19. The Ruling Elder Interferes
Mr. Highbury was a Presbyterian of the Western Pennsylvania stamp. Generations of training in the Galvinistic formulas and the Presbyterian forms had produced, perhaps, a hereditary habit of thought. He could not see anything in any other light than that of his traditional opinions. Above all, these mushroom Methodists who did nothing decently or in order, were to be condemmed. To admit that any large number of them were really Christian would be to suppose that God had chosen to convert more people through unsound doctrines tending to Pelagianism than he had through the preaching of the true doctrines of divine sovereignty and unconditional election. The fact that so many Methodists backslid was to him evidence beyond question that they had not much of God's grace among them.
When Mrs. Highbury told him what Miss Moore had said, Mr. Highbury felt that the time for rebuke and reproof had come. The revival of the past winter had irritated him. The large numbers that had joined the Methodists were an eye-sore ; for churches of differing Beets in a small town are very like rival corner grocers, each watching with jealous eye the increase of his neighbor's trade.
After debating the matter for a day or two and growing gradually warm with righteous indignation as he reflected.
Mr. Highbury put on his hat on Thursday morning and walked down the street toward Lefaure's. The singing locusts were making their sweet, monotonous, drowsy din in the air; the great running rose-bushes were climbing up to the second-story windows with their arms full of white and red and yellow roses ; there were faint sounds of the pastoral music of tinkling cow-bells in the distance, and on either hand the green hills grew hazy where they were touched by the blue sky flecked with white clouds. But no sound of singing locust, of faint far-away cow bells and crowing chickens, or sight of rich rose-trees or vista of high wooded hill and of soft white cloud sailing through the infinite ocean of deep blue sky, touched the soul of the ruling elder. Highbury's horizon was narrow ; there were no objects within it but himself, his family, his trade, and his church. All else was far away in the dim distance like the unnoted sound of the cow-bells. For there is a sky in every man's soul, and some souls are near-sighted. On the other hand, Mr. Whittaker's sky was clear. He came out of his room at nine o'clock, walked along the porch and stood looking at the hills on the other side of the river, scanning the green apples in the young trees near at hand, and watching the white clouds, not in the sky, but floating in the under-sky, which he saw below in the waters of the wide river. He heard faintly the distant crowing of the cocks even from a mile away, across the river, he could hear them. He heard the cow-bells, and the " chook, chook, " of the red-bird, the conversational " can't, can't" of the cat-bird, whose musical powe-s had all been exhausted by his matin song. The time for him to see Roxy again was drawing near, and his spirit was full of hope. It seemed to him that his soul was like the great, wide Ohio, it mirrored in its depths the glory of the sky above. Presently old Jacques Dupin Twonnet's grandfather came hobbling out of his room into the sunlight. He was a picturesque figure, Avith his trowsere of antiquated cut, his loose jacket, and his red yarn cap pointed at the top and tasseled.
Full of human kindness and sympathy this morning, Whittaker hurried over to meet the octogenarian, and to inquire how he was.
" Comment-vous portez-vous aujour-d'hui?" cried the minister in the deaf old man's ear.
"Tres-bien, vary well I remercie, M'sieur." The old man felt obliged to make an effort to speak it. English out of courtesy to Whittaker's feeble French.
The minister assisted him to a seat in the large rockingchair; then he adjusted a stick of wood under the rockers so that the chair would not rock, for the old man could not bear the sense of insecurity which the motion of the chair gave him.
"Mr. Weetakare, " he began, in a querulous voice, as soon as his feet had been placed upon his foot-stool, " Mr. Weetakare, je ne sais quoi I don't know wat God A'mighty means. Mon frere my brothare Guillaume, who was good for somet'in', he die ; my cousin Bernard, il est mort aussi, il y a deux ans it ees so much as two yare past, and my sceur, she aussi ees gone. Moi I am not wort' so much as a picayune, and moi je leef on, on, on. Pardi, I don't know wat God A'mighty ees about to leef te dead dree wat bears no pommes at all and to cut down all de rest. Eh ! que pensez-vous, Monsieur wat you dink?"
And then without waiting for Mr. Whittaker to reply, the old man went on :
" Wen I was a boy in Suisse, I remembare dat --"
But it was at the beginning of this reminiscence that Mr. Whittaker's mind wandered entirely away from the old man in the red cap sitting there under the overhanging vines, wandered away from his story of boyhood in Switzerland, his garrulous memories of the Pays de Vaud and of the simple mountain life so different from that of his old age on the fertile banks of this great river, il, Whittaker heard him not, for all the time his mind went after his heart to the home of the shoe-maker's daughter with its honeysuckle and morning-glory vines and to the morning-glory herself. At last the old man had reached some sort of denouement in his polyglot tale, he tapped Whittaker's knee with his trembling hand and burst into an old man's laugh faint and far down in the throat like the gurgling of subterranean waters.
