Marshall Mather

“ Fatherhood in the Deity was an unknown attribute, and tenderness a note never sounded in the creed they held. They had been bred on meat, and they were strong men. They knew nothing of the tender tones of Him whose feet became the throne of the outcast. Their God was a consuming fire.
As Mr. Penrose looked into their faces, many bitter thoughts poisoned the waters of his soul. He thought of Simon the Pharisee; he thought, too, of St. Dominic; and of Calvin with the cry for green wood, so that Servetus might slowly burn. ”

“ Often and long would she look into his face as he lay in her arms, until at last she, too, caught the child-feature and the child-smile. Rehoboth said old Deborah was renewing her youth; for she had been known to laugh and croon, and more than once purse up her old lips to sing a snatch of nursery rhyme—a thing which in the past she had denounced as tending to ‘mak' childer hush't wi' th' songs o' sin.’ The hard look died away from her eyes, and her mouth ceased to wear its sealed and drawn expression. ”

“ Penrose climbed the hills amid the falling flakes, he thought of Milly's quaint conceit, and looking round amid the gathering gloom, and seeing the great stretch of snowy covering that now lay on the undulating sweeps, he asked himself wherein lay the difference between the vision of John the Divine when he saw the angels holding the four winds of heaven, and Milly when she saw the angels giving of their warmth to earth in falling flakes of snow. ”

“ During the pause between the close of Sunday-school and the commencement of morning service, congregation and scholars darkened the chapel yard in gossiping groups, each on the tiptoe of curiosity to catch a first glimpse of the bride of their pastor. All eyes were turned towards the crown of the hill which led up from the manse, and on which Mr. Penrose and his wife would first be seen. More than once an approaching couple were mistaken for them, and more than once disappointment darkened the faces of the waiting folk. ”

“ Phenomenally rapid was the onrush of the storm. At first the rain fell in short and sudden showers, driven from angry clouds eager for some atmospheric change whereby to be relieved of their pent-up burden. Then the wind, as though in answer to the prayer of the clouds, changed its course and stilled its moaning, and the sky ‘wept its watery vapours to the ground.’
When Amanda stood upon the fringe of the great moss that stretched for three miles between the Scars and Rehoboth her spirit sank within her. ”

“ Hale took the arm of the young minister, saying:
‘Let me guide you, Mr. Penrose. I know these roads by instinct.’
‘Yes, doctor, I not only need your guidance, but that of someone else. Black as the night is, it isn't so black as the souls of those benighted inquisitors we've left behind us. There are stars behind those clouds; but there are none hidden behind the murky creed of the deacons of Rehoboth. Do they expect me, doctor, to carry their decision to Mrs. Stott and her daughter?’
‘I believe they do. Hard messages, you know, must be delivered both by ministers and doctors. ”

“ Penrose, helpless and silent, stood at the foot of the settle on which lay the dying boy, the colliers seeking the gloomy corners of the large kitchen, where in shadow they awaited in rude fear the death of their little companion. The old woman, cool and self-possessed, plied her task with a tenderness and skill born of long years of experience, cheering with words of endearment the last moments of the sufferer. ”

“ Morell, roused from his reverie, turned to the young pastor, and said:
‘Your poet is right, Mr. Penrose. The loving worm within its clod is diviner than a loveless god amid his worlds. Let us go as far as the chapel.’
As they walked along the narrow, winding roadways, broken by projecting gables, and fenced by irregular rows of palisades, the old pastor began to re-live the long-departed days. ”

“ Poor Moses Fletcher! For with all his riches he was poor—if being a pauper in the sight of Heaven is to be poor. How he had lived to make money, and, having made it, how terrible was the cost! Old Mr. Morell once told him that the angels reversed his balance year by year, writing in invisible ink against his material profits his moral and spiritual depreciation. And yet there was one redeeming feature in the character of Moses—he loved his dog. ”

“ He merely muttered something about it being a shame to cut into such flesh as Milly's, and proceeded to go calmly through his work, like the old hand that he was.
The operation was successful, and yet Milly seemed to make no satisfactory progress. The old flow of life returned not, and a settled gloom rested over her once merry heart. She was as one suffering from an indefinable hunger; even she herself knew not what it was she wanted. Unremitting was the attention shown, nurses and doctors alike doing their utmost, even to works of supererogation, on her behalf. ”

