MR. PIGEON was a heavy orator; he was a tall man, badly put together, with a hollow crease across his waistcoat, which looked very much as if he might be folded in two, and so laid away out of mischief. His arms moved foolishly about in the agonies of oratory, as if they did not belong to him; but he did not look absurd through Mrs. Vincent’s crape veil, as she sat gazing at the platform on which he stood, and taking in with eager ears every syllable that came from his lips. Mr. Pigeon said it was Mr. Vincent as they had come there to discuss that night. The managers had made up their minds as it was a dooty to lay things before the flock. Mr. Vincent was but a young man, and most in that congregation was ready to make allowances; and as for misfortunes as might have happened to him, he wasn’t a-going to lay that to the pastor’s charge, nor take no mean advantages. He was for judging a man on his merits, he was. If they was to take Mr. Vincent on his merits without no prejudice, they would find as he hadn’t carried out the expectations as was formed of him. Not as there was anything to be said against his preaching; his preaching was well enough, though it wasn’t to call rousing up, which was what most folks wanted. There wasn’t no desire on the part of the managers to object to his preaching: he had ought to have preached well, that was the truth, for every one as had been connected with Salem in Mr. Tufton’s time knew as there was a deal of difference between the new pastor and the old pastor, as far as the work of a congregation went. As for Pigeon’s own feelings, he would have held his peace cheerful, if his dooty had permitted him, or if he had seen as it was for the good of the connection. But things was come to that pass in Salem as a man hadn’t ought to mind his own feelings, but had to do his dooty, if he was to be took to the stake for it. And them were his circumstances, as many a one as he had spoken to in private could say, if they was to speak up.
To all this Mrs. Vincent listened with the profoundest attention behind her veil. The schoolroom was very full of people—almost as full as on the last memorable tea-party, but the square lines of the gas-burners, coming down with two flaring lights each from the low roof, were veiled with no festoons this time, and threw an unmitigated glare upon the people, all in their dark winter-dresses, without any attempt at special embellishment. Mrs. Pigeon was in the foreground, on a side-bench near the platform, very visible to the minister’s mother, nodding her head and giving triumphant glances around now and then to point her husband’s confused sentences. Mrs. Pigeon had her daughters spread out on one side of her, all in their best bonnets, and at the corner of the same seat sat little Mrs. Tufton, who shook her charitable head when the poulterer’s wife nodded hers, and put her handkerchief to her eyes now and then, as she gazed up at the platform, not without a certain womanly misgiving as to how her husband was going to conduct himself. The Tozers had taken up their position opposite. Mrs. Tozer and her daughter had all the appearance of being in great spirits, especially Phœbe, who seemed scarcely able to contain her amusement as Mr. Pigeon went on. All this Mrs. Vincent saw as clearly as in a picture through the dark folds of her veil. She sat back as far as she could into the shade, and pressed her hands close together, and was noways amused, but listened with as profound an ache of anxiety in her heart as if Pigeon had been the Lord Chancellor. As for the audience in general, it showed some signs of weariness as the poulterer stumbled on through his confused speech; and not a restless gesture, not a suppressed yawn in the place, but was apparent to the minister’s mother. The heart in her troubled bosom beat steadier as she gazed; certainly no violent sentiment actuated the good people of Salem as they sat staring with calm eyes at the speaker. Mrs. Vincent knew how a congregation looked when it was thoroughly excited and up in arms against its head. She drew a long breath of relief, and suffered the tight clasp of her hands to relax a little. There was surely no popular passion there.
