CHAPTER I.

Childish Things.

As fays and elves and witches old To children of a gentler mould, Angels and devils came their way And were adapted to their play.

A quaint old town which had long ago ceased to be anything but picturesque, but which never forgot that it had once been prosperous, as some women never forget that they have once been pretty--a town in which the square, red-brick houses pretended that they were frowning on the streets in front, while they were really smiling on the gardens at the back all the time--a town with an interesting past and a most uneventful present--such was Chayford in the county of Mershire.

A noticeable figure in the town of Chayford--a man of courtly manners, cultivated mind and consistent piety--a scholar, moreover, of no mean order, whose learning was profound and whose wisdom was not of this world--such was Mark Seaton, a minister "of the people called Methodists".

In the days of his youth the Reverend Mark Seaton had chosen as his wife Ruth, the only daughter of David Crayshaw of Camchester--well known among the Methodists of the past generation as a "leading friend"; and Mrs. Seaton had inherited a fortune from her father, in addition to many gifts of mind and person. As she had been a dutiful daughter, so she was a devoted wife. To her children she was ever sympathetic and tender, with intermittent attacks of discipline, which she disliked as much as they did; and while her heart was ever begging her to indulge, her conscience kept bidding her to punish them. She had been known to whip her darlings, urged by a painful sense of duty thereto; but on such sad occasions she wore a shawl for the rest of the day, just as she did when the minister was not well, or when any important member of the congregation died.

Mark and Ruth Seaton had only two children, Paul and Joanna by name. Joanna was the elder by a year; but Paul was so much the bigger and stronger and better-looking of the two, that he took the lead in everything.

Paul and Joanna Seaton were brought up in the good old Methodist style, and learned to take life seriously. To them every trivial choice was a decision between good and evil--every fortunate accident a special interposition of Providence on their behalf. They were early taught by their father that the only two things of importance in this life are salvation and education; likewise, that the verb To Be is of infinite moment--the verb To Do of great weight--and the verb To Have of no significance at all. Therefore, whatever faults and failings they might suffer from in after life, there was no possibility of the little Seatons becoming vulgar.

It was when the Seatons "travelled" in the Chayford circuit that Paul and Joanna formed their friendship with Alice Martin. Alice was three years younger than Joanna and two years younger than Paul. It was true that she was not as clever as Joanna--but then she was much prettier, which made it all right. And in childish days--as in later ones--Alice Martin was always ready to play inferior parts in a grateful spirit; a habit of mind which makes people to be beloved, if downtrodden, by their fellow-creatures.

Alice's parents were wealthy and worldly persons. Of being the former they were proud, and of being the latter they were ignorant; in fact they imagined that they were a very godly couple, because they attended chapel regularly, and had their library lined with calf-bound copies of the _Methodist Magazine_, dating from its Arminian days. Mr. and Mrs. Martin regarded religion very much as they regarded an "English manufacture" or an "Irish industry"; that is to say, they lost no opportunity of patronizing and advertizing it; but felt that in so doing they were conferring a favour and meriting a vote of thanks.

Mrs. Martin was an extremely amusing woman; but she herself had no idea of this--she imagined she was only dignified and edifying. She once said: "Although my husband is a rich man and a county magistrate, he has the fear of the Lord before his eyes". And she had no idea that there was anything humorous in this use of the conjunction although.

Another great friend of the minister's children was Edgar Ford--an earnest little boy who was always asking profound and unanswerable questions. His father was an opulent merchant; and his mother an elegant and well-bred woman, who hid great kindness of heart under a somewhat cold and stately exterior.

But perhaps the most important figure in the children's world--while they were yet children--was their old nurse Martha, a very superior and excellent person who had lived with Mrs. Seaton before her marriage. Martha had another servant under her; but she would share with no one the delightful duty of looking after Paul and Joanna. It was Martha who corrected their childish sins and comforted their childish sorrows; and it was Martha who placed them upon an intimate, yet withal comfortable, footing with the principalities and powers of the spiritual world. To Martha they owed their ineradicable belief that an inclination to idleness or disobedience or greediness was no mere instinct, but a suggestion of the Evil One himself, who--bat-winged and cloven-footed, as he appeared in the illustrations to the _Pilgrim's Progress_--lurked in the dark places of the china-pantry and the back-stairs, for the set purpose of betraying to destruction the souls of the minister's children. Likewise, they were taught that the subdual of this inclination was no mere outcome of a line of plain-living, high-thinking ancestors, but a triumph of the powers of light over the powers of darkness. These beliefs Paul and Joanna never outgrew; which, perhaps, accounted for the fact that, as man and woman, they did not underestimate the difference between good and evil.

