Part 12

"No, no," said he; "drive me through my own village! They drove me through it on Saturday; take me back as they took me away. But it was like Mr. Preston to think of it. Tell him I said so, and that I'll never forget his kindness as long as I live!"

It was the red-gold heart of the August afternoon, and the shrill little choir of the ruined church sang a welcome to the friend who had never sinned against them; and Glen came bounding and barking defiance at the outside world; and the unfinished stone, the first stone that Robert Carlton was to dress and to lay with his own hands, it was just as they had made him leave it on the Saturday evening. But the story of his return was still being bandied from door to door, when a new sound came with the song of birds from the ruin in the trees, and a new ending was given to the story.

The sound was the swish, swish, swish of the mason's axe, with the stiletto's point, through sandstone as soft as cheese.

XVII

THREE WEEKS AND A NIGHT

Carlton completed that historic stone within another hour, and actually laid it that night. Jaded in body and brain, with every nerve exhausted, he must needs do this or drop in the attempt. It was the first stone in the new church. It was finished at last. He touched it here and there with the straight-edge. He felt its angles with the square. This stone would do. He whipped out his foot-rule and measured carefully. The stone was eleven inches all ways but one. It was the exact depth for the lower courses, but it was seventeen inches long. A seventeen-inch gap must therefore be found or made for it. And Carlton went prowling round the blackened walls, with his foot-rule and his dog, before resting from his labours. The job should be finished this time, the first stone should be laid that night.

A place was found in the base of the east end, over a stable portion of the plinth; the situation was of sacred omen, and Carlton cleared away the old mortar with immense energy. Then his difficulties began. There was new mortar to make; this was an altogether new undertaking. It had been Tom Ivey's affair. Carlton had tried his hand at most branches of the masonic art, but he had never attempted to mix the mortar. He barely knew how to begin. There was a heap of sand at one end of the shed, and a load of lime under cover. These were the ingredients. That he knew; but it was not enough.

Suddenly, he remembered his _Building Construction_ in two volumes; the bulkier of the two treated of materials. In a minute the book was found, deep in dust, and carried to the shed for consultation on the spot. And there was only too much about mortar; the subject monopolised a column of the index; its vastness oppressed Carlton, who nevertheless attacked it then and there. A great disappointment was in store: so he was to begin by "slaking" his lime. He had forgotten that step; now he had a dim recollection of the process. According to the book it took two or three hours at least; even this minimum presupposed that the lime was a "fat lime," whatever that might be. Carlton, lacking all means of deciding such a point, gave his inclination the benefit of the doubt, and left his shovelful of quicklime under water and sand for exactly two hours and a half.

This check came in the nick of time. It reminded Robert Carlton of the flesh, whose needs he had once more neglected, though now he would have cooked and eaten if only to have killed an hour. He lit a fire. He put on the kettle. He toasted some very stale bread; he boiled an egg warm from the hen-house, then another; and having eaten he rested while he must. The sun set; the new moon whitened in the sky, but as yet could not light a man at his work when it was really dark. And that was why the lantern stood so long upon the ground outside the shed, in a whirl of tiny wings, while the mortar was being mixed at last.

But the lantern stood longer still upon a salient fragment of the razed east end, while the trowel rang, and the mortar flopped, until all lay smooth and glistening in its light. Then Carlton knelt, and lifted his handiwork with bursting muscles; and the mortar spattered his waistcoat as the great stone dropped into place. A wrench, a push, a tap with the trowel; a finishing touch with its point, a word of thanksgiving before he rose; and Robert Carlton had laid the first stone of a new church, and of his own new life.

