If he had come to woo society, doubtless he could have plucked up a spirit, and made a little effort for his object. But he had come to see Her, flattering himself with vain dreams of securing her to himself--of wandering by her side through those garden-paths, of keeping near her whenever she moved--and the dream had intoxicated him more deeply than even he himself was aware of. Now he woke to his sober wits with a chill of mortification and disappointment not to be expressed. He stood silent, following her with his eyes as she glided about from one corner to the other of the crowded room. He had neither eyes nor ears for anything else. Beautiful as she had always been, she was lovelier than ever to-day, with her fair head uncovered and unadorned, her beautiful hair glancing in the gleams of sunshine, her tiny hands ungloved. Poor Vincent drew near a window, when it dawned upon his troubled perception that he was standing amidst all those chattering, laughing people, a silent statue of disappointment and dismay, and from that little refuge watched her as she made her progress. And, alas! Lady Western a.s.sured everybody that they were "_so_ kind" to come--she distributed her smiles, her kind words, everywhere. She beamed upon the old men and the young, the handsome and the stupid, with equal sweetness. After a while, as he stood watching, Vincent began to melt in his heart. She was hostess--she had the party's pleasure to think of, not her own. If he could but help her, bring himself to her notice again in some other way!

Vincent made another step out of his window, and looked out eagerly with shy scrutiny. n.o.body wanted his help. They stared at him, and whispered questions who he was. When he at length nerved himself to speak to his next neighbour, he met with a courteous response and no more. Society was not cruel, or repulsive, or severely exclusive, but simply did not know him, could not make out who he was, and was busy talking that conversation of a limited sphere full of personal allusions into which no stranger could enter. Instead of the ineffable hour he expected, an embarra.s.sing, unbearable tedium was the lot of the poor Dissenting minister by himself among the beauty, wit, and fashion of Carlingford.

He would have stolen away but for the forlorn hope that things might mend--that Lady Western might return, and that the sunshine he had dreamed of would yet fall upon him. But no such happiness came to the unfortunate young minister. After a while, a perfectly undistinguished middle-aged individual charitably engaged Mr. Vincent in conversation; and as they talked, and while the young man's eager wistful eyes followed into every new combination of the little crowd that one fair figure which had bewitched him, it became apparent that the company was flowing forth into the garden. At last Vincent stopped short in the languid answer he was making to his respectable interlocutor with a sudden start and access of impatience. The brilliant room had suddenly clouded over. She had joined her guests outside. With bitterness, and a sharp pang at his heart, Vincent looked round and wondered to find himself in the house, in the company, from which she had gone. What business had he there? No link of connection existed between him and this little world of unknown people except herself. She had brought him here; she alone knew even so much of him as his name. He had not an inch of ground to stand on in the little alien a.s.sembly when she was not there. He broke off his conversation with his unknown sympathiser abruptly, and rushed out, meaning to leave the place. But somehow, fascinated still, in a hundred different moods a minute, when he got outside, he too lingered about the paths, where he continually met with groups and stray couples who stared at him, and wondered again, sometimes not inaudibly, who he was. He met her at last under the shadow of the lime-trees with a train of girls about her, and a following of eager male attendants. When he came forward lonely to make his farewell, with a look in which he meant to unite a certain indignation and reproach with still chivalrous devotion, the unconscious beauty met him with unabated sweetness, held out her hand as before, and smiled the most radiant of smiles.

"Are you going to leave us already?" she said, in a tone which half persuaded the unlucky youth to stay till the last moment, and swallow all his mortifications. "So sorry you must go away so soon! and I wanted to show you my pictures too. Another time, I hope, we may have better fortune. When you come to me again, you must really be at leisure, and have no other engagements. Good-bye! It was _so_ kind of you to come, and I am so sorry you can't stay!"

In another minute the green door had opened and closed, the fairy vision was gone, and poor Vincent stood in Grange Lane between the two blank lines of garden-wall, come back to the common daylight after a week's vain wandering in the enchanted grounds, half stupefied, half maddened by the disappointment and downfall. He made a momentary pause at the door, gulped down the big indignant sigh that rose in his throat, and, with a quickened step and a heightened colour, retraced his steps along a road which no longer gleamed with any rosy reflections, but was harder, more real, more matter-of-fact than ever it had looked before.

