Into the Highways and Hedges Part 63

Will ye say that then? It is true! Ay--G.o.d help me--I believe it; but will ye think so too?"

"Whatever comes now, I will think so too!" said Margaret. She smiled as she spoke, ominous though his words were. She forgot to be afraid, in her womanly longing to comfort him.

"What do you think is coming? Do you fancy that the verdict will go against you?" she asked steadily. "But that cannot be! Would _He_ desert you?"

"No," said Barnabas. "Not though the sky should fall, or I forget ye."

And he put the last as the more impossible marvel of the two.

"But there's no want o' faith in believing that one may ha' to leave one's body behind a bit afore the natural time. I've som'ut to tell ye, Margaret. It's best to face it. I'd liefer ye heard it now, than to-morrow i' th' court."

"Go on," said Meg. And with his arms round her he told her. Meg listened silently when he described his interview with his enemy. "He must ha'

overhauled my things somehow, though I doan't know how he got hold on 'em," he said. "Ye see that must go against me. I can't explain it." He spoke steadily, and not despairingly,--he had conquered his despair. The fight had been fought; the "black minute" was at an end for him. It might be hard,--harder than the actual wrench of parting soul and body would be,--to part from her; but he could do it now. To relinquish Meg unwon had indeed taxed severely the fort.i.tude of the man who had once told her that he desired no peace in heaven, unless she were happy too; but this love, awake at last, he believed to be his now to all eternity; and, indeed, with an "all eternity" in view, they might well afford to lose a few score years.

"I don't understand," said Meg, in a voice she tried to keep from trembling. "Mr. Sauls found the diamonds in your cap. Ah, I let that drop with the other things I was bringing you, and he must have picked it up. He saved me too. One would rather not be saved by such a--oh well, it isn't worth while to think of him with you beside me; but how did the diamonds get there?"

"They were hidden by the man who knocked Mr. Sauls down and robbed him,"

said the preacher. "I _was_ a fool, Margaret! The man told me where they were, an' I thought it was just a mad fancy. It never came to me to take my knife and rip up the lining; I just shook it, an' seeing naught, flung it in a corner where it stayed. Ye see, I didn't wholly credit his story. It was all so mixed up wi' delusions. One minute he was seein'

Mr. Sauls' double at th' foot o' his bed, beckoning him to h.e.l.l, an' th'

next he were raving about diamonds bein' on fire an' burning him, an'

the next he were pouring out such sickening confessions as I think the devil himself must ha' been prompting his tongue to. No man could ha'

committed all the sins he told of. An' the longing to deliver him fro'

Satan was strong on me, an' he kind o' clung to me, as if he was bein'

hunted, an' I promised him I wouldn't betray him. One can't allus be thinking what 'ull be the consequences to onesel' when a poor soul turns to one in mortal terror."

"And you will keep your promise at any cost to yourself--and to me?"

said Meg.

"Little la.s.s, ye wouldn't ha' me _not_ keep it!" he cried. He turned his head away for a moment. Was even Meg against him? Dr. Merrill had told him that he sacrificed his wife to a skulking sneak; did she think so too? He looked at her with an involuntary sad entreaty that none but Meg had ever seen in his eyes.

He was used to being considered rather mad. Truth to tell, being in a minority troubled him little as a rule; but, for once, the pain of loneliness touched him very sharply.

"Dear heart, do 'ee think I doan't care for 'ee?" he said. "I'd give my soul, if it were only that, for yours. But one must follow where one's Master calls. Would ye ha' me such a cowardly hypocrite, that having in His name bid ye give up the world for Him, I should mysel' shrink from a path where there's only room for one? Would ye ha' me break a promise, gi'en in this service, because keeping it means shame and death? Shame for ye too, for ye too! Forgi'e me, if ye can't think me right," he cried sadly. "Oh, my little la.s.s, I wish I could bear it all! It cuts me like a knife when I think it means shame for you. It's the sore part."

He caught his breath sharply, and Meg felt his arm tremble for a moment.

Then: "But I'd not say that to any one else," he said. "Ye are like my own soul, an', even to you, I'll not say it again. It's a bit mean o' me to cry out so. When I took service I didn't promise to follow the Master only so long as I could on velvet. I've no need to complain; an' ye mustn't say He deserts us because He treats us like men, an' takes us at our word. Yet"--and again his face softened--"if ye _could_ think with me--but, happen, that's ower much to expect."

His voice, ringing with the eager loyalty which was so large a factor in his religion, then breaking into human tenderness, ceased. He could not see her face, for she sat with it hidden against him. He touched her fair head gently, with his hand. "Poor little la.s.s!" He could not put into words the remorseful tenderness he felt. He hoped she would not try to dissuade him; it could make no difference, but he found Meg's grief hard to bear.

"Happen that's ower much to hope for?" he said again softly, but with more wistfulness than he knew. "But I'd like ye to forgive me, Margaret, any way. Will ye do that, if ye think me wrong?" His voice sank to a whisper she barely caught. "The temptation was sore, but if I'd loved ye less it ha' been stronger; for I'd not ha' felt it so shameful then to drag that love i' the mud. Margaret, say _something_ to me."

Then she lifted her head and answered him--such an answer as no human soul had given his before.

"You are right!" she said. "Except that you ask me to forgive you.

