MRS. LEYBURN’S STORY, AS TOLD ME BY MY WIFE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 5, Issue 274, 26 December 1861, Page 4

MRS. LEYBURN’S STORY, AS TOLD ME BY MY WIFE.

[FOB the chronicle.] CHAPTER 11. At length the now minister came ; he was the choice of the people, and a most popular man and most popular preacher he vf q,s ; fie had been assistant in one parish, and minister in. another, before lie was presented to this living, and he had a gold watch and appendages, and a service of silver, plate given him by the bereaved people of his former charge—•” “ And I’ll engage he was well supplied with embroidered caps, and braces, and bands, and slippers, and purses, and pen-wipers, worked by fair fingers and scented like Araby the blest.” • ’Yes, he was;; and more than that, there was one widow lady, of independent means, who, bn each translation, translated herself along with him.’ No sooner was it fixed that he was going, than slip ha,d a house taken in the new locality, and herself settled ready to receive him, before you could say Jack Robinson.” “ Capital y And did the widow get jealous of Miss Jerpoint, and mix a cup of cold.poison for her ?”• “ Edward, how absurd! There was nothing of that kind ; the widow was old enough to be his mother, and it was his ministrations she valued so highly, and as he had no one in liis house but servants, she said she liked to be near him, to see after his little comforts, and give him an occasional wqrd advice.” “ What a delightful kind of woman she must have be.cn —positively Minerva and Telemaehus over again. I should not wonder if the Bishop of Cambray took tbe idea from some similar experience of his owa" “ Well, Edward, there are kinds and degrees of silliness with which it is difficult to sympathize ; certainly, I could not imagine myself running about the country after a minister, however highly I might esteem him. ” “ You are not a widow in independent circumstances.” “No ; but to go on. Mr. Sandilands—that was the new minister’s name—frequently visited at the Hall. Hitherto, with perhaps pardonable vanity, he had been impressed with the idea that the entire femiJe world .was at his feet, and so that part of it that circled round him was ; the young lady slipper and pen-wiper world has a very susceptible heart in its bosom, and a trick of writing scented notes about that delightful sermon, and that dear man Mr. Sandilands, and how crowded the church was last Sunday, andhow the people hung upon his lips, &c. &c. A totally different phase of things opened upon Mr. Sandilands at the -Ilall. Sir Benjamin and Lady Isinglas went to church, not to hear this or that man preach, but to worship and gather instruction, and they did not altogether approve of. Mr.- Sandilands’ style of preaching. Miss Jerpoint, on her part, had rather a prejudice against popular preachers; her grandfather and her uncle were both holy, erudite, laborious men, but neither of them had ever drawn crowded houses, which she had known done by an individual with a deep voice and florid elocution, and even by a man with a black skin. R was something new to Mr. Sandilands; he missed the adulation and fuss that surrounded him elsewhere ; his host and hostess showed him much quiet and friendly politeness, but no one mentioned his sermons, nor the crowded church, nor that sweet address to the children. Lady Isinglas did not ask if his throat were properly wrapped up, nor suggest how much care he ought to take of himself, and Miss Jerpoint expressed neither alann nor compassion when told of what a pitiless storm he had encountered in prosecuting his pastoral visitations,-—indeed, it had never occurred to her that a man in robust health ought to be chary of exposing himself to the weather.” “ I don’t know what tlie upshot is to,bp, Clara, but. Miss Jerpoiht’s opinion notwithstanding, I am inclined to think that the preacher who draws crowded houses, and continues to draw them, has something about him more than mere accessories/some vitalJpoiut, something more than charlatanism, that he can put and keep himself m rapport with so many of his fellowcreatures ; it is all very well for people to sneer at the fickle waves of popular favour who never ran any risk of being exposed to them.” “ Mr. Sandilands, you see, had been in some degree exposed to them, but he found, sjidden and unexpected, shelter at Isinglas Halt al- - he would have eai rolling that length. Howa v L'f, it was what you, Edward, would cJI a kind of discipline, and of a salutary nature, too ;he improved under it. The calm good sense of the auditors sitting opposite him in the crimson-dad gallery stared him in the face in his study also, and moulded his sermons, while in the pulpit his speech and action became gradually more natural. It had been remarked by cynical people, that when Mr. Sandilands pressed his hand to his forehead in an impassioned manner, he did not forget not to derange his hair ; he forgot his hair now,—he even forgot himself ; and the impression he made was not less, but greater, especially ern the better class of his audience. Miss Jerpoint’3 chair gradually veered nearer the front of the gallery, till she had the preacher full in view. I have not told you what like he was, Edward, have I? for I must not forget that.”

