Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (529 page)

‘O no! I should lose so much time in going to and fro, and besides I like to be
among
the people. I’ve no face to go and preach resignation to those poor things in their smoky air and comfortless homes, when I come straight from every luxury myself. There are many things quite lawful for other men, which a clergyman must forego if he would do any good in a manufacturing population like this.’

Here the preparations for tea were crowned by the simultaneous appearance of Lizzie and the crumpet. It is a pretty surprise, when one visits an elderly couple, to see a little figure enter in a white frock with a blond head as smooth as satin, round blue eyes, and a cheek like an apple blossom. A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other; and Mr. Tryan looked at Lizzie with that quiet pleasure which is always genuine.

‘Here we are, here we are!’ said proud grandpapa. ‘You didn’t think we’d got such a little gell as this, did you, Mr. Tryan? Why, it seems but th’ other day since her mother was just such another. This is our little Lizzie, this is. Come an’ shake hands wi’ Mr. Tryan, Lizzie; come.’

Lizzie advanced without hesitation, and put out one hand, while she fingered her coral necklace with the other, and looked up into Mr. Tryan’s face with a reconnoitring gaze. He stroked the satin head, and said in his gentlest voice, ‘How do you do, Lizzie? will you give me a kiss?’ She put up her little bud of a mouth, and then retreating a little and glancing down at her frock, said, — ‘Dit id my noo fock. I put it on ‘tod you wad toming. Tally taid you wouldn’t ‘ook at it.’

‘Hush, hush, Lizzie, little gells must be seen and not heard,’ said Mrs. Jerome; while grandpapa, winking significantly, and looking radiant with delight at Lizzie’s extraordinary promise of cleverness, set her up on her high cane-chair by the side of grandma, who lost no time in shielding the beauties of the new frock with a napkin.

‘Well now, Mr. Tryan,’ said Mr. Jerome, in a very serious tone, when tea had been distributed, ‘let me hear how you’re a-goin’ on about the lectur. When I was i’ the town yisterday, I heared as there was pessecutin’ schemes a-bein’ laid again’ you. I fear me those raskills ‘ll mek things very onpleasant to you.’

‘I’ve no doubt they will attempt it; indeed, I quite expect there will be a regular mob got up on Sunday evening, as there was when the delegates returned, on purpose to annoy me and the congregation on our way to church.’

‘Ah, they’re capible o’ anything, such men as Dempster an’ Budd; an’ Tomlinson backs ‘em wi’ money, though he can’t wi’ brains. Howiver, Dempster’s lost one client by his wicked doins, an’ I’m deceived if he won’t lose more nor one. I little thought, Mr. Tryan, when I put my affairs into his hands twenty ‘ear ago this Michaelmas, as he was to turn out a pessecutor o’ religion. I niver lighted on a cliverer, promisiner young man nor he was then. They talked of his bein’ fond of a extry glass now an’ then, but niver nothin’ like what he’s come to since. An’ it’s head-piece you must look for in a lawyer, Mr. Tryan, it’s head-piece. His wife, too, was al’ys an uncommon favourite o’ mine — poor thing! I hear sad stories about her now. But she’s druv to it, she’s druv to it, Mr. Tryan. A tender-hearted woman to the poor, she is, as iver lived; an’ as pretty-spoken a woman as you need wish to talk to. Yes! I’d al’ys a likin’ for Dempster an’ his wife, spite o’ iverything. But as soon as iver I heared o’ that dilegate business, I says, says I, that man shall hev no more to do wi’ my affairs. It may put me t’ inconvenience, but I’ll encourage no man as pessecutes religion.’

‘He is evidently the brain and hand of the persecution,’ said Mr. Tryan. ‘There may be a strong feeling against me in a large number of the inhabitants — it must be so from the great ignorance of spiritual things in this place. But I fancy there would have been no formal opposition to the lecture, if Dempster had not planned it. I am not myself the least alarmed at anything he can do; he will find I am not to be cowed or driven away by insult or personal danger. God has sent me to this place, and, by His blessing, I’ll not shrink from anything I may have to encounter in doing His work among the people. But I feel it right to call on all those who know the value of the Gospel, to stand by me publicly. I think — and Mr. Landor agrees with me — that it will be well for my friends to proceed with me in a body to the church on Sunday evening. Dempster, you know, has pretended that almost all the respectable inhabitants are opposed to the lecture. Now, I wish that falsehood to be visibly contradicted. What do you think of the plan? I have today been to see several of my friends, who will make a point of being there to accompany me, and will communicate with others on the subject.’