At Chayford Paul and Joanna spent three of the interminable years of childhood; and Chayford Chapel was ever afterwards associated in their minds with all that is sacred and holy. It was there that they had first touched the fringe of the Unseen, and caught glimpses of life's deeper meanings; it was there that they had sung the old-fashioned hymns to the old-fashioned tunes, and had felt as if they themselves were somehow one with the white-robed multitude, which no man can number, singing the song that the angels cannot learn. Then the hearts of the children were filled with joy and their eyes with tears, and a strange thrill ran through the whole of their being. They did not understand why they felt so gloriously happy and yet wanted to cry; for they were then too young to know that earth, and probably heaven, has nothing better to offer us than that same thrill, which runs through us when we catch fleeting glimpses of the Beautiful and the True, and rise superior for the time being to all that is sordid and cowardly and mean. For the moment, we are "pure in heart"; and therefore, either through the interpretation of art or the revelation of nature, either in the loyalty of a great people or in the love on a familiar face, we "see God".

When Paul and Joanna were respectively eighteen and nineteen, their father's health gave way and he was obliged to "sit down"--a synonym among Methodist ministers for retiring upon half-pay--and he chose Chayford as the spot where he would finally settle. The Seatons had spent their three years at Chayford some time previously; and it had suited them so well that they selected it as their permanent abode.

There is no doubt that the Methodist system of having a sort of "general post" among the ministry every Conference keeps the Church together in a most successful way; but there is also no doubt that a triennial removal falls heavily on the women of the ministers' households. No Wesleyan minister can stay longer than three years in any circuit; and he need only stay one; so, like the Mohammedans and their Hegira, all his race reckons time by "Conference".

There was a nomadic strain in Joanna's blood, inherited from three generations of preaching ancestry; and she was incapable of feeling happy under any roof-tree for a longer period than three years. But her mother was of a less restless disposition; and had learnt that if one is continually moving one's Lares and Penates, these idols are apt to get very much the worse for wear, if not actually broken to pieces. It is only when a Wesleyan minister "sits down," that his family are able to thoroughly understand the meaning of the word home. Therefore Mrs. Seaton rejoiced in secret over her house at Chayford. Her husband's health was not such as to give her any real anxiety, but he was growing too old for full work, and needed rest; and the fortune that she had brought to him made him feel that he was justified in taking, with a clear conscience, the repose for which he craved.

Paul was doing very well at Kingswood School; and Joanna was doing equally well in the school of domestic life; and their parents' cup of joy was full when at last Paul won a scholarship at Oxford.

On the morning when Paul's triumph had been made known at home, Mrs. Seaton went into the kitchen after breakfast to break the glad news to Martha. But the latter met her with a most ominous expression of countenance.

"There's a sad thing happened this morning, ma'am, and no mistake," she began, with a profound sigh.

"Indeed, Martha, and what is that?" inquired her mistress.

"The best hot-water jug has gone to its long home."

"Oh! Martha, not the Ruth and Naomi one?"

"The very same, ma'am, more's the pity!"

Now it happened that this hot-water jug was one of Mrs. Seaton's most cherished household gods. It portrayed the first chapter of the Book of Ruth. Ruth and Naomi clave to each other under the shadow of the spout, while Orpah returned to her own people in the direction of the handle. The handle itself was one gigantic ear of barley; and on the opposite side of it to that where Orpah and her people evidently dwelt, Boaz reaped with his young men, neatly dressed as English farm-labourers.

"How ever did it happen?" asked Mrs. Seaton in a reproachful tone.

"I was just carrying it with the breakfast cups across the kitchen, and suddenly it smashed itself to bits on the floor."

"But, Martha, I have so often told you not to try to carry so many things at once. It was sure to end in an accident."

