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Title: Miss Lavender's boy
and other sketches
Author: Amy Le Feuvre
Release date: November 6, 2026 [eBook #79937]
Language: English
Original publication: London: R. T. S., 1906
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79937
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS LAVENDER'S BOY ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: "IF I CAN'T STOP FATHER FIGHTING SAM,
WHY I'LL FIGHT YOU MYSELF."]
Miss Lavender's Boy
And Other Sketches
BY
AMY LE FEUVRE
AUTHOR OF
"PROBABLE SONS," "HEATHER'S MISTRESS," "ODD,"
"ODD MADE EVEN," ETC.
THIRD IMPRESSION
R.T.S. 4 Bouverie Street, London, E.C. 4
STORIES BY
AMY LE FEUVRE.
Dreamikins Joy Cometh in the Morning
Us and Our Charge Odd
Us and Our Donkey A Puzzling Pair
Us and Our Empire Teddy's Button
Harebell's Friend A Thoughtless Seven
Bulbs and Blossoms A Bit of Rough Road
Bunny's Friends Bridget's Quarter Deck
The Carved Cupboard The Château by the Lake
Dwell Deep A Daughter of the Sea
Eric's Good News Heather's Mistress
His Birthday Her Husband's Property
His Little Daughter Joyce and the Rambler
Jill's Red Bag The Making of a Woman
Laddie's Choice The Mender
Legend Led Odd made Even
A Little Listener Olive Tracy
A Little Maid On the Edge of a Moor
Me and Nobbles Probable Sons
THE R.T.S., 4, BOUVERIE STREET, LONDON, E.C. 4.
CONTENTS.
MISS LAVENDER'S BOY.
CHAP.
I. A YOUTHFUL ACQUAINTANCE
II. MISS LAVENDER'S STORY
III. A LIFE LAID DOWN
WHAT THE WIND DID.
I. NOT INTRODUCED
II. HIS STORY TOLD
III. HIS STORY INTERRUPTED
IV. OLD FRIENDS
V. HIS STORY FINISHED
"NUMBER TWA!"
I. THE SELECT MEETING
II. GRANNY'S SUBSTITUTE
"MESSAGES": A CHRISTMAS SKETCH.
I. CHRISTMAS CARDS
II. HECTOR MCDERMOT'S CHRISTMAS
III. CAPTAIN BREWSTER'S CHRISTMAS
IV. MISS CRAY'S CHRISTMAS
V. MRS. CALMEON'S CHRISTMAS
VI. MAURICE'S CHRISTMAS
HER FIRST AND LAST PLACE.
I. DEPARTURE
II. A SUMMONS
WHAT MADE HIM SPEAK?
I. HER HOME
II. THE PASSWORD
III. TWO HEARTS
MISS ELIZA'S GREAT-COAT.
I. MISS ELIZA'S DREAD
II. MISS ELIZA'S ADVENTURE
DAVID AND HIS GIANT.
I. "ME AND BLAZERS"
II. "SO DAVID PREVAILED"
Miss Lavender's Boy
And Other Sketches
MISS LAVENDER'S BOY.
CHAPTER I.
A YOUTHFUL ACQUAINTANCE.
SHE was a little old lady who always shrank into the background, and
her voice faded away into a nervous whisper if anyone addressed her.
She was frightened of most people and most things, and was ruled
entirely at home by an old faithful servant. And if people will always
take a back seat, and never assert themselves in any way, the world
will never bring them forward. They live and die their quiet retiring
lives, with few to discover their sweet unselfishness and self-denying
acts.
For seventy-five years it had been so with Miss Lavender Wedgewood.
She was too shy to make friends; she thought herself too dull and
insignificant for anyone to notice, and in consequence, her life was a
lonely one.
Miss Lavender, as most people called her, lived near a common, and on
fine afternoons she would often walk out and take a seat under some
old tree, where she would wistfully watch the boys at cricket and the
children at play.
One day she was sitting on her favourite seat, when a sturdy
rosy-cheeked boy in knickerbocker suit, who appeared slightly lame,
came up and shared it with her. Pulling a well-worn book out of his
pocket, he commenced to read, and every now and then a low chuckle
would tell how much he was enjoying it.
Now, Miss Lavender—strange though it may seem—had a great affection
for boys. She liked to watch them at their play; she laughed at
their mirth. She longed to speak to them, and yet had never plucked
up courage to do so. She now stole sidelong glances at her young
companion, but started violently when, looking up, the boy said
confidentially—
"What an awful duffer he was to forget his key, wasn't he?"
"I'm not quite sure who 'he' is," said Miss Lavender very nervously.
"Is it somebody in your book?"
"Yes—you know—Christian, in the giant's dungeon."
Miss Lavender brightened up at once.
"Are you reading the 'Pilgrim's Progress?' I always am so fond of it."
"It's stunning! I never read it before. Christian seems an awfully
unlucky chap; he's always getting into scrapes. Do you know if it ends
up all right?"
"Yes, beautifully;" and Miss Lavender repeated softly to herself: "'And
after that they shut up the gates: which when I had seen, I wished
myself among them.'"
It was a strange commencement to a conversation. But before long,
the boy laid aside his book, and, leaning back with outstretched
legs, and hands well down in his pockets, was telling Miss Lavender
all about himself. How he had only lately come from India, and was
at a boarding-school the other side of the common; how a week or two
ago he had sprained his knee at cricket, and had been treated as an
invalid since; and how one of the masters had given him the "Pilgrim's
Progress" to read.
"There's a half-holiday to-day," he continued, "and the chaps are
out at a paper-chase. I can't run yet; just you feel my knee-cap how
it wobbles! I can tell you it's as bad as a tooth being hauled out
sometimes. Ever twisted your knee-cap? No—ah, you wait till you do."
This and more was poured out, and Miss Lavender, with a pink flush on
her old cheeks like a girl's, listened and sympathised, and so won
the little fellow's confidence that, when he rose to go, he stuck out
rather a dirty paw for a handshake, saying—
"If you come here after four o'clock any afternoon, you'll find me, and
I'll tell you about my time in India. Do you live here? I like to talk
to you, because you don't jaw!"
Miss Lavender returned home that afternoon feeling as if a new era
had begun in her life. And her old servant Martha muttered to herself
whilst clearing away, her tea—
"Hope as she isn't gettin' in her dotage; never saw her smile to
herself and shake her head so much before. Must be somethin' wrong with
her poor brain, I fears."
Miss Lavender was punctually at the trysting-place for the next two
days, and she and her young acquaintance Frank were soon fast friends.
As they were parting the second day, he looked up at her rather
hesitatingly.
"I say, I don't want to be rude, you know, but I should be awfully
obliged if you could just ask me to tea one half-holiday. You see,
all the other chaps have relations asking them out, and I haven't
a soul. Mine are in India, you know. Don't say I asked you to, but
if you thought you could manage it, you just write a note, and I'll
take it back to Mrs. Stone. She's a good old soul, and I know she'll
let me come, for I've just told her about you; and she knows you're
respectable, for she has seen the back of you in church!"
Miss Lavender said she would be delighted to see him, and promised to
bring the desired note the next day. And then she went home, and, as
she broke the news to her old servant that she was expecting a young
gentleman to tea on the following Saturday, her voice trembled with
excitement and nervousness combined.
Martha looked sternly at her. Was this the cause of her mistress's
changed behaviour lately? Were the smiles, and the restless mutterings,
and the hours spent out of doors every afternoon, all connected with
this youth? Could it be possible that some base young man, knowing of
Miss Lavender's comfortable little income, had laid siege to her simple
maiden heart?
"A young gentleman, mum! And may I ask his age?"
"I really—don't quite know, Martha. I have not asked him. I could not
be—er—too inquisitive. I should not like to hurt his feelings."
Miss Lavender quailed before her old servant's eye.
"And may I—without being too bold—ask his name, mum?"
"I—er—well, I don't quite know, Martha. I did not like to ask;
but—er—his Christian name is Frank."
Martha looked at her mistress, closed her lips firmly, and marched out
of the room, whilst Miss Lavender sat down all in a flutter to write a
note.
"I know Martha doesn't like boys, but I think she will like this one.
It is rather awkward not knowing his surname; but boys have sensitive
feelings, and unless he volunteers to tell me, I shall not allude to
it. I am sure if I call him Frank, his schoolmistress will know whom I
mean."
CHAPTER II.
MISS LAVENDER'S STORY.
IT was the end of summer, so Miss Lavender had a fire in her
old-fashioned sitting-room, which looked very cosy and quaint, with
some bright flowers and plants scattered amongst the antique cabinets
and china. The canary sang his loudest in his gilt cage on the window
seat, and Miss Lavender herself, in her best black silk dress and
Sunday cap and ribbons, sat in her state chair, nervously awaiting the
arrival of her guest.
Martha had preserved a grim silence all day, but Miss Lavender was so
absorbed and delighted with her new friendship that she paid but little
attention to her servant's ill-humour.
Punctually as the clock struck four there was a thundering knock at the
door. But Martha's face was a study as she ushered into her mistress's
presence the small boy in knickerbockers.
He came in perfectly at his ease, with shining hair, snow-white collar
and cuffs, and hands that were red with the extra scrubbing they had
received.
"Oh, I say, this is stunning; it's almost as good as a bungalow!" were
his first words after his greeting. "Have you any dogs?"
"Oh no; I don't care much for animals. I don't even keep a cat, because
I have heard such dreadful stories of them going mad. I am a little
frightened of them, you see, and I think they may know it, and keep
away from me."
Frank walked round the room, and asked innumerable questions about
everything he saw. But when tea came, he grew more silent—only the
quiet content in his eyes, and the amount he managed to stow away,
told his appreciation of the hot tea-cakes, the almond cake, and the
preserves and honey that adorned his hostess's table. After tea was
over, he planted himself in a cushioned chair by the fire, and Miss
Lavender, knitting in hand, took a seat opposite him.
Then they began to talk, and at length Frank said—
"You're very fond of boys, aren't you? What a pity I didn't know you
before! I might have come to tea every Saturday all these months. I
came to school last spring, and I've been awfully homesick, I can tell
you."
"Yes, I'm fond of boys," Miss Lavender responded; "and you remind me so
of what my brother was at your age."
"Oh, do tell me about him! Where is he?"
"He died some years ago. He and I and a great friend of his always
played together when we were children. I always liked boys best, even
when I was a little girl; and I dare say you will think it strange I
did, for I was such a timid nervous child."
Miss Lavender paused, then went on slowly, as she looked into the
fire—"I lived a very quiet life in the country with an aunt. I had
lessons with a resident governess, but all the holidays I enjoyed
myself with my brother and his friend. When we grew up, my brother went
out to India—he had a post in the Indian Civil Service; but, before he
went, he told me he would come back in five years and take me out to
keep house for him.
"'Now, mind, Lavy,' he said, 'I shall expect to find you ready to come
back with me in five years' time.'
"And then he said he would never have any one but me keep house for
him. And I was young and foolish, and I made a vow in my heart that I
would never disappoint him."
There was another pause.
"And did he come back? And what did his friend do?" asked Frank, with
interest.
Miss Lavender's voice trembled slightly as she continued—
"His friend wanted to marry me, and take me out to America with him.
But I told him of my promise to my brother, and I sent him away. No,
my brother never came back. He married four years after he had got out
there, and for twenty years I never heard from him. Then his wife died,
and he wrote to me saying he would come home soon."
"And did he?"
"No; two years after, he married again, and a few years later, he died
of fever."
"And what about his friend?"
"I never heard anything more of him until I saw his death in the paper
many years afterwards. I have outlived them both, you see."
And Miss Lavender smiled tremulously, though there were bright drops
quivering at the end of her eyelashes.
Frank looked sorry for her; then, boy-like, turned the conversation to
more cheerful subjects, and they soon began talking over the "Pilgrim's
Progress."
"You think of the meaning of it all, don't you?" asked Miss Lavender.
"No, I don't bother about that. Does it mean we have all Christian's
difficulties when we try to be good? But it isn't half such a jolly
life for us. You see, he had such a lot of adventures. If I could
really travel as he did, and find my way to heaven in his way, I would
set out to-morrow, wouldn't you?"
"I started long ago," said Miss Lavender, softly; "and I often think of
myself as Little-faith, or Feeble-mind, or Much-afraid. It is a comfort
all the Lord's pilgrims are not alike, for I should feel quite hopeless
if I knew I must be like Christian, or Hopeful, or Valiant. And I feel
I have my Great-heart going in front of me, so I ought never to fear."
"Who is He?" asked the boy.
"The Lord Jesus Christ Himself. You will never get on without Him, my
dear."
"But if I'm strong and bold, I shan't want a Mr. Great-heart. He only
took care of the women and children."
"Do you think you are stronger than the devil?"
"I—I suppose not."
"Do you always find it easy to do the right and leave the wrong alone?"
"Well, no, not exactly."
"I am only an old woman," said Miss Lavender, looking at the bright
eager boy with a loving smile, "but I think that if our Lord Himself
told His disciples—and they were men, remember—'Without Me ye can do
nothing,' well—He meant it—don't you think?"
"I suppose so," Frank said slowly.
Miss Lavender said no more. She took out some quaint old albums and
showed them to her young guest. And then they had a game of backgammon
together. Time slipped away, and when Frank wished his hostess
good-night, he said with emphasis—
"I've had a jolly evening, and you'll ask me again, won't you?"
"You shall come every Saturday if you like," said Miss Lavender.
And when the boy had gone, she turned to her old servant with a radiant
face.
"Oh, Martha, he makes me feel quite young again; and he does remind me
so of Mr. Harry!"
CHAPTER III.
A LIFE LAID DOWN.
MISS LAVENDER and Frank became firm friends. Many a dainty gift found
its way into the boy's pockets, and if he had nothing substantial to
give in return, his honest affection for the frail little old lady, and
his light-hearted buoyancy of spirits, seemed to give her, as she said,
a new lease of life.
One evening he was talking to her of his parents in India.
"I hope to go back when I'm grown up, and help father. He is a judge,
you know; and he's very good to me, for he's only a stepfather, and
I've heard step-fathers can be horrid if they choose."
"Do you remember your own father?"
"No; he died when I was only a few days old. But I wear a little silver
locket with his photo in it on my watch-chain. Would you like to see
it?"
Miss Lavender bent forward to look at it, and then every vestige of
colour left her face.
"It is Harry!" she gasped. "Quick! What was your father's name?"
"Henry Wedgewood."
Miss Lavender sat down and burst into tears.
"I might have known it! You are the very image of him. Oh, why wasn't I
told he had a son?"
Frank looked thoroughly bewildered.
"Are you my aunt, then? Do you know, I never knew your name was
Wedgewood; everybody always calls you Miss Lavender. And you never
asked me what my surname was, or else we would have found it out
before. This is a spree!"
Miss Lavender was some minutes recovering herself. She called Martha
in, and that worthy, who had long ago become reconciled to having a boy
in and out of the house, was quite as much affected as her mistress.
"It's what you may call natural instinct," she said, "your findin' and
pickin' him out of all the school to come and see you."
"It is rather God's guiding Hand," said Miss Lavender, quietly. And
then she added, "I'm afraid it is my own fault in not knowing about
you, because I never corresponded with your mother. Of course, I wrote
to her at the time of dear Harry's death, but I suppose she was too
upset and ill to answer me, especially if you had only just appeared on
the scene. And then when I heard she had married again, I am afraid I
lost all interest in her."
"And now I can call you Aunt Lavender, and come here oftener than
ever!—And, I say, do you think you would be able to have me the whole
of the Christmas holidays, instead of my staying at school? Because I'm
your nephew now, and that would be quite proper, wouldn't it?"
And then the warm-hearted boy threw his arms round his aunt, and gave
her a regular schoolboy's hug, exclaiming—
"You are the dearest, tiniest, nicest little aunt that ever I could
want, and I like you next best to mother!"
Miss Lavender was so delighted with this happy discovery that she
came out of her shell, and stopped to speak to one or two of her
acquaintances of her own accord, to tell them the wonderful story,
instead of shrinking past them, as was her usual custom, with a hurried
nervous bow.
And when the Christmas holidays came, they found Frank happily
established in Miss Lavender's tiny house. Sometimes Martha would
remonstrate with her mistress, when she considered he was unduly
indulged—
"You spoil him completely, mum. I do b'lieve that you would give your
life for him," she said one day.
And Martha often thought in after years of the expression on her
mistress's face as she turned to her and said, with deep feeling—
"I do believe I would, if it were necessary, Martha, but if you knew
what my life has been for so many years, and the difference in it now,
you would not wonder I feel as if I could not do enough for him."
It was only a few evenings before he returned to school that Frank met
with an accident. Boy-like, he was very fond of using a knife, and, in
attempting to carve a small bracket for Miss Lavender, he discarded
his usual tools impatiently, and ran out into the kitchen to borrow a
sharper knife than he possessed. He was gone rather a long time, and
then suddenly Miss Lavender heard Martha scream. Rushing out, she saw
Frank vainly trying, with Martha's help, to staunch the bleeding from a
severe cut in his hand.
Miss Lavender hastily lent her aid, but their efforts were quite
unavailing. And presently, the boy, getting whiter and whiter, dropped
down at their feet in a dead faint.
"I'm afraid he's cut an artery," said Martha in a frightened tone—being
rather skilful in surgery—"it is bleeding in such spurts. We must have
a doctor immediately. What shall we do?"
"I will go at once," poor Miss Lavender said, trembling from head to
foot; for the sight of blood, at all times, was terrible to her, and
she firmly believed he was bleeding to death.
"I believe you had better, mum; my rheumatics is so bad, I should be
twice as long as you on the road. I'll do my best while you are gone,
but it's nigh on three miles to the doctor's. If only we were nearer
the village! I'm at my wit's end to know what to do!"
Miss Lavender had already disappeared. Hurriedly she flung on her
bonnet and cloak, and with only her thin house-shoes on, started on
her dreary journey. It was a cold, frosty night in January. The keen
air caught her breath as she ran. The dark, lonely country lanes had
no terror for her; all her energies, all her thoughts, were with her
darling boy.
"O God!" she gasped. "Give me strength to get there! Save him at all
costs, if it be Thy will."
She had never been a great walker, and the way seemed interminable;
sometimes running, sometimes stopping to gasp for breath, once or twice
tripping and measuring her length on the ground, still the brave little
lady held indomitably on. Praying and struggling, striving to cover the
distance in as short a time as it was possible for any human being to
do it, at length she reached the doctor's house.
But when the servant opened the door, an unconscious figure dropped
on the threshold, and brandy and restoratives had to be administered
before Miss Lavender's errand could be known. The doctor told her she
must stay still at his house, for she was not in a fit condition to
return with him. But her anguish and distress were so great at this
that he relented, and in a very short time his brougham was rolling
through the lanes with Miss Lavender's exhausted and trembling little
frame huddled up in a big rug in the corner.
Home was reached at last, and Martha was still only partially
succeeding in staunching the flow of blood.
Miss Lavender was forgotten in the bustle that ensued.
"An ugly gash," was the doctor's verdict, after he had successfully
bandaged and dressed the boy's hand. "A quarter of an hour later, and I
should not like to have answered for the consequence. He'll do nicely
after a bit; put him to bed and keep him quiet."
And then he went, after advising Martha to look after her mistress,
and, if she were suffering the next day from the effects of her walk,
to send for him without delay.
"I shall be all right presently," said Miss Lavender, faintly, as
Martha came up to her and urged her to come to bed. "We must thank God
I was in time. He was very good to me."
She would not go to bed till she had been in to see Frank. He had
recovered from his faint, and was lying quiet and very subdued in his
small cot, but smiled up at her when she came in to him.
"Don't you worry over me," he said; "the doctor said I was all right
now. Did you think I was going to die?"
Miss Lavender sat down by him, as her limbs were trembling still; and
her face looked wan and white, with dark blue lines round her eyes and
mouth.
"God has spared you to live," she said with quivering lips; "have you
got past the cross yet, Frank? I should like to think you have."
Frank stared at her, but he understood her allusion, for they had had
many a talk about Christian's journey.
"Yes, auntie, I have, and I've had fights with Apollyon already."
"And never be ashamed of having Great-heart go before you, for you will
want Him when you come to the river. Shall we thank God together for
His goodness to us to-night?"
"Yes, auntie, if you're not too tired."
Something in Miss Lavender's tone made the boy uneasy. But she knelt
down at once, and there was silence for a minute.
Then in faltering tones—
"We thank Thee, our Father, for Thy goodness—the water is cold—but be
of good cheer. 'I feel the bottom, and it is good.'"
Her head sank, and Martha coming in that minute picked her up like a
child, saying to the frightened boy—
"She's tired out. It's only a faint, Master Frank; don't you be
afeared. I'll put her to bed, and she'll be quite well to-morrow."
But when she laid her frail little mistress on her own bed, Martha
discovered that she was quite well already; her tired feet had reached
the golden shore, and Miss Lavender was in the Celestial City, where
sorrow and sickness are unknown.
"Dear me, what a pitiful story!" said some of Miss Lavender's
acquaintances. "To think that she should have lost her life in running
to get a doctor to attend to a boy's cut finger! How unfortunate that
she was of such a nervous, frightened nature! What an unnecessary
strain she must have brought upon herself by her want of presence of
mind! A weak heart, the doctor says."
There was one that did not agree with them. And years after, a tall,
broad-shouldered young man stood looking down upon a quiet grave, with
a lump in his throat, and tears in his eyes, as he read again the
inscription—
IN LOVING MEMORY
OF
LAVENDER WEDGEWOOD,
WHO DEPARTED
JANUARY 28, 189—.
"Of whom the world was not worthy."
WHAT THE WIND DID.
CHAPTER I.
NOT INTRODUCED.
HE was only a clerk in a county bank. Morning by morning, punctually
at half-past nine, he would leave his lodgings in the quiet village
street, and take his twenty minutes' walk along the straight high road
that led to his destination. His clothes were shabby, but one glance
at his bright resolute face and clear frank blue eyes revealed a fresh
young spirit, as yet undaunted and untainted by contact with evil; and
he walked with a spring and vigour envied by many a passer-by.
It was a wild wet morning in March when first he met her. He had been
away for a week's holiday, and as he left his own doorstep, he saw a
little figure do the same from the lodgings over the way. He watched
her struggle on in front of him for some minutes, wondering how such
a small creature could grapple with such a large umbrella, and he
purposely slackened his pace to see the result.
The wind has no pity for weakness, and with a wild shriek of fiendish
delight, it bore down upon the frail little body. Seizing the umbrella
in its clutches, it whirled it into the air, whilst it made such a
furious onslaught on the little waterproof cloak that the owner of it
staggered, lost her balance, and fell headlong to the ground, a bag of
books discharging its contents in all directions.
"Is it a walking doll or a baby?" muttered the young fellow, as for a
moment the flying garments round the prostrate little figure made it
difficult to tell which end to hoist uppermost.
But when he had successfully set the little damsel on her feet, his
face softened with a wondering pity, as he met the gaze of one of the
sweetest children's faces that he had ever seen.
It was not the beauty of it that attracted him so much as the
wistfulness of the large grey eyes fringed with long curled lashes, and
the subdued and sensitive little mouth.
Such a tiny white face it was; and the dark tumbled curls that framed
it seemed to make it whiter in contrast. The lips began to quiver
and the eyes fill up with tears, but as he waited for the inevitable
childish wail to follow, he was astonished to see the tiny gloves
brushed across the face, and the child stand erect with an unsteady
smile.
"I won't cry," she said, looking at him gravely. "Will you catch my
umbrella?"
And when that somewhat difficult feat was accomplished, he found that
she had picked up her books, and with a pursed-up determined mouth was
marching steadily forwards again.
"I will hold the umbrella over you," he said; "we are going the same
way. How far have you to walk? Are you going to school? It is too rough
a morning for you to be out."
"That's what mother thought, but 'Becca said 'no'—that rough days made
things hardy, and I must learn to endure. And I haven't missed a day
since I began to go to school."
"What do you learn? Your A B C?"
"No," the child responded gravely. "I can read, but there seems a lot
to learn, doesn't there? I never knew the world was so big till I went
to school. How long did you take to learn the world?"
"I never learnt it at school," the young man said with a smile.
"'Becca says it's what I shall have to learn. She says jography is
knowing the places in the world, and history is knowing the people in
the world, and sums is knowing how to do business in the world, and
music is knowing how to amuse people in the world."
"Your 'Becca must be a character. Is she your sister?"
"Oh, no, she is older than mother. She's our nurse, I think, though we
don't call her 'nurse.' She nursed me when I was a baby, and now she
nurses mother when she is ill. 'Becca does everything, and mother and I
do what she tells us."
"And it is 'Becca who turns you out for a mile walk on a stormy morning
like this?"
"Yes," said the child softly. "'Becca says, if you begin a thing, you
must go on with it. And you see, I shall have to learn as quick as I
can, for I mean to be a governess and make money for mother!"
"Good Heavens!" was the ejaculation. "You ought to be in the nursery,
instead of talking about making money!"
There was silence after this. The little maiden stole furtive glances
up at her new friend through her long eyelashes, wondering if he were
displeased with her. She had hard work to keep pace with his rapid
strides, and presently heaved a deep sigh.
"I would like my umbrella again, please!"
"Eh? What? Ah, I see! I am going too fast for you. But I have plenty of
time, so take your own pace. How long have you been living opposite to
me?"
"We came here a week yesterday from London. Mrs. Stock, my
schoolmistress, used to be mother's governess. She lets me come to her
school without paying much. I like her, but the other girls are afraid
of her. I'm afraid of the girls. I don't like children, I think."
"Who do you like?"
"I like babies and dolls. You can hold them in your arms, and they
don't tease you. Don't you like babies?"
