Mabin

“ Oh, Mabin, Mabin! Don’t you think she might forgive me now?”
While she talked in this wandering and excited way Mabin hardly knew what to do; whether to try to divert her thoughts, or to let her know in what a vixenish and hard manner the elder woman had made the announcement of the terrible action which had cut short one life and ruined another.
“Of course she ought to forgive you!” she said at last. “But you must not give way to despair if she does not. She is a hard woman; she will never treat you as tenderly as your own friends do.” ”

“ So that it was now the correct thing among the Bonnington boys to laugh at Mabin for being “advanced,” “superior,” “a New Woman,” and a “fright;” while she, on her side, treated them with lofty contempt as “savages” and “boors.”
Mabin had not gone twenty yards, however, on her way up the slight ascent, when she saw something which diverted her thoughts from the Vicarage people. The gates at “The Towers” were wide open, and Mrs. Dale’s smart victoria, with its well-matched pair of small, dark-brown horses, came out so suddenly that Mabin had to jump off her bicycle to avoid a collision. ”

“ And, in spite of the protests she feebly made, Mabin was gently raised from the ground by Rudolph’s strong arms, and helped into the victoria, where Mrs. Dale took her seat, and, telling the coachman to drive slowly, insisted on making her own plump little shoulder the pillow for the girl’s head.
But Mabin, having recovered her spirits, if not her walking powers, wanted to talk to the new friend she had so unexpectedly made.
“You are very good to me,” she said. “I have never had so much kindness from any one since my mother died. ”

“ Mabin had brought it all upon herself, and she tried to persuade herself that it was quite right and natural, and that she did not mind. And when Rudolph was gone, and she was alone with her hostess, she succeeded in persuading her that she had not felt neglected, but had enjoyed the merriment she had refused to share. ”

“ Mabin looked up at him steadily and frankly.
“It’s rather difficult for me to talk to you, because I can never tell whether you are serious or only laughing at me. Don’t you rather—rather puzzle Mrs. Bonnington?”
“Well, I am afraid I rather—rather shock her too.”
“We must all seem, down here, very antediluvian to you. There is only one person about here you can speak to in your own way.”
“Mrs. Dale?”
To Mabin’s fanciful and rather jealous eyes it seemed that Rudolph’s color grew a little deeper as he uttered the name. ”

“ A stiff, straight-laced, narrow-minded man, accustomed to be looked up to and deferred to by the female members of his household, he disapproved in the strongest manner both of the erratic moods of his eldest daughter, and of her longing for independence. It was from him, indeed, that Mabin chiefly suffered. ”

“ These questions, which had indeed risen in her mind before, but which had now acquired a new force with her extended knowledge, were entirely consistent with the bent of Mabin’s mind. Accustomed from her childhood to consider others rather than herself, and inclined by her own modesty to underrate her deserts as well as her attractions, she found it easy, not indeed to stifle her own feelings, but to control them. ”

“ Mabin was pleased by this reception, as she could not fail to be, but she was also a little puzzled. She was conscious of no attractions in herself which could explain such enthusiasm on her account.
“I am afraid,” she said shyly, “that I shall turn out a bitter disappointment. You can’t know much about girls, Mrs. Dale, or you would feel, as they all do at home, that there is a time, which I am going through now, when a girl is just as awkward and as stupid and as generally undesirable as she can possibly be.” ”

“ Oh, no, Miss Mabin, you won’t do that, I’m sure! You don’t know how delicate the poor gentleman is; more than once since he’s been here he has given me a fright, and made me think he was going to die. And he’s so peculiar; he won’t let one send for a doctor, not if it’s ever so, he won’t. I’m sure one morning, a fortnight ago, when I found him lying on the floor in the hall with the back garden door open, I thought he was dead, that I did. ”

“ The seed is the same, but the soil is not. I don’t know whether you knew her mother? But I suppose Mabin must take after her. She is utterly unlike her father.”
“She is indeed. Mr. Rose is such a particularly judicious, upright man. The Vicar has the highest respect for him.”
Mrs. Bonnington paused, to give full effect to this noble encomium. Mrs. Rose acknowledged it by a graceful bend of the head, and went on:
“The great failing about poor Mabin is that she is not womanly. ”