“ Certainly not; he would be a slight .boyisli-looking man, with a lot of longish hair, which he would fling back off his forehead at every appropriate place.” | “ You think that is a ‘vital point.’ I have said he took care riot to'disturb his hair, which was very dark and wavy, his eyes were dark ancl lustrous, his nose might have been stolen from a Greek, statue, and he had the cleft chin of an Apollo ; set this head on a handsome wellknit body six feet high, and you will acknowledge that his popularity, in some quartet's at least, was not altogether unaccountable.” “ Really, Clara, your talent for description is creeping out of its napkin,} let Miss MeTavisli look, to her laurels. ”

“ I tell you, Edward,. I am only giving the story as nearly as I can in the words I heal'd it. I thought I "got some insight myself into the character of the man, but I don’t know if f can convey it to you, foi : I- wai\t you to. reconcile if you can his strange inconsistency, for my satisfaction. ” “I doubt if I can help you there, Clara ; I have thought of various people, that I knew enough of them, to be able to count upon what they were likely to clo. in given circumstances, but I found I might as. well have been a child playing at hide-and-seek ; and yet, if one could see close enough, there is a thread of consistency runs through every character, just as in the members of a family there is a certain, likeness ; although separate, they look all different and distinct, yet sea them together and there is a strong resemblance,among them.”’ “ When, I- have dpne, < then 1 you must pick out this thread'in. Mrv SandilandV'character, and let me see it. ' There was mpeh that was good about him, and even, a grain, or two that was great, but it had been, choked by his vanity, which had been well nprsed; It was somewhat to bis surprise, and in,, spite,of hjmself, that he found his interest, in. Miss Jerpoiqt, and hia admiration of her, growing apace. He had never intended to .throw hjmself, away upon, a, penniless governess ; beforedoqg, however, he began JhfeAthat hia fate vyrikbpund tip w,ith hers— ’’ hV“ Thepuppy ' I hope.sbp.kpew she.was too good for him.” ' “From the first he had’ been struck with her as something different from,, and; superior to, the ordinary world of young ladyism,;.he admired the clear good sense, with, which she always spoke to the point, the. mpre,^perhaps, that he had been a good deal accustomed, to feminine maundering ; the total; absence of all: kinds of smallness, the wide scope of enjoymentaha had, and her entire freedom, from every tinge of affectation,—all qualities which w.c

know she has as fresh ( as ever, not a bit the ? worse' for Wear and' tear. In her-presence he' felt ashamed of the minor quackeries; in which he had hitherto indulged, and .began to shed them one by one, and come out a truer man—: no, don’t pick me up, and say, if a thing is true .it can’t be truer—his easy come-seo-aud-conquer kind of manner JJvore oIF, and a sort, of diffidence took its place. He must have her—really loved her—for he began to doubt whether he.would succeed in winning her ;he did not seem to have advanced an inch nearer her, so far as he could judge, than he was the first time they met. V “But he had. Miss Jerpoint had begun to enjoy the homage he paid her, and when once or twice he betrayed what slxe thought genuine feeling towards herself, she grow interested, and admitted the idea that popularity was not incompatible with the possession of great qualities; that a man might have a fine presence, and a musical voice, and a talent for putting things new and old in a striking light, and yet not be destitute of what was noble, high, and h01y..” “ Now, Mrs. Clara, say it; you don’t mean to say that Miss jerpoint allowed herself to fall in love with this piece' of Birmingham coinage ?” ‘‘Blit, Edward, he was not all Birmingham ; I have said that, —I don’t know that I have shown it, —among much alloy there were sparks of pure metal; if—” “ Oh, if; I doubt I must cut down my estimate of Miss Jerpoint.” “No, don’t; remember that after all she was only a woman, or I should say , a girl; and, besides, it is unfair to judge either man or woman by the kind of article they many ; if they marry for love, as they ought to do, they are not in full possession of their senses at the time.” “ Oh, oh! Clara, that’s a doctrine that knocks the responsibility off one’s shoulders with a vengeance, hut I can give you an instance to the contrary ; I married for love, and I knew as well what I was about as I do at this moment.”

“ You thought you did ; but I might have been a vixen or virago for what you knew.” “ I was not so blind ; do you think I had not taken my own observations ?” , “ But if I had been a vixen wanting to impose upon you, I could have been as sweet, oh, as sweet as honey; people who are most amiable in public sometimes throw off the mask behind the scenes.” “ That’s true, I mustallow ; well, if you had turned out vixen on my hands, it would have been good, exciting employment—the taming of the shrew.” “ Aye, it’s easy to make Petruchio conquer on,paper, but I have known Kates that even he would have had to give in to.” “ After all, then, I believe I must be thankful for my wife just as sße is.” “ You have every reason. You were hoping that Miss Jerpoint did not fall in love. Well, she did, and hers was not a nature to do a thing of that kind by halves. One can fancy how exquisite her reveries would be, just at the time of life she w;as, to enjoy to the. full that dreamyj delight, how she would picture forth a long, happy, useful life in that beautiful manse ; one can suppose it possible, that as her chair drew back again from the front of the gallery, as it did when she began to feel a growing interest in the preacher, till she could see nothing of him but the dark wavy hair, that then and there she worshipped the creature more than the Creator.”

