Chapter 16

The lanes were empty for it was supper-time on the farms. A pale green was washing the rim of the sky, and the starlight shook among the ash-trees that trembled beside the road. Faint scents of hidden primroses stole up from the banks with the vital sweetness of the new-sown ploughlands. It was growing cold, and Mr. Sumption walked briskly. When he came to Pont’s Green he thought he saw the back of old Hubble tottering on ahead, so he slackened his pace a little, for he hoped to get home without meeting any of his congregation. The feeling of shame was growing, he felt as if he had despised Christ’s little ones ... after all, who shall be found big enough to fit the times? What man is built to the stature of Doomsday?

He heard himself called as he entered the village, and turning his head, saw Thyrza standing in the shop door, the last light gleaming on her apron.

[315]

“Mus’ Sumption!—is that you?”

He thought of going on, pretending not to hear; but there was a gentleness in Thyrza’s voice which touched him. He remembered the message she had sent him yesterday morning. “She’s a kind soul,” he thought, and stopped.

“Oh, Mus’ Sumption—whur have you bin?”

Her hand closed warmly on his, and her eyes travelled over him in eagerness and pity.

“I’ve been over to Lion’s Green,” said Mr. Sumption. “I couldn’t lie quiet at the Horselunges last night. I reckon tongues are wagging a bit.”

“Reckon they are—but we’ll all be justabout glad to see you back. I went up only this afternoon and asked Policeman if he cud do aught. Come in to the fire—you look middling tired.”

“I’ve been working at the smith’s over at Lion’s Green all the afternoon,” said the minister proudly.

“Surelye! Everyone knows wot a valiant smith you maake; but come in and have a bite of supper. The fire’s bright and the kettle’s boiling, and thur’s a bit of bacon in the pan.”

Mr. Sumption’s mouth watered. He had had nothing that day except the bread and tea provided at the inn, and it was not likely that Mrs. Hubble would have much of a meal awaiting him. True, it was doubtful morality to encroach on Thyrza’s bacon ration, but Thyrza herself encouraged the lapse, pulling at his hand, and opening the shop door behind her, so that his temptations might be reinforced by the smell of cooking.

“Come in, and you shall have the best rasher you ever ate in your life—and eggs and hot tea and a bit of pudden and a fire to your feet.”

She led him through the shop, whence the bottles of sweets had vanished long ago, and the empty spaces [316] were filled with large cardboard posters, displaying Thyrza’s licence to sell margarine, and the Government list of prices—through into the little back room, where the firelight covered the walls with nodding spindles, and little Will lay in his cradle fast asleep.

“I have him in here fur company like,” said Thyrza. “Reckon he sleeps as well as in the bed, and it aun’t so lonesome fur me.”

For the first time he heard her sorrow drag at her voice, and noticed, as, manlike, he had not done before, her widow’s dress with its white collar and cuffs.

“God bless you, Mrs. Tom,” he said, and she turned quickly away from him to the fire.

For some minutes there was silence, broken only by the humming of the kettle and the hiss of fat in the pan. Mr. Sumption lay back in an armchair, more tired than he would care to own. The window was uncurtained, and in the square of it he saw the big stars of the Wain ... according to the lore both of the country of the Four Roads and of his old home in Kent, this was the waggon in which the souls of the dead rode over the sky, and that night he, in spite of his theological training, and Thyrza, in spite of her Board School education, both felt an echo of the old superstition in their hearts. Did Tom and Jerry ride there past the window, aloft and at rest in the great spaces, while those who loved them struggled on in the old fret and the new loneliness?

“I always kip the blind up till the last minnut,” said Thyrza at the fire. “It aun’t so lonesome fur me. Howsumdever, I’ve company to-night, and I mun git the lamp.”

So the lamp was set on the table, and the blind came down and shut out Tom and Jerry on their heavenly ride. Mr. Sumption pulled his chair up to a big plate of eggs and bacon, with a cup of tea beside it, and fell to [317] after the shortest grace Thyrza had ever heard from him.

“Reckon I’m hungry, reckon I’m tired—and you, Mrs. Tom, are as the widow of Zarephath, who ministered to Elijah in the dearth. May you be rewarded and find your bacon ration as the widow’s cruse this week.”

He was beginning definitely to enjoy her company. Thyrza’s charm was of the comfortable, pervasive kind that attracted all sorts of men in every station. He found that he liked to listen to her soft, drawly voice, to watch her slow, heavy movements, to gaze at her tranquil face with the hair like flowering grass. She at once soothed and stimulated him. She encouraged him to talk, and when the edge was off his appetite, he did so, telling her a little of what had happened to him the last night and day.

