



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive







THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED

By Frank Frankfort Moore

Author of “The Jessamy Bride,”

“I Forbid the Bans,”

“The Fatal Gift,” “The Millionaire,”

“Our Fair Daughter,” etc., etc.

Illustrated By H. B. Matthews

New York Empire Book Company Publishers

1907

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THE LOVE THAT PREVAILED




CHAPTER I

The old church ways be good enough for me,” said Miller Pendelly as
he placed on the table a capacious jug of cider, laying a friendly left
hand on the shoulder of Jake Pullsford, the carrier, as he bent across
the side of the settee with the high back.

“I ne'er could see aught that was helpful to the trade of a smith in
such biases as the Quakers, to name only one of the new-fangled sects,”
 said Hal Holmes, the blacksmith, shaking his head seriously. “So I holds
with Miller.”

“Ay, that's the way too many of ye esteems a religion--' Will it
put another crown in my pocket?' says you. If't puts a crown in your
pocket, 'tis a good enough religion; if 't puts half-a-crown in your
pocket, 'tis less good; if't puts naught in your pocket, that religion is
good for naught.”

The speaker was a middle-aged man with a pair of large eyes which seemed
to vary curiously in colour, sometimes appearing to be as grey as steel,
and again of a curious green that did not suit everybody's taste
in eyes. But for that matter, Jake Pullsford, the carrier, found it
impossible to meet everybody's taste in several other ways. He had a
habit of craning forward his head close to the face of anyone to whom he
was speaking, and this movement had something of an accusing air, about
it--occasionally a menacing air--which was distinctly distasteful to
most people, particularly those who knew that they had good reason to be
accused or to be menaced.

“Jake Pullsford goes about the world calling his best friends liars
without the intent to hurt their feelings,” was the criticism passed
upon him by Miller Pendelly. Other critics were not so sure on the
subject of his intent. He had never shown himself to be very careful of
the feelings of his friends.

“The religion that puts naught in thy pocket is good for naught--that's
what you be thinking of, Hal Holmes,” he said, thrusting his head close
to the face of the smith. But the smith did not mind. The man that
spends most of his days hammering out and bending iron to his will,
usually thinks good-naturedly of one who uses words and phrases as
arguments.

“I don't gainsay thee, Jake,” he replied. “If you know what's in my
thought better than I do myself, you be welcome to the knowledge.”

“I meant not thee in special, friend,” said Jake. “What I say is that
there are too many in these days that think of religion only for what it
may bring to them in daily life--folk that make a gain of godliness.”

“And a right good thing to make a gain of, says I,” remarked the miller
with a confidential wink into the empty mug which he held--it had been
full a moment before.

“Ay, you be honest, miller: you allow that I am right and you have
courage enough to praise what the Book condemns,” said Jake.

“Look'ee here, friend,” said the miller, in his usual loud voice--the
years that he had spent in his mill had caused him to acquire a voice
whose tone could successfully compete with the creaking and clattering
of the machinery. “Look'ee here, friend Jake, 'twould be easy enough for
you or me that has done moderate well for ourselves in life, to turn up
our eyes in holy horror at the bare thought of others being godly for
what they may gain in daily life, but for myself, I would not think that
I was broaching a false doctrine if I was to say to my son, 'Young
man, be godly and thou 'll find it to bring gain to thee.' What, Jake,
would 'ee have a man make gain out of ungodliness?”

“Ay, that's a poser for him, miller: I've been thinking for that
powerful proposal ever since the converse began,” said a small man who
had sat silently smoking in a high-backed chair. He was one who had
the aspect of unobtrusiveness, and a figure that somehow suggested to
strangers an apologetic intention without the courage ever to put it
in force. His name was Richard Pritchard, and he was by profession
a water-finder--a practitioner