•‘Go on please, Clara, and launch out; I should like to hear your version of how a young girl thinks and feels in a brown study of that kind, for, after all that novelists have said and poets sung, the theme remains as fresh as ever, like the gush of delicate and etherial flowers that comes with the young year; we gaze at them time after time with wonder and awe, and fear that a speck should sully their holy beauty. ”

“ Edward, it is not thinking or feeling, it is floating—actual floating—in as pure an ether as this world knows of—for a little, you know, only for a little while ; how soon it passes away, never to come again !” “ You don’t mean, Clara, that'Miss Jerpoint loved Mr. Sandilands, and that, something coming between them—although when you mean to tell me "what, I don’t know—she married Mr. Leyburn without loving him ?” “ No, I do not mean that at all r her love for Mr. Leyburn was and is fervent, I do beliere, but different in kind. .You have spoken of spring- flowers ; the feelings with which she regarded Mr. Sandilands were the spring flowers of her life ; they came with the season and went with it; delicate, unrevealing, simple, and childlike they were. When she married Mr. Leyburn she was six years older ; besides, what an experience was shut into these years of her life ! I would call her first love the snowdrop, her second the rose; it, had the deep colouring and fragrance of midsummer. ” “ If I had to choose between them I would have the rose—hut it’s all taste ; a happy man am I, to have had the one, and to have the other.” “ Ah ! ” said Clara ; “ perhaps I had better tell you the rest of the history another time.” “As you please ; indeed, I begin to suspect there’s nothing to tell.” • “ Then, to punish you for such a suspicion, I shall make you sit still and hear; and now listen to the end. The end !—I only wonder how, knowing that, I can speak so lightly as I do going along ; I was impressed enough at the time, but imj>re3sions wear off so soon. Miss Jerpoint and Mr. Sandilands were engaged to be married, and the latter himself communicated the fact to Sir Benjamin, who, together with Lady Isinglas, was heartily rejoiced to hear of it. They valued Miss Jerpoint, and were pleased that she should be permanently settled near them, and they were glad for her sake that she should be, as they thought, so well settled, for they believed she was the very person to supply or reform anything that was deficient or amiss in Mr. Sandilands, and most likely they were correct in thinking so. I can fancy, if the marriage had taken place, that the wife, with her serene nature and rare good sense, would have had the happiest effect in drawing forth what was good in her husband ; each would have improved the other, and as the years went on their lives would have blended ; they would have lived for noble ends ; they might have filled in Tennyson’s picture,— " ‘ And so these twain,Upon the sk'rts of time 4 Sit side by side, full aumm’d in all their powers, Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-Be, Self-reverent each, and reverencing each, Distinct in individualities, But like each other* even as those who love.’ ” “ Really, Clara, you are too tantalising; leave reflection and Tennyson, and say what happened. They were engaged you say, and not married ; he did" *not die, and she did not die—what on earth was it ?”" “ Oh, I could give you the, bare facts in five words, but you would prefer getting all the outa and ins, would you not ? v “ Well, I’m not very busy at this moment; I’ll hang up my curiosity for a little, and let you take your own way,—and a roundabout way it is, but pleasant enough* too, here in the. gloamin’. ” „ . ■ , _ “Then I may go on, following, Mrs,. Ingersoll’s windings. In December they plighted themselves to each other.. That circumstance crowned their year-with gladness* the date was registered as an epoch* and the next year dawned upon Miss Jerpoint as what was to bo the happiest of her life-, The .dull’ leaden: skies and cutting winds of spring passed all unheeded by her; a tremendous storm of wind—or should’ I say a cyclone on its travels ?—one night made all the woods of Isinglas dock and’ creak and’ strain like the. masts of a storm-tossed vessel* next day the poor people got a harvest of fallen, branches, to gather. Miss'Jerpoint met one of them in her, usual walk, an ; old woman with whom she waa w.eUracquainted, who by saying— ‘ ,

