Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/418

410 saint, or whether he’s a sinner, let him be of a cranky temper, thwarting you at every trick and turn, and you’ll see what sort of a paradise marriage is! Don’t you think I’m right, sir?”

Jan’s mouth was extended from ear to ear, laughing.

“I never tried it,” said he. “Were you to have been espoused by Brother Jarrum?” he asked, of Susan Peckaby.

“No, sir, I was not,” she answered, in much anger. “I did not favour Brother Jarrum. I’d prefer to pick and choose when I got there. But I had a great amount of respect for Brother Jarrum, sir, which I’m proud to own. And I don’t believe that he has served me this shameful trick of his own knowledge,” she added, with emphasis. “I believe there has been some unfortinate mistake, and that when he finds I’m not among the company he’ll come back for me. I’d go after them, only that Peckaby’s on the watch. I never see such a altered man as Peckaby: it had used to be as I could just turn him round my little finger, but he won’t be turned now.”

She finished up with a storm of sobs. Jan, in an ecstacy of mirth yet, offered to send her some cordials from the surgery, by way of consolation: not, however, the precise one suggested by Peckaby. But cordials had no charm in that unhappy moment for Mrs. Peckaby’s ear.

Jan departed. In quitting the door he encountered a stranger, who inquired if that was Peckaby’s shop. Jan fancied the man looked something the cut of Brother Jarrum, and sent him in. His coat and boots were white with dust. Looking round on the assembled women when he reached the kitchen, the stranger asked which was Mrs. Peckaby. Mrs. Peckaby looked up, and signified that she was.

“I have a message from the saint and elder, Brother Jarrum,” he mysteriously whispered in her ear. “It must be give to you in private.”

Mrs. Peckaby, in a tremble of delight, led the stranger to a small shed in the yard, which she used for washing purposes, and called the back’us. It was the most private place she could think of, in her fluster. The stranger, propping himself against a broken tub, proceeded, with some circumlocution and not remarkable perspicuity of speech, to deliver the message with which he was charged. It was to the effect that a vision had revealed to Brother Jarrum the startling fact, that Susan Peckaby was not to go out with the crowd at present on the wing. A higher destiny awaited her. She would be sent for in a different manner—in a more important form; sent for special, on a quadruped. That is to say, on a white donkey.

“On a white donkey?” echoed the trembling and joyful woman.

“On a white donkey,” gravely repeated the brother—for that he was another brother of the community, there could be little doubt. “What the special honour intended for you may be, me and Brother Jarrum don’t pertend to guess at. It’s above us. May be you are fated to be chose by our great prophet hisself. Any how, it’s something at the top of the tree.”

“When shall I be sent for, sir?” eagerly asked Mrs. Peckaby.

“That ain’t revealed neither. It may be next week—it mayn’t be for a year; you must always be on the look-out. One of these days or nights, you’ll see a white donkey a-standing at your door. It’ll be the messenger for you from New Jerusalem. You mount him without a minute’s loss of time, and come off.”

But that Mrs. Peckaby’s senses were exalted, just now, far above the level of ordinary mortals’, it might have occurred to her to inquire whether the donkey would be endowed with the miraculous power of bearing her over the sea. No such common question presented itself. She asked another.

“Why couldn’t Brother Jarrum have told me this hisself, sir? I have been a’most mad this morning, ever since I found as they had gone.”

The brother—this brother—turned up the whites of his eyes.

“When unknown things is revealed to us, and mysterious orders give, they never come to us a minute afore the time,” he replied. “Not till Brother Jarrum was fixing the night of departure, did the vision come to him. It was commanded him that it should be kept from you till the rest were off, and then he were to send back to tell you—and many a mile I’ve come! Brother Jarrum and me has no doubt that it is meant as a trial of your faith.”

Nothing could be more satisfactory to the mind of Mrs. Peckaby, than this explanation. Had any mysterious vision appeared to herself, showing her that it was false, commanding her to disbelieve it, it could not have shaken her faith. If the white donkey arrived at her door that very night, she would be sure to mount him.

“Do you think it ’ll be very long, sir, that I shall have to wait?” she resumed, feverishly listening for the answer.

“My impression is, that it ’ll be very short,” was the reply. “And it’s Brother Jarrum’s also. Any way, you be on the look-out—always prepared. Have a best robe at hand, continual, ready to clap on, the instant the quadruped appears, and come right away to New Jerusalem.”

In the openness of her heart, Mrs. Peckaby offered refreshment to the brother. The best her house afforded: which was not much. Peckaby should be condemned to go foodless for a week, rather than that he should depart fasting. The brother, however, declined: he appeared to be in a hurry to leave Deerham behind him.

“I’d not disclose this to anybody if I was you,” was his parting salutation. “Leastways, not for a day or two. Let the ruck of ’em embark first at Liverpool. If it gets wind, some of them may be for turning crusty, because they are not favoured with special animals, too.”

Had the brother recommended Susan Peckaby to fill the tub with water, and stand head downwards in it for a day or two, she was in the mood to obey him. Accordingly, when questioned by Mrs. Duff, and the other curious ones, what had been the business of the stranger, she