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Title: Jack the Englishman
Author: H. Louisa Bedford
Illustrator: Wal Paget
Release Date: November 12, 2019 [EBook #60676]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JACK THE ENGLISHMAN ***
Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: THE BAG BROKE WITH THE FORCE OF THE BLOW. p. 35.]
JACK,
THE ENGLISHMAN
BY
H. LOUISA BEDFORD
AUTHOR OF
"HER ONLY SON, ISAAC" "MRS. MERRIMAN'S GODCHILD," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY WAL PAGET
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NEW YORK AND TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN CO.
Printed in Great Britain by Wyman & Sons Ltd.,
London, Reading and Fakenham.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. HIS TITLE
II. A CHUM
III. NEW NEIGHBOURS
IV. A BUSH BROTHER
V. A CHURCH OFFICIAL
VI. MINISTERING CHILDREN
VII. A BISHOP'S VISIT
VIII. TWO LEAVE-TAKINGS
IX. A SURPRISE VISIT
X. A BUSH TOUR
XI. A NARROW ESCAPE
XII. GOING HOME
XIII. TWO VENTURES OF HOPE
JACK, THE ENGLISHMAN
CHAPTER I
HIS TITLE.
It was a beautiful spring afternoon in the northern hill districts of
Tasmania. The sky was of a bird's egg blue, which even Italy cannot
rival, and the bold outline of hills which bounded the horizon, bush
clad to the top, showed a still deeper azure blue in an atmosphere
which, clear as the heaven above, had never a suggestion of hardness.
Removed some half-mile from the little township of Wallaroo lay a
farm homestead nestling against the side of the hill, protected
behind by a belt of trees from the keen, strong mountain winds, and
surrounded by a rough wood paling; but the broad verandah in the
front lay open to the sunshine, and even in winter could often be
used as the family dining-room. The garden below it was a mass of
flowers for at least six months in the year, and there was scarcely a
month when there was a total absence of them.
The house, one-storied and built of wood like all the houses in the
country districts, was in the middle of the home paddock; the drive
up to it little more than a cart track across the field, which was
divided from the farm road which skirted it by a fence of tree
trunks, rough hewn and laid one on the top of the other. A strong
gate guarded the entrance, and on it sat Jack, the Englishman, his
bare, brown feet clinging to one of the lower bars, his firmly set
head thrown back a little on his broad shoulders as he rolled out
"Rule Britannia" from his lusty lungs. Many and various were the
games he had played in the paddock this afternoon, but pretending
things by yourself palls after a time, and Jack had sought his
favourite perch upon the gate and employed the spare interval in
practising the song which father had taught him on the occasion of
his last visit. He must have it quite perfect by the time father
came again. It was that father, an English naval captain, from whom
Jack claimed his title of "Jack, the Englishman," by which he was
universally known in the little township, and yet the little boy, in
his seven years of life, had known no other home than his
grandfather's pretty homestead.
"But o' course, if father's English, I must be English too. You
can't be different from your father," Jack had said so often that the
neighbours first laughed, and then accepted him at his own valuation,
and gave him the nickname of which he was so proud.
About the mother who had died when he was born, Jack never troubled
his little head; two figures loomed large upon his childish horizon,
Aunt Betty and father. Aunts and mothers stood about on a level in
Jack's mind; it never suggested itself to him to be envious of the
boys who had mothers instead of aunts, for Aunt Betty wrapped him
round with a love so tender and wholesome, that the want of a mother
had never made itself felt, but father stood first of all in his
childish affection.
It was more than eight years since Lieutenant Stephens had come out
from England in the man-o'-war which was to represent the English
navy in Australian waters, and at Adelaide he had met Mary Treherne,
a pretty Tasmanian girl, still in her teens, who was visiting
relations there. It was a case of love at first sight with the young
couple, who were married after a very short engagement. Then, whilst
her husband's ship was sent cruising to northern seas, Mary came back
to her parents, and there had given birth to her little son, dying,
poor child, before her devoted husband could get back to her. Since
then Lieutenant Stephens had received his promotion to Captain, and
had occupied some naval post in the Australian Commonwealth, but his
boy, at Betty Treherne's urgent request, had been left at the farm,
where he led as happy and healthful an existence as a child could
have. The eras in his life were his father's visits, which were
often long months apart, and as each arrival was a living joy, so
each departure was grief so sore that it took all little Jack's
manhood not to cry his heart out.