And then Mr. Tufton got up, swaying heavily with his large uncertain old figure over the table. The old minister sawed the air with his white fat hand after he had said “My beloved brethren” twice over; and little Mrs. Tufton, sitting below in her impatience and anxiety lest he should not acquit himself well, dropt her handkerchief and disappeared after it, while Mrs. Vincent erected herself under the shadow of her veil. Mr. Tufton did his young brother no good. He was so sympathetic over the misfortunes that had befallen Vincent’s family, that bitter tears came to the widow’s eyes, and her hands once more tightened in a silent strain of self-support. While the old minister impressed upon his audience the duty of bearing with his dear young brother, and being indulgent to the faults of his youth, it was all the poor mother could do to keep silent, to stifle down the indignant sob in her heart, and keep steady in her seat. Perhaps it was some breath of anguish escaping from her unawares that drew towards her the restless gleaming eyes of another strange spectator there. That restless ghost of a woman!—all shrunken, gleaming, ghastly—her eyes looking all about in an obliquity of furtive glances, fearing yet daring everything. When she found Mrs. Vincent out, she fixed her suspicious desperate gaze upon the crape veil which hid the widow’s face. The deacons of Salem were to Mrs. Hilyard but so many wretched masquers playing a rude game among the dreadful wastes of life, of which these poor fools were ignorant. Sometimes she watched them with a reflection of her old amusement—oftener, pursued by her own tyrannical fancy and the wild restlessness which had brought her here, forgot altogether where she was. But Mrs. Vincent’s sigh, which breathed unutterable things—the steady fixed composure of that little figure while the old minister maundered on with his condolences, his regrets, his self-glorification over the interest he had taken in his dear young brother, and the advice he had given him—could not miss the universal scrutiny of this strange woman’s eyes. She divined, with a sudden awakening of the keen intelligence which was half crazed by this time, yet vivid as ever, the state of mind in which the widow was. With a half-audible cry the Back Grove Street needlewoman gazed at the minister’s mother; in poignant trouble, anxiety, indignant distress—clasping her tender hands together yet again to control the impatience, the resentment, the aching mortification and injury with which she heard all this maudlin pity overflowing the name of her boy—yet, ah! what a world apart from the guilty and desperate spirit which sat there gazing like Dives at Lazarus. Mrs. Hilyard slid out of her seat with a rapid stealthy movement, and placed herself unseen by the widow’s side. The miserable woman put forth her furtive hand and took hold of the black gown—the old black silk gown, so well worn and long preserved. Mrs. Vincent started a little, looked at her, gave her a slight half-spasmodic nod of recognition, and returned to her own absorbing interest. The interruption made her raise her head a little higher under the veil, that not even this stranger might imagine Arthur’s mother to be affected by what was going on. For everything else, Mrs. Hilyard had disappeared out of the widow’s memory. She was thinking only of her son.
As for the other minister’s wife, poor Mrs. Tufton’s handkerchief dropped a great many times during her husband’s speech. Oh, if these blundering men, who mismanage matters so, could but be made to hold their peace! Tears of vexation and distress came into the eyes of the good little woman. Mr. Tufton meant to do exactly what was right; she knew he did; but to sit still and hear him making such a muddle of it all! Such penalties have to be borne by dutiful wives. She had to smile feebly, when he concluded, to somebody who turned round to congratulate her upon the minister’s beautiful speech. The beautiful speech had done poor Vincent a great deal more harm than Pigeon’s oration. Salem folks, being appealed to on this side, found out that they had, after all, made great allowances for their minister, and that he had not on his part shown a due sense of their indulgence. Somebody else immediately after went on in the same strain: a little commotion began to rise in the quiet meeting. “Mr. Tufton’s ’it it,” said a malcontent near Mrs. Vincent; “we’ve been a deal too generous, that’s what we’ve been; and he’s turned on us.” “He was always too high for my fancy,” said another. “It ain’t the thing for a pastor to be high-minded; and them lectures and things was never nothing but vanity; and so I always said.” Mrs. Vincent smiled a wan smile to herself under her veil. She refused to let the long breath escape from her breast in the form of a sigh. She sat fast, upright, holding her hands clasped. Things were going against Arthur. Unseen among all his foes, with an answer, and more than an answer, to everything they said, burning in dumb restrained eloquence in her breast, his mother held up his banner. One at least was there who knew Arthur, and lifted up a dumb protest on his behalf to earth and heaven. She felt with an uneasy half-consciousness that some haunting shadow was by her side, and was even vaguely aware of the hold upon her dress, but had no leisure in her mind for anything but the progress of this contest, and the gradual overthrow, accomplishing before her eyes, of Arthur’s cause.