What a fool he had been, to be led into such a false position!--to be cheated of his peace, and seduced from his duty, and intoxicated into such absurdities of hope, all by the gleam of a bright eye, and the sound of a sweet voice! He who had never known the weakness before, to cover himself with ridicule, and compromise his dignity so entirely for the sake of the first beautiful woman who smiled upon him! Poor Vincent!

He hurried to his rooms thrilling with projects, schemes, and sudden vindictive ambition. That fair creature should learn that the young Nonconformist was worthy of her notice. Those self-engrossed simperers should yet be startled out of their follies by the new fame rising up amongst them. Who was he, did they ask? One day they should know.

That the young man should despise himself for this outbreak of injured feeling, as soon as he had cooled down, was inevitable; but it took some considerable time to cool down; and in the mean time his resolution rose and swelled into that heroic region which youth always attains so easily. He thought himself disenchanted for ever. That night, in bitter earnest, he burned the midnight oil--that night his pen flew over the paper with outbreaks, sometimes indignant, sometimes pathetic, on subjects as remote as possible from Lady Western's breakfast-party; and with a sudden revulsion he bethought himself of Salem and its oligarchy, which just now prophesied so much good of their new minister. He accepted Salem with all the heat of pa.s.sion at that moment. His be the task to raise it and its pastor into a common fame!

CHAPTER VIII.

The events above narrated were all prefatory of the great success accomplished by Mr. Vincent in Carlingford. Indeed, the date of the young minister's fame--fame which, as everybody acquainted with that town must be aware, was widely diffused beyond Carlingford itself, and even reached the metropolis, and gladdened his _Alma Mater_ at Homerton--might almost be fixed by a reference to Lady Western's housekeeping book, if she kept any, and the date of her last summer-party. That event threw the young Nonconformist into just the state of mind which was wanted to quicken all the prejudices of his education, and give individual force to all the hereditary limits of thought in which he had been born. An attempt on the part of the Government to repeal the Toleration Act, or reinstate the Test, could scarcely have produced a more permanent and rapid effect than Lady Western's neglect, and the total ignorance of Mr. Vincent displayed by polite society in Carlingford. No shame to him. It was precisely the same thing in private life which the other would have been in public.

Repeal of the Toleration Act, or re-enactment of the Test, are things totally impossible; and when persecution is not to be apprehended or hoped for, where but in the wrongs of a privileged cla.s.s can the true zest of dissidence be found? Mr. Vincent, who had received his dissenting principles as matters of doctrine, took up the familiar instruments now with a rush of private feeling. He was not conscious of the power of that sentiment of injury and indignation which possessed him. He believed in his heart that he was but returning, after a temporary hallucination, to the true duties of his post; but the fact was, that this wound in the tenderest point--this general slight and indifference--p.r.i.c.ked him forward in all that force of personal complaint which gives warmth and piquancy to a public grievance. The young man said nothing of Lady Western even to his dearest friend--tried not to think of her except by way of imagining how she should one day hear of him, and know his name when it possessed a distinction which neither the perpetual curate of St. Roque's, nor any other figure in that local world, dared hope for. But with fiery zeal he flew to the question of Church and State, and set forth the wrongs which Christianity sustained from endowment, and the heinous evils of rich livings, episcopal palaces, and spiritual lords. It was no mean or ungenerous argument which the young Nonconformist pursued in his fervour of youth and wounded self-regard. It was the natural cry of a man who had entered life at disadvantage, and chafed, without knowing it, at all the phalanx of orders and cla.s.ses above him, standing close in order to prevent his entrance. With eloquent fervour he expatiated upon the kingdom that was not of this world. If these words were true, what had the Church to do with worldly possessions, rank, dignities, power? Was his Grace of Lambeth more like Paul the tentmaker than his Holiness of Rome? Mr. Vincent went into the whole matter with genuine conviction, and confidence in his own statements. He believed and had been trained in it. In his heart he was persuaded that he himself, oft disgusted and much misunderstood in his elected place at Salem Chapel, ministered the gospel more closely to his Master's appointment than the rector of Carlingford, who was nominated by a college; or the curate of St.

Roque's, who had his forty pounds a-year from a tiny ancient endowment, and was spending his own little fortune on his church and district.