Forgive what? Shame? I am not ashamed. Do you think I shall not be prouder of you than if all the world were at your feet? I have never been ashamed of you. Never once! Even when I didn't love you, I knew better than that! Ashamed! I will try to be a little sorry for the blindness of all the people who did not know you innocent, who cannot tell light from darkness! if you like, dear,--if you like--but there is no shame for you, or for me, who am yours."

Ah, had ever the condemned cell echoed to such words before? such pa.s.sionate vibrating love, and pride of love?

"If you had betrayed a man for me, then you might have said, 'forgive me,'" she cried. "But you couldn't do that; you would not be you, if you did! The Barnabas I love could never do it! Yes, then I should have been ashamed--bitterly ashamed, perhaps. Then our love would be in the mud indeed. Not now!"

"I allus knew ye a brave woman, my la.s.s," said the preacher. "Happen I never knew it quite enough!" But Meg clung to him again, choking back a sudden desire to sob.

"Ah! but we shan't be parted!" she cried. "It can't be! it can't be!

Barnabas, say to me that it can't be."

"Ay, wi' all my heart," he said. "Margaret, I believe, as I believe in my G.o.d, that no pain nor death can part us two for ever. It _can't_ be!

Ye are mine now. By the love G.o.d has given me for ye, an' by the love ye bear for me, my sweetheart, I'll swear to ye that I hold the old enemy not strong enough to part us. It can't be."

But, for all the hot love in them, his words went through her like a sword: he was bidding her look to the life everlasting, when she wanted him here, and now. They both sat silent for a few minutes, precious minutes! how fast they went!

"I had so much to say," he said. "I'd a deal to tell ye; but, somehow, I can't remember it now. I want to hear ye say once more, 'I love ye'.

I've wanted for it so long! Nigh on two years I've hungered for it. An'

I've not pressed ye, have I, Margaret?"

And there came across Meg as he spoke the remembrance of those two years. How many times had he crushed back this deep, fierce love for fear of "scaring" her, cold-hearted as she had been? And now, perhaps, there might be only minutes left to give in, though there had been months in which to deny.

"I love you," she said. "With all my soul and heart and mind and strength; with all of me there is; with more of me than I ever knew there was. I didn't know I _could_ love like this. As you love me, I love you, my dearest. You are more to me than all in heaven and all on earth besides. I would rather die with you than stay here without you.

Ah, how feeble one's words are, for, _of course_, I would rather! that would be easy enough. If I have to live without you, I am still yours.

While I am, I--I love you. If this can die, there is no life that lives!

It is the most living part of me. If this grows cold, then I am dead.

Barnabas, I love you, I love you! Do you know it _now_?"

"Time's up!" said the doctor, putting in his head. "Have you brought him to his senses at last, ma'am? I hope so."

She stood outside again in the snow. The doctor was talking eagerly.

"I am convinced that your husband is keeping something back," he said.

"He knows more than he will say. I hope you have preached a sermon to-day to good purpose. He won't listen to mine."

"I told him he was right," said Meg; and the doctor swore.

"Then, let me tell you, you've encouraged him in a most immoral course,"

he said, "and in one that leads straight to the gallows! It's no time for picking one's words--and--well, here's the truth. You had a chance of saving him, if any one had,--which I doubt, for a more pig-headed saint I've never come across--you had the only chance. You might at least have tried; and you've lost it!"

In his heart he was saying angrily, what did she suppose she had been smuggled in for--to talk sentiment? If Thorpe had married some l.u.s.ty, rosy-cheeked barmaid, she'd have been of more good. She would have cried heartily and scolded; his high-flown nonsense wouldn't have had a hearing; it might have been swamped in her tears and in his natural instinct. Mrs. Thorpe's eyes were dry. Pshaw! she was only half a woman!

He hadn't an exalted opinion of the other s.e.x anyhow; but, at least, he preferred them "womanly". Little fool! if she couldn't cry on occasion, what _was_ she capable of? He couldn't quite say that aloud, though. Meg was no barmaid, and not an easy person to be rude to.

"I am very grateful to you for letting me in," she said. "I think my husband _is_ right, so what else could I say? But, if I had thought him wrong, I could have made no difference, practically--only," said Meg softly, "it would have been rather harder for him."

"Rather harder! he'll find being choked out of life with a rope rather harder; but you know your own affairs best, I suppose," said the doctor.

"Good-night, ma'am;" and he turned away, and Meg walked on alone.

"He'll find being choked out of life rather harder!" Meg felt as if Doctor Merrill had roughly shaken her awake. When she had been with Barnabas his unwonted appeal for spiritual sympathy, his faith in the undying quality of their love, his belief in the impossibility of an eternal parting had somehow hidden from her the physical horror of such a death. The doctor had brought it before her, had made her see the rope and the coffin, and the actual death struggle. She saw it so vividly, poor woman, with that over-vivid imagination that had always been her bane, that, as she walked, she held out her hands instinctively.

"Don't, don't!" she cried. "He has been hurt enough. I can't bear him to be hurt any more!" She did not know that she had spoken aloud, till some one pa.s.sing put a hand on her arm.

"Mrs. Thorpe! may I see you home? You are ill, or very unhappy."

It was the parson from Lupcombe, the preacher's friend. Meg, standing still, recognised him.