Next morning he began systematic work, rising at five, lighting his fire, making his bed, sweeping, dusting, pumping, rinsing, all before the day's work started after breakfast, with the gentler arts of scraping and re-pointing, and all in strict obedience to the schedule which Carlton had drawn up before his arrest. The working day ended, as then arranged, with a violent assault upon that black disorder which had been the nave; but this also acquired system as the days closed in; while the influence of time was not less apparent in the gradual disappearance of that tendency to morbid reaction which had been inevitable in the first days of bodily and spiritual strain, of incessant and excessive hardship, of a solitude consummate and profound. But here time was assisted by the good sense and the strong will of Carlton himself, who knew how little virtue there is in mere remorse, and who struggled against it with all his might. It was a long time, however, before even he was master of himself in this regard. One day, in the exaltation of overwork, the high excitement of nervous and of physical exhaustion, he was actually heard whistling at his walls, and it was all over the village before he caught himself in the act; but none seemed to hear how suddenly he stopped at last; none saw the raised face, the clasped hands, the lips moving in meek apology for an instant's joy. Nor did any man dream how this one would still mortify himself, after such a lapse, with deliberate dwelling on the past. There was but one link, indeed, in all the mournful chain of recent events, upon which Robert Carlton would never permit his thoughts to concentrate; that was his successful conduct of his own case before the magistrates, culminating in his final triumph over Sir Wilton Gleed. He had made the rule in the hour of his release, and he called in all his strength of mind to its rigorous observance.

It was now three weeks since he had spoken to a human being, none having come near him to his knowledge; then one morning the air was full of whispers, though the yellowing elms hung stagnant in an autumn mist; and the outcast, looking over the wall which he was scraping, beheld a bevy of school-children perched on that of the churchyard.

He bent a little lower to his work. The wall was that thirteen-foot strip, to the left of the porch, upon which he had spent the first morning of all in getting rid of the unsound upper courses. It was still his own height in most places; so the children could not watch him at his work; but the sound of them was enough. Poor little children! To grow up with such an example and such knowledge as would be theirs! His heart had seldom smitten him so hard.

"_Then said He unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him through whom they come!_

"_It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones._"

The text came unbidden; it cut the deeper for that. Woe unto him, indeed! Of all men, woe unto him! Hammer and chisel slipped from his hands; he hid his face. His thumbs went to his ears, but were drawn back. The children's voices were more than he could bear, so he bore them for his sin until another aspect of the case was driven home to his intelligence. Next moment he appeared in the porch, and the children were vanishing from the wall.

"Don't run away," he called. "Come back, you bigger ones!"

It was his old voice, come unbidden like the text; he might have been using it all these weeks. The children had never disobeyed that quiet but imperious summons. They did not begin to-day.

"Why aren't you all at school?"

There was silence, broken eventually by some bold but still respectful spirit.

"Please, sir, it's a holiday."

"Not Saturday, is it?"

He was beginning to lose count of the week-days; once already the Sabbath school-bell had nipped a day's work in the bud.

"No, sir, it's an extra holiday."

"Then spend it better. Get away into the fields, or down the river. I won't have you hanging about here. There's nothing for you to see--nothing that will do you any good. Run away all, and forget who has spoken to you. But don't let me have to speak again!"

There was no need for another word. And the workman went back to his wall; but his hands had lost their cunning; his heart was as heavy as the stones themselves.

Why had he never been harassed in this way before? He had not to think very long. He was without that friend of friendless man, his dog. The good Glen, his second shadow in these days, had chosen this one to desert him; and Carlton was glad, for nothing else would have made him appreciate the dog at his true worth. Now he thought of it, how often the faithful brute had gone barking to wall or gate, and come back wagging his tail! Preoccupied with his work, he had taken no thinking heed at the time. But now he remembered and understood.

Instead of working all the afternoon, he went in search of Glen. It surprised him to find how much he missed a companion whose presence he had often ignored for hours together; he felt as though he could do no good without the animal now; its dumb sympathy seemed to have had no small share in all that he had done as yet. That wag of the tail, how well he knew it after all! It was like the grasp of a good man's hand. That wistful eye, watching over him at his work, was it a blasphemous conceit to think of it as the mild eye of the All-seeing, shining through the mask of one of His humblest creatures, upon another as humble, and countenancing the work if not the man? If this was blasphemy, then Robert Carlton blasphemed for once in his heart; and had his deserts in an unsuccessful quest.