"I hate them. I believe I'm afraid of them."
A clear rippling laugh broke from the child.
"You are so funny! What is your name? I don't know what to call you."
"Rufus Tracy. Now I must know yours."
"Greta Clay is mine. My proper name is Margaret, but my mother has
always called me Greta, and 'Becca does too."
They chatted on between the gusts of wind and rain, and the walk
seemed to be half the distance to little Greta. She was deposited on
the school doorstep, and Rufus went to his desk in the bank, wondering
at his sudden interest in the welfare of this quaint, old-fashioned
child. He began to picture her in prosperous circumstances, growing
into a slim, graceful girl; the white pinched face filling out, and a
healthy bloom making her into a sparkling beauty. And then he laughed
at himself.
"Why should I feel such concern about her? She will swell the number
of women workers, and twenty years hence will have a careworn brow
with sharp features and short-sighted eyes, a down-trodden governess
with all her hopes and aspirations within the four walls of a grim
schoolroom! May God help her then, poor little soul!"
As he retraced his steps along the solitary high road later in the day,
he found his mind still reverting to her. And when he reached his room,
he instinctively moved across to the window and gazed upon the opposite
house with fresh interest in his eyes.
As his room was in the upper storey, he was able to look down upon a
firelight scene, which for the moment proved most attractive. On the
couch near the fire lay an invalid. Even at that distance he seemed
to see her gentleness and frailty; and kneeling by her side was the
little figure he had befriended on his way to business that morning.
The firelight shone on her curls, and by her animated gestures and
movements he concluded she was giving her mother an account of her
adventure. A third figure in the background was moving to and fro,
placing a tea-tray on the table, then lighting a lamp which revealed
the bareness and poverty of the room as the flickering firelight failed
to do, and then, coming towards the window, with a brisk pull, the
blind was lowered, and the picture for the time was blotted out.
Rufus Tracy gave a sigh, then took out his pipe, and, sitting down by
the fire, awaited his evening meal impatiently.
The next morning dawned bright and fair. Wind and rain were evils of
the past, and as he again wended his way to town, he whistled and sang
to himself from sheer exuberance of spirit.
It was not long before he descried the little figure ahead.
"Hullo!" he called out cheerily as he came up to her. "How are you this
morning?"
The child looked round with a frightened, flushed face, then raising
her chin in the air she walked steadily on as if he had not spoken.
"Have I frightened you?" he asked, with amusement.
There was no reply. The grey eyes were blinking nervously, but the
figure retained its erectness.
"Come, come, Greta, you mustn't snub me! What have I done that you will
not speak to me?"
Still no signs of relenting. Rufus whistled perplexedly, then, with a
laugh, exclaimed:
"I bet that old Tartar has told you not to speak to me; now, hasn't
she?"
He bent down to look into the flushed face, and noted the determination
of the firmly-closed lips, but not a word could he get from her, till
at last, when she reached the school, in desperation, he laid his hand
upon her shoulder.
"I promise not to speak to you again till you give me leave, if you
will only tell me why you are dumb this morning."
Then Greta, from her advantage of a flight of stone steps between
herself and him, turned and looked at him.
Her eyes were rapidly filling with tears, but shaking the glittering
drops from her long lashes, she spoke with perfect self-control:
"'Becca says it's not proper to talk to strange gentlemen without an
introduction."
And she turned her back upon him and walked in at the open door.
Half vexed, half amused, Rufus went on to his work, muttering as he did
so, "I am not going to take my dismissal so easily."
CHAPTER II.
HIS STORY TOLD.
THE following day was Saturday, when as a rule Rufus went off in the
afternoon for a long tramp with one of his fellow clerks. But he
declined all such proposals made to him before he left the bank, and,
after an early dinner at his lodgings, he arrayed himself in his best
suit of clothes, and marched boldly across to call on his opposite
neighbours.
A sharp knock at the door brought a slatternly maidservant.
"Is Mrs. Clay at home? I should like to see her. Will you take in my
card?"
The girl looked bewildered, and then showed him into the front
sitting-room, where Greta was seated by her mother's couch reading
aloud.
Her little face at once brightened with smiles.
"Mother, here is the gentleman who was so good to me and held the
umbrella."
Mrs. Clay looked up and gave the young man a gentle welcome. Before
long he was quite at home, carrying on an animated conversation with
mother and daughter. He was making Greta laugh with a reminiscence of
his boyish days, when the door opened suddenly and the redoubtable
"'Becca" appeared.
She was a tall, plain-featured woman, with a not unkindly face. But her
manner was severity itself when she saw the intruder, and timid Mrs.
Clay looked perturbed and frightened at once.
"It is Mr. Tracy, who lives opposite, Rebecca. He has taken such a
kindly interest in Greta that I have told him we shall be glad to see
him at any time."
Rebecca folded her arms and looked defiantly at the audacious young man.
"My mistress is not well enough to receive visitors. I fear this
interview will be too exciting for her."
Rufus rose at once.
"I am very sorry if I have fatigued you, Mrs. Clay. I trust your nurse
will forgive me. But now you know me and my antecedents, you will not
prohibit your little girl from speaking to me when we pass each other
on the road?"
"Certainly not," murmured Mrs. Clay, looking appealingly at her maid.
Greta sprang up from her seat, and putting her hand coaxingly upon
Rebecca's arm, said softly:
"Now, 'Becca, don't be cross. Mother and I are friends with Mr. Tracy;
will you be friends too?"
"I assure you I am respectable," said Rufus, the humour of the
situation bringing a mischievous sparkle to his eyes. "I am not a
housebreaker in disguise, nor have I any sinister designs on your
mistress or her daughter. Will it ease your mind if I tell you I am
the son of a clergyman, and that it is only lately I have come to this
neighbourhood? I am a lonely young man in want of friends. Shall I
promise never to enter this house again unless I am invited to do so? I
only wish to continue an acquaintance with my little friend here!"
"Miss Greta is in no want of such unequal friendship," said Rebecca
sternly.
"May I style myself her protector, then, from all the perils of that
solitary walk?"
"Perils! Fiddlesticks! Miss Greta must learn to take care of herself."
Rufus thought discretion was the better part of valour. So he bowed
himself out, quietly resolving not to be worsted by a woman.
And Monday morning found the little maiden and young man walking
cheerfully and contentedly into town together.
"'Becca is very kind, but she doesn't think like mother," said the
child shrewdly, "and as she manages us, mother tries to think like her.
'Becca says there are only two sorts of people in the world—those born
to be helped, and those born to help them. And 'Becca says I am born to
help people."
"I wonder which sort I am?" laughed Rufus. "You are a walking
dictionary of Rebecca's wisdom. How do you remember all her sage
remarks? She is bringing you up a veritable little Spartan."
"What is a Spartan?"
"A very unpleasantly proper child who never lets her feelings get the
better of her. Do you think your mother would let you come to tea with
me to-morrow night?"
Greta's eyes sparkled at the thought, then fell at the remembrance of
"'Becca."
"I'll try to let 'Becca make me come, but she—she doesn't like you—she
says young men think they are the lords of creation, but they are
slaves of self-will. I'll tell you what she says to-morrow morning."
Rebecca was won over, and punctually at five o'clock the next evening,
the little maiden stood on the doorstep opposite her own, and enquired
in a trembling voice for Mr. Rufus Tracy.
She was shown up to his room, and, came into it with a radiant face. It
was not a luxuriously furnished apartment, nor yet a very tidy one, but
Greta was charmed with the novelty of a bachelor's den. The smell of
tobacco and the row of pipes on the mantelpiece puzzled her sorely.
"Why do you smoke?" she asked presently, as, perched on a horsehair
sofa, she watched the stout landlady bring in the tea-tray. "Does it
warm your mouth? My mouth never feels cold."
"It keeps me in a good temper," was the laughing reply.
"Would it keep me from feeling cross when the girls tease me at school?"
Her questions ceased when she came to the tea-table. She thought she
had never seen such a grand tea. Hot steak and fried potatoes, shrimps
and water-cress, sardines and cheese, and a currant cake. Was there
ever such plentiful fare for two people only?
And Rufus, watching the little thin white face flush pink with
excitement, wondered if Rebecca was as chary with her food as with her
smiles.
"This is my dinner," he said, "and I have a hearty appetite, so you
must follow my example."
"But I have had my dinner," said the child. "I always have it
at school, and I never have anything but bread-and-butter and
milk-and-water for tea. Sometimes 'Becca lets me make toast, but she
says it takes too much butter for me to have often."
Tea passed off delightfully. Afterwards, Greta was shown photographs
and pictures. And then the two drifted off into talk, until, under the
spell of the child's sympathetic eyes, Rufus found himself telling her
his history.
"Once there were two boys who lost their father when quite young. And
their mother brought them up with the longing desire in her heart that
they might prove great men, and bring honour and glory to their name."
"What does that mean?" asked Greta with interest.
"Do something grand or noble to make their mother proud of them, and
win themselves fame in the world. The eldest one she meant to be a
clergyman. An old friend had promised to give him a very good living,
about £700 a year, so she sent him to Oxford, and thought of the time
when she might see him made a bishop. The younger one went into the
army, and he got on very fairly well, for he was sent out to India and
distinguished himself when only a subaltern. But the eldest son, alas!
turned out a failure. He wasn't cut out for a clergyman; he hated the
idea of it, and at last left college and told his mother it was waste
of money to keep him there.
"She was bitterly disappointed and very angry—justly or unjustly we
will not say. She told him that if he would not take up the profession
which was open to him, he must not expect her to keep him at home in
idleness, and she said she would have nothing more to do with him
if he refused to carry out her wishes. So one day when they were
talking about it, he told her he would go away. And he packed up his
portmanteau and left his home.
"And after a great struggle to keep himself alive on what used barely
to clothe him, he found an opening in a little country bank. And when
he got work, he began to get happy again. It was only in the evenings
he sometimes had sad thoughts about his mother. And so he was glad when
one day fortune threw across his path a little white-faced sprite. He
thought he would ask her to tea sometimes to cheer him up, and one
night she came."
"What was she like?" asked Greta eagerly. "How was she dressed?"
"She had a little tiny face with two big eyes, which always seemed
looking away into the future with big thoughts behind them. I think she
was dressed in a white pinafore and a blue sash, and she had a blue
bow amongst her curls. She looked sometimes as wise as Solomon, and
sometimes like a doll or baby. She had a trick of nursing her chin in
her hands, and of giving an important little shake to her head as she
spoke."
"She was dressed just like me," observed Greta thoughtfully. Then she
added: "Do finish the story. Did the mother come one day and take her
son home again? And did they live happily ever after?"
"Ah, that I don't know. The story is not finished."
"Who made it up? Is it a true story?"
"Yes, it is a true one."
"Oh, do let me make an end to it, may I? I do tell stories to mother
when 'Becca is out."
"Go ahead then."
And lounging back in his easy-chair, with his pipe in his mouth, Rufus
watched the expressive little face in the firelight.
"This poor son got sadder and sadder without his mother, and the little
spirit—was it?—No—sprite—she used to wipe his tears away and try to
comfort him, but she couldn't. And so one day, she flew away to his
mother and whispered in her ear all about her poor, sad son. And the
mother—she sat up straight in her chair, and she said,—
"'Tell him I'll come to him when he is ill.'
"So the sprite flew back, but she couldn't make the son ill, though she
tried hard. She put pins and stones in his coffee and tea; she pushed
him downstairs to break his leg; she poured a can of cold water over
him when he wasn't looking, but it was no good. And then she remembered
that it was God who made people ill, so she prayed to Him, and God sent
the son some scarlet fever. Then he was very ill, and the doctor said
he must die, so the sprite flew to his mother, and she came. And the
son put his arms round her neck, and said,—
"'Mother, I'll be a clergyman now.'
"And then God made him better, and he went home and lived happily ever
after."
"And what about the sprite?"
"Oh, she went back to the buttercups—she lived in one. A sprite is a
fairy, isn't it?"
"This one was not. I will finish the story. She grew up to be a
beautiful lady, and the son married her. Isn't that the proper ending?
He took her to a beautiful home, and they lived happily ever after."
Greta shook her head.
"'Becca says married people are the worst-off people in all the world.
She says everybody's troubles begin when they marry."
Rufus laughed scoffingly.
"'Becca is an old maid. They all talk like that. Ask her one day if
anybody has asked her to marry them, and see what she says."
"'Becca says life is an effort when you aren't married, but when you
are, it's a battle!"
The child delivered Rebecca's sentiments with such emphasis and gravity
that Rufus laughed again.
"We'll leave Rebecca; I don't find her interesting. Talk of something
else."
Greta looked up at him thoughtfully.
"Are you earning your living?" she asked.
"Yes; I am managing it first-rate, and saving a little as I go along.
You don't know what a screw I have become."
"Who are you saving it for? Your mother?"
Rufus smiled a little bitterly.
"My mother is very comfortable. She wants nothing that I can give her."
"Are you saving it for God?"
Rufus looked startled, then he laughed.
"You're the funniest little mortal I have ever come across! For whom
should I save money if not for myself? Haven't I the best right to it?
Isn't it mine for good and all? I am my own master, and I intend to be.
My life is what I shall choose to make it. I am not going to rust in
this country town for long; it is only the first step in the ladder.
You wait till I am a rich man, Greta, and then you will know the worth
of my savings!"
"I thought people who saved money for themselves were called misers,"
said Greta with a puzzled look. "And 'Becca says we live for other
people, not ourselves!"
"Hang Rebecca!"
Rufus's tone was irritable. Then seeing he had frightened the child, he
went on—
"I am saving money for my future wife, Greta. I shall spend it on a
nice house for her, and make her happy and comfortable for the rest of
her life."
"Where is she?"
"I don't quite know. Somewhere in the world, I suppose; but I haven't
met her yet."
They chatted on, and Greta went home that night with fresh thoughts and
ideas circulating through her busy brain.
"That dragon is training her to be a cold-blooded prig!" was Rufus's
mental ejaculation. "And yet how pretty the little mite looks as she
repeats her nurse's denunciations!"
As spring came, and following it the summer, many were the expeditions
that Rufus made with his little friend. And his happy, light-hearted
buoyancy infected the old-fashioned little maiden to such a degree that
her mother hardly knew her sometimes when her merry laugh rang through
the house.
"I think," Rufus said to Greta one Saturday afternoon, as he lay in the
depths of a bluebell wood and watched her careering round the bushes
after a butterfly, "that we have mutually benefited and improved each
other by our 'unequal friendship,' as 'Becca terms it. I have made you
younger, and you have made me older. There was room for improvement in
both of us!"
Greta stopped her play and regarded him seriously. "I don't quite
understand you, but 'Becca says I'm getting a romp."
"And I am becoming a prig," responded Rufus, a laughing light in his
dark eyes as he spoke. "But your wise speeches are making me think.
Imagine my musings in such a heavenly scene as this to be upon life,
and how to use it without wasting it! Come along, we will have a game
of hide-and-seek!"
There were times when, as he said, the little old-fashioned maiden
startled him by her earnest views of life. And though her remarks were
often only repetitions of 'Becca's theories, they were none the less
sapient and convincing.
CHAPTER III.
HIS STORY INTERRUPTED.
ONE Sunday morning, Greta tripped across to Rufus to ask him to take
her to church.
"Mother isn't well, and 'Becca is going to stay at home with her. I
don't like going alone; may I go with you?"
"I wasn't thinking of going this morning," Rufus responded; "it is too
lovely a day to be cooped up within four walls. But I'll come with you
if you like."
She waited till he had donned his Sunday coat, and then trotted
contentedly by his side up the country lane leading to the old village
church.
"Do you like going to church?" she asked presently.
"I don't know that I do. One goes from force of habit generally. It is
a mere form to me."
"What is a form? A wooden seat without a back, isn't it? You don't like
the seats, I s'pose?"
Rufus laughed.
"What takes you to church, Greta?"
Greta's face assumed a sweet, serious air.
"To meet God," she replied softly. "It's rather a long time to sit
still, but I like to sing and listen to the organ; and in the sermon I
look about for God."
"What on earth do you mean?"
"Well, I like to look up high in the roof till I fancy He is looking
down. And when I seem to know He is there, I just speak to Him a little
in a whisper, you know. I don't mean say my prayers, but I tell Him
little things that 'Becca wouldn't call proper if I put them in my
prayers."
"What kind of things?"
Greta did not answer for a moment, and Rufus, looking down upon the
sweet little face, felt an awe as he realised that this tiny child had
no difficulty in holding communion with the Almighty God, the Creator
of the Universe.
When she spoke again, it was in very sober accents.
"We have had a death in our family to-day."
Rufus looked startled.
"Not any near relation, I hope?"
"He was a very dear friend—Peter—my canary. He was ill yesterday, but
I thought he was sulky. He wouldn't eat his food, and this morning I
found him quite dead at the bottom of his cage. I cried dreadfully, for
I loved him next best to our cat Toodles. Peter was so good; he would
always sing to me when I chirped to him, even if it wasn't a sunny day.
And it must be difficult to sing when one is dull and it is raining and
people are very grave round one. I'm sure Peter was a bird who tried to
live for others, and please them and cheer them up.
"Mother often used to say, 'I wonder what makes him so happy?'
"'Becca says you can often sing yourself into a good humour if you try,
but I've never heard her sing."
"I should not think she carries her precepts into practice," said Rufus
with a grim smile. "You wouldn't call her a person whose aim in life
was to please other people and cheer them up!"
"Well," said Greta gravely, "she told me once you mustn't go by outside
looks. Some people are born into the world with grave faces, and some
with sunny ones, and you can't alter your looks. It is the heart, she
says, and your motives and pinnacles that are the important things!"
"Motives and principles," murmured Rufus, smiling.
Greta did not notice his correction, and went on: "I suppose there are
hardly any people who only live to please themselves, are there, Mr.
Tracy?"
"A good many, I think. And, after all, why should we not? If we are
single men and women with no family ties, who is there to think of
except ourselves?"
"I thought God told us in the Bible we weren't to do it," said Greta a
little shyly: "'Becca is always saying it to me—'For none of us liveth
to himself.'"
"Oh, well, if we gauged our life by the Bible, I suppose the world
would be a different place," said Rufus lightly. "Is that your motto,
Greta? I fancy your training is leading you that way."
"No, I'm always wanting to please myself, but I do try to help 'Becca
dust our room and wash up the things instead of playing with Toodles
first. When I grow up, I shall find it quite easy to live for others,
shan't I? It's only when you want to play or have a run, instead of
sitting still, that it's so difficult. I s'pose all children can't help
being naughty sometimes, but of course grown-up people never are."
Rufus flicked off some heads of dandelions with his cane without
replying.
The child continued, with a quick change of thought: "I'm going just to
tell God in church to-day about Peter. Do you think He will feel sorry?"
"I should think so," replied Rufus absently.
And having reached the church by this time, the conversation was at an
end, but the young man was occupied with more serious thoughts than
usual during the service.
It was not long after this that Rufus was sent on a confidential
mission to London by his chief. He departed suddenly, and thought it
would only be an absence of a couple of days, but three weeks elapsed
before he was able to return.
He looked out for his little friend on her way to school the next
morning, but was astonished to see no sign of her. The house opposite
seemed silent and deserted. As he sat down to dinner in the evening, he
asked his landlady if she had seen anything of her.
"Oh, sir! I was about to tell yer! The poor lady died awful sudden two
days after you left. She allays had bin a sufferer, but they didn't
think the end so near. And the nurse and child left a week arter the
funeral. She allays were a proud stuck-up creature was that nurse, and
kep' it wonderful close where she was a-goin' to, and what she was
a-goin' to do! Why, Mrs. Green, she says to me herself, that she had
her head nearly snapped off when she asked the most innercent question
about the poor little lamb! And she's to be pitied, the little dear,
with such a Tartar a carryin' her off, and she not allowed to come
across and even wish me good-bye! And I seed her little white, sad face
as they were druv off in a cab, and she rekernised me and blew me a
kiss with a ghost of a smile. Bless her little heart! We shall miss her
trottin' across, sir, shan't us?"
"Was Mrs. Clay buried here?" asked Rufus, too bewildered at first to
take it all in.
"Yes, sir, in the village churchyard. Our clergyman were backwards
and forwards a good bit at the time. There didn't seem no friends nor
relatives at the funeral, just a gentleman in black who looked very
stern and 'aughty. But he left d'rectly arterwards, and he might 'a'
bin the lawyer, though I did hear she had nought to leave, poor lady,
and it's my belief they was pressed for hunger at the time, from what
Mrs. Green have told me!"
Rufus dismissed his landlady rather abruptly. To the lonely young
fellow the little child had come as a ray of sunshine, not only
bringing a fresh interest into his life, but awakening better feelings
and creating higher aims in his soul by her simple faith in God and His
Word. He felt bereft without her, and recalled his last conversation
with her on the road to school.
"You will be back next Saturday, won't you, Mr. Tracy? And we will go
to the woods and take our tea with us. I shall feel quite funny walking
to school alone again."
"Will you miss me, Greta?"
She had looked up at him with a serious smile. "I shall not always
have you, shall I? When I get bigger and go away from here, I shall
be accustomed to walk alone. 'Becca says it is only the weak, sickly
trees that want props; a healthy one can grow alone. She says I must
go through life without props. Do you think you're a kind of prop, Mr.
Tracy? If you are, I think props are very nice, but when I am grown up,
I suppose I shan't want you."
"I hope you will never cast off old friends, Greta."
And then the soft eyes had filled with tears, and she slipped her tiny
hand into his.
"I've never had such a friend like you, so good and big and strong, and
I'll never forget you, if I am a hundred years old. But you won't be
long away, will you? And you'll come back very soon."
And now—when should they meet again? Had they already drifted apart in
the wide world, and would the sweet, old-fashioned child become only a
pleasant memory of a little bit of the road in his life's journey?
With these thoughts, he wandered out in the summer dusk to the little
village churchyard.
He had no difficulty in recognising the grave: a fresh mound of earth
at the foot of an old yew tree, with some faded bluebells placed in the
centre, was all that was left to mark the last resting-place of poor
Mrs. Clay.
Rufus stooped and gently detached one of the little faded bluebells. He
knew the dell in the wood that they came from, and pictured a lonely
little figure in a black frock stealing away under the thickly hanging
trees to sob out her desolation amongst her favourite flowers.
"Poor little mite! Fatherless and motherless, and only that she-dragon
with a face and heart of stone to turn to for sympathy or comfort. I
wonder what will become of her? Will her future life continue to be one
of such dreary hardship and stern surroundings as that to which she has
always been accustomed?"
Then with a sigh and a smile, he placed the bluebell in his pocket-book
with the muttered words, "Good-bye to my first courtship! We have
drifted apart as suddenly as we met!"
CHAPTER IV.
OLD FRIENDS.
FIFTEEN years after.
A London drawing-room on a bright spring afternoon. It was Lady
Chatterton's at-home day, and the room was fairly filled with
well-dressed men and women, the hostess moving in and out amongst them
with that nameless charm of tone and manner that made her so popular in
society.
Standing by the entrance door were two men, one a fresh arrival, who
looked about him with amused curiosity.
"I am not a society man," he was saying to his friend, "and it always
strikes me at these kind of gatherings what an awful waste of time it
is. I am not at home amongst perfumed silks and satins."
"Nonsense, man! Now you are known as old Sir Peter's heir, you will be
made welcome anywhere. Dozens of these young ladies will be charmed to
make your acquaintance."
"Who is that girl in grey by the window?" asked the former speaker
rather abruptly.
"She is Lady Chatterton's niece. Fresh at it, as you see. This is the
beginning of her first season. I took her into dinner last night, and
I assure you her conversation was original in the extreme. She has
very serious views of life, and credits all these men and women of
fashion with the same noble sentiments as herself. Would you like to be
introduced? Come along."
A moment after, and Rufus Tracy was by the side of a tall, graceful
girl, who turned at once and spoke to him in sweet, measured tones.
She was strikingly beautiful, with delicately-cut features, and soft
dark eyes that seemed to view her surroundings somewhat wistfully, as
if seeking for something that she had not found. She was perfectly
self-possessed and at ease amidst the gay throng; yet her thoughts
seemed far-away, and she answered Rufus's two or three casual remarks
so absently that he could not help smiling.
"Are you in town for long?" he asked.
Then she looked at him gravely.
"I am leaving it to-morrow."
"So soon? Then you are only a bird of passage. I don't expect you care
about town, do you? I hate it."
"I think I like it. There is so much to see and hear—so much to
interest one, but I am going to stay with an old aunt who lives in the
country. She wants me at once."
"I wonder Lady Chatterton can spare you."
The girl smiled. "I am afraid she is not pleased about it, as it alters
all her plans for me. But my aunt, Mrs. Warren, is old and lonely, and
now very unwell, so of course her claims come first."
"Rather hard lines for you."
"Oh, no. I would rather be with those who really need me. There is no
self-denial in it. Derbyshire is a lovely county, and I shall enjoy the
change. I shall not be far from Haddon Hall."
Rufus looked interested at once.
"Why, that is very near to my place," he said; "perhaps we shall meet
again, for I am on my way there now."
She shook her head.
"My Aunt Catherine lives very quietly, and does not go into society—she
is too much of an invalid."
Conversation turned into other channels, but all the time she was
speaking, Rufus was strangely conscious that he had met her before.
Where had he seen those wistful dreamy eyes, and those resolute
yet delicately sensitive curves about lips and chin? He left Lady
Chatterton's that afternoon perplexed and puzzled, yet deeply
interested in her niece.
A fortnight later he was striding over a Derbyshire moor with his dogs,
when he suddenly was conscious of a girlish figure in front of him. She
was vainly trying to detach some golden bloom from the prickly gorse,
and he watched her ineffectual efforts with some interest. As he came
up, she turned her head, and he recognised her at once as the one who
had lately been so much in his thoughts.
