ever varying number of his private pupils, the lack of leisure till late evening for the literary work he loves, the need of little garments ere the winter for that restless flock at home — Milly's faceache, the increasing appetites of the twins, and baby's disposition on the contrary to care nothing at all for its food, and to lose flesh from its tiny limbs and its httle, old, anxious face.

Jasper Ruthven is conscious all the time of these things, and that the rate-collector has bidden him in printed characters take notice he is " not required to call again " for the dues from Forest Cottage. But for awhile the consolations of the blue heights above, ever-varying, deepening, newly glorified, transcend the worries that concern the daily bread ; and the young man, treading briskly the faded furze, grows strong and calm of soul beneath the restful ministry of Nature. Not so the girl with whom presently he comes face to face, just as he turns into the pathway leading to Burrows' Farm. She does not see him for a moment, and he, who has learnt to read her every mood, knows the meaning of that thoughtful, shadowed look, that firm, resolute step, those hps compressed, those dark eyes where trouble and perplexity reveal them selves, unconscious of his close observance.

" Gildas, it is a wet day for you to venture so far," he remarks, feeling, as he always does, that what he says to her is tame and stupid (for what he fain would say he must not, while teaching pays so badly, and the little mouths need food so plentifully). " I hope you are wearing galoshes ; the moor is almost like a bog." " Oh, Cousin Jasper ! " — the girl looks glad to see him, as though relieved to outpour her confidences to one who will sympathize — " oh, never mind the wet ; my boots are thick, and this cloak is waterproof. Oh, I have such things to tell you ! It makes me so indignant, I feel I must take some decided step — write to the Bishop or something. If you only knew how that man is going on— I am certain he is a "Jesuit ! " " It is possible," says Ruthven, who likes to agree with the girl looking up iuto his face for sympathy — the girl who by courtesy calls him cousin, her father and his having been connections by marriage.

But justice and charity quickly prompt from his conscience the amendment, " One has no right to assert such a thing as a fact, you know, Gildas." " Every right ! " she cries, hotly ; " wherever I go it is the same story of superstition, bigotry, and priestly assumption. Why, Jasper " " You must tell me another time, cousin," he says, reluctantly. " Yon know I have a couple of hours at the farm on Tuesdays and Fridays, coaching Frank Burrows in commercial arithmetic. He is to go into business soon. And, Gildas, I would not worry Mr. Haven with Pendrill's doings if I were you. When anyone is not very strong, troubles are apt to seem magnified." " Oh, father does not assert himself sufficiently ; he takes things too quietly. He could soon put an end to what is going on if he would rouse himself as of old," says Gildas with decision.

" But if he will not act I must — and I mean to. I am not going to have Rehoboth emptied just because Mr. Bertram has unfortunately taken for curate one who goes about spreading falsehood and sowing contentions like a snake in the grass " " Now your metaphors are getting mixed, Gildas," says her companion, smiling. " We know little of Mr. Pendrill as yet. He has only been here a month, remember. It is rather early to credit him with being a serpent in our Eden." Looking back with his pleasant smile, as he lifts the felt hat which has too evidently seen its best days, he is troubled to discern the girl's distress and indignation have probed her heart to its depths ; the gloom has not lifted from her usually sunny face, and she looks drearily down at the sodden grass, too discomfited to be aware of glories that grow faint and fainter now in the western sky.

" It is only natural," he thinks, tenderly, " that she, the soul of Rehoboth, should resent the new curate's activity. I remember the last one, Mr. Colsou, was very much the same when he first came, but he soon fell into the rector's quiet, easy-going way— Gildas need not worry herself over these attempts to proselytize ; most likely they wiU only be spasmodic." " Oh, Mr. Ruthven ! " says the burly farmer, meeting him presently in the lane, " didn't ye see my carter ? I told him to call at your place and leave word our boy's gone to London for a week — I'm real sorry now you've had the walk for nothing." " I have not been home since the early morning," says Ruthven, " so I missed your message, Mr. Burrows. Will Frank be here for Tuesday's lessons, then, or shall I come this day week ? " " To-day week — he'll be away till then," says the farmer.

