第26章

"I came here by way of Kensington Gardens," he said."For some time past I have been living in a flat, ugly, barren, agricultural district.You can't think how pleasant I found the picture presented by the Gardens, as a contrast.The ladies in their rich winter dresses, the smart nursery maids, the lovely children, the ever moving crowd skating on the ice of the Round Pond; it was all so exhilarating after what I have been used to, that I actually caught myself whistling as I walked through the brilliant scene! (In my time boys used always to whistle when they were in good spirits, and I have not got over the habit yet.) Who do you think I met when I was in full song?"As well as her amazement would let her, Mercy excused herself from guessing.She had never in all her life before spoken to any living being so confusedly and so unintelligently as she now spoke to Julian Gray!

He went on more gayly than ever, without appearing to notice the effect that he had produced on her.

"Whom did I meet," he repeated, "when I was in full song? My bishop! If I had been whistling a sacred melody, his lordship might perhaps have excused my vulgarity out of consideration for my music.Unfortunately, the composition I was executing at the moment (I am one of the loudest of living whistlers) was by Verdi--" La Donna e Mobile"--familiar, no doubt, to his lordship on the street organs.He recognized the tune, poor man, and when I took off my hat to him he looked the other way.Strange, in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow, to treat such a trifle seriously as a cheerful clergyman whistling a tune!" He pushed away his plate as he said the last words, and went on simply and earnestly in an altered tone."I have never been able," he said, "to see why we should assert ourselves among other men as belonging to a particular caste, and as being forbidden, in any harmless thing, to do as other people do.The disciples of old set us no such example; they were wiser and better than we are.I venture to say that one of the worst obstacles in the way of our doing good among our fellow-creatures is raised by the mere assumption of the clerical manner and the clerical voice.For my part, I set up no claim to be more sacred and more reverend than any other Christian man who does what good he can." He glanced brightly at Mercy, looking at him in helpless perplexity.The spirit of fun took possession of him again."Are you a Radical?" he asked, with a humorous twinkle in his large lustrous eyes."I am!"Mercy tried hard to understand him, and tried in vain.Could this be the preacher whose words had charmed, purified, ennobled her? Was this the man whose sermon had drawn tears from women about her whom she knew to be shameless and hardened in crime? Yes! The eyes that now rested on her humorously were the beautiful eyes which had once looked into her soul.The voice that had just addressed a jest ing question to her was the deep and mellow voice which had once thrilled her to the heart.In the pulpit he was an angel of mercy; out of the pulpit he was a boy let loose from school.

"Don't let me startle you," he said, good-naturedly, noticing her confusion."Public opinion has called me by harder names than the name of 'Radical.' I have been spending my time lately--as I told you just now--in an agricultural district.My business there was to perform the duty for the rector of the place, who wanted a holiday.How do you think the experiment has ended? The Squire of the parish calls me a Communist; the farmers denounce me as an Incendiary; my friend the rector has been recalled in a hurry, and I have now the honor of speaking to you in the character of a banished man who has made a respectable neighborhood too hot to hold him."With that frank avowal he left the luncheon table, and took a chair near Mercy.

"You will naturally be anxious," he went on, "to know what my offense was.Do you understand Political Economy and the Laws of Supply and Demand?"Mercy owned that she did not understand them.

"No more do I--in a Christian country," he said."That was my offense.You shall hear my confession (just as my aunt will hear it) in two words." He paused for a little while; his variable manner changed again.Mercy, shyly looking at him, saw a new expression in his eyes--an expression which recalled her first remem brance of him as nothing had recalled it yet."I had no idea," he resumed, "of what the life of a farm-laborer really was, in some parts of England, until I undertook the rector's duties.Never before had I seen such dire wretchedness as I saw in the cottages.Never before had I met with such noble patience under suffering as I found among the people.The martyrs of old could endure, and die.I asked myself if they could endure, and live , like the martyrs whom I saw round me?--live, week after week, month after month, year after year, on the brink of starvation; live, and see their pining children growing up round them, to work and want in their turn; live, with the poor man's parish prison to look to as the end, when hunger and labor have done their worst! Was God's beautiful earth made to hold such misery as this? I can hardly think of it, I can hardly speak of it, even now, with dry eyes!"His head sank on his breast.He waited--mastering his emotion before he spoke again.Now, at last, she knew him once more.Now he was the man, indeed, whom she had expected to see.Unconsciously she sat listening, with her eyes fixed on his face, with his heart hanging on his words, in the very attitude of the by-gone day when she had heard him for the first time!