"Are you by yourself?" he asked, after their first greetings had been
exchanged.
"Yes," she said brightly; "my aunt rests in the afternoon, and then is
my opportunity for a good brisk walk. Isn't this a glorious moor?"
He smiled. "It is too dreary for me. Rather a change from the London
streets, isn't it?"
"It is a very pleasant change. I am not going to pose as a martyr,
though Lady Chatterton did regard me in that light, I think."
"Do you always put the claims of others before your own?" asked Rufus
lightly. "I wonder if you are one of the people born to help others?"
She looked at him with an odd expression, and knitted her brows into a
reflective frown, as she said quietly:
"I think we are all born to do that."
"I was told once," Rufus said, "that there were only two sorts of
people in the world: those born to be helped, and those born to help
them. I have often thought of it since, and wondered in which class I
am ranked."
The girl looked at him with half-parted lips, then gazed away over the
moor with her most dreamy air. "That saying was one I was accustomed
to hear when quite a tiny child," she said slowly. "I was brought up
to believe that I was going through life as a protector and helper
of others. I have never lost some of my childish aspirations. I have
a strange feeling when I meet any fresh acquaintance—'Now, what can
I do to help you?' And though I found quite early in life that there
were people waiting to protect and help me, I can never forget the
revelation it was to me."
Rufus looked steadfastly into the sweet face by him, and then asked
rather emphatically:
"And to whom do you owe such an original training?"
"To a very old and valued nurse."
"Named 'Becca?"
She started, then a flash of recognition lit up her soft eyes.
"Can you be?—I think you must be—the Mr. Tracy that brought such
sunshine into my childish days! Now I know why I have felt so strangely
at home with you from the first moment you spoke to me."
Her face was radiant, and Rufus said with slight embarrassment:
"I can hardly believe I am speaking to the identical little Greta, and
yet you are strangely the same in voice and manner. I often wondered if
I should ever meet my child-friend again; how long ago it seems!"
There was much to ask and explain. Greta's story was simply told.
"At my mother's death, her relations came forward at once. She had
offended them by marrying my father, who was a struggling country
doctor; and after his death, she was too proud to go to them for help.
Rebecca wrote to my aunt, Lady Chatterton, the day after my mother was
taken from us. And she responded as soon as she was able, for she was
abroad at the time. Rebecca and I went to her town house, and from
there I was sent to a boarding-school. I used to spend my holidays
alternately with Lady Chatterton and Mrs. Warren, with whom I am
staying now. But my home is now supposed to be with Lady Chatterton."
"Your vocation in life is not that to which you used to look forward,"
said Rufus with a smile.
"I sometimes wish it were," was the quiet response; "I have a longing
to be up and doing. And yet I suppose we are never placed in any sphere
where we cannot be a help to some one."
"The maxims of the redoubtable 'Becca are still with you!"
Greta's face was full of grave sweetness as she answered, "Rebecca took
most of her maxims from the Bible, and taught me to do the same."
"And little Greta passed the teaching on to a thoughtless young man,"
Rufus said, an earnest, far-away look coming into his eyes. "I have to
thank that little child for putting before me higher aims and motives
than those of merely accumulating wealth and making a position in the
world for myself."
There was silence for a moment, then Rufus said in a lighter tone, "And
now let me tell you my story. You remember my circumstances? I shall
never forget the interest you took as a tiny child in the fate of the
boy who left home because he could not carry out his mother's wishes."
"I remember," said Greta, a soft colour coming into her cheeks, "I used
at that time to think of him as some unknown hero, and it was only long
afterwards that I associated him with yourself. Your circumstances,
like mine, have surely changed?"
"Yes; I only stayed a couple of years at that bank, and then I went
abroad as manager of a foreign branch. I got acquainted at Cairo with
an eccentric old bachelor, Sir Peter Vivian, and to my amazement last
year, when he died, I found he had made me his heir, and left me his
property down here."
"And your mother?" questioned Greta, with some hesitation.
Rufus's face grew dark and stern as he said shortly: "I have not seen
her for sixteen years. She has been travelling abroad."
"Does she know of your good fortune?"
"Yes; she wrote to congratulate me, and gave me an invitation forthwith
to go and see her."
"And you did not do so?"
"Why should I? Prosperity brings many friends, and then it is one least
cares about them."
Greta looked pained at the bitterness of tone.
"She is your mother," she said softly. And seeing it was an awkward
subject, she turned to talk of other things.
A short time after, Rufus was walking homewards with knitted brows and
determined closed lips. Yet a softened smile came over his face as he
entered his own gate, and he muttered under his breath, "My little
Greta! I will win her and no other!"
CHAPTER V.
HIS STORY FINISHED.
IT was not long before Rufus called upon Mrs. Warren, who was a gentle
fragile old lady, and reminded him much of Greta's mother. She assured
him he would always be welcome at her house, and he was soon a constant
visitor there.
"Greta is a capital nurse," said Mrs. Warren to him one day. "She makes
me more comfortable than any one else, and I fear I am selfish in
keeping her from London gaiety, but I do not think it will be for very
long."
"You will be better soon," the young man said cheerfully.
But Mrs. Warren shook her head, and Greta hastened to say, "Aunt
Catherine, you know I love to be with you, so don't talk of keeping me
from gaiety."
"How is it," Rufus said one day, as they walked across the moor
together, "that duty and right form such a strong principle with you?
Do you put it down to your early training? I don't believe your own
wants or wishes are ever consulted. I am longing to hear you say, 'I
like, I want, I shall have,' but I listen in vain for the words."
"I don't think I ever do want anything different from what I have,"
Greta replied, laughing. "You see I am so happily circumstanced!"
"Is there nothing that you wish for? Are you perfectly content to
live your life exactly as it is at present?" demanded Rufus, a little
eagerly.
"Yes, as it is," was the quiet reply. "I know, of course, that changes
will come—they must; but I have given over my life into Another's
keeping, and He is managing it for me."
"You are too good for this world," responded Rufus gloomily, but
Greta's clear laugh reassured him.
"Does that speech sound priggish? I do not mean I am beyond all earthly
desires. I have one very strong one, and I am hoping it may be granted
one day."
"May I hear what it is?"
Rufus's face was turned towards her expectantly, and for a moment
Greta's soft eyes met his steadily. Then she looked away, and her words
fell upon his ear with slow emphasis:
"It is that you should be reconciled to your mother."
There was silence for some minutes between them. At last, he said
slowly:
"Do you care so much?"
"It saddens me," she responded. "Family quarrels seem such a terrible
thing, and coldness between a mother and son so unnatural. Why should
you refuse to be reconciled when the first overture comes from her?"
"One can't forget," he said; "the past is always before me."
"Yes, but that fact should make us careful of the present, should it
not? You will not like in years to come to remember that you refused
to see your mother. Don't laugh if I give you a remark of Rebecca's.
'People must have sad memories through life, but they need not have
remorseful ones.'"
Rufus smiled. "What has become of Rebecca; is she still living?" he
asked, trying to turn the conversation.
"Yes, she lives with a brother in London, and when I feel in want of
advice I always turn to her. I have written to tell her of our meeting
each other again."
"And how has she taken it?"
A pretty blush came to Greta's cheek, and she replied with her light
laugh:
"You know she always considered our acquaintance rather an improper
one. She accused me of picking up a strange young man on the road, and
I shall never forget the feeling of shame that came over me when she
added that only a very bold and forward child could have done it."
"But I think it was quite the other way. I think it was I who picked
you up, wasn't it?"
And then they both laughed at the remembrance of that stormy morning in
March.
Only a few weeks later than this, Mrs. Warren was suddenly taken worse,
and after a week's prolonged suffering passed quietly away, Greta
being with her to the last. Lady Chatterton came down from town, and
after the funeral took Greta back with her; so for a time Rufus and
the latter drifted apart. He heard that she had gone abroad with her
aunt, then that she was visiting in Scotland. But when he gathered that
the family were again in town, he left Derbyshire, and anxiously and
expectantly made his appearance again in London society.
And it was at another social gathering that he next saw her.
She looked tired and sad, though her face brightened at the sight of
him.
"I cannot stand town life," she confided to him with something of her
old childish manner; "I thought I should like it so much at one time,
but I have been so disappointed. I feel I want to breathe physically
and mentally, and if I were a free agent, I would run away from it all."
"And why don't you?"
"My aunt needs me. She is getting old, and says I make the house
brighter. She has had a lonely life, for my uncle is so busy with
politics that he is hardly ever with her; so it would be cruel to leave
her. You see I have learnt to grumble, but your face brought back that
sweet Derbyshire moor. Have you left it for long?"
"I don't know," was the blunt reply.
"I am so glad to see you in town," Greta went on, a little eagerly; "I
have wished so much to meet you. Can you come to tea with us to-morrow
afternoon? My aunt is having a few friends, and she will be delighted
to see you."
"I will come with the greatest pleasure."
And Rufus went away feeling this eager welcome was more than he
expected.
The next afternoon found him at Lady Chatterton's.
Greta greeted him brightly, but seemed nervous and ill at ease. There
were a good many guests, and her time was naturally absorbed in
entertaining them. Rufus could hardly get a word with her, and was
about to depart rather gloomily when she came up to him.
"Mr. Tracy," she said, softly laying her hand on his arm, "I want you
to come with me into the other room and be introduced to a great friend
of mine—a very great friend of mine she is—and I want you to promise to
be your true self with her."
Greta's light touch thrilled him through; and though he wondered at her
words, he followed her obediently into the smaller drawing-room.
A grey-haired woman seated by the window turned round at their
approach, and Rufus found himself face to face with his mother.
Greta stole away; she knew from the softening lines about the young
man's face, as he looked at the one who had been his boyhood's ideal of
all that was good and beautiful, that his pride was now being placed in
the background, and a deep content crept into her heart.
Later on, Mrs. Tracy came forward, leaning on the arm of her son.
"Greta, my dear, I am going home. Will you bid adieu to Lady Chatterton
for me? I am a little upset, as you can imagine; but Rufus is going
with me."
Mrs. Tracy's eyes were tearful, and Greta watched mother and son depart
with some wistfulness.
She did not see Rufus for several days, and then he called, finding her
alone in the drawing-room.
"I can never thank you enough," he said with feeling, "for what you
have done. I look back now and see that it was my headstrong will,
my obstinate pride and bitter words, that were the cause of our
estrangement, and that led to my leaving home. I have harboured wrong
thoughts and suppressed all right feeling for years, and I do not
deserve to have all this put straight now."
"And is your mother going to Derbyshire with you?"
"Very shortly."
"How happy you will be together!"
The words escaped her involuntarily.
Rufus drew a step nearer her.
"Greta, don't you know that I shall never be happy without you there?"
Greta was silent, but a pink flush stole over her cheeks.
He went on in a nervous, hurried tone:
"Do you remember our story long ago, how the little sprite made peace
between mother and son? Do you remember the end of the story?"
Greta looked out of the window as she answered: "She went back to the
buttercups, did she not?"
"That was your ending, not mine."
"I think it was a very nice ending."
"But not the fact."
Silence again, broken by such earnest pleading that Rufus gained the
day, and with a simple, childlike grace Greta looked up and placed her
hand in his.
"And now take me to your mother."
"NUMBER TWA!"
CHAPTER I.
THE SELECT MEETING.
IT was a cold wet night, one of those nights that make one listen to
the patter of the rain upon the window panes and the shrieks of the
wind in the chimney with a snug, self-satisfied feeling, as one leans
back in a well-cushioned chair before a blazing fire.
The Rev. David Alister had just come into the Manse from a long, wet
walk in the rain. He had been attending a committee meeting in the
neighbouring town, and, not falling in with any kind neighbour who
owned a trap, had walked the four miles uncomplainingly. He had been
kept later than usual, and Mrs. Alister, who was a great invalid and
rarely left her couch, looked up with a relieved expression as he
entered the cosy little parlour.
"Here you are at last! Oh, how tired and wet you are! Have you changed
your boots? What a dreadful night it is!"
The minister tried to look cheerful.
"Yes, it is a bad night," he said, checking a little sigh. "I don't
know how it is, but our Fridays are generally wet nights, I have
noticed. No, my dear, I have not changed my boots. I shall be going out
again in half an hour's time. I am rather tired, but a cup of hot tea
will refresh me and set me on my legs again."
He threw himself into an easy-chair, and stretched out his damp boots
before the cheery blaze of the fire.
"I really do not think you are called upon to go to that prayer
meeting, David. For three successive weeks you have had no one but
old Mrs. Batty. Our people will not turn out on such stormy nights
as these, so why should you? You have been hard at work all day, and
deserve a little rest. Let me send a message to Mrs. Batty, and you
stay at home with me. Come, I do not often ask you to keep me company,
but I want you to-night, and we will read that new book from the
library together. It will do you all the good in the world!"
Mrs. Alister rose as she spoke, and, with her hand on his shoulder,
pressed a soft kiss on her husband's brow. These two were very fond
of each other; no child had ever brightened their hearth, but after
fifteen years of wedded life, they were lovers still.
The minister looked up and hesitated, then he shook his head.
"Don't tempt me, little woman! I shall never give up that meeting as
long as one of my parishioners attends it. Did I tell you what Mrs.
Batty said to me last Friday? She saw me give rather a hopeless look
round the empty room, and then at the door:
"'Eh, sir, dinna ye be discouraged. 'Twa' of us can have the A'mighty
in our midst, and ten thousand couldna have mair!'"
"She's a dear old soul," said Mrs. Alister with a tearful smile, "but
I'm wicked enough to wish she would not be so regular. Then perhaps
you might drop the meeting for a time, and start it afresh again with
better numbers. I only wish I were strong enough to attend it myself.
Why is a prayer meeting so unattractive to them, I wonder? It ought not
to be."
"It is my fault," said her husband gloomily; "there is no life in a
church that does not produce praying members. I feel as if I am a
failure here. They come to church, and pat me on the back after my
preaching, and say how much I help them, and then go home, and I never
see them till the following Sabbath. If it is not one excuse, it is
another. They are full of apologies when they meet me. As if I want
their apologies! Do they come to pray to 'me?'"
"Well, well, dear, don't distress yourself. You have only been here
two years. It certainly was very different in K—. But we had such an
earnest band of workers, and they were so enthusiastic and wholehearted
that there was no chance of our meeting flagging. These good people
may take a long time to stir up. You must remember your predecessor
never attempted prayer meetings! Now let us have our tea and forget our
troubles."
Half an hour later and the minister sallied out, buttoned up to the
chin in his great-coat, and struggling through wind and rain to protect
himself with an umbrella.
Let us look at one more fireside that evening. Old Mrs. Batty, with the
aid of her widowed daughter, kept a small general shop at the corner
of the village. She was a hearty, round-faced, happy old body, and
her Christianity showed itself more in deeds than in words. Her back
parlour looked quite as cheerful as the minister's, and her daughter
was expostulating and scolding in one breath as she presided at the
tea-tray.
"Ye will just lay yoursel' up, mither, and then how shall we get along!
I'm sure life is a struggle as it is. It isna a fit night for a dog to
be oot!"
"Janet, wha looks the stronger, the minister or me? An' will he be
enjoyin' his comfort this night? For certain, no! I've never missed
a prayer meetin' yet; an' as lang as the Lord keeps me in health and
strength, I never will!"
"Granny," asked a fair-haired little lad just five years old, her
special pet and darling, "is ye goin' to say your p'ayers agen wi' the
minister?"
"Yes, my bonny bairn, an' we have much to thank for, as weal as to
beg. We pray for those who winna pray for themsel's, an' there's a
deal to talk over wi' the Almighty. My heart's just full the night! I
wish at times there were mair supplicants, but the minister an' me are
keepit busy, an' the Almighty just surroonds us wi' His gracious, holy
presence till I 'most feels mysel' in heaven!"
The old woman's faded blue eyes were shining with a glad light. Her
daughter turned away with a shrug of her shoulders, but Robbie stuck
his fat finger in his mouth and regarded his grandmother with awe.
"Tak' Robbie to see A'mighty, granny!"
Mrs. Batty stooped to kiss the rosy dimpled face.
"Ay, my pet, when ye get bigger, ye shall come wi' your auld granny,
but not for a while yet."
In a few minutes, the old woman, with pattens on her feet, a shawl
over her bonnet, and skirts well tucked up under her arm, was fighting
her way through the raging elements to the little schoolroom where the
minister was already awaiting her.
Is it surprising that minister and parishioner returned to their
respective homes that evening with glowing hearts and radiant faces
after a time of close communion with their God? They could, with the
two disciples of old, exclaim—"Did not our heart burn within us while
He talked with us by the way?"
CHAPTER II.
GRANNY'S SUBSTITUTE.
A FEW Fridays after this, Mrs. Batty met with a serious accident. In
coming down the steep little stairs that led to her back parlour, she
missed her footing and fell heavily down the whole flight. She was
picked up unconscious, and when the doctor came, he found that her
right leg was badly broken.
Her daughter was nearly distracted, but a neighbour at once offered her
services in the sick room. And in an hour or two, Mrs. Batty was quite
herself again though suffering great pain. Just after tea, the chubby
face of her little grandson peeped in at the bedroom door.
"May Robbie see poor grannie?" lisped the child.
"Let him come in," murmured Mrs. Batty. "What a mercy it's the auld
woman's leg and not the bairn's that is broken."
Robbie came up to the bedside and patted his granny's outstretched hand
with his soft baby one. Then with round eyes, he demanded—
"Wha's goin' to say p'ayers wi' the minister the night?"
"Eh, dearie me!" groaned Mrs. Batty in real distress. "It's hard to lie
here an' think o' the meetin'. It's the first time I'll hae been away,
an' I fear 'twill be terrible disheartenin' to the good minister."
"Ain wad think the meetin' depends on yoursel'," said Mrs. Crake, the
neighbour, with a good-natured smile.
She was a kind-hearted woman, too busy to be "ower religious," as she
expressed it. She had heard of the Friday prayer meeting but, like many
others, took it for granted that the members who had more leisure than
herself attended it.
"Ah," sighed Mrs. Batty, "I fear it will miss me sorely. The promise is—
"'If two of ye shall agree on earth, as touchin' onything that they
shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in heaven.'
"I've been number twa for ower six weeks noo, an' there'll be naebody
to step into my shoes the night, I'm thinkin'."
"To think o' that!" exclaimed Mrs. Crake. "Are ye the only prayin' one
in the village?"
"There'll be just a few wha find their ain firesides a preferable place
to do their prayin' in, nae doot," said Mrs. Batty charitably. "It's
no' easy for all or convenient to go out at nights, but the minister
an' me have had gran' times in yon cauld little schoolroom, an' I'm
sore vexed he'll be alane the night."
"Maybe someone will turn up. Dinna fret yoursel'."
The door closed as softly as it had opened, and Robbie's rosy face had
disappeared. His mother was busy in the shop. No one noticed the little
fellow as he struggled into his great-coat. His lips were muttering
determinedly—
"The minister 'll no' be alane. Robbie 'll go an' say his p'ayers with
him;" and out into the dusky street trotted the baby.
He knew his way to the schoolroom, but halfway up the street, he was
stopped by a burly farmer hurrying home to his tea.
"Weel, laddie, an' what may ye be doing at this time?"
Robbie looked up, and holding his head in the air, said with great
self-importance in his tone, "Robbie's goin' to say his p'ayers wi' the
minister the night astead o' granny!"
The farmer scratched his head, and stood looking at the child in
astonishment.
"Ay, ye'll be Mrs. Batty's daughter's bairn," he said slowly. "An'
how's your granny? Is it true that she has broken her leg?"
Robbie nodded gravely.
"Granny's in bed, an' Robbie's goin' to be number twa, an' then the
A'mighty will come. He aye did when granny went, 'cause He said He
would!"
He trotted on, leaving the farmer gazing after him stupidly.
And then, after a few moments' thought, Peter Quirls followed the
child's footsteps. He paused when he came to the schoolroom. Robbie,
after a frantic struggle with the latch, had opened the door and gone
in. Peter stepped into the porch. Partly out of curiosity, partly out
of shame, he peeped through the door to watch the scene. How often he
made up his mind to come to the meeting, and how often had his good
resolutions melted away under the excuses that so easily presented
themselves before him!
The minister was there. One dim oil lamp was burning, and the child's
nailed boots clattering up the room resounded through the building.
Mr. Alister looked at the little fellow in wonder as he approached him.
Then a smile of recognition lit up his tired face.
"Mrs. Batty's little grandson! Have you come with a message from her,
little man?"
Robbie shook his head.
"No, I've come mysel'."
"But isn't your granny coming?"
"Granny tumbled all the way downstairs," said the child with grave
round eyes; "she b'oked her leg, an she wented to bed, and the doctor
came!"
"Dear, dear! How very sad! I must come and see her."
Then with a little sigh, the minister looked round the empty
schoolroom. He had hoped so much that this room might prove a little
Bethel to his congregation. He had pictured it full of praying men and
women; himself coming to it when tired and despondent, and going away
gladdened and refreshed by the bursts of praise and prayer that rose
from its walls.
Was this to be the end of it?
He was in the act of turning down the lamp, when Robbie's voice
arrested him.
"Isna the A'mighty here the night? I s'pect He will come noo when He
sees me here."
Mr. Alister started.
"Why?" he asked the child, only half understanding his speech.
"Granny says He p'omised if there was twa to come, an' I've comed
mysel'. I's number twa astead o' granny!"
There was silence; the innocent upturned face of the child brought the
tears to the minister's eyes; and Peter Quirts from his post at the
door felt a strange lump rise in his throat.
"Have you come to pray with me, Robbie?" asked the minister, laying his
hand very tenderly on the flaxen curly head.
Robbie nodded solemnly.
"I can say my p'ayers, an' ye can say yours, an' then the A'mighty
winna go 'way disappointed 'cause naebody wanted to p'ay to Him!"
Without a word, the minister dropped on his knees, and with a little
fuss and clatter the child did the same, steadying himself by clutching
hold of the edge of the table with his two fat hands.
Peter Quirts stepped inside, and knelt down by the door. He heard the
minister pouring out his soul to his Maker above, perfectly oblivious
of the child's presence after the first moment or two. He heard him
pleading in agonised accents to be kept from being discouraged and
disheartened in his work; for quickening power to be given to the
sleeping souls in his charge; for a return of their former love to
those who were entirely engrossed in worldly pursuits; and a conviction
of sin to come upon the unawakened and Godless. He prayed for the sick,
the tempted, the weak, the suffering; and also for the self-satisfied,
prosperous members of his flock. Not one was forgotten; and Robbie
knelt on, his blue eyes alternately glancing from the minister's
earnest face to the roof of the schoolroom, where in his childish
fashion he was vaguely expecting to see signs of the "Almighty's"
presence.
The minister paused. Robbie uttered a fervent and hearty "Amen." And
then, glad at last to take some active part himself, lifted up his baby
voice, and in soft reverent tones repeated his simple evening prayer.
That was the last straw to Peter Quirls.
When he heard the lisping, childish voice, and realised that of all the
minister's flock only one baby of five years could be found to take
part in the intercessory prayer meeting, he rose to his feet, stumbled
awkwardly up the room, and in broken, humbled tones added his prayer to
the others.
When they rose from their knees, he grasped the minister's hand.
"Ye'll niver see me absent from this prayin' again, minister!" he said
huskily. And then, without another word, he hurried away.
Robbie looked after him with wondering eyes.
"There was anither number twa," he said; "come and tell granny!"
And later on, when Mrs. Batty learnt that her broken leg was the
turning-point in the history of that small meeting; when she had
sufficiently recovered to be able to take part in it again, and found
herself in the midst of twelve or thirteen others; when she heard that
the story of her little grandson's act had spread through the village,
and shamed every member of the church; she lifted up her voice and sang
in the fulness of gratitude and praise—
"'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.'"
Peter Quirls was never tired of telling his experience that Friday
evening. And he would always conclude with these words—
"The arrow that pierced my heart through and through was the words o'
the wee laddie,—
"'I can say my p'ayers, an' ye can say yours, an' then the A'mighty
winna go 'way disappointed 'cause naebody wanted to p'ay to Him!'"
"MESSAGES": A CHRISTMAS SKETCH.
CHAPTER I.
CHRISTMAS CARDS.
IT was a few days before Christmas. Rain had been falling persistently,
and not all the blaze and glory of the London shops could cheer the
outlook. The streets were coated with thick black mud, fog fell and
lifted at intervals, and towards dusk the air grew piercingly cold, and
hail mingled with the steady downpour.
It was a day to spend over one's fireside, and Mrs. Dacombe
congratulated herself that her shopping was over, and that she could
now indulge in a few moments' well-earned rest. She turned from her
writing-desk and seated herself in an easy-chair by the fire.
"Maurice, what are you doing?"
She put the question in a tired voice, but there was a stir in a dark
corner of the shabby little room, and then a small eager figure sprang
up, and a little boy, with tumbled golden hair and great questioning
eyes, flung himself on her lap.
"I've been keeping so quiet, mummie—you told me I was to; and I've been
watching it get darker and darker. I don't like Christmas; it's dark,
and cold, and rainy. I wish the summer would come back."
"Oh, don't say that, my boy! All children like Christmas: it is only we
older folks who sometimes wish it over. I wish you had seen a Christmas
as I did when I was a little girl. Shall I tell you about it?"
Maurice nodded, and wound one of his arms round his mother's neck,
whilst he wriggled his little body into a more comfortable attitude.