"Wat you dink que pensez-vous, Monsieur ? Ees it not ha-ha ees it not he-he tres drole ?
" It is very funny, no doubt, " answered the other in some confusion. But at that moment Mr. Highbury was ushered to the porch by Twonnet. After a few minutes of speech with the old man, the ruling elder took the minister's arm and asked for an interview in private, leading his companion to the further end of the long porch, where they sat down upon a bench.
Mr. Highbury began about the Methodists, their unsoundness, their illiterate preachers and uninstructed laymen, their reception of all sorts of people without any discrimination. Then he enlarged on the necessity for building up a more intelligent piety and one sound in doctrine and not running into wild excitement.
Mr. Whittaker assented.
But Mr. Highbury thought that Presbyterians should not associate too much with Methodists.
Mr. Whittaker did not say anything.
Mr. Highbury thought that Mr. Whittaker would do well not to visit at Adams's again, because it would make talk, and
But just at this critical moment came Twonnet. She had already affected to have much business in the room which opened just behind the seat occupied by the two gentlemen, she had observed closely their countenances, and now she brought a tray of bright striped apples, insisting in her must winning fashion that Mr. Highbury should accept one. The ruling elder was vexed that his speech should have been broken off just when he was drawing it to a focus, but there was no help for it. And besides, he was human, and it was not in his man's nature to be displeased with such distinguished hospitality from so cheery a brunette as Twonnet. She paused after the gentlemen had taken apples to talk a minute with the half impatient Highbury, shaking her brown curls with merry laughter and chatter about nothing at all, and so filling that gentleman's head with a pleasant sense of her presence that he found it hard to resume his severity when her merry eyes were gone.
He gathered up his dispersed forces, however, and prepared to return to the charge. But at the disadvantage, now, that the enemy had had time to put himself under arms. Whittaker was slow to arouse, but while Twonnet talked he had been busy guessing the drift of the ruling elder's speech and in growing a little indignant.
"I was saying, Mr. Whittaker a that " resumed Mr. Highbury, hesitantly.
" That I ought not to go to Mr. Adams's so often," put in the minister, whose nerves were irritaole from the excitement to which he had been subjected of late ; " and I, on my part, insist that I have a right to go to see the man if I find his company agreeable."
Mr. Highbury was silent a moment. Who could have dreamed that a minister on three hundred dollars a year would have the pluck to speak to the richest man in his church as though they were at all equals ! He would sooner have expected his store-boy to show spirit than Whittaker. What is the use of a moneyed man in a church, if he is not to control the pastor !
" But perhaps you do not know," continued the elder, " that your going there so often has started a report that you are engaged to Roxy Adams."
Mr. Whittaker was silent. He could truthfully say that he was not betrothed to lioxy. But he felt that this would be a cowardly shirking of the issue.
" Now, of course, there is no truth in this report," continued the merchant, in a tone which indicated his belief that there was ; " but think how much damage the idea the very idea may do us. What a shock it is to our congregation to think of you marrying a girl who was never taught a word of the catechism, who doesn't believe in the doctrine of God's sovereignty, and the election of grace, who sings those wild Methodist songs, and prays in meeting, and even makes speeches in love-feast before a crowded audience. And then she "
But just here, to Mr. Highbury's vexation, and the minister's relief, Twonnet came upon the stage once more, entering by way of the garden gate, with a nosegay of pinks, and roses, touch-me-nots, and Johnny-jump-ups, intermingled with asparagus twigs, and some old-man-ingreen. This she presented to the disturbed Mr Highbury, asking pardon for interrupting the conversation and re questing him to give the bouquet to Mrs. Highbury for her.
She said that she wanted to show Mrs. Highbury which had the finest pinks. Then, as she started away, she turned round to ask Mr. Highbury if he had heard about Mrs. Boone, the poor woman whose husband was a drunkard.
" Roxy Adams," she said, with entire innocency -- Roxy Adams went down there two weeks ago and nursed that poor creature for three days, without leaving her day or night, and without taking more than an hour of sleep at a time. I didn't know anything about it till Mrs. Boone's little boy came up here and brought me a note from Roxy asking for a bottle of wine to keep the old woman alive, for the fever had left her nearly dead. And then I went down to help Roxy, but the old creature wouldn't drink a spoonful of wine and water out of my hand. It was all Roxy, Roxy ; and Roxy nursed her as if she'd been her own mother. That's what you might call pure religion and undefiled, isn't it, Mr. Highbury ? "
"Well, yes, if it came from faith and was not selfrighteousness. All our righteousness is as filthy rags, you know. I have no right to judge. Roxy seems to be a Christian."
