THE YOUNG CLERGYMAN. 591 



CHAPTER IV. THE HUSBAND. 



" Yet for each ravaged charm of earth, some pitying power had giv'n 

 Beauty of more than mortal birth a spell that breath'd of Heav'n ; 

 And as she bent, resign'd and meek, beneath the chastening blow, 

 With all a martyr's fervid faith her features seem'd to glow." 



FOR nearly two years James Edwards devoted himself to his 

 duties, without venturing to abstract himself from the sphere of his 

 utility. His curacy, though affording so scanty a remuneration, 

 was extensive, and inhabited principally by store-farmers and 

 shepherds. The dwellings of his people were thinly scattered over a 

 wide hilly country ; and though the simple and primitive manners of 

 the inhabitants removed them -from many sources of vice, still this 

 very circumstance rendered his duties the more onerous. No family 

 event of importance could take place, even in the humblest cot of 

 his parishioners, but the minister was either a witness or an adviser. 

 With them, deaths, burials, marriages, and christenings were looked 

 upon as seasons particularly requiring the assiduous attention of him 

 who had the care of their spiritual welfare; and the bed of sickness, 

 and the house of misfortune, derived their principal consolation from 

 his visits and exhortations. 



Thus occupied, his thoughts were prevented from dwelling so 

 exclusively, as they otherwise would have done, upon Mary. Still, 

 there were times and seasons when the philosophy of his religion, 

 and the philosophy of reason, were insufficient to hinder him from 

 feeling acutely on the subject. Her goodness, her purity, her 

 forgetfulness of self, filled him with admiration, and kept alive his 

 most strenuous efforts to enlarge his means. Placed however as he 

 was, there appeared but little prospect of this; and at the beginning 

 of the third year of his absence, he resolved to visit his betrothed, 

 though his determination had long been made not to venture into her 

 presence, until he could hold out some immediate prospect of sharing 

 with her his joys and his sorrows. 



It was at the close of a magnificent day, about Midsummer, that 



James again trod the precincts of the rectory of R , which had 



been the home of his youth, and the scene of his day-dream of 

 happiness. Every thing appeared precisely in the same state as 

 when he had left it the rectory, the church, the ancient turnstile, 

 the winding field-road, and a crowd of happy yet sorrowful remi- 

 niscences filled his mind. Not a spot but which was endeared to him 

 by the remembrance of his venerable father or of Mary Jennings ; 

 and so powerful were the associations which came over him, that he 

 expected at every step to hear the light foot-fall that had once 

 been the constant attendant of his own in the walk he was now 

 pursuing. 



The evening was splendidly lovely, and the rich twilight had 

 enshrouded the landscape, as he reached the narrow lane leading to 

 Mrs. Jennings's cottage. His heart beat fast, as every well-remem- 

 bered copse, hedge-row, and tree was seen in the dim and quiet 

 light. Not a sound was abroad, save the rustle of the dying breeze in 