"Some day--some day," he had said wistfully on the last occasion,
"when I'm a big boy you'll take me with you," and his father had
nodded acquiescence.
"It's not quite impossible that when I'm called back to England, I
may take you over with me and put you to school there, but that is in
the far future."
"How far?" Jack asked eagerly.
"That's more than I can tell; years hence very likely."
But even that distant hope relieved the tension of the big knot in
Jack's throat, and made him smile bravely as father climbed to the
top of the crazy coach that was to carry him to the station some
eight miles away.
From that time forward, Jack insisted that Aunt Betty should measure
him every month to see if he had grown a little.
"Why are you in such a hurry to grow up?" she asked, smiling at him
one day. "You won't seem like my little boy any more when you get
into trousers."
"But I shall be father's big boy," was the quick rejoinder, "and
he'll take me with him to England when he goes. Did he tell you?"
Aunt Betty drew a hard breath, and paled a little.
"That can't be for years and years," she said decidedly.
"He said when I'm big, so I want to grow big in a hurry," went on
Jack, all unconscious how his frank outspokenness cut his aunt like a
knife. Then he turned and saw tears in her pretty eyes, and flew to
kiss them away.
"But why are you crying, Aunt Betty? I've not been a naughty boy,"
he said, reminiscent that on the occasion of his one and only lie,
the enormity of his sin had been brought home to him by the fact that
Aunt Betty had cried.
She stooped and kissed him now with a little smile.
"I shan't like the day when you go away with father."
"But o' course you'll come along with us," he said, as a kind of
happy afterthought, and there they both left it.
And now Aunt Betty's clear voice came calling down the paddock.
"Jack, Jack, it's time you came in to get tidy for tea," but Jack's
head was bent a little forward, his eyes were intently fixed upon a
man's figure that came walking swiftly and strongly up the green lane
from the township, and with a shrill whoop of triumph he sprang from
his perch, and went bounding towards the newcomer.
"Aunt Betty, Aunt Betty," he flung back over his shoulder, "it's
father, father come to see me," and the next minute he was folded
close to the captain's breast, and lifted on to his shoulder, a
little boy all grubby with his play, but as happy and joyful as any
child in the island.
And across the paddock came Aunt Betty, fresh as the spring day in
her blue print gown, and advancing more slowly behind came Mr. and
Mrs. Treherne.
"A surprise visit, Father Jack, but none the less a welcome one,"
said Mr. Treherne. He was a typical Tasmanian farmer with his rough
clothes and slouch hat, but a kindly contentment shone out of his
true blue eyes, and he had an almost patriarchal simplicity of
manner. He bore a high name in all the country-side for uprightness
of character, and was any neighbour in trouble Treherne was the man
to turn to for counsel and help. And his wife was a help-meet
indeed, a bustling active little woman, who made light of reverses
and much of every joy. The loss of her eldest daughter had been the
sharpest of her sorrows, and the gradual drifting of her four sons to
different parts of the colony where competition was keener and money
made faster than in "sleepy hollow," as Tasmania is nicknamed by the
bustling Australians. There was only one left now to help father
with the farm, Ted and Betty out of a family of seven!
But still Mrs. Treherne asserted confidently that the joys of life
far outweighed its sorrows. Perfectly happy in her own married life,
her heart had gone out in tenderest pity to the young Lieutenant so
early left a widower, and a deep bond of affection existed between
the two. She took one of his hands between her own, and beamed
welcome upon him.
"It's good luck that brings you again so soon."
"It's a matter of business that I've come to talk over with you all,
but it can wait until after supper. I'm as hungry as a hunter. I
came straight on from Burnie without waiting to get a meal."
"If you had wired, you should have had a clean son to welcome you,"
said Betty. "Climb down, Jack, and come with me and be scrubbed.
Don't wait for us, mother. The tea is all ready to come in."