“And what do you think I’ve learned by it all, Mrs. Tom? What do you think my trouble’s taught me?”

Thyrza shook her head. In her simple life trouble came and went without any lesson but its patient bearing.

“It’s taught me I’m a blacksmith, and no minister.”

“Reckon you’re both,” said Thyrza.

“No—I’m not—I’m just the smith. And to prove it to you, from this day forward I shall not teach or preach another word.”

“Wot! give up the Bethel!—not be minister here any more?”

“Not here nor anywhere. I’m no minister—I’ve never been a minister.”

“But——”

“There’s no good arguing. My mind’s made up. I shall write to the Assembly this very night.”

[318]

“Oh——”

“How shall I dare to teach and guide others, who could not even teach and guide my own son? No, don’t interrupt me—the Lord has opened my eyes, and I see myself as just a poor, plain, ignorant man. Reckon I’m only the common blacksmith I was born and bred, and trying to make myself different has led to nothing but pain and trouble, both for me and for others. I ask you what good has my ministry ever done a human soul?”

“Oh, Mus’ Sumption, doan’t spik lik that,” said Thyrza, with the tears in her eyes. “Reckon I’ll never disremember how beautiful you talked of Tom last night ... and oh, the comfort it guv me to hear you talk so!”

“You’re a good soul, Missus—reckon there’s none I could speak to as I’m speaking to you now. But you mustn’t think high of me—I spoke ill last night; I was like Peter before the Lord let down the sheet on him—calling His creatures common and unclean. I’ve failed as a minister, and I’ve failed as a father—the only thing I haven’t failed as is a blacksmith; thank the Lord I’ve still some credit left at that.”

He hid his face for a moment. Thyrza felt confused ... she scarcely understood.

“Then wot ull you do, Mus’ Sumption, if you mean to be minister no more?”

“Join the A.V.C.—Army Veterinary Corps. I see as plain as daylight that’s my job.”

“Wot! Go and fight?”

“Reckon there won’t be much fighting for a chap of my age. But I’ll be useful in my way. I hear they’re short of farriers and smiths. Besides, they’re calling up all fit men under fifty, and I can’t claim exemption as a minister, seeing I ain’t one; and reckon Mr. Smith ull go now Randall Cantuar and Charles John Chichester have said he may.... So I’m off to Lewes to-morrow, Mrs. Tom.”

“We shall miss you unaccountable. Besides, it aun’t the life fur a man lik you.”

He laughed. “That’s just where you’re wrong—it’s [319] the very proper life for a man like me, it’s the life I should have been leading the last thirty years. Howsoever, it’s not too late to mend, and reckon I’ll be glad to have my part in the big job at last. Here’s thirty years that I’ve been preaching the Day of the Lord, and now’s my chance of helping that day through a bit.”

He stood up and pushed back his chair.

“Oh, doan’t be going yit, Mus’ Sumption.”

“Reckon I must—I’ve all sorts of things to do. Don’t be sorry for me—I’m doing the happiest thing I ever did as well as the best. I’ll be doing the work I was born for, and I’ll be helping the world through judgment, and I’ll be doing what I owe my boy—your boy—all the boys that are dead.”

Thyrza’s eyes filled with tears when he spoke of Tom. For a moment he seemed to forget his surroundings, and to fancy himself back in the pulpit he had renounced, for he held up his hand and his voice came throatily:

“Behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be as stubble. But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings. And He shall turn the heart of the fathers to their children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.... Oh, Thyrza, the world is sown over with young, brave lives, and it’s our job to see that they are not as the seed scattered by the wayside, sown in vain. Reckon we must water them with our tears and manure them with our works, and so we shall quicken the harvest of Aceldama, when our beloved shall rise again....”

His voice strangled a little; then he continued in his ordinary tones:

[320]

“That’s why I’m joining up. I owe it to Jerry—to finish what he began. By working hard, and submitting to orders, as he could never do, poor soul, maybe I’ll be able to clear off the debt he owed. He shall rise again in his father’s effort....”

Thyrza was crying now. “And Tom?” she asked in her tears—“I want to do summat for him, too, Mus’ Sumption. How shall Tom rise up agaun?”

He pointed to the cradle at her feet:

“There’s your Tom—risen again both for you and for his country. Take him and be comforted.”

She sank down on her knees beside the cradle, hiding her face under the hood, and he turned and left her, stalking out through the shop into the darkness.

Crouching there in the firelight, with her baby held warm and heavy against her breast, she heard his tread grow fainter and fainter, till at last only an occasional throb of wind brought her the footsteps of the lonely man upon the road.

The End