It was at this moment that Tozer rose up to make that famous speech which has immortalised him in the connection, and for which the Homerton students, in their enthusiasm, voted a piece of plate to the worthy butterman. The face of the Salem firmament was cloudy when Tozer rose; suggestions of discontent were surging among the audience. Heads of families were stretching over the benches to confide to each other how long it was since they had seen the minister; how he never had visited as he ought; and how desirable “a change” might prove. Spiteful glances of triumph sought poor Phœbe and her mother upon their bench, where the two began to fail in their courage, and laughed no longer. A crisis was approaching. Mrs. Tufton picked up her handkerchief, and sat erect, with a frightened face; she, too, knew the symptoms of the coming storm.
Such were the circumstances under which Tozer rose in the pastor’s defence.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Tozer,—“and Mr. Chairman, as I ought to have said first, if this meeting had been constituted like most other meetings have been in Salem; but, my friends, we haven’t met not in what I would call an honest and straight-forward way, and consequently we ain’t in order, not as a free assembly should be, as has met to know its own mind, and not to be dictated to by nobody. There are them as are ready to dictate in every body of men. I don’t name no names; I don’t make no suggestions; what I’m a-stating of is a general truth as is well known to every one as has studied philosophy. I don’t come here pretending as I’m a learned man, nor one as knows better nor my neighbours. I’m a plain man, as likes everything fair and aboveboard, and is content when I’m well off. What I’ve got to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, ain’t no grumbling nor reflecting upon them as is absent and can’t defend themselves. I’ve got two things to say—first, as I think you haven’t been called together not in an open way; and, second, that I think us Salem folks, as ought to know better, is a-quarrelling with our bread-and-butter, and don’t know when we’re well off!
“Yes, ladies and gentlemen! them’s my sentiments! we don’t know when we’re well off! and if we don’t mind, we’ll find out how matters really is when we’ve been and disgusted the pastor, and drove him to throw it all up. Such a thing ain’t uncommon; many and many’s the one in our connection as has come out for the ministry, meaning nothing but to stick to it, and has been drove by them as is to be found in every flock—them as is always ready to dictate—to throw it all up. My friends, the pastor as is the subject of this meeting”—here Tozer sank his voice and looked round with a certain solemnity—“Mr. Vincent, ladies and gentlemen, as has doubled the seat-holders in Salem in six months’ work, and, I make bold to say, brought one-half of you as is here to be regular at chapel, and take an interest in the connection— Mr. Vincent, I say, as you’re all collected here to knock down in the dark, if so be as you are willing to be dictated to—the same, ladies and gentlemen, as we’re a-discussing of to-night—told us all, it ain’t so very long ago, in the crowdedest meeting as I ever see, in the biggest public hall in Carlingford—as we weren’t keeping up to the standard of the old Nonconformists, nor showing, as we ought, what a voluntary church could do. It ain’t pleasant to hear of, for us as thinks a deal of ourselves; but that is what the pastor said, and there was not a man as could contradict it. Now, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what is the reason? It’s all along of this as we’re doing to-night. We’ve got a precious young man, as Mr. Tufton tells you, and a clever young man, as nobody tries for to deny; and there ain’t a single blessed reason on this earth why he shouldn’t go on as he’s been a-doing, till, Salem bein’ crowded out to the doors (as it’s been two Sundays back), we’d have had to build a new chapel, and took a place in our connection as we’ve never yet took in Carlingford!”
Mr. Tozer paused to wipe his heated forehead, and ease his excited bosom with a long breath; his audience paused with him, taking breath with the orator in a slight universal rustle, which is the most genuine applause. The worthy butterman resumed in a lowered and emphatic tone.