Mrs. Dacombe looked round her room with a sigh. It was on the third
floor of a lodging-house. Her writing table and typewriter took up
one entire side of it; the window looked out upon the rain-soddened
street and a row of like houses on the other side. A small round
table, a couple of horsehair chairs, and a "chiffonnier" completed her
furniture. The chair she was in was the only article that looked made
for comfort and not hard work. There was a cupboard in the wall the
lower half of which contained Maurice's few treasured books and toys.
The walls were dark and dingy, and the framed pictures thereon were
chiefly the photographs of some of the landlady's deceased relatives.
"Such a different world from this, Maurice, so clean and bright and
cheerful! I have often told you of my home."
"I know," broke in the boy eagerly. "An old grey house standing by
itself. I haven't seen many houses like that in London. The churches
don't touch—at least, some of them don't—and Buckingham Palace, and
a few other very big houses; but little houses are always joined
to others, always. And it had creepers over it, and a stable and
fowl-house, and a large garden with trees and flowers. But how did it
look at Christmas, when it was raining, and foggy, and dark, and so
very cold to get up in the morning?"
"It was never foggy, and I remember bright sun and white snow, and ice
that we skated upon. We were close to grandpapa's church, and the bells
were always ringing at Christmas-time. We used to go into the woods
and get some holly and evergreens, and the boys would bring it home in
our little cart, and then we helped to decorate the church. There was
a lot to be done at Christmas-time, but we loved it all. The village
children practised carols, and we had a big Christmas-tree for the
Sunday-school in the schoolroom, and we used to make toffee and put it
into match-boxes covered with pictures. That was my work, I remember.
"And then there were our own presents. We were a large family,
Maurice—nine boys and girls—and your grandmamma made a rule that the
presents we gave each other must be of our own making. They were not
very costly presents, but we had such fun making them, and keeping
it secret from each other was very difficult sometimes. I remember
stealing into your Uncle Bob's room one night to measure his head for
a woollen tam-o'-shanter I was knitting for him. He was fast asleep,
but woke up dreaming of burglars, and fancied I was one. He nearly
smothered me with his pillows, and had tied my hands and feet together
with his stockings before he realised who I was. How we laughed over it
afterwards!"
Mrs. Dacombe's pale cheeks flushed as she talked, and the tired lines
in her face disappeared.
Maurice chuckled with delight as he listened to her.
"Tell me more, mummie. It sounds like a storybook."
"What shall I tell you? About the crisp snow on Christmas Day under our
feet as we all tramped into church and lifted up our voices to sing
the old Christmas hymns; the robins that would fly in to peck at the
holly wreaths round the church pillars; the greetings we got from the
villagers; the long Christmas dinner afterwards with the merry chatter,
and the games we played when the curtains were drawn and the cold and
dark shut out? Oh, Maurice! I seem to feel it all again, but it's
nothing—nothing but a memory."
Mrs. Dacombe put him off her lap and rose to her feet with another
heavy sigh.
Maurice sat down on the rug and looked into the glowing coals of the
fire before him.
"I love hearing it, mummie. I wonder if I could make some Christmas
presents for someone? Even Jennie sends Christmas cards to some of her
friends, and her father is a dustman. Oh, mummie! Do you think I could
make some Christmas cards myself?"
Mrs. Dacombe was looking drearily out of the window. She was
reproaching herself for letting the toilsome drudgery of her daily
life, the ceaseless struggle to make both ends meet, so absorb her
thoughts and energies that her child was denied any share in Christmas
cheer or joy. She had given up trying to make Christmas bright when her
artist husband, after eight years of unsuccessful toil, gave up the
struggle and succumbed to the present-day scourge, influenza. He had
died eighteen months ago, and since then, she had bravely maintained
herself and her boy by typewriting.
But though her courage was dauntless, her bright cheerfulness was
dimmed, and Maurice dwelt in a home of shadows and care. As she turned
and looked at him, she resolved not to quench the light that was
sparkling in his eyes.
"Yes, darling, you shall. I will turn out some odd bits of cardboard I
have in one of my drawers. You are so fond of your pencils and paints
that I am sure you will do them prettily. Christmas is a time for
giving and receiving; if we cannot receive, we will try to give. Now we
must ring the bell for the lamp and for tea."
Tea was brought by a stout, smiling little maid—the Jennie who sent her
friends Christmas cards—and mother and son sat down to drink weak tea
and to eat a small supply of bread-and-butter. Maurice was full of fuss
and importance over his intention.
"And as I don't know many friends, mummie, do you think I might send
one to each of the other lodgers? There's that nice Scotch gentleman
up above us who comes up and downstairs so softly; and old Captain
Brewster, who always says 'Tuts!' to me when I wish him good morning;
and the fat lady who has just taken the drawing-room, with her maid;
and Miss Cray, who is always losing her specs and tumbling upstairs.
I think they would like to get a Christmas card. And if you could
give me some envelopes, mummie—very, very cheap ones will do—I could
write their names on them and push them under the doors very softly on
Christmas Day."
Mrs. Dacombe assented to all this, and, childlike, Maurice would begin
work at once, the very minute the tea was removed.
His mother found some coloured bits of cardboard, and gave him scissors
to cut and shape them. Seven cards were the result.
"I thought I would give Jennie one, and Mrs. Trelawney one, if she's
not too grand; and there's one over for somebody else, but you mustn't
ask who."
There was silence after this. Mrs. Dacombe was at her typewriter again.
But though as a rule Maurice was not allowed to disturb her, he was too
excited to be silent now.
"Please, mummie, may I speak to you?"
"I will give you five minutes, and then you must promise not to
interrupt me."
"What shall I write on them? I must have words, and then I will paint a
picture."
"Put Christmas words, though I can't help thinking it is rather a
mockery to be wishing anyone in this house a happy Christmas. They
wouldn't be here if they really wanted to enjoy themselves. I think you
might write a Christmas text on them, dear; God's words bring comfort
when ours are no good at all. Put that verse—
"'For unto you is born this day . . . a Saviour.'
"It was the angels' message at Christmas-time. I remember I had a very
pretty card sent to me one year with those words upon it. And it also
put the four things the angels mentioned besides—
"'Fear not.' 'Great joy.' 'Peace.' 'Goodwill'—
"four blessings that Christmas brings us. I will write it down, and
then you can take what you like from it. Then you must not disturb me
again."
"Thank you, mummie. I will do all the words to-night, and leave my
painting till to-morrow, when it's daylight."
There was quiet in the room after that. The small golden head was
bowed in eagerness over pencil and paper, and not even his mother's
typewriter moved with more rapidity than did his busy childish brain
over some of the greatest truths of Christmastide.
An hour later, the boy was lying back on his pillow, clasping his
mother round the neck for a good-night kiss.
"Mummie, does God send down the angels every Christmas with the same
words to tell people? Is it always the same?"
His mother paused, then a light came into her face.
"Yes, darling, thank God it's always just the same."
"They must be very busy," said the child reflectively. "Do they go to
everybody, or is it only people who are out of doors that hear them?"
His mother did not answer. Her thoughts were taken out of her sordid,
narrow surroundings, and wandered to the world at large. The rich,
the careless, the poor neglected ones as well, would soon be all
within sound of Christmas bells and Christmas cheer. How many would
distinguish, through generations of habit and custom, the soft strain
of heavenly music? Would earth's gay clamour drown it? Would heavy care
cloud and crush it?
Maurice's little voice roused her out of her musings.
"If they have to go to everybody," he observed thoughtfully, "they
needn't come to our four lodgers, so I shall have saved them that. For
reading a message is 'quite' as good as hearing it, mummie, isn't it?"
Mrs. Dacombe bent over and kissed him with tears in her eyes.
Tired in body and spirit, that evening she bowed her head over her
Bible before retiring to rest. She had been neglecting it lately, and
it seemed a long time since she had heard any heavenly message.
But the voice of her little boy was ringing in her ears. "For reading a
message is 'quite' as good as hearing it." And her soul received food
and comfort from the Word of Life that night.
CHAPTER II.
HECTOR MCDERMOT'S CHRISTMAS.
A LITTLE grey house on a hill, with a belt of Scotch firs on one
side, and a green slope on the other, with a glorious view, through a
cleft in the blue hills, of a dashing river winding down to a fertile
valley below. It is early morning, but there are bustle and confusion
inside. The little front hall is crowded with luggage; a merry-looking,
dark-eyed girl is bustling to and fro, joking and laughing, and dashing
suspicious-looking drops from her quivering eyelashes.
"Christine, how many loaves are you cutting up into sandwiches? You are
supplying him with enough for a year. No, Phœbe, I can't pack another
egg, the hamper is bursting already. It is to be hoped his landlady
won't object to all this country fare. I expect she will turn up her
London nose at it! You have no respect for your big brother's property.
Now, here is Sandy for the luggage! Hector, time is up!"
Hector dashes down the narrow stairs, a strong, broad-shouldered young
fellow, with a frank, guileless look in his clear grey eyes, and a
smile that usually brings warmth and sunshine to those who see it, but
now is a trifle forced and set.
"I'm ready. Go ahead, Sandy! I'll catch you up."
He turns into a small room where a gentle, sweet-faced girl is hastily
finishing her packets of sandwiches. She looks up and drops her parcels.
"Is it good-bye, Hector? Oh, how shall we get on without you?" She
links her arm in his and draws him to the window. "Tell me," she says
earnestly—"are we doing right in staying on here? Is it right to tax
you so? Ought we not to break up our home and go out to earn our
living?"
A proud, passionate light comes into the young fellow's eyes.
"I will never let one of 'my' sisters go out into the world and rough
it! You are earning money here, Christine. Ever since our father's
death, your poultry and dairy have kept us going—that and the legacy—"
"But," interrupts his sister, "the legacy is gone, and unless you can
send us the rent regularly out of your salary, we must give up our
little farm."
"I have promised that, and a McDermot never breaks his word!"
"But it may be difficult for you. Is it right for us to take it?"
The lad bends down and kisses his sister.
"Good-bye, Christine! I shall never fail you, and you will see me back
one day with my fortune made. I shan't forget you. And I mean to be
master of this house, even when I am away from it. You will hear from
me every month."
Christine bears herself bravely. She is very young, and realises with a
pang that, when her brother goes, she will have to stand alone.
Then her younger sister dashes in.
"Good-bye, old fellow! We will all work hard, and, perhaps, one day, if
you can't come to us, Christine and I will come up to London and see
you. Will you be ashamed to see us, I wonder? I will write and give you
all the news once a week."
He kisses her, then tosses into the air the baby and pet of the
house—little six-year-old Allan.
With a little choke in his throat, he grips the hand of old Phœbe, who
has been in the family for twenty years, and then he goes.
Out from his pure, wholesome, home life into the strange, bewildering
sphere of City life in London, as a banker's clerk. His Scotch home,
with its fragrant memories, stood between him more than once when black
temptation assailed him. But as time went on, his feet began to trip,
and Hector McDermot bitterly confessed to himself that London life was
difficult.
He was sitting in his bedroom on Christmas Eve. The bells from some
neighbouring church were chiming out, but he hardly heard them. His
bright, frank, guileless look had long ago departed. Lines of care and
dissipation were stamped upon his face. How had it happened, he asked
himself to-night, that all had turned out so differently from what he
had expected? For ruin now stared him in the face.
An acquaintance had been his evil star; he had taught him to drink and
to gamble. For months he had been in money difficulties, and, the day
previously, had been tempted to appropriate some money that had been
entrusted to his care. He had it now in a little canvas bag in his
room. A debt of honour had to be paid within twenty-four hours. This
bag made it possible to discharge it, but Hector knew that such a theft
would bring its own penalty.
"I shall pay my debts with it, and go off to America and make a fresh
start. They will not find me out for a few weeks, as my chief is out of
town. Christine and Effie must be pretty sick of me by this time. For
the last six months they have not had a penny towards the rent. I can't
go back. It's too late. I must make an end of Hector McDermot, who
once thought—poor young fool!—that he was a worthy representative of
his gallant forefathers! To-morrow night will see me sailing as plain
'Sandy Brown'—a criminal in disguise.
"Bother those bells! How I hate Christmas! Mother would have us keep it
at home. She was English to the core. But what a farce it is in London!
Don't let me begin to think. I must act. What! Letters? Oh, dash it!
More bills, I suppose. No—from—from home. What's the good of reading
them? I daren't! I'll chuck them into the fire."
He suited the action to the word, but the embers in his small grate
were nearly extinguished, and then he impulsively snatched them out,
tore open the envelopes, and read them.
"DEAR OLD HECTOR,—Are you ill? Do send just one line, for we are so
miserable not hearing from you. We quite understand your not being able
to afford to send the rent money. I have always heard that money melts
away in London, and you must have many expenses that we know nothing
about. You will not mind very much, I hope, when I tell you that we are
giving up the farm. It has been rather a struggle, for our landlord,
as you know, is a man who will not wait for his money. So we are going
into lodgings at Cray End, and Effie and I have been promised some
employment.
"Don't be angry, dear. 'Honour first' has always been our motto, and
there is nothing degrading in the work that we mean to do. By-and-by,
when better times come, we shall be able to make a little home together
once more. But oh, Hector dear, if you love us, write us one line this
Christmas-time—just to say that you are alive and well.
"Your loving sister, CHRISTINE."
Hector clenched this letter in his hand with strong emotion. Then he
unfolded the other sheet.
"MY DEAR HECTOR,—A happy Christmas to you! Yes, I wish it to you with
all my heart, and won't give you a fit of the blues by telling you any
of our news.
"I will just say that Christine has been very ill of a nasty kind of
low fever. I'm afraid she worried herself into it, but she's better
now and out of danger, and I'm so thankful that I feel nothing else
matters! We're moving out of this next week. We have been allowed
to stay till then. I shall be glad when it's over, for Christine's
sake. Perhaps I had better tell you, that we are both going as shop
assistants to Mr. Glencarry at Cray End. Do you remember his shop—the
large draper's at the corner? He has been very kind. Anything is better
than going crazy over accounts, trying to make both ends meet, and
being afraid to eat when you're hungry. Allan is thriving. Phœbe will
still be able to take care of him, and Christine and I come back every
day at five, so we shall spend our evenings together. We are hoping
to hear from you by every post. But I'm sure you won't fail us at
Christmas-time.
"Your loving, EFFIE."
Hector let this letter drop from his fingers to the floor. He closed
his eyes, and a little scene came before him: a young lad bending over
his father's dying bed, and receiving that father's blessing. Then,
with his hand on the old man's frail one, the lad says in steadfast
tones:
"I promise you, father, that with God's help I will take your place,
and as long as I live, my sisters and little brother shall not want. I
will work for them as you have worked for us. I will provide and care
for them."
A bitter groan broke from the young man.
"I have ruined them as well as myself. I can make no reparation. There
is no forgiveness for such as me!"
The silent hours of the night drew on, but Hector McDermot, though he
cast himself upon his bed, could not sleep. He saw himself branded as a
thief. He pictured his sisters receiving the news of his crime and his
flight, and he cried aloud in his wretchedness:
"I have no one to save me—to help me. I have gone too far to go back!"
The morning dawned, and still he lay there, remorse and shame steeping
his soul in despair.
"Is there any way out of it? None. If I took the money back, I have
not the courage to confess it. I should be dismissed instantly, and my
debts would confront me. I do not know a soul in London that would help
me. There is no way out of it. I have gone too far to go back."
He rose at last, and with trembling hands began to make his
preparations for flight. Suddenly he was conscious of a small white
envelope that had been slipped underneath his door. He stopped and
picked it up. On the envelope was written, in red letters,—
"The Christmas Angels' Message."
Mechanically he opened it, and a small card with the following words
upon it arrested his attention.
"FEAR NOT.
For unto you is born this day . . .
a Saviour."
The card was framed in a wonderful red-and-gold painted frame, with a
great many quaint flourishes over it. But the details were unnoticed;
only the words burnt into his heart and soul as no words had ever done
before—
"Fear not . . . this day . . . a Saviour!"
They came to him with a strange, mysterious significance and power.
He had spent the night in owning and bewailing his own weakness and
helplessness, his inability to recover himself from the quagmire into
which he had fallen. He had longed for some strong hand to deliver him.
Was it possible that this strange message had any meaning in it for him?
"Fear not!"
His whole being was in a tumult of fear and apprehension. Guilt had
brought its fellow-companion with it. He sat down and gazed at the card
in his hand with troubled eyes.
"This day . . . a Saviour."
What day was this? Christmas Day! And then some other words flashed
through his mind.
"Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from
their sins."
He forgot his preparations for flight, the need of haste. It seemed to
him that One Who could save, and Who would save, was drawing near to
him.
He cast himself on his knees.
"Oh, Lord, save me! From this crime I am contemplating—from the
consequences of it—from all my debts and broken vows, and sins, good
Lord, deliver me!"
Long he knelt. And through the slough of sin and despair he struggled
upwards, and gripped hold of the Cross.
The angels' message had been received. Hector McDermot feared the
future no more, for unto him that Christmas morning had come—a Saviour!
CHAPTER III.
CAPTAIN BREWSTER'S CHRISTMAS.
IT was Christmas Eve. Captain Brewster walked back from his club to his
lodgings when the streets were crowded with Christmas shoppers. He had
found the club empty that afternoon. His old cronies were out of town,
and he gave one of his impatient snorts as he recalled the pitying
inflexion in the hall porter's tone:
"You'll not be out of town this Christmas, then, sir?"
"Out of town." The words took him with a bound to an old manor house
on the slope of a wooded hill in Worcestershire. The home of his
childhood—the place that, when first he went to sea, visited him in
his dreams and was ever in his waking thoughts. He saw himself there,
a little chubby urchin of six years, taking his first ride with his
father. He pictured the manor hung and adorned with wreaths and flags
on the occasion of his father's second marriage a year later; and
he saw himself biding away in many a nook and corner from the harsh
presence and voice of his stepmother.
Two years later, another small boy toddled in his steps, and his
brother Rob became a source of interest and amusement to him. But the
death of his father brought a black shadow over his young life. His
stepmother no longer concealed her dislike to him, and at last, goaded
by taunts and injustice, he ran away to sea, and went into the merchant
service.
After a time, he was received home at intervals, but was plainly shown
that it was no longer his home. Owing to a flaw in the will, the young
wife and her son succeeded to it all. And the eldest boy, having chosen
his profession, was told he must make his own way in life without any
help from his relations.
For years the sea was his portion, but he was steadily saving money,
and as promotion came in due time, and he was at length given command
of a vessel, James Brewster began to long for a home. He had friends
on shore who welcomed him, a young girl whose blushes and smiles were
kept for him, and in due time they were betrothed, and a little home
was often the subject of their talk. But whilst he was taking his last
voyage, the young girl fell ill, and, when he landed to claim her as
his bride, he was led to a newly-cut grave that held all that was
dearest in life to him.
James Brewster went to sea again, a soured, miserable man. Years
passed; he left the merchant service, and became a wanderer. Once he
revisited the home of his youth. His stepmother was dead, and his
younger brother reigned there. He had married, and was bringing up a
large family of boys and girls, who were ready to welcome their uncle
with much affection.
But Captain Brewster never forgot that the old inheritance should
have been his; his heart was bitter, and he refused their friendly
overtures. He had now few interests in life. He lodged in the house
of a former shipmate of his, and spent most of his time at his club.
And before going to his club on Christmas Eve, he had written to his
brother declining his invitation to be his Christmas guest.
"They are nothing to me," he growled to himself. "Why should I make
myself agreeable to them? Let them ask those who have no bitter
recollections to spoil the harmony of a Christmas gathering."
So, walking home, he reached his rooms, and, with his pipe in his mouth
and a newspaper in his hand, prepared to enjoy his Christmas Eve over
his cheerful fire.
He did not read. Memory was too hard at work. He had passed a good many
families in the street that afternoon. The breathless excitement of the
children, the bustling importance of their mothers, the amused content
and pride in the eyes of their fathers—all struck him as strangely
pathetic. He began to wonder what he would feel like if he were to be
the head and centre of a happy family circle on the morrow, and as he
pictured it, a grim smile turned into a somewhat wistful expression.
"There is no one on earth who cares about me or wants me! What a farce
this Christmastide is! A meaningless thing to lonely men like myself. I
have nothing in common with it. Thank goodness it will soon be over!"
But the church bells chimed on, and the carol singers sang their songs,
and Captain Brewster felt his heart expanding, in spite of himself, in
this Christmas atmosphere.
"I suppose," he mused, "it is a huge system of give and take. And
givers and receivers are each made happy in their own way. It is quite
certain I shall receive nothing from this day of festivity and good
will, as they term it, but it's just possible that I could give, if I
had a mind to, instead of take."
He smiled at the thought, and at the remembrance of the big balance at
his bank, and he stirred his fire into a bright blaze, and leant back
in his easy-chair, taking a deep whiff of his favourite tobacco, and
seeing a vista of strange possibilities opening out from his narrow,
self-centred life.
"But there isn't a soul I know that would care to accept my help, and
I hate indiscriminate giving, such as stuffing bank-notes into church
plates and bags! I like to know where my money goes and what it does."
He sat on until the midnight chimes had ceased, and then, with a
strange restlessness in his heart, he retired to sleep, but it was long
in coming.
Then a strange thing happened. He was lying awake, reasoning with
himself why he should be tempted to act differently on this Christmas
Day from what he had done on fifty-four previous ones, when he was
startled by a cry in the next room to his.
The walls were thin, and he had been conscious of someone moving about
in a jerky, spasmodic fashion. But now distinct words came to him, and
they were these:
"I have no one to save me—to help me! I have gone too far to go back!"
It was a despairing cry, and it brought conviction to Captain Brewster
that there was one under the same roof as himself whose case was more
to be pitied than his own. He began to wonder who his neighbour was.
"That fresh-faced young Scotchman, I fancy, who used to annoy me
so by his whistling. He came here some time ago. I remember his
superabundance of health and spirits irritated me, but I have not
caught sight of him for a long time. He keeps late hours. Wonder what
he has been doing? Some foolish scrape, I expect. Why should I trouble
my head about him? Hulloa! What on earth is that?"
A white envelope was being pushed underneath his door.
"Not a letter. It must be a bill from some impudent
tradesman—extraordinary proceeding on Christmas Day!"
He strode across the room and picked it up. On the envelope was written
in red letters,—
"The Christmas Angels' Message."
He stared at it grimly, then tore it open impatiently. A card
came to view highly decorated with the same red paint, and with
wonderful-looking birds with scarlet breasts. But the words confronted
him, and made him stand looking at them in dim perplexity:
"GOOD WILL TOWARDS MEN.
For unto you is born this day . . .
a Saviour."
The sweet words crept into his heart and stayed there. Here was the
essence of Christmas—this was the centre-piece, the pivot of it all.
It was not a meaningless season of jollification and merrymaking.
Something definite had happened once that had changed the whole world's
history. What part had he in it? Was he not, could he not be, one to be
benefited by it?
Captain Brewster sat down to consider the matter, and who shall say
that unseen angels did not hover near him and whisper the old Christmas
message again and again, till his heart began to soften?
Be that as it may, as Hector McDermot opened his bedroom door, Captain
Brewster opened his, and they met in the passage.
"Good morning," said the captain cheerily. "Not out of town this
Christmas? We are close neighbours, but we don't see much of each
other. I wonder, if you have no other engagement, whether you would
care to dine with me? I'm going to have a quiet meal in my rooms here
at six o'clock this evening. Will you join me?"
Hector flushed and hesitated for a moment.
"Thank you, sir. I-I shall be very pleased. I have no other engagement."
Captain Brewster noted his heavy eyes and haggard face, but there was a
subdued softness in his tone that touched the old man.
"If I don't get his trouble out of him after a good dinner, my name is
not Brewster! Why, what a boy he is! He wants a woman to look after
him!"
With which just conclusion Captain Brewster went into his sitting-room
and ate a substantial breakfast, whilst Hector, dazed and bewildered,
wandered out into the streets, and later on turned into an old church
and joined in the Christmas service with a subdued and grateful heart.
The dinner was a success. The old and young man drew closer together
after it, and almost instinctively Hector found himself confiding some
of his past history to his host. Before he went to bed that night,
Captain Brewster knew the best and the worst of him. Hector had written
a line to the bank to which he had been told to take the sum of money
entrusted to his charge, promising to deliver it at the earliest
opportunity. He also wrote a letter to his sisters, which gladdened
their hearts. And when the old captain put into his hand a cheque for
the amount of his debts, Hector broke down and sobbed like a child.
"I will pay it back, sir, every penny of it. God helping me, I will!
I'm making a fresh start, but I didn't think I should have been given
such a chance!"
The sound of the Christmas bells that night fell sweetly on the ears of
two lonely men. And when they laid their heads on their pillows, the
music rang through their hearts:
"Unto you is born this day . . . a Saviour."
CHAPTER IV.
MISS CRAY'S CHRISTMAS.
"OH, mother, don't ask Cousin Jessie to come; she's such a miserable
old thing, ugly and shabby, and always whining over her poverty. I'm
sure she'll cast a shadow over it all, and I do want my wedding to be
as bright as ever it can be. I am so happy! I don't believe there could
be a happier girl in the world!"
It would have been difficult to find a brighter, prettier bride than
Dorothy Cray. She stood on this June morning in her mother's dainty
boudoir overlooking the sunny flower garden. In the distance, the old
park of Sunnycroft Hall stretched away down to the river, with its
grassy glades and avenues of elms and beeches. Roses tapped against
the window panes and scented the room with their fragrance, bowls of
heliotrope and rare hothouse flowers filled the room. But Dorothy, with
her laughing eyes, her bewitching dimples and smiles, and her curly
golden head, was surely the fairest flower of all.
Mrs. Cray looked at her radiant young daughter and sighed.
