The Clever Woman of the Family [218]
will seem to you like trifles, indeed, individual criticisms appear so to me; but the difficulty to my mind is that I don't see these objections fairly grappled with. There is either denunciation or weak argument; but I can better recollect the impression on my own mind than what made it." "Yes, I know that feeling; but are you sure you have seen all the arguments?" "I cannot tell--perhaps not. Whenever I get a book with anything in it, somebody says it is not sound." "And you therefore conclude that a sound book can have nothing in it?" he asked, smiling. "Well, most of the new 'sound' books that I have met are just what my mother and sister like--either dull, or sentimental and trashy." "Perhaps those that get into popular circulation do deserve some of your terms for them. Illogical replies break down and carry off some who have pinned their faith to them; but are you sure that though you have read much, you have read deep?" "I have read more deeply than any one I know--women, I mean--or than any man ever showed me he had read. Indeed, I am trying not to say it in conceit, but Ermine Williams does not read argumentative books, and gentlemen almost always make as if they knew nothing about them." "I think you may be of great use to me, my dear, if you will help me. The bishop has desired me to preach the next visitation sermon, and he wishes it to be on some of these subjects. Now, if you will help me with the book work, it will be very kind in you, and might serve to clear your mind about some of the details, though you must be prepared for some questions being unanswered." "Best so," replied Rachel, "I don't like small answers to great questions." "Nor I. Only let us take care not to get absorbed in admiring the boldness that picks out stones to be stumbled over." "Do you object to my having read, and thought, and tried?" "Certainly not. Those who have the capability should, if they feel disturbed, work out the argument. Nothing is gained while it is felt that both sides have not been heard. I do not myself believe that a humble, patient, earnest spirit can go far wrong, though it may for a time be tried, and people often cry out at the first stumbling block, and then feel committed to the exclamations they have made." The conversation was here ended by the sight of Alick coming slowly and wearily in from the churchyard, looking as if some fresh weight were upon him, and he soon told them that the doctors had pronounced that Lord Keith was in a critical state, and would probably have much to suffer from the formation that had begun where he had received the neglected bruise in the side. No word of censure of poor Bessie had been breathed, nor did Alick mention her name, but he deeply suffered under the fulfilment of his own predictions, and his subdued, dejected manner expressed far more than did his words. Rachel asked how Lord Keith seemed. "Oh, there's no getting at his feelings. He was very civil to me-- asked after you, Rachel--told me to give you his thanks, but not a single word about anything nearer. Then I had to read the paper to him--all that dinner at Liverpool, and he made remarks, and expected me to know what it was about. I suppose he does feel; the Colonel says he is exceedingly cut up, and he looks like a man of eighty, infinitely worse than last time I saw him, but I don't know what to make of him." "And, Alick, did you hear the verdict?" "What verdict?" "That man at Avoncester. Mrs. Menteith said there had been a telegram." Alick looked startled. "This has put everything out of my head!" he said. "What was the verdict?" "That was just what she could not tell. She did not quite know who was tried." "And she came here and harassed you with it," he said, looking at her anxiously. "As if you had not gone through enouqh already." "Never mind that now. It seems so long ago now that I can hardly think much about it, and I have had another visitor," she added, as Mr. Clare left them to themselves, "Mrs. Carleton--that poor son of hers is