“ Miss Bradley said she was sure it was, and that she knew the very stuff she used.”
“Miss Bradley had better try the stuff on her own wisp then,” retorted Mabin angrily.
“What is the house like inside, Mabin?” asked Ethel, who, though only twelve, was quite as great a gossip as there was in the parish.
“Why, there were chairs and tables in it, just as there are in every other house. What do you suppose it was like?”
“Mabin, don’t snub the children. Their interest is very natural,” said Mr. Rose peevishly from the other end of the room. ”

“ Doesn’t God forgive us our sins, when we repent truly? And isn’t it by His laws that we can’t be numb to any feeling but one all our lives?”
“You are a very powerful advocate, I am sure! Perhaps if you had had a son whose life had been ruined by this woman’s conduct, you would be less enthusiastic.”
These words startled Mabin, and made her look at the harsh visitor in a new light. And she saw, or fancied she saw, in the handsome but stern features of the old lady, a trace of the worn face of her father’s tenant. ”

“ The mysterious visitor, as much on the alert as the girl was, closed the door softly between her and himself.
Mabin, however, sprang forward and seized the door-handle. She heard the sound of rapid footsteps on the other side, and for one moment she hesitated to go in pursuit. With the clearness of intellect which belongs to the night, when there are no sounds of busy life, no distractions of bright light and vivid color to divert the attention, she saw both the dangers on the one hand, the attractions on the other, of a deeper dive into the mystery which surrounded her. ”

“ Mrs. Rose hardly knew how to administer such a reproof as should be sufficiently scathing; while Mrs. Bonnington waited in solemn silence for the reproof to come. Mabin looked from her step-mother’s face to that of the Vicar’s wife, and thought she had better retire before the avalanche descended. So she gathered up her work hastily, running her darning-needle into her hand in her excitement, muttered an awkward apology and excuse for her disappearance at the same time, and shot out of the room in the ungainly way which had so often before caused her stepmother to shudder, as she did now. ”

“ Only,” added he wistfully, “I do hope you will make up your mind that you can; for I’m ‘dying of curiosity,’ as the ladies say.”
“No, they don’t say that,” said Mabin cantankerously. “Women are much less curious than the men, really. I wouldn’t have heard what I did for worlds if I could have helped it. And you are ‘dying’ to know it!”
“Well, I won’t argue with you,” replied Rudolph philosophically, as he walked slowly, according to his promise, in the direction of the kitchen-garden. ”

“ A little woman, plump, pink, childlike in face and figure, with wavy fair hair, infantine blue eyes, and a red-lipped mouth which was all the more lovable, more attractive for not being on the strict lines of beauty, Mrs. Dale had, so Mabin felt, exactly the right features and the right expression for the sweet voice she had just heard. And through the beauty, and through the voice, the girl, inspired perhaps by the mourning dress, thought she detected a sadness which seemed to her the most pathetic thing in the world. ”

“ Almost as pale as a mask of the dead, the face she saw was that of a man on whom every form of suffering seemed to have left its mark. The hollow eyes were full of unspeakable sadness; the deep lines about the mouth were those of illness or sorrow rather than of age; while even the thick sprinkling of gray hairs among the brown which Mabin detected in the searching cold light of the morning told the same tale of weight of grief rather than of years.
All these things the girl’s quick young eyes saw in one brief look. ”

“ She slid her arm round the girl’s waist. But Mabin could not disguise the change in her own feelings, which she could not help. She drew herself away with a laugh.
“I’m glad you are happier, and—and better,” she said stiffly. “I thought you were, when I saw you just now in the kitchen-garden.”
Mrs. Dale looked up at her mischievously.
“Why, you silly child, you have been making yourself miserable. It is of no use for you to try to deny it,” said she. “I believe you are jealous, Mabin. ”

