Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood

“The prodigal didn’t come with a pack of lies. He told his father the truth, bad as it was.”

“How do you know that your son didn’t tell you the truth? All the young men that go from home don’t do as the prodigal did. Why should you not believe what he tells you?”

“I’m not one to reckon without my host. Here’s my bill.”

And so saying, he handed me a letter. I took it and read:—

“SIR,—It has become our painful duty to inform you that your son has this day been discharged from the employment of Messrs–and Co., his conduct not being such as to justify the confidence hitherto reposed in him. It would have been contrary to the interests of the establishment to continue him longer behind the counter, although we are not prepared to urge anything against him beyond the fact that he has shown himself absolutely indifferent to the interests of his employers. We trust that the chief blame will be found to lie with certain connexions of a kind easy to be formed in large cities, and that the loss of his situation may be punishment sufficient, if not for justice, yet to make him consider his ways and be wise. We enclose his quarter’s salary, which the young man rejected with insult, and,

                      “We remain, &c.,                                    “–and Co.”

“And,” I exclaimed, “this is what you found your judgment of your own son upon! You reject him unheard, and take the word of a stranger! I don’t wonder you cannot believe in your Father when you behave so to your son. I don’t say your conclusion is false, though I don’t believe it. But I do say the grounds you go upon are anything but sufficient.”

“You don’t mean to tell me that a man of Mr–’s standing, who has one of the largest shops in London, and whose brother is Mayor of Addicehead, would slander a poor lad like that!”

“Oh you mammon-worshipper!” I cried. “Because a man has one of the largest shops in London, and his brother is Mayor of Addicehead, you take his testimony and refuse your son’s! I did not know the boy till this evening; but I call upon you to bring back to your memory all that you have known of him from his childhood, and then ask yourself whether there is not, at least, as much probability of his having remained honest as of the master of a great London shop being infallible in his conclusions—at which conclusions, whatever they be, I confess no man can wonder, after seeing how readily his father listens to his defamation.”

I spoke with warmth. Before I had done, the pale face of the carpenter was red as fire; for he had been acting contrary to all his own theories of human equality, and that in a shameful manner. Still, whether convinced or not, he would not give in. He only drove away at his work, which he was utterly destroying. His mouth was closed so tight, he looked as if he had his jaw locked; and his eyes gleamed over the ruined board with a light which seemed to me to have more of obstinacy in it than contrition.

“Ah, Thomas!” I said, taking up the speech once more, “if God had behaved to us as you have behaved to your boy—be he innocent, be he guilty—there’s not a man or woman of all our lost race would have returned to Him from the time of Adam till now. I don’t wonder that you find it difficult to believe in Him.”

And with those words I left the shop, determined to overwhelm the unbeliever with proof, and put him to shame before his own soul, whence, I thought, would come even more good to him than to his son. For there was a great deal of self-satisfaction mixed up with the man’s honesty, and the sooner that had a blow the better—it might prove a death-blow in the long run. It was pride that lay at the root of his hardness. He visited the daughter’s fault upon the son. His daughter had disgraced him; and he was ready to flash into wrath with his son upon any imputation which recalled to him the torture he had undergone when his daughter’s dishonour came first to the light. Her he had never forgiven, and now his pride flung his son out after her upon the first suspicion. His imagination had filled up all the blanks in the wicked insinuations of Mr–. He concluded that he had taken money to spend in the worst company, and had so disgraced him beyond forgiveness. His pride paralysed his love. He thought more about himself than about his children. His own shame outweighed in his estimation the sadness of their guilt. It was a less matter that they should be guilty, than that he, their father, should be disgraced.

Thinking over all this, and forgetting how late it was, I found myself half-way up the avenue of the Hall. I wanted to find out whether young Weir’s fancy that the ladies he had failed in serving, or rather whom he had really served with honesty, were Mrs and Miss Oldcastle, was correct. What a point it would be if it was! I should not then be satisfied except I could prevail on Miss Oldcastle to accompany me to Thomas Weir, and shame the faithlessness out of him. So eager was I after certainty, that it was not till I stood before the house that I saw clearly the impropriety of attempting anything further that night. One light only was burning in the whole front, and that was on the first floor.