"So you have, ma'am; but it seemed as if it was to be."

"It would not have happened if you had done as I told you," said Mrs. Seaton quite sternly.

"That is true, ma'am; but it seemed as if it was to be."

Nothing that her mistress said could convince Martha that she was in any way to blame in the matter. She seemed to regard herself as merely the instrument in a foreordained scheme of destruction; and kept repeating in a tone of grim satisfaction, "it seemed as if it was to be!"

Mrs. Seaton had learned many things in life; and one of them was that feminine argument is always unattractive and generally useless. She was a woman of infinite tact, and took great pains never to hurt people, or even to make them uncomfortable. Her instinct told her what places were sore to the touch; and her religion prevented her from touching the same. She was too good a woman to rejoice secretly at other people's misfortunes, and too clever a one openly to pity them. But all this did not come by nature to Mrs. Seaton; it had taken half a lifetime's experience--and also considerable knowledge--to bring her tact to this state of perfection.

On the present occasion she changed the subject by saying: "We have had good news about Master Paul this morning, Martha."

"Indeed, ma'am, that is a good hearing! What has come to the dear lad?"

"He has won a scholarship at Oxford, and so is going to the University."

"Well, ma'am, that is good news and no mistake! Oxford is a fine place, I hear; and I am told that there's a chapel belonging to each of the colleges, so that the dear young gentleman will not be cut off from the means of grace."

Mrs. Seaton smiled. "The college chapels are not Methodist chapels, however."

"Are they not, ma'am? Well, that's a pity! I thought they were. Still any sort of a chapel is better than a church, to my thinking."

And Mrs. Seaton listened with much amusement while Martha further expounded her views on the subject.

So Paul Seaton went to Oxford, and drank deep into the spirit of a city whose very lawns have to be rolled for five hundred years before they are considered soft enough to walk upon. And there Paul saw visions and dreamed dreams; and because he had been vouchsafed two of the best gifts wherewith Providence can equip a man--namely a religious training and a sense of humour--his dreams were never ignoble and his visions never absurd. He made up his mind to serve God and his generation to the best of his ability, and to make for himself a great name into the bargain; for he was as yet young enough to concoct plans for the conflagration of the river Thames; not knowing that if a man can kindle a fire on his own hearthstone to keep him warm in his old age, he has done his share towards the heating-apparatus of this world, and can count himself among the more successful half of mankind.

Paul also grew lean and tall and vigorous; and was very pleasant to look upon, with his dark hair, grey eyes and well-cut face. He was not a handsome man, strictly speaking; but, as Martha said, "he would pass in a crowd," and he was quite good-looking enough for everyday use.

The years had not dealt quite as kindly with Joanna as with Paul. She was short and thin and colourless; one of those whitey-brown-threads of women who are constantly being overlooked by their friends and neighbours, and whose natural abode is supposed to be the outlying districts of other people's lives. And she took no pains to make herself attractive, as a vainer girl would have done; for she was as yet young enough to cherish that admirable and false belief that folks love us according to our excellencies. We all begin life well grounded in this groundless faith, and we rejoice in it as long as we are youthful enough to fancy that our excellencies will be many; but as we grow older and see how few of these there be, and those not of the finest water, we thank heaven for showing us that the aforesaid dogma was nothing but the rankest heresy.

Joanna was the raw material out of which nuns and sisters of mercy are made. Had she belonged to a different faith and a different age, she would have developed into a model lady-abbess. To her, love was a matter of no interest; it formed no part of the programme of life. Such romance as her nature possessed had been lavished upon Mrs. Crozier, the wife of one of the ministers in her father's penultimate circuit. No lover ever adored his mistress, and no devotee his saint, more absorbingly than Joanna adored Mrs. Crozier.

There is always something pathetic in the adoration of a young girl for an older woman; she gives so much, and can, of necessity, receive so little; yet, with the exception of motherhood, it is perhaps the most unselfish affection which a woman's life can hold. The girl worships with her whole heart, and pours out all the early romance of her nature on this particular shrine; and the woman either suffers this devotion patiently, or snubs it cruelly--according as she happens to be amiable or the reverse.

Mrs. Crozier was kind to Joanna on the whole; but she had not much time to waste on girls, for she was a busy woman.

