Chapter 23

UNEXPECTED FRUIT.

The next day, after luncheon, the brothers, with their sister, started for Stringby, but not in very buoyant spirits. Walter had no thought of drawing back, nevertheless he felt an almost overwhelming shrinking from the task which he had undertaken. The loving smile, however, and gentle words of affectionate concern with which his aunt had cheered him as they set off were a source of much strength and comfort to him; they hovered around his heart like the shadowing wing of an angel whenever the scorching heat of his furnace of trial swept by anticipation across his shrinking spirit. He had thought it wiser not to confide to his mother either the cause of his shame or his intended amends.

The weather was clear and bright as they began their ride, but a smart shower burst upon them when they had accomplished half the distance, and forced them to go out of their way to take shelter. Would the preacher, distrusting the sky, have given up his work just for this afternoon? If so, what pain and humiliation Walter would be spared! Oh, how he clung for a few moments to the hope that it might be so! for then he would have made the amends and the sacrifice, and shown the moral courage, _in intention_, and, at the same time, would be spared the actual heavy trial itself. But then he dashed away these thoughts from him, and with an inward prayer nerved himself for the coming effort.

Amos, as he rode by his side, seemed to guess what was passing through his mind, and said, "Can I speak to the preacher for you, Walter? It will save you some pain, and, as I shall be speaking for another, I should not have the same difficulty that you might feel." But this suggestion at once roused Walter out of all his fears. "No, no, dear Amos," he cried, "no; I have put my foot in it, and I must go through with it. Your being with me will be a great help, and it would not be right for me to accept any further assistance from you."

Little more was said on the way. Julia scarcely opened her lips, but there was a sweet peace on her fair face. She felt that her brother Walter was going to do the right thing, and, though she thoroughly sympathised with him in his natural shrinking from his task, she was satisfied that he could not now retreat if he would do what duty plainly called him to. So they trotted or cantered leisurely along, while the dashing of the waves, and their ceaseless ebb and flow, seemed to remind them of that love which, in the midst of the ceaseless ebb and flow of this world's trials, and of man's personal failures and advances in the life of holiness, ever comes, like the sea-breeze, in breathings of spiritual health and heavenly pity to the souls that are pressing onward and upward to the land unclouded by sin.

At last the watering-place was gained. It seemed to Walter and his sister more thronged than ever. Several large excursion trains had brought their many hundreds of eager and excited holiday-keepers. Esplanade, sands, and by-streets were swarming with passers to and fro. Would they meet Gregson and Saunders there? Most earnestly did Walter and his sister, and indeed Amos also, hope that they would not. However, little time was there for scanning the faces of those they met, for now they pressed rapidly forward, Walter leading the way, as he was anxious to plunge at once into his difficult work and get it over as speedily as possible. "You know," he said to Amos with a faint smile, "it's just like going to the dentist's. When you get into his room, you don't go and ask to look at his instruments,--those horrid pinchers, and pliers, and screw-looking things,--it's quite bad enough to feel them; and the sooner the wrench comes the sooner it'll be over. So now for my wrench." As he said this, they came within sight of the place where the unhappy disturbance occurred in which he had taken a part. A crowd had gathered, on the outskirts of which, people were moving backwards and forwards, but there were no sounds of uproar or interruption as they reached it. All were very attentive. The preacher--the sight of whom caused the blood to rush into Walter's face--was the same he had encountered before. The good man was standing on his stool giving out two lines of a well-known hymn. And then a noble volume of praise from those united voices rolled up towards heaven.

Walter could see in a moment that the preacher's eye had rested on him, and that he remembered him. So, flinging his horse's reins to his brother, he slipped off his saddle and elbowed his way vigorously through the crowd. "Stop, young man," said the evangelist calmly and solemnly, as he saw Walter pressing forward. But Walter made his way close up to him, and, while the other was evidently perplexed as to the meaning of his conduct, said quietly to him, "I am not come here to-day to hinder or make game, but to ask pardon." The other looked at him in amazement, and for a moment knew not what to say. Then, while there arose a strange buzz of surprise and excitement among the bystanders, Walter asked, "May I stand in your place for a minute, and say a few words to these people?" The good man was clearly taken quite aback by this request, and looked hard at him who had made it. Was this a scheme for turning the preacher and his work into open ridicule? The other members of the evangelist's party seemed to think so, and advised him to refuse; that it was only a dodge on the young man's part to get up a piece of extra rich entertainment for his friends, who, no doubt, would not be far off. The good man had come down from his stool while these remarks were being addressed to him. He hesitated, but when he turned to Walter and looked in his face his mind was made up at once; for there was something, he said, in that face which satisfied him that good would come out of his yielding to the request made, and not evil. So, while the spectators were looking on and listening with breathless expectation, he said, in a clear voice, audible to those on the utmost verge of the great assembly,--"Friends, before I address you, a young man has asked leave to occupy my place for a short time. He shall do so, for I have confidence in him that he will not abuse the liberty I give him."

