“I will write to one of my friends in Homerton,” he said, “if you will make an apology for me in the chapel. I daresay I could get Beecher to come down, who is a very clever fellow; and as for the beginning of that course of sermons—”
He stopped short with a certain suppressed disgust. Good heavens! what mockery it seemed. Amid these agonies of life, a man overwhelmed with deadly fear, hatred, and grief might indeed pause to snatch a burning lesson, or appropriate with trembling hands a consolatory promise; but with the whole solemn future of his sister’s life hanging on a touch, with all the happiness and peace of his own involved in a feverish uncertainty, with dark unsuspected depths of injury and wretchedness opening at his feet—to think of courses of sermons and elaborate preachments, ineffectual words, and pretences of teaching! For the first time in the commotion of his soul, in the resentments and forebodings to which he gave no utterance, in the bitter conviction of uncertainty in everything which consumed his heart, a doubt of his own ability to teach came to Vincent’s mind. He stopped short with an intolerable pang of impatience and self-disgust.
“And what of that, Mr. Vincent?” said Tozer. “I can’t say as I think it’ll be well took to see a stranger in the pulpit after them intimations. I made it my business to send the notices out last night; and after saying everywhere as you were to begin a coorse, as I always advised, if you had took my advice, it ain’t a way to stop talk to put them off now. Old Mr. Tufton, you know, he was a different man; it was experience as was his line; and I don’t mean to say nothing against experience,” said the worthy deacon. “There ain’t much true godliness, take my word, where there’s a shrinking from disclosin’ the state of your soul; but for keeping up a congregation there’s nothing I know on like a coorse—and a clever young man as has studied his subjects, and knows the manners of them old times, and can give a bit of a description as takes the interest, that’s what I’d set my heart on for Salem. There’s but three whole pews in the chapel as isn’t engaged,” said the butterman, with a softening glance at the pastor; “and the Miss Hemmings sent over this morning to say as they meant to come regular the time you was on the Miracles; and but for this cackle of the women, as you’ll soon get over, there ain’t a thing as I can see to stop us filling up to the most influential chapel in the connection; I mean in our parts.”
The subdued swell of expectation with which the ambitious butterman concluded, somehow made Vincent more tolerant even in his undiminished excitement. He gave a subdued groan over all this that was expected of him, but not without a little answering thrill in his own troubled and impatient heart.
“A week can’t make much difference, if I am ever to do any good,” said the young man. “I must go now; but if you explain the matter for me, you will smooth the way. I will bring my mother and sister here,” he went on, giving himself over for a moment to a little gleam of comfort, “and everything will go on better. I am worried and anxious now, and don’t know what I am about. Give me some paper, and I will write to Beecher. You will like him. He is a good fellow, and preaches much better than I do,” added poor Vincent with a sigh, sitting wearily down by the big table. He was subdued to his condition at that moment, and Tozer appreciated the momentary humbleness.
“I am not the man to desert my minister when he’s in trouble,” said the brave butterman. “Look you here, Mr. Vincent; don’t fret yourself about it. I’ll take it in hand; and I’d like to see the man in Salem as would say to the contrary again’ me and the pastor both. Make your mind easy; I’ll manage ’em. As for the women,” said Tozer, scratching his head, “I don’t pretend not to be equal to that; but my missis is as reasonable as most; and Phoebe, she’ll stand up for you, whatever you do. If you’ll take my advice, and be a bit prudent, and don’t go after no more vanities, things ain’t so far wrong but a week or two will make them right.”
With this consolatory assurance Vincent began to write his letter. Before he had concluded it, the maid came to lay the cloth for dinner, thrusting him into a corner, where he accomplished his writing painfully on his knee with his ink on the windowsill, a position in which Phoebe found him when she ventured downstairs. It was she who took his letter from him, and ran with it to the shop to despatch it at once; and Phoebe came back to tell him that Mrs. Vincent was resting, and that it was so pleasant to see him back again after such a time. “I never expected you would have any patience for us when I saw you knew Lady Western so well. Oh, she is so sweetly pretty! and if I were a gentleman, I know I should fall deep in love with her,” said Phoebe, with a sidelong glance, and not without hopes of calling forth a disclaimer from the minister; but the poor minister, jammed up in the corner, whence it was now necessary to extricate his chair preparatory to sitting down to a family dinner with the Tozers, was, as usual, unequal to the occasion, and had nothing to say. Phoebe’s chair was by the minister’s side during that substantial meal; and the large fire which burned behind Mrs. Tozer at the head of the table, and the steaming viands on the hospitable board, and