Jack chattered away in wildest excitement whilst Aunt Betty scrubbed
and combed, but Betty's heart was thumping painfully, and she
answered the boy at random, wondering greatly if the business Father
Jack talked about implied a visit to England, and whether he would
want to take his little son with him.
"He has the right! of course he has the right," she thought. "Aunts
are only useful to fill up gaps," and her arms closed round little
Jack with a yearning hug.
"There! now you're a son to be proud of, such a nice clean little boy
smelling of starch and soap," she said merrily, with a final
adjustment of the tie of his white sailor suit, and they went down to
tea hand in hand, to tea laid in the verandah, with a glimpse in the
west of the sun sinking towards its setting in a sky barred with
green and purple and gold.
Little Jack sat by his father, listening to every word he said, and
directly tea was ended climbed again on to his knee and imperatively
demanded a story. It was the regular routine when Father Jack paid a
visit.
"And what is it to be?" asked the captain
"Why, Jack, the Giant Killer, or Jack and the Beanstalk. I love the
stories about Jacks best of all, because Aunt Betty says the Jacks
are the people who do things, and she says you and all the brave
sailors are called Jack Tars, and that I'm to grow up big and brave
like you, father."
The Captain's arm tightened round his son.
"It's very kind of Aunt Betty to say such good things about the Jacks
of the world. We must try and deserve them, you and I. Well, now,
I'm going to tell you a sort of new version of Jack, the Giant
Killer."
"What's a new version?" asked Jack, distrustfully.
"The same sort of story told in a different way, and mine is a true
story."
"Is it written down in a book? Has it got pictures?"
"Not yet; I expect it will get written down some day when it's
finished."
"It isn't finished," cried Jack in real disappointment.
"Wait and listen--There was once a man----"
"Oh, it's all wrong," said Jack impatiently. "It's a boy in the
_real_ story."
"Didn't I tell you mine was a new version? Now listen and don't
interrupt----"
Mr. Treherne leant back in his chair, listening with a smile to the
argument between father and son as he smoked his pipe; Mrs. Treherne
had gone off into the house, whilst Betty, after setting the table
afresh for Ted who would be late that evening as he was bringing home
a mob of cattle, seated herself in the shadow, where she could watch
the Captain and Jack without interruption.
"There was once a man," began the Captain over again, "who looked
round the world, and noticed what a lot of giants had been conquered,
and wondered within himself what was left for him to do."
"No giants he could kill?" asked Jack excitedly, "Were those others
all deaded?"
"Not deaded; they were caught and held in bondage, made to serve
their masters, which was ever so much better than killing them."
"What were their names?"
"Water was the name of one of them."
Jack stirred uneasily. "Now you're greening me, father"--the term
was Uncle Ted's.
The Captain laughed. "Didn't I tell you this was a true story?
Water was so big a giant that for years and years men looked at it,
and did not try to do much with it. The great big seas----"
"I know them," cried Jack. "Aunt Betty shows them to me on the map,
and we go long voyages in the puff-puff steamers nearly every day!"
"Ah! I was just coming to that. At first men hollowed out boats out
of tree trunks, and rowed about in them, timidly keeping close to the
shore, and then, as the years rolled on, they grew braver, and said:
'There's another giant that will help us in our fight with water.
Let us try and catch the wind.' So they built bigger boats, with
sails to them which caught the wind and moved the ships along without
any rowing, and for many, many years men were very proud of their two
great captive giants, water and wind, and they discovered many new
countries with their wind-driven ships, and were happy. But very
often the wind failed them, grew sulky, and would not blow, and then
the ship lay quiet in the midst of the ocean; or the wind was angry,
and blew too strong--giants are dangerous when they lose their
temper--and many a stately ship was upset by the fury of the wind,
and sent to the bottom. Then men began to think very seriously what
giant they could conquer that would help them to make the wind more
obedient to their will, so they called in fire to their aid. Fire,
properly applied, turned water into steam, and men found that not
only ships, but nearly everything in the world could be worked
through the help of steam."
Jack was getting wildly interested in the new version. "Oh, but I
_know_," he said, clapping his hands. "There's trains, and there's
steam rollers; I love it when they come up here, and there's an
engine comes along and goes from farm to farm for the threshing, and
that's jolly fun for the threshers all come to dinner, and----"
"Yes, I see you know a lot about these captive giants after all,"
said the Captain, bringing him back to the point.