There was a murmur of approbation and intense interest as Walter mounted the stool and looked upon the sea of upturned faces round him. He was very pale, and his voice trembled at first, but soon grew calm and firm. "My friends," he began, "I have come here to-day to do an act of justice. Some days ago I was a spectator in this place, as you are now. This good man, the preacher, stood then where I now stand. He had come here to try and do you good; I came, I am sorry to say, in a different spirit. Joining with others as wrong and foolish as myself, I interrupted and ill-treated this servant of the good Master, our Saviour. I am come to-day to make what amends I can. As I then publicly ill-treated him, so I now equally publicly ask his pardon for what I did then; and I earnestly beg you all to give him a patient hearing, and to encourage him in his work of love."

Not a word of this short address was lost by a single hearer, though the last part was almost stifled by the speaker's emotion. As for the preacher, he knew not how to contain himself. When Walter had sprung to the ground amidst the profoundest silence, both his hands were grasped by the good man whose pardon he had asked, who, as he shook them warmly, could only say at the moment, "The Lord bless you! the Lord be praised!" Then, recovering himself, he sprang upon the stool, and cried out, "That's a right noble young man, dear friends! There's real courage there, and a generous heart, and no mistake. He has asked my pardon for what he did, and, had I twenty hearts, he should have it from the bottom of each. I thought, when he came here a few days since and put a little hindrance in the way, `Now, the devil's very busy; what a crafty being he is!' Ah, but see now. After all, he only outwits himself by his own craftiness. The Lord brings good out of Satan's evil. Well, now, let us proceed with our proper work." These words were followed by a hearty cheer from the assenting crowd, and then all listened attentively while the good man gave a plain, practical, faithful, and pointed gospel address.

When this was over, and the crowd was dispersing, Amos, whose heart was all in a happy glow, drew near the preaching-place with Julia, both of them having now dismounted. The good evangelist's fellow-helpers were distributing tracts among the retiring audience, while the preacher himself was in earnest conversation with Walter. Julia held out her hand for some tracts, saying to the man who gave them, "I will do my best to distribute them among those who will be likely to benefit by them. Please let me have as many as you can spare." He gladly did so.

In a short time all had left, except the preacher and his friends, Amos, and his brother and sister. As Walter was about to go, he took out his purse and said to the good man who had so heartily forgiven his former unkindness, "You must allow me to offer you a contribution to your tract fund. I am sure you will understand me. I am not asking you to accept this as any compensation for my abominable treatment of you the other day, but simply as a little token of my sincere desire to help on your good work in however small a way."

The offering was at once and gratefully accepted. "There is no fear," said the good man, smiling, "of my taking offence at anything which the Lord sends me, or at the way in which he chooses to send it. The work is his, and the silver and the gold are his, and he supplies us with the means in the best way, as he sees it, and therefore in the very best way. So I thank you for your contribution, and accept it with pleasure; and I think we shall neither of us forget this day as long as we live, neither on this side of the river nor on the other."

With a hearty farewell on both sides, Walter and his companions remounted their horses, and rode slowly away, full of happy thoughts: Walter very happy, because he had been enabled to do what his conscience had bidden him; Amos quite as happy, because the brother he loved so dearly had behaved so nobly; and Julia calmly happy, because she felt that bright sunshine had poured through a dark cloud which had brooded for a while sadly over her spirit. And there was something yet more stirring in her heart in consequence of all that she had seen and heard,--it was a rising desire to be doing some real good to others, and to be doing this at the cost of personal sacrifice and self-denial. Ah, what a new and strange desire was this in one who had, till lately, allowed the idol of self to occupy the shrine of her heart. To be thinking of others, to be steadily keeping the good of others in view, to put self-pleasing in the background, or to find it in pleasing others, and that, too, from love to one who for her sake pleased not Himself,--this was something wondrous indeed to her, and yet how full of real and heavenly brightness when it had truly found an entrance into her soul!

