Chapter III
After the Preaching
IN less than an hour from that time, Seth Bede was walking by
Dinah's side along the hedgerow-path that skirted the pastures and
green corn-fields which lay between the village and the Hall Farm.
Dinah had taken off her little Quaker bonnet again, and was
holding it in her hands that she might have a freer enjoyment of
the cool evening twilight, and Seth could see the expression of
her face quite clearly as he walked by her side, timidly revolving
something he wanted to say to her. It was an expression of
unconscious placid gravity--of absorption in thoughts that had no
connection with the present moment or with her own personality--an
expression that is most of all discouraging to a lover. Her very
walk was discouraging: it had that quiet elasticity that asks for
no support. Seth felt this dimly; he said to himself, "She's too
good and holy for any man, let alone me," and the words he had
been summoning rushed back again before they had reached his lips.
But another thought gave him courage: "There's no man could love
her better and leave her freer to follow the Lord's work." They
had been silent for many minutes now, since they had done talking
about Bessy Cranage; Dinah seemed almost to have forgotten Seth's
presence, and her pace was becoming so much quicker that the sense
of their being only a few minutes' walk from the yard-gates of the
Hall Farm at last gave Seth courage to speak.
"You've quite made up your mind to go back to Snowfield o'
Saturday, Dinah?"
"Yes," said Dinah, quietly. "I'm called there. It was borne in
upon my mind while I was meditating on Sunday night, as Sister
Allen, who's in a decline, is in need of me. I saw her as plain
as we see that bit of thin white cloud, lifting up her poor thin
hand and beckoning to me. And this morning when I opened the
Bible for direction, the first words my eyes fell on were, 'And
after we had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go
into Macedonia.' If it wasn't for that clear showing of the
Lord's will, I should be loath to go, for my heart yearns over my
aunt and her little ones, and that poor wandering lamb Hetty
Sorrel. I've been much drawn out in prayer for her of late, and I
look on it as a token that there may be mercy in store for her."
"God grant it," said Seth. "For I doubt Adam's heart is so set on
her, he'll never turn to anybody else; and yet it 'ud go to my
heart if he was to marry her, for I canna think as she'd make him
happy. It's a deep mystery--the way the heart of man turns to one
woman out of all the rest he's seen i' the world, and makes it
easier for him to work seven year for HER, like Jacob did for
Rachel, sooner than have any other woman for th' asking. I often
think of them words, 'And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and
they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had to her.' I
know those words 'ud come true with me, Dinah, if so be you'd give
me hope as I might win you after seven years was over. I know you
think a husband 'ud be taking up too much o' your thoughts,
because St. Paul says, 'She that's married careth for the things
of the world how she may please her husband'; and may happen
you'll think me overbold to speak to you about it again, after
what you told me o' your mind last Saturday. But I've been
thinking it over again by night and by day, and I've prayed not to
be blinded by my own desires, to think what's only good for me
must be good for you too. And it seems to me there's more texts
for your marrying than ever you can find against it. For St. Paul
says as plain as can be in another place, 'I will that the younger
women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to
the adversary to speak reproachfully'; and then 'two are better
than one'; and that holds good with marriage as well as with other
things. For we should be o' one heart and o' one mind, Dinah. We
both serve the same Master, and are striving after the same gifts;
and I'd never be the husband to make a claim on you as could
interfere with your doing the work God has fitted you for. I'd
make a shift, and fend indoor and out, to give you more liberty--
more than you can have now, for you've got to get your own living
now, and I'm strong enough to work for us both."
When Seth had once begun to urge his suit, he went on earnestly
and almost hurriedly, lest Dinah should speak some decisive word
before he had poured forth all the arguments he had prepared. His
cheeks became flushed as he went on his mild grey eyes filled with
tears, and his voice trembled as he spoke the last sentence. They
had reached one of those very narrow passes between two tall
stones, which performed the office of a stile in Loamshire, and
Dinah paused as she turned towards Seth and said, in her tender
but calm treble notes, "Seth Bede, I thank you for your love
towards me, and if I could think of any man as more than a
Christian brother, I think it would be you. But my heart is not
free to marry. That is good for other women, and it is a great
and a blessed thing to be a wife and mother; but 'as God has
distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every man, so
let him walk.' God has called me to minister to others, not to
have any joys or sorrows of my own, but to rejoice with them that
do rejoice, and to weep with those that weep. He has called me to
speak his word, and he has greatly owned my work. It could only
be on a very clear showing that I could leave the brethren and
sisters at Snowfield, who are favoured with very little of this
world's good; where the trees are few, so that a child might count
them, and there's very hard living for the poor in the winter. It
has been given me to help, to comfort, and strengthen the little
flock there and to call in many wanderers; and my soul is filled
with these things from my rising up till my lying down. My life
is too short, and God's work is too great for me to think of
making a home for myself in this world. I've not turned a deaf
ear to your words, Seth, for when I saw as your love was given to
me, I thought it might be a leading of Providence for me to change
my way of life, and that we should be fellow-helpers; and I spread
the matter before the Lord. But whenever I tried to fix my mind
on marriage, and our living together, other thoughts always came
in--the times when I've prayed by the sick and dying, and the
happy hours I've had preaching, when my heart was filled with
love, and the Word was given to me abundantly. And when I've
opened the Bible for direction, I've always lighted on some clear
word to tell me where my work lay. I believe what you say, Seth,
that you would try to be a help and not a hindrance to my work;
but I see that our marriage is not God's will--He draws my heart
another way. I desire to live and die without husband or
children. I seem to have no room in my soul for wants and fears
of my own, it has pleased God to fill my heart so full with the
wants and sufferings of his poor people."