"Go on, please; it's just like a game," said Jack. "Perhaps I'll
find out some more."
"I can't go on much longer. It would take me all night to tell you
of all the giants we keep hard at work. Three are enough to think of
at a time. Tell me their names again for fear you should forget."
"Water--one. Wind--two, and Fire, that makes steam--three," said
Jack, counting them off, as he rehearsed them on his father's
fingers. "Just one more, daddy dear," a phrase he reserved for very
big requests.
"One more then, and away you go to bed, for I see Aunt Betty looking
at her watch. The last giant that the man of the story very much
wishes to conquer, and has not done it yet, is air. He wants to
travel in the air faster than any train or steamship will take you by
land or water."
"Like my new toy, the one grandmother sent for on my birthday seven.
She sent for it all the way to Melbourne, an 'airyplane' she calls
it, but it only goes just across the room, and then comes flop."
"That's just it; at present flying in the air too often ends in flop,
and this man I'm talking of wants to help to discover something that
will make flying in the air safer and surer. There are lots of men
all over the world trying to do the same thing. All the giants I
have told you of are too big and strong for one man to grapple with
by himself, but many men joined together will do it, and the man of
the story has been working at it by himself for years, and at
last--at last he thinks he has discovered something that will be of
service to airmen and to his country, and he's going over to England
to test it--to see if his discovery is really as good as he believes
it to be."
Little Jack sat grave and very quiet, pondering deeply.
"What's the man's name, father? The man you're telling about."
"Jack, a Jack who will be well content if he can help to do something
big in conquering the giant Air. It's your father who is the man of
the story. I promised it should be a true one."
Jack's answer seemed a little irrelevant. He slipped from his
father's knee and took his hand, trying with all his might to pull
him up from his chair. "Come, father, come quick and see how big
I've grown. Aunt Betty measures me every month, and says I'm quite a
big boy for my age."
Wondering at the sudden change of subject, the Captain humoured his
little son, and allowed himself to be dragged to the hall where,
against the doorpost of one of the rooms, Jack's height was duly
marked with a red pencil.
"Aunt Betty's right. You're quite a big boy for only seven years
old."
"I knewed it," cried Jack, in rapturous exultation, "so you'll take
me along with you, dear, and we'll hit at that old giant Air
together. Oh, I'm so glad, so glad to be big."
"Not so fast, sonny," said the Captain, gently gathering him again
into his arms. "You're a big boy for seven years old, but you're
altogether too young for me to take you to England yet."
Jack's face went white as the sailor suit he wore, and his great
round eyes filled to the brim with tears, but by vigorous blinking he
prevented them from falling down his cheeks.
"You said--perhaps when I was big you'd take me with you."
"And that will be some years hence when I'll come back to fetch you,
please God."
"Me and Aunt Betty, too," said Jack, with a little catch in his
throat, "'cause she'll cry if I leave her."
"Jack, it's bedtime, and you will never go to sleep if you get so
excited," said Aunt Betty decidedly, feeling all future plans swamped
into nothingness by the greatness of the news Father Jack had come to
tell.
"Look here, I'll carry you pig-a-back," said the Captain, dropping on
to all fours. "Climb up and hold fast, for the pig feels frisky
to-night, and I can't quite tell what may happen." So Jack went off
to his cot in Aunt Betty's room in triumph and screams of laughter,
but the laughter gave way to tears when bathed and night-gowned he
knelt by Aunt Betty's side to say his prayers. The list of people
God was asked to bless was quite a long one, including various
friends of Jack's in the township, but last of all to-night came his
father's name.
"God bless Father Jack, and make Little Jack a good boy and very big,
please, dear God, so as he'll soon have father to fetch him home."
And then, with choking sobs, Jack sprang to his feet and into bed.
"Tuck me in tight, Aunt Betty, and don't kiss me, please. I'll tuck
my head under the clothes, and don't tell father I'm crying. It's
only little boys who cry, he says, and I want to be big, ever so big.