"My darling," she said, "I sometimes wonder whether prosperity has
spoiled you. Your father and I have shielded you from every trouble
or care; you have had a sunny girlhood, and every wish of your heart
gratified. Do not let it make you indifferent and careless to the
sorrows of others. Can you not let a little sunshine fall on your poor
little cousin who has so few pleasures now?"
"She's such an old maid, mother! And I can't bear old maids, they're
always so snappy and cross. I think I should die if I were Cousin
Jessie. What is the good of her? She does no good to anyone, except
snap their heads off when they go to see her. I won't be selfish; you
can ask her to come, but I shall try to keep out of her way!"
Dorothy danced off, and her mother, with another smile and sigh, turned
to her letters. How little she thought that she had seen her daughter
for the last time in all the joyousness and thoughtless gaiety of youth!
But so it was. The girl had run off to invade her father's study, and
to coax him to leave his business papers that had been so engrossing
him lately, and come for a ride with her. She found him leaning forward
on his writing table, and, when she touched him, her terrified scream
brought her mother and servants to her side.
Mr. Cray was dead, from failure of his heart, and his death was due
to the news he had heard that morning. A gold mine in which he had
foolishly invested most of his means had collapsed, and Mrs. Cray and
her daughter were left practically penniless.
Dorothy was stunned at first. Her marriage was postponed, and she had
to devote herself to her mother, who, never getting over the shock,
became a paralysed invalid. But the girl bore up bravely. Youth and
health were hers, and she felt herself secure in the love of her fiancé.
When he failed her, and she learnt that her money, and not herself,
was his chief attraction, she lost her trust in God and man. The
sudden sharp blows of misfortune crushed her, and Dorothy Cray lived
her life in bitter discontent and misery. She moved into lodgings with
her mother, and for ten years nursed and cared for her with gloomy
fortitude. Then she found herself alone in the world, with just enough
money to keep off starvation, but little for comfort and luxuries.
She went up to London, and after many fruitless efforts, at length got
taken on to the staff of some cheap and popular magazine. Year after
year found her in the same groove, making no friends, for she was
entirely self-centred, and drifting into the once despised spinster's
lot.
Sometimes as she looked at her faded features and shabby attire in her
glass, she wondered if her youth, with all its beauty and gladness, was
but a dream. This Christmas season was indeed a mockery to her. She sat
in her room and tried to shut out all sounds and reminders that it had
come round again.
"I hate to see the joyful faces about the streets. It is only the
children that can be happy. Their time will come, as they grow older,
to see everything turned into dust and ashes before their eyes. Oh,
what a pretence it all is! What a ridiculous farce to set apart a
season when everyone is supposed to rejoice!"
She paced her room in impatience and scorn. And then a strange impulse
moved her to take out of her writing-desk some old letters, letters
returned to her by her faithless lover, which, from sheer indifference,
had remained untouched in the packet as they arrived years before.
She looked at the girlish writing with pathetic interest. Then slowly
and deliberately she sat down by her fire and read them steadily
through.
They struck her now as very crude and childish, very self-absorbed, and
indifferent to anyone's likes and dislikes but her own.
"I was a spoilt child," she mused; "spoilt by indulgence and prosperity
for the first twenty years of my life, and spoiled by cruel adversity
for the last thirty years. Well, I have tasted of the two extremes.
I am now living an aimless, monotonous life, and don't think I have
any feeling left for possible chances or changes. Time will drag on
as it has dragged, until I go the way of most men and women, and my
nonexistence will affect no human being any more than my present
existence does."
Then she began to cry softly over her own fate. The happy girlish
letters in her hand had touched and softened her.
"How little I thought when I wrote these what the future held for me!
I wonder, if things had gone differently, whether my marriage would
have been a happy one. I hardly think it could have been. He broke his
wife's heart years ago, people say, by his treatment of her, and she
was another poor dupe—married for her money. I was saved that misery.
I wonder if there is anything on earth that will make a woman happy,
independent of a husband and a home! I can't conceive of any possible
gift in life that would bring me happiness now. Money, influence,
position would not—I have proved their hollowness."
These thoughts kept her awake most of the night, and when Christmas Day
dawned, she rose unrefreshed by quiet slumber.
"Now how shall I get through this horrid day? A blank day, indeed, for
me—almost like a Sunday. What can I do? Where can I go? I hate the
sound of church bells! How sick I am of myself and my surroundings! I
don't want to be reminded that this is a joyful day. What happiness,
what joy can it bring to me?"
She started. Who was that outside her door? She watched the envelope
being pushed underneath, and picked it up with uneasy curiosity.
"'The Christmas Angels' Message,'" she read with a short laugh. "Now
has anyone been sending me a Christmas card, or is it a tract in
disguise?"
She opened it.
"I BRING YOU . . . GREAT JOY.
For unto you is born this day . . .
a Saviour."
Here was the answer to her unspoken question. "What joy can this day
bring to me?" She was struck with the coincidence. Could "great joy"
ever come to such as she?
She gazed at the little card in wonder. Womanlike, her first thought
was: Who had sent it to her?
"It looks like a child's doing. Can it be that little boy downstairs
who has picked up my glasses for me more than once? And yet I have
hardly spoken to him; he would never take any interest in me! I must
find out from Jennie when she brings me in my breakfast. The words are
peculiarly appropriate to my frame of mind, but what a mockery to talk
about 'great joy' to me! I must look the words up in my Bible, if I can
find it. I believe I have one somewhere. It will give me something to
do after breakfast."
Jennie came in rosy and smiling.
"'Appy Christmas, mum!"
Miss Cray smiled, and was conscious that smiling was an unusual
experience.
"Someone else has been trying to wish me that in a different way,
Jennie. Did you push an envelope under my bedroom door just now?"
"Oh, no, mum," said Jennie breathlessly, "but Master Maurice did. He
were up afore 'twas light, and he giv' me a card 'e did 'isself; it
ain't got much on but words, but 'twas the angels' message, he said.
But bless 'is 'eart, I says to missis, 'tis the thought one likes, not
so much the gift!"
Miss Cray said no more. She ate her solitary breakfast with the card
lying before her, and her eyes rested upon it with wistful perplexity.
She got her unused Bible out of a top shelf in her bookcase, and sat
down to study the Christmas story for herself. And, as she read on into
the Gospels, she dimly began to perceive that the sad and sorrowful
ones on earth were the ones for whom the Saviour came, that they were
specially the objects of His love and care.
Great joy did not flood her soul all at once, but a gleam of sunshine
stole in that morning, and sent her to church wondering why she had
never seen that Christmas joy was not meant to be confined to the young
and light-hearted, but to the old and lonely and friendless ones.
"Unto you this day is born . . . a Saviour."
The words never left her. And when the clergyman took them for his
text, she was not a bit surprised. She listened as she had never
listened before, and the old, old story quickened and stirred to life
her sleeping, apathetic soul.
As she walked home, she raised her face to the wintry sky.
"I did not think," were her unspoken words, "that there could be a good
time coming for me. If the Saviour was born to bring it to me, I do
not see why I should not have it in this life as well as in the next.
Our vicar says it is all wrapped up in Him, and that His hands are
stretching out to save and bless. I wish—" Here a little choke came in
her throat. "I think I must try and get within reach of Him!"
CHAPTER V.
MRS. CALMEON'S CHRISTMAS.
"NOW, Barton, you needn't talk to me of Christmas cheer and good
will, and all the rest of that jargon! If you are dying to go and
enjoy yourself, I'll give you the day off, and you can hunt up that
extravagant sister-in-law of yours who has brought your brother into
the Bankruptcy Court. Leave me alone, that is all I ask of you; and if
a letter comes to me from Calmeon Court, put it straight into the fire.
Don't dare to bring it to me!"
Mrs. Calmeon settled herself back in her easy-chair with an angry jerk.
She was a stout, pleasant-faced woman, but a pair of flashing black
eyes showed that within her placid frame there dwelt an evil temper.
Mrs. Calmeon's fiery temper had been her curse through life. She had
never learnt to control it, and it was the cause of perpetual discord
in her family. She had two married sisters, with whom she was not on
speaking terms, and two years previously had quarrelled so violently
with her husband that she had left him, and, taking her confidential
maid with her, had travelled through the Riviera, declaring that she
would never go back to her home.
Admiral Calmeon had only enjoyed his wife's society at rare and short
intervals for many years. He was necessarily away at sea for the
greater part of the time, and perhaps he was content to be so; for Mrs.
Calmeon's temper did not improve with age. When he at length retired
from the service and settled down in his family place, he found that
his wife expected still to be the ruling spirit there. He was not a man
who would submit to this, and then began a long and bitter struggle
between two arbitrary and self-willed people.
It ended in Mrs. Calmeon packing up her belongings and taking her
departure. The Admiral made the best of it, and informed his friends
that her health required a long sojourn in a warm climate. But when he
heard she had returned to London, he began to think it would be best to
make peace, and he accordingly wrote to her. Mrs. Calmeon by this time
was heartily tired of travelling. She had spent a great deal more money
than she had expected to do, and she was longing to be in her own home
again.
But her husband's letter did not improve matters. He was a thoroughly
good-hearted, high-principled man, but singularly devoid of tact; and
he wrote as he might write to one of his junior officers in the service
who had committed a breach of discipline. Mrs. Calmeon's hot temper
rose again, and she wrote more unwisely than she had ever spoken. He
retaliated in the same spirit, and then she wrote to him that she would
never communicate with him or see him again. The next letter that came
from him, she burnt; the next, she returned unopened.
And now on this Christmas morning, she found herself sadly crippled in
means and miserable in spirit, established in a quiet, unpretentious
lodging-house.
Barton looked at her mistress rather wistfully. She was a good,
faithful servant, and desired nothing better than to see her master and
mistress reconciled.
"I don't want to go away from you, ma'am," she said, straightening
herself for a last effort, and speaking fast and nervously. "And there
won't be any letters from Calmeon Court, ma'am, for the Admiral is very
ill, ma'am. I heard last night from Jane to tell me so."
"Bring up my breakfast, Barton, and hold your tongue!"
Barton sighed and left the room. Mrs. Calmeon settled herself afresh in
her chair, and toasted her feet at the blazing fire.
"It's a miserable day," she said with an impatient little shiver. "I
always did dislike Christmas. I wish it was over. As soon as I can, I
shall leave London; it is too noisy. I think I shall try Malvern. I
hardly had any sleep Last night, and everyone in the house seems to
have been stirring since daybreak. I have heard that child racing up
and down stairs for hours. His mother ought to keep him quiet. I'm
thankful he keeps away from my passage.
"It reminds me of when I spent a Christmas with Maria. How boisterous
her boys were! But they used to be very fond of me. If it had not been
for Maria's temper, I would have liked to have adopted one of them.
They always liked visiting me. And Rudolph was a fine little fellow. I
suppose he must be quite a young man now. Ah! If I had only had a son,
I would not now be so friendless and forlorn! All my life long I have
had to do without affection. I should have been a better, a happier
woman if I had had children. And that is the want in our home. Henry
would never have dared to treat me so if I had had children to stand up
and defend me. I don't wish him ill.
"I wonder what is the matter with him—touch of gout, perhaps; that is
what makes his temper so unbearable. Shouldn't be surprised if Caroline
had gone to him. She was always so infatuated over her 'darling
brother.' I hate to think of her there, and what must she think of me?
Everything evil, I suppose. Henry told me once he would rather have me
nurse him than anyone else. That was long ago, but I know I am a good
hand at it. If he is very seriously ill, there is no competent doctor.
Old Forster is a fool! He kills more patients than he cures.
"I should think Henry must feel sorry now that he has driven me away
by his cruelty. I wonder he doesn't write and beg me to come to
him; perhaps that last letter of his was to express sorrow for his
behaviour. Now I come to think of it, the writing looked very queer and
shaky. But I won't go to him till he entreats me to do so. I couldn't;
it would be placing myself in a false position. He always was such a
helpless man when he was ill. Well, he will be having as miserable a
Christmas as I am having—it is his own fault, not mine."
Mrs. Calmeon brushed away some glittering drops from her eyelashes. She
began to pity herself extremely.
Barton came in with her breakfast, and on the tray was a white envelope.
"I found it outside the door, ma'am. I don't know who left it, but it
is addressed to you."
"I'll send for you when I want you, Barton."
The maid withdrew. Mrs. Calmeon adjusted her glasses, and looked at
the envelope curiously. "The Christmas Angels' Message," she read. She
opened it. A red-and-white lettered card met her eye:
"ON EARTH PEACE.
For unto you is born this day . . .
a Saviour."
"Now what has this been sent to me for?" she exclaimed, pushing it
from her impatiently. "A message, indeed! I think it is an exceedingly
impertinent one! 'Peace!' I'm sure I want peace as much as anyone, but
no one will let me have it."
She drank a cup of tea hastily, then pushed it away from her with a
little sob. Leaning her elbows on the table, she put down her face into
her hands and began to cry.
"I'm getting a soured, miserable old woman. Everyone has quarrelled
with me, and even my husband turns me out of doors. Peace! It is a
mockery! No one has any right to send me such a card! I'm sure I'd give
worlds to live at peace with my husband. I used to look forward to the
time when he would retire and come home for good. I thought that we
should be so happy together. He used to be so fond of me. But it all
turned out a miserable failure. He has lost all affection for me. I
care much more for him, in spite of all his overbearing ways. If he
would try to be different, I would go to him to-morrow. I may have been
to blame. I wish I could control my quick temper. I am willing to make
peace with him, I am sure I am."
She dried her tears and tried to continue her breakfast. But her eyes,
in spite of herself, kept wandering to the card.
"For unto you this day is born . . . a Saviour."
She mused over the words. Mrs. Calmeon was not an irreligious woman. At
one time she had very earnestly sought the Saviour, and had found Him.
But after a time, her unbridled temper, like the thorns, had choked the
good seed, and her life had been unfruitful for many a year. The verse
brought back to her all the whole sweetness and rest associated with
the One Who had laid His hands upon her sin-burdened soul and bid her
go in peace.
"It is my temper," she sobbed. "Even Christ has cast me off. I have
driven God and man away from me."
She rose from the table and paced the room.
"This day . . . a Saviour . . . On earth peace."
And the words rang through her heart and brain with persistent force.
"I don't know who sent me this card," she said to herself at length,
"but I believe the hand of God is in it. I am longing to be at peace
with my husband, and Christmas is the time for it. I shall go straight
back to Calmeon Court this afternoon, and Barton shall pack our things.
I shall try and never say an angry word again. I will let Henry do and
say what he likes. A man ought to be master in his own house. I always
felt it, though I fought hard against it. I should despise him if he
could not get the better of me, I know I should! And, oh, I wonder if
Christ will receive me back again and forgive me? I wonder if He will
come into my heart, and take care of me and my temper? A Saviour! He
shall save His people from their sins. I do believe He could save me
from my temper if I were to trust it to Him."
A long time elapsed before Mrs. Calmeon rang her bell for Barton. She
was having a very important and close interview with the only One Who
could give her Christmas "peace." It was an interview that altered her
whole life from that day forward.
When Barton came in, her mistress had moved her chair to the window,
and was looking out above the tiled and slated roofs into the grey sky.
Barton looked out too.
"I think it will be a fine day, ma'am. Will you be going to church?"
"I don't think so. Have you a 'Bradshaw?' Do you know how the trains
are running to-day?"
Barton looked as surprised as if her mistress had proposed travelling
on Sunday.
"I can find out, ma'am, if you wish."
"Do so. Did you hear, Barton, what was the matter with the Admiral?"
Barton's dismayed face brightened at once.
"It was a very bad cold, ma'am, Jane said. Jane said he hadn't been
well for a long time, and didn't seem to wish to take any care of
himself. She said he seemed to be failing; and, excuse me, ma'am, Jane
said before he took to his bed, he said to her that he would like her
to write to you acquainting you with his state.
"'If your mistress's health is better, she may be coming home,' he
said. 'I've written once or twice to ask how soon I may expect her.'
"And Jane said, ma'am, he just lies quiet, eating nothing, and only
looking towards the door as if he's expecting you!"
"Go and find out about the trains, Barton."
Mrs. Calmeon's quiet manner hid an anxious heart. She was touched by
her husband's loyalty to her. He never by word or sign allowed his
servants to think that there had been any serious breach between them.
And he was sick and lonely, and he was expecting her! She could not
wait for her maid's return, but went to her bedroom, and with feverish,
eager haste began to stow away her possessions in her travelling trunks.
When Barton appeared, all she said was—
"We must be as quick as we can, Barton, or we shall not reach Calmeon
Court to-night."
And twelve hours later, the Admiral's grey head was pillowed on his
wife's shoulder, and she was whispering in his ear—
"You must get well, Henry, for I can't live without you, and I mean to
be a better wife in future. This Christmas will be the beginning of
happier times, I am sure!"
CHAPTER VI.
MAURICE'S CHRISTMAS.
"A HAPPY Christmas, mummie! I've been as quiet as ever I could, but
it's Christmas Day, and I really think it is quite time for you to get
up."
This was the little voice that roused Mrs. Dacombe from her dreams.
She drew her boy close to her.
"Dressed already, darling? I have overslept myself. It will be nice to
have a real holiday to-day."
"Yes, it has stopped raining, mummie, and Jennie has given me a
beautiful piece of holly for my button-hole. And I've slipped my
Christmas cards under all the doors. Isn't it fun! Do you think they
will like them when they open them, mummie?"
"I'm sure they will, my boy. Now run away, and stay quietly in the next
room till breakfast comes."
Away scampered Maurice. He had quite changed his mind about Christmas;
so many nice things had happened during the past twenty-four hours that
he had begun to look at life quite differently.
The day before his mother had heard from an old friend who had lately
returned from India. He was a widower with one little girl, and he had
written asking her to bring her boy and dine with them at a private
hotel in town.
Maurice had never seen his mother look happier than when she told him
this.
"This Mr. Gordon used to spend his holidays with us when I was a little
girl. We grew up together, and then he went abroad, and I heard of
his marriage afterwards. He was like a brother to me, and he has been
staying with your Aunt Lettice in India."
"The Aunt Lettice who won't write to you, mummie?"
"Hush, dear. It was a misunderstanding. Mr. Gordon has made it clear to
me, and she has written, Maurice. I have heard from her, too; it makes
me very glad."
"I shall be glad to dine at an hotel," said Maurice thoughtfully,
"because they always look like the king's palace, the stairs are so
big and wide. And I shall have a little girl to play with, too. Why,
mummie, we shall have a lovely Christmas—quite as nice as when you were
a little girl; don't you think so?"
That was one of the surprises that Christmas Eve brought him. But a
parcel brought in by smiling Jennie was another, and when it proved to
be a book of fairy stories, a gift from the landlady, Mrs. Trelawney,
Maurice's joy overflowed.
"It's such a lovely book!" he assured the landlady with radiant eyes.
"I always think fairies come next to angels, don't you? I love them
next best. And I didn't think I would have a Christmas present from
anybody!"
The afternoon of Christmas Eve was a very happy one. His mother seemed
to arouse herself from her weary apathy, and took him out to see the
shops. She even invested in one or two trifles that seemed to the boy
the height of extravagance. A packet of almonds and raisins, a pair
of kid gloves and a new tie for him, and a collar and a pair of white
muslin cuffs for herself.
"We must smarten ourselves up for our dinner, Maurice," she said. And
she laughed as he had not heard her laugh before.
The boy stood at the window looking out and thinking over these things.
When his mother came in, he sprang into her arms.
"Mummie, I want to tell you something. You won't laugh, will you,
because it was really true?"
"I promise not to laugh, dear."
"Well, mummie, I woke up in the middle of the night, quite wide awake
I was, and I was thinking about the Christmas angels and wondering if
they would really come down from the sky and sing about Jesus, when I
heard them—I really did! It was lovely! I never heard any music like it
before."
Mrs. Dacombe smiled. She had been awakened by some waits—a church choir
close by—and had listened with pleasure to their trained voices, but
she did not know that her little son had been awake too. She had not
the heart to dispel this child's fancy.
"What did they sing?" she asked.
"They sang one very pretty song. I heard 'Glory to God in the highest,'
but, mother, there was only one song they could sing—the one in the
Bible."
He paused, then added with kindling eyes—
"Mummie, I think it was so very kind of God to send them to me. Because
you see, I'm the only one that hasn't got an angels' message this
morning. I mean a written one. I sent one to everybody in the house,
but I couldn't send one to myself, could I? And I got the best of all."
"You did, indeed, darling."
There were tears in Mrs. Dacombe's eyes as she kissed her boy.
"And now," said Maurice, throwing back his golden head with a happy
laugh, "Christmas Day has begun, and I think it will be the very best
day in my life!"
But Maurice never knew how busy his "Christmas angels" had been, how
many hearts had heard and rejoiced in their message, and how the music
that came down from heaven to earth so many years ago was sounding
afresh in the ears of those who had forgotten the true meaning of
Christmas.
HER FIRST AND LAST PLACE.
CHAPTER I.
DEPARTURE.
SHE was a quiet, dreamy little thing, with large dark eyes and smooth
brown hair, cut close to her head. She was always in a large pinafore,
which looked a world too big for her, and which gained for her the name
of Pinny; though her aunt invariably gave her the full benefit of her
baptismal name, "M'ria 'Lisbeth."
Pinny never remembered her father and mother; her aunt, a staid
spinster, who kept a small draper's shop, had brought her up. And the
little girl had never wanted for anything. She had been sent to school
regularly, and to church and Sunday-school on Sundays. And now the time
had come for her to make herself useful, and earn her own living.
"You can have your choice," her aunt said to her one afternoon, as she
sat in the little back parlour trimming up a wonderful black straw
bonnet with scarlet ribbons and red and yellow roses. "I can't hafford
to 'prentice you, but there's service, or workin' in the boot factory
the end of our street; I don't know as there's hanythink else you'd be
good for. You're hallays up in the skies more'n half your time; and
'tis time you were repayin' me for hall I've laid out on you."
Pinny gazed at the bright bonnet without speaking for a minute, and
then she said slowly, "I'll think about it, aunt, and let you know."
"I'll give you till to-morrer," responded her aunt.
And then Pinny left the room, and went out into the street to think. It
was a very warm afternoon in August, and all the children were enjoying
themselves out on the doorsteps.
Pinny made her way to an old bit of paling across the road, and
perching herself on the top of this looked across towards the only
green tree she could see. Presently she was joined by another girl with
a quantity of rough, red hair and a smiling, freckled face.
"'Ulloo, Pinny! In the sulks, ain't you?"
"No, I ain't," was the decided answer.
"Makin' up a story to tell us?"
"No, I ain't."
"Then what on 'arth are you a-doin' of?"
"I'm thinking," said Pinny, "how to 'arn my livin'; and I finds it
terrible difficult."
"Come into the factory with me."
"I hate boots; I wish I was a boy."
"And what 'ud you do?"
"I'd be a gardener, or a farmer; I'd get out of London, and I'd never,
'never' come back to it agen!"
"Lawks, 'ow can you! A day in the country's quite enough for me; no
shops, no crowds, nor nothin' amusin'; I'd die of the dumps if I was to
live there allays!"
"I dunno how you'll like heaven," was Pinny's rejoinder; "for it's all
flowers and trees and gardens there."
"No, it ain't, it's a big city—teacher told us last Sunday—with gold
streets, and jools, and glass; somethin' like the Crystal Palace, I
fancies!"
Pinny shook her head doubtfully.
"If I didn't wear my clothes out, and didn't get hungry, I know what
I'd do."
"Tell us."
"I'd walk right out of Lunnon, and go on walkin' till I came to the
country. And then I'd take service in a farm likes I read of. But 'tis
the gettin' there be the business."
The conversation was interrupted here by a brisk-looking little woman,
carrying a big black bag.
"Well, girls, how are you? And how's your aunt, Pinny?"
"Here's Pinny pinin' to go into the country to 'arn her livin', Mrs.
Mead. You got Sue Green away to service, can you get her?"
Pinny jumped down from her perch, and in her eagerness seized the
Bible-woman's arm.
"Oh, Mrs. Mead, get me a place in the country! I thinks and dreams of
it all day long, hever since I went for that week's holiday last year.
I'll do hanythink if only you'll get me out o' Lunnon!"
"Bless the child, you don't look big enough to go to service yet. What
does your aunt say about it? For she's been a good aunt to you."
"She says I must start to-morrer at somethin'; leastways, I must tell
her what I mean to do."
"Well, I will go in and have a talk with her about you. It's rather
strange, but only to-day I got a letter from a sister-in-law of mine
wanting a girl. She can't get one where she is; they all like to come
up to London."
Pinny's dark eyes sparkled; she followed Mrs. Mead into her aunt's back
parlour, and there her future was again discussed. Her aunt did not at
first take to the idea of a country situation at all.
"I wanted M'ria 'Lisbeth to be someways near me; for I'm gettin' on in
life now, and maybe will be wantin' her to look after things now and
then."
"But I will come back directly you want me, aunt. Oh, do let me go into
the country!" pleaded poor Pinny.
Her aunt looked at her.
"You won't get sharper nor wider awake by livin' in the country; and
you've none too much wits to spare at present."
But in the end, Mrs. Mead prevailed.
And a fortnight later, Pinny, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes,
was starting in the train with a small wooden box and wonderful
anticipations of her first situation. It was a small farm, and the
mistress, a cheerful, energetic body, took a fancy to Pinny at once.
Plenty of work, but plenty of good food and fresh sweet air, and Pinny
did justice to all. She was up at five o'clock every morning, and hard
at scrubbing, cleaning, and sweeping most of the day, yet she found
time to pick the sweet-scented flowers, and store away innumerable
woodland treasures in her little top attic. And at night Pinny would
kneel down in front of her treasures and thank God with all her heart
for having made them so beautiful. Sometimes, on rare occasions, her
mistress would let her take the two small children into the woods, and
then, indeed, Pinny would fancy herself in Paradise.