He had searched the garden and the house; had stood whistling at the gate, and in each of the far corners of the glebe. Night fell upon him sawing a huge tie-beam through and through to shift it, and sawing with all the irritable energy of the unwilling workman, very remarkable in him. And for once he was glad to put on his coat.

What could have happened to the dog? Its master could scarcely eat for wondering. Now he sat frowning heavily. Anon his brow cleared, and a fixed purpose glittered in his eyes. A little later he was in the village street once more.

XVIII

THE NIGHT'S WORK

The night was as dark as it could possibly be. The day's mist still lingered, impervious to stars, and there was no moon. Carlton was not sorry, for he had no wish to be seen by more people than was absolutely necessary; neither was he allowing for the shabby tweeds he had unearthed to work in, for his cloth cap and untrimmed beard, which obliterated the clergyman and changed the man.

He had not gone far before he stopped in astonishment. He had met no one, and the village was as dark as the firmament; in the first few cottages there were no lights at all. Carlton groped his way up the path of one, and knocked twice without receiving an answer or detecting any sound within. It was as though his sin had driven his parishioners to the four winds.

He went on with increasing amazement, still without encountering a soul; then swerved of a sudden from the middle of the road, and hugged the wheatfield wall on the right-hand side while passing the Flint House on the left. Here were lights, and more. The front door stood open, pouring a broken beam of lamplight into the road. And on the single step, leaning upon his great stick, towered the silhouette of Jasper Musk, only less colossal than his shadow in the lighted slice of road.

Carlton half expected a challenge, and passed slowly and openly; instead of slinking as his shame dictated. But there was neither word nor sign of recognition from the gigantic figure on the step; and the lights ended where they had begun. There were none beneath the gabled thatch immediately beyond the wheatfield; and so for another hundred yards; not a glimmer to right or left, with the single exception of a lattice window over the post-office, where the bed-ridden Mrs. Ivey lay as she had been lying for many months. Carlton saw the shadow of a flower-pot on the widow's blind; no doubt it was the geranium he had taken her in early summer; he remembered placing it on the sill. His pace quickened. He was now at the long lane leading to the Plough and Harrow; and there at last were the missing lights. The inn was lit up in every window, and not only the unmistakable sound, but the very smell of feasting travelled to the road, where Robert Carlton hesitated longer than his wont. He might as well go home. It was quite bad enough to face his people piece-meal. On the other hand, there was the dog; a characteristic fixity of purpose in its owner; and a natural curiosity to know more of the entertainment that could empty every home.

The front of the inn revealed nothing after all. The brilliantly lighted parlour was deserted by all but a single attendant behind the bar; the scene of revelry was audibly the barn at the back. The inn itself had once been a farm-house, and this barn came in for all the festivals.

Carlton peered through the parlour window, and nodded to himself. The face within was new to him, but that might well prove an advantage. It was the florid face of a stout young man, passing the time with a newspaper and a cigar, the first of which he threw aside to answer the incomer's questions.

No, he had seen nothing of any collie dog; but he was a stranger himself, only come to lend a hand for the night. Black and tan collie, but more black than tan? No; the only dogs he had seen all day were the governor's tyke and a thoroughbred bitch belonging to the young gentleman at the hall.

"But have a drink," said the stout young man, reaching for a tankard.

Carlton declined civilly, though not without betraying some astonishment.

"That's free beer to-night, old man," explained the other.

"Indeed?"

"I'm here to serve ut. Change your mind?"

"No, thank you."

"Then I will."

And the young man drew a foaming pint, while a burst of revelry came through the inner doors, but slightly deadened by its passage through the open air.

"May I ask what is going on?" inquired Carlton.

