Evelyn Everett-Green

“ I do not deny that, in stirring up men’s hearts, even in a righteous cause, evil and selfish passions are too often inevitably stirred also. Human nature finds it all but impossible to hate the abuse without hating those who in their eyes at least are the living embodiment of that abuse. We have a twofold mission to execute—to rouse in men a hatred of evil and oppression, whilst at the same time striving to inculcate patience towards those who appear to them to be the incarnation of that evil. The one task is of course easier at the outset than the other ”

“ Why, even by the teachings of my own philosophy, the fact of this stirring of spirit indicates a reality of some sort. And is there, after all, nothing higher than philosophy? Is there no object of objective worship? Is there, after all, a God?”
Little did Bride suspect the quick stirrings of spirit her words had evoked. She walked on, with her sweet face set in earnest lines, thinking of Saul and his grandfather’s ceaseless prayers on his behalf, praying herself for him in a half-unconscious fashion, as was her habit when thoughts of the erring one presented themselves. ”

“ I love you! Surely you will not tell me in return that you hate me, and would spurn me from your presence. O Bride, my life, my love! do not say that you have no love to give me in return.”
There was something so appealing in his voice that her heart was touched with compassion, though with no answering response. She let him possess himself of her hand, but it lay cool and passive in his hot clasp.
“I do not hate you, Eustace—why should I? I do not hate any living thing. I do not spurn you. I do not spurn your love.” ”

“ There is an anger so terrible in its intensity that it works like madness in the brain; and this anger is generally the fiercest when it exists between class and class, and results in reality less from inherent ill-will between the two parties concerned, than from a constitutional and insurmountable difficulty in mutual understanding.
This hatred (which has been at the bottom of many of the world’s tragedies) was now burning with such a white heat of silent fury in Saul’s breast that there began to creep into his sombre eyes a light like that of madness. ”

“ Bride, will you not let it be so? Will you not help me? Will you not help a cause which is pledged to raise the people of this land from misery and degradation, and teach them that even for them there is a higher and a better life, if they will but strive and attain to it?”
The girl’s eyes were fixed upon his face in one of her inscrutable gazes, in which she seemed to be looking him through and through, and reading his very soul, whilst hers was to him as a sealed book.
“Ah! Eustace,” she said very softly, “would that you were striving to teach to them the true meaning of the higher life. ”

“ BRIDE was riding homewards from Pentreath to the castle on a sunny day early in June. The sound of joy-bells was in the air, the faces of men were glad and triumphant, all nature seemed in tune with the general rejoicing which some recent event had plainly set on foot; and the young wife’s face was glad, too, though thoughtfully and temperately. For she knew that the news of which she was the bearer would gladden the heart of her husband, though it would not be to him now that source of triumphant exhilaration which it would have been a year before. ”

“ Why will you stand aloof with pitying scorn when the world and humanity are crying aloud for your sympathy and help?”
“Not scorn,” answered Bride gently, “not scorn; but pity—yes. I often do feel pity for you, Eustace, because I know that you will be so bitterly disappointed. You want to make men better and happier and more prosperous; and more prosperous you may make them by improved legislation. Many will be content when that is done, but you will not. Your aim goes higher. You want to see them raised out of their degradation—to see them ennobled and made truly better. ”

“ That is what we have to look forward to who strive to raise our brothers from abject misery and degradation. Forget! No, I will never forget. I will avenge those months of misery, and the death of my best and truest friend; ay! I will avenge it on the proud heads of the tyrants of this land. Don’t come near me, don’t speak to me, Lady Bride. I would not hurt you willingly; but there is that within me that may prompt me to do you a mischief if you stand there much longer. Go, I say, go! You are a woman; I believe you are a good and a merciful woman ”

“ Where we are told so little, perhaps it is not wise to speculate too curiously; but I cannot help thinking that where blind ignorance and the doctrine of false teachers has kept a soul away from God, He may yet in His infinite mercy deal with that erring soul at the last in such a way as to break in upon the darkness, and kindle one ray of the Divine love, even with the dying breath. For we know that it is not the will of the Father that one should perish, and that He gave His Son to die for all—only they must approach Him through the living Saviour. ”

“ I will not make a second friend of one above me in rank. I will keep the right to fight against them and to hate—hate—HATE them—and not all your honeyed pleadings can change that. Now I have told you all, and you can choose whether you will have me or not; for it will be war to the death when I fight, and you may as well know it first as last!”
Eustace smiled at the vehemence of his disciple as he said quietly—
“We will have you, Saul, hatred and all. You are too useful a tool to be spared because your edge is over sharp.” ”

