Fate
decreed otherwise. In the morning he was asked by his wife to go with her
to the village; she wanted some advice. He did not ask what, but said,
"Of course. I am to try the barber's assistant I have brought from the
mills to shave me, and what is more important--Westways. I have put him
in our poor old Josiah's shop."
They went together to Pole's, and returning she stopped before the
barn-like building where Grace gathered on Sundays a scant audience to
hear the sermons which Rivers had told him had too much heart and too
little head.
"What is it?" asked Penhallow.
"I have heard, James, that their chapel (she never called it church) is
leaking--the roof, I mean. Could not you pay for a new roof?"
"Of course, my dear--of course. It can't cost much. I will see Grace
about it."
"Thank you, James." On no account would she now have done this herself.
She was out of touch for the time with the whole business of politics,
and to have indulged her usual gentle desire to help others would have
implied obligation on the part of the Baptist to accept her wish that he
should vote and use his influence for Buchanan. Now the thing would be
done without her aid. In time her desire to see the Democrats win in the
interest of her dear South would revive, but at present what with Grey
and the threat of the practical application of the Fugitive-Slave Act and
her husband's disgust, she was disposed to let politics alone.
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