Glancing up at it, I knew not why, as I turned to go down the hill again, I saw a corner of the blind drawn aside and a face peeping out—whose, I could not tell. This was uncomfortable—for what could be taking me there at such a time? But I walked steadily away, certain I could not escape recognition, and determining to refer to this ill-considered visit when I called the next day. I would not put it off till Monday, I was resolved.

I lingered on the bridge as I went home. Not a light was to be seen in the village, except one over Catherine Weir’s shop. There were not many restless souls in my parish—not so many as there ought to be. Yet gladly would I see the troubled in peace—not a moment, though, before their troubles should have brought them where the weary and heavy-laden can alone find rest to their souls—finding the Father’s peace in the Son—the Father himself reconciling them to Himself.

How still the night was! My soul hung, as it were, suspended in stillness; for the whole sphere of heaven seemed to be about me, the stars above shining as clear below in the mirror of the all but motionless water. It was a pure type of the “rest that remaineth”—rest, the one immovable centre wherein lie all the stores of might, whence issue all forces, all influences of making and moulding. “And, indeed,” I said to myself, “after all the noise, uproar, and strife that there is on the earth, after all the tempests, earthquakes, and volcanic outbursts, there is yet more of peace than of tumult in the world. How many nights like this glide away in loveliness, when deep sleep hath fallen upon men, and they know neither how still their own repose, nor how beautiful the sleep of nature! Ah, what must the stillness of the kingdom be? When the heavenly day’s work is done, with what a gentle wing will the night come down! But I bethink me, the rest there, as here, will be the presence of God; and if we have Him with us, the battle-field itself will be—if not quiet, yet as full of peace as this night of stars.” So I spoke to myself, and went home.

I had little immediate comfort to give my young guest, but I had plenty of hope. I told him he must stay in the house to-morrow; for it would be better to have the reconciliation with his father over before he appeared in public. So the next day neither Weir was at church.

As soon as the afternoon service was over, I went once more to the Hall, and was shown into the drawing-room—a great faded room, in which the prevailing colour was a dingy gold, hence called the yellow drawing-room when the house had more than one. It looked down upon the lawn, which, although little expense was now laid out on any of the ornamental adjuncts of the Hall, was still kept very nice. There sat Mrs Oldcastle reading, with her face to the house. A little way farther on, Miss Oldcastle sat, with a book on her knee, but her gaze fixed on the wide-spread landscape before her, of which, however, she seemed to be as inobservant as of her book. I caught glimpses of Judy flitting hither and thither among the trees, never a moment in one place.

Fearful of having an interview with the old lady alone, which was not likely to lead to what I wanted, I stepped from a window which was open, out upon the terrace, and thence down the steps to the lawn below. The servant had just informed Mrs Oldcastle of my visit when I came near. She drew herself up in her chair, and evidently chose to regard my approach as an intrusion.

“I did not expect a visit from you to-day, Mr Walton, you will allow me to say.”

“I am doing Sunday work,” I answered. “Will you kindly tell me whether you were in London on Thursday last? But stay, allow me to ask Miss Oldcastle to join us.”

Without waiting for answer, I went to Miss Oldcastle, and begged her to come and listen to something in which I wanted her help. She rose courteously though without cordiality, and accompanied me to her mother, who sat with perfect rigidity, watching us.

“Again let me ask,” I said, “if you were in London on Thursday.”

Though I addressed the old lady, the answer came from her daughter.

“Yes, we were.”

“Were you in–& Co.‘s, in–Street?”

But now before Miss Oldcastle could reply, her mother interposed.

“Are we charged with shoplifting, Mr Walton? Really, one is not accustomed to such cross-questioning—except from a lawyer.”

“Have patience with me for a moment,” I returned. “I am not going to be mysterious for more than two or three questions. Please tell me whether you were in that shop or not.”

“I believe we were,” said the mother.

“Yes, certainly,” said the daughter.

“Did you buy anything?”

“No. We—” Miss Oldcastle began.

“Not a word more,” I exclaimed eagerly. “Come with me at once.”

