Mary Marston, A Novel

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THE END OF THE BEGINNING.

Joseph Jasper and Mary Marston were married the next summer. Mary did not leave her shop, nor did Joseph leave his forge. Mary was proud of her husband, not merely because he was a musician, but because he was a blacksmith. For, with the true taste of a right woman, she honored the manhood that could do hard work. The day will come, and may I do something to help it hither, when the youth of our country will recognize that, taken in itself, it is a more manly, and therefore in the old true sense a more gentle thing, to follow a good handicraft, if it make the hands black as a coal, than to spend the day in keeping books, and making up accounts, though therein the hands should remain white--or red, as the case may be. Not but that, from a higher point of view still, all work, set by God, and done divinely, is of equal honor; but, where there is a choice, I would gladly see boy of mine choose rather to be a blacksmith, or a watchmaker, or a bookbinder, than a clerk. Production, making, is a higher thing in the scale of reality, than any mere transmission, such as buying and selling. It is, besides, easier to do honest work than to buy and sell honestly. The more honor, of course, to those who are honest under the greater difficulty! But the man who knows how needful the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," knows that he must not be tempted into temptation even by the glory of duty under difficulty. In humility we must choose the easiest, as we must hold our faces unflinchingly to the hardest, even to the seeming impossible, when it is given us to do.

I must show the blacksmith and the shopkeeper once more--two years after marriage--time long enough to have made common people as common to each other as the weed by the roadside; but these are not common to each other yet, and never will be. They will never complain of being desillusionnes, for they have never been illuded. They look up each to the other still, because they were right in looking up each to the other from the first. Each was, and therefore each is and will be, real.

".... The man is honest." "Therefore he will be, Timon."

It was a lovely morning in summer. The sun was but a little way above the horizon, and the dew-drops seemed to have come scattering from him as he shook his locks when he rose. The foolish larks were up, of course, for they fancied, come what might of winter and rough weather, the universe founded in eternal joy, and themselves endowed with the best of all rights to be glad, for there was the gladness inside, and struggling to get outside of them. And out it was coming in a divine profusion! How many baskets would not have been wanted to gather up the lordly waste of those scattered songs! in all the trees, in all the flowers, in every grass-blade, and every weed, the sun was warming and coaxing and soothing life into higher life. And in those two on the path through the fields from Testbridge, the same sun, light from the father of lights, was nourishing highest life of all--that for the sake of which the Lord came, that he might set it growing in hearts of whose existence it was the very root.

Joseph and Mary were taking their walk together before the day's work should begin. Those who have a good conscience, and are not at odds with their work, can take their pleasure any time--as well before their work as after it. Only where the work of the day is a burden grievous to be borne, is there cause to fear being unfitted for duty by antecedent pleasure. But the joy of the sunrise would linger about Mary all the day long in the gloomy shop; and for Joseph, ho had but to lift his head to see the sun hastening on to the softer and yet more hopeful splendors of the evening. The wife, who had not to begin so early, was walking with her husband, as was her custom, even when the weather was not of the best, to see him fairly started on his day's work. It was with something very like pride, yet surely nothing evil, that she would watch the quick blows of his brawny arm, as he beat the cold iron on the anvil till it was all aglow like the sun that lighted the world--then stuck it into the middle of his coals, and blew softly with his bellows till the flame on the altar of his work-offering was awake and keen. The sun might shine or forbear, the wind might blow or be still, the path might be crisp with frost or soft with mire, but the lighting of her husband's forge-fire, Mary, without some forceful reason, never omitted to turn by her presence into a holy ceremony. It was to her the "Come let us worship and bow down" of the daily service of God-given labor. That done, she would kiss him, and leave him: she had her own work to do. Filled with prayer she would walk steadily back the well-known way to the shop, where, all day long, ministering with gracious service to the wants of her people, she would know the evening and its service drawing nearer and nearer, when Joseph would come, and the delights of heaven would begin afresh at home, in music, and verse, and trustful talk. Every day was a life, and every evening a blessed death--type of that larger evening rounding our day with larger hope. But many Christians are such awful pagans that they will hardly believe it possible a young loving pair should think of that evening, except with misery and by rare compulsion!

