Part 14

So too with the Creeds. I believed every one of them as recited by Mr Jeremy, and I found the Athanasian the most convincing of them all. The Sundays set down for the use of that Creed--and its use was never omitted in our parish--were the most serious Sundays of the year to Mr Jeremy, and the vigour of his voice and his attitude, and the fervour of his participation, made a spectacle to be remembered. I wish William James might have seen it before he wrote his _Varieties of Religions Experience_; it would have given him a new chapter. At the very first words Jeremy joined in like a trained sprinter starting for a race; and though the clergyman rattled through the clauses as fast as he could pronounce, or mispronounce, the syllables, the farmer headed him by a word or two from the very first, gradually increasing his lead as the race proceeded until towards the end he was a full sentence to the good. It was evident that to Jeremy's mind, and perhaps to the clergyman's also, a subtle relation existed between the truth of the Creed and the speed with which it could be rendered. Long before the end was in sight, and while Jeremy was still battling with various "incomprehensibles," the rest of the competitors had retired from sheer exhaustion; the children were munching sweets; the lads and lasses were ogling one another at the back of the church; Mrs Jeremy was staring in front of her, wondering perhaps if the careless Susan would remember that onion sauce _always_ went with a leg of mutton on Sundays; while Lady Agatha and Lady Sybil--I grieve to record this, but my historical conscience compels me--sat down. As to those of us who remained attentive to what was going on, our confidence in Catholic Truth gradually took the form of a certainty that the farmer would come in first and the clergyman be nowhere. So it always proved. Standing in the pew behind that of Jeremy, I could see the muscles of his mighty back working up and down beneath the broadcloth of his Sunday coat; and as I looked from him to the easily winded gentleman from Pusey House who was running against him in the chancel, I could not help reflecting how ridiculous, nay, how unsportsmanlike, it was to allow two men so ill matched to compete for the same event. This, no doubt, was the first symptom that, in spite of the standing attitude, I was going to sleep. But before it could happen I was suddenly brought to my senses by the _fortissimo e prestissimo_ of Jeremy's conclusion. "He _cannot_ be saved," he roared out, banging his prayer-book down on the book-rest, with a defiant look around him, as though the whole Liberal Party were in church. "He _cannot_ be saved,"--and visions of all sorts of people boiling in coppers filled the mental eye.

Jeremy, for a farmer, was the most outrageous optimist I have ever met. He never grumbled, save at politicians, and the worst weather could hardly disconcert him. "You can always turn a bit o' bad weather to good account--if you put your back into it. Yes, it's been a _wet_ season, no doubt, but not what I should call a _bad_ season. It's true we've made but little hay, and that not good; but the meadows isn't dried up as they was last year, and there'll be feed for the stock in the open most of the winter. I bought fifty new head o' stock last Wednesday--bought 'em cheap of a man as got frightened--and they'll be well fattened by Christmas." Serious setbacks, of course, often occurred; but Jeremy, unlike most of his kind, was not the man to talk about them. "What I believe in," he said, "is not only keeping your own heart up, but helping your neighbours to keep up theirs. I've no patience with all this 'ere grumbling and growling. Of course, a person has a lot to put up with in farming; but it doesn't do a person no good to be always thinking about that. Pleasant thoughts goes a long way in making money. And I tell you there's money to be made in farming, let folks say what they will. What farmers want is not for Parliament to help 'em, but for Parliament to leave 'em alone. That's why I can't stand this 'ere Liberal Government. Why can't they stop messing wi' things--messing wi' the land, messing wi' the landlords, messing wi' the tenants, messing wi' the farm-labourers? Why can't they leave it all alone and stick to what they understand, if there's anything they _do_ understand, which I doubt? No, sir; I don't want their laws, good or bad. Give me the custom of the county, and a good bench o' magistrates, and a cheerful disposition, and a farmyard full o' muck, and I've got all I want to make farming _pay_--always provided you put your back into it."

