Salem Chapel · Chapter 15 (3/3)

“I am not the man to desert my minister when he’s in trouble,” said the brave butterman. “Look you here, Mr. Vincent; don’t fret yourself about it. I’ll take it in hand; and I’d like to see the man in Salem as would say to the contrary again’ me and the pastor both. Make your mind easy; I’ll manage ’em. As for the women,” said Tozer, scratching his head, “I don’t pretend not to be equal to that; but my missis is as reasonable as most; and Phoebe, she’ll stand up for you, whatever you do. If you’ll take my advice, and be a bit prudent, and don’t go after no more vanities, things ain’t so far wrong but a week or two will make them right.”

With this consolatory assurance Vincent began to write his letter. Before he had concluded it, the maid came to lay the cloth for dinner, thrusting him into a corner, where he accomplished his writing painfully on his knee with his ink on the windowsill, a position in which Phoebe found him when she ventured downstairs. It was she who took his letter from him, and ran with it to the shop to despatch it at once; and Phoebe came back to tell him that Mrs. Vincent was resting, and that it was so pleasant to see him back again after such a time. “I never expected you would have any patience for us when I saw you knew Lady Western so well. Oh, she is so sweetly pretty! and if I were a gentleman, I know I should fall deep in love with her,” said Phoebe, with a sidelong glance, and not without hopes of calling forth a disclaimer from the minister; but the poor minister, jammed up in the corner, whence it was now necessary to extricate his chair preparatory to sitting down to a family dinner with the Tozers, was, as usual, unequal to the occasion, and had nothing to say. Phoebe’s chair was by the minister’s side during that substantial meal; and the large fire which burned behind Mrs. Tozer at the head of the table, and the steaming viands on the hospitable board, and the prevailing atmosphere of cheese and bacon which entered when the door was opened, made even Mrs. Vincent pale and flush a little in the heroic patience and friendliness with which she bent all her powers to secure the support of these adherents to her son. “I could have wished, Arthur, they were a little more refined,” she said, faintly, when the dinner was over, and they were at last on their way to the train; “but I am sure they are very genuine, my dear; and one good friend is often everything to a pastor; and I am so glad we went at such a time.” So glad! The young Nonconformist heaved a tempestuous sigh, and turned away not without a reflection upon the superficial emotions of women who at such a time could he glad. But Mrs. Vincent, for her part, with a fatigue and sickness of heart which she concealed from herself as much as she could, let down her veil, and cried quietly behind it. Perhaps her share of the day’s exhaustion had not been the mildest or least hard.