That morning, as they went, they talked--thus, or something like this:

"O Mary!" said Joseph, "hear the larks! They are all saying: 'Jo-seph! Jo-seph! Hearkentome, Joseph! Whatwouldyouhavebeenbutfor Mary, Jo-seph?' That's what they keep on singing, singing in the ears of my heart, Mary!"

"You would have been a true man, Joseph, whatever the larks may say."

"A solitary melody, praising without an upholding harmony, at best, Mary!"

"And what should I have been, Joseph? An inarticulate harmony-- sweetly mumbling, with never a thread of soaring song!"

A pause followed.

"I shall be rather shy of your father, Mary," said Joseph. "Perhaps he won't be content with me."

"Even if you weren't what you are, my father would love you because I love you. But I know my father as well as I know you; and I know you are just the man it must make him happy afresh, even in heaven, to think of his Mary marrying. You two can hardly be of two minds in anything!"

"That was a curious speech of Letty's yesterday! You heard her say, did you not, that, if everybody was to be so very good in heaven, she was afraid it would be rather dull?"

"We mustn't make too much of what Letty says, either when she's merry or when she's miserable. She speaks both times only out of half-way down."

"Yes, yes! I wasn't meaning to find any fault with her; I was only wishing to hear what you would say. For nobody can make a story without somebody wicked enough to set things wrong in it, and then all the work lies in setting them right again, and, as soon as they are set right, then the story stops."

"There's no thing of the sort in music, Joseph, and that makes one happy enough."

"Yes, there is, Mary. There's strife and difference and compensation and atonement and reconciliation."

"But there's nothing wicked."

"No, that there is not."

"Well!" said Mary, "perhaps it may only be because we know so little about good, that it seems to us not enough. We know only the beginnings and the fightings, and so write and talk only about them. For my part, I don't feel that strife of any sort is necessary to make me enjoy life; of all things it is what makes me miserable. I grant you that effort and struggle add immeasurably to the enjoyment of life, but those I look upon as labor, not strife. There may be whole worlds for us to help bring into order and obedience. And I suspect there must be no end of work in which is strife enough--and that of a kind hard to bear. There must be millions of spirits in prison that want preaching to; and whoever goes among them will have that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ to fill up. Anyhow there will be plenty to do, and that's the main thing. Seeing we are made in the image of God, and he is always working, we could not be happy without work."

"Do you think we shall get into any company we like up there?" said Joseph. "I must think a minute. When I want to understand, I find myself listening for what my father would say. Yes, I think I know what he would say to that: 'Yes; but not till you are fit for it; and then the difficulty would be to keep out of it. For all that is fit must come to pass in the land of fitnesses--that is, the land where all is just as it ought to be.'--That's how I could fancy I heard my father answer you."

"With that answer I am well content," said Joseph.--"But you don't want to die, do you, Mary?"

"No; I want to live. And I've got such a blessed plenty of life while waiting for more, that I am quite content to wait. But I do wonder that some people I know, should cling to what they call life as they do. It is not that they are comfortable, for they are constantly complaining of their sufferings; neither is it from submission to the will of God, for to hear them talk you must think they imagine themselves hardly dealt with; they profess to believe the Gospel, and that it is their only consolation; and yet they speak of death as the one paramount evil. In the utmost weariness, they yet seem incapable of understanding the apostle's desire to depart and be with Christ, or of imagining that to be with him can be at all so good as remaining where they are. One is driven to ask whether they can be Christians any further than anxiety to secure whatever the profession may be worth to them will make them such."