“What DO you mean, Mr Walton?” said the mother, with a sort of cold indignation, while the daughter looked surprised, but said nothing.

“I beg your pardon for my impetuosity; but much is in your power at this moment. The son of one of my parishioners has come home in trouble. His father, Thomas Weir—”

“Ah!” said Mrs Oldcastle, in a tone considerably at strife with refinement. But I took no notice.

“His father will not believe his story. The lad thinks you were the ladies in serving whom he got into trouble. I am so confident he tells the truth, that I want Miss Oldcastle to be so kind as to accompany me to Weir’s house—”

“Really, Mr Walton, I am astonished at your making such a request!” exclaimed Mrs Oldcastle, with suitable emphasis on every salient syllable, while her white face flushed with anger. “To ask Miss Oldcastle to accompany you to the dwelling of the ringleader of all the canaille of the neighbourhood!”

“It is for the sake of justice,” I interposed.

“That is no concern of ours. Let them fight it out between them, I am sure any trouble that comes of it is no more than they all deserve. A low family—men and women of them.”

“I assure you, I think very differently.”

“I daresay you do.”

“But neither your opinion nor mine has anything to do with the matter.”

Here I turned to Miss Oldcastle and went on—

“It is a chance which seldom occurs in one’s life, Miss Oldcastle—a chance of setting wrong right by a word; and as a minister of the gospel of truth and love, I beg you to assist me with your presence to that end.”

I would have spoken more strongly, but I knew that her word given to me would be enough without her presence. At the same time, I felt not only that there would be a propriety in her taking a personal interest in the matter, but that it would do her good, and tend to create a favour towards each other in some of my flock between whom at present there seemed to be nothing in common.

But at my last words, Mrs Oldcastle rose to her feet no longer red—now whiter than her usual whiteness with passion.

“You dare to persist! You take advantage of your profession to persist in dragging my daughter into a vile dispute between mechanics of the lowest class—against the positive command of her only parent! Have you no respect for her position in society?—for her sex? MISTER WALTON, you act in a manner unworthy of your cloth.”

I had stood looking in her eyes with as much self-possession as I could muster. And I believe I should have borne it all quietly, but for that last word.

If there is one epithet I hate more than another, it is that execrable word CLOTH—used for the office of a clergyman. I have no time to set forth its offence now. If my reader cannot feel it, I do not care to make him feel it. Only I am sorry to say it overcame my temper.

“Madam,” I said, “I owe nothing to my tailor. But I owe God my whole being, and my neighbour all I can do for him. ‘He that loveth not his brother is a murderer,’ or murderess, as the case may be.”

At that word MURDERESS, her face became livid, and she turned away without reply. By this time her daughter was half way to the house. She followed her. And here was I left to go home, with the full knowledge that, partly from trying to gain too much, and partly from losing my temper, I had at best but a mangled and unsatisfactory testimony to carry back to Thomas Weir. Of course I walked away—round the end of the house and down the avenue; and the farther I went the more mortified I grew. It was not merely the shame of losing my temper, though that was a shame—and with a woman too, merely because she used a common epithet!—but I saw that it must appear very strange to the carpenter that I was not able to give a more explicit account of some sort, what I had learned not being in the least decisive in the matter. It only amounted to this, that Mrs and Miss Oldcastle were in the shop on the very day on which Weir was dismissed. It proved that so much of what he had told me was correct—nothing more. And if I tried to better the matter by explaining how I had offended them, would it not deepen the very hatred I had hoped to overcome? In fact, I stood convicted before the tribunal of my own conscience of having lost all the certain good of my attempt, in part at least from the foolish desire to produce a conviction OF Weir rather than IN Weir, which should be triumphant after a melodramatic fashion, and—must I confess it?—should PUNISH him for not believing in his son when I did; forgetting in my miserable selfishness that not to believe in his son was an unspeakably worse punishment in itself than any conviction or consequent shame brought about by the most overwhelming of stage-effects. I assure my reader, I felt humiliated.