Seth was unable to reply, and they walked on in silence. At last,
as they were nearly at the yard-gate, he said, "Well, Dinah, I
must seek for strength to bear it, and to endure as seeing Him who
is invisible. But I feel now how weak my faith is. It seems as
if, when you are gone, I could never joy in anything any more. I
think it's something passing the love of women as I feel for you,
for I could be content without your marrying me if I could go and
live at Snowfield and be near you. I trusted as the strong love
God has given me towards you was a leading for us both; but it
seems it was only meant for my trial. Perhaps I feel more for you
than I ought to feel for any creature, for I often can't help
saying of you what the hymn says--
In darkest shades if she appear,
My dawning is begun;
She is my soul's bright morning-star,
And she my rising sun.
That may be wrong, and I am to be taught better. But you wouldn't
be displeased with me if things turned out so as I could leave
this country and go to live at Snowfield?"
"No, Seth; but I counsel you to wait patiently, and not lightly to
leave your own country and kindred. Do nothing without the Lord's
clear bidding. It's a bleak and barren country there, not like
this land of Goshen you've been used to. We mustn't be in a hurry
to fix and choose our own lot; we must wait to be guided."
"But you'd let me write you a letter, Dinah, if there was anything
I wanted to tell you?"
"Yes, sure; let me know if you're in any trouble. You'll be
continually in my prayers."
They had now reached the yard-gate, and Seth said, "I won't go in,
Dinah, so farewell." He paused and hesitated after she had given
him her hand, and then said, "There's no knowing but what you may
see things different after a while. There may be a new leading."
"Let us leave that, Seth. It's good to live only a moment at a
time, as I've read in one of Mr. Wesley's books. It isn't for you
and me to lay plans; we've nothing to do but to obey and to trust.
Farewell."
Dinah pressed his hand with rather a sad look in her loving eyes,
and then passed through the gate, while Seth turned away to walk
lingeringly home. But instead of taking the direct road, he chose
to turn back along the fields through which he and Dinah had
already passed; and I think his blue linen handkerchief was very
wet with tears long before he had made up his mind that it was
time for him to set his face steadily homewards. He was but
three-and-twenty, and had only just learned what it is to love--to
love with that adoration which a young man gives to a woman whom
he feels to be greater and better than himself. Love of this sort
is hardly distinguishable from religious feeling. What deep and
worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or art or music.
Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the
influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic
statues, or Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the
consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an
unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our emotion in its keenest
moment passes from expression into silence, our love at its
highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in the
sense of divine mystery. And this blessed gift of venerating love
has been given to too many humble craftsmen since the world began
for us to feel any surprise that it should have existed in the
soul of a Methodist carpenter half a century ago, while there was
yet a lingering after-glow from the time when Wesley and his
fellow-labourer fed on the hips and haws of the Cornwall hedges,
after exhausting limbs and lungs in carrying a divine message to
the poor.
That afterglow has long faded away; and the picture we are apt to
make of Methodism in our imagination is not an amphitheatre of
green hills, or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores, where a
crowd of rough men and weary-hearted women drank in a faith which
was a rudimentary culture, which linked their thoughts with the
past, lifted their imagination above the sordid details of their
own narrow lives, and suffused their souls with the sense of a
pitying, loving, infinite Presence, sweet as summer to the
houseless needy. It is too possible that to some of my readers
Methodism may mean nothing more than low-pitched gables up dingy
streets, sleek grocers, sponging preachers, and hypocritical
jargon--elements which are regarded as an exhaustive analysis of
Methodism in many fashionable quarters.
That would be a pity; for I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah
were anything else than Methodists--not indeed of that modern type
which reads quarterly reviews and attends in chapels with pillared
porticoes, but of a very old-fashioned kind. They believed in
present miracles, in instantaneous conversions, in revelations by
dreams and visions; they drew lots, and sought for Divine guidance
by opening the Bible at hazard; having a literal way of
interpreting the Scriptures, which is not at all sanctioned by
approved commentators; and it is impossibie for me to represent
their diction as correct, or their instruction as liberal. Still--
if I have read religious history aright--faith, hope, and charity
have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to
the three concords, and it is possible--thank Heaven!--to have
very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings. The raw bacon
which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may
carry it to her neighbour's child to "stop the fits," may be a
piteously inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of
neighbourly kindness that prompted the deed has a beneficent
radiation that is not lost.
Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth
beneath our sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the
loftier sorrows of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of
heroes riding fiery horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery
passions.
Poor Seth! He was never on horseback in his life except once,
when he was a little lad, and Mr. Jonathan Burge took him up
bebind, telling him to "hold on tight"; and instead of bursting
out into wild accusing apostrophes to God and destiny, he is
resolving, as he now walks homewards under the solemn starlight,
to repress his sadness, to be less bent on having his own will,
and to live more for others, as Dinah does.
