Tinnevelly

“ If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest." Even as respects the re ception of persons in the first instance under Christian instruction, it is a fact of great importance to the right understanding of this subject, that there are thousands upon thousands of heathens in Tinnevelly, whom all secular motives combined have failed to draw within the region of light. ”

“ On the contrary, in 1835, when the first Missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel reached Tinnevelly, and began to inquire about the sheep that had been left to their fate in the wilderness, more than three thousand persons were found to have steadfastly retained the profession of Christianity, and the rites of Christian worship, through an entire generation of neglect. ”

“ It is an interesting feature of real missionary work everywhere, and certainly not less so in India than in other parts of the world, that it is carried on with so small an admixture of party- spirit. In Tinnevelly, for example, we may confidently say, " Behold how good and joyful it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." ”

“ We may arrive at a safe conclusion respecting the reality and sincerity, on the whole, of the Christianity of Tinnevelly, from the liberality with which the native converts contribute to religious and charitable purposes. This is everywhere a tolerably fair criterion, if not of piety towards God, at least of love to man and religious zeal. People will not give their money for the ex tension of a system in which they do not believe, or in which they take no interest. ”

“ On the whole, therefore, I conclude, from my own experience as well as from the experience of my Missionary brethren in Tinnevelly, that real piety towards God does exist amongst our people, and is the same in kind, if not in degree, with what we observe in more highly-favoured communities. We cannot expect Hindu piety to be identical in all respects with English piety, but we may expect, and we actually find, that Hindti piety is as sincere and real, after its own fashion, as English, and as much superior to the merely nominal religion by which it is sur rounded. ”

“ Pat and Tennelly stood back against the wall and waited, saying not a word. Tennelly watched the people curiously as they went out: humble, common people, subdued, wistful, even tearful; some of them with illumined faces as if they had seen a great light in their darkness.
When at last Courtland drifted down to the back of the church and reached Tennelly the two met with a look straight into each other's soul, while their hands gripped in the old brotherhood clasp. Not a smile nor a commonplace expression crossed either face—just that strong, steady look of recognition and understanding. ”

“ It was Tinlay’s weka that came with its shadow before it, and heard Clint making incoherent prayer and breaking into laughter of relief. For a weka is above all things companion to lonely men, by reason of its knowledge that the heavy, powerful mystery of the bush is really just a delicate and transparent joke. And this gives the human much confidence. ”

“ Tennelly tried to finish his sentence in lighter vein, but the feeling was in his voice yet.
Courtland gripped his hand and looked his yearning with a sudden light of joy and hope: "If you only would, Nelly! It's been the thing I've longed for—!"
"Not yet!" said Tennelly, almost pulling his hand away from the detaining grasp. "Some time, perhaps, but not now! I've too much else on hand! I must beat it now! Man alive! Do you know what time it is? See you soon again!" Tennelly was off in a whirl of words. ”

“ Tennelly glanced around and marveled amusedly at the serious attitude of all. Even a row of tough-looking kids on the back seats had at least one eye apiece squinted shut during the prayer, and almost an atmosphere of reverence upon them.
Tennelly prided himself upon being a student of human nature, and before he knew it he was interested in this mass of common people about him. But now and again his gaze went uneasily back to Courtland, whose eyes were fixed intently upon the preacher, as if the words he spoke were of real importance to him. ”

“ You've interested yourself a little too much in regard to this young lady, who, at the present moment I expect, is waiting in the cold and the darkness for you. That's a pleasant thought, isn't it? There they stand—the pair of them; the girl, impatient to hear your footstep; the boy, shivering at the edge of the wood, waiting for you both. Think of that, Tinman; they so near together, and never by any chance to meet. ”

“ But I'm not a monomaniac, Nelly, and nothing's getting on my nerves. I never felt better or happier in my life. I feel as if I'd been blind always, been sort of groping my way, and had just got my eyes open to see what a wonderful thing life really is."
"Do you mean you've got what they used to call 'religion,' Court? 'Hit the trail,' as it were?" Tennelly asked as if he were delicately inquiring about some insidious tubercular or cancerous trouble. He seemed half ashamed to connect such a perilous possibility with his honored friend.
Courtland shook his head. ”