There are some people who go through life putting all their eggs into one basket. There are others who avoid this mistake, but fall into the equally unlucky one of putting their eggs into baskets which are already full. These erring mortals pour out the treasures of their love at the feet of those whose coffers are overflowing, and spend their days in the thankless task of waiting upon such as are well served. Joanna Seaton was one of these. It was her fate in life to give love where she could only receive friendship, and friendship where she could only receive toleration. Had she given otherwise and otherwhere, her rewards might have been different. But what man or woman can bestow their affection as their wisdom prompts?

Therefore there was a tragic element in Joanna's lot. But when "gorgeous Tragedy" puts off her "sceptred pall" and dresses like a dowdy little spinster, men are too blind to recognize and too hard to pity her. So she bears her burden in silence.

"What do you mean to do when you leave Oxford?" asked Joanna of Paul one day.

"I shall take a First and go to the Bar, and then into Parliament," replied her brother promptly. Paul always knew his own mind--a branch of knowledge which is useful in this world.

"But suppose you fail?" suggested Joanna.

"I shall not fail."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I have made up my mind not to fail, but to work at a thing till I succeed. When a man is a failure it is always his own fault."

"Except when it is God's; and then failure is better than success," said Joanna quietly, who knew more about failure--and therefore more about success--than Paul did.

He had still to learn that the man who tries and succeeds is one degree less of a hero than the man who fails and yet goes on trying.

Mr. Martin did not at all approve of Paul Seaton's going to Oxford: nominally, because he upheld that learning was a dangerous thing for a young man who had his own living to get; and actually, because he could not bear any one else to enjoy such advantages of mind, body or estate as had not been vouchsafed, in still fuller measure, to himself. He therefore spoke a word of warning to the young man one day when Paul happened to be calling at The Cedars.

(The Martins' house was called The Cedars because there happened to be a yew-tree in the middle of the lawn.)

"My dear Paul," Mr. Martin began, "I trust that the purely intellectual life in which you are now indulging will in no way unfit you for earning your own living in a suitable and becoming way; nor, on the other hand, lead you into infidelity."

Paul likewise hoped not, and said so.

"To my mind," interpolated Mrs. Martin, "there are few more delusive snares than learning, falsely so called."

This excellent lady had no taste for art or literature, and consequently she considered them wrong. It is so easy--and pleasant--to discover sins lurking in the pursuits for which we are not inclined. Many of us possess wonderful powers of perception in this matter.

"My fear always is that classics and mathematics and rubbish of that kind will disable a man for the more serious business of life," continued Mr. Martin, "and render him incapable of making and earning money."

"But don't you think that they might rather enable a man to earn his own living?" suggested Paul.

Mr. Martin shook his head. "Such things might enable him to earn his own living, perhaps, but never to make a fortune."

"Is it absolutely necessary to human happiness to make a fortune, I wonder?" queried Paul.

Now Mr. Martin was a very good-tempered man, and the causes of his amiable attitude of mind were two-fold--he was very well-off and he was always sure he was in the right; so he had no grounds for a quarrel with anybody. But when people spoke slightingly of the good things of this world, he was much shocked: he called it "tempting Providence".

"Wealth is the hall-mark of success," he replied rather shortly, "and poverty is the outward and visible sign of failure."

"I can hardly agree with you there, Mr. Martin. Who ever thinks about how much money Shakespeare or Milton made?"

Mr. Martin regarded this remark as childish, so took no notice of it, but calmly continued: "I once knew a man who began life as an errand-boy; and yet when he died he left half a million of money behind him. Now that is what I call success."

"And I once knew of a man who began life as a free-born citizen of no mean city, and was executed as a prisoner at Rome; and who left no fortune behind him save a few letters. Yet the world hardly calls that man a failure."

"Don't you think it is a little irreverent to apply things out of the Bible to every-day life?" suggested Mrs. Martin in a reproachful tone. "It always grates upon my ear when I hear young people do it."

"It never struck me in that light."

"I fear," added the master of The Cedars, "that too much learning is already leading you into infidelity, and causing you to speak flippantly of sacred matters. As I said before, I cannot commend useless study. In my opinion, if a man has any time to spare from his business he should devote it to religion."

