Chapter 4

'Why keep all your kindness for your dog, Mr. Fletcher? Why not extend the same acts of mercy to those who are of more value than many dogs? If you did that your dog would not be your only friend, nor would it be called upon to suffer for you as it does.'

'I durnd know, Mr. Penrose, as I want ony friends.'

'I think there's one Friend you cannot do without--the one you recommended me to keep in the pulpit. Don't you think we need Him in the home as well?'

'Ther's noabry kept Him aat o' aar haas, as I know on, hes ther, Sally?' said Moses, turning to his wife.

'Doesto think 'at onybody's axed Him?' she replied. 'And if He coome, what kind o' a welcome would He ged, thinksto? I know thaa reckons to meet Him on a Sundo, and when thaa sits at "His table," as tha co's th' sacrament, and at th' deacons' meetings. But that's abaat as mich on Him as yo' want, I think.'

Mr. Penrose stood up to leave, but, recollecting himself, he said:

'Shall I pray with you, Mr. Fletcher?'

To which he received the curt reply:

'Thaa con pleeas thisel.'

Mr. Penrose knelt by the bedside of the poor mammon-worshipper--self-blinded and hardened by the god of this world--and with a full soul cried:

'Merciful Father! Who hast forgiven so much, and in whose continued forgiveness lies our only hope, inspire us with the spirit of Thy forgiveness towards all men, and grant that Thy great heart, which bears enmity towards none, may so warm these selfish hearts of ours that we may not only love our neighbours but our enemies, with the love wherewith we are loved. Pardon our littlenesses, consume our selfishness, and fashion us after Him whose strength bore all burdens, whose heart heard all entreaties, and whose love went out alike to friend and foe. Amen.'

* * * * *

It was in the golden autumn weather when Moses and his dog, for the first time after the _mêlée_, turned out for an afternoon's stroll. Both bore sore evidences of the severity of the struggle, one being bandaged over his forehead, the other following with tell-tale limp and disfigured coat.

Not caring to face the inquisitorial eye of the villagers, nor hear the rude sarcasm and stinging wit which he knew they would hurl at him from their tongues, Moses turned down a foot-road leading from his garden to Folly Clough, and thus secured the quiet ever found in those deeply-wooded seams that plough into the very heart of the moors. Following the water-worn path which wound in tortuous ascent under clustering trees and between slopes of bracken, the two soon gained the head of the Clough, and climbed towards the banks of the Green Fold Lodge, a stretch of water into which drained the moisture of vast tracts of uplands, its overflow rushing through flood-gates and pouring its volume through the Clough to feed the factories below. Seating himself on the bank of the Lodge, he recalled the day when he rescued his dog from its chill deeps, and, turning to Captain, he said:

'It wor welly bein' thi grave once, owd lad. Aw wonder why it wor aw saved thee. Thaa's getten many a lickin' (thrashing) sin' then on my accaant.'

Whereupon the dog bounded round his feet, and held up its head for one of those caresses which Moses was never known to extend save to his dog.

As they rested together Moses continued:

'Thaas noan a bad sort, Captain; and thaa'd ha' done a deal more good if aw'd a let thee. Thaa wor awlus fond o' childer', bud they'd never let thee alone. It wor happen as weel if aw'd a bit more o' thi spirit i' me, owd lad; but if there wor more fo'k like thee there'd be less like me.'

And at this Captain wagged his tail with delight, and rubbed his cold nose under the palm of Moses' hand.

'Aw've gin thee a bad name, owd mon, and they'n tried to hang thee for't; but thaa'll happen do summat some day as they'll tee a medal raand thi neck for, and when thaa'rt deead build thee a moniment.'

And Moses actually laughed at his burst of mirth, which was of rare occurrence in his taciturn life.

Moses' wit, however, was soon cut short, for he started and stayed his monologue at the sight of a child sailing paper boats on the opposite and deeper side of the reservoir,

'Why, yon's that little lad o' Oliver o' Deaf Martha's!' exclaimed Moses to himself. 'What a foo' (fool) his mother mun be to let him marlock on th' Lodge banks by hissel. By Guy! he's i' th' watter!'

At that moment Captain sprang up, and would have leapt after the child, but Moses bade him lie still.

