Christian life -- Fiction; City and town life -- Fiction; England -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Fiction
She laughed. “I thought I would tell you the worst about him first,”
she said, “and so get it over. Against all that, is the fact that
he’s something quite out of the common. He’s the type from which the
world’s conquerors are drawn. Napoleon was only the son of a provincial
attorney. He’s the most talked about man in Millsborough already; and
everything he puts his hand to succeeds. He’s pretty sure to end as a
millionaire with a seat in the House of Lords. Not that I’m marrying
him for that. I’m only telling you that to make it easier for you to
help me. I’d love him just the same if he were a cripple on a pound a
week. I’d go out charring, if need be, like his mother did. It’s no
good reasoning with me, Jim,” she added after a pause. “When did a man
or woman of our blood ever put reason above love? It’s part of our
inheritance. Your time will come one day; and then you will understand,
if you don’t now.”
She had risen. She came behind him and put her arms about his neck.
“We’ve always stood by each other, Jim,” she said. “Be a chum.”
“What’s he like?” he growled.
She laughed. “Oh, you needn’t worry about that,” she said. “There he
is. Look at him.”
She took his face between her two hands and turned it towards the
picture of the monk Anthony standing with crossed arms, a strange light
round about him.
“It’s like some beautiful old legend,” she continued. “Sir Percival
couldn’t have killed him. You know his body was never found. It was
said that as he lay there, bleeding from his wounds, Saint Aldys
had suddenly appeared and had lifted him up in his arms as if he
had been a child and had borne him away. He has been asleep all
these years in the bosom of Saint Aldys; and now he is come back.
It must be he. The likeness is so wonderful and it is his very
name, Anthony Strong’nth’arm. They were here before we came--the
Strong’nth’arms--yeomen and squires. He is come to lift them up again.
And I am going to right the old wrong by helping him and loving him.”
“Have you told all that to the guv’nor?” he asked with a grin.
“I’m not sure that I won’t,” she answered. “It’s all in Dugdale. Except
about his coming to life again.”
“It’s his turning up again as a solicitor that will be your
difficulty,” Jim suggested. “If he’d come back as a curate----”
“It wouldn’t have been true,” she interrupted. “It was the church that
ruled the land in those days. Now it is the men of business. He’s going
to make the valley into one great town and do away with slums and
poverty. It was he who made the docks and brought the sea, and linked
up the railway. He comes back to rule and guide--to make the land
fruitful, in the new way; and the people prosperous.”
“And himself a millionaire, with a seat in the House of Lords,” quoted
her brother.
“So did the old churchmen,” she answered. “As Anthony, the monk, he
would have become a cardinal with his palaces and revenues. A great man
is entitled to his just wages.”
Jim had risen, he was pacing the room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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