Scenes of Clerical Life: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

In her occasional visits to her near neighbour Mrs. Pettifer, too old a
friend to be shunned because she was a Tryanite, Janet was obliged
sometimes to hear allusions to Mr. Tryan, and even to listen to his
praises, which she usually met with playful incredulity.

'Ah, well,' she answered one day, 'I like dear old Mr. Crewe and his
pipes a great deal better than your Mr. Tryan and his Gospel. When I was
a little toddle, Mr. and Mrs. Crewe used to let me play about in their
garden, and have a swing between the great elm-trees, because mother had
no garden. I like people who are kind; kindness is my religion; and
that's the reason I like you, dear Mrs. Pettifer, though you are a
Tryanite.'

'But that's Mr. Tryan's religion too--at least partly. There's nobody can
give himself up more to doing good amongst the poor; and he thinks of
their bodies too, as well as their souls.'

'O yes, yes; but then he talks about faith, and grace, and all that,
making people believe they are better than others, and that God loves
them more than He does the rest of the world. I know he has put a great
deal of that into Sally Martin's head, and it has done her no good at
all. She was as nice, honest, patient a girl as need be before; and now
she fancies she has new light and new wisdom. I don't like those
notions.'

'You mistake him, indeed you do, my dear Mrs. Dempster; I wish you'd go
and hear him preach.'

'Hear him preach! Why, you wicked woman, you would persuade me to disobey
my husband, would you? O, shocking! I shall run away from you. Good-bye.'

A few days after this conversation, however, Janet went to Sally Martin's
about three o'clock in the afternoon. The pudding that had been sent in
for herself and 'Mammy,' struck her as just the sort of delicate morsel
the poor consumptive girl would be likely to fancy, and in her usual
impulsive way she had started up from the dinner table at once, put on
her bonnet, and set off with a covered plateful to the neighbouring
street. When she entered the house there was no one to be seen; but in
the little sideroom where Sally lay, Janet heard a voice. It was one she
had not heard before, but she immediately guessed it to be Mr. Tryan's.
Her first impulse was to set down her plate and go away, but Mrs. Martin
might not be in, and then there would be no one to give Sally that
delicious bit of pudding. So she stood still, and was obliged to hear
what Mr. Tryan was saying. He was interrupted by one of the invalid's
violent fits of coughing.

'It is very hard to bear, is it not?' he said when she was still again.
'Yet God seems to support you under it wonderfully. Pray for me, Sally,
that I may have strength too when the hour of great suffering comes. It
is one of my worst weaknesses to shrink from bodily pain, and I think the
time is perhaps not far off when I shall have to bear what you are
bearing. But now I have tired you. We have talked enough. Good-bye.'

Janet was surprised, and forgot her wish not to encounter Mr. Tryan: the
tone and the words were so unlike what she had expected to hear. There
was none of the self-satisfied unction of the teacher, quoting, or
exhorting, or expounding, for the benefit of the hearer, but a simple
appeal for help, a confession of weakness. Mr. Tryan had his deeply-felt
troubles, then? Mr. Tryan, too, like herself, knew what it was to tremble
at a foreseen trial--to shudder at an impending burthen, heavier than he
felt able to bear?

The most brilliant deed of virtue could not have inclined Janet's
good-will towards Mr. Tryan so much as this fellowship in suffering, and
the softening thought was in her eyes when he appeared in the doorway,
pale, weary, and depressed. The sight of Janet standing there with the
entire absence of self-consciousness which belongs to a new and vivid
impression, made him start and pause a little. Their eyes met, and they
looked at each other gravely for a few moments. Then they bowed, and Mr.
Tryan passed out.

There is a power in the direct glance of a sincere and loving human soul,
which will do more to dissipate prejudice and kindle charity than the
most elaborate arguments. The fullest exposition of Mr. Tryan's doctrine
might not have sufficed to convince Janet that he had not an odious
self-complacency in believing himself a peculiar child of God; but one
direct, pathetic look of his had dissociated him with that conception for
ever.

This happened late in the autumn, not long before Sally Martin died.
Janet mentioned her new impression to no one, for she was afraid of
arriving at a still more complete contradiction of her former ideas. We
have all of us considerable regard for our past self, and are not fond of
casting reflections on that respected individual by a total negation of
his opinions. Janet could no longer think of Mr. Tryan without sympathy.
but she still shrank from the idea of becoming his hearer and admirer.
That was a reversal of the past which was as little accordant with her
inclination as her circumstances.

And indeed this interview with Mr. Tryan was soon thrust into the
background of poor Janet's memory by the daily thickening miseries of her
life.

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