“ But when the fern was spread, and the gray blankets over, and the firelight ran into all the wharè corners, a restlessness caught Clint, so that he overhauled carefully the nine-by-twelve space that had held Tinlay’s private life.
Such outposts as these tell more of a man than his tongue or his face will give. Besides, it is decreed that each soul must influence other souls directly or indirectly. This was why the personality of Tinlay became blatantly real to Clint very presently. ”

“ It shall be as if the girl had really been here—only I'll work in a more secret fashion. I have a love for plotting and mystery; I'll leave that young fool staring up at these windows for a few days, and eating his heart out, and thirsting for my blood; and I'll be comfortably slipping away elsewhere. You shall help me, Tinman—and you too, Fanshawe—and I'll promise you some sport. ”

“ Tignonville rejoined with a passion of which the other's manner seemed an inadequate cause. "What will you? What is it?"
"I would take your place," La Tribe answered quietly.
"My place?"
"Yes."
"What, are we too many?"
"We are enough without you, M. Tignonville," the minister answered. "These men, who have wrongs to avenge, God will justify them."
Tignonville's eyes sparkled with anger. "And have I no wrongs to avenge?" he cried. "Is it nothing to lose my mistress, to be robbed of my wife, to see the woman I love dragged off to be a slave and a toy? Are these no wrongs?" ”

“ Until then the light of the lantern had revealed only a cloaked and cowled figure, a gloomy phantom which shook the heart of more than one with superstitious terror. But they knew her now--two of them; and slowly, as in a dream, Tignonville came forward.
The mind has its moments of crisis, in which it acts upon instinct rather than upon reason. The girl never knew why she acted as she did; why she asked no questions, why she uttered no exclamations, no remonstrances. Why, with a finger on her lips and her eyes on his, she put the packet into his hands. ”

“ Myself. What’s the matter with you; what are you all crying about?
Tinker (uncovering his face) . Lord, why to hear you talk; isn’t that enough to make anybody cry—even the poor babes? Yes, you said right, ’tis life in the Garden of Eden—the tinker’s; I see so now that I’m about to give it up.
Myself. Give it up! you must not think of such a thing.
Tinker. No, I can’t bear to think of it, and yet I must; what’s to be done? How hard to be frightened to death, to be driven off the roads!
Myself. Who has driven you off the roads?
Tinker. Who! the Flaming Tinman. ”

“ Once after midnight, the dying lady pointed with her finger to her own lips. Thiennette understood her not; but rose and bent over her face. The Enfeebled tried to lift her head, but could not,—and only rounded her lips. At last, a thought glanced through Thiennette, that the Departing, whose dead arms could now press no beloved heart to her own, wished that she herself should embrace her. O then, that instant, keen and tearful, she pressed her warm lips on the colder,—and she was silent like her that was to speak no more,—and she embraced alone and was not embraced. ”

“ I turned sharply round, and saw the handsome, friendly face of Maurice Tindal, an artist, like myself, but one who, young as he was, already ranked high in his profession, and bade fair to be, with thought and study, one of the props of British art. I had a sincere liking for Tindal, and a thorough admiration for his talents; indeed, almost every one liked the youngster, though it is sometimes provoking to be outstripped by a junior. I knew that he had spent the winter somewhere in Italy, but not at Rome, for we had not met since our last sojourn in London. ”

“ So she received Tennelly graciously, boldly, impressively, and in three minutes was talking with that daring intimacy that young people of her style love to affect; and Tennelly, fascinated by her charms, yet seeing through them and letting her know he saw through them, was fencing with her delightfully. He told himself it was his duty for Courtland's sake. Yet he was interested for his own sake and knew it. But he did not like the idea of Court and this girl! They did not fit. Court was too genuine! Too tender-hearted! Too idealistic about women! ”