" You'll be no loser, by the way, for the lad's going to London ; I'll pay you for the two lessons he misses all the same, you know ; and by adding half-an-hour now and again, you'U be able to get things square. You won't have a glass of beer, will you ? Of course you won't — I forgot your blue ribbon." Ruthven bids him good-day, and turns back patiently, wondering how those extra half-hours are to be worked in, seeing it is all he can do after leaving the farm to get back to Meadthorpe for his evening pupils. At any rate, there is more than a gleam of compensation to-day for his needless walk, in the thought of returning across the moor by the side of Gildas ; a rush of gladness thrills his pulses as he hastens to overtake her, and she is soon outpouring her grievances like a flood into his attentive ears.

" You know, Jasper," she says, " how pleasantly we have gone on with Mr. Bertram— dear old gentleman, and with Mr. Colson, too — they worked away at their Chaldean History (or whatever it was) together, and collected their rare manu scripts and things, and spoke to father when they met, and sent nice letters of apology to be read at meetings father asked them to attend ; and not a shadow of disagreeable seeling between church and chapel existed at Meadthorpe." " Mr. Colson was a great loss," says Ruthven ; " but with his large family he must be thankful to get a good living." " Then because this new man is his third cousin, or something like that, Mr. Bertram goes and engages a curate who steeps the whole place in bitterness ! " cries Gildas, indignantly. " Perhaps he counts on having everything his own way because father is old and he has been so ill ; but he will find in the Havens yet the same strong Puritan spirit that bowed neither to king nor clergy, but owned the rule of Scripture and conscience alone in religious matters.

Did not my ancestor, Gilead Haven, give up his peaceful country life at the old Northamptonshire home to resist the injustice and bigotry of Laud, and were not he and his fined, imprisoned, and branded by the hand of oppression ? How fearlessly father himself fought in the past for the right of preaching on our common, and again and again in his time he has suffered for resisting Church rates ! To the core I am Nonconformist, Cousin Jasper, and I will keep Meadthorpe Nonconformist whatever wiles this Pendrill may bring to bear upon the place." " I scarcely think you need fear for Rehoboth, dear," says Ruthven, soothingly ; " our chapel has withstood many a storm in the past, and in these late years it has prospered more than any other in the county. Even when I was little I remember the place being thronged to hear your father's sermons _ I used to be wedged against the wall in the gallery, I remember, and emerge with my back regularly whitened each Sunday.

Of course, the place fell off a little while his long illness necessitated supplies, but since you left school you have worked it up splendidly, Gildas ; think of this year's report, with its innumerable channels of help, all those active agencies in full work for young and old, and every one of them saturated, I know, with your own tireless energy ! Rehoboth is the flower of our denomination here abouts, Gildas ; we have nothing to fear from the opposition of the new curate, I assure you." " You always cheer me up, Cousin Jasper," replies the girl ; "you are sure, somehow, to look on the bright side of things — I suppose poets always do." " Fancy calling a matter-of-fact tutor like me a poet , Gildas ! I do not think I have written a line for weeks ; I have been far too busy." " Ah, but you are a poet in your heart, Jasper, and one day the world will know it !

" says Gildas with proud confidence ; " one day you will ' lead the world's hosannahs,' and your songs will go on echoing when the superstitions of men such as Pendrill have vanished like mists. How proud I shall be of you when you wear the laurel, Jasper ! " The shadows of gloaming are bright for him at that moment ; a sweet, golden vision seems beckoning from the future — the poet's wreath, the world's acclaim, the treasures of greatness laid down before the one who filled his boyhood's dreams, the heart of his manhood. Passionate words, of which " Cousin Gildas " guesses nothing at all, are trembling on his lips, a flush rises to his face, and for once his life-secret has almost been revealed, but common-sense returns just in time. He sees Milly in the boots that need patching, the twins just ready for school, Gordon with much-darned knickerbockers, and baby who will need support and care for many a long year yet.

