A Terrible Temptation: A Story of To-Day
then, recovering her dignity, cast one swift glance of gentle reproach,
then suddenly assuming vast stateliness, marched into Highmore like the
mother of a family. These three changes of manner she effected all in
less than two seconds.
Poor Compton went away sorely puzzled by this female kaleidoscope, but
not a little alarmed and concerned at having mortally offended so much
feminine dignity.
After that he did not venture to accost her for some time, but he cast
a few sheep's-eyes at her in church.
Now Ruperta had told her mother all; and her mother had not forbidden
her to speak to Compton, but had insisted on reserve and discretion.
She now told her mother she thought he would not speak to her any more,
she had snubbed him so.
“Dear me!” said Mrs. Bassett, “why did you do that? Can you not be
polite and nothing more?”
“No, mamma.”
“Why not? He is very amiable. Everybody says so.”
“He is. But I keep remembering what a forward girl I was, and I am
afraid he has not forgotten it either, and that makes me hate the poor
little fellow; no, not hate him; but keep him off. I dare say he thinks
me a cross, ill-tempered thing; and I _am_ very unkind to him, but I
can't help it.”
“Never mind,” said Mrs. Bassett; “that is much better than to be too
forward. Papa would never forgive that.”
By-and-by there was a cricket-match in the farmer's meadow, Highcombe
and Huntercombe eleven against the town of Staveleigh. All clubs liked
to play at Huntercombe, because Sir Charles found the tents and the
dinner, and the young farmers drank his champagne to their hearts'
content.
Ruperta took her maid and went to see the match. They found it going
against Huntercombe. The score as follows--
Staveleigh. First innings, a hundred and forty-eight runs.
Huntercombe eighty-eight.
Staveleigh. Second innings, sixty runs, and only one wicket down; and
Johnson and Wright, two of their best men, well in, and masters of the
bowling.
This being communicated to Ruperta, she became excited, and her soul in
the game.
The batters went on knocking the balls about, and scored thirteen more
before the young lady's eyes.
“Oh, dear!” said she, “what is that boy about? Why doesn't he bowl?
They pretend he is a capital bowler.”
At this time Compton was standing long-field on, only farther from the
wicket than usual.
Johnson, at the wicket bowled to, being a hard but not very scientific
hitter, lifted a half volley ball right over the bowler's head, a hit
for four, but a skyscraper. Compton started the moment he hit, and,
running with prodigious velocity, caught the ball descending, within a
few yards of Ruperta; but, to get at it, he was obliged to throw
himself forward into the air; he rolled upon the grass, but held the
ball in sight all the while.
Mr. Johnson was out, and loud acclamations rent the sky.
Compton rose, and saw Ruperta clapping her hands close by.
She left off and blushed, directly he saw her. He blushed too, and
touched his cap to her, with an air half manly, half sheepish, but did
not speak to her.
This was the last ball of the over, and, as the ball was now to be
delivered from the other wicket, Compton took the place of long-leg.
The third ball was overpitched to leg, and Wright, who, like most
country players, hit freely to leg, turned half, and caught this ball
exactly right, and sent it whizzing for five.
But the very force of the stroke was fatal to him; the ball went at
first bound right into Compton's hands, who instantly flung it back,
like a catapult, at Wright's wicket.
Wright, having hit for five, and being unable to see what had become of
the ball, started to run, as a matter of course.
But the other batsman, seeing the ball go right into long-leg's hands
like a bullet, cried, “Back!”
Wright turned, and would have got back to his wicket if the ball had
required handling by the wicket-keeper; but, by a mixture of skill with
luck, it came right at the wicket. Seeing which, the wicket-keeper very
judiciously let it alone, and it carried off the bails just half a
second before Mr. Wright grounded his bat.
“How's that, umpire?” cried the wicket-keeper.
“Out!” said the Staveleigh umpire, who judged at that end.
Up went the ball into the air, amid great excitement of the natives.
Ruperta, carried away by the general enthusiasm, nodded all sparkling
to Compton, and that made his heart beat and his soul aspire. So next
over he claimed his rights, and took the ball. Luck still befriended
him: he bowled four wickets in twelve overs; the wicket-keeper stumped
a fifth: the rest were “the tail,” and disposed of for a few runs, and
the total was no more than Huntercombe's first innings.
Our hero then took the bat, and made forty-seven runs before he was
disposed of, five wickets down for a hundred and ten runs. The match
was not won yet, nor sure to be; but the situation was reversed.
On going out, he was loudly applauded; and Ruperta naturally felt proud
of her admirer.
Being now free, he came to her irresolutely with some iced champagne.
Ruperta declined, with thanks; but he looked so imploringly that she
sipped a little, and said, warmly, “I hope we shall win: and, if we do,
I know whom we shall have to thank.”
“And so do I: you, Miss Bassett.”
“Me? Why, what have _I_ done in the matter?”
“You brought us luck, for one thing. You put us on our mettle.
Staveleigh shall never beat _me,_ with you looking on.”
Ruperta blushed a little, for the boy's eyes beamed with fire.
“If I believed that,” said she, “I should hire myself out at the next
match, and charge twelve pairs of gloves.”
“You may believe it, then; ask anybody whether our luck did not change
the moment you came.”