I'll grow now, shan't I? Now I've asked God about it."
Aunt Betty's only answer was a reassuring pat on his back as she
tucked the bedclothes round him. Truth to tell she was crying a
little too.
CHAPTER II
A CHUM
"You've sprung it upon us rather suddenly, Jack."
Betty and her brother-in-law sat in the verandah in the glory of the
Tasmanian night. The stars shone out like lamps from the dark vault
above with a brilliancy unknown in our cloudier atmosphere; a
wonderful silence rested on the land, except that at long intervals a
wind came sighing from the bush-clad hills, precursor of the strong
breeze, sometimes reaching the force of a gale, that often springs up
with the rising of the sun.
Jack removed his pipe and let it die out before he answered Betty.
"To you I expect it may seem a fad, the result of a sudden impulse,
but really I've been working towards this end ever since aviation has
been mooted, spending all my spare time and thought upon the
perfecting of a notion too entirely technical to explain to anyone
who does not understand aeroplanes. Finally I sent over my invention
to an expert in the Admiralty, with the result that I've received my
recall, and am to work it out. There is no question that at this
juncture, when all nations are hurrying to get their air fleet
afloat, we are singularly behindhand, and I feel the best service I
can give my country is to help, in however small a degree, to
retrieve our mistake."
"You don't really think England is in peril, do you?"
"The unready man is always in peril, and England is singularly
unready for any emergency at the present time. I believe with some
men the call of country is the strongest passion in their blood. For
a moment the thought of leaving the little lad staggered me, for, of
course, he's altogether too young to think of taking him with me.
Nobody would mother him as you are doing, Betty. I would like him to
be with you for some years longer yet, if you agree to continue
taking charge of him."
"But of course," said Betty, with a little catch in her throat. "He
is my greatest joy in life. I dread the time when I must let him go."
"Thank you; I want to leave him here as long as possible until it
becomes a question of education. Of course I would like if he shows
any inclination that way that he should follow in my footsteps,
either serve in the navy or in the air fleet."
Betty gave a little gasp. "But the peril, Jack! Think of the lives
that have been already sacrificed."
Jack shrugged his shoulders. "By the time the boy is old enough to
think of a profession, I don't suppose aviation will be much more
dangerous than any other calling that is distinctly combative in
character, and if it is, I hope my son will be brave enough to face
it. However, what Jack will be or do when he grows up is too far a
cry to discuss seriously."
"And meanwhile what do you want me to do with him?"
"Just what you are doing now. Bring him up to fear God and honour
the King."
"And when education presses? I can teach him to read and write and a
little arithmetic, but when he ought to go further? Am I to send him
away to a boarding school?"
"I think not, Betty. I would almost rather you let him go to the
State school here, and kept him under your own eye. I don't believe
association during school hours with all and sundry will hurt him
whilst he has you to come back to, and the teaching at some of these
schools is far more practical and useful than at many a preparatory
school at home. What can you tell me of the master here?"
"He's rather above the average, and if he finds a boy interested in
his work is often willing to give him a helping hand. For one thing,
I don't believe Jack will ever want to be much off the place out of
school hours. He's a manly little chap, and loves being about with
Ted or father on the farm. I wish sometimes he had some chum of his
own, a little brother, or what would be almost as good--a little
sister. His play is too solitary."
"I'm afraid it's out of your power or mine to cure that," said the
Captain, rather sadly, his thoughts going back to the pretty wife who
had been his for so short a time.
When little Jack appeared at breakfast the following morning there
was no sign of the previous night's emotion, but he was quite
inseparable from his father that day, never leaving his side for an
instant if he could help it. He was much graver than usual, intent
upon watching the Captain's every movement, even adjusting his own
little shoulders to exactly the same angle as his father's, and
adopting a suspicion of roll in his walk.
The Captain was to leave by the evening coach, and Betty catching the
wistful look in little Jack's eyes suggested that he should be the
one to escort the Captain down the green lane to the hotel in the
township from which the coach started. Jack, holding his father's
hand tight gripped in his own, scarcely uttered a word as they walked
off together. He held his head high and swallowed the uncomfortable
knot in his throat. Not again would he disgrace his manhood by
breaking into tears.