‘TV 1 Eh, mem,"what 'rt"mchtTof wind'it" - I’m sorry for that,--Miss .Jerpoint rejoined, ’but I never heard it ; I slept through it all like atop.’ ,*■ , “‘ I wad hae dune that, too, wlian l,was like you, but auld folk canna’. Moivy a: time I lie waken from nicht till mofnin’ yestrcen, atween the blasts, I diverte.d myaol* thinking ower "the minister’s, sermon on 'sabbath ; it was .unco gude; I wad hae thocht frae" some bits thatfhp { was a married man.* • ' ; < - - ‘ \ “ Indeed, I did not observe' anything that wpuld have made me think that. ’ ; 'TQsj daursay, I daursay, but by the timo r ye’vP toiled through the warld for sixty years' ye’ll see heads’’ o’ things ye canna’ see where ye’re stannin’ the now; things jiist come on bit by bit. A minister, tae my thinkin’, shoqld aye be a married man; siri’ the. Irish began tab come about, there’s a gey twa three Catholics;, here awa’, an’ there’s : a priest conies round. amang them ilka week, but what can he ken o* their trials, or their cares, or their joys ; some folk ’ll uphaud it that the Apostle Paul never was married, but I’m thinking he was awidow, or he wadna’ written some things he has written. ’ • ' “I believe it is thought he was a widower ; but is it not possible for one man to imagine himself in the place of another, and feci accordingly?’ “ ‘ It’s nopossibletae very mony o’ us ; that’s a gift that’s no gien unco, often. Na, ha,—we can sympathize best wi’ what we’ve felt ourscls ; but hae ye noticed what a sair hoastthemi- . nister has ? I was vexed tae hear him, it just hrocht me in mind o’ our Sandy’s the simmer afore he died. The next time I see him I’ll hae - him advised tae tak some nowt. feet oil and whiskey steered up wi’ a pickle sugar, it’s a grand thing for a boast. ’ “ Miss Jerpoint could barely restrain a gesture of disgust at the idea of such a mixture, and she took leave of the old woman, who corn* tinued her occupation, with, thoughts curiously compounded of Sandy's last/days, the Apostle Paul, the plentiful supply of sticks, and Sunday’s sermon; which last subject employed Miss Jerpoint’s thoughts too, as she walked oh, trying to recall what sentences of it her old friend had referred to, till she met the widow lady of independent means I have spoken of already. This lady dashed into the subject of the minister’s cough with all the sympathy and vigour she generally brought to bear on anything connected with him. “ ‘ I am so anxious about Mr. Sandilands,' she said ; ‘ such a severe cough he has got in some way, probably by-rashly exposing himself.’ •■ ■ • : . - . . : •.■

“ ‘ I don’t think he would do that,’ said Miss Jerpoint simply ; ‘ I remember, when lie came first, I used to think he took very good care of himself. I have not noticed it of late, but it is a great comfort to think that he does so; there is my uncle at home, a much older man,, goes out at all hour 3 and in all weather, and never thinks of wrapping up his throat or wearing goloshes either.’ “ ‘ Well, I can’t say; that may do for your uncle, he may be made of iron, but Mr. Saudi? lands is not, and although I would not wish it . to reach his ears, for in a case of this kind to keep up the spirits is half the battle, I may t say it frankly to you, I do, not like that cough, of his.’ “ ‘ Oh, I should hope it’s nothing more thanan ordinary cold.’ “ ‘ Have you been in the habit of listening; to coughs, Miss Jerpoint?’ ’ - “ Miss Jerpoint had to allow that she had not. • . “ ‘ Then I have,’ continued the widow solemnly, ‘ and I repeat, I do not like Mr. Sandrlands’ cough. One of his servants tells me that she hears him coughing for an hour aft£r he is in bed; it really is most distressing; he ought to have change of air at once, and if I have any influence he will’ - : . “ ‘ But Mr. Sandilands himself says it is only a slight cold he has got.’ “ ‘ Miss Jerpoint, did you ever hear a yotmg man .allow he Was ill as long as he could crawl f 1 ■ v '■'

“ Miss Jerpoint said nothing, for her experience in this line was very limited, and if she had ventured a reply, the widow had a complete induction of facts to meet her with. “ • But it can’t be,’ she said at length, 4 surely it can’t be that Mr. Sandilands is seriously ill?”

44 4 Time will tell,” rejoined the widow oracularly. ( V, v 44 And they parted, MlSs jerpomt thinking, certainly it is nothing serious. Poor girl, she hfid riever sat placidly by, with a smile on her face, while life grew chilled within her, as her anxious ear took in the cough of a much-loved one, which said as plainly us, words could havo said it, ‘ destined to die.’ But then, both her acquaintances had a knowledge and experience of coughs, and they thought alike, so she went in from hear walk, struck for the first time in her life with that mortal anxiety those-know when one dear to them as life is threatened with peril. ; - “ Yes, Bhe would exert herself to induce Mr. Sandilands to try change of air.” _ • “ Then he did die of lung disease, Clara. Well, it was melancholy enough, but,- unhappily, not remarkable j one has not far.tolook for instances of apparently robust people cut down in that way.” 44 But he wa3 not cut down in that way.”