These men had joined G.o.d and mammon--they were in the pay of the State.

Mr. Vincent thundered forth the lofty censures of an evangelist whom the State did not recognise, and with whom mammon had little enough to do.

He brought forth all the weapons out of the Homerton armoury, new, bright, and dazzling; and he did not know any more than his audience that he never would have wielded them so heartily--perhaps would scarcely have taken them off the wall--but for the sudden sting with which his own inferior place, and the existence of a privileged cla.s.s doubly shut against his entrance, had quickened his personal consciousness. Such, however, was the stimulus which woke the minister of Salem Chapel into action, and produced that series of lectures on Church and State which, as everybody knows, shook society in Carlingford to its very foundation.

"Now we've got a young man as is a credit to us," said Tozer; "and now he's warming to his work, as I was a little afraid of at first; for somehow I can't say as I could see to my satisfaction, when he first come, that his heart was in it,--I say, now as we've got a pastor as does us credit, I am not the man to consider a bit of expense. My opinion is as we should take the Music Hall for them lectures. There's folks might go to the Music Hall as would never come to Salem, and we're responsible for our advantages. A clever young man like Mr. Vincent ain't to be named along with Mr. Tufton; we're the teachers of the community, that's what we are. I am for being public-spirited--I always was; and I don't mind standing my share. My opinion is as we should take the Music Hall."

"If we was charging sixpence a-head or so----" said prudent Pigeon, the poulterer.

"That's what I'll never give my consent to--never!" said Tozer. "If we was amusin' the people, we might charge sixpence a-head; but mark my words," continued the b.u.t.terman, "there ain't twenty men in Carlingford, nor in no other place, as would give sixpence to have their minds enlightened. No, sir, we're conferring of a boon; and let's do it handsomely, I say--let's do it handsomely; and here's my name down for five pound to clear expenses: and if every man in Salem does as well, there ain't no reason for hesitating. I'm a plain man, but I don't make no account of a little bit of money when a principle's at stake."

This statement was conclusive. When it came to the sacrifice of a little bit of money, neither Mrs. Pigeon nor Mrs. Brown could have endured life had their husbands yielded the palm to Tozer. And the Music Hall was accordingly taken; and there, every Wednesday for six weeks, the young Nonconformist mounted his _cheval de bataille_, and broke his impetuous spear against the Church. Perhaps Carlingford was in want of a sensation at the moment; and the town was virgin soil, and had never yet been invaded by sight or sound of heresy. Anyhow, the fact was, that this fresh new voice attracted the ear of the public. That personal impetuosity and sense of wrong which gave fire to the discourse, roused the interest of the entire community. Mr. Vincent's lectures became the fashion in Carlingford, where n.o.body in the higher levels of society had ever heard before of the amazing evils of a Church Establishment. Some of the weaker or more candid minds among the audience were even upset by the young minister's arguments. Two or three young people of both s.e.xes declared themselves converted, and were persecuted to their hearts'

desire when they intimated their intention of henceforward joining the congregation of Salem. The two Miss Hemmings were thrown into a state of great distress and perplexity, and wrung their hands, and looked at each other, as each new enormity was brought forth. A very animated interested audience filled the benches in the Music Hall for the three last lectures. It was Mr. Tozer's conviction, whispered in confidence to all the functionaries at Salem, that the rector himself, in a m.u.f.fler and blue spectacles, listened in a corner to the voice of rebellion; but no proof of this monstrous supposition ever came before the public.

Notwithstanding, the excitement was evident. Miss Wodehouse took tremulous notes, her fingers quivering with anger, with the intention of calling upon Mr. Wentworth to answer and deny these a.s.sertions. Dr.

Marjoribanks, the old Scotchman, who in his heart enjoyed a hit at the Episcopate, cried "Hear, hear," with his st.u.r.dy northern _r_ rattling through the hall, and clapped his large brown hands, with a broad grin at his daughter, who was "high," and one of Mr. Wentworth's sisters of mercy. But poor little Rose Lake, the drawing-master's daughter, who was going up for confirmation next time the bishop came to Carlingford, turned very pale under Mr. Vincent's teaching. All the different phases of conviction appeared in her eager little face--first indignation, then doubt, lastly horror and intense determination to flee out from Babylon.