"I'll be _real_ big when you come next time," he ventured at last.
"Will it be soon?"
"As soon as I can make it, Jackie. Meanwhile you'll be good and do
as Aunt Betty tells you."
"Yes, sometimes. I can't always," said Jack truthfully.
"Well, as often as you can. And little or big you'll not forget
you're Jack, the Englishman, who'll speak the truth and be brave and
ready to fight for your country if need be."
"Yes," said Jack, squaring his shoulders a little.
"And I'll write to you from every port--Aunt Betty will show you on
the map the ports my ship will touch at--and when I get home I shall
write to you every week."
That promise brought a smile to Jack's twitching lips.
"Oh, but that's splendid! A letter all my own every week," he said,
beginning to jump about with excitement at the prospect.
"Will it have my name written upon the envelope?"
"Why, yes. How else should the postman know whom it's for? You'll
have to write to me, you know."
That proposition did not sound quite so delightful, and Jack's
forehead puckered a little. He remembered the daily tussle over his
copy-book.
"I don't write very well just yet," he said.
"That will have to be amended, for a letter I must have every week.
Aunt Betty will guide your hand at first, and very soon I hope you
will be able to write me a sentence or two all your own, without Aunt
Betty's help."
"But what'll I say in a letter?" asked Jack, still distrustful of his
own powers.
"Just what you would say to me if you were talking as you're talking
now; how you get on with your lessons. If you're a good boy or a bad
one, who you meet, what picnics you have; anything you like. What
interests you will surely interest me."
The thought that father would still talk to him when he was away kept
Jack steady through the parting, that, and the fact that a young
horse only partially broken in was harnessed to the steady goer who
for months past had been one of the hinder pair of the four-horse
coach, played all manner of pranks at starting; at first declining to
budge at all; then, when the superior force of the three others made
movement necessary, setting his four legs together and letting
himself be dragged along for a few paces, finally breaking into a
wild gallop which was checked by his more sober mates, until at last
finding himself over-matched he dropped into the quick trot of the
other three, fretting and foaming at the mouth, nevertheless, at his
enforced obedience. It was a primitive method of horse-breaking, but
effectual. And so Jack's farewells to his father were diversified by
watching the antics of the unbroken colt, and joining a little in the
laughter of the ring of spectators that had gathered round to see the
fun. But when the final start was made Jack was conscious of the
smarting of unshed tears, rubbed his eyes vigorously with his sturdy
fists and set off home at a smart trot, standing still sometimes and
curvetting a little in imitation of the colt that needed breaking in.
Betty, who stood waiting for him at the gate of the paddock, ready to
comfort and console, saw him gambolling along like a frisky horse,
and felt her sympathy a little wasted. Children's sorrows are
proverbially evanescent, but she was hardly prepared for Jack to
return in such apparently rollicking spirits from the parting with
his father of indefinite duration. And when he came up to her it was
of the horse and its capering that he told her, mimicking its action
in his own little person: holding back, pelting forwards, trying to
rear, interspersed with vicious side kicks, and finally a wild gallop
which sobered into a trot.
"That's 'zackly how he went," he said, waiting breathless for Aunt
Betty to catch him up.
Betty was extremely astonished that Jack made no mention of his
father, but later she understood. Tea was over, and before Jack went
to bed Betty allowed him a quarter of an hour's play at any game he
chose.
"Would you like to be the frisky horse again, and I will drive you,"
she asked, willing to humour his latest whim.
"No, I'll get my slate and write, only you must help me."
This was indeed an unexpected development for Jack, and left Betty
speechless. Jack was quick at reading and quite good at counting,
but writing was his particular bug-bear.
She lifted him on to her lap, and he bent eagerly over the slate on
his knees.
"Now, what do you want to write," Betty asked, taking his right hand
in her own firm, strong one.
"A letter--a letter to father. He's going to write to me every week.
How do you begin? He says I must write every week, same as he does."
"All right! 'My dear Father'--That's the way to begin."
By the time the "r" was reached Jack lifted a flushed face.
"It's awful hard work; I'll never do it."
"Oh, yes we will. We'll write it to-morrow in your copybook. Very
soon it will come quite easy."