“ When any great calamity falls suddenly upon us, or the dread of any great calamity, our first natural thought is, how it may be mitigated or averted. It was the thought that occurred to Tynn. The first shock over, digested, as may be said, Tynn began to deliberate whether he could do anything to help his master in the strait; and he went along, turning all sorts of suggestions over in his mind. Much as Sibylla was disliked by the old servants—and she had contrived to make herself very much disliked by them all—Tynn could not help feeling warmly the blow that was about to burst upon her head. ”

“ And so here, when the English girl, Margaret Tinworth, in face of poverty and parental disapproval, marries a Prussian officer in a small garrison town, and then finds all sorts of unbearable conditions in her surroundings, one asks oneself, and fails to discover, what kind of glamour he had cast over her that most of these conditions, already patent enough in the society in which she had moved, had contrived either to escape her notice or to appear tolerable. ”

“ The doubt, so much worse than despair, began to sap that courage of the man which is always better fitted to do than to suffer. The sweat rose on Tignonville's brow as he stood listening, his arm round the girl--as he stood listening and waiting. ”

“ Try to toll him into a big, stylish church. They're safest; but 'most any of 'em are cold enough to freeze the eye-teeth out of a stranger as far as my experience goes."
"Well, this isn't my funeral," sulked Tennelly, going to his closet for suitable raiment. "I s'pose you get your way, but Court's keen intellectually, and if he happens to strike a good preacher he's liable to fall for what he says, in the mood he's in now."
"Well, he won't strike a good preacher. There isn't one nowadays. ”

“ And Tiny looked at the banks of the river, right and left, as they floated down it, and thought of all the songs he would sing.
All the first day it was of the poor he would help, of the desolate hearts he would cheer, of the weary lives he would encourage, that he thought; the world that had need of him should never find him hard of hearing when it called to him for help. And much he wondered—the poet Tiny sailing down the river towards the world, how it happened that the world with all its mighty riches, and its hosts on hosts of helpers, should ever stand in need of him! ”

“ So far excitement had supported Tignonville in his escape. It was only when he knew himself safe, when he heard Madame St. Lo's footstep in the courtyard and knew that in a moment he would see her, that he knew also that he was failing for want of food. The room seemed to go round with him; the window to shift, the light to flicker. And then again, with equal abruptness, he grew strong and steady and perfectly master of himself. Nay, never had he felt a confidence in himself so overwhelming or a capacity so complete. ”

“ But the men of the back-country need not to have coward blood in their hearts. Clint shook himself, and went out from the bush to the free, windy hillside. There he said defiantly to his dog:
“Simple thing, in course. Branches makes a shadder on the floor, an’ Tinlay carves the shadder. The lay o’ the moonlight alters the expression—an’ that’s all there is to’t. Blest if I don’t worry that nose out from the ole shadder myself.”
He felt brave as a man may be when he laid block and knife in the bunk beside him. ”

“ Tavannes raised his eyebrows. "You are in my power," he said. "For the rest, if it be a lie, Mademoiselle has but to say so."
"You hear him?" Tignonville cried. "Then speak, Mademoiselle! Clotilde, speak! Say you never spoke, you never promised him!"
The young man's voice quivered with indignation, with rage, with pain; but most, if the truth be told, with shame--the shame of a position strange and unparalleled. For in proportion as the fear of death instant and violent was lifted from him, reflection awoke, and the situation in which he stood took uglier shape. ”

“ Tynn chatted in his turn, never losing his respect of words and manner: a servant worth anything never does. Thus they progressed towards the village, utterly unconscious that a pair of eager eyes were following and an evil tongue was casting anathemas towards them.
The owner of the eyes and tongue was wanting to hold a few words of private colloquy with Tynn. Could Tynn have seen right round the corner of the pillar of the outer gate when he went out, he would have detected the man waiting there in ambush. It was Giles Roy. ”