Her father laughed, and told her to attend to her needlework, when Rose confided to him her troubles. Her needlework! She who had just heard that the Church was rotten, and tottering on its foundations; that it was choked with filthy lucre and State support; that Church to which she had been about to give in her personal adhesion. Rose put away her catechism and confirmation good-books, and crossed to the other side of the street that she might not pa.s.s Masters's, that emporium of evil. She looked wistfully after the young Nonconformist as he pa.s.sed her on the streets, wondering what high martyr-thoughts must be in the apostolic mind which entertained so high a contempt for all the honours and distinctions of this world. Meanwhile Mr. Vincent pursued his own way, entirely convinced, as was natural for a young man, that he was "doing a great work" in Carlingford. He was still in that stage of life when people imagine that you have only to state the truth clearly to have it believed, and that to convince a man of what is right is all that is necessary to his immediate reformation. But it was not with any very distinct hopes or wishes of emptying the church in Carlingford, and crowding Salem Chapel, that the young man proceeded. Such expectations, high visions of a day to come when not a sitting could be had in Salem for love or money, did indeed glance into the souls of Tozer and his brother deacons; but the minister did not stand up and deliver his blow at the world--his outcry against things in general--his warm youthful a.s.sertion that he too had a right to all the joys and privileges of humanity,--as, by means of sermons, lectures, poems, or what not, youth and poverty, wherever they have a chance, do proclaim their protest against the world.

On the last night of the lectures, just as Vincent had taken his place upon his platform, a rustle, as of some one of importance entering, thrilled the audience. Looking over the sea of heads before him, the breath almost left the young minister's lips when he saw the young Dowager, in all the glory of full-dress, threading her way through the crowd, which opened to let her pa.s.s. Mr. Vincent stood watching her progress, unaware that it was time for him to begin, and that his hearers, less absorbed than he, were asking each other what it was which had so suddenly paled his face and checked his utterance. He watched Lady Western and her companion come slowly forward; he saw Tozer, in a delighted bustle, leading the way to one of the raised seats of the orchestra close to the platform. When they were seated, and not till then, the lecturer, drawing a long gasping breath, turned to his audience. But the crowd was hazy to his eyes. He began, half mechanically, to speak--then made a sudden pause, his mind occupied with other things. On the very skirts of the crowd, far back at the door, stood his friend of Back Grove Street. In that momentary pause, he saw her standing alone, with the air of a person who had risen up unconsciously in sudden surprise and consternation. Her pale dark face looked not less confused and startled than Vincent himself was conscious of looking, and her eyes were turned in the same direction as his had been the previous moment. The crowd of Carlingford hearers died off from the scene for the instant, so far as the young Nonconformist was concerned. He knew but of that fair creature in all her sweet bloom and blush of beauty--the man who accompanied her--Mrs. Hilyard, a thin, dark, eager shadow in the distance--and himself standing, as it were, between them, connecting all together. What could that visionary link be which distinguished and separated these four, so unlike each other, from all the rest of the world? But Mr. Vincent had no leisure to follow out the question, even had his mind been sufficiently clear to do it. He saw the pale woman at the end of the hall suddenly drop into her seat, and draw a thick black veil over her face; and the confused murmur of impatience in the crowd before him roused the young man to his own position. He opened the eyes which had been hazing over with clouds of imagination and excitement. He delivered his lecture. Though he never was himself aware what he had said, it was received with just as much attention and applause as usual. He got through it somehow; and, sitting down at last, with parched lips and a helpless feeling of excitement, watched the audience dispersing, as if they were so many enemies from whom he had escaped. Who was this man with Her? Why did She come to bewilder him in the midst of his work? It did not occur to the poor young fellow that Lady Western came to his lecture simply as to a "distraction." He thought she had a purpose in it. He pretended not to look as she descended daintily from her seat in the orchestra, drawing her white cloak with a pretty shiver over her white shoulders. He pretended to start when her voice sounded in his expectant ear.

"Oh, Mr. Vincent, how very clever and wicked of you!" cried Lady Western. "I am so horrified, and charmed. To think of you attacking the poor dear old Church, that we all ought to support through everything!

And I am such a stanch churchwoman, and so shocked to hear all this; but you won't do it any more."