The dog, for the first time in its life, resented the command of his master, and a low, ominous growl came from a mouth that displayed a row of threatening teeth. At this Moses, for the first time in his life too, raised his foot and kicked the brute he had so lately been apostrophizing, and, seizing it by the collar, held it to the spot.

'Thaa doesn't know whose bairn it is, Captain, or thaa'd never trouble to go in after it. It's his whose dog welly worried thee and me on th' Caanty Court day.'

But the instinct of Captain was nearer the thought of God than was the moral nature of Moses, and, despite threat and cuff and kick, the dog so dragged his collar that Moses, weak from his long illness, felt he must either let go his hold or follow the leading of the noble creature.

And now commenced a terrible struggle in the soul of Moses. He turned pale, and great drops of sweat stood upon his brow, as he felt himself in the grasp of a stronger and better nature than his own. Looking round to see if his relentless act were watched, he breathed more freely as he saw along the miles of moorland no sign of human life. Only his eye, and the eye of Captain--and then he realized that other Eye that filled all space--the Eye that looked down from the cloudless light. Fiercely the struggle waged. The voice of Moses cried out of the deeps of his own black heart, 'My time has come, as I said it would.' But the words of Mr. Penrose--heeded not when uttered--rang out clear and telling: 'Vengeance is Mine, _I_ will repay.'

'But is not _this_ God's vengeance?' replied the voice of the lower man.

And then came the reply:

'Would God punish Oliver through his child as Oliver punished you through your dog? Am I a man, and not God?'

Moses looked round, as though someone had spoken in his ear, and, loosing his hold of Captain, muttered:

'Go, if thaa wants.'

A mighty bound, and Captain was in mid-stream, and with a few strong and rapid strokes he reached the sinking child. But the flood-gates were open, the reservoir was emptying its overflow down the steep falls into the Clough fifty yards below, and child and dog were slowly but unmistakably being carried towards the gorge.

Again the struggle commenced, and once more Moses was the prey of the relentless reasoners--Love and Self.

'A man's life is worth more than a dog's,' cried Self.

'And more than a child's?' asked Love.

'But it's Oliver o' Deaf Martha's child, is it not?'

'And your dog is seeking to save it.'

'Shamed by a dog!' All the remains of the nobleness so long dormant in the nature of Moses--the passion, and valour, and love which he had allowed to die down long, long ago--awakened into life. For the first time for thirty years he forgot himself, and with a great light breaking round him, and sounds of sweetest music in his heart, he leapt into the Lodge, struck out for the struggling dog and its fainting burden, and strengthened and steadied both to land.

Many years before Moses had been immersed in the baptistery at Rehoboth by the old pastor, Mr. Morell. He stepped into those waters as Moses Fletcher, and he was Moses Fletcher when he came up out of them, despite the benediction breathed on his dedicated soul. But on this autumn afternoon Moses Fletcher--the cruel, exacting, self-righteous Moses Fletcher--was buried in baptism, and there stepped out of those moorland waters another man, bearing in his arms a little child.

III.

THE ATONEMENT OF MOSES FLETCHER.

On the evening of the day following the rescue of Oliver o' Deaf Martha's child, Moses Fletcher was walking over the moors towards his own home, a great peace possessing his soul, and a buoyant step bearing him through a new world. Above him the mellow moon of September dreamed in blue distances, the immensities of which were measured by innumerable constellations. Around, the great hills loomed dark in shadow, and bulked in relief against the far-off horizon of night. Along the troughs and gullies lay streaks of white fog, ever shaping themselves into folds and fringes, and, like wraiths, noiselessly vanishing on the hillside; while over all rested a great stillness, as though for once the fevered earth slept in innocence beneath the benediction of that world so vast, so high, and yet so near. Many a time, amid such surroundings, had Moses traversed the same path. Never before, however, had he passed through the same world. To him it was a new heaven and a new earth, for he carried with him a new soul.

Crossing the stretch of hill on the crest of which lay the Rehoboth burial-ground, Moses made his way to the stone wall fencing in that God's acre, and paused to lean his arms on its rude and irregular coping. There stood the old chapel, square and gaunt, its dark outline clearly cut against the moonlit sky, each window coldly gleaming in the pale light, while the scattered headstones, sheeted in mist, stood out like groups of mourners mute in their sorrow over the dead. Below lay the village--that little tragic centre of life and death--half its inhabitants in sleep, hushed for a few brief hours in their humble moorland nests. The fall of waters from the weir at the Bridge Factory came up from the valley in dreamy cadences; a light dimly burned in old Joseph's window; and a meteor swept with a mighty arc the western sky. The soul of Moses Fletcher was at peace.

