North and South Page #11

North and South is a social novel published in 1854 by English writer Elizabeth Gaskell. With Wives and Daughters and Cranford, it is one of her best-known novels and was adapted for television three times. The 2004 version renewed interest in the novel and attracted a wider readership.

• Novel

								

volume, which he had often been reading lately, and from which he
thought he had derived strength to enter upon the course in which he was
now embarked.

“Listen, dear Margaret,” said he, putting one arm round her waist. She
took his hand in hers and grasped it tight, but she could not lift up
her head; nor indeed could she attend to what he read, so great was her
internal agitation.

“This is the soliloquy of one who was once a clergyman in a country
parish, like me; it was written by Mr. Oldfield, minister of Carsington,
in Derbyshire, a hundred and sixty years ago, or more. His trials are
over. He fought the good fight.” These last two sentences he spoke low,
as if to himself. Then he read aloud,--

“When thou canst no longer continue in thy work without dishonour to
God, discredit to religion, foregoing thy integrity, wounding
conscience, spoiling thy peace, and hazarding the loss of thy salvation;
in a word, when the conditions upon which thou must continue (if thou
wilt continue) in thy employments are sinful, and unwarranted by the
word of God, thou mayest, yea, thou must believe that God will turn thy
very silence, suspension, deprivation, and laying aside, to His glory,
and the advancement of the Gospel’s interest. When God will not use thee
in one kind, yet He will in another. A soul that desires to serve and
honour Him shall never want opportunity to do it; nor must thou so limit
the Holy One of Israel, as to think He hath but one way in which He can
glorify Himself by thee. He can do it by thy silence as well as by thy
preaching; the laying aside as well as thy continuance in thy work. It
is not pretence of doing God the greatest service, or performing the
weightiest duty, that will excuse the least sin, though that sin
capacitated or gave us the opportunity for doing that duty. Thou wilt
have little thanks, O my soul! if, when thou art charged with corrupting
God’s worship, falsifying thy vows, thou pretendest a necessity for it
in order to a continuance in the ministry.”

As he read this, and glanced at much more which he did not read, he
gained resolution for himself, and felt as if he too could be brave and
firm in doing what he believed to be right; but as he ceased he heard
Margaret’s low convulsive sob; and his courage sank down under the keen
sense of suffering.

“Margaret, dear!” said he, drawing her closer, “think of the early
martyrs; think of the thousands who have suffered.”

“But, father,” said she, suddenly lifting up her flushed, tear-wet face,
“the early martyrs suffered for the truth, while you--oh! dear, dear
papa!”

“I suffer for conscience’ sake, my child,” said he, with a dignity that
was only tremulous from the acute sensitiveness of his character; “I
must do what my conscience bids. I have borne long with self-reproach
that would have roused any mind less torpid and cowardly than mine.” He
shook his head as he went on. “Your poor mother’s fond wish, gratified
at last in the mocking way in which over-fond wishes are too often
fulfilled--Sodom apples as they are--has brought on this crisis, for
which I ought to be, and I hope I am thankful. It is not a month since
the bishop offered me another living; if I had accepted it, I should
have had to make a fresh declaration of conformity to the Liturgy at my
institution. Margaret, I tried to do it; I tried to content myself with
simply refusing the additional preferment, and stopping quietly
here,--strangling my conscience now, as I had strained it before. God
forgive me!”

He rose and walked up and down the room, speaking low words of
self-reproach and humiliation, of which Margaret was thankful to hear
but few. At last he said,

“Margaret, I return to the old sad burden: we must leave Helstone.”

“Yes! I see. But when?”

“I have written to the bishop--I dare say I have told you so, but I
forget things just now,” said Mr. Hale, collapsing into his depressed
manner as soon as he came to talk of hard matter-of-fact details,
“informing him of my intention to resign this vicarage. He has been most
kind; he has used arguments and expostulations, all in vain--in vain.
They are but what I have tried upon myself, without avail. I shall have
to take my deed of resignation, and wait upon the bishop myself, to bid
him farewell. That will be a trial. But worse, far worse, will be the
parting from my dear people. There is a curate appointed to read
prayers--a Mr. Brown. He will come to stay with us to-morrow. Next
Sunday I preach my farewell sermon.”

Was it to be so sudden then? thought Margaret; and yet perhaps it was as
well. Lingering would only add stings to the pain; it was better to be
stunned into numbness by hearing of all these arrangements, which seemed
to be nearly completed before she had been told. “What does mamma say?”
asked she, with a deep sigh.

To her surprise, her father began to walk about again before he
answered. At length he stopped and replied:

“Margaret, I am a poor coward after all. I cannot bear to give pain. I
know so well your mother’s married life has not been all she hoped--all
she had a right to expect--and this will be such a blow to her, that I
have never had the heart, the power to tell her. She must be told
though, now,” said he, looking wistfully at his daughter. Margaret was
almost overpowered with the idea that her mother knew nothing of it all,
and yet the affair was so far advanced!

“Yes, indeed she must,” said Margaret. “Perhaps, after all, she may
not--Oh yes! she will, she must be shocked”--as the force of the blow
returned upon herself in trying to realise how another would take it.
“Where are we to go to?” said she at last, struck with a fresh wonder as
to their future plans, if plans indeed her father had.

“To Milton-Northern,” he answered, with a dull indifference, for he had
perceived that, although his daughter’s love had made her cling to him,
and for a moment strive to soothe him with her love, yet the keenness of
the pain was as fresh as ever in her mind.

“Milton-Northern! The manufacturing town in Darkshire?”

“Yes,” said he, in the same despondent, indifferent way.

“Why there, papa?” asked she.

“Because there I can earn bread for my family. Because I know no one
there, and no one knows Helstone, or can ever talk to me about it.”

“Bread for your family! I thought you and mamma had”--and then she
stopped, checking her natural interest regarding their future life, as
she saw the gathering gloom on her father’s brow. But he, with his quick
intuitive sympathy, read in her face, as in a mirror, the reflections of
his own moody depression, and turned it off with an effort.

“You shall be told all, Margaret. Only help me to tell your mother. I
think I could do anything but that: the idea of her distress turns me
sick with dread. If I tell you all, perhaps you could break it to her
to-morrow. I am going out for the day, to bid farmer Dobson and the poor
people on Bracy Common good-bye. Would you dislike breaking it to her
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