But during the long-continued rain of last summer I could not help observing that Jeremy, in spite of his fidelity to these principles, was making an effort to keep up his heart. Not only was his hay ruined, but the finest crop of wheat he had ever raised was sprouting in the ear. There was sickness among the sheep and the pigs; and the standing crop in his great orchard was sold to a middleman for a quarter the usual price. But Jeremy made no complaint. Only, meeting the clergyman one day in the road, he said, "Parson, it's high time you put up the prayer for fine weather." Jeremy had a firm belief in the power of prayer--and especially of this one.

On the first occasion when this prayer was used in the village church I was present in my usual place behind Jeremy. As the prayer proceeded it was evident that the farmer was putting his back into it. I could see the movement of the deltoid muscles, and I watched a great crease form itself in the lower portion of his coat and gradually creep upwards until it formed a straight line from one shoulder-blade to the other. When the prayer concluded Jeremy said "Amen _and_ Amen!" with the utmost fervour; and the crease in his coat slowly disappeared. I am afraid I was more occupied in watching this crease than in recalling the lesson that was taught to us sinners when it pleased Jehovah to "drown all the world, except eight persons."

During the next ten days the rain fell with increasing volume and fury: the ditches were in flood; the roads were watercourses, and much damage was done on Jeremy's farm. Meeting him at this time, I said in the course of conversation, perhaps foolishly, "Mr Jeremy, the prayer for fine weather seems to have done us very little good." For a moment he looked at me rather angrily, as though suspecting that some lukewarmness on my part had deprived the prayer of its due effect. Then he checked himself and seemed to reflect. "No," he said at length, "it's done us no good at all. But what else can you expect, _with all them gigglin' wenches at the back of the church_?"

For three miserable weeks the heavens were deaf to our entreaties, and matters began to look pretty black. A change for the better was confidently expected with the new moon; and though I have never been able to discover the origin of the superstition, nor a reason for it, I found myself as expectant as any of my neighbours--like that other great philosopher, who didn't believe in ghosts, but was desperately afraid of them. However, the new moon brought no relief to our sorry plight--and the superstition lives on in our parish, unimpaired. Ominous rumours about the end of the world spread from cottage to cottage, and our wits were busy in discovering the culprit whose misdeeds had precipitated the coming catastrophe. Most of us were persuaded that it was Tom Mellon the waggoner, a good workman but an irredeemable drunkard; and Tom, who was aware of our suspicions, became thoroughly scared. For the first time in twenty years Tom kept away from the public-house when his wages were paid, and went to bed sober but terribly depressed on Saturday night. On Monday morning, Mrs Mellon, whose face for once bore no trace of bruises, informed our cook that "her master had had a dreadful bad night. He would keep jumping out o' bed and going to the window, to look into the sky and _see if anything was up_." Tom had communicated his fears, when in an early stage of development, to his boon companion, Charley Stamp the ex-roadman, whose old-age pension went the way of Tom's wages and swelled the revenues of the public-house by the regular sum of five shillings per week. These two Arcadians, as they sat over their cups, concerted a plan, composed mainly of bad language, for defeating the ends of justice on the Day of Doom; and on the Saturday night previous to the one last mentioned came home together abominably intoxicated, waving their hats and roaring out as they went up the village that they were "ready" for Judgment--"with a tooral-ri-looral, and a rooral-li-ray." Subsequent events proved that neither of them was "ready." Tom's courage, as we have seen, went to pieces on hearing it definitely whispered that the universe was about to be wiped out in consequence of his bad habits. Charley's downfall was even more sudden. In the small hours of the very morning after his performance in the village street it happened that Farmer Jeremy's bull, scenting a cow in a neighbouring pasture, expressed his sentiments by emitting a loud bellow. The sound travelled to Charley's cottage, and, descending the chimney, mingled with his drunken dreams. "Get up, missis," he shouted, "get up; _the trumpet's sounding_!" and rushing into the garden he began to howl like a jackal. The howls woke the village, and a score of terrified souls, myself among them, convinced that "it was come at last," looked out of their windows--only to find that a lovely morning was breaking over the hills. Fine weather returned soon after; and I am sorry to say that with its coming the moral reformation which had begun so hopefully in Tom and Charley, and spread to several less hardened sinners in our village, was terminated at a stroke.