And the wish to conquer made Jack comparatively patient at his
writing the following morning. Lessons over, he turned out into the
paddock as usual to play, but somehow all zest for play had deserted
him. The effort to prove himself a man the day before had a
reaction. Every game, played alone, lost its flavour. Hitherto Jack
had never been conscious of the need of a playmate. His whole being
had been so absorbed in his father that the looking forward to his
visits, the saving up everything to show him and to tell him, had
satisfied him; but to-day, with that father gone, he floated about
like a rudderless boat, fretful and lonely, not able to voice his
vague longing for something to happen! He opened the gate and looked
down the lane. On the opposite side of the lane was a tenantless
house; the half-acre in which it stood had never been brought into
proper cultivation as a garden, but the flowers and shrubs which had
been planted haphazard about it had grown now into tangled confusion,
and Jack, when tired of his own premises, had often run down there,
where, crawling on all-fours through the long grass and shrubs, he
had imagined himself lost in the bush, and great was his joy when
Aunt Betty, not finding him in the home paddock, would come wandering
down the lane, saying in a clear, distinct tone:
"Now where can that little boy have gone? I'm afraid, I'm dreadfully
afraid, he's lost in the bush! I wonder if it's possible he can have
strayed in here."
Then her bright head would be thrust over the gate, and each time
Jack was discovered cowering from sight there would be a fresh burst
of rapture on the part of the much-distressed aunt and roars of
delighted laughter from Jack. It was a most favourite game, but he
did not wish to play it to-day.
Yet he resented it a little that a bullock-wagon was drawn to one
side of the road, the wagon piled high with furniture, which was
being lifted piece by piece into the house. His happy hunting-ground
was to be his no longer, for evidently the house was to be occupied
by a fresh tenant. Dancing to and fro with the men who were unlading
the dray was a little girl, her face entirely hidden by a large
sun-bonnet, and the rest of her little person enveloped in a blue
overall, below which came a pair of sturdy brown legs, scarcely
distinguishable from the tan shoes and socks below.
Jack's resentment at the thought of losing his playground yielded to
excitement at the prospect of a playmate so close at hand, and he
crept cautiously along his side of the lane to obtain a nearer view
of the new-comer, finally taking a seat against the fence just
opposite the house. It was a minute or two before the little girl
discovered him. When she did she crossed the dividing road and stood
just far enough from him to make a quick retreat to her own premises
if a nearer inspection was unfavourable. It was almost a baby face
that peered out from the bonnet: round apple cheeks, big serious
eyes, and a halo of dark curls that framed the forehead. Her eyes
met Jack's for a moment, then dropped in a sudden attack of shyness,
and she showed signs of running away without speaking.
"Wait a bit," said Jack. "Can't you tell us your name?"
The child drew a step nearer. "What's yours?" she said, answering
Jack's question by another.
"I'm Jack, father's called Jack, too."
"I'm Eva, but mummy calls me puss. Is that your place?" with a nod
towards Jack's home.
"Yes, you can come and look at it if you like," and Jack held out a
grubby hand.
Eva paused, looked up the lane and down it.
"Mummy only lets me play with nice little boys," she said.
"All right," said Jack, rising and turning back to go home. That he
was rejected on the score of not being nice enough to play with
puzzled him rather than annoyed.
There was a hasty scuttle after him as Eva ran to catch him up.
"Stop, boy! I think you's nice! You's got booful blue eyes!"
Jack turned, laughing merrily. "You're a funny little kiddie. Do
you want to come, then?"
Eva nodded gravely, thrusting a confident hand in his.
"You're old, a lot older than me," she said, admiring the agility
with which Jack climbed the top of the gate and pulled back the iron
fastening to let her through.
"I'm seven, big for my age, Aunt Betty says, but I want to be a lot
bigger before I'm done with."
"I'm six next bufday," Eva announced. "I had a bufday last week."
"Then you're six now."
Eva shook her head vigorously. "Next bufday, mummy says."
"Oh, you're only five," said Jack dejectedly. A baby of five was
really too young to play with.
"Can you play horses?"
"Yus," suddenly smiling into Jack's face.
