The Distracted Preacher Read Online Free Page B

silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from any part of it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the open space of the door: “Mrs. Newberry!” still no answer, or movement of any kind within. Then he heard sounds from the opposite room, that of Lizzy’s mother, as if she had been aroused by his uproar though Lizzy had not, and was dressing herself hastily. Stockdale softly closed the younger woman’s door and went on to the other, which was opened by Mrs. Simpkins before he could reach it. She was in her ordinary clothes, and had a light in her hand.
    â€œWhat’s the person calling about?” she said, in alarm.
    Stockdale told the girl’s errand, adding seriously, “I cannot wake Mrs. Newberry.”
    â€œIt is no matter,” said her mother. “I can let the girl have what she wants as well as my daughter.” And she came out of the room and went down-stairs.
    Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to Mrs. Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, “I suppose there is nothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not wake her?”
    â€œOh no,” said the old lady, hastily. “Nothing at all.”
    Still the minister was not satisfied. “Will you go in and see?” he said. “I should be much more at ease.”
    Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter’s room, and came out again almost instantly. “There is nothing at all the matter with Lizzy,” she said, and descended again to attend to the applicant, who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during this interval.
    Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard Lizzy’s mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the murmured discourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for the medicament required. The girl departed, the door was fastened, Mrs. Simpkins came up-stairs, and the house was again in silence. Still the minister did not fall asleep. He could not get rid of a singular suspicion, which was all the more harassing in being, if true, the most unaccountable thing within his experience. That Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom when he made such a clamor at her door he could not possibly convince himself, notwithstanding that he had heard her come up-stairs at the usual time, go into her chamber, and shut herself up in the usual way. Yet all reason was so much against her being elsewhere that he was constrained to go back again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, though he had heard neither breath nor movement during a shouting and knocking loud enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers.
    Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and did not awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the morning, before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to do when the weather was fine; but as this was by no means unusual, he took no notice of it. At breakfast-time he knew that she was not far off by hearing her in the kitchen, and though he saw nothing of her person, that back apartment being rigorously closed against his eyes, she seemed to be talking, ordering, and bustling about among the pots and skimmers in so ordinary a manner that there was no reason for his wasting more time in fruitless
surmise.
    The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporized sermons were not improved thereby. Already he often said Romans for Corinthians in the pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped metres that hitherto had always been skipped because the congregation could not raise a tune to fit them. He fully resolved that as soon as his few weeks of stay approached their end he would cut the matter short, and commit himself by proposing a definite engagement, repenting at leisure if necessary.
    With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after her mysterious sleep that they should take a walk together just before dark, the latter part