“ I would do much, very much, for you and for your father, Bride; but I cannot, even for you, be untrue to myself, and to the cause of suffering humanity. The woes of our brethren are crying aloud for redress. Christianity and humanity are alike disgraced by the scenes which are daily enacted in this Christian land. Believe me, Bride, you and I are nearer in heart than you are able yet to see. You have lived your life in this peaceful spot, and know little or nothing of the fearful abuses which stalk rampant through the land. ”

“ Dear husband, what I would ask of you is a patient mind, patience to look at changes without prejudice, and strive prayerfully to discern whether or not they be of God;—also patience to hear what is said by their advocates, and to weigh well what you hear. Let mercy ever temper justice in your dealings with your dependents; and condemn not those who are not at one with you without pausing to understand the nature of all they are striving to accomplish. The evil and the good will and must grow up together till the day of the harvest. ”

“ Abner looked at his young mistress with a world of sympathy in his steady, deep-set eyes, and slowly shook his head.
“There be many of us ask that same question, my Ladybird, as we go on in life, and none of us can rightly answer it. And yet may be the answer is under our hand all the while. It is the sin of man that brought the curse into the world; and ever since the hardness of man’s heart has been making him choose the evil and the curse instead of the way of the Lord and the blessing, and every generation sinks the world deeper and deeper into the slough.” ”

“ Eustace rose and held out his hand.
“Believe me, sir, I had no such stricture in my mind when I spoke. I respect solid conviction and true faith wherever I meet it, even when I hold that the faith is misplaced, and that the day is coming when a sounder and truer form of worship will be seen in this earth. At least we are in accord in wishing the best for the people we both love; only at present we disagree as to what is the best. ”

“ You can point the way; you can tell him of the hope. When his life here looks so dark before him, perhaps he will turn at last to the hope of the glory and blessedness that will be revealed in the kingdom. I do not see how men can live without that hope, when the things of earth fail them, and show how hollow and empty they always are.”
Abner smiled with a look on his face in which hope and sorrow were strangely blended. He knew better than this girl could do the hardness of the human heart and the stubborn toughness of a nature like Saul’s, and yet he would not despond. ”

“ Oh, if men would go about teaching the people to love God with all their heart and soul and strength, to love each other in the bond of unity and peace, and to pray for their rulers and governors, that God would turn their hearts from all thought of [185] oppression and tyranny, and make them to be just and merciful rulers of the people, then indeed might our land become a country blessed by God and relieved from the burden of her woes! If great and small would look to God for His guidance in all things, and cease warring with each other in anger and jealous hate, then would true reform begin. ”

“ The castle was a turreted building of quadrangular construction, and in one lofty turret on all stormy nights a brilliant light was always burning, which had at last become as a beacon to passing vessels, showing them where they were, and warning them especially of those twin and much dreaded rocks called the “Bull’s Horns,” which lay just beneath the castle walls, forming the northern boundary to St. Bride’s Bay, and between which lay a shifting expanse of quicksand, out of which no vessel ever emerged if once she had run upon it. ”

“ Time and patience were the only doctors for such a case as his, and Eustace surprised all who came in contact with him by the extreme patience and cheerfulness he showed under a condition of helplessness so trying to youthful manhood; but he would say, with a smile, that Bride made life too sweet for him for any repining to be possible. Each day he found filled with happiness—the happiness of her presence, and of that full community of soul which made their union what it was. Every day brought its own measure of temporal happiness and spiritual growth ”

“ Bride started a little, as though something had stung her, and a look of keen pain came into her face.
“Saul,” she said softly, “Abner’s boy! Ah! what a sorrow it will be for him! And that is Eustace’s doing! It was he who is responsible, not the poor hot-headed youth himself. O Eustace! Eustace! will you ever see the danger of the path you are treading, and the peril into which you are leading others?” ”

“ Aubyn, tell me, are the people altogether wrong in demanding redress of those grievances which lie so heavy upon them? Is it right that they should have so little, so very little voice in the government of the nation, when we call this a free and a constitutional form of government? Need we condemn them altogether for doing what their ignorance and misery drive them to do? Are we not also to blame in that they are so miserable and ignorant? ”

“ It is the power to lay bare the innermost sanctuary of your soul, and to know that you will be understood, helped, strengthened, comforted. It is the knowledge that thoughts too deep, and hopes too wonderful and mysterious for words are shared together, and can be whispered of together without being tarnished by the poor attempt to reduce them to speech; the consciousness that in everything we are in accord, that we are often thinking the same things at the same moment; the knowledge that the deeper and deeper we go the more and more sympathy and sweet accord there is between us ”