"Don't you think, though," said Joseph, "that some people have a trick of putting on their clothes wrong side out, and so making themselves appear less respectable than they are? There was my sister Ann: she used to go on scolding at people for not believing, all the time she said they could not believe till God made them--if she had said except God made them, I should have been with her there!--and then talking about God so, that I don't see how, even if they could, any one would have believed in such a monster as she made of him; and then, if you objected to believe in such a God, she would tell you it was all from the depravity of your own heart you could not believe in him; and yet this sister Ann of mine, I know, once went for months without enough to eat--without more than just kept body and soul together, that she might feed the children of a neighbor, of whom she knew next to nothing, when their father lay ill of a fever, and could not provide for them. And she didn't look for any thanks neither, except it was from that same God she would have to be a tyrant from the beginning--one who would calmly behold the unspeakable misery of creatures whom he had compelled to exist, whom he would not permit to cease, and for whom he would do a good deal, but not all that he could. Such people, I think, are nearly as unfair to themselves as they are to God."

"You're right, Joseph," said Mary. "If we won't take the testimony of such against God, neither must we take it against themselves. Only, why is it they are always so certain they are in the right?"

"For the perfecting of the saints," suggested Joseph, with a curious smile.

"Perhaps," answered Mary. "Anyhow, we may get that good out of them, whether they be here for the purpose or not. I remember Mr. Turnbull once accusing my father of irreverence, because he spoke about God in the shop. Said my father, 'Our Lord called the old temple his father's house and a den of thieves in the same breath.' Mr. Turnbull saw nothing but nonsense in the answer. Said my father then, 'You will allow that God is everywhere?' 'Of course,' replied Mr. Turnbull. 'Except in this shop, I suppose you mean?' said my father. 'No, I don't. That's just why I wouldn't have you do it.' 'Then you wouldn't have me think about him either?' 'Well! there's a time for everything.' Then said my father, very solemnly, 'I came from God, and I'm going back to God, and I won't have any gaps of death in the middle of my life.' And that was nothing to Mr. Turnbull either."

To one in ten of my readers it may be something.

Just ere they came in sight of the smithy, they saw a lady and gentleman on horseback flying across the common.

"There go Mrs. Redmain and Mr. Wardour!" said Joseph. "They're to be married next month, they say. Well, it's a handsome couple they'll make! And the two properties together'll make a fine estate!"

"I hope she'll learn to like the books he does," said Mary. "I never could get her to listen to anything for more than three minutes."

Though Joseph generally dropped work long before Mary shut the shop, she yet not unfrequently contrived to meet him on his way home; and Joseph always kept looking out for her as he walked.

That very evening they were gradually nearing each other--the one from the smithy, the other from the shop--with another pair between them, however, going toward Testbridge--Godfrey Wardour and Hesper Redmain.

"How strange," said Hesper, "that after all its chances and breakings, old Thornwick should be joined up again at last!"

Partly by a death in the family, partly through the securities her husband had taken on the property, partly by the will of her father, the whole of Durnmelling now belonged to Hesper.

"It is strange," answered Godfrey, with an involuntary sigh.

Hesper turned and looked at him.

It was not merely sadness she saw on his face. There was something there almost like humility, though Hesper was not able to read it as such. He lifted his head, and did not avoid her gaze.

"You are wondering, Hesper," he said, "that I do not respond with more pleasure. To tell you the truth, I have come through so much that I am almost afraid to expect the fruition of any good. Please do not imagine, you beautiful creature! it is of the property I am thinking. In your presence that would be impossible. Nor, indeed, have I begun to think of it. I shall, one day, come to care for it, I do not doubt--that is, when once I have you safe; but I keep looking for the next slip that is to come--between my lip and this full cup of hap-piness. I have told you all, Hesper, and I thank you that you do not despise me. But it may well make me solemn and fearful, to think, after all the waves and billows that have gone over me, such a splendor should be mine!--But, do you really love me, Hesper--or am I walking in my sleep? I had thought, 'Surely now at last I shall never love again!'--and instead of that, here I am loving, as I never loved before!--and doubting whether I ever did love before!"