* * * * *

It must have been some four or five days before the change came in the weather that I took advantage of a bright interval in the evening to walk across the summit of the hill which shades my house from the setting sun. I pushed on into the upland until the dusk had fallen, and found myself at last in a deserted quarry--a long familiar spot, where in old days I used to meet Snarley Bob. There I sat down on the very heap of stones on which he sat as he talked to me of the stars. In due time the stars came out, and I wondered in which of them the great spirit of my old friend had found its abode. I imagined it was Capella; why I know not, unless it be that Capella was the star to which Snarley's finger often pointed when he lifted up his voice about the things on high. This has nothing to do with my story, and I mention it here only because I find myself wondering at this moment how spirits so diverse as those of Snarley Bob and Tom Mellon could have breathed the same atmosphere and drawn their sustenance from the same environment.

I lingered in the quarry pondering my memories until the great rain-clouds, creeping up from different points of the horizon, had met in the zenith and every star had disappeared. A sullen rain began to fall, and black darkness was over the hill.

I turned homewards, reflecting that it might not be easy to find my way by the sheep-tracks on so dark a night. I remembered that on the summit of the hill, some two miles from where I was, there stood an isolated barn surrounded by sheds for the shelter of cattle. From this point the way down into the village could hardly be missed, and thither accordingly I turned my steps. With some difficulty I found the barn; for the ways were wet and in some places impassable, and the night, as I have said, was very dark.

On nearing the barn I was astonished to notice a gleam of light issuing from the half-closed door. I approached, and as I did so I was yet more astonished, and a little scared, to hear the loud and lamentable tones of a human voice. I listened, and at once recognised the voice as Jeremy's, though I could not hear what he was saying nor explain to myself the preternatural solemnity of the tone. It was not a cry of pain, nor that of a man in need of human help. I drew yet nearer, and it became plain to me that Jeremy was praying.

Curiosity tempting me on, I crept up to the barn and looked in through the partly opened door. This is what I saw. Kneeling on the floor towards the further side of the barn, with a lighted stable-lantern suspended over his head, was Jeremy. His back was towards me, but I could see that he had a book in his hand. A glance was sufficient to show me that I was looking at a man in wrestle with his God. I knew the signs of Jeremy's earnestness; and they were there--intense, unmistakable. Never have I witnessed a more solemn spectacle, and, had not something held me spell-bound to the spot, I should have retreated in very shame of my intrusion.

At the moment when I first caught sight of his figure Jeremy was silent. His head was bowed on his chest, his feet were drawn close together, and his right hand, holding the book--which I saw was the Book of Common Prayer--drooped on the ground. I noted the head of a steel rat-trap protruding from the big side-pocket of his coat. I also remember how the bright nails of his boots, of which the soles were turned towards me, glittered in the light of the lantern.

Presently Jeremy raised the book, turned over the leaves--for he had lost the place--slightly readjusted his position, and in a deep and solemn voice again began to pray. And this was his prayer:

"O Almighty Lord God, who for the sin of man didst once drown all the world, except eight persons, and afterward of thy great mercy didst promise never to destroy it so again: we humbly beseech thee, that although we for our iniquities have worthily deserved a plague of rain and waters, yet upon our true repentance thou wilt send us such weather, as that we may receive the fruits of the earth in due season; and learn both by thy punishment to amend our lives, and for thy clemency to give thee praise and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. _Amen._"

It was enough. Quickly and silently as I could I slipped away into the darkness, filled with a sense of the sacrilege of my intrusion and the solemnity of the hour. I have listened in my time to many prayers of many men; I have heard the Almighty flattered, complimented, instructed in the metaphysics of his own nature, and insulted by the grovelling and insincere self-depreciation of his own creatures; I have heard him talked at, and talked about, by cowardly men-pleasers who had no more religion than a rhinoceros; and I have wondered much at the patience of heaven with all this detestable eloquence. I have heard also the short and stumbling prayers of the honest, of the Salvationist kneeling in the thoroughfare of a town full of sin, of the mother with her arms round the neck of a dying child; but none even of these have dealt so shrewd a thrust at my self-satisfaction as did the prayer of Farmer Jeremy. What strange secrets, I thought, are hidden in the human heart! Verily, the ways of man, like the ways of God, are past finding out.

