Arthur Quiller-Couch

“ The sound of the horse's hoofs died away down the road towards Kelstein. Had Hetty known, her father was the horseman, with Patty riding pillion behind him. Over the frozen floods came the note of a church clock, borne on the almost windless air.
"Five o'clock?" Hetty sprang up. "Time to be going, and past."
"You have not forgiven me," he murmured.
"Indeed, yes." She was, after all, a girl of robust good sense, and could smile bravely as she put an illusion by. "To be loved is marvellous and seems to make all marvels possible: but I was wrong to expect—this one. ”

“ But he wanted also a son of his loins to succeed him at Epworth, to hold and improve what painful inches he had gained; and again he could only think of John. Could a man devote his life to this forsaken parish and yet be a light set on a hill for the world? Had not his own life taught the folly of that hope?
He sighed and turned from the window. He had quite forgotten Hetty.
He stepped to the door to summon Johnny Whitelamb: but the sound of voices drew him across the passage to the best parlour, and there at the threshold his eyes fell on Sukey's headdress. ”

“ And all this while in the lodging-house parlour sat or paced the man who has no name in this book. He also was drinking: but the brandy-and-water, though he gulped it fiercely, neither unsteadied his legs nor confused his brain. Only it deadened by degrees the ruddy colour in his face to a gray shining pallor, showing up one angry spot on the cheek-bone. Though he frowned as he paced and muttered now and again to himself, he was not thinking of John Romley.
Some men are born to be the curse of women and, through women, of the world. ”

“ The men he met there respected him for a flourishing tradesman and flattered him. He adored his wife still. In his eyes no woman would compare with her. But there was no denying he felt more at home in company which allowed him to tell or listen to a coarse story and stretch his legs and boast at his ease.
He was not aware of any slackening in affection. But Hetty noted it and fought against it, though with a sinking heart. She had counted on this babe to draw him back—if not to her, then at least to home. ”

“ Suddenly John arose, and lifting his hand in benediction, spoke the words of the Commendatory Prayer: "O Almighty God, in whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prison; we humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant, our dear Mother, into Thy hands, as into the hands of a faithful Creator and most merciful Saviour, most humbly beseeching Thee that it may be precious in Thy sight. . . ."
It was Hetty who bent low, took the inert hand, and after listening for a while laid it softly down on the coverlet. ”

“ If Christ could not be tender to doubt, how much less would John Wesley be tender? It was not until Friday that he found courage to dispatch the following:
Dear Brother,—I saw you at Epworth on Tuesday evening. Fain would I have spoken to you, but that I am quite at a loss to know how to address or behave to you.
Your way of thinking is so extraordinary that your presence creates an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world. God grant you and your followers may always have entire liberty of conscience. Will you not allow others the same? ”

“ Of a way to forgiveness through faith (though she must have heard of it a hundred times) she scarcely thought; still less of a way through faith to instant assurance. To those who have not travelled by that road its end— though promised on the honour of God and proclaimed incessantly by those who have travelled and found it—seems merely incredible. Hardly can man or woman, taught from infancy to suspect false guides, trust these reports of a country where to believe and to have are one.
Hetty sat by the tree and saw the road beyond her, that it was steep and full of suffering. ”

“ She knew she was hurrying towards a tempest; but, whatever it might wreck, she panted for the clear sky beyond. In her fever the van seemed to crawl and the miles to drag themselves out interminably.
She was within a mile of her journey's end when a horseman met and passed the van at a jog-trot. Hetty glanced after him, wrenched open the door and sprang out upon the road with a cry—
"Father!"
Mr. Wesley heard her and turned his head; then reined up the filly and came slowly back. The van was at a standstill, the driver craning his head and staring aft in wholly ludicrous bewilderment. ”

“ Emilia answered icily, "I am not conscious of being a rebel—nor of any temptation to be vulgar."
Molly shot an imploring glance at Hetty: but it was too late, and she knew it.
"Hoity-toity! So we are not rebellious—not even Emilia when she thinks of her Leybourne!" Emilia bit her lip. "Nor Patty when she thinks of Johnny Romley? And we are never vulgar? Ah, but forgive your poor sister, who goes into service next week! You must allow her to practise the accomplishments which will endear her to the servants' hall, and which Mr. Grantham will pay for and expect. ”

“ Indeed, the only living creature within sight was a red-breast, hunched into a ball and watching her from a wintry willow bough; the only moving object a windmill half a mile away across the level, turning its sails against the steel-gray sky—so listlessly, they seemed to be numbed.
She had strapped on a pair of skates—clumsy homemade things, and a birthday present from Johnny Whitelamb, who had fashioned them with pains, the Epworth blacksmith helping. Hetty skated excellently well—in days, be it understood, before the cutting of figures had been advanced to an art with rules and text-books. ”

“ To win, and be laughed at! To have the account reopened in lampoons and witticisms, contemptible but irritating, when it should be closed by the mere act of winning! It puzzled him, and he brooded over it, turning sulky in the end, not vicious. It was in no viciousness that he had flung a book at young Murray's head and called him a lousy Jacobite, but simply to provoke Wesley and get his grievance settled by intelligible weapons, such as fists.
He knew his to be the unpopular side, and that even Freind, the Head Master, would chuckle over the defeat of a Whig. ”

“ Tell me, Jack! A child that has never breathed can know neither heaven nor hell—questions of baptism do not touch it— it goes out of darkness into darkness and is annihilated. Is that not so? So I assure myself, and sometimes I think that by the same stroke God wiped out the immortal part of me with its sins, that my body and brain go on living, but that the soul of your Hetty will never come up for judgment, for it has ceased to be. ”