The elder brother of these children, who have no helper save himself, puts aside the wild, sweet longing, and tries to listen with his whole heart to the "girl's further revelations of her trouble. " Last Sunday," she says, " I noticed a differeuce in our Sunday-school ; I attributed the smaller attendance to the wet, but the teachers tell me the new curate is systematically visiting all over the place, endeavouring to prove the church school is the right place for Meadthorpe children. And you know some of the parents are so easily persuaded. The truth is, Jasper, the parish church has the power over a great many gifts, aud this has weight, I expect, with many fathers and mothers." " I hear Mr. Pendrill is introducing improved methods into the Church school," says Ruthven, gently. " Hitherto we know it has been at a low ebb ; if some of our children are removed, we must search out others to fill their places — there are plenty who go nowhere yet."

" I know," says Gildas ; " but it is nothing more nor less than stealing to take our scholars away. You know he has gone to lodge with Mrs. Abbot, and I hear now that the Abbot children are leaving our school — children that began in our infant-class, and have been under our care pretty well all their lives ! He has gone and put Willie Abbot in the church choir, and Mrs. Abbot thinks 'Mr. Pendrill would not like him to sing at the temperance festival at the chapel,' and you know he was down for a solo. I have spent hours training that boy's voice." "That is a pity, dear," says Jasper, "for I know how you have worked for that festival. I think Gordon could take his place, though ; I hear him humming the piece at home, and I would give him some practices to save your time." " Gordon's upper notes are nothing like Abbot's, but I suppose he must do," she answers, too much hurt to respond very gratefully just then ; "but think of the bigotry of such ways, Jasper !

First he steals our children, and then objects to their helping a society which is really unsectarian, though it is held in our lecture-haU. But that is not the worst. When I met you I had just been to see Mrs. Burrows. You know Cissy, the third girl, is in my class, and for two Sundays she has been away, so I called to ask after her, and whatever do you think, Jasper ? That man has talked over Mrs. Burrows to let all the girls join some guild he is working up in connection with the church, and the meetings take place on Sunday afternoons. I think it is really Miss Bertram's Bible-class, but they call it St. Somebody's Guild. And he told Mrs. Burrows it was time Janet and Cissy should be confirmed— they were 'quite old enough.' Fancy anything in the nature of a religious profession depending on aye instead of voluntary longing !

" " I am sorry," says Ruthven, sympathetically. " I know you felt you had a part aud share in your girls, Gildas, but Miss Bertram likewise spares no pains to benefit her class, so let us hope and believe they will get good under her care. I think some of my owu little fellows must have been removed to the Church Sunday-school, for I noticed last Sunday my class was reduced as to numbers. WeU, perhaps we aU need to learn a lesson of patience " " I am sure you do not ! " she cries impulsively. " I never remember you anything but patient, Jasper, and I have known you all my life. As for me, I cannot see that we are called upon meekly to submit to Popish proselytising. I wonder how the church-people can put up with the new order of things ! I hear he has altar-candles now, and adopts the ' eastward position ' — such superstition, putting ceremonies in place of sincerity !

However can the man have taken up such false ideas ? " Ruthven is silent for a moment, then he gently quotes " Call no faith false which e'er has brought Relief to any laden life, Cessation from the paiu of thought, Refreshment 'mid the dust of strife Oh, I hope I am not narrow-miuded ; I detest bigotry wherever found ! " cries Gildas, who never does things by haloes, aud admires or condemns from the very depths of her earnest young heart ; " but, Jasper, what help or comfort or relief can any sensible person find in lights and altar-cloths, and all the changes of Church millinery ? " " You see, Gildas, you and I have beeu brought up in a school of thought removed from types and symbols, and looking, I hope, to the great Antitype alone. But often of old the Lord taught heavenly lessons by means of pictures, aud such as find help in what seem to us only hindrances care little, I imagine, about the lights, and vestments, and so forth, in themselves : they see sacred meanings in the imagery.