He sprang with a light step over the low wall of boundary, and crossed the wave-like mounds that heaved as a grassy sea, and beneath which lay the unlettered dead, the long grasses writhing and clinging to his feet, as though loath to let him escape the dust upon which they fed and grew so rank. Heedless of their greedy embrace, he walked with long stride towards the lower end of the yard, until he stood before a gray and lichen-covered slab, on which were letters old and new. There, by the moonlight, he read the record of a baby boy of two, carrying back the reader forty years. Above it was the name of a father, dead these ten years, and between these, all newly cut, were the lines:

JINNY CRAWSHAW,

WIFE OF THE ABOVE, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE, ----- -----

For some moments Moses stood before the stone; then, taking the hat from his head, he knelt down on the cold grass and, kissing the newly-cut name, he vowed a vow. If, with the power of his Master, whom he had only just begun to serve, he could have raised the sleeper, as Lazarus and the widow's son and the ruler's little child were raised, then the great grief of his heart would have disappeared. But he could not--the past, _his_ past, was irrevocable. But there were the living--Jim Crawshaw, his wife, his babe--these were still within his reach of recompense. And again he vowed his vow, and the still night air carried it far beyond the distant stars to where He sits who knows the thoughts and tries the reins of men.

* * * * *

'Thaa'rt lat' to-neet, Moses; where hasto bin?'

'Nowhere where thaa couldn't go wi' me, lass,' and so saying, Moses kissed his wife, an act which he had dexterously and passionately performed several times since his immersion in the Green Fold Lodge on the previous day.

'Whatever's come o'er thee, Moses? Thaa fair maks me shamed. It's thirty year an' more sin' thaa kissed me. Hasto lost thi yed?'

'Yi, lass, but I've fun mi heart,' and he again clasped his startled wife, and grew young in his caresses.

'I thought thaa kept thi luv for Captain, Moses. But I durnd mind goin' hawves wi' th' owd dog. I awlus said that a chap as could luv a dog hed summat good abaat him somewhere--and thaa's luved Captain sum weel.'

'And others a deal too little, lass. But all that's o'er'--and Moses burst into tears.

'Nay, lad--forshure thaa'rt takken worse. Well, I never seed thee cry afore. Mun I ged thee a sooap o' summat hot, thinksto? or mun I run for th' doctor?' and Mrs. Fletcher looked at her husband with a scared and troubled face.

'Why, lass, I've been cryin' all th' day--and that's why I've bin so long away fro' thee--I didn'd want to scare thee. I cornd help but cry. I tell thee I've fun mi heart.'

And Moses again sobbed like a child.

That night, when his wife was in bed, and Captain slept soundly on the rug in front of the fire, Moses opened a safe that stood in the corner of the room, and, taking therefrom a bundle of deeds, selected one docketed 'Crawshaw Fold.' He then took from a drawer a number of agreements, and carefully drew forth those which gave him his hold on the Crawshaws. These he enclosed with the deeds in a large blue envelope, and in a clerkly hand addressed them, with a note, to James Crawshaw. After this he knelt down, and, as he prayed, Captain came and laid his head upon the clasped hands of his master.

* * * * *

'Good-mornin', Abram. Hasto ought fresh daan i' th' village?'

'Plenty, Enoch; hasto yerd naught?'

'Nowe; I hevn't bin daan fro' th' moors sin' Sundo.'

'Then yo've yerd naught abaat Moses Fletcher?'

'Nowe; nor I durnd want. When yo' cornd yer owt good abaat a mon yo'd better yer naught at all.'

'But I've summat good to tell thee abaat owd Moses.'

'Nay, lad, I think nod. Th' Etheop cornd change his skin, nor th' leopard his spots.'

'But Moses hes ged'n aat o' his skin, and changed it for a gradely good un and o'.'

'And what abaat his spots, Abram?'