" Doesn't the Bible say we shall know them by their fruits?" returned Twonnet. "For my part, I think if Roxy isn't saved the rest of Luzerne had better give up. Of course, though, I believe in salvation by grace there's no other chance for such as me."
And with that the girl went away laughing, and Mr. Whittaker wondered whether some kind providence had sent her to his rescue, or whether, after all, this mercurial girl had not a depth of finesse in her charaeter. Had he lived under the same roof with her so long without finding out that she was something more than a merry superficial chatterer ?
Meantime Mr. Highbury now saw that he must change his tack. He could not go on assailing even the theology of Roxy Adams without bringing to an explosion in gathering indignation of the cool New England parson, whose face had been growing redder for some time.
' Certainly, what she says about Roxy Adams is true. I wish she was a Presbyterian. Then we might stand some chance of getting: Mark Bonamy. Poor fellow ! he is dead in love with her. And I'm afraid you'll excuse me Mr. Whittaker I'm afraid any interference on your part with Mark's prospects there might drive all his good resolutions out of his head. But I must go."
For just at that moment Mr. Highbury remembered with a pang that there was to be an "animal show" in towa that very day, and that the store must even now 'he full of country customers. He hurriedly bade Mr. Whittaker good-bye. He hardly took time to shake hands ivilly with the dreamy old man in the red cap at the thcr end of the porch. He left the pinks and toueh-me3ts lying on the bench where he had sat, and hastened through the hail out of the door and up the street, noting, as he walked, not the scenery, but the number of wagons standing by the hitching-rails, at either side to the courthouse square, and calculating how much of ''bit" calico and brown sugar, how many clocks, and shoes, and nails, and clothes-lines he might sell during the day.
But the minister sat still upon the porch. The last arrow of the retreating assailant had wounded him. His life had been one of severe selfdenial. For a few days, he had thought that duty and inclination lay in the samo direction. Now, this awful specter of the harm he might do to the eternal welfare of Bonamy stood in his path. In his day men believed in perdition hell was a very real and horrible place of everlasting torture. If, now, life should be the means of toppling over poor Mark Bonamy into that abyss, and even then after all should be forgiven, what an awful thing it would be for him to think about in eternity, that he had wrought endless misery to a humar soul !
The birds, the rose-bushes, the singing locusts and all the sweet and drowsy music of a summer day, and all the beauty of the hills and the placidity of the river seemed to belong to another world now. He was a truant schoolboy, who had had a good time. But now he was brought back to take his flogging, and the world did not reem so pleasant any more.
Twonnet stood near him when he looked up. The droll girl had set her face into the very expression that was characteristic of Mr. Highbury.
" Don't marry a Methodist," she began, mimicking tho ruling elder's tone ; " don't marry any singing, shouting, shoe-maker's daughter ; marry my niece, Caroline, now, she is good and quiet and "
The drollery and mimicking of manner were perfect, out they jarred upon Mr. "Whittaker's present state of feeling. He was amazed at this sudden revelation of the real Twonnet ; but he was in trouble, and he wanted sympathy, not diversion.
" Oh, Twonnet," he cried, pathetically, reaching out his hands in sudden impulse, and seizing hers, " don't make fun. I am sick. I have done wrong. Think what harm I've done, maybe, to Mr. Bonamy."
"Mark Bonamy ! Pshaw!" said Twonnet. But bhe went no further. For the minister's voice in appealing thus to her, his act of confidence in taking her hands had touched her heart, and she felt again that old frightful pang of love or jealousy come back. She longed to com fort the good, troubled man. Why should she plead for Roxy ? Roxy had everybody to love her. But who loved Twonnet ?
The minister suddenly released her hands, and went to his room. But all the drollery was gone from the heart of Twonnet. She opened the gate through the fence, went down betwen the currant-bushes and hollyhocks to the further end of the garden. There she sat down on a little stool beneath a quince-tree, and cried. She who was so strong that she had undertaken to deliver others was weak now. The voice of her friend crying for help had made her helpless ; for she was a woman. And much as she declared to herself in this hour that she would never marry a sober, hesitating, severe minister, her heart still gave the lie to her thought as she saw, in her memory, his tearful eyes upturned to her own, and heard him call her name so eagerly.
Then she grew angry and said : " What does he ask me to help him in his love affairs for I'm sure I don't know."