“ His tone was rather anxious, Mabin thought. But she answered indignantly:
“No, I don’t. It would be very dishonorable to run away without paying one’s debts, and I don’t think you much of a friend to poor Mrs. Dale to suggest such a thing!”
Rudolph looked not guilty, but grave.
“Well” said he, “people don’t hang about a place, at the risk of getting taken up ‘on suspicion of loitering, for the purpose of committing a felony,’ without some reason.”
“Why,” cried Mabin triumphantly, “that is the reason! Mrs. ”

“ A devoted, submissive, and worshipful wife, she modified her worship by considering herself the Vicar’s guardian angel. A parish busybody and tyrant, she never spared herself and could show true womanly kindness to such of her husband’s parishioners as were not of “a froward spirit.”
Unluckily, she had not the power of conciliating, but had, on the contrary, a grand talent for raising up antagonism in unregenerate minds like those of the unfortunate Mabin. ”

“ Rose with fervor.
“But a woman like yourself, with daughters to take care of, cannot be too careful. Young people are so easily led away; they think so much of the mere outside. They are so easily dazzled and taken in by appearances.”
Mabin grew red, perceiving that this little sermon by the way was directed at herself. Her step-sisters, Emily and Ethel, one of whom could be heard “practising” in the drawing-room, were not the sort of girls to be led away by anything.
“But why shouldn’t a nice face mean something nice?” put in the rash young woman again. ”

“ In him as in Rizal, the mysteries of an unusual power resolve themselves at last into unusual character. What was Mabini’s character may be gathered from this decalogue he composed for his own guidance and that of his countrymen:
First. Thou shalt love God and thine honor above all things; God as the fountain of all truth, of all justice, and of all activity; and thine honor, the only power that will oblige thee to be faithful, just, and industrious. ”

“ Unable to stand upon his feet — for he has been a cripple ever since his imprisonment by Spain in 1896 — of a highly sensitive organization, the privations of a prisoner's life have borne more hardly on him than they would have borne on ordinary men.
“This, and even more the exile from a country dearly loved by him, have made of Mabini an old man before his time, and threaten soon to close his career by death.” ”

“ Mabinogi (p. 83) : wherever a church, repeat there thy Paternoster; if thou see meat and drink, and none offer, take; if thou hear an outcry, especially of a woman, go towards it; if thou see a jewel, take and give to another to obtain praise thereby; pay thy court to a fair woman, whether she will or no, thus shalt thou render thyself a better man than before. (In the italicised passage the Mabinogi gives the direct opposite of Chrestien, whom he has evidently misunderstood.) Sir Perceval (p. 16) : "Luke thou be of mesure Bothe in haulle and boure, And fonde to be fre." ”

“ In the latter work a careful analysis of the Mabinogi leads to the following conclusions:—Locale and persons are purely Welsh; tone and character are older than the age of the Crusades and Knighthood; it may be looked upon with confidence as the oldest known source of the Perceval sage. In comparing the Mabinogi with Kiot’s (i.e., Wolfram’s) version, stress is laid upon the task imposed upon Peredur, which is held to be different in character and independent in origin from the Grail Quest in Kiot. ”

“ Mabini very soon became radical and decidedly anti-American in his ideas, and succeeded in attaining such moral ascendancy over Aguinaldo that the latter ceased to be the leader of the people and the true dictator of the Filipino republic, becoming [315] a toy in the hands of a man who could twist and turn him here and there at his will.
Mabini refused to take the oath of allegiance and was, on the 7th of January 1901 deported under General Order No. 4 to the island of Guam, as one of the persons “whose acts clearly demonstrate them to be favorers or sympathizers with the insurrection.” ”

“ There are obvious similarities between the Lay and the story found in the Mabinogi and the Conte du Graal. A stag hunt is prominent in both, and whilst engaged in it the hero falls under "illusion," in both too the incident of the seizure of the hound appears, though in a different connection. Finally in the Lay, as in the Mabinogi, the mover in the enchantment is a kinsman whose own release from spells depends upon the hero's coming successfully out of the trials to which he exposes him. ”