But how and where was she to begin? She had a little bundle of tracts in her hand; should she begin at once with these? Of all things which she once would have shrunk from, nothing would have then been more repulsive than the office of a distributer of tracts. Some years before, when once asked by a pious friend of her aunt if she would like a few tracts to give away as she might have opportunity, her reply had been, "She had rather not, for she believed that tracts were vulgar, canting things, commonly given by hypocrites to their neighbours when they wanted to deceive them under a cloak of affected godliness." She had been rather proud of this reply, which certainly for the time had the effect of completely shutting up the good lady who had recommended the tracts to her notice. But now she felt very differently, and looked at the little bundle in her hand, thinking how she might use it to the best advantage. Not that she felt naturally drawn to the work; it would require a considerable effort on her part to bring herself to offer a tract to a stranger, and a far greater effort to accompany the offer with a word or two from herself; but she now believed that she _ought_ to make the effort, and that word "ought," the idea of "duty" which it kept before her, was beginning to exercise a constraining force hitherto unknown to her. And there was a special advantage in the tract. Just the giving of it without comment would be a good preparation for more close and personal work in the loving Master's service. So, grasping the papers with a trembling hand, she began to look out for an opportunity of parting with some of them, and she had not long to wait. When the little party turned away from the spot where the preaching had been held, and were thinking of returning to their cottage, as they were just directing their horses' heads homewards, Julia uttered a sort of suppressed cry or exclamation, which at once drew the anxious attention of both her brothers to her.

"Anything amiss, dear Julia?" asked Amos and Walter together.

"No, not exactly," she said in a troubled voice, and with a scared look. Then, recovering herself, she pointed to a young woman dressed rather fantastically, who had just passed them in a direction opposite to that in which they were going. "Do you see that woman?" she asked in a low humbled voice; "she is one I have reason to know too well. She was associated in a theatre with poor Orlando. Oh, I wish I could do her some good! Let us follow her; perhaps she would take a tract."

Who would have thought of such a speech from Julia Vivian a few days back? But the earnest desire to do that poor outcast creature good had evidently got possession of her, and so the three turned their horses' heads in the direction in which the actress was walking. But the object of their loving pursuit had now quickened her pace, and turned up a by- street before they could come up with her. Should they follow? Some impulse urged them forward. The side street led to a square or large open piece of ground, in the centre of which was erected a temporary theatre. The woman whom they were following was just about to enter this building, but turned about and looked back before doing so. Her eyes met those of Julia, and she at once recognised her with a peculiar smile, which sent the blood rushing back to Julia's heart, and made her for the moment half resolve to turn and fly from the place. But she resisted the feeling and held her ground. The next moment the woman had entered the theatre. The little party lingered for a few moments, and then the theatre door again opened, and several persons in various stage dresses came out and gazed on the newcomers. Then they began to wink at one another as they stared at Julia, and to break out into a broad grin. How earnestly did the object of their curiosity and merriment long to rush away out of the reach of those mocking eyes and sneering lips! Yet she did not move. A purpose was coming into her heart; she might never have such an opportunity again. Yet how weak she felt in herself. But then she lifted up her heart in prayer to the Strong One, and, turning with blanched face, but perfect calmness, to her brothers, asked them to help her to dismount, and then, leaving her horse's reins in Walter's hands, advanced towards a group of some dozen persons of different ages who had come out of the theatre to gaze and to make merry.

"You know me, I see," she said, in a voice sweet and sad, but clear as a bell in its utterances, "and I know you. You knew my poor husband in times gone by, but not lately. He is dead; and your time must come too. He was pointed to that Saviour who alone can make a death-bed happy, and I _hope_ he was able to see him. His last words were, `God be merciful to me a sinner.' You and I shall probably never meet again. I have gone back to my early home, and wish to forget the past, but I could not see Jenny Farleigh go by without wishing to say a kind word to her, and this has brought me to you. I believe God has changed my heart; I have learned to know something of the love of my Saviour, and I am happier now than I have ever been all my life. Oh, if you would only give up your present life and come to the same Saviour, how happy you would be! Don't be angry with me for saying this, but just each of you take one of these little papers from my hand as a token of good-will on my part, and read it when you are alone."

She paused, having uttered these words with deep feeling, but at the same time in a steady and fearless voice. The effect on her hearers was overpowering. Not a scornful eye, not a sneering lip remained when she had finished, but sobs and tears burst from those who had for long years known little other than fictitious weeping. Each took the offered tract, each returned with warmth the kind pressure of her hand as she parted from them; and as she remounted her horse, one voice was heard to say, "Poor thing! God bless her!" Then all shrank back into the theatre, and the happy three turned homeward once again. And oh, with what deep thankfulness did all make their way along the cliffs, and then close to the incoming tide, whose every wave seemed to throw up for them a sparkle of joy in its glittering spray! Few words, however, were spoken. Amos could hardly realise that this moral heroine was the sister whom he had once known so weak, so self-willed, so unimpressible for anything that was good and holy. Walter also was utterly staggered and humbled when he reflected on what he had just witnessed, though at the same time he was truly happy in having been strengthened to carry out his own noble and self-denying purpose. As for poor Julia, she could hardly believe that she herself was the person who had addressed that group outside the theatre walls. Oh, it was so strange, so terrible, and yet so blessed! for through that newly-opened door of work for the gracious Master bright rays from the flood of glory in which he ever dwells had been pouring in upon her soul.