“ In the light of this dawn were seen those infinite lines of strength which rose from broad and massive bases, and, sweeping upwards, told of illimitable tracts beyond—mighty waves on the surface of the world's great inland seas, on whose crests sat the green and purple foam of herbage, and in whose hollows lay the still life of home and pasture. Silent, changeless, secure, perpetual sublimity rested on their summits, and unbroken repose lay along their graceful sweeps. ”

“ His thin features were drawn, and a clayey hue overspread his face—a hue which, when she saw with her practised eye, she knew was the shadow of the destroyer.
‘Poor little felley!’ she cried; ‘and his mother a widder an' all.’
And then, bending down over the settle whereon they had placed the mangled lad, she pressed her lips on the pale brow, clammy with the ooze of death—lips long since forsaken by the early blush of beauty, yet still warm with the instinct which in all true women feeds itself with the wasting years. ”

“ Penrose, what do yo' think o' yon?’
‘Think of what, Malachi?’ asked the perplexed divine, for neither of them, for some moments, had spoken.
‘Think o' yon lad as has getten killed, and o' his mother?’
There are times when a man dares not utter his deepest feelings because of the commonplace character of the words through which they only can find expression. If Malachi had asked Mr. Penrose to write the character of God on a blackboard before a class of infants, he would not have been placed in a greater difficulty than that now involved by the question of Malachi. ”

“ Penrose—fearless of the storm, and at home on the wilds—made his way towards a lone farmstead known as ‘Granny Houses,’ and so-called because of an old woman who lived there, and who, by keeping a light in her window on dark winter nights, guided the colliers to a distant pit across the moors. She was the quaint product of the hills and of Calvinism, but shrewd withal, and of a kind heart. Indeed, the young minister had taken a strong liking to her, and frequently called at her far-away home. ”

“ There was she, his Merry, torn between the forces of life and death, giving of her own that she might perpetuate life, and braving death that life might be its lord—there was she, fighting alone! save for the feeble help of science and the cheer and succour of kindly care, while he, strong man that he was, sat there, powerless, his very impotence mocking him, and his groans and anguish but the climax of his despair. ”

“ Here the strong man was swept by another convulsive storm of feeling too deep for utterance. Subduing his passion by a supreme effort of will, he continued:
‘However, them as knows best says as it's her only chance, and I'm noan goin' agen it. I shall go daan wi' her mysel' to-morn.’
Milly, or ‘th' little lass o' Lord's,’ as the villagers called her, was one of those phenomenal child personalities which now and again visit this world as though to defy all laws of heredity, and remind the selfish and the mighty of that kingdom in which the little one is ruler. ”

“ The wind sobs as though conscious of the coming winter's stress—sad with its prophecy of want, and cold, and decay. Little rivulets that ran gleaming like silver threads—the Pactolian streams of childhood's home and lover's whisperings—now swell and deepen and complain, as though angry with the burdens of the falling clouds. Bared branches and low-browed eaves weep with the darkened and lowering sky, and withered leaves beat piteously at the cottage windows they once shadowed with their greenery, or lie limp and clayey on the roadside and the path. ”

“ What medicine and nursing failed to accomplish was carried to a successful issue by ‘a tuft of heather.’ For Milly did not die—indeed, she still lives; and although unable to roam and romp the moors that lie in great sweeps around her cottage home, she sits and looks at ‘th' angels' een’—as she still calls the stars—believing that in those heavenly watchers are the eyes that slumber not, nor sleep. ”

“ Enough that this was her ark, within which were relics as precious as the budding rod and pot of manna. She was low before her holy of holies—face to face with a light which falls from the inalienable shrine of every woman who has been wife and mother, who has loved a husband and carried a child. ”

“ The great, good God had ordained that the despairing girl should fly into the arms of the one who had not forgotten, and who felt she had nothing to forgive. Amanda found herself in the stillest and strongest of all havens—the haven of a mother's breast. ”