However much we may differ from their opinions, let us respect them as devout worshippers ; our Master has His saints and disciples among those reverencing Church traditions as well as in our owu old chapel — that is certain ! " "At any rate," says Gildas, emphatically, "Ritualism i.s dangerous, and Meadthorpe shall not be poisoned by it. To Pendrill and his Popery I oppose the principles of truth and freedom. I mean to withstand him at every point ; the victory shall never be his in our town while God gives me strength and power ! " Like one of that grand Puritan race from which she springs, Gildas walks into the Manse with shining, fearless eyes and stern, brave face, full of earnest purpose and undaunted resolve. Gilead Haven, her father, sits at the table with head bowed over the pages of his beloved Andrew Fuller ; two unopened letters lie beside him, and she, who attends for the most part now to his correspondence, opens them with a premonition of further annoyances.

One is from the leader of the Rehoboth mothers' meeting, complaining that three of her "mothers" have deserted to the newly-formed class on their behalf at the church ; the other is from the mother of the boy who blows the bellows at Rehoboth, complaining that £5 per annum is insufficient remuneration, and hinting that it is not imposssible an opening may offer for the talents of the youth in question elsewhere. Gildas silently lays the letters upon her father's book. He adjusts his spectacles, reads them through, and then returns to the paragraph he is perusing with the quiet words, " There seems a great awakening, my daughter, at the church ; the new curate appears to be a man of energy and of power. I hear there is to be daily service, and the church will be open always for prayer. I would it were the same at Rehoboth, but then the deacons — yes, there seems the stir of new life at the parish church now ; if the Master be glorified, if His kingdom triumph, we will rejoice and give thanks, my daughter.

Whether by us or by them may His work be done, and may the earth be filled with His glory." Gildas, the flower that blossomed for him in life's autumn, the only one left in his home, turns silently away in bitter disappointment. Time was when the minister of Rehoboth would have thundered forth in splendid eloquence against the sacerdotal wiles that despoil his vineyard, and every weapon of his grand spiritual force would have been turned against priestly inroads ; but Ichabod seems written across the old man's powers since God's finger touched his only son, and the grasses twine his grave. In the remembrance, and in the prospect of the soul-to-soul struggles that await in Meadthorpe, the dark eyes of Gildas grow dim with quivering dews ; somehow Jones knows she is in tribulation, and stretches his shaggy length to kiss her — Jones, her faithful old Welsh collie, patriarchal and tailless.

Chapter II. An Official Visitation

T3Y-AND-BY Gildas beguiles her father from Andrew *-* Fuller to the waiting tea ; Jones has already, with his nose on the minister's knee, groaned and sorrowed aloud at the delay in partaking of Emery's hot tea-cakes, a delicacy dear to the heart of a collie that has known better days, as to powers of mastication. Emery herself, a staid, elderly, solemn-faced personage, one of the pillars of Rehoboth Chapel, considers it quite in keeping with the popular opinion of Mr. Haven's learning that he should prefer theological study to the needs of the inner man, and notes approvingly that his finger traces the words that fix his attention, and he marks the page with a missionary report ere he takes his place for the evening meal. Once conscious, however, that tea is in progress, the minister gives his earnest attention to the proper prepara tion of the beverage ; he never lets Gildas infuse the tea, with all his exalted opinion of the child of his old age.

It is hers to wait deferentially while the old mau steeps the exact quantity to insure a correct result. Then the tea spoons have to be warmed, and the cups ; and precisely when he gives the signal Gildas must be ready to pour out — a consummation that, in her present state of headache, she devoutly desires. Mr. Haven led a bachelor existence up to the age of fifty, and when he then took unto himself the daughter of the B deceased pastor of a neighbouring chapel, a clever young woman, whose heart was full of reverent admiration for his preaching and his works, he could no more change his personal attention to such points as heating the tea-spoons, than Jones could change the regular habits of life, which he faithfully discharges day by day. " I'll not think anything more about that man's doings to-day," decides Gildas within her, "it only makes me angry and wretched, and father needs somebody to cheer and help him, instead of depressing him, concerning Rehoboth.