"That's the biggest spread ever seen in Long Stow," said the stout youth, drawing his sleeve along his lips and turning a shade more florid than before.

"Not the harvest-home already?"

"No; that's a dinner given by the squire to every sowl in the parish--men, women, an' kids--all but one."

The questioner stood absorbed.

"All but one," repeated the temporary barman with knowing emphasis. And he winked as he leant across the bar.

"Ah!"

"Their reverend ain't here--not much!"

"I don't suppose he is. And why is the squire doing this sort of thing on this scale?"

"Why, in honour of the victory, to be sure."

"What victory?"

"Why, the one we've just had in Egypt. Tel-el----but here that is, in the _Bury Post_, and a fair jaw-breaker, too."

It was the first newspaper which Robert Carlton had seen for several weeks. His _Standard_ subscription had run out at mid-summer; he had never renewed it. The world had renounced him utterly, and so must he renounce the world. To live as he was living, and yet to have an ear for the busy hum--he could not do it. For already he recognized the startling truth: it was its very completeness which rendered his isolation endurable.

Yet his eyes glistened as he ran them down the stirring columns, and his tanned face wore a coppery glow as he returned the paper across the bar.

"Thanks very much," he said. "I am glad to have seen that."

"Is it the first you've heard of it?"

"Yes; I don't often see a paper."

The young barman was eyeing him up and down, from the old tweed trousers to the old cloth cap.

"On the tramp, are you?"

Carlton did not choose to reply.

"Yet you seemed to know all about their reverend here!"

"Who does not?" cried the man in tweeds, with involuntary bitterness.

"Ah, you may well say that! And what do _you_ think of him?"

"I think the same as everybody else."

"That he's the biggest blackguard unhung?"

"Indeed, one of them!"

"That's what the young gentleman from the hall say, when he was in here this afternoon. But the governor, Master Palmer--O Lord! how he do hate him! 'Unhung?' he say. 'Why, hangun's too good for him.' An' so it is, come to think of it: to go and do what _he_ done, an' to top all by settun fire to his own church!"

"Come," said Carlton, "that wasn't proved."

"But everybody know it, bless you!"

"Though the charge was dismissed in open court?"

"Bah! 'Not guilty, but don't do that again!'"

And the stout youth nodded sagely over his tankard's rim.

"So that's the opinion of the neighbourhood, is it?"

"That is, and that's not likely to change."

Carlton was not astonished. He had foreseen this even from the prisoner's dock, in that pause of the proceedings when he had felt ashamed of his facility in self-defence, a haunting doubt of the propriety of his defending himself at all. And yet the virile instinct which had inspired him then was not yet dead in his breast; he could not let all this pass; the conversation was none of his seeking, yet he must say something more.

"I have never stuck up for him," he began; "but give even him his due! What possible object could a man have in burning down his own church?"

"What I asked the governor," replied the barman. "'Dog in the manger,' he say; 'didn't want the next man to reap where he've sowed. What's more, that give him an excuse for stoppun in the place,' he say."

Carlton was under no temptation to confute these arguments; his only difficulty was to suppress a smile.

"So his people don't think any the better of him for getting himself off, eh?"

"The better? That's made them right mad! The governor here, he say that was the gift of the gab and nothun else; all parsons have their fair share; but this here reverend, he do seem to be a holy terror, an' no mistake. A gentleman like Sir Wilton Gleed haven't a chance agen him; so they're all a-sayun, all but Sir Wilton himself. The young gent who was in here this afternoon, he was a-sayun as how the squire wouldn't have the reverend's name so much as spoken at the hall; and he's never been heard to name it himself since the day of the trial, he's that mad. But have you heard the latest?"

Carlton had heard quite enough, and his hand was on the latch, nor did he withdraw it as he turned his head.

"Against the reverend?" inquired he.

"That's it," said the young barman with renewed gusto. "And I nearly let you go without tellun you!"

"What has he been doing now?"