'Why, he's weshed 'em all aat in th' Green Fowd Lodge wi' savin' Oliver o' Deaf Martha's little un.'

Enoch whistled the first bar or two of an old tune, and stood silent in thought, and then exclaimed:

'Well, aw'v yerd o' th' seven wonders, but if what thaa sez is true, it mak's th' eighth.'

'Yi, owd mon, but there's a bigger wonder nor that. He's gi'n Jim Crawshaw th' deeds o' Crawshaw Fowd, and towd him as he can pay him back when he geds th' brass.'

'Abram, thaa'rt gammin'.'

'Jim Crawshaw towd me this mornin', and I seed th' deeds wi' mi own een in his hond, and read th' letter Moses bed written.'

At this moment Mr. Penrose came along the field-path, and joined the two men. He, too, was strangely excited about Moses Fletcher, and, guessing what was uppermost in the minds and conversation of the two men, at once heartily joined them.

'God moves in a mysterious way, doesn'd He, Mr. Penrose?' said old Enoch.

'He does indeed, Enoch. Here I've been trying to convert Moses with my preaching, and the Almighty sets aside His servant, and converts the sinner by means of a dog and a little child. After all, there's something can get at the heart besides theology and philosophy. The foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of man.'

'Then yo' think he's convarted, Mr. Penrose?'

'Well, if the New Testament test is a true one, he is, for he is indeed bringing forth fruits meet for repentance.'

'He is so,' said Enoch, 'it what Abram sez is true. I awlus towd my missus that whenever Moses gave his furst hawve-craan it 'ud be his fust stride towards th' kingdom o' grace; but if he's gin Jim Crawshaw his deeds back he's getten a deal further into th' kingdom nor some o' us.'

Mr. Penrose attempted to continue the conversation, but in vain, for a lump rose in his throat, and the landscape was dimmed by the moisture he could not keep back from his eyes. And as with the pastor, so with his companions. A great joy filled all their hearts--a joy too deep for words, but not for tears.

In a little while Mr. Penrose said:

'Moses called to see me last night to ask for re-admission into the Church. He wants me to baptize him next Sunday afternoon week, and would like to give his testimony.'

'But he were baptized thirty year sin' by Mr. Morell,' said Abram. 'Why does he want dippin' o'er agen?'

'Because, as he says, he never received his testimony before last Monday, when he saved Oliver's child from drowning.'

'An' are yo' baan to baptize him?' asked Enoch.

'Why not? If the deacons are willing, I shall be only too glad.'

* * * * *

It was the first Sunday afternoon in October, and along a dozen winding moorland paths there came in scattered groups the worshippers to the Rehoboth shrine. Old men and women, weary with the weight of years, renewed their youth as they drew near to what had been a veritable sanctuary amid their care and sorrow and sin; while manhood and womanhood, leading by the hand their little ones, felt in their hearts that zeal for the house of prayer so common to the dwellers in rural England. Long before the hour of service the chapel-yard was thronged, and from within came the sounds of stringed instruments as they were tuned to pitch by the musicians, who had already taken their place in the singing-pew beneath the pulpit, which stood square and high, canopied with its old-fashioned sounding-board and cornice of plain deal. There was 'owd Joel Boothman,' who had played the double bass for half a century, resining his bow with a trembling hand; and Joe and Robert Hargreaves fondly caressing their 'cellos. Dick o' Tootershill and his two sons were delicately touching the trembling strings of their violins; and Enoch was polishing, beneath the glossy sleeve of his 'Sunday best,' 'th' owd flute' which had been his salvation.

In a few minutes Mr. Penrose ascended the pulpit. Never before was there such a congregation to greet him; and as the people rose to join in singing the old tune, Devizes, the worm-eaten galleries trembled and creaked beneath the mass of worshippers. Then followed prayer and the lessons, the hymn before the address being

'Come, ye that love the Lord.'

With a great swell of harmony from five hundred voices, whose training for song had been the moors, the words of Dr. Watts went up to heaven, and when the second verse was reached--

'Let those refuse to sing, Who never knew our Lord,'

little Milly, who had hobbled to chapel on her crutch, turned to Abraham Lord, and said:

'Sithee, owd Moses is singing, faither.'

And it was even so. Poor Moses! for so many years a mute worshipper, and whose voice had been raised only to harry and distress, no longer was silent in the service of song.