"I never loved before," said Hesper. "Surely to love must be a good thing, when it has made you so good! I am a poor creature beside you, Godfrey, but I am glad to think whatever I know of love you have taught me. It is only I who have to be ashamed!"

"That is all your goodness!" interrupted Godfrey. "Yet, at this moment, I can not quite be sorry for some things I ought to be sorry for: but for them I should not be at your side now--happier than I dare allow myself to feel. I dare hardly think of those things, lest I should be glad I had done wrong."

"There are things I am compelled to know of myself, Godfrey, which I shall never speak to you about, for even to think of them by your side would blast all my joy. How plainly Mary used to tell me what I was! I scorned her words! It seemed, then, too late to repent. And now I am repenting! I little thought ever to give in like this! But of one thing I am sure--that, if I had known you, not all the terrors of my father would have made me marry the man."

Was this all the feeling she had for her dead husband? Although Godfrey could hardly at the moment feel regret she had not loved him, it yet made him shiver to hear her speak of him thus. In the perfected grandeur of her external womanhood, she seemed to him the very ideal of his imagination, and he felt at moments the proudest man in the great world; but at night he would lie in torture, brooding over the horrors a woman such as she must have encountered, to whom those mysteries of our nature, which the true heart clothes in abundant honor, had been first presented in the distortions of a devilish caricature. There had been a time in Godfrey's life when, had she stood before him in all her splendor, he would have turned from her, because of her history, with a sad disgust. Was he less pure now? He was more pure, for he was humbler. When those terrible thoughts would come, and the darkness about him grow billowy with black flame, "God help me," he would cry, "to make the buffeted angel forget the past!"

They had talked of Mary more than once, and Godfrey, in part through what Hesper told him of her, had come to see that he was unjust to her. I do not mean he had come to know the depth and extent of his injustice--that would imply a full understanding of Mary herself, which was yet far beyond him. A thousand things had to grow, a thousand things to shift and shake themselves together in Godfrey's mind, before he could begin to understand one who cared only for the highest.

Godfrey and Hesper made a glorious pair to look at--but would theirs be a happy union?--Happy, I dare say--and not too happy. He who sees to our affairs will see that the too is not in them. There were fine elements in both, and, if indeed they loved, and now I think, from very necessity of their two hearts, they must have loved, then all would, by degrees, by slow degrees, most likely, come right with them.

If they had been born again both, before they began, so to start fresh, then like two children hand in hand they might have run in through the gates into the city. But what is love, what is loss, what defilement even, what are pains, and hopes, and disappointments, what sorrow, and death, and all the ills that flesh is heir to, but means to this very end, to this waking of the soul to seek the home of our being--the life eternal? Verily we must be born from above, and be good children, or become, even to our self-loving selves, a scorn, a hissing, and an endless reproach.

If they had had but Mary to talk to them! But they did not want her: she was a good sort of creature, who, with all her disagreeableness, meant them well, and whom they had misjudged a little and made cry! They had no suspicion that she was one of the lights of the world--one of the wells of truth, whose springs are fed by the rains on the eternal hills.

Turning a clump of furze-bushes on the common, they met Mary. She stepped from the path. Mr. Wardour took off his hat. Then Mary knew that his wrath was past, and she was glad.

They stopped. "Well, Mary," said Hesper, holding out her hand, and speaking in a tone from which both haughtiness and condescension had vanished, "where are you going?"

"To meet my husband," answered Mary. "I see him coming."

With a deep, loving look at Hesper, and a bow and a smile to Godfrey, she left them, and hastened to meet her working-man.

Behind Godfrey Wardour and Hesper Redmain walked Joseph Jasper and Mary Marston, a procession of love toward a far-off, eternal goal. But which of them was to be first in the kingdom of heaven, Mary or Joseph or Hesper or Godfrey, is not to be told: they had yet a long way to walk, and there are first that shall be last, and last that shall be first.

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