Saying this, Lady Western leaned her beautiful hand upon Mr. Vincent's table, and looked in his face with a beseeching insinuating smile. The poor minister did all he could to preserve his virtue. He looked aside at Lady Western's companion to fortify himself, and escape the enervating influence of that smile.

"I cannot pretend to yield the matter to your ladyship," said Vincent, "for it had been previously arranged that this was to be the last of my lectures at present. I am sorry it did not please you."

"But it did please me," said the young Dowager; "only that it was so very wicked and wrong. Where did you learn such dreadful sentiments? I am so sorry I shan't hear you again, and so glad you are finished. You never came to see me after my little fete. I am afraid you thought us stupid. Good-night: but you really must come to me, and I shall convert you. I am sure you never can have looked at the Church in the right way: why, what would become of us if we were all Dissenters? What a frightful idea! Thank you for such a charming evening. Good-night."

And Lady Western held out that "treasured splendour, her hand," to the bewildered Nonconformist, who only dared touch it, and let it fall, drawing back from the smile with which the syren beguiled him back again into her toils. But Mr. Vincent turned round hastily as he heard a muttered exclamation, "By Jove!" behind him, and fixed the gaze of angry and instinctive repugnance upon the tall figure which brushed past.

"Make haste, Alice--do you mean to stay here all night?" said this wrathful individual, fixing his eyes with a defiant stare upon the minister; and he drew the beauty's arm almost roughly into his own, and hurried her away, evidently remonstrating in the freest and boldest manner upon her civility. "By Jove! the fellow will think you are in love with him," Vincent, with his quickened and suspicious ears, could hear the stranger say, with that delightful indifference to being overheard which characterises some Englishmen of the exalted cla.s.ses; and the strain of reproof evidently continued as they made their way to the door. Vincent, for his part, when he had watched them out of sight, dropped into his chair, and sat there in the empty hall, looking over the vacant benches with the strangest mixture of feelings. Was it possible that his eager fervour and revolutionary warmth were diminished by these few words and that smile?--that the wrongs of Church and State looked less grievous all at once, and that it was an effort to return to the lofty state of feeling with which he had entered the place two hours ago? As he sat there in his reverie of discomfiture, he could see Tozer, a single black figure, come slowly up the hall, an emissary from the group at the door of "chapel people," who had been enjoying the defeat of the enemy, and were now waiting for the conqueror. "Mr. Vincent,"

shouted Tozer, "shall we turn off the gas, and leave you to think it all over till the morning, sir? They're all as pleased as Punch and as curious as women down below here, and my Phoebe will have it you're tired. I must say as it is peculiar to see you a-sitting up there all by yourself, and the lights going out, and not another soul in the place,"

added the b.u.t.terman, looking round with a sober grin; and in reality the lights diminished every moment as Mr. Vincent rose and stumbled down from his platform into the great empty hall with its skeleton benches.

If they _had_ left him there till the morning, it would have been a blessed exchange from that walk home with the party, that invitation to supper, and all the applauses and inquiries that followed. They had the Pigeons to supper that night at the b.u.t.ter-shop, and the whole matter was discussed in all its bearings--the flutter of the "Church folks,"

the new sittings let during the week, the triumphant conviction of the two deacons that Salem would soon be overflowing.

"Oh, why were 'deacons' made so coa.r.s.e, Or parsons made so fine?"

Mr. Vincent did not bethink himself of that touching ditty. He could not see the serio-comic lights in which the whole business abounded. It was all the saddest earnest to the young pastor, who found so little encouragement or support even in the enthusiasm of his flock.

"And, oh, Mr. Vincent," said the engaging Phoebe, in a half-whisper aside, "how _did_ you come to be so friendly with Lady Western? How she did listen, to be sure! and smiled at you _so_ sweetly. Ah, I don't wonder now that you can't see anything in the Carlingford young ladies; but do tell us, please, how you came to know her so well?"

Insensibly to himself, a gleam of gratification lighted up Mr. Vincent's face. He was gracious to Phoebe. "I can't pretend to know her _well_,"

he said, with a little mock humility; whereupon the matrons of the party took up their weapons immediately.

"And all the better, Mr. Vincent--all the better!" cried Mrs. Tozer; "she didn't come there for no good, you may be sure. Them great ladies, when they're pretty-looking, as I don't deny she's pretty-looking----"

"Oh, mamma, beautiful!" exclaimed Phoebe.