“But it ain’t to be,” said Tozer, looking round him with a tragic frown, and shaking his head slowly. “Them as is always a-finding fault, and always a-setting up to dictate, has set their faces again’ all that. It’s the way of some folks in our connection, ladies and gentlemen; a minister ain’t to be allowed to go on building up a chapel, and making hisself useful in the world. He ain’t to be left alone to do his dooty as his best friends approve. He’s to be took down out of his pulpit, and took to pieces behind his back, and made a talk and a scandal of to the whole connection! It’s not his preaching as he’s judged by, nor his dooty to the sick and dyin’, nor any of them things as he was called to be pastor for; but it’s if he’s seen going to one house more nor another, or if he calls often enough on this one or t’other, and goes to all the tea-drinkings. My opinion is,” said Tozer, suddenly breaking off into jocularity, “as a young man as may-be isn’t a marrying man, and anyhow can’t marry more nor one, ain’t in the safest place at Salem tea-drinkings; but that’s neither here nor there. If the ladies haven’t no pity, us men can’t do nothing in that matter; but what I say is this,” continued the butterman, once more becoming solemn; “to go for to judge the pastor of a flock, not by the dooty he does to his flock, but by the times he calls at one house or another, and the way he makes hisself agreeable at one place or another, ain’t a thing to be done by them as prides themselves on being Christians and Dissenters. It’s not like Christians—and if it’s like Dissenters the more’s the pity. It’s mean, that’s what it is,” cried Tozer, with fine scorn; “it’s like a parcel of old women, if the ladies won’t mind me saying so. It’s beneath us as has liberty of conscience to fight for, and has to set an example before the Church folks as don’t know no better. But it’s what is done in our connection,” added the good deacon with pathos, shaking his forefinger mournfully at the crowd. “When there’s a young man as is clever and talented, and fills a chapel, and gives the connection a chance of standing up in the world as it ought, here’s some one as jumps up and says, ‘The pastor don’t come to see me,’ says he—‘the pastor don’t do his duty—he ain’t the man for Salem.’ And them as is always in every flock ready to do a mischief, takes it up; and there’s talk of a change, and meetings is called, and—here we are! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, here we are! We’ve called a meeting, all in the dark, and give him no chance of defending himself; and them as is at the head of this movement is calling upon us to dismiss Mr. Vincent. But let me tell you,” continued Tozer, lowering his voice with a dramatic intuition, and shaking his forefinger still more emphatically in the face of the startled audience, “that this ain’t no question of dismissing Mr. Vincent; it’s a matter of disgusting Mr. Vincent, that’s what it is—it’s a matter of turning another promising young man away from the connection, and driving him to throw it all up. You mark what I say. It’s what we’re doing most places, us Dissenters; them as is talented and promising and can get a better living working for the world than working for the chapel, and won’t give in to be worried about calling here and calling there—we’re a-driving of them out of the connection, that’s what we’re doing! I could reckon up as many as six or seven as has been drove off already, and I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what’s the good of subscribing and keeping up of colleges and so forth, if that’s how you’re a-going to serve every clever young man as trusts hisself to be your pastor? I’m a man as don’t feel no shame to say that the minister, being took up with his family affairs and his studies, has been for weeks as he hasn’t crossed my door; but am I that poor-spirited as I would drive away a young man as is one of the best preachers in the connection, because he don’t come, not every day, to see me? No, my friends! them as would ever suspect such a thing of me don’t know who they’re a-dealing with; and I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, as this is a question as must come home to every one of your bosoms. Them as is so set upon their own way that they can’t hear reason—or them as is led away by folks as like to dictate—may give their voice again’ the minister, if so be as they think fit; but as for me, and them as stands by me, I ain’t a-going to give in to no such tyranny! It shall never be said in our connection as a clever young man was drove away from Carlingford, and I had part in it. There’s the credit o’ the denomination to keep up among the Church folks—and there’s the chapel to fill, as never had half the sittings let before—and there’s Mr. Vincent, as is the cleverest young man I ever see in our pulpit, to be kep’ in the connection; and there ain’t no man living as shall dictate to me or them as stands by me! Them as is content to lose the best preaching within a hundred miles, because the minister don’t call on two or three families in Salem, not as often as they would like to see him,” said Tozer, with trenchant sarcasm, “can put down their names again’ Mr. Vincent; but for me, and them as stands by me, we ain’t a-going to give in to no such dictation: we ain’t a-going to set up ourselves against the spread of the Gospel, and the credit o’ the connection, and toleration and freedom of conscience, as we’re bound to fight for! If the pastor don’t make hisself agreeable, I can put up with that— I can; but I ain’t a-going to see a clever young man drove away from Salem, and the sittings vacant, and the chapel falling to ruin, and the Church folks a-laughing and a-jeering at us, not for all the deacons in the connection, nor any man in Carlingford. And this I say for myself and for all as stands by me!”