“ Even in her wrath Hetty looked at her lover and broke into a laugh.
"Let me skate up the canal and head him off," said he. "Half a mile will give me lead enough to slip out of these things and collar him on the highway."
"He is not worth it. Besides, he may not be going towards Kelstein: in this light we cannot see the road or what direction he takes. Let him be, dear," Hetty persuaded, as the old woman called out from her cabin that the kettle boiled. "Our time is too precious." ”

“ She remembered the very texture and scent of that white frock: they came back with the awe, the fervour, the passionate desire to be good; and these memories cried all in her ears, "What have you to do with that child? Which of you is Hetty? You cannot both be real."
They sang in her ears while she questioned the verger about Romley. He had to repeat his answers before she thanked him and turned towards one of the lowest seats. She did not repent: she was not thinking of repentance. ”

“ From Hetty to her Father
Honoured Sir,—Although you have cast me off and I know that a determination once taken by you is not easily moved, I must tell you that some word of your forgiving is not only necessary to me, but would make happier the marriage in which, as you compelled it, you must still (I think) feel no small concern. My child, on whose frail help I had counted to make our life more supportable to my husband and myself, is dead. ”

“ One or two, as they gathered, stepped forward to welcome her and wish her health before ranging themselves at their separate meal: and soon a pleasant murmur of voices went up from either group at supper in the broad meadow under the moon.
"But where have you left uncle Annesley?" asked Kezzy. "And are we all to be rich and live in comfort at last?"
Mrs. Wesley shook her head. "He was not on board the Albemarle." ”

“ CHAPTER VI. For six months of the year, sometimes for longer, the thatched parsonage at Wroote rose out of a world of waters, forlorn as a cornstack in a flood, and the Rector of Epworth journeyed between his two parishes by boat, often in soaked breeches, and sometimes with a napkin tied over his hat and wig. But in this harvest weather, while the sun shone and the meadow-breezes overcame the odours of damp walls and woodwork, of the pig-sty at the back and of rotting weed beyond, the Wesley household lived cheerfully enough, albeit pinched for room ”

“ He swooped around her in a long curve and caught them and kissed her as he came to a standstill, panting, with a flush on each handsome cheek.
"Hetty!"
No answer to this but a sound like a coo of rapture. He is, as we should think, a personable young fellow, frank, and taking to the eye, though his easy air of mastery provokes another look at Hetty, who is worth ten of him. But to her he is a young god above whom the stars dance. Splendid creature though she be, she must comply with her sex which commands her to be passive, to be loved. ”

“ Wesley married William Wright and Hetty in the bare little church of Wroote. Her sisters (among them Patty, newly returned from Kelstein) sat at home: their father had forbidden them to attend. A fortnight before they had stood as bridesmaids at Nancy's wedding with John Lambert, and all but Molly had contrived to be mirthful and forget for a day the shadow on the household and the miserable woman upstairs. Hetty had no bridesmaids, no ringing of bells. ”

“ Romley was curate of Epworth now, delegate of an absentee sporting rector: and had in truth set this ball rolling by denying John Wesley his pulpit. He had miscalculated his flock; this stubborn English breed, so loyal in enmity, loving the memory of a foe who had proved himself a man. He watched with a loose-lipped sneer; too weak to conquer his own curiosity, far too weak to assert his authority and attempt to clear the churchyard of that "enthusiasm" which he had denounced in his most florid style last Sunday, within the church. ”

“ He had tasted all its mingled odours this morning while he followed the paths in search of Hetty; and when at length he had found her under the great filbert-tree, they seemed to float about her and hedge her as with the aura of a goddess. He had delivered his message, trembling: had watched her go with firm step to the sacrifice. And then—poor boy—wild adoration had filled him with all the courage of all the knights in Christendom. He alone would champion her against the dragon. ”

“ I have tasted bitter fruit and must go eating it all my life. But it is fruit of knowledge—ah, listen, Emmy! If you do this and become famous, the greater your fame, the greater the injury; or so father would hold it, and perhaps our brothers too. Hetty can be hidden and forgotten in a far country parish. But can Jacky become a bishop, having an actress for sister?"
"You are sudden in this thought for your brothers."
"It is not of them I am thinking. I say that if you succeed you will lose father's forgiveness and always carry with you this sorrowful knowledge. ”

“ Well, sir, I hope you'll take care of her: for the pretty she is, I could kiss her myself. May I?" she asked suddenly, taking Hetty's empty cup; and Hetty blushed and let her. "God send you children, you beauty!"
She paused with a cup in either hand, and in the act of squeezing herself backwards through the small cabin-door. "La, the red you've gone! I can see it with no help more than the bit of moon. 'Tis a terrible thing to be childless, and for that you can take my word." Wagging her head she vanished. ”

“ No doubt he will kill himself in time; meanwhile even at his worst he is tractable, and obeys Hetty like a child. To do the man justice, he was always fond of her."
"Poor Hetty!"
"John has spoken to her once or twice about her soul, I believe: but he does not persist."
"H'm," said Molly, "you had better say that he is biding his time.
John always persists."
"That's true," he owned with a laugh: "but I have never known him so baffled to all appearance. The fact is, she cannot be roused to any interest in herself. Of others she never ceases to think. ”

“ Mrs. Wesley saw how they blenched and how she compelled them to steadiness; and turned her own away.
"Sir," said Hetty, "you have heard my father. Although he has not chosen to tell you, I am bound; and must answer under my bond unless he release me."
"For your salvation, as I most firmly believe, I refuse to release you," said the Rector.
"Then, sir," she continued, still with her eyes on William Wright, "under my bond I will answer you. If, as I think, those who marry without love sin against God and themselves, my father is driving out sin by sin. ”