‘I’ll mek one, Mr. Tryan, I’ll mek one. You shall not be wantin’ in any support as I can give. Before you come to it, sir, Milby was a dead an’ dark place; you are the fust man i’ the Church to my knowledge as has brought the word o’ God home to the people; an’ I’ll stan’ by you, sir, I’ll stan’ by you. I’m a Dissenter, Mr. Tryan; I’ve been a Dissenter ever sin’ I was fifteen ‘ear old; but show me good i’ the Church, an’ I’m a Churchman too. When I was a boy I lived at Tilston; you mayn’t know the place; the best part o’ the land there belonged to Squire Sandeman; he’d a club-foot, had Squire Sandeman — lost a deal o’ money by canal shares. Well, sir, as I was sayin’, I lived at Tilston, an’ the rector there was a terrible drinkin’, fox-huntin’ man; you niver see’d such a parish i’ your time for wickedness; Milby’s nothin’ to it. Well, sir, my father was a workin’ man, an’ couldn’t afford to gi’ me ony eddication, so I went to a night-school as was kep by a Dissenter, one Jacob Wright; an’ it was from that man, sir, as I got my little schoolin’ an’ my knowledge o’ religion. I went to chapel wi’ Jacob — he was a good man was Jacob — an’ to chapel I’ve been iver since. But I’m no enemy o’ the Church, sir, when the Church brings light to the ignorant and the sinful; an’ that’s what you’re a-doin’, Mr. Tryan. Yes, sir, I’ll stan’ by you. I’ll go to church wi’ you o’ Sunday evenin’.’

‘You’d far better stay at home, Mr. Jerome, if I may give my opinion,’ interposed Mrs. Jerome. ‘It’s not as I hevn’t ivery respect for you, Mr. Tryan, but Mr. Jerome ‘ull do you no good by his interferin’. Dissenters are not at all looked on i’ Milby, an’ he’s as nervous as iver he can be; he’ll come back as ill as ill, an’ niver let me hev a wink o’ sleep all night.’

Mrs. Jerome had been frightened at the mention of a mob, and her retrospective regard for the religious communion of her youth by no means inspired her with the temper of a martyr. Her husband looked at her with an expression of tender and grieved remonstrance, which might have been that of the patient patriarch on the memorable occasion when he rebuked his wife.

‘Susan, Susan, let me beg on you not to oppose me, and put stumblin’-blocks i’ the way o’ doing’ what’s right. I can’t give up my conscience, let me give up what else I may.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Mr. Tryan, feeling slightly uncomfortable, ‘since you are not very strong, my dear sir, it will be well, as Mrs. Jerome suggests, that you should not run the risk of any excitement.’

‘Say no more, Mr. Tryan. I’ll stan’ by you, sir. It’s my duty. It’s the cause o’ God, sir; it’s the cause o’ God.’

Mr. Tryan obeyed his impulse of admiration and gratitude, and put out his hand to the white-haired old man, saying, ‘Thank you, Mr. Jerome, thank you.’

Mr. Jerome grasped the proffered hand in silence, and then threw himself back in his chair, casting a regretful look at his wife, which seemed to say, ‘Why don’t you feel with me, Susan?’

The sympathy of this simple-minded old man was more precious to Mr. Tryan than any mere onlooker could have imagined. To persons possessing a great deal of that facile psychology which prejudges individuals by means of formulae, and casts them, without further trouble, into duly lettered pigeon-holes, the Evangelical curate might seem to be doing simply what all other men like to do — carrying out objects which were identified not only with his theory, which is but a kind of secondary egoism, but also with the primary egoism of his feelings. Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has christened it persecution: a self-obtrusive, over-hasty reformer complacently disclaiming all merit, while his friends call him a martyr, has not in reality a career the most arduous to the fleshly mind. But Mr. Tryan was not cast in the mould of the gratuitous martyr. With a power of persistence which had been often blamed as obstinacy, he had an acute sensibility to the very hatred or ridicule he did not flinch from provoking. Every form of disapproval jarred him painfully; and, though he fronted his opponents manfully, and often with considerable warmth of temper, he had no pugnacious pleasure in the contest. It was one of the weaknesses of his nature to be too keenly alive to every harsh wind of opinion; to wince under the frowns of the foolish; to be irritated by the injustice of those who could not possibly have the elements indispensable for judging him rightly; and with all this acute sensibility to blame, this dependence on sympathy, he had for years been constrained into a position of antagonism. No wonder, then, that good old Mr. Jerome’s cordial words were balm to him. He had often been thankful to an old woman for saying ‘God bless you’; to a little child for smiling at him; to a dog for submitting to be patted by him.

