Gods Good Man | Page 8

of the 'Oly Scripter, Passon, ye does reely now!" he said--"Wi' all yer different orders an' idees, y'are behavin' to me like the very moral o' the livin' Wurrd!"
Walden looked amused.
"How do you make that out?"
"Easy enough, sir,--'The Scripter moveth us in sun'ry places'! Hor!- hor!-hor!--"and Bainton burst into a hoarse chuckle of mirth, entirely delighted with his own witticism, and walked off, not waiting to see whether its effect on his master was one of offence or appreciation. He was pretty sure of his ground, however, for he left John Walden laughing, a laugh that irradiated his face with some of the sunshine stored up in his mind. And the sparkle of mirth still lingered in his eyes as, crossing the lawn and passing the seat where the volume of Epictetus lay, now gratuitously decorated by a couple of pale pink shell-like petals dropped from the apple- blossoms above it, he entered his house, and proceeding to his study sat down and wrote the following brief epistle:
"The Reverend John Walden presents his compliments to Sir Morton Pippitt, and in reply to his note begs to say that, as the church is always open and free, Sir Morton and his friends can 'inspect' it at any time provided no service is in progress."
Putting this in an envelope, he sealed and stamped it. It should go by post, and Sir Morton would receive it next morning. There was no need for a 'special messenger,' either in the person of Bob Keeley, or in the authorised Puck of the Post Office Messenger-service.
"For there is not the slightest hurry," he said to himself: "It will not hurt Sir Morton to be kept waiting. On the contrary, it will do him good. He had it all his own way in this parish before I came,-- but now for the past ten years he has known what it is to 'kick against the pricks' of legitimate Church authority. Legitimate Church authority is a fine thing! Half the Churchmen in the world don't use it, and a goodly portion of the other half misuse it. But when you've got a bumptious, purse-proud, self-satisfied old county snob like Sir Morton Pippitt to deal with, the pressure of the iron hand should be distinctly exercised under the velvet glove!"
He laughed heartily, throwing back his head with a sense of enjoyment in his laughter. Then, rising from his desk, he turned towards the wide latticed doors of his study, which opened into the garden, and looked out dreamily, as though looking across the world and far beyond it. The sweet mixed warbling of birds, the thousand indistinguishable odours of flowers, made the air both fragrant and musical. The glorious sunshine, the clear blue sky, the rustling of the young leaves, the whispering swish of the warm wind through the shrubberies,--all these influences entered the mind and soul of the man and aroused a keen joy which almost touched the verge of sadness. Life pulsated about him in such waves of creative passion, that his own heart throbbed uneasily with Nature's warm restlessness; and the unanswerable query which, in spite of his high and spiritual faith had often troubled him, came back again hauntingly to his mind,--"Why should Life be made so beautiful only to end in Death?"
This was the Shadow that hung over all things; this was the one darkness he and others of his calling were commissioned to transfuse into light,--this was the one dismal end for all poor human creatures which he, as a minister of the Gospel was bound to try and represent as not an End but a Beginning,--and his soul was moved to profound love and pity as he raised his eyes to the serene heavens and asked himself: "What compensation can all the most eloquent teaching and preaching make to men for the loss of the mere sunshine? Can the vision of a world beyond the grave satisfy the heart so much as this one perfect morning of May!"
An involuntary sigh escaped him. The beating wings of a swallow flying from its nest under the old gabled eaves above him flashed a reflex of quivering light against his eyes; and away in the wide meadow beyond, where the happy cattle wandered up to their fetlocks in cowslips and lush grass, the cuckoo called with cheerful persistence. One of old Chaucer's quaintly worded legends came to his mind,--telling how the courtly knight Arcite,
"Is risen, and looketh on the merrie daye All for to do his observance to Maye,-- And to the grove of which that I you told, By aventure his way he gan to hold To maken him a garland of the greves, Were it of woodbind or of hawthorn leaves, And loud he sung against the sunny sheen,-- 'O Maye with all