Farvie," she says, tenderly, using the pet-name of her childhood for the minister, " I am going to make the lists for the anniversary trays to-morrow — you know it is week after next. I expect the place will be crowded for tea. Jasper Ruthven told me on Monday that a number of people are coming over from Blencoe and Moorhanger, and I'm sure it will be a splendid meeting. We nearly know the anthems now ; we are to have a long practice to-night." " I do not like anthems, daughter," says the minister, laying buttered toast on the cold, damp nose upon his knee ; " have something all the people will know — some thing we can all stand up and sing, and know what comes next, and when we have finished. Y'ou remember last Sunday I began to give out the notices, believing Miss Spencer had concluded, but she had only stopped for breath, and she commenced her part all over again."

" Of course, Farvie ; those bars are iepeated. I found the place before service in your anthem-book, you know ; you were not following, Farvie, or you would have seen Miss Spencer's part was in italics — that meant in our book twice over." "Just so, my love," he assents, resignedly ; "but you will not let the congregation sit and listen all the time, will you, dear child ? We must have ' W nen I can read,' and ' Come, let us join,' and you know we always end up the service with ' Behold the glories of the Lamb.' " " Oh, yes," says Gildas, " it would never do to have the music all anthems ; we have only two, Farvie — ' I will sing praises ' and ' Be Thou exalted.' Everyone in the choir is talking about Miss Mundey's upper A in 'I will sing praises' I am certain the church choir cannot But here she stops abruptly, reminded that she meant to forget the affairs of the church for awhile ; and the old minister, with his wrinkled hand on the dog's shaggy head, brightens up and says with a nod, " ' Be Thou exalted.' I don't mind how many times they sing that over and over in the old place, daughter."

But presently the scene is changed. How brief is canine felicity, meditates Jones, as in the midst of enjoying the milk, which forms his evening refection, he hears a peal at the front door bell, and his ancient frame thrills with indignant barking, resentful of intruders. " Finish your tea, Farvie," says Gildas ; " it is only Mrs. Volly, or perhaps someone has sent a message about the choir practice." Mrs. Volly is an aged dame from the almshouses, a church goer by reason of her parochial position, and a frequent visitor to the Manse to consult Mr. Haven concerning the signs and wonders of the latter days. The minister looks wistfully at his book, though conscious his views on prophecy are calcu lated to attract the enquiring to his residence. But Emery enters just then, followed by the sound of many feet, and in her solemn way announces in a low voice of mystery, " Please, sir, the deacons."

" It isn't deacons' meeting night," exclaims Gildas, wonder ingly, to her father ; she notices he looks worn and tired, and wonders, with a vague sense of disquietude, wheu he will make a thorough recovery from that long nervous illness that followed David's death. Gildas has known the deacons all her life, and she is a great favourite with every one of them, though Mr. Hornby shakes his head at the notion of her giving Sunday-school addresses, and thinks young ladies of the present day forget the apostolic injunction : " I suffer not a woman to teach ; let the woman learn in silence, with all subjection." Mr. Hornby is tall, pale, and serious of countenance ; Gildas has never yet seen him laugh, though when the debt was paid on the alterations to Rehoboth year before last, she remembers a near approach to a smile.

Mr. Hornby is suspicious of the Mutual Improvement Society at the chapel, and absents himself on principle from the young folks' musical evenings and recitations and the like ; he scents danger lest Rehoboth become a centre of entertainments, and many a grave discourse has he held on the subject with the powers that be. But without Mr. Hornby, Rehoboth would scarcely seem the same — he works late on Saturday nights, being a grocer iu the town, but he is always at the prayer-meeting preceding the service, and his tall figure is never absent from its post of conducting strangers to seats in the chapel, supplying them with hymn-books, and appearing in due course with the plate. Mr. Penton, who enters behind him, is a retired veterinary surgeon, aud chiefly noted for his anti-Romanist predilections.