"You ought never to be naughty here," she would remonstrate when the
small people would get fractious and combative one with the other.
"Why not?" demanded Rob, a sturdy boy of five years.
"Because it's like heaven, so still and quiet, and God seems so close!"
"Don't God live where you come from?"
Pinny shook her head doubtfully. "Well, I should think He keeps
as far-away as He can; there's such a horful lot o' swearin', and
cheatin', and lyin', and drinkin'. Lunnon ain't a place for good folks,
so far as I've a-seed it. You allays feels low like, and millions o'
miles from heaven."
"So if I wants to steal mother's sugar without God seein' me, I muss go
to Lunnon!"
Pinny promptly changed the subject.
CHAPTER II.
A SUMMONS.
IT was a sunny October morning. Pinny was coming across the yard with
some pails of milk, and a spray of blackberries in her hand, when she
was met at the kitchen door by her mistress.
"Here's a letter for you, M'ria; old John Dobbs has just brought it."
Pinny took the letter, feeling pleased at the importance of her
position, as letters were few and far between at the farm.
She stood at the kitchen window facing the bright sunshine and wooded
hillside. But in a minute, the sunshine seemed to have gone, and the
fair scene faded quite away, for Pinny was looking out of the window
through a mist of tears.
This was the letter, written in a crabbed, shaky hand—
"DEAR MARIA ELIZABETH,—You must come back to me and tell your missus
that your aunt have broke her arm and can't afford to keep Susan
Clarke as is doing for her now and smashing all the crockery to bits
and losing all the customers by her saucy tongue, and me tied hand and
foot in the back parlour and haven't slept a wink all night. Give my
respects, and come as soon as you can. The doctor says I'll never quite
come at the use of my arm again, and it was the pail on the stairs as
did it.—Your sincere aunt,—
"MARY SMYTHE."
It was a pitiful downfall to poor Pinny, and as she thought of the
stuffy shop in the close, narrow street, and the same old life that she
had so hated to be lived over again, her whole soul rose in rebellious
protest.
She stood there silently for some minutes, and a great battle raged in
her heart.
Presently, she crushed the letter in her pocket, and turned to continue
her work with a white, determined face.
"Is it from your aunt?" asked her mistress.
"Yes, 'm."
"Is she quite well? Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"She's middlin', thank you, 'm." And not another word did Pinny say.
All day long with unflagging energy did Pinny pursue her work. But when
alone, and her mistress out of hearing, words like these dropped from
her muttering lips—
"I won't—I won't—I shall never be good there—she don't want me—I shan't
say nothin'—I should die if I was back—'tis a shame when I'm so happy."
Great scalding tears fell, and sobs were with difficulty repressed.
"I can't think what has come over M'ria," said her mistress to her
husband when Pinny had retired to rest. "She has been as glum and
silent as can be since she got her letter, and so wonderful close over
it. Wonder if 'tis a scoldin' from her aunt; there don't seem much love
lost between 'em."
And upstairs Pinny was kneeling by her little bed, clasping a jar of
meadow-sweet and bright berries in agony.
"O God, don't make me go! I reely ain't a-goin'. I'll never serve Thee
proper in Lunnon, and I've never missed readin' my Bible and sayin' of
my prayers once since I camed here. I don't deserve to be sent back,
and I—I ain't a-goin'!"
She got into bed, but had a restless night, with dreams of her aunt on
a dying bed calling to her. And when she rose the next morning, she
went downstairs without saying her prayers.
Very quiet she was all the morning, but she scrubbed and cleaned with
such heart and will that her mistress gave her special commendation.
"Take the children out for a bit after dinner, M'ria, it'll do ye good.
You are quite pale this mornin'."
Pinny did so; but the trees, the birds, and the ripe nuts and
blackberries in the wood had no longer any pleasure for her.
At half-past three, she appeared at the kitchen door again, dragging
hot, reluctant children after her.
"Please 'm," she said, with a little gasping sob, "I can't stay out no
longer, and we've runned all the way back, because, please, 'm, I'm a
wicked girl, and I must go back to me h'ant this very night!"
Then, bursting into a passion of tears, she sobbed out her confession,
and her mistress listened with surprise and displeasure.
"It's very awkward losin' yer so soon. You've just got into my ways,
and now I shall have to hunt for another girl. Well, if you must go,
you must. Of course yer aunt comes first. There's a train leavin' for
London six o'clock sharp, so your master will take you and yer box
along in the cart. I always said girls from a distance was a trouble.
I've paid your fare down and you're leavin' me inside two months."
Pinny fled up to her room. But as she packed her belongings, she
felt as if her heart would break, and it was with swollen cheeks and
tear-stained eyes that she took leave of her mistress and children.
Softened by her distress, the former pressed into her hand at parting
a basket with a pound of freshly-made butter, some new-laid eggs and
rosy-checked apples.
"There, child, you've been a good little maid, and tell your aunt I'm
sorry to part with yer."
It was nine o'clock in the evening when Pinny once more stood on her
aunt's doorstep.
In one hand she had the farm basket, in the other was grasped firmly
a big blue cotton handkerchief, containing bits of green, fir cones,
dried grass and tinted leaves, such as her little heart treasured and
loved.
"They'll keep me in mind of the country and help me to be good," she
had said to herself as she had packed them up with tears and kisses.
And now she took a last peep at them before she entered the door.
"M'ria 'Lisbeth, is that you? Come in, child; I've been wearyin' for
yer. The whole house is topsy-turvy, and I can't get about. Hope you've
come back with more smartness than you went away, for I can tell yer
there's plenty to be done."
It was not a cheery welcome, yet Pinny crossed over to her aunt's chair
and kissed her with a pitiful little smile.
"I'm sorry you're ill, aunt; I'll do the best I can; see what my missus
has sent you."
"Ah, well, 'tis very good of her. 'Twas all a mistake my lettin' you go
to service. I'm not so young as I was, and I must have a girl to help
me."
Pinny choked down a little lump that rose in her throat, and with
difficulty dragged her small box up to her bedroom.
She opened the window when she got there and looked out. The old
familiar street; boys and girls playing and fighting; drunken men and
women staggering home; coarse language and shrill shouts; and above
all, a thick yellow fog. Was this indeed the same world that she had so
lately left?
She sighed, then slowly went downstairs again. She found her aunt, who
was sitting close to the fire, in the act of holding down with the
poker a dense mass of smoking, crackling green. And when in agony of
fear and apprehension Pinny darted to her treasured bundle, she found
only an empty handkerchief on the floor.
"Yes, I opened your handky, and have just burned the rubbish. We can't
have the house littered with it; 'twas nothin' but dead leaves and
green—not a flower among it! Why, cryin', you little stupid! 'Tis a
good thing I've still got enough sense to look after yer. You hallays
was the silliest child for collectin' rubbish! Now come and have a cup
o' tea, and then I'll get yer to help me to bed!"
Nearly an hour later, Pinny knelt by her little bed with pale cheeks
and tear-stained eyes, yet with an expression of determination and
heroic resolve upon her face.
"O God," she prayed, clasping her little hands convulsively together,
"forgive me; I've come back to my dooty, and I'll try and be a good
girl here. I knowed it was too like heaven to last; but I'll get to
heaven some day. And please will Thee be still close to me in Lunnon?
For I seem to want Thee more."
And Pinny found out in after years that God was quite as near one of
His little servants in London as He had been in the country.
WHAT MADE HIM SPEAK?
CHAPTER I.
HER HOME.
IT was a grey December afternoon. St. Clare Towers looked grim and
ghostly in the waning light. Only the ruddy gleams from its old
casement windows saved it from being a picture of desolation without.
Gaunt, leafless trees shrieked in the sudden onslaughts of the violent
wind that attacked in fury anything and everything that obstructed its
progress. It was not a day to be out.
The little village at the bottom of the hill was silent and deserted;
doors and windows were barred and bolted for the night, though the
church clock had not yet struck five. Yet on the broad terrace walk
outside the old house, Mildred St. Clare, wrapped in a thick grey
cloak, was pacing to and fro. Not only was she battling with the
elements, the tempest outside was nothing in comparison to that which
was going on within her own soul.
She was not a very young woman; her dark, wavy hair was streaked with
grey, her face was now strained and set with many a hard line and
wrinkle. Yet no one who glanced at her tall upright figure, who noticed
her shapely hands and feet, her finely-cut features, and her lustrous
dark eyes, could fail to pronounce her a very striking-looking woman
still. Proud she was—every turn of her words and bearing proclaimed the
fact—proud of her name, her race, her home; and the passionate love in
her heart for the place in which she had been reared for nearly forty
years fostered rather than discouraged this pride. She had been the
only daughter amongst five brothers. She had just left school when her
mother died, and from that time until now had reigned as undisputed
mistress over St. Clare Towers and all pertaining to it. Her father had
died ten years ago; four of her brothers were scattered in different
quarters of the globe, and Percy, the eldest, had settled down, as she
had thought, into a quiet and happy life with her.
Not a fear of any change in the future had she until the thunderbolt
fell, just four years previous to this December day. Her brother had
been away from her three months. He had left her a free man. He came
back to her with a young wife. The bride was a sweet, gentle girl of
eighteen, not quite her husband's equal in birth and standing. She
was much in awe of her new sister-in-law, and seemed hardly capable
at first of stepping into her rightful position, which was indeed
a difficult one. There was at once friction in the house. Mildred
was queen in her own kingdom, and could not easily be deposed. The
villagers, the tenants, the servants all owned her sway, and her will
was law. Norah succumbed to the stronger spirit. Her husband felt
helpless to advise or control, and the one who ought to have taken the
second place stood like adamant—unyielding, stern, and uncompromising.
At last, Percy did the wisest thing he could at that juncture. He took
his wife abroad again, and for nearly four years Mildred had reigned
alone and undisturbed in her old home. It had not been a happy time,
for she foresaw that her fate was doomed. She must at some time leave
it all and give place to another.
Now that time had come. Percy and Norah had returned with their little
girl, a sweet mite of three years. They had been but twenty-four hours
in the house, but Mildred realised at last that she could be mistress
no longer. Norah was not now a weak, frightened girl; she was a married
woman, a mother, and had developed into a sweet and gracious woman, as
able to rule a household and take her rightful position as Mildred had
been to rule and keep that position from her.
A chance word that she had overheard between husband and wife had sent
her out into the howling, blustering wind, to work off the passionate
rebellion in her soul.
"I do not think Mildred will ever be happy with us," Norah had said a
little sadly. "It is such a trying position for her, after having been
mistress all these years."
"I do not want her to leave us," responded her husband gravely. "She is
very dependent on me, though fortunately she does not know it. Her own
money is such a miserable pittance. It is hard lines on a woman of her
age, but my father always thought she would marry."
"I wonder she has not."
"She has never seen the right man, I suppose. She has refused many."
Now, as she paced the terrace, these words rang and re-rang in her
ears. She clenched her teeth and hands in the intensity of her
emotions. Presently she leant her arms on the old stone wall which
looked over the flower garden and park.
"Oh," she groaned, "how I love it!"
Her gaze rested on all before her for some minutes in silence, then it
wandered to the old house and travelled up and down every inch from
turret to ground. "It has been mine from my birth! A young girl with no
associations, no affections, no past life built into every crevice and
nook of it, comes upon the scene, and I must go. Oh, what a cruel thing
it is to be a woman!"
She resumed her walk. Again her thoughts forced themselves into
utterance. "I have never tasted poverty, never known the slightest
pinch of it. Where can I go? What can I do? Death seems to me the only
deliverance."
"Good evening, Miss St. Clare."
She started, and her tone was haughty, as cold as the grey stone wall
beside her.
"Good evening, Mr. Venn."
"I thought it was the grey wraith keeping sentinel," the new-comer
pursued in a pleasant, evenly-modulated voice—a voice which once had
stirred every pulse in Mildred's soul and body. "I quite expected to be
confronted with a challenge, and wondered why I should have to give the
password."
She did not reply. She was wondering if he had heard her reckless words.
"Are you coming in," he said again, "or will you leave me to make my
introduction to Mrs. St. Clare alone? I met Percy in the village, and
he sent me on."
"You will not need my help," responded Mildred drily. "I suppose you
are dining with us?"
"Yes. Do not let me leave you here. You are still a human being, you
know—not perfectly impervious to wind and weather."
She gave a quick, impatient sigh.
"Wind and weather do not disturb me. I came out to be alone."
"I am not sorry that I disturbed you. Better be alone by a fireside
than out of doors at this time and season."
She was accompanying him to the house, walking in free, rapid strides,
as if she defied any buffetings from Nature to restrain or hinder her
steps from going where they chose. He did not speak again, and a few
minutes later they stood in the luxurious warmth and comfort of an old
English hall. Blazing logs lay sputtering in the open fireplace; thick
rugs covered the floor.
On a tiger skin, enjoying the fire, were stretched a collie and a large
deer-hound. They rose on their mistress's approach, and thrust their
noses into her hands with a low whine of contentment. A soft light came
into her eyes as she laid her hands on their heads.
"What is your love?" she said musingly. "The fireside and your
mistress, if you can have them. The fireside without her if she chooses
to leave it."
She went up the old staircase, gazing with sad eyes at every object as
she passed, and leaving Philip Vonn to be ushered into the drawing-room
alone.
There on the walls was many a trophy of the chase. Her first brush! How
well she remembered the delight with which she had brought it home—the
smiles of her mother, the pride of her father. Her last brush was
there, too, and many a one between. She had given up hunting at her
father's death, but some of her happiest young days had been in the
hunting-field.
Now she had reached the top of the first flight of stairs. A gallery
of portraits confronted her. Ancestors in flowing wigs and powdered
hair, in sporting, clerical and Court attire. Young lads and lassos,
old courtiers and Court beauties, simple country squires, sweet English
matrons. Here was her mother in her bridal gown, here her father in his
hunting dress with his pack of hounds around him. There her brothers,
all fair-haired boys, painted many years ago, and here was a portrait
of herself by a noted artist. It had graced the Academy walls, and she
and her brothers had gone up to see it. She remembered the day so well,
and the remark they had overheard from an old country clergyman to his
sweet-looking wife on his arm—
"A lovely face, my dear, but it will want God's grace and power to
overcome the pride and self-will stamped upon it."
She thought of those words now.
Was it God's grace and power that were tearing down her stronghold, and
sending her out homeless and poverty-stricken from all that made life
worth living? It was His power, she supposed. She acknowledged God's
rule over all circumstances. She had bowed in resignation when her
mother and then her father had been taken from her. She had acquiesced
when her own inner life had to forego one of its deepest and tenderest
cravings. She had only rebelled when the last stroke had come, and,
though for the time she had successfully averted the consequences, that
power from above was again ordering her fate, and resistance was now at
an end.
It was power, indeed, but was it grace? She wondered as she wandered
along that portrait gallery.
Deep in such thoughts, she was turning into her own room when a baby
voice and baby feet demanded her attention.
A tiny damsel in white, with a halo of soft, golden curls round the
dimpled face, came dancing out of the old nursery.
"Auntie Milly! Catch Fluffy—hide her! Quick, quick!"
Who could resist those baby fingers clutching confidingly round her
dress?
Mildred stooped, and lifted the child in her arms. For an instant, the
quicksilvery little figure wriggled from her hold, then, in an impulse
of affection, the fair baby arms were flung round her neck, and moist
kisses impressed with vigour on her cheeks.
"Fluffy loves 'oo. Fluffy will come into Auntie Milly's room, and say
by-bye to naughty Nanna!"
Mildred kissed the child fondly. It was long since anyone had told her
they loved her. A child's love is precious, and Mildred's heart was
very tender, under all her pride, towards any little ones.
"Here is Nanna, darling—go with her. Auntie cannot have you now."
The child was given back to her nurse, but Mildred entered her room
with a softened face. For the time, the hard bitterness of spirit had
passed, and when, a couple of hours later, she came down to dinner, her
face bore no trace of the storm of passion that had passed through her
soul.
Her sister-in-law looked at her a little anxiously as she entered the
drawing-room. Philip Venn was an old friend of the family. She wondered
if by word or sign Mildred would show to him a little of what she was
feeling. Norah had a wholesome horror of scenes. She did not know
Mildred well enough to be convinced that that was the last thing likely
with such a character as hers.
Dinner was announced, and they went into the long dining-room, husband
and wife facing each other, Philip and Mildred the same.
"It seems good to find you in these parts still," said Percy, turning
to his friend.
"Yes, I am tied by my work."
"Are you still acting as Lord N—'s agent?"
"Yes. He is much away, and it is a large estate, so it keeps me busy."
"And who is occupying the Grange now? I heard it had changed owners."
"A widow with three daughters; she is sister to Mr. Holt."
"Where is the Grange?" asked Norah. "Is it a nice place? I am wondering
who will be our nearest neighbours."
"It is the nicest place in the world to me," said Philip Venn quietly.
"You would have done better to go abroad, Phil," said Percy, looking
curiously at his friend.
A shake of the head was the only reply given.
Mildred glanced across at Philip.
"The nicest place in the world to him." She wondered, remembering his
history, if he had ever felt as she was feeling now. The Venns had,
like the St. Clares, been for generations possessors of the same house
and lands. Philip was the heir, and when he went to Oxford, he had no
other thought than of coming home to take up his heritage and live as
his father had lived before him. He received a sudden summons to his
father's dying bed, and found at his death that the estate had been
mortgaged, was hopelessly in debt, and the mortgage was closing in.
In another year, Philip and his widowed mother were homeless. They took
a small cottage in the neighbourhood, but Mrs. Venn did not survive her
husband long. Philip obtained employment under one of his father's old
friends, and had led a quiet, simple life ever since.
Fifteen years before, Mildred and he had been a good deal together,
but he never evinced by word or sign that he wished to stand in any
other relation than that of a friend. Friends they had been ever since,
though the past few years had widened the distance between them. He was
engrossed in his work; she in the trouble that had come upon her.
As she glanced at him now, she was thinking that she had not shown much
sympathy for him in his fallen fortunes. She had even denounced his
want of pride in staying so close to his old home and being friendly
with the strangers who occupied it. She looked at it with different
eyes now. What she was at present going through with such vexation and
bitterness of spirit, he had gone through with a steady fortitude and
cheerfulness which almost deceived his nearest friends.
"The nicest place in the world to him."
Her eyes grew moist as she thought of it. Then she roused herself to
talk. Norah was asking about the family legend. Mildred always loved to
relate it.
"For generations, after the head of the house has died, a grey-cloaked
sentinel paces the terrace below. He always shows himself to the heir,
and bars his progress, demanding of him the password. If he gives it,
he is allowed to pass, and the figure disappears. About two hundred
years ago, the heir was a nephew who had never lived here. He had been
abroad, and did not bear the best of characters. He did not know the
password, and thinking it was one of the servants, with an oath drew
his sword, and thrust at the sentinel. He touched nothing, but was
found a few moments later stretched on the ground, a corpse!"
"How dreadful!" Norah said with a shudder. "Is he the only victim to
this apparition?"
"I think so. One other did not know the password, but as the sentinel
raised his musket to his shoulder, the girl the heir was engaged to
appeared on the scene and gave him the word in time. She was asleep
in her bed that evening about five miles off. The story goes that the
heir's father appeared to her in her dreams, giving her the password,
and beseeching her to take it to his son. She had never heard the
password or the legend before, but she threw a cloak round her, and
rode bare-back across a wild moor on a steed she snatched out of the
stable, arriving just in time to save her lover."
"I wonder," said Norah musingly, "why the father chose such a
roundabout way of giving his son a message. He might as well have
whispered it into his ear."
"You are too prosaic," laughed her husband.
"Did you see this ghost, Percy?"
Mildred glanced across at Philip and smiled.
"Yes," the master of the house replied, "I came into my heritage in the
orthodox fashion. I was confronted by a grey-cloaked figure, and gave
the password."
"And your face was as white as a sheet as you did so," said Philip,
with a twinkle in his eye.
Norah looked at her husband and guest to see if they were joking, but
their faces were grave.
"And what is this wonderful password?" she asked.
"In the olden days, only the rightful heir was supposed to know it,"
said her husband. "It was passed down from father to son for hundreds
of years, and was useful in designating the true heir, if there was a
pretender in the case. But at last, a daughter came into the property,
and of course, after that it was no longer a secret."
"For shame!" said Norah. "What is it?"
"Good will."
"Is that a characteristic trait in your family?" Norah spoke a little
pointedly. She felt, rather than saw, the antagonistic spirit of her
sister-in-law.
"It has been, I think," her husband replied quietly. "There are no
annals handed down of crime and violence within these walls, thank God.
Our motto is, as you know, 'Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.'"
"That might mean treachery," said Norah thoughtfully.
Mildred drew up her head indignantly; her brother only laughed.
"You have, not the bump of veneration for your family, Norah. We are
perfection in our own esteem."
"'Her' family!" thought Mildred scornfully. How could she be classed
as a St. Clare? Had she the St. Clare blood in her veins? She checked
her bitter thoughts, and turned in softened tone to speak of the child
upstairs.
CHAPTER II.
THE PASSWORD.
"MILDRED, can you come here for a moment? You may be able to help
Norah. We want to give a house-warming at Christmas. I think perhaps
the week after Christmas would suit us best."
Percy was standing at the door of his wife's boudoir, and Mildred was
coming in from a solitary walk, when he called her.
"I should hardly have thought my help was needed," said Mildred coldly.
"What is the difficulty?"
She entered the room and found Norah at her writing-desk, looking over
a list of names that her husband had jotted down on a sheet of paper.
"Oh, here you are, Mildred! Can you tell us if these people are all at
home? Look over the list, and give us the benefit of your knowledge."
The easy, assured tone of the young wife jarred on Mildred's ears, but
she complied with her request. Then a question of the date arose. When
that was settled, Percy remarked:
"Mildred, have you our mother's diamonds? I should like Norah to wear
them on this occasion."
Mildred compressed her lips; her brother, not looking at her, went on a
little nervously:
"I know, as daughter of the house, you have worn them more than once,
and, travelling abroad as we have been doing, I have not thought it
wise to carry them about with us, but, of course, you know that they
are heirlooms."
Still no reply.
Norah faced her sister-in-law steadily.
"Don't look so tragic, Mildred," she said. "I shall not wear them
often, only on state occasions. I dare say they suit your style better
than mine. Dark people always show them off better than fair. You must
advise me about my dress. Percy always says you have such good taste.
What will you wear yourself?"
"I shall not be here," said Mildred, rising to her feet. "I will fetch
you the diamonds at once."
Her brother stopped her.
"Nonsense, Mildred. Where are you going?"
"I have only stayed here to welcome you. You did not think I should
continue to make this my home, did you?"
"We have no wish for you to do otherwise. Why should you not?"
"Because I prefer not to do so," said Mildred quietly.
She left the room, and husband and wife looked at each other.
"If she is determined to go, I am sure it will be best," said Norah, a
little sadly. "It is gall and wormwood to her to take the second place,
Percy, and I, as your wife, cannot take it. I feel so sorry for her."
Upstairs, rebellion against her circumstances was raging in Mildred's
heart.
"The sooner I end this the better," she murmured. "Every day brings
fresh humiliations. I must get away at once."
She returned to North presently, and without a word laid the jewel-case
on her table.
"Where are you thinking of going, Mildred?" asked her brother again.
"I have not made up my mind yet. To London, I think."
"Not to live? Why, you hate town! I thought you were wedded to this
place. What will your poor people do without you?"
"I shall go to London till I decide where to live," said Mildred
determinedly.
The subject was dropped.
But a few days after, her brother came to her.
"Mildred, I have been thinking that you might like to settle at the
Hawk's Nest. It is only five miles from here; you could see as much or
as little of us as you liked, and you would still be within reach of
your old friends."
The Hawk's Nest was a tiny cottage on the estate that had been formerly
tenanted by an old governess. It was surrounded by a very pretty
garden, but Mildred's heart sank at the thought of its insignificant
size.
"Of course you would have no rent to pay. It struck me it might solve
your difficulty."
Her brother spoke a little wistfully. Until four years ago she and he
had been very close friends and companions. He longed to have the old
friendly intercourse renewed between them.
They were outside on the terrace. At the further end were Fluffy and
her nurse. She came running up, looking like a snowball in her white
woollen pelisse and hood, and her father caught her in his arms.
"I do not think that would suit me, thank you," began Mildred very
stiffly.
"Don't say no! Here, Fluffy, tell your aunt we cannot let her go any
farther from us."
"Is 'oo going away?" asked the child, holding out her arms in her
large-hearted fashion.
She was transferred from her father's arms into her aunt's immediately.
Mildred laid her check against the rosy one.
"I am going away soon."
"To heaven?" asked the little one.
"Fluffy thinks heaven is the only place people can go to if they leave
her," said her father with a smile. "The world is a very small one to
children."
"Not to heaven yet," responded Mildred to the child.
Fluffy put up one of her woollen-gloved hands and patted her aunt's
cheek caressingly.
"Fluffy will hold you tight and kiss you tight; she won't let Auntie
Milly go. Fluffy is going to come into Auntie Milly's bed to-mollow day
and have brep and butter."
"Ride over to Hawk's Nest this afternoon with me," suggested Percy with
guile. "We can talk over it as we go."
Fluffy's arms won the day. Mildred assented to the ride. And in a
few days, the Hawk's Nest was her settled home. She was relieved and
yet not relieved. She never knew till she had to leave them how much
of a necessity all her luxurious surroundings had become to her. She
shrank from her governess's cottage—the small rooms, the thought of
one servant in attendance, every detail was bitter to her. And in the
excess of her wounded pride, she ungenerously made Norah the recipient
of some very stinging, caustic speeches. Perhaps through it all, she
felt most angry with herself.