Mr. Penrose's address was brief. Taking for his text, 'The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost,' he said:

'It was the best in man that was longest in being discovered. That which was lost was not the false man, but the true man--the heavenly. We were none of us vile in the sight of God, because God saw Himself in us. It was this God-self in us that was lost to us. Not knowing it to be the hidden root of our true life, we did not claim our dignity, nor walk as became the sons of God. A man who lost the sense of his freedom, though free, would be fettered still. A man whose sense of beauty was lost would be as in a desert in the paradise of God. A lost sense of freedom meant a slavish mind, and a lost sense of beauty meant a prosaic mind, no matter how free the man, nor how beautiful his environment. So men had lost the sense of their sonship. They did not know their royal descent, their kinship with the Father, and therefore they did not act as became sons. A lost sense of relationship begat in them disobedience and alienation. They possessed gold, but were content with brass; and instead of iron they built with clay. The eternal and abiding was in them, but _lost_ to them, covered with incrustations of self and buried deep beneath the lesser and the meaner man. There were times in a man's life when the better nature gave hints of its existence. The mission of Christ was to awaken these hints. He came to tell them they were men, that they were souls, that they were sons and not servants, friends and not enemies of God. When He stirred these powers in men He stirred the lost. He set it before the eye of man, and made man see what he had within him, what he was _really_, and at the _root_ of his being--a man, a Son of Man, a Child of God. How hard this was only Christ knew. Spiritually, men put themselves, through spiritual ignorance, in false relations. This wrong relationship lay at the root of all disorder. It was the secret of discomfiture, misery and sin. Men were not lost in badness, not lost in sin, but lost to that which when discovered to them made their badness unbearable--in other words, "took away their sin." Lost souls, damned souls, souls in hell--as the theologians termed them--were simply souls lost to their right relationship. And the work of Christ was to find _in_ men, and find out _for_ men, what this right relationship was. This was what was meant in the text, the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Their friend Moses Fletcher had found something in himself. He had found love, and courage, and a sense of goodness. These had been discovered to him by the One who was always revealing the good in us if we would but let Him, and if we would but open our eyes to see. He, Moses Fletcher, had seen the good, and believed in it, and he was saved because he allowed the good to move and have its being in him. It was his better self, so long unknown to himself, so long lost in him, and to him, that awoke and led him to save Oliver o' Deaf Martha's child. When he plunged into the Green Fold Lodge he found what had been so long lost to him: he found himself. Then was fulfilled the saying, "He that loseth his life shall save it." That was salvation. Moses was now a saved man because he had found the sane and whole part of his nature. The Divine in him had been awakened. He was at last true to the law of his being.'

Then, closing his Bible, he asked Moses Fletcher to give his 'testimony.'

Standing up, and with tremulous tones, which none recognised as the once harsh voice of Moses, he said:

'Yo' happen willn't let me co yo' friends because I've bin an enemy to so mony on yo'! But Him as they co'd a friend o' publicans and sinners hes made me His friend, and He's made me a friend on yo' all. I know haa yo' all hated me, and I gave yo' good cause for doin' so. But He's put His love i' me, and naa owd Moses 'll never trouble ony on yo' ony more. Owd Moses lies i' Green Fold Lodge yonder, and he'll stop theer; it's time he wor done wi'. An' if you'll try me as God's baan to try me, aw think you'll happen larn to love me as I know I'm loved aboon.'

As he sat down many in the large congregation would fain have risen and grasped him by the hand, but propriety forbade.

In another minute Mr. Penrose came out of the vestry prepared for the rite of immersion, and Moses was a second time baptized in Rehoboth.

As he stepped out of the waters a cloud passed from before the October sun, and a flood of light poured through the open window above the baptistery, while a white dove from the neighbouring farm perched for a moment on the wooden sill. Then Milly once more turned to her father and said:

'Yon's th' brid, faither, but I don't yer th' voice!'

'What voice?' whispered Abraham Lord.

'Why, faither, thaa knows--"This is My beloved Son."'

But Moses heard that voice in his heart.

III.

AMANDA STOTT.

1. HOME. 2. LIGHT AT EVENTIDE. 3. THE COURT OF SOULS. 4. THE OLD PASTOR.

I.

HOME.