Now I think humiliation is a very different condition of mind from humility. Humiliation no man can desire: it is shame and torture. Humility is the true, right condition of humanity—peaceful, divine. And yet a man may gladly welcome humiliation when it comes, if he finds that with fierce shock and rude revulsion it has turned him right round, with his face away from pride, whither he was travelling, and towards humility, however far away upon the horizon’s verge she may sit waiting for him. To me, however, there came a gentle and not therefore less effective dissolution of the bonds both of pride and humiliation; and before Weir and I met, I was nearly as anxious to heal his wounded spirit, as I was to work justice for his son.

I was walking slowly, with burning cheek and downcast eyes, the one of conflict, the other of shame and defeat, away from the great house, which seemed to be staring after me down the avenue with all its window-eyes, when suddenly my deliverance came. At a somewhat sharp turn, where the avenue changed into a winding road, Miss Oldcastle stood waiting for me, the glow of haste upon her cheek, and the firmness of resolution upon her lips. Once more I was startled by her sudden presence, but she did not smile.

“Mr Walton, what do you want me to do? I would not willing refuse, if it is, as you say, really my duty to go with you.”

“I cannot be positive about that,” I answered. “I think I put it too strongly. But it would be a considerable advantage, I think, if you WOULD go with me and let me ask you a few questions in the presence of Thomas Weir. It will have more effect if I am able to tell him that I have only learned as yet that you were in the shop on that day, and refer him to you for the rest.”

“I will go.”

“A thousand thanks. But how did you manage to—?”

Here I stopped, not knowing how to finish the question.

“You are surprised that I came, notwithstanding mamma’s objection to my going?”

“I confess I am. I should not have been surprised at Judy’s doing so, now.”

She was silent for a moment.

“Do you think obedience to parents is to last for ever? The honour is, of course. But I am surely old enough to be right in following my conscience at least.”

“You mistake me. That is not the difficulty at all. Of course you ought to do what is right against the highest authority on earth, which I take to be just the parental. What I am surprised at is your courage.”

“Not because of its degree, only that it is mine!”

And she sighed.—She was quite right, and I did not know what to answer. But she resumed.

“I know I am cowardly. But if I cannot dare, I can bear. Is it not strange?—With my mother looking at me, I dare not say a word, dare hardly move against her will. And it is not always a good will. I cannot honour my mother as I would. But the moment her eyes are off me, I can do anything, knowing the consequences perfectly, and just as regardless of them; for, as I tell you, Mr Walton, I can endure; and you do not know what that might COME to mean with my mother. Once she kept me shut up in my room, and sent me only bread and water, for a whole week to the very hour. Not that I minded that much, but it will let you know a little of my position in my own home. That is why I walked away before her. I saw what was coming.”

And Miss Oldcastle drew herself up with more expression of pride than I had yet seen in her, revealing to me that perhaps I had hitherto quite misunderstood the source of her apparent haughtiness. I could not reply for indignation. My silence must have been the cause of what she said next.

“Ah! you think I have no right to speak so about my own mother! Well! well! But indeed I would not have done so a month ago.”

“If I am silent, Miss Oldcastle, it is that my sympathy is too strong for me. There are mothers and mothers. And for a mother not to be a mother is too dreadful.”

She made no reply. I resumed.

“It will seem cruel, perhaps;—certainly in saying it, I lay myself open to the rejoinder that talk is SO easy;—still I shall feel more honest when I have said it: the only thing I feel should be altered in your conduct—forgive me—is that you should DARE your mother. Do not think, for it is an unfortunate phrase, that my meaning is a vulgar one. If it were, I should at least know better than to utter it to you. What I mean is, that you ought to be able to be and do the same before your mother’s eyes, that you are and do when she is out of sight. I mean that you should look in your mother’s eyes, and do what is RIGHT.”

“I KNOW that—know it WELL.” (She emphasized the words as I do.) “But you do not know what a spell she casts upon me; how impossible it is to do as you say.”

“Difficult, I allow. Impossible, not. You will never be free till you do so.”

“You are too hard upon me. Besides, though you will scarcely be able to believe it now, I DO honour her, and cannot help feeling that by doing as I do, I avoid irreverence, impertinence, rudeness—whichever is the right word for what I mean.”