Carlton was curious to hear.

"That's not what he've been doün, but what keep comun o' what he've done," his informant said ominously. "The latest is that some young chap would go to the devil because the reverend had, so he 'listed, and he've been in the very battle there's all this to-do about!"

Of Mellis's enlistment Carlton had heard; the rest was news indeed; and his hand tightened on the latch.

"Has anything happened to him, then?" he faltered, sick at heart.

"Not as we know on yet," said the stout youth, hopefully. "But the lists ain't in, and, if this young chap's killed, everybody says it'll be another death at the reverend's door."

"So they want his blood!" exclaimed Carlton. "But what they say is true."

As he opened the door a burst of cheering came round from the barn.

"That's for the squire," he left the barman saying. "He've been on his legs these ten minutes."

The outcast had shut the door behind him, and was groping his way in a darkness no deeper than before, though perfectly opaque after the strong light within.

"And one cheer more!" screamed a voice from the barn.

Carlton need scarcely have left his rectory to have heard the final roar. Yet it was not the end.

"And three groans . . ."

This voice was hoarse; the name was lost in the night; but the outcast well knew whose it was. And he stopped instinctively, standing firm upon his feet while the groans were given--as though they lashed him like wind and rain. Then he turned his face to the storm. He could not help it. There was more clapping of the hands. Something further was to come; he might as well hear what.

The barn was a clash of violent lights and impenetrable shade. Its outlines were inseparable from the sky; but its great doors had been flung flush with their wall, which gaped twenty feet from jamb to jamb. This space, illumined by slung lanterns and naked candle-light, and streaked with tables, which ran the full length of the barn, stood out like the lighted stage of a darkened theatre. Outside hovered the unworthy element which the smallest community cannot escape, or the largest charity embrace; these vagabonds were absolutely invisible to those within; and were themselves too dazzled and disgusted to take note of each addition to their number.

Sir Wilton Gleed, on his legs once more, at the high table furthest from the doors, was making that preliminary pause which is a little luxury of the habitual orator and an embarrassing necessity to the novice. He was supported by the schoolmaster on one side and by his own son on the other. The former wore the shiny flush which was the badge of every reveller visible from without; but that was not many while all heads were turned towards the squire.

Sir Wilton began by observing, with sparkling eyes, that he was very sorry to hear that name: he himself would have preferred such an occasion to pass over without a reminder of the fact that they had a leper in their midst. It was many moments before the speaker was suffered to proceed; then he repeated the successful epithet at the top of his voice, and drove it home with a synonym; recovering his own composure during a second outburst, and continuing with conspicuous self-restraint. Now that the matter had come up, he would not let it drop, even upon that inappropriate occasion, without one word from himself; but, he promised them, it should be his last public utterance on the subject, in that parish at all events, as it was most certainly his first. And another deliberate pause ended in a sudden gesture and a new tone.

"What's the use of talking?" exclaimed the squire. "The law of England is against us; there's no more to be said while the law remains what it is. I'm not thinking of my brother magistrates' decision the other day; it would ill become me to pass one single syllable of comment upon that. No, gentlemen, I confine my criticism to that law which empowers a clergyman, convicted of the vilest villainy, to retain his living in the teeth of every protest, and to continue poisoning the clean air of this parish by wilfully remaining in our midst."

"Shame! Shame!"

"Shame or no shame," cried Sir Wilton, "I intend to bring the matter before Parliament itself"--a further outburst of vociferous approval--"intend to lay this very case before the House of Commons at the earliest possible opportunity. And I think that I can promise you some amendment of the law before another year is out. Meanwhile"--and Sir Wilton raised his hand to quell renewed enthusiasm--"meanwhile let us respect the law while it lasts. In signifying our detestation of this monstrous wrong, let us be careful not to drift into the wrong ourselves. There must be no more broken windows, mind!"

And it was now a single finger that Sir Wilton Gleed held up.