to defy the convention of unblinking silence. As time went on, others of her sex stole glances at Mercy’s son from the depths of their bonnets; and at last, after over an hour, they and all were drawn to look steadily at the young man upon whose business this Meeting of Discipline had been called. The air grew warmer and warmer, but no one became restless; all seemed as cool of face and body as the grey gowns and coats with grey steel buttons which they wore.
At last a shrill voice broke the stillness. Raising his head, one of the Elders said: “Thee will stand up, friend.” He looked at David.
With a slight gesture of relief the young man stood up. He was good to look at-clean-shaven, broad of brow, fine of figure, composed of carriage, though it was not the composure of the people by whom he was surrounded. They were dignified, he was graceful; they were consistently slow of movement, but at times his quick gestures showed that he had not been able to train his spirit to that passiveness by which he lived surrounded. Their eyes were slow and quiet, more meditative than observant; his were changeful in expression, now abstracted, now dark and shining as though some inner fire was burning. The head, too, had a habit of coming up quickly with an almost wilful gesture, and with an air which, in others, might have been called pride.
“What is thy name?” said another owl-like Elder to him.
A gentle, half-amused smile flickered at the young man’s lips for an instant, then, “David Claridge—still,” he answered.
His last word stirred the meeting. A sort of ruffle went through the atmosphere, and now every eye was fixed and inquiring. The word was ominous. He was there on his trial, and for discipline; and it was thought by all that, as many days had passed since his offence was committed, meditation and prayer should have done their work. Now, however, in the tone of his voice, as it clothed the last word, there was something of defiance. On the ear of his grandfather, Luke Claridge, it fell heavily. The old man’s lips closed tightly, he clasped his hands between his knees with apparent self-repression.
The second Elder who had spoken was he who had once heard Luke Claridge use profane words in the Cloistered House. Feeling trouble ahead, and liking the young man and his brother Elder, Luke Claridge, John Fairley sought now to take the case into his own hands.
“Thee shall never find a better name, David,” he said, “if thee live a hundred years. It hath served well in England. This thee didst do. While the young Earl of Eglington was being brought home, with noise and brawling, after his return to Parliament, thee mingled among the brawlers; and because some evil words were said of thy hat and thy apparel, thee laid about thee, bringing one to the dust, so that his life was in peril for some hours to come. Jasper Kimber was his name.”
“Were it not that the smitten man forgave thee, thee would now be in a prison cell,” shrilly piped the Elder who had asked his name.
“The fight was fair,” was the young man’s reply. “Though I am a Friend, the man was English.”
“Thee was that day a son of Belial,” rejoined the shrill Elder. “Thee did use thy hands like any heathen sailor—is it not the truth?”
“I struck the man. I punished him—why enlarge?”
“Thee is guilty?”
“I did the thing.”
“That is one charge against thee. There are others. Thee was seen to drink of spirits in a public-house at Heddington that day. Twice—thrice, like any drunken collier.”
“Twice,” was the prompt correction.
There was a moment’s pause, in which some women sighed and others folded and unfolded their hands on their laps; the men frowned.
“Thee has been a dark deceiver,” said the shrill Elder again, and with a ring of acrid triumph; “thee has hid these things from our eyes many years, but in one day thee has uncovered all. Thee—”
“Thee is charged,” interposed Elder Fairley, “with visiting a play this same day, and with seeing a dance of Spain following upon it.”
“I did not disdain the music,” said the young man drily; “the flute, of all instruments, has a mellow sound.” Suddenly his eyes darkened, he became abstracted, and gazed at the window where the twig flicked softly against the pane, and the heat of summer palpitated in the air. “It has good grace to my ear,” he added slowly.
Luke Claridge looked at him intently. He began to realize that there were forces stirring in his grandson which had no beginning in Claridge blood, and were not nurtured in the garden with the fruited wall. He was not used to problems; he had only a code, which he had rigidly kept. He had now a glimmer of something beyond code or creed.
He saw that the shrill Elder was going to speak. He intervened. “Thee is charged, David,” he said coldly, “with kissing a woman—a stranger and a wanton—where the four roads meet ’twixt here and yonder town.” He motioned towards the hills.
“In the open day,” added the shrill Elder, a red spot burning on each withered cheek.
“The woman was comely,” said the young man, with a tone of irony, recovering an impassive look.
A strange silence fell, the women looked down; yet they seemed not so confounded as the men. After a moment they watched the young man with quicker flashes of the eye.
“The answer is shameless,” said the shrill Elder. “Thy life is that of a carnal hypocrite.”
The young man said nothing. His face had become very pale, his lips were set, and presently he sat down and folded his arms.
“Thee is guilty of all?” asked John Fairley.
His kindly eye was troubled, for he had spent numberless hours in this young man’s company, and together they had read books of travel and history, and even the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe, though drama was anathema to the Society of Friends—they did not realize it in the life around them. That which was drama was either the visitation of God or the dark deeds of man, from which they must avert their eyes. Their own tragedies they hid beneath their grey coats and bodices; their dirty linen they never washed in public, save in the scandal such as this where the Society must intervene. Then the linen was not only washed, but duly starched, sprinkled, and ironed.
“I have answered all. Judge by my words,” said David gravely.
“Has repentance come to thee? Is it thy will to suffer that which we may decide for thy correction?” It was Elder Fairley who spoke. He was determined to control the meeting and to influence its judgment. He loved the young man.
David made no reply; he seemed lost in thought. “Let the discipline proceed—he hath an evil spirit,” said the shrill Elder.
“His childhood lacked in much,” said Elder Fairley patiently.
To most minds present the words carried home—to every woman who had a child, to every man who had lost a wife and had a motherless son. This much they knew of David’s real history, that Mercy Claridge, his mother, on a visit to the house of an uncle at Portsmouth, her mother’s brother, had eloped with and was duly married to the captain of a merchant ship. They also knew that, after some months, Luke Claridge had brought her home; and that before her child was born news came that the ship her husband sailed had gone down with all on board. They knew likewise that she had died soon after