The happy three reached their cottage, overflowing with love to one another, and all anxious that Miss Huntingdon should be a sharer in their happiness, when she should hear what a bright and blessed day had been granted them. So they sought her in the evening, when their mother had retired to rest. Seated at her bedroom window, the four looked forth upon the mighty deep, now rolling in its great waves nearer and nearer, and every wave flashing in the silver light of the full-orbed moon. And surely the moonlight streaming down upon those waves, like God's calm peace on the billows of earthly trial, was in sweet harmony with the feelings of that little group, as Amos and Julia poured out their account of Walter's noble address, and as Amos and Walter told of the unexpected and loving self-sacrifice exhibited in the conduct of their darling sister. Need it be said that in Miss Huntingdon they had one who listened with almost painful interest and thankfulness to the adventures of that never-to-be-forgotten day? Drawing them all round her, she poured out her heart in praise to God for what he had done in them and by them, and in prayer that they might be enabled to persevere in the glorious course on which they had all now entered. And now, when all were again seated--a little mound or pyramid of young hands being heaped together over one another in Miss Huntingdon's lap--Walter's voice was first heard. "I want an anecdote, an example of moral courage, auntie; and it must be a female one this time, for we have a moral heroine here, there can be no doubt about that."

"There is no doubt of it, I am sure," replied his aunt; "and there can be no difficulty in finding moral heroines, as well as moral heroes. Indeed, the only difficulty lies in making the most suitable selection from so many. Our dear Julia has shown a moral courage such as I am certain she could not have done had she not sought strength from the only unfailing fountain of strength; and so I will take as my example one who was surrounded, as Julia was, by persons and circumstances which might well have daunted the stoutest heart, much more the heart of a poor and desolate young woman. And my example will be the more appropriate because it will bring before us a scene which is closely connected with the seashore--such a seashore, it may be, as we are now gazing on, with its sloping sands, and waves rushing up higher and higher on the beach. My heroine, then--and she had a fellow-heroine with her--was a humble Scottish girl who lived in the reign of Charles the Second, when the poor and pious Covenanters were bitterly and remorselessly persecuted, even to the death, because they would not do violence to their consciences and deny the Lord who bought them. Many of them, you know, were hunted by the king's savage soldiery among the hills and mountains, and, when overtaken, were slain in cold blood, even when in the act of prayer.

"Margaret Wilson, my heroine, was a young girl of eighteen. She was taken prisoner by the soldiers, tried, and condemned to die, because she steadily and courageously refused to acknowledge the supremacy of any other than Christ in the Church. A few words might have saved her life; but she would not utter them, because they would have been words of falsehood, and, though she dared to die, she dared not tell a lie. So they brought her out to the seashore, such as is before us now. The tide was rising, but had not then begun long to turn. She had a fellow- sufferer with her of her own sex--one who, like herself, preferred a cruel death to denying Christ. This fellow-sufferer was an aged widow of sixty-three. The sentence pronounced against them both was that they should be fastened to stakes driven deeply into the sand that covered the beach, and left to perish in the rising tide. The stake to which the aged female was fastened was lower down the beach than that of the younger woman, in order that the expiring agonies of the elder saint, who would be first destroyed, might shake the firmness of Margaret Wilson. The water soon flowed up to the feet of the old woman; in a while it mounted to her knees, then to her waist, then to her chin, then to her lips; and when she was almost stifled by the rising waves, and the bubbling groan of her last agony was reaching her fellow-martyr farther up the beach, one heartless ruffian stepped up to Margaret Wilson, and, with a fiendish grin and mocking laugh, asked her, `What think you of your friend now?' And what was the calm and noble reply? `What do I see but Christ, in one of his members, wrestling there? Think you that _we_ are the sufferers? No. It is Christ in us--he who sendeth us not on a warfare upon our own charges.' She never flinched; she sought no mercy from man. The waves reached her too at last; they did the terrible work which man had made them do. The heroic girl passed from the hour of mortal struggle into the perfect peace of her Saviour's presence."

As she finished, Julia looked with tearful eyes into her aunt's face, and said gently, "Dear auntie, Christ was her strength; and," she added in a whisper, "I believe he was mine."

"Yes, yes, precious child," said Miss Huntingdon, drawing her closely to her, "I am sure it was so; and the one great lesson we may learn from our three heroines is this, `I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.'"