“I understand you perfectly. But the truth is more than propriety of behaviour, even to a parent; and indeed has in it a deeper reverence, or the germ of it at least, than any adherence to the mere code of respect. If you once did as I want you to do, you would find that in reality you both revered and loved your mother more than you do now.”

“You may be right. But I am certain you speak without any real idea of the difficulty.”

“That may be. And yet what I say remains just as true.”

“How could I meet VIOLENCE, for instance?”

“Impossible!”

She returned no reply. We walked in silence for some minutes. At length she said,

“My mother’s self-will amounts to madness, I do believe. I have yet to learn where she would stop of herself.”

“All self-will is madness,” I returned—stupidly enough For what is the use of making general remarks when you have a terrible concrete before you? “To want one’s own way just and only because it is one’s own way is the height of madness.”

“Perhaps. But when madness has to be encountered as if it were sense, it makes it no easier to know that it is madness.”

“Does your uncle give you no help?”

“He! Poor man! He is as frightened at her as I am. He dares not even go away. He did not know what he was coming to when he came to Oldcastle Hall. Dear uncle! I owe him a great deal. But for any help of that sort, he is of no more use than a child. I believe mamma looks upon him as half an idiot. He can do anything or everything but help one to live, to BE anything. Oh me! I AM so tired!”

And the PROUD lady, as I had thought her, perhaps not incorrectly, burst out crying.

What was I to do? I did not know in the least. What I said, I do not even now know. But by this time we were at the gate, and as soon as we had passed the guardian monstrosities, we found the open road an effectual antidote to tears. When we came within sight of the old house where Weir lived, Miss Oldcastle became again a little curious as to what I required of her.

“Trust me,” I said. “There is nothing mysterious about it. Only I prefer the truth to come out fresh in the ears of the man most concerned.”

“I do trust you,” she answered. And we knocked at the house-door.

Thomas Weir himself opened the door, with a candle in his hand. He looked very much astonished to see his lady-visitor. He asked us, politely enough, to walk up-stairs, and ushered us into the large room I have already described. There sat the old man, as I had first seen him, by the side of the fire. He received us with more than politeness—with courtesy; and I could not help glancing at Miss Oldcastle to see what impression this family of “low, free-thinking republicans” made upon her. It was easy to discover that the impression was of favourable surprise. But I was as much surprised at her behaviour as she was at theirs. Not a haughty tone was to be heard in her voice; not a haughty movement to be seen in her form. She accepted the chair offered her, and sat down, perfectly at home, by the fireside, only that she turned towards me, waiting for what explanation I might think proper to give.

Before I had time to speak, however, old Mr Weir broke the silence.

“I’ve been telling Tom, sir, as I’ve told him many a time afore, as how he’s a deal too hard with his children.”

“Father!” interrupted Thomas, angrily.

“Have patience a bit, my boy,” persisted the old man, turning again towards me.—“Now, sir, he won’t even hear young Tom’s side of the story; and I say that boy won’t tell him no lie if he’s the same boy he went away.”

“I tell you, father,” again began Thomas; but this time I interposed, to prevent useless talk beforehand.

“Thomas,” I said, “listen to me. I have heard your son’s side of the story. Because of something he said I went to Miss Oldcastle, and asked her whether she was in his late master’s shop last Thursday. That is all I have asked her, and all she has told me is that she was. I know no more than you what she is going to reply to my questions now, but I have no doubt her answers will correspond to your son’s story.”

I then put my questions to Miss Oldcastle, whose answers amounted to this:—That they had wanted to buy a shawl; that they had seen none good enough; that they had left the shop without buying anything; and that they had been waited upon by a young man, who, while perfectly polite and attentive to their wants, did not seem to have the ways or manners of a London shop-lad.

I then told them the story as young Tom had related it to me, and asked if his sister was not in the house and might not go to fetch him. But she was with her sister Catherine.

“I think, Mr Walton, if you have done with me, I ought to go home now,” said Miss Oldcastle.

“Certainly,” I answered. “I will take you home at once. I am greatly obliged to you for coming.”