“ Surely it was needful for the men who stood in the forefront of the van of reform to walk warily. They had an immense power behind them; but it was, as Abner had said, the power of an explosive whose properties and whose energies were but imperfectly understood. Reform may be the best hindrance to revolution, but it may also incite the very danger it strives to avert. Eustace had been told this a hundred times before, but he had never been so convinced of the truth of the warning as he was whilst walking on the shore that day in the company of Saul. ”

“ Ah! yes, you smile. You think I am a croaker and a pessimist. Well, well, well—thank God, I shall not live to see the day; but that day will come for England before many generations have passed, when she will be groaning beneath the burden laid upon her by her reformers, but absolutely unable to break that increasing yoke from off her neck. Men may rise up in arms against their tyrants when their tyrant is a monarch; but when they are their own tyrants, their own legislators, their own oppressors, where are they to find redress?”
Eustace made no attempt to reply. ”

“ You are setting class against class; you are rousing ill-will and stirring up hatred and enmity; you are teaching men to be discontented with their position in life——”
“Yes, sir, I know I am, because they ought to be discontented with degradation, ignorance, and hopeless misery. There is no reason why it should continue and increase as it does. We want them to be disgusted and discontented with it. Would there ever have been any civilisation and culture in the world had men always been contented to remain exactly in the position in which they were born?” ”

“ Woman-like, she had looked to stand first and to stand paramount with handsome Saul, when once she had permitted him to woo her; and instead of this, he had heeded her less and less with every week that passed, and had even refused to remain on Sunday at the farm when she had asked it as a favour; and at last had done this mischief to her father through his mischievous, ill-conditioned tongue. She would have none of him, no, not she! He might go to his friends the fisher-folk, or to the slums of Pentreath for a wife, if he wanted one!—she would have none of him! ”

“ It is a duty which in these days is crying aloud to Heaven, and to which thinking men in all countries are responding with more or less of zeal and energy. Things cannot go on as they have been doing. France has taught us a grim lesson of what will happen at last if we continue to tread down and oppress our humble brethren, as we have been doing all these long years and centuries!”
Eustace threw back his head, and the fire flashed from his eyes. His nature was always stirred to its depths by the thought of the wrongs of humanity. ”

“ You speak, sir, sometimes of doing all this without making the people hate their tyrants and their oppressors; but that isn’t human nature. If they’ve a battle to fight against those that hold the power now, and if they are stirred up to fight it, they will hate them with a deadly hatred; and even when the victory is ours, as you say it will and must be one day, the hatred will go on and on. ”

“ Her heart often grew heavy within her as she realised the terrible wickedness of the great world without.
“No seat is worth that,” she said softly; but Eustace could not agree with her.
“We must purify legislation; we must so work that a new and perfect system rises from the ashes of the old!” he cried, his quick enthusiasm firing at the thought. “Men can and shall be raised. We shall one day see the dawn of a brighter and purer day. This is but the hour of darkness which precedes the dawn. The brightness [208] of the day will atone for all. You will live to see a new world yet, Bride!” ”

“ Now they were being taken in hand by men of wealth and power, and were raising the cry of reform—crying aloud for representation in Parliament—agitating for a thing the nature of which they hardly understood, but which they were told would bring help and well-being in its wake. And men like Eustace Marchmont, with generous ardour all aflame in the cause which they held to be sacred and righteous, longed to see the spread of this feeling through the length and breadth of the land. ”

“ Truly the enemy’s power is but brief. He can but cast a shadow betwixt us and our Saviour, and we who have the staff of His consolation in our grasp need not fear. To depart and be with Christ is a blessed thing. It is through the grave and gate of death that we pass to our joyful resurrection. There is no fear, no darkness, no shadow that can come between us and that glorious promise, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life.’”
The eyes of the dying woman kindled—filled suddenly with a beautiful triumphant joy. ”

“ Surely that is the promise that takes the sting from death and robs the grave of victory. We know not the day nor the hour—that is hid in the foreknowledge of the Divine Father; but we have the everlasting promise—the promise which robs death of its sting, even for those who are left behind—who are parted from our loved ones. For at any moment the wondrous shout of the Lord may be heard as He descends from heaven to awaken the dead and call ‘those that are His at His coming,’ and we may be one with them in the blessed and holy first resurrection. ”