"It shows up my small nature," she would tell herself—"my snobbish love
of show and luxury. I thought I had such simple tastes, and now I find
I have none."
She hurried on her preparations, and on the morning of Christmas Eve
was over in her cottage arranging some of her furniture that had
been already taken there. She was not in a happy state of mind. She
persistently refused to be present at her brother's house-warming, and
all his persuasions to that effect had been in vain. That morning he
made another effort to induce her to alter her intention, and she had
come away leaving both her brother and sister-in-law uncomfortable and
distressed at her unfriendly attitude towards them.
"They have no good feeling, no pity, or they would not press me so,"
she said to herself. "It will be a miserable Christmas to me. I shall
be thankful when it is over."
She was standing at the cottage door directing her maid, who had come
over with her, where to put a case of china, when Philip Venn rode up
to the gate, tied up his horse, and came in upon her.
"I saw signs of life as I passed by," he said, "so I turned in, but I
did not expect to find you here."
"Why not?" asked Mildred.
Her face softened a little at the sight of him. He thought how worn and
ill she was looking.
"I thought Christmas Eve was such a busy day with you at home. Don't
you do up your parcels for the old folks in the village and send them
round? And I believe you have a special carol practice in the church
this afternoon?"
"So I have. I am going back for that. My parcels I have done up
already."
"Don't overdo it. Why hurry over this move so? When do you propose to
come in?"
"The end of next week."
She tried to speak calmly. A slight quiver of her lips was the only
sign of emotion she showed.
Philip did not speak for a minute; then he said, looking round
the little drawing-room, which was already presenting a home-like
appearance—
"How cosy and comfortable you are making it look!"
"I suppose if old Miss Butterworth found it comfortable to live and die
in, I can do the same."
Her tone was bitter.
"Are you very dependent on your surroundings?"
"I never knew I was until now."
And then a rush of feeling overcame her self-restraint, and she turned
aside her head.
"How can you ask me such a question?" she said brokenly. "You cannot
understand how I feel."
"But I do understand."
There was a calm assurance, a great pity in his tone.
She struggled to regain her composure.
"I forget that you have been through it," she said; "but men don't feel
like women at such a crisis. You have always seemed just as content
with your circumstances now as you were before."
"Thank God for such a testimony!"
His tone was so quietly impassioned that Mildred looked up at him in
wonder. She had thought him very phlegmatic and cold these past few
years. Was it possible that it had been as great a heart-break for him
to leave his old home as for her?
"I think," he said slowly, meeting her questioning gaze with a smile;
"that I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.
You will learn that lesson too."
She shook her head.
"I am a bad scholar at learning by force. I never could do it."
"You will find that it is love and not force that has set it you."
She was silent. "Power and grace" came to her mind.
Then he changed his tone.
"After all," he said, "we make our surroundings. That is what I often
tell myself. You are not dependent on luxurious comfort for your life."
"I think I am," she said with decision.
A shade of disappointment crept into his eyes. After a few more
remarks, he left her.
And Mildred, after listening to his horse's hoofs clattering down the
frosty road, sat down on a low chair and cried as if her heart would
break.
She went to the carol practice that afternoon. She had promised to take
the organist's place, so as to enable her to go and spend Christmas
with her friends. Mildred was always kind and sympathetic towards the
villagers and tenants. They idolised her, and their simple, touching
belief in her goodness often made her blush.
Music was a real enjoyment to her. As she sat at the small organ, the
boys' and girls' voices filling the church with the sweet old Christmas
messages, her heart was soothed and comforted. She forgot her trouble;
her thoughts were lifted heavenwards. And then, as a small boy sang an
old carol through, verse by verse, the others joining in the chorus,
the words arrested her ear. She listened as she had never listened to
them before, and her thoughts went to the King of kings, the Lord of
lords, leaving His majesty and power above, and exchanging His throne
in glory for a manger of straw. The last verse pricked her to the heart:
"To teach us humility all this was done,
And learn we from thence haughty pride for to shun;
A manger His cradle who came from above,
The great God of Mercy, of Peace, and of Love."
A few years ago she had been following her Master humbly, seeking to
tread in His footsteps. But after her brother's marriage, pride and
anger choked all her better impulses, and erected a barrier not only
between herself and those nearest and dearest to her, but between
herself and her Master. She began dimly to see the chief cause of her
misery; it was not in her circumstances, it was in herself.
It was dark when she left the church. But when she reached home, she
felt she could not go into the brightly-lighted drawing-room. She paced
up and down her favourite walk—the terrace.
Suddenly out of the darkness came a voice.
"Mildred, is it you?"
She raised her head a little wearily.
"Yes; did you want me?"
Her brother stepped forward and drew her arm within his.
"I began to think it was the family ghost," he said lightly. "I saw you
from the drawing-room window, so came out. Aren't you coming in for a
cup of tea? We have hardly seen you all day."
"I was coming in presently."
A merry chime from the village church rang out. It gave Percy courage
to say what he was longing to say. He did it a little awkwardly.
"You don't know how I enjoy being at home again. Ever since my marriage
I've been thoroughly homesick at this time of year."
Mildred compressed her lips. Who had kept him away?
"For the sake of old times, Milly," he went on a little huskily, "when
Christmas was such a happy time with us all, I do ask you to be happy
with us now. Here on this old terrace walk, where the legend says
that 'Good will' has been the password handed down from generation to
generation, I ask you to give us your 'Good will' now."
There was silence. Mildred's hand trembled on his arm. She would have
withdrawn it, but her brother held it fast.
The Christmas bells rang on, bringing their message of God's love and
good will towards men.
Again the words of the carol rang in her ears:
"To teach us humility all this was done,
And learn we from thence haughty pride for to shun."
She sighed, but the barrier of coldness and reserve behind which she
had entrenched herself was hard to demolish.
"I do not bear you ill-will, Percy," she said. "It is natural that
the leaving of my old home is painful to me. You cannot expect this
Christmas to be a bright one to me. I do not want to spoil your
pleasures. I wish you and your wife every happiness. All I ask is to be
left alone."
"I suppose," said Percy, deep disappointment underlying his words,
"that I was expecting an impossibility from you."
He dropped her hand from his arm and moved away into the house.
Then, with a quick impulse, Mildred called him back.
"Percy, forgive me. I will not be unfriendly. I will try, I promise
you, to enter into your pleasures. And," she added, resolving now that
the ice was broken to do the thing thoroughly, "I will stay to your
house-warming. You can tell Norah so. I am ashamed of myself. I—I am
going to try to do better."
Percy realised what these few words cost his sister.
He bent and kissed her, and they entered the house together—very
silent, but very happy. The village bells seemed to them to have an
extra note of gladness in their chime:
"On earth peace, good will towards men."
CHAPTER III.
TWO HEARTS.
THE gathering at St. Clare Towers on the occasion of the house-warming
was a large one.
Philip Venn, entering the brilliantly-lighted rooms, was quite dazzled
with the scene. Everyone in the county was there. The St. Clares had
always been popular, and the absence of the young squire during the
past few years had been deeply regretted, though none were aware of the
cause.
"So glad that Mrs. St. Clare has come to her right senses," said a lady
to Philip presently. "My husband and I were afraid she would persuade
Mr. St. Clare to live abroad altogether. It is such a pity when these
country places remain closed nearly all the year round. Of course, I
know in this case Miss St. Clare had held the reins, but naturally she
has done no entertaining. Do you think that Mrs. St. Clare will be
induced to settle down to country life? She does not look restless by
nature."
"I think they have returned with the full intention of making this
their home," said Philip gravely.
His eyes rested on Norah, who in her white satin and diamonds looked
very queenly and sweet. She proved an admirable hostess; her husband's
eyes followed her with pride and pleasure wherever she went.
"I hear," Philip's companion went on, "that Miss St. Clare is going to
set up house for herself in this neighbourhood. People say it will be a
terrible wrench to her, but she does not seem to mind it. She spoke of
it to me just now with perfect indifference. I don't think I could do
it if I were she! After all these years! And such a beautiful old place
as it is. But I suppose she prefers to be her own mistress. I always
wonder she had never married. She used to be so good-looking."
Philip made no reply. His gaze wandered to where Mildred was seated.
She was in a blue-grey velvet gown, and had no ornaments save a
single row of pearls round her shapely white throat. She was talking
in her pleasant easy fashion to some of her old friends. "Used to be
good-looking!" To Philip's eyes there was no one in the room that could
compare with her!
He rose in a few minutes and made his way over to her.
She greeted him with a smile.
"But Mildred," a girl was saying, "you will be buried alive at Hawk's
Nest. It is such a poky little place. I know it well, for I so often
pass it out riding."
"Then I shall stand a chance of seeing you sometimes," replied Mildred.
"Will 'you' give a house-warming, Miss St. Clare?" asked a young man.
"Do, and invite me. I am dying to see this lonely spot."
"You won't be able to get six people comfortably into your
drawing-room," grumbled the girl. "I have been inside, so I know."
Philip marvelled at Mildred's cheerfulness and self-control. He knew
better than any other what a trial this evening gathering was to her.
Yet her spirits never flagged. Save for the tired lines about her eyes,
she was apparently enjoying herself quite as much as the youngest
amongst the party. Even when allusion was made to the beauty of the
hostess and her diamonds, she responded with pleasure, even warmth.
Towards the latter part of the evening, Philip found her at a window
alone.
"I came to wish you good-night," he said. "How well the evening has
passed off!"
"Yes."
She added after a moment's silence, "You did not expect to see me here?"
"You said you would not be."
"That was before Christmas. I thought better of it."
"I am glad for Percy's sake."
"Yes, I am glad too; but oh! I am thankful it is over. This will be my
last public appearance for many a long day, I hope."
"I do not see why it should be."
She smiled.
"I shall not be able to return hospitality. Perhaps you will say that
ought not to make any difference. But it does. You men are not troubled
with all the ins and outs of a woman's pride."
"When do you leave this?"
"In about a week's time."
"Then the next time I see you, you will be in your own cottage, I
expect. I am going up to London for a couple of weeks on business."
He bade her good-night.
And when left to herself, Mildred, looking up to the starry sky,
murmured under her breath, "The worst is over. After this night, all
will seem easy."
She had much to do and think of during the immediate days that
followed, and she was glad not to have much time for thought. If she
had any spare moments, they were generally spent in the nursery. Fluffy
was a never-ending source of amusement and interest to her aunt.
Norah left her to herself. The sisters-in-law were no longer on stiff,
formal terms with each other, but their intercourse was not quite free
from restraint. Mildred could never open her heart to any one. The
deeper she felt on any subject, the more silent she became when it
was touched upon. And those last days—the choosing out of her special
treasures and bits of china and furniture that had been her mother's,
the constant reference to her brother and his wife as to what she
might take and what she might not—were very trying ones to her. Norah
understood better than her husband how she felt, and she wisely kept
herself as much as possible in the background.
Mildred was again pacing the terrace walk. It was her last leave-taking
of her old home. She knew she would see it again; she would very often
be over, but it would be as a guest or visitor, never again as an
inmate. It was about four o'clock; the wintry sun was sending a few
golden gleams across the deer park, and even venturing to touch the old
lichen-covered wall in front of her. Mildred leant upon it with clasped
hands. Christmas had come and gone, but it had fulfilled its mission
to her. It had erased the lines of pride and self-will; it had brought
chastened sweetness to the face of the lonely woman.
"I think I am resigned," she was saying to herself, "almost content. If
I do leave a bit of my life behind in this dear old place, I can but do
the best with what I have. I suppose no cross is ever made too heavy
for the shoulders that have to bear it. If I feel the pressure of it at
first, I may get more used to it by-and-by."
She heard the carriage that was to take her away drive round to the
door, and laying her head for one moment against the grey stone
buttress near, a deep sob escaped her. Then, pulling down her veil, she
walked hastily indoors, and none but the grey stones knew of the tears
that had fallen on them.
"Good-bye, dear," said Norah cheerfully, as she with her husband stood
in the hall. "Here is Fluffy coming to see you off. Tell auntie we will
come over and see her very soon."
"And Fluffy will have a nice little bed to herself in Auntie Milly's
house," put in the little maiden, as she was taken into her auntie's
arms. "Fluffy will go and live with Auntie Milly when Nanna is cross."
"And what will father and mother do?" said Norah with a smile.
"Come too," lisped the child.
"I wish you would let me come with you, Mildred," said Percy, as he
helped his sister into the brougham and drew up the thick fur rug over
her feet.
She shook her head, kissed her brother affectionately, waved a farewell
to the graceful young wife with the child in her arms, and then sank
back in her cushioned seat in silence.
The carriage drove on through the village, past the little ivy-covered
church, and along the dusky country lanes.
Two sturdy tramps passed it on their way to the nearest town.
"It is such folks as those," said one bitterly, "that make all the
poverty in the world. Why should she have such comfort and happiness,
and we poor creatures none at all?"
"Ah, well, their reckonin' will come in another world," was the
response of his companion. "Then we shall be in our carriages enjoyin'
of ourselves to the full, and they be made to taste what trouble is!"
That drive seemed the longest to Mildred that she had ever taken. Her
thoughts were hardly good company, but there was no bitterness in them,
only the inevitable sadness that must come when one has been uprooted
from a soil so dear to one. When she crossed the threshold of her new
home, she faced it frankly and cheerfully.
She had determined to adapt herself to her altered circumstances, and
let no regret or longing for the past spoil her present happiness.
And the Hawk's Nest looked very cheerful that night. An elderly maid
who had long been in the family had come with her mistress. A village
boy, one of Mildred's Sunday-school scholars, was installed as gardener
and general help. The little dining-room, with its blazing fire and
table ready laid for dinner, with the finest damask, choice old silver,
and beautiful hothouse flowers, was a cosy picture for the eyes to rest
on.
Upstairs, her bedroom, though small, had every appearance of comfort.
A bright fire, chintz-covered couch, pretty writing table, and all her
own belongings could not fail to please her. Mildred wandered in and
out, feeling the restfulness of it all, and trying to believe that the
time would come when it would be like home to her.
As the days passed, she saw several of her old friends, and, being a
woman of many resources, she was astonished to find how little lonely
she felt. Her brother came over about a week after she had settled in,
and surprised her by presenting her with a small trap and pony. She
took it, thankfully from him, and was able in consequence to visit all
the villagers as of old.
She had her days of depression and gloom, but she fought bravely
against them. Occupation was her recipe for banishing sad thoughts, and
if she were restless and too energetic at times, her old servant would
mutter to herself:
"Better wear herself a bit than sit mourning, doing nothing."
It was a wild, wet afternoon in March.
Mildred was in her drawing-room in one of these restless moods of hers.
She had taken up a book for half an hour, and had thrown it down in
a fit of disgust; she had rearranged her flowers, finished a pair of
socks she was knitting for a cripple child, gone out in the wind and
rain for a short constitutional, and now was back again pacing her tiny
room as she had been wont to do the terrace walk at home.
Her windows faced south, over a bit of wild moor and upland, with
blue lines of hills on the horizon. The yellow gorse on the moor was
a delight to her eyes. She knew that later on purple heather would
mingle with it, and great patches of green bracken. Now it was almost
enveloped in a driving mist. The landscape was dreary.
"I must do something," she said to herself. "I think I shall take to
letter-writing as a solace."
She was turning to her davenport when a knock at the door startled her.
A moment after, Philip Venn was in the room.
"What a day for you to be out!" she said, giving him her hand. "You
must be wet through."
"I have sent my horse to the stable, and given my mackintosh into
Janet's hands. I am accustomed to being out in wild weather."
He sat down and looked about him. It was his first visit since she had
settled in; for his stay in London was longer than he anticipated, and
though he had called twice, each time she had been out.
"You couldn't have chosen a better day, as far as I am concerned,"
Mildred said pleasantly. "I was feeling the burden of my own
personality. Do you ever long to get away from yourself, and all your
feelings and fancies?"
"I think I have had that experience," he replied, a far-away look
coming into his eyes. "The only cure for it is work and interest in
others. How are you getting on here? You look very comfortable."
"So I am. I feel a little cramped at times, but I shall get accustomed
to it."
A light came into his face as he looked at her.
"I knew you could adapt yourself to any surroundings," he said.
She looked up at him with rather a sad expression. "I find it very
difficult."
"But you are not regretting the step you have taken?"
"Oh no. I dare say I shall find one day that it was the very best thing
for me."
Phil got up from his seat and walked to the window. Then he came back
to the fireplace.
"I have come here with a purpose to-day," he announced. "I was glad
that it was so stormy, for I did not want to miss you again; and I have
something I want to tell you."
"Something is troubling you I can see," said Mildred with the
privileged assurance of an old friend. "Take me into your confidence. I
may be able to advise you."
"May I tell you my trouble? It is a very, very old one."
Something in his tone brought a wondering look into Mildred's eyes.
He sat down in a chair opposite her, by the side of the bright little
fire that was burning. He gazed into the red-hot coals, and spoke in
slow, even tones, as if he wished to weigh every sentence he uttered.
"Long years ago I gave my heart's love to a girl. I did not realise
then that there would be any obstacles in the way of our union, except
perhaps that of youth. I waited, and then when everything seemed most
propitious, and I was about to put my fate to the touch, something
happened which put an end to it for ever."
"She would not listen to you?" questioned Mildred sympathetically, and
she wondered who this nameless girl was. She knew now why he had never
married.
"I never spoke to her," Philip went on quickly, "and I was glad
afterwards that I did not. I could not have offered her what she
required, and so I tried to erase her image from my heart."
"And then, I suppose, she married someone else?"
"No; she lived her life, and I lived mine. My feelings never altered,
but I gradually became reconciled to the gulf of separation between us.
I was content to see her and speak to her as friend to friend."
A slow, deep colour was rising in Mildred's cheeks. Her pulses
quickened, and her hands trembled slightly as they lay crossed in her
lap.
Philip never raised his eyes from the fire. He did not see the glowing
light and colour creeping into the woman's face opposite him.
"And then," he continued, "one day there was another upheaval, and
this time it was the one I loved that was experiencing it. And a wild
hope sprang up in my breast that perhaps now after these long years of
waiting and silence I might speak."
There was a pause. Neither moved.
"I long to take her and shield her from loneliness and grief. But who
am I that I should dare to think my love will compensate for all that
she has lost? Shall I, can I tell her of my love?"
Another long silence.
Then Mildred spoke; her voice was low and broken.
"Do money, luxury, and comfort ever bring ease to an empty, aching
heart?"
Philip's eyes were no longer on the fire; they were fixed with eager
expectancy on the one face in all the world to him.
In another moment, his strong arm was round her.
"Oh, Mildred! Will my love content you? My heart has been yours for
nearly twenty years. I should never have spoken as long as you had your
home, but now I cannot help hoping you will come to me."
"I would have come to you," she whispered, "twenty years ago."
Then a little later she said:
"Let me tell you of the girl's side, Philip. How bitter her heartache
was when she felt that she had given her young love to one who could
not return it! How long the years were, how hard the way, till she,
like he, had learnt to be content with her single lot, and to count
herself happy to have his friendship still!"
The March winds still blew, the rain dashed against the windows, and
outside the scene was still wild and dreary. But love had coloured two
grey lives, and brought warmth and unspeakable gladness into two lonely
souls. And adversity was the hand that had linked the two together.
Philip went, and Mildred with a full heart sat musing by her fire.
"My cross that I thought so heavy," she murmured, "has brought me
heavenly peace and earthly blessing."
Still she sat on dreaming, then suddenly rose and went to her bookcase
to look for a book. She brought it to the fireside, and, turning over
the leaves, found what she wanted.
"A gloomy cross stood on the path I trod;
I needs must lift it, would I onward go.
On it was written clear, 'The Will of God,'
Gazing I wept and trembled, bending low.
"For much I dreaded what might be behind,
Till Faith came forward with her words of cheer:
'Why weepest thou, O thou of doubtful mind?
Arise and take thy cross! What dost thou fear?'
"She raised me up and pointed, when behold
The cross that terrified had passed away;
And there, with 'Love' inscribed in burnished gold,
Another stood, which shone resplendently.
"Awhile I carried it; with wondering awe
Its glory shone, a light upon my road;
Till, looking at the other side, I saw
The words which I had feared—'The Will of God.'
"I looked at Faith; she smiled—'I did but move
The cross around and show the other name.
Behind the Will there always lies the Love;
The Will and Love with God are but the same.'"
MISS ELIZA'S GREAT-COAT.
CHAPTER I.
MISS ELIZA'S DREAD.
IT was a small house situated on the high road, a quarter of a mile
from a farmhouse on one side, and half a mile from the vicarage on the
other. There was only a narrow flower-bed in front, and the doorstep
led directly on to the road. A green railing protected the flowers from
the passer-by. Behind the house was a small shady garden, but the sun
beat fiercely on the front windows in summer, and the green shutters
alone afforded a measure of coolness within.
Life went on very quietly inside its walls, for the only occupants
were Miss Eliza Denvers and her maid. Miss Eliza's weeks were pretty
much the same. Sunday she appeared in black silk, went to church
morning and evening, and took a nap in the afternoon over the ponderous
works of some old divine. On Monday she did her accounts, paid her
housekeeping books, and spent hours over odd pence and farthings that
had a miraculous way of vanishing into space, instead of reposing in
the stout little leather purse that was always brought out to prove the
correctness of the balance. Tuesday afternoon was the time fixed for
the weekly missionary working party at the vicarage. Miss Eliza never
missed this; it was the one little dissipation of the week. Tea and
talk, listening to missionary news, were all most entrancing, and she
returned home with a pink flush on her cheeks, and a bright sparkle in
her eyes, that made her almost pretty.
Wednesday was the day the carrier called for commissions in the
neighbouring town; it was also the day for tidying the store cupboard,
and mending the house linen. Miss Eliza prided herself upon her orderly
methodical ways, and would never allow anything to interfere with her
usual routine. Thursday was Robert's washing-day, and he was a dog who
heartily hated cleanliness, and always led his little mistress a fine
dance through house and garden, and every species of hiding-place,
before he could finally be captured. Friday was Fanny's afternoon out.
She was a tall, big-boned Scotchwoman, and had a married sister living
in a farm a couple of miles away. Miss Eliza always had cold meat on
that day, and a rice-pudding, and Fanny would get ready the tea-tray
and bring it in at two o'clock, after which she would decamp, and not
return till seven o'clock in the evening.
Saturday was the day Miss Eliza used to walk to the workhouse, a mile
and a half away, and leave little bunches of flowers, with texts
attached, for the inmates. No one could ever persuade her to go in. She
had a strange shrinking from any strangers, and the workhouse, in her
opinion, was a refuge for burglars, pickpockets and murderers, when
wanting a little rest from their labours. She tried to do them good,
but was content to do this from a distance. More than once the matron
with a smile quietly detached some text that would not be likely to
soothe some bedridden cripple: "Thou shalt not steal"; "Be sure your
sin will find you out," and such like.
And now we come to the one trouble in Miss Eliza's even life. It was a
terrible, haunting fear of tramps and burglars. They were one and the
same thing in her estimation; and perhaps the fact that every wanderer
making his way to the workhouse had to pass her house did much to
foster her fears. She would sometimes meet them on the road, and would
gently creep across to the other side with a palpitating heart, praying
earnestly that her life might be preserved. But her greatest terror was
when they knocked at her door and begged for some food. This was never
denied them, but Fanny was commissioned to put the chain up, and hand a
piece of bread and cheese through the narrow aperture. And though Miss
Eliza was thoroughly truthful by nature, this great fear of hers led
her to practise several very innocent deceptions.
"Burglars will seldom come to a house with a gentleman in it," she used
to say to herself; "and my one comfort is that they will never guess we
have not one here."
So the first thing that confronted any stranger knocking at the door
was a man's great-coat and hat hanging up on one side of the narrow
hall, and a bracket on the other side containing a handsome meerschaum
pipe with a tobacco-pouch lying carelessly by its side. And whilst
Fanny was interrogating the stranger, a shrill voice, raised in an
unnaturally bold key, would be heard through the little house:
"Robert, my dear, are you coming out? I am waiting for you."
"Robert" would wag his tail and give a quick short bark in reply, but
the stranger was not supposed to associate the little yapping cur with
the individual thus addressed. And Miss Eliza would comfort her timid
little soul by the reflection that a thief would be a very brave one
indeed who ventured to disturb the peace of a household with such
evidences of masculine existence. She would brush the thick great-coat
every morning with great affection. It had a history, for it was
distantly related to her. Miss Eliza had never all her life known what
it was to have a man in the house. Her father had died in her infancy,
and she was an only daughter; but she had a distant cousin who was a
married woman, and after her mother's death, in the first few weeks of
loneliness following her bereavement, she went to stay for ten days
with her.
Mrs. Carter's husband was a naval man, and was just home from one of
his long voyages. He was a kind-hearted, jovial fellow, and frightened
his timid little relative very much at first by his loud step and
voice. But before long, he had won her heart by his kindness, and when
he jokingly offered her a cast-off coat and hat of his to keep off any
burglars, she gratefully and joyfully accepted them, and insisted upon
taking them home with her when she left.
Captain Carter died a year after, but Miss Eliza never brushed and
folded the old coat without a thought of the cheery owner, and
sometimes a little sigh would follow.
"Ah, well, perhaps if he had lived, his wife might not like to think
how often my thoughts were with him. Not that I would mind her
knowing—I like her with an equal liking—but men are different, and he
certainly was kinder to me than any one I have ever met. And I like to
have his coat, and to think of the many kind acts he must have done
when he wore it!"