The last sentence was lost in thunders of applause. The “Salem folks” stamped with their feet, knocked the floor with their umbrellas, clapped their hands in a furore of enthusiasm and sympathy. Their pride was appealed to; nobody could bear the imputation of being numbered among the two or three to whom the minister had not paid sufficient attention. All the adherents of the Pigeon party deserted that luck-less family sitting prominent upon their bench, with old Mrs. Tufton at the corner joining as heartily as her over-shoes would permit in the general commotion. There they sat, a pale line of faces, separated, by their looks of dismay and irresponsive silence, from the applauding crowd, cruelly identified as “them as is always ready to dictate.” The occasion was indeed a grand one, had the leader of the opposition been equal to it; but Mrs. Pigeon only sat and stared at the new turn of affairs with a hysterical smile of spite and disappointment fixed on her face. Before the cheers died away, a young man—one of the Young Men’s Christian Association connected with Salem—jumped up on a bench in the midst of the assembly, and clinched the speech of Tozer. He told the admiring meeting that he had been brought up in the connection, but had strayed away into carelessness and neglect—and when he went anywhere at all on Sundays, went to church like one of the common multitude, till Mr. Vincent’s lectures on Church and State opened his eyes, and brought him to better knowledge. Then came another, and another. Mrs. Vincent, sitting on the back seat with her veil over her face, did not hear what they said. The heroic little soul had broken down, and was lost in silent tears, and utterances in her heart of thanksgiving, deeper than words. No comic aspect of the scene appeared to her; she was not moved by its vulgarity or oddity. It was deliverance and safety to the minister’s mother. Her son’s honour and his living were alike safe, and his people had stood by Arthur. She sat for some time longer, lost in that haze of comfort and relief, afraid to move lest perhaps something untoward might still occur to change this happy state of affairs—keen to detect any evil symptom, if such should occur, but unable to follow with any exactness the course of those addresses which still continued to be made in her hearing. She was not quite sure, indeed, whether anybody had spoken after Tozer, when, with a step much less firm than on her entrance, she went forth, wiping the tears that blinded her from under her veil, into the darkness and quiet of the street outside. But she knew that “resolutions” of support and sympathy had been carried by acclamation, and that somebody was deputed from the flock to assure the minister of its approval, and to offer him the new lease of popularity thus won for him in Salem. Mrs. Vincent waited to hear no more. She got up softly and went forth on noiseless, weary feet, which faltered, now that her anxiety was over, with fatigue and agitation. Thankful to the bottom of her heart, yet at the same time doubly worn out with that deliverance, confused with the lights, the noises, and the excitement of the scene, and beginning already to take up her other burden, and to wonder by times, waking up with sharp touches of renewed anguish, how she might find Susan, and whether “any change” had appeared in her other child. It was thus that the great Salem congregational meeting, so renowned in the connection, ended for the minister’s mother. She left them still making speeches when she emerged into Grove Street. The political effect of Tozer’s address, or the influence which his new doctrine might have on the denomination, did not occur to Mrs. Vincent. She was thinking only of Arthur. Not even the darker human misery by her side had power to break through her preoccupation. How the gentle little woman had shaken off that anxious hand which grasped her old black dress, she never knew herself, nor could any one tell; somehow she had done it: alone, as she entered, she went away again—secret, but not clandestine, under that veil of her widowhood. She put it up from her face when she got into the street, and wiped her tears off with a trembling, joyful hand. She could not see her way clearly for those tears of joy. When they were dried, and the crape shadow put back from her face, Mrs. Vincent looked up Grove Street, where her road lay in the darkness, broken by those flickering lamps. It was a windy night, and Dr. Rider’s drag went up past her rapidly, carrying the doctor home from some late visit, and recalling her thoughts to her own patient whom she had left so long. She quickened her tremulous steps as Dr. Rider disappeared in the darkness; but almost before she had got beyond the last echoes of the Salem meeting, that shadow of darker woe and misery than any the poor mother wist of, was again by Mrs. Vincent’s side.