Tea being over by this time, Mr. Tryan proposed a walk in the garden as a means of dissipating all recollection of the recent conjugal dissidence Little Lizzie’s appeal, ‘Me go, gandpa!’ could not be rejected, so she was duly bonneted and pinafored, and then they turned out into the evening sunshine. Not Mrs. Jerome, however; she had a deeply-meditated plan of retiring
ad interim
to the kitchen and washing up the best teathings, as a mode of getting forward with the sadly-retarded business of the day.

‘This way, Mr. Tryan, this way,’ said the old gentleman; ‘I must take you to my pastur fust, an’ show you our cow — the best milker i’ the county. An’ see here at these backbuildins, how convenent the dairy is; I planned it ivery bit myself. An’ here I’ve got my little carpenter’s shop an’ my blacksmith’s shop; I do no end o’ jobs here myself. I niver could bear to be idle, Mr. Tryan; I must al’ys be at somethin’ or other. It was time for me to lay by business an mek room for younger folks. I’d got money enough, wi’ only one daughter to leave it to, an’ I says to myself, says I, it’s time to leave off moitherin’ myself wi’ this world so much, an’ give more time to thinkin’ of another. But there’s a many hours atween getting up an’ lyin’ down, an’ thoughts are no cumber; you can move about wi’ a good many on ‘em in your head. See, here’s the pastur.’

A very pretty pasture it was, where the large-spotted short-horned cow quietly chewed the cud as she lay and looked sleepily at her admirers — a daintily-trimmed hedge all round, dotted here and there with a mountain-ash or a cherry-tree.

‘I’ve a good bit more land besides this, worth your while to look at, but mayhap it’s further nor you’d like to walk now. Bless you! I’ve welly an’ acre o’ potato-ground yonders; I’ve a good big family to supply, you know.’ (Here Mr. Jerome winked and smiled significantly.) ‘An’ that puts me i’ mind, Mr. Tryan, o’ summat I wanted to say to you. Clergymen like you, I know, see a deal more poverty an’ that, than other folks, an’ hev a many claims on ‘em more nor they can well meet; an’ if you’ll mek use o’ my purse any time, or let me know where I can be o’ any help, I’ll tek it very kind on you.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Jerome, I will do so, I promise you. I saw a sad case yesterday; a collier — a fine broad-chested fellow about thirty — was killed by the falling of a wall in the Paddiford colliery. I was in one of the cottages near, when they brought him home on a door, and the shriek of the wife has been ringing in my ears ever since. There are three little children. Happily the woman has her loom, so she will be able to keep out of the workhouse; but she looks very delicate.’

‘Give me her name, Mr. Tryan,’ said Mr. Jerome, drawing out his pocket-book. ‘I’ll call an’ see her.’

Deep was the fountain of pity in the good old man’s heart! He often ate his dinner stintingly, oppressed by the thought that there were men, women, and children, with no dinner to sit down to, and would relieve his mind by going out in the afternoon to look for some need that he could supply, some honest struggle in which he could lend a helping hand. That any living being should want, was his chief sorrow; that any rational being should waste, was the next. Sally, indeed, having been scolded by master for a too lavish use of sticks in lighting the kitchen fire, and various instances of recklessness with regard to candle ends, considered him ‘as mean as aenythink;’ but he had as kindly a warmth as the morning sunlight, and, like the sunlight, his goodness shone on all that came in his way, from the saucy rosy-cheeked lad whom he delighted to make happy with a Christmas box, to the pallid sufferers up dim entries, languishing under the tardy death of want and misery.

It was very pleasant to Mr. Tryan to listen to the simple chat of the old man — to walk in the shade of the incomparable orchard, and hear the story of the crops yielded by the red-streaked apple-tree, and the quite embarrassing plentifulness of the summer-pears — to drink-in the sweet evening breath of the garden, as they sat in the alcove — and so, for a short interval, to feel the strain of his pastoral task relaxed.