But the mother was sending all over the country to
find who had Miss Brown; and she had not inquired
long before she learned that she was in the stables
at Mortgrange. There she knew she would be well
treated, and therefore told Barbara the result of
her inquiries.
WINGFOLD AND BARBARA.
Barbara went yet oftener to Mr. and Mrs. Wingfold.
By this time, through Simon Armour, they knew something
about Richard, but none of them all felt at liberty
to talk about him.
Barbara had now a better guide in her reading than
Richard. True reader as he had been, Wingfold’s
acquaintance both with literature and its history,
that is, its relation to the development of the people,
was as much beyond the younger man’s as it ought
to be. What in Barbara Richard had begun well,
Wingfold was carrying on better.
With his help she was now studying, to no little advantage,
more than one subject connected with the main interest
common to her and Richard: and she thought constantly
of what Richard would say, and how she would answer
him. Hence, naturally, she had the more questions
to put to her tutor. Now Wingfold had passed
through all Richard’s phases, and through some
that were only now beginning to show in him; therefore
he was well prepared to help her—although
there was this difference between the early moral
conditions of the two men, that Wingfold had been prejudiced
in favour of much that he found it impossible to hold,
whereas Richard had been prejudiced against much that
ought to be cast away.
Richard suffered not a little at times from his enforced
silence: what might not happen because he must
not speak? But hearing nothing discouraging from
his grandfather, he comforted himself in hope.
He knew that in him he had a strong ally, and that
Barbara loved the hot-hearted blacksmith, recognizing
in him a more genuine breeding, as well as a far greater
capacity, than in either sir Wilton or her father.
He toiled on doing his duty, and receiving in himself
the reward of the same, with further reward ever at
the door. For there is no juster law than the
word, “To him that hath shall be given.”
“Why do I never see you on Miss Brown?”
asked Wingfold one day of Barbara.
“For a reason I think I ought not to tell you.”
“Then don’t tell me,” returned the
parson.
But by a mixture of instinctive induction, and involuntary
intuition, he saw into the piece of domestic tyranny,
and did what he could to make up for it, by taking
her every now and then a long walk or drive with his
wife and their little boy. He gave her strong
hopeful things to read—and in the search
after such was driven to remark how little of the hopeful
there is in the English, or in any other language.
The song of hope is indeed written in men’s
hearts, but few sing it. Yet it is of all songs
the sorest-needed of struggling men.