“ The old faces—Enoch, and Abraham, and Moses Fletcher, and Malachi o' th' Mount, and Simon o' Long John's. Yes, the old faces as she knew them five years ago—the old faces, all save one. Where was the saintly Mr. Morell? In his place sat a young man whom she knew not.
Hastening on, she climbed Pinner Brow, on the summit of which lay her home. As she scaled the height the beacon in her mother's gable told she was not forgotten. Then it was she trembled. A rebuke—a curse—a refusal; these she could face. But forgiveness—welcome—love—never! She turned to fly. ”

“ Wisdom lies with the ancients, you know.’
‘But are not the men who have refused admission to Amanda the spiritual children of Mr. Morell? If his preaching has brought about what we have seen and heard to-night, what guidance or help can I get from him?’
‘Just so,’ said the doctor. ‘I was not thinking of that. It's true he was pastor here for over forty years, and our deacons are his spiritual offspring. For all that, the old man's heart is right if his head is wrong; and, after all, it's the heart that rules the life.’
‘Nay! no heart could thrive on a creed such as Rehoboth's. ”

“ Penrose, Amanda says it's all dark. Dun yo' think yo' could lift th' claads a bit?’
‘Well, we'll do our best; but to the One who loves her the darkness and the light are both alike.’
And with these words on his lips, he followed the mother to where the sick girl lay.
Mr. Penrose had often heard of Amanda Stott, and of that face of hers which had been both her glory and her shame. Now, as he looked upon it for the first time, he saw, as in a glass, the reflection of a character and a life. There was the gold and the clay. ”

“ Old men and women, weary with the weight of years, renewed their youth as they drew near to what had been a veritable sanctuary amid their care and sorrow and sin; while manhood and womanhood, leading by the hand their little ones, felt in their hearts that zeal for the house of prayer so common to the dwellers in rural England. ”

“ He had heard how the Almighty discounted His gifts; how selfish men had to pay dearly for what they wrenched against the will of God. As he hurried, these thoughts followed on as fleet feet as his own, and moaned their voices in his ears with the sounds of the wind.
It was not long before he reached Dr. Hale's door, where he so lustily rung, that an immediate response was given to his summons, the man of science putting his head through the window and asking in peremptory tones who was there.
‘It's me, doctor—me—Matt, yo' know—Matt Heap—th' missis is i' bed, and some bad an' o'. ”

“ There she lay, poor girl! limp and exhausted, wrapped in her old gown like a mummy, her long, wet hair, which was scattered in tresses on the pillow, throwing, in its dark frame, her face into still greater pallor.
‘Thaa munnot speak, Miriam,’ said the nurse in a low tone. ‘If thaa moves tha'll dee. Thaa can kiss her, Matt; but that's all.’
Matt kissed his wife, and baptized her with his warm tears.
‘And hesn't thaa getten a word for th' child, Matt?’ cried old Deborah, who sat with a pulpy form upon her knees before the fire. ‘It's thy lad and no mistak'; it favours no one but thisel. ”

“ Ey, dear! A mother's life's like an April morn—sunleet and cloud, fleshes o' breetness, and showers o' rain.’
And closing her eyes, she, too, slept. And in that lone outlying fold, far away in the snowy bosom of the hills, there was the sleep of weariness, the sleep of sorrow, and the sleep of death. And who shall say that the last was not the kindliest and most welcome?
III.THE SNOW CRADLE.
As Mr. Penrose and Malachi o' th' Mount closed the door of Granny Houses on the sorrowing widowed mother, there opened to them a fairy realm of snow. ”

“ Following the water-worn path which wound in tortuous ascent under clustering trees and between slopes of bracken, the two soon gained the head of the Clough, and climbed towards the banks of the Green Fold Lodge, a stretch of water into which drained the moisture of vast tracts of uplands, its overflow rushing through flood-gates and pouring its volume through the Clough to feed the factories below. Seating himself on the bank of the Lodge, he recalled the day when he rescued his dog from its chill deeps, and, turning to Captain, he said:
‘It wor welly bein' thi grave once, owd lad. ”