Now, it so happened that I had given Jeremy a promise that I would, that very night, join him at supper and "have a chat." I would gladly have found an excuse if I could. But it was not easy to excuse oneself to Jeremy; his discernments were keen. Moreover, I half feared that he might have discovered my footsteps outside the barn; and I knew that if he had, the only wise course was to face the situation, tell the truth, and have it out. It was soon evident, however, that he had discovered nothing; and I, of course, kept my counsel.

I entered the farm kitchen and found Mrs Jeremy awaiting her husband by the fire. "Master's late in coming home," she said. "He's gone up the hill with a lantern, to set traps in the Grey Barn. He says it's full o' rats. But he ought to have come back half an hour ago."

"He'll be back soon," I answered; and a moment later I heard the ring of his boots on the stone flags outside.

Entering the room, Jeremy, without greeting me, walked across the floor and tapped the barometer on the wall. "It's rising," he said. "I thought it would by the look of the moon last night. Well, given a bit o' fine weather now, we shall not do so badly after all. The wheat's less sprouted than I thought it was; just a little down in 'the Guns,' but none at all in 'Quebec.' Please God, we shall get forty-five to the acre, up there; and all in tip-top condition."

"How are the root-crops?" I asked.

"Looking splendid; couldn't be better. You see, they're all on the high ground."

"Did you set your traps?" said Mrs Jeremy.

"I did. But there's too many rats for trappin' to do much good. We must try this 'ere new poison. That'll cook their gooses for 'em, according to what I hear."

After supper the conversation turned once more on the weather. "It's bound to mend," said Jeremy; "there's a rising glass, and the wind's gone round to the north-west since I went up the hill. Just look out o' this winder at them clouds drifting across the sky. And they're a lot higher up than they were this afternoon. And I tell you these 'ere prayers as we've been puttin' up in church are bound to do _some_ good, though they mayn't do _all_ the good as we want. I've noticed it again and again, both wet seasons and droughty."

"The prayer of a righteous man availeth much," said Mrs Jeremy, who, notwithstanding her mental wanderings during the Athanasian Creed, was a pious soul.

I was sorry the conversation had taken this turn, being disinclined to discuss the subject just then. But Jeremy was only too ready to take the cue.

"Yes," he said; "and the prayer of a sinner is sometimes _almost_ as good as the prayer of a righteous man; though, mind you, I don't say it's _quite_ as good. I'm a bit of a sinner myself; but I've had lots of answers to prayer in my life. _Lots_, I tell you. You see, it's this way. My belief is, that you've no business to want a thing unless you're ready to pray for it. Of course, you can't always tell what you ought to want and what you oughtn't--that's the difficulty. But my plan is to pray for everything as I wants and then leave the Lord to sort out the bad from the good. There's a Collect in church as puts it in that way. Mind you, I wouldn't pray for anything as I _knowed_ were bad. There'd be no sense in that. And as for fine weather, all points to that being _good_, and your prayer stands a fair chance of being answered. Of course, it may be bad for reasons we don't know about; though I don't think it is _myself_. So it's right to pray for it. Pray for everything you want--that's what I says; and leave the rest to the Lord."

Jeremy would no doubt have said much more, for he was a great talker when started on his favourite themes, and this was one of them. But we were interrupted by a cry from Mrs Jeremy at the other side of the table. It was simply, "Oh dear!"

Looking up, I saw that she was leaning forward with her face buried in her hands, sobbing violently.

