‘If this goes on much longer,’ said he,
‘I shall be in Bedlam.’
‘My dear, don’t speak of it in that way!’
’That’s all very well. I suppose
I ought to say that I like it. There has been
a policeman here who is going to bring an action against
me.’
‘A policeman!’
‘Some one that her husband has sent for the
child.’
‘The boy must not be given up, Oliphant.’
’It’s all very well to say that, but I
suppose we must obey the law. The Parsonage of
St Diddulph’s isn’t a castle in the Apennines.
When it comes to this, that a policeman is sent here
to fetch any man’s child, and threatens me with
an action because I tell him to leave my house, it
is very hard upon me, seeing how very little I’ve
had to do with it. It’s all over the parish
now that my niece is kept here away from her husband,
and that a lover comes to see her. This about
a policeman will be known now, of course. I only
say it is hard; that’s all.’ The wife
did all that she could to comfort him, reminding him
that Sir Marmaduke would be home soon, and that then
the burden would be taken from his shoulders.
But she was forced to admit that it was very hard.
HUGH STANBURY IS SHEWN TO BE NO CONJUROR
Many weeks had now passed since Hugh Stanbury had
paid his visit to St Diddulph’s, and Nora Rowley
was beginning to believe that her rejection of her
lover had been so firm and decided that she would never
see him or hear from him more, and she had long since
confessed to herself that if she did not see him or
hear from him soon, life would not be worth a straw
to her. To all of us a single treasure counts
for much more when the outward circumstances of our
life are dull, unvaried, and melancholy, than it does
when our days are full of pleasure, or excitement,
or even of business. With Nora Rowley at St Diddulph’s
life at present was very melancholy. There was
little or no society to enliven her. Her sister
was sick at heart, and becoming ill in health under
the burden of her troubles. Mr Outhouse was moody
and wretched; and Mrs Outhouse, though she did her
best to make her house comfortable to her unwelcome
inmates, could not make it appear that their presence
there was a pleasure to her. Nora understood better
than did her sister how distasteful the present arrangement
was to their uncle, and was consequently very uncomfortable
on that score. And in the midst of that unhappiness,
she of course told herself that she was a young woman
miserable and unfortunate altogether. It is always
so with us. The heart when it is burdened, though
it may have ample strength to bear the burden, loses
its buoyancy and doubts its own power. It is like
the springs of a carriage which are pressed flat by
the superincumbent weight. But, because the springs
are good, the weight is carried safely, and they are
the better afterwards for their required purposes
because of the trial to which they have been subjected.