"When they're pretty-looking, as I say," continued Mrs. Tozer, "they're no better nor evil spirits--that's what I tell you, Phoebe. They'll go out o' their way, they will, for to lay hold on a poor silly young man (which was not meaning you, Mr. Vincent, that knows better, being a minister), and when they've got him fast, they'll laugh at him--that's their sport. A minister of our connection as was well acquainted among them sort of folks would be out o' nature. My boy shall never make no such acquaintances as long as I'm here."

"I saw her a-speaking to the minister," said Mrs, Pigeon, "and the thought crossed my mind as it wasn't just what I expected of Mr.

Vincent. Painted ladies, that come out of a night with low necks and flowers in their hair, to have all Carlingford a-staring at them, ain't fit company for a good pastor. _Them's_ not the lambs of the flock--not so far as I understand; they're not friends as Salem folks would approve of, Mr. Vincent. I'm always known for a plain speaker, and I don't deceive you. It's a deal better to draw back in time."

"I have not the least reason to believe that Lady Western means to honour me with her friendship," said Vincent, haughtily--"so it is premature to discuss the matter. As I feel rather tired, perhaps you'll excuse me to-night. Come over to my rooms, Mr. Tozer, to-morrow, if you can spare a little time and we will discuss our business there. I hope Mrs. Tozer will pardon me withdrawing so early, but I am not very well--rather tired--out of sorts a little to-night."

So saying, the young pastor extricated himself from the table, shook hands, regardless of all remonstrances, and made his way out with some difficulty from the little room, which was choke-full, and scarcely permitted egress. When he was gone, the three ladies looked at each other in dumb amazement. Phoebe, who felt herself aggrieved, was the first to break silence.

"Ma and Mrs. Pigeon," cried the aggravated girl, "you've been and hurt his feelings. I knew you would. He's gone home angry and disappointed; he thinks none of us understand him; he thinks we're trying to humble him and keep him down, when, to tell the truth----"

Here Phoebe burst into tears.

"Upon _my_ word," said Mrs. Pigeon, "dear, deary me! It's just what I said whenever I knew you had made up your minds to a _young_ minister.

He'll come a-dangling after our girls, says I, and a-trifling with their affections. Bless my heart, Phoebe! if it had been my Maria now that's always a-crying about something--but you! Don't take on, dear--fretting's no good--it'll spoil your colour and take away your appet.i.te, and that ain't the way to mend matters: and to think of his lifting his eyes to my Lady Dowager! Upon _my_ word! but there ain't no accounting for young men's ways no more than for girls--and being a minister don't make a bit of difference, so far as I can see."

"Why, what's the matter?" cried Tozer: "the pastor's gone off in a huff, and Phoebe crying. What's wrong? You've been saying somethin'--you women with your sharp tongues."

"It's Phoebe and Mr. Vincent have had some words. Be quiet, Tozer--don't you see the child's hurt in her feelings?" said his wife.

Mr. and Mrs. Pigeon exchanged looks. "I'll tell you what it is," said the latter lady, solemnly. "It's turned his head. I never approved of the Music Hall myself. It's a deal of money to throw away, and it's not like as if it was mercy to poor souls. And such a crush, and the cheering, and my Lady Western to shake hands with him, has turned the minister's head. Now, just you mark my words. He hasn't been here three month yet, and he's a-getting high already. You men'll have your own adoes with him. Afore a year's over our heads, he'll be a deal too high for Salem. His head's turned--that's what it is."

"Oh, Mrs. Pigeon, how unkind of you!" cried Phoebe, "when he's as good as good--and not a bit proud, nor ever was--and always such a gentleman!--and never neglects the very poorest whenever he's sent for--oh, it's _so_ unkind of you."

"I can't see as his head isn't straight enough on his shoulders," said Tozer himself, with authority. "He's tired, that's what it is--and excited a bit, I shouldn't wonder: a man can't study like he does, and make hisself agreeable at the same time--no, no--by a year's time he'll be settling down, and we'll know where we are; and as for Salem and our connection, they never had a chance, I can tell you, like what they're a-going to have now."

But Mrs. Pigeon shook her head. It was the first cloud that had risen on the firmament of Salem Chapel, so far as Mr. Vincent was concerned.

CHAPTER IX.