"As you have done, Caleb," remarked his appreciative spouse.

"I have always endeavoured to do so, my dear; and that, I take it, is the reason why my investments are almost invariably successful."

Mr. Martin was one of the men who act up to their convictions. Early in life he had undertaken the difficult task of combining the service of God and Mammon. For some ten hours a day he worked hard at making and amassing money; but his "off-time" he devoted conscientiously to heaven; and he considered that, on the whole, heaven had nothing to complain of in the arrangement.

It is but fair to add that Caleb Martin endeavoured, according to his lights, to do his duty to both the powers under whom he served; but, if the two interests did happen to clash, it was never Mammon that came short. Otherwise, perhaps, he would not have been such a rich man.

"My husband has never cared for pleasure," continued Mrs. Martin, "and many a time when I considered that a little relaxation would be good for him, he has said to me, 'My religion is my recreation, Sarah'. And he has always made it so."

"I have indeed," replied Mr. Martin modestly; "though I do not think, my dear, that you should thus proclaim my virtues upon the house-top. It may seem just a little boastful to one not of our own household."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Martin considered that the latter's description of her husband was unadulterated praise. It never occurred to either of them that any one in heaven or on earth would not consider it as such. It also never occurred to them that they were being at all humorous.

"You have certainly succeeded even beyond your deserts, Mr. Martin," remarked Paul with much sincerity.

The excellent Caleb waved his hand in a deprecatory manner. "I have received my penny a day," he replied; "neither more nor less."

As a matter of fact he was at that moment receiving about nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and eleven pence more than his penny a day; but it never does to press a metaphor too far.

Then Mrs. Martin chimed in with the remark: "You will do well to think upon Mr. Martin's words, my dear Paul. At Oxford you are doubtless exposed to other pernicious influences in addition to that of infidelity, as you are thrown much with young persons who have been nurtured in the pride of high rank and of noble blood--a most subtle and dangerous form of sin, to my thinking."

Paul much regretted that Joanna was not present. She always appreciated Mrs. Martin so warmly, and she had frequently called attention to the fact (now _en evidence_) that in the spiritual world the special dangers which beset our neighbours seem so much more terrible than those which beset ourselves. The latter are but pardonable weaknesses, we think; but the former are mortal sins. Thus we pray that we may be delivered from pitfalls which have no attraction for us, and we hope that Providence will be so much engaged in attending to the fulfilment of this prayer, that our slips and stumbles into the little hollows which we affect will pass unnoticed.

"Pride of birth is a dreadful besetment," continued Mrs. Martin, "and one which I pray may never be laid to my charge." Which certainly seemed an almost superfluous petition, considering the lineage of the suppliant.

The Martins were very anxious to be delivered from the temptations arising from such mundane blessings as had been denied them; but it never seemed to occur to them to pray for exemption from the love of money.

"I suppose all worldly gifts become besetments if we give them a primary instead of a secondary place," suggested Paul, "and if we confuse essentials with non-essentials."

"Quite so, quite so," agreed Mr. Martin; "and it is this thought which gives us parents so much anxiety when we look forward into our children's future--this fear that the young people may, in their ignorance, fling away the substance for the sake of the shadow; as a young friend of mine once did, who refused a partnership in an excellent business in order to become a missionary."

"What happened to him eventually?" asked Paul.

Mr. Martin heaved a sigh of sincere regret. "He died--a comparatively young man--somewhere in the South Seas. And if he had taken my advice and stayed at home, he might have been the mayor of his native town by this time. But young folks will not be controlled."

"Still I can't help thinking that on the whole it is as fine a thing to be a martyr as to be a mayor," Paul remarked.

But Mr. Martin considered this remark irreverent.

"Mr. Martin is right," sighed the mistress of The Cedars, "though for my part, I desire for my one ewe lamb neither riches nor honour; I only ask that she may be wise and happy."

And then the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Alice, who blushed very becomingly on perceiving Paul; while Mrs. Martin--having noted the blush--was straightway plunged into a very maelstrom of maternal unrest, lest the one ewe lamb, for whom she desired neither riches nor honour, should seek happiness with the impecunious son of a minister of religion.