"Darn my gaiters!" said Jeremy, "I'm nought but a fool. I oughtn't to ha' talked about them things before my missus. I never do; but something's made me forget myself to-night. You see, it's reminded her of our trouble."

I did not understand this last remark. But I asked no question, being too much occupied in watching the infinite tenderness of the good man as he sought to comfort his wife. I draw a veil over that. "Now go to bed, there's a good girl, and think no more about it," was the end of what he had to say.

Mrs Jeremy retired, the tears standing in her eyes. She shook hands with me, but didn't speak.

Jeremy resumed his seat, lit his pipe, and began to explain. His voice trembled and almost broke down with the first sentence.

"You see," he said, waving his hand towards the fire, "it's a childless hearth.... It hasn't always been. There was one, once--fifteen years ago. He was six years of age--as bright a little nipper as ever you see. Oh yes, he said his prayers: said one too many, that he did.... O my God!... Well, it was this way. It was one Christmas Eve, and a young lady as we had for his governess had been telling the little nipper all about Father Christmas--I don't blame _her_; she's never got over it any more than we have, and never will--... all about Father Christmas, as I was saying; and he drinks it all in with his wide little eyes, as though it was Gospel truth. 'I'll tell Father Christmas to bring me something real nice,' he says. So just before they put him to bed that night he goes to that open fireplace, where you're sitting now, and pops his head up the chimney, and calls out, 'Father Christmas, please bring me to-night a magic lantern, a pair of roller skates, four wax candles, and a box o' them chocolates with the little nuts inside 'em, for Jesus Christ sake, Amen.' Then he goes away from the fire, and I says, 'All right, nipper, I'll bring 'em,' from behind that door, in a voice to make him believe as Father Christmas was answering. Well, he starts to go to bed; but just as he reached them stairs in the passage he runs back, and pops his little head up the chimney again. 'Father Christmas,' he says, 'don't forget the little nuts in the chocolates. I don't want none o' them pink 'uns.' And, O my God! he'd hardly spoken the words when more than half a hundredweight of blazing soot comes slathering down the chimney and falls right on the top of him just where he stood. I tell you there never was a thing seen like it since this world began! The room was filled with black smoke in a second; we were all blinded; we could neither breathe nor see. We couldn't see him, we couldn't find him; and we all stumbled up against one another; and the missus fell insensible on the floor. And him screaming with pain all the time--and I tell you I couldn't find him, though I rushed like a madman all over the room and groped everywhere, and put my hands into the very fire! Then I went too--dropped like a stone. It was all over in a minute. They pulled the rest of us out in the nick of time: but the poor little nipper was burned to death...."

Farmer Jeremy rose from his seat and went to the window. He was shaking all over; but I averted my glance, for it is a terrible thing to see a strong man in the agony of his soul, and the eyes cannot bear it long. "The clouds are breaking," he said; "and, please God, I'll cut 'the Slaughters' to-morrow. But there's one harvest as will never be reaped: and there's one cloud that will never break. Not till the Resurrection Morn. Ah me!"

* * * * *

On the lovely afternoon of an autumn Sunday, about a fortnight after these things, I met Jeremy in the fields, walking the round with his terrier dog.

"Grand weather for farmers," I cried.

"Grand it is, sir," he answered, "and let us be thankful for it."

"Yes," I said; "it has been long enough in coming, and is all the more welcome now it has come."

I felt that the words struck the wrong note; or rather they struck none at all, where a note of music was needed. But I knew not what else to say. Jeremy with all his reserve was less timid and more affluent than I.

"Have you never thought, sir," he said, drawing near to me, "what brought the fine weather?"

I hesitated and was silent.

"Then I'll tell you," said he. "_The power o' prayer._"

That very day I had been reading a book on Primitive Religion; and as I parted from Jeremy a question flashed through my mind. "May it not be," I asked myself, "that Primitive Religion is the only religion that has ever existed, or will exist, in the world?"

WHITE ROSES