"And cricket?"
"Kick it, a ball like this," throwing out her little foot. "Yus."
"Let's see how you run. I'll give you quite a long start, and we'll
see which can get to the house first."
Eva's stout legs acquitted themselves so well that Jack's esteem and
respect grew by leaps and bounds.
"You'll do quite well for a chum, after all," he said as he panted up
to her. "Come along and see Aunt Betty."
Aunt Betty's whereabouts were not difficult to discover. Her song
rose clear and full as a magpie as she busied herself in the dairy
which adjoined the house. The sound of Jack's voice made her turn
from her milk-pans to the doorway which framed him and his little
companion.
"Why, Jack, who is the little girl?" she asked.
"Her name is Eva, and I've just settled she shall be my chum," was
the decided answer.
But Eva, frightened at finding herself quite away from her own
people, threw herself on the doorstep and hid her face in a fit of
sobbing.
"I won't be nobody's chum! Take me home to mummy," she said.
Betty's arms closed round her consolingly.
"So I will directly Jack can tell me where mummy lives," said Betty.
"Come along, Jack, and show me where to take her."
CHAPTER III
NEW NEIGHBOURS
A resolute-looking little woman faced Betty as she crossed the
threshold of the door of the new neighbour. Betty carefully
deposited Eva on one of the boxes which littered the floor and
explained her presence.
"It was kind of you to bring her back. Pussie has a sad trick of
poking in her nose where she's not wanted," said Eva's mother; but
the child, restored to confidence, raised indignant protest.
"Boy does want me; he wants me for a chum, mummy, and I think he's
nice! Just look at him."
Betty watched the grave little face soften into a smile as the eyes
rested first on Eva and then on Jack, who stood shyly in the doorway.
"We are neighbours, then," she said, ignoring Eva's words. She was
clearly a woman who would commit herself to no promise that she might
not be able to keep.
"My father, Mr. Treherne, owns the farm close by. Jack is his little
grandson," said Betty simply, "and I'm his only daughter."
"And my name is Kenyon. Come along, Eva; we'll leave all this alone
until after tea, and when you're in bed I must straighten things a
bit," said Mrs. Kenyon as Betty turned to go.
The voice was tired, and an English voice. The speaker, still young,
for she certainly was well under thirty, inspired Betty with the
feeling that she had had a hard fight with the world.
"Won't you come back to supper with us? I know mother will be glad
to see you, and it's hard to get things comfortable on the first
night in a new house."
"Comfortable!" echoed Mrs. Kenyon, with a note of scorn in her voice.
"It will be days before we can be that. The house has been standing
empty for a long time apparently, and needs soap and water in every
corner of it. I should like to send it to the wash, but as that
can't be done I must wash it myself, every inch of it. I took it
because it was cheap!"
"Will you come, then," said Betty again.
"I beg your pardon. You'll think English manners defective, but I'm
so tired I can hardly think of what I'm saying. No, there is so much
to be done I think I will stay here, thanking you all the same for
asking us." So Betty said no more, and taking Jack's hand walked
quickly down the road. Jack chattered all the way about Eva.
"D'you think she'll be my chum, Aunt Betty?"
"We'll wait and see, Jackie, and don't be in too great a hurry.
She'll want you all the more if you don't seem too keen to have her,"
answered Betty, smiling, giving the little boy his first lesson in
worldly wisdom.
But the thought of the tired face haunted kind Betty as she sat down
to supper. She told her mother something of the new neighbour.
"She's such a decided, determined look and manner, mother. She's
been pretty, and she's rather pretty still, only her face has grown
hard, as if she'd had a lot of trouble. She's young to be a widow."
"What makes you think she's a widow? She did not tell you so."
"There's no sign of a man about the place; she clearly has to fend
for herself, and to English people it's hard work. They're not
brought up to be useful!"
Mrs. Treherne laughed. "She's English, then."
"Yes, she said so, and she's proud and independent; but I think when
Jack is in bed I'll risk the chance of a snub, and go and see what I
can do for her."
An hour later Betty stood again before Mrs. Kenyon's door. From the
inner room came a sound of singing, and through the half-opened door
Betty caught a glimpse of a little bