Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependents, and who neither knew nor sought one of their innate excellencies, and appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr St John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me: yet it became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window-recess which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study; and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my inquiry – for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his – when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.
Looking up as I drew near – ‘You have a question to ask of me?’ he said.
‘Yes, I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to undertake?’
‘I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy here – as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure – I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.’
‘And they will go in three days now?’ I said.
‘Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton; Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up.’
I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection: his look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me.
‘What is the employment you had in view, Mr Rivers? I hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it.’
‘Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and you to accept.’
He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.
‘You need be in no hurry to hear,’ he said: ‘let me frankly tell you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice, early given, that if I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father’s debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependent’s crust among strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native country – not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that Church militant2 of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word, “Rise, follow Me!”’
St John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of glance. He resumed –
‘And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity. You may even think it degrading – for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but I consider that no service degrades which can better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where