It was Christmas Eve. Miss Eliza had been helping to decorate the
little village church, and had sat for hours in a cold schoolroom
stringing holly-leaves into garlands, and making herself generally
useful to the good vicar and his wife. There were several other helpers
besides herself—two young girls, the doctor's daughters, who kept up a
lively chatter of conversation with the vicar's nephew; a Mrs. Stone,
an officer's widow, who was a great authority on church decorations;
and Miss Dane from the Hall, who came very late with many apologies,
and went very early, and whose work had to be done over again after her
departure.
No one had much heeded Miss Eliza. She was asked out of kindness by the
vicar; her taste was never consulted. She was given child's work to do,
and she was content and happy. Even when the busy party trooped into
the vicarage to have a cup of afternoon tea, and through inadvertence
she was omitted to be invited, she worked on in the gathering dusk,
chilled to the bone, but with a smile upon her lips. When her appointed
task was done, she gathered her things together, and crept out into
the cold night air with just a little sigh as she glanced towards the
brightly-lighted vicarage windows.
"I suppose I might have gone in with the others. If Mrs. Thorne had
not hurried in to see after her sick child, she would have been sure
to have asked me; and the vicar is so absent-minded that he would take
it for granted I was coming. Perhaps it was foolish of me, but I never
like taking invitations for granted. How very dark it is! I wish I had
brought my lantern! The vicar would have lent me one. I feel inclined
to go back and ask for one, and yet I should not like to, as I did not
go in for tea. I hope—I hope I shall not meet—a tramp!"
With this last thought, Miss Eliza's knees began to shake. She was
tired and cold, and when fear was added, it almost overcame her.
She peered down the road in front of her; it always seemed such a long
half-mile when it was dark, and now it lay in black shadow, still and
deserted, without a single lamp or light to guide her trembling steps.
"I shall be preserved," murmured the good little woman to herself; "I
am faithless not to trust."
And then, tucking up her skirts, with a firm grasp of her umbrella she
stepped boldly forward.
CHAPTER II.
MISS ELIZA'S ADVENTURE.
HALF way along she met a dark figure coming towards her. Her heart beat
violently; she crossed the road, and tremblingly felt for the wall. In
a moment she was reassured. It was the village postman.
"Good-night, mum! A dark night! Happy Christmas, mum!"
His cheery tones braced her up afresh. She responded to his greeting,
and went on her way more briskly. Already she saw the twinkling light
from her own little house, and thoughts of an approaching tea before
her cosy fire flitted pleasantly through her mind. Then the church
bells began to ring out their Christmas peals, but quickly following
them, came a sound that again made her heart almost leap into her mouth.
It was a hoarse, hollow cough, and it was close to her. For a moment
she stood still. Was it fancy? No—again it came towards her, and there
was a slight rustle in the hedge close by. Every pulse throbbed with
fright. This must be a tramp, only waiting till she came up to spring
upon her and rob her. What should she do? If only she were safe on
her own doorstep! There was only one thing to do: she must pass him
quietly and boldly, and if he accosted her, if he begged from her, she
must maintain a stolid silence, and fly on to her own door, where the
trusted Fanny would be ready in a moment to admit her.
Again the cough; and then through a rift in the dark clouds the moon
shone down and revealed to her a genuine tramp, lying down within a few
feet of her. And as he coughed, a groan escaped him, and a muttered
oath.
Miss Eliza slipped across to the other side of the road in a second,
and then stood gazing with a kind of fascination upon the object of her
dread. She could clearly distinguish his form now. He was not an old
man, his boots were out at heel, and bitter though the night was, she
noticed that his thin, threadbare coat was so tight it would not meet
over his chest. But his face was the most pitiful part of him. Such
white, gaunt, hollow cheeks; and the cough seemed almost to tear him in
pieces. Unkempt, unwashed, with sullen, fierce brows and savage mouth
and jaw, he was indeed an object to be shunned.
For a moment Miss Eliza was thankful to see that he had not noticed
her approach, and she was already creeping quietly on, when a thought
brought her to a standstill. It was only some familiar words, but they
rang through her ears:
"He passed by on the other side."
Now the bells seemed to take it up, changing the pronoun, and making it
very personal:
"She passed by on the other side."
Was that what she was doing? If she had met that wounded man between
Jerusalem and Jericho on that lonely high road, would she have had to
be placed in the same category as the priest and the Levite, whom the
Master had so condemned?
Miss Eliza stood still and tremblingly considered. Christmas Eve—the
anniversary when the King of kings made His appearance on earth and
was found by the wise men and shepherds in a stable, crowded out of a
dwelling-place. Oh, why did she think of such things? Could any one
expect a frail, little, lonely woman to go up boldly and of her own
free will accost a sleeping tramp? Would it not be the height of folly
to expose herself to the possible danger of being robbed, perhaps
murdered? And after all, the cough might be a mere ruse; he might be
feigning illness to work upon her pity.
"She—passed—by—on—the—other—side."
The bells rang on, bringing her no message save this. Poor Miss Eliza
was in a pitiable state of uncertainty and fear; she gave another
frightened glance across the road; the man was shifting his position;
she saw him shiver and tighten his coat across his chest; she saw his
ragged shirt underneath it, and again she heard him cough. Then her
true woman's heart overcame her timidity, and though her heart beat
violently, she stepped across the road and spoke.
"My good man, is it wise of you to stay here in such cold?"
She tried to speak bravely, but her voice died away in a frightened
gasp, and she started back a foot or two as the man raised himself to
his feet with a quick jerk and an oath.
He laughed when he saw her discomfiture.
"I ain't a-goin' to bite yer, mum! Did yer wonder at my wisdom in
stayin' here? Beggars mayn't be choosers, and the high road is free to
all."
His cough came on again, and Miss Eliza stood irresolute before him.
Pity was getting the upper hand.
"Dear, dear!" she said. "I wish I had my cough lozenges; what a
dreadful cough you have! If your chest is sore—don't you think a
linseed poultice now—or a—"
The man gave a hoarse chuckle between his coughing that terrified the
little lady.
"Would yer advise a poultice, mum? Ha! Ha! It minds me o' my old mother
when I were a young un!"
His laugh died away, he swallowed a lump that seemed rising in his
throat, and the softened expression of his face restored Miss Eliza's
confidence.
"Is your mother still alive? Can't you go to her?"
He looked at her in surly silence for a minute, then said in a sheepish
way:
"I've tramped close on forty mile to get at her, and though I be but a
mere twelve mile from home, I reckon my cough will finish me off afore
I get a couple o' miles farther; it takes the heart and life out of a
chap, that it do!"
"Oh, but you mustn't give up hope like this!" exclaimed Miss Eliza.
"Where does your mother live? She will nurse you. Oh dear, oh dear! How
I wish you had got home before! How long will it take you to walk those
twelve miles? Are you going to sleep on the way? There's the—"
"Yes," nodded the man shortly; "I know—there be the house not far from
'ere, and I be makin' way to that, but I doubt me if I'll get so far
to-night."
Visions flitted through Miss Eliza's heart of her best spare
bedroom—the little room that had never had a visitor in it since her
mother died; but her common sense saved her from acting upon such a
thought. No; another idea, and a more practical one, crossed her mind,
and as it did so, she gave a little gasp. "Anything but that—anything!
I could not do it!"
Then again she spoke to him, and it was strange how entirely all fear
had disappeared from her voice.
"Have you no thicker coat than the one you wear? No wonder you cough.
You could not stand a summer's night in such a thin one, and these
frosty nights are bitterly cold."
"Just so, mum," assented the man wearily, and his head sunk on his
breast, either from apathy or sheer fatigue.
Miss Eliza stood looking at him very thoughtfully. A sore battle raged
in her heart, and the fact that the tramp before her had not asked
for any relief did not console her. One thought stood out beyond all
others. He was going back to his mother. Was she going to pass him by,
and let him die within a few miles of his old home? She looked up at
the starlit sky.
"O God, wilt Thou protect me in the future, in spite of what I am going
to do?"
And as she prayed, a horror of her meaning flashed through her mind.
"Have I been putting my trust in it, instead of in God Almighty? Has it
been my god? Then the sooner it is taken down, the better!"
And Miss Eliza wheeled round with a scared look in her eyes, but with a
very determined mouth and chin.
"My good man," she said briskly, "wait where you are, and I will bring
you something that will be a comfort to you on your journey."
She trotted off towards her own house, and silence again fell on the
lonely high road, broken only by the hacking cough of the tramp. It was
not long before the little lady appeared again, but this time she was
followed by her maid. And the man staggered to his feet, and looked
from one to the other in bewildered surprise.
Miss Eliza was bending beneath her load, but she opened her arms and
presented him with a heavy great-coat, and said in a quivering voice:
"I want you to put it on at once, and button it well up to your throat,
and Fanny has brought you some hot cocoa in an old jug and some bread.
I think—I think I had better help you on with the coat!"
But Fanny pushed her mistress aside; she was uneasy and frightened
at Miss Eliza's doings, and was not going to let her proceed to
extremities. She sniffed and snorted her disapproval whilst in the
act of helping the tramp to get into his great-coat, and she held the
lantern in full view of his face as she did so.
The man was coughing too much at first to express his thanks. He
buttoned up the coat and seized the cocoa, and it seemed to afford him
some relief for the time. Then he looked up with a softened expression
of face.
"God bless you, mum! You're the first party that has believed in my
hintentions, and you'll be rewarded. I'm heartened up, and will get
home arter all, I reckon."
"Yes," said Miss Eliza with cheerful alacrity; "I do believe you will.
But I advise you to seek shelter from the workhouse to-night, and get
home in time for Christmas dinner to-morrow with your mother!"
"All right, mum, I'm off!"
He set off down the road.
Miss Eliza watched him, then ran after him.
"Would you mind very much telling me your name? I would like to know
it, because—because I shall pray for you to-night."
The man stopped and seemed to choke a little.
"Hal Blythe, mum. Thank 'ee! Good-night!"
"Good-night. And in the pocket of the coat you will find a little
packet of lozenges. They always cure my coughs in the winter. I can
safely recommend them. And you will find a Christmas card with a text
on it for to-morrow. You will read it, will you not?"
"Oh, ay, surely, mum!"
They parted, and Miss Eliza went home with her maid.
Fanny was too good a servant to offer any remonstrance to her
mistress's strange conduct. But when she saw her glance up at the empty
peg in the hall with a soft sigh, she spoke.
"I hope you won't be sorry, mum, when it's too late!"
Miss Eliza turned to her, and her eyes were full of tears:
"Fanny, God Almighty is a better protector than a great-coat."
And from that time, the vanished coat was never alluded to again.
A year after, Miss Eliza received a letter in an unknown hand. It ran
as follows:—
"HONOURED MADAM.—It is only lately I have been able to find out your
name and address, and I write to thank you from the bottom of my heart
for your kindness this day, a year ago, to a poor sick tramp on the
high road. The hot stuff soothed my cough, the coat kept me warm, but
the message on the Christmas card made a converted man of me. When I
started the next morning for home and heard the Christmas bells, I took
it out and read, 'For unto you is born this day a Saviour which is
Christ the Lord.' It came straight home to my heart and stopped there.
And I told my old mother when I saw her that her Saviour was mine. I'm
starting in life again, and things are looking up. May God bless you
for raising a soul from the gutter, and giving him a glimpse of heaven
itself before twenty-four hours were over.—Your obedient servant,—
"HENRY BLYTHE."
DAVID AND HIS GIANT.
CHAPTER I.
"ME AND BLAZERS."
DAVID stood just four feet in his Sunday boots. His giant stood six
feet four inches in his stockings.
David, though small, held his head up straight between his shoulders.
He had the whitest face, and the brightest eyes, and the curliest head
in all Llarbanyr. He had his grave moments, and when he was grave, he
was desperately so; but, as a rule, his face was just like a little
sun. It shone upon every one, and made most people shine too. His giant
was a broad, burly collier, with a grimy face; his head was generally
sunk between his shoulders, his eyes had a scowl in them, his nose was
red, and his whole appearance fierce and terrifying.
The first time these two met was on a hot Saturday afternoon.
Tim Goldsby was a fresh importation in Llarbanyr. He was a
Yorkshireman, and had, somehow or other, drifted down to Wales, where
he had taken up again the old trade of his youth.
The small, undersized Welshmen looked upon him with astonishment
and awe, and at first with some suspicion. But when they found that
Tim Goldsby was generous with his "treats" and jokes, thorough good
company over his glass or two of beer at "The White Plumes," and full
of sporting devices for passing away an evening, they one and all fell
under his sway.
On this Saturday afternoon, David had been sent to "The White Plumes"
by his mother for "father's beer." As he came in sight of it, a small
knot of men in a circle made him quicken his steps. Anything like
a crowd betokened some excitement, and David's eyes glistened in
delightful anticipation. But when he squeezed his small body through
the circle, the light died out of his eyes.
It was a dog-fight, and not a fair one. Tim owned a dog that had some
of his master's characteristics. He was a mixture of bull and mastiff,
and of a very surly disposition. His antagonist was a small mongrel
terrier—a terrier that, when a puppy, David had rescued once from
being drowned by his irate owner, whose woollen cardigan had suffered
much from the puppy's teeth. It had changed owners frequently, and
now belonged to the village baker. The poor little creature had more
spirit than strength; it was already fearfully bitten and mauled, but
was still game, and not a man amongst the bystanders would interfere,
though they knew that it was fighting vainly for its life. One
dissentient voice was heard, and then Tim's loud laugh:
"Why, man alive! D'ye think I dare to stop my Blazers when his blood is
up!"
There was one that dared. Like a flash of lightning, little David
dashed into the midst of the combat.
How he did it no one knew; it was nothing short of a miracle. The
bystanders had a vision of some small boots kicking here and there,
and the next instant he was flying out of the ring with the bleeding
terrier in his arms. He never looked round, but tore home as fast as
his legs could carry him. And his mother, who was one of the most
thrifty and skilful housewives, bandaged and bathed the poor dog's
wounds so successfully that before many days passed, he was able to
limp back to his master and take up life again.
This exploit of David made a great deal of talk in the village. And one
day, when he was coming home from school, Tim Goldsby met him in the
road and stopped him.
"Look 'ere, young 'un, don't 'ee set yerself agen me and Blazers! What
do 'ee mean by spoilin' sport t'other day?"
David looked up fearlessly into the giant's scowling face.
"It wasn't fair sport. I'd do it to-morrow, if Blazers was fighting a
tiny dog again a quarter his size."
"You'd best be quiet, for Blazers could soon finish you, and 'tis a
wonder he didn't give 'ee a ugly nip!"
"I'm not afraid of Blazers!"
The tiny boy threw his head up with a defiant toss as he spoke.
Tim looked down upon him with a curious smile. "But you wouldn't like
to tackle Blazers' meeaster?"
"I'm not afraid of you!"
"Them's fine words! Who be 'ee afraid of?"
The boy looked up into the blue sky.
"Only God," he said slowly and reflectively.
Tim stared at him, and then David's small face relaxed from his
somewhat aggressive defiance, and from his lips flashed out one of his
sunniest smiles.
"Yes; I'm not a bit afraid of you," he went on; "I never could be,
for I belong to God—my mother tells me so—and God wouldn't let you or
Blazers hurt me!"
Tim Goldsby wheeled right round in the road and walked away, whilst
David, utterly unconscious of his victory, ran home, whistling cheerily.
After this encounter, David and his giant always eyed each other in a
curious fashion when they met. Tim could not meet David's frank gaze.
He would appear not to notice him until he had passed by; then his eyes
would follow and rest on his small figure with stolid interest. David
would look the big man up and down from head to foot, as if criticising
his strength of build and muscle; and then he would smile at him, but
never a word did he speak.
Tim was making himself remarkable in the small village of Llarbanyr.
It had never been a very sober, well-conducted place, but Tim was
gradually bringing upon himself the anathemas of all the wives and
mothers in it. He had a born love for fighting. His one regret was that
he was too big to be pitted against any of these small colliers, but he
solaced himself by pitting one of them against another. Either a cock
fight, a dog-fight, or a boxing fight was the programme every night of
the week, and "The White Plumes" was crowded as soon as working hours
were over. Then Tim was a great drinker, and drink was on the increase,
the landlord's pockets were getting heavier and heavier, and the
women's homes were getting barer and poorer in proportion.
David's father, John Evans by name, was a kind husband till Tim got
hold of him. He was a good-hearted, weak man by nature, but had always
loved his home and children. Now he followed Tim's lead blindly—he
drank, he betted on the fights, and was never happy unless he was
spending his money at "The White Plumes." His wife besought him with
tears to keep away from Tim.
"He be too strong for 'ee, John! He be leadin' of 'ee to the devil. If
'ee can't wi'stand his temptin' of 'ee, do 'ee keep away from him!"
But John could not keep away. His money was going, his respectability
was following, and he, like a moth round a candle, fluttered on, bent
on his own destruction.
The mother tried to hide the father's weakness from his child, but when
food and coals were scarce, and the home began to show signs of dire
poverty, when, one by one, all Mrs. Evans's cherished ornaments, and
the very chairs and tables, began to disappear, then it was utterly
hopeless to keep the cause of it from him. He came in one Saturday
afternoon, and found his mother sobbing bitterly. A big bruise on her
forehead shoved where her husband had struck her.
"Oh, David, it be all that hulking giant. He be doin' the devil's work.
Your father were a-goin' to sit home wi' me, he were sober and ashamed,
and he just put into my hand his wages.
"'There, lass, take it afore I can spend it. I must end this some day.
The parson says truly Tim Goldsby be my ruin!'
"And I were hurryin' up for my bonnet to go round to the butcher's
for a bit of meat, when who comes blockin' up the door and hidin' the
blessed sunlight but that great hulk!
"'Evans,' he says, 'we're a-waitin' for 'ee. Don't 'ee mind yer name
were drawed last eve for a round wi' Samuel Pollard? 'Ee be never goin'
to show the white feather?'
"And yer father, he jumped up as if he had been shot, and got scarlet
like in his cheeks.
"'It clean got off my mind,' sez he. 'I'll be with 'ee in a jiffy.'
"'Then 'ee'll go, my man, with empty pockets,' I sez.
"And I b'lieve he would have done it, but big Tim gives a sneerin'
laugh.
"'The missus be master here,' he sez.
"And then I left the room, but yer father were arter me like a streak
of lightning, and when I held his money tight, he knocked me down,
David, he did, sure enough! And I feel when it come to that, 'twas no
good hopin' any more! I let him go, and every bit of his wage did he
take with him! I don't know what we'll come to! 'Tis the whole village
goin' down to ruin, and Tim he be defyin' church and chapel, and
carryin' on the devil's work, and no one dursn't stop him!"
"But, mother, Tim can't defy God!"
"He be doin' of it, my son! He be too strong for any of us to tackle of
him, and he knows it, and he have dragged off your poor father to fight
Sam Pollard!"
"Father 'shan't' fight Sam Pollard."
David was off down the street with much the same expression of face as
when he had dashed into the middle of the dog-fight.
The sight of his weeping mother, her bruised face, the knowledge that
his father was going to fight the most drunken bully in the village
next to Tim, filled his small heart with passionate protest.
When he arrived at "The White Plumes," his face was white and set.
There was no little group outside, but in a long, low back room the
majority of the male population of Llarbanyr were assembled.
The atmosphere was thick with smoke and beer. A space was cleared in
the centre, and the contest was about to begin. Tim Goldsby, towering
head and shoulders over the rest, was master of the ceremonies.
Through the midst of the crowd of men pushed David, and suddenly his
clear treble voice piped out:
"Tim Goldsby, my father is 'not' going to fight Sam Pollard; he's
coming home with me!"
A sudden silence followed this intrepid announcement, and then David
and his giant met face to face. The boy looked such an atom before the
burly Yorkshireman that it tickled the humour of the room.
"Go it, young shaver!" murmured one of the bystanders.
Tim looked down upon the child with grim amusement.
"Do ye think ye can stop one of our matches?" he said. "Blazers' master
isn't Blazers, I'd remind ye!"
"I'd just as soon stop you as I'd stop Blazers!" was the amazing
retort. "And I've come to do it, and if I can't stop my father anyhow
else from fighting with Sam, why I'll fight you myself!"
Off went his small jacket, and up went his sleeves. There was a roar of
laughter round the room. But David was beyond ridicule.
He threw his curly head back with superb disdain.
"You can laugh, Tim; but if you won't fight me, I'll make you listen to
me! You're just thinking that because you're so big you can make people
do what you like, and you're making them wicked. You say that no one
can stop you because they're all frightened of you; but I know Someone
who can stop you, and Someone who isn't frightened of you, and I've
asked Him to come with me this afternoon, and He is here now!"
A hush so intense that you could hear a pin drop had fallen over the
room. David's father, in the act of pulling off his coat, now stood
leaning up in a corner, staring at his boy. His adversary was taking a
long drink out of a beer can, but even he stopped drinking as he heard
the boy's voice ring out with such assurance.
Tim laughed loud and long.
"Bring your friend along, little 'un! Tim has never knocked under to
man or devil in all his life. I defy any creature on this big earth to
stop any concern o' mine!"
"You will have to knock under now—you daren't defy the One who is with
me. For it is God Himself!"
David's eyes were blazing. He spoke as one seeing the Unseen, and the
intensity and solemnity of his words awed that drunken room.
"God is here!" the boy repeated with slow emphatic assurance. "He tells
you to stop this wicked fight. He made you strong and big, Tim; but if
you go on fighting against Him, you'll die like Giant Goliath did. God
isn't afraid of giants!"
CHAPTER II.
"SO DAVID PREVAILED."
IT was a tense situation. The absolute fearlessness of the boy, and
his realisation of God's presence, proved to be a mighty power in that
atmosphere.
The colliers looked from one to another in stupid amazement. To their
superstitious souls, it seemed that David was inspired, a second
Samuel, a veritable young prophet of the Lord.
And Tim, the bold bully, the tyrant of them all, was the most shaken
by the small boy's words. His ruddy cheeks paled, the very mention of
the Giant Goliath brought to his mind his end, and he almost expected a
repetition of that tragedy. He would not have been surprised if David
had produced a small sling and hurled his stones at his head. He waited
expectantly for some such words as these: "I come to thee in the name
of the Lord of hosts . . . Whom thou hast defied. This day will the
Lord deliver thee into mine hand . . . for the battle is the Lord's."
"God isn't afraid of giants!" The words rang through his brain.
As for David, he hardly realised what an impression he had made. But
one thing he felt certain of, and that was that God had come with him,
and was with him now.
"I belong to God," was his favourite saying; but the other grand side
was "God belongs to me," which, if not put into those exact words, was
a truth that he as firmly held.
The hush in the room continued. All eyes were on the tiny David, as if
wondering what he would do or say next; and then up he stepped to the
burly Tim, who seemed instinctively to shrink back from him.
He faced him, and now David's sunshiny smile lightened his whole
countenance.
"Come over on God's side, Tim. Come away from this wicked place, and
God will make you good. They'll all go home and give up fighting and
drinking if you come with me."
He slipped his small hands into Tim's, and without the slightest
opposition or difficulty led the giant out of that dark, foul room into
the light and sunshine of God's world without. Tim seemed as if under a
spell. He followed as if a Heaven-sent messenger had come for him. His
companions, recovering from their stupefaction, crowded out of the room
to the door; but, to their disappointment, found that the boy and his
giant were nowhere to be seen. David had led Tim up into a small wood
behind the inn, and what the two of them did there, no one ever rightly
knew.
But late that night, the clergyman received a visit from the "curse of
the village," who explained his object in coming to him somewhat after
this fashion:
"I've been serving the devil a good score o' years or so. Do yer think
the Almighty would care to have me on His side for the rest of my life?
'Cause if He would, I'll change sides."
Mr. Matthews was dumbfounded, but he took Tim's great hand and grasped
it heartily. "Come in, and we'll have a talk," he said. "How do you
mean to set about it?"
"The little chap told me to come on to you. Him and me settled it up
under them hills out yonder."
Then ensued some very earnest talk. Tim was grimly determined to alter
his life, but he did not understand at first how unable he was to do
it, until Mr. Matthews got him on his knees and he saw his need for
pardon.
"You need Christ's strength, Tim, and though your body may be stronger
and bigger than most of ours, your soul is very weak and helpless."
He nodded with a light of comprehension in his face.
"I see it! I see why he bowled me over! His soul were bigger'n mine. He
has the biggest soul and the smallest body in the village, and I reckon
I be just t'other way!"
Very humbly did Tim Goldsby enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. The
village was electrified to see him walk into church the following
morning, which was a Sunday, holding David by the hand.
The small boy was questioned very closely by his father and mother, but
his account was vague.
"We said our prayers together out of doors, and we both cried a little.
He never knew before how Jesus wanted him, and how He had died on the
Cross for him. He said he would change sides, and so he did, and I told
him to go to our parson."
Tim's reformation was a real one. It was no passing wave of emotion or
excitement that had wrought the change. It was the Hand of God that had
laid hold of him, the Spirit of God that had touched and quickened his
soul, and little David had been the messenger.
Tim never entered "The White Plumes" again. His whole course of life
was altered. He sold his dog, for Blazers could not be influenced for
good, and more than one small dog in the village had met his end by
encountering the bully. Drink now never touched Tim's lips. Instead of
inciting the colliers to evil, he was now earnestly trying to win them
for his new Master.
"Look 'ere, lads," he was fond of saying, "I were a giant for
wickedness, and see how little David bowled me over! How was it? 'Twas
becoz he came up to me strong in the Lord and in the power o' His
might. The smallest and weakest o' you all can be a giant agen sin, if
so be the strength of the Almighty God be upon you!"
Little David was very quiet over his conquest; but he was never so
happy as when he was in the company of his giant.
And Mr. Matthews would look at them and smile as he murmured to himself:
"It is the old story in a new setting: 'So David prevailed over the
Philistine!'"
THE END.
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