Mrs. Zachariah, however, shook herself free—not violently, but still decidedly—from his caresses.
“Most likely seized by the Government. Look for a lodging! That’s just like you! How can I go out in this pouring rain?”
Zachariah lately, at any rate, had ceased to expect much affection in his wife for him; but he thought she was sensible, and equal to any complexity of circumstances, or even to disaster. He thought this, not on any positive evidence; but he concluded, somewhat absurdly, that her coldness meant common sense and capacity for facing trouble courageously and with deliberation. He had now to find out his mistake, and to learn that the absence of emotion neither proves, nor is even a ground for suspecting, any good whatever of a person; that, on the contrary, it is a ground for suspecting weakness, and possibly imbecility.
Mrs. Coleman refused to go out, and after breakfast Zachariah went by himself, having first inquired what was a likely quarter. As he wandered along much that had been before him again and again once more recurred to him. He had been overtaken by calamity, and he had not heard from his wife one single expression of sympathy, nor had he received one single idea which could help him. She had thought of nothing but herself, and even of herself not reasonably. She was not the helpmeet which he felt he had a right to expect. He could have endured any defect, so it seemed, if only he could have had love; he could have endured the want of love if only he could have had a counsellor. But he had neither, and he rebelled, questioning the justice of his lot. Then he fell into the old familiar controversy with himself, and it was curiously characteristic of him, that, as he paced those dismal Manchester pavements, all their gloom disappeared as he re-argued the universal problem of which his case was an example. He admitted the unquestionable right of the Almighty to damn three parts of creation to eternal hell if so He willed; why not, then, one sinner like Zachariah Coleman to a weary pilgrimage for thirty or forty years? He rebuked himself when he found that he had all his life assented so easily to the doctrine of God’s absolute authority in the election and disposal of the creatures He had made, and yet that he revolted when God touched him, and awarded him a punishment which, in comparison with the eternal loss of His presence, was as nothing. At last—and here, through his religion, he came down to the only consolation possible for him—he said to himself, “Thus hath He decreed; it is foolish to struggle against His ordinances; we can but submit.” “A poor gospel,” says his critic. Poor!—yes, it may be; but it is the gospel according to Job, and any other is a mere mirage. “Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom and stretch her wings towards the south?” Confess ignorance and the folly of insurrection, and there is a chance that even the irremediable will be somewhat mitigated. Poor!—yes; but it is genuine; and this at least must be said for Puritanism, that of all the theologies and philosophies it is the most honest in its recognition of the facts; the most real, if we penetrate to the heart of it, in the remedy which it offers.
He found two small furnished rooms which would answer his purpose till his own furniture should arrive, and he and his wife took possession that same morning. He then wrote to his landlord in London—a man whom he knew he could trust—and directed him to send his goods. For the present, although he had no fear whatever of any prosecution, he thought fit to adopt a feigned name, with which we need not trouble ourselves. In the afternoon he sallied out to seek employment. The weather had cleared, but Mrs. Coleman still refused to accompany him, and she occupied herself moodily with setting the place to rights, as she called it, although, as it happened, it was particularly neat and clean. There was not so much printing done in Manchester then as now, and Zachariah had no success. He came home about seven o’clock, weary and disheartened. His wife was one of those women who under misfortune show all that is worst in them, as many women in misfortune show all that is best.
“You might have been sure you would get nothing to do here. If, as you say, there is no danger, why did you not stay in London?”
“You know all about it, my dear; we were warned to come.”
“Yes, but why in such a hurry? Why didn’t you stop to think?”
“It is all very well to say so now, but there were only a few minutes in which to decide. Besides, when I got home I found you gone.”
Mrs. Zachariah conveniently took no notice of the last part of this remark, which, of course, settled the whole question, but continued:
“Ah, well, I suppose it’s all right; but I’m sure we shall starve—I am convinced we shall. Oh! I wish my poor dear mother were alive! I have no home to go to. What will become of us?”
He lost his patience a little.
“Jane,” he said, “what is our religion worth if it does not support us in times like these? Does it not teach us to bow to God’s will? Surely we, who have had such advantages, ought to behave under our trials better than those who have been brought up like heathens. God will not leave us. Don’t you remember Mr. Bradshaw’s sermon upon the passage through the Red Sea. When the Israelites were brought down to the very shore with nothing but destruction before them, a way was opened. What did Mr. Bradshaw bid us observe? The Egyptians were close behind—so close that the Israelites saw them; the sea was in front. The road was not made till the enemy