“Then I am afraid it will go now, for I am going.”
“You will lose us the match if you do,” said Compton.
“I can't help it: now you are out, it is rather insipid. There, you see
I can pay compliments as well as you.”
Then she made a graceful inclination and moved away.
Compton felt his heart ache at parting. He took a thought and ran
quickly to a certain part of the field.
Ruperta and her attendant walked very slowly homeward.
Compton caught them just at their own gate. “Cousin!” said he,
imploringly, and held her out a nosegay of cowslips only.
At that the memories rushed back on her, and the girl seemed literally
to melt. She gave him one look full of womanly sensibility and winning
tenderness, and said, softly, “Thank you, cousin.”
Compton went away on wings: the ice was broken.
But the next time he met her it had frozen again apparently: to be sure
she was alone; and young ladies will be bolder when they have another
person of their own sex with them.
Mr. Angelo called on Sir Charles Bassett to complain of a serious
grievance.
Mr. Angelo had become zealous and eloquent, but what are eloquence and
zeal against sex? A handsome woman had preached for ten minutes upon a
little mound outside the village, and had announced she should say a
few parting words next Sunday evening at six o'clock.
Mr. Angelo complained of this to Lady Bassett.
Lady Bassett referred him to Sir Charles.
Mr. Angelo asked that magistrate to enforce the law against
conventicles.
Sir Charles said he thought the Act did not apply.
“Well, but,” said Angelo, “it is on your ground she is going to
preach.”
“I am the proprietor, but the tenant is the owner in law. He could warn
_me_ off his ground. I have no power.”
“I fear you have no inclination,” said Angelo, nettled.
“Not much, to tell the truth,” replied Sir Charles coolly. “Does it
matter so very much _who_ sows the good seed, or whether it is flung
abroad from a pulpit or a grassy knoll?”
“That is begging the question, Sir Charles. Why assume that it is good
seed? it is more likely to be tares than wheat in this case.”
“And is not that begging the question? Well, I will make it my business
to know: and if she preaches sedition, or heresy, or bad morals, I will
strain my power a little to silence her. More than that I really cannot
promise you. The day is gone by for intolerance.”
“Intolerance is a bad thing; but the absence of all conviction is
worse, and that is what we are coming to.”
“Not quite that: but the nation has tasted liberty; and now every man
assumes to do what is right in his own eyes.”
“That mean's what is wrong in his neighbor's.”
Sir Charles thought this neat, and laughed good-humoredly: he asked the
rector to dine on Sunday at half-past seven. “I shall know more about
it by that time,” said he.
They dined early on Sunday, at Highmore, and Ruperta took her maid for
a walk in the afternoon, and came back in time to hear the female
preacher.
Half the village was there already, and presently the preacher walked
to her station.
To Ruperta's surprise, she was a lady, richly dressed, tall and
handsome, but with features rather too commanding. She had a glove on
her left hand, and a little Bible in her right hand, which was large,
but white, and finely formed.
She delivered a short prayer, and opened her text:
“Walk honestly; not in strife and envying.”
Just as the text was given out, Ruperta's maid pinched her, and the
young lady, looking up, saw her father coming to see what was the
matter. Maid was for hiding, but Ruperta made a wry face, blushed, and
stood her ground. “How can he scold me, when he comes himself?” she
whispered.
During the sermon, of which, short as it was, I can only afford to give
the outline, in crept Compton Bassett, and got within three or four of
Ruperta.
Finally Sir Charles Bassett came up, in accordance with his promise to
Angelo.
The perfect preacher deals in generalities, but strikes them home with
a few personalities.
Most clerical preachers deal only in generalities, and that is
ineffective, especially to uncultivated minds.
Mrs. Marsh, as might be expected from her sex, went a little too much
the other way.
After a few sensible words, pointing out the misery in houses, and the
harm done to the soul, by a quarrelsome spirit, she lamented there was
too much of it in Huntercombe: with this opening she went into
personalities: reminded them of the fight between two farm servants
last week, one of whom was laid up at that moment in consequence.
“And,” said she, “even when it does not come to fighting, it poisons
your lives and offends your Redeemer.”
Then she went into the causes, and she said Drunkenness and Detraction
were the chief causes of strife and contention.
She dealt briefly but dramatically with Drunkenness, and then lashed
Detraction, as follows:
“Every class has its vices, and Detraction is the vice of the poor. You
are ever so much vainer than your betters: you are eaten up with
vanity, and never give your neighbor a good word. I have been in thirty
houses, and in not one of those houses has any poor man or poor woman
spoken one honest word in praise of a neighbor. So do not flatter
yourselves this is a Christian village, for it is not. The only excuse
to be made for you, and I fear it is not one that God will accept on
His judgment-day, is that your betters set you a bad example instead of
a good one. The two principal people in this village are kinsfolk, yet
enemies, and have been enemies for twenty years. That's a nice example
for two Christian gentlemen to set to poor people, who, they may be
sure, will copy their sins, if they copy nothing else.
“They go to church regularly, and believe in the Bible, and yet they
defy both Church and Bible.
“Now I should like to ask those gentlemen a question. How do they mean
to manage in Heaven? When the baronet comes to that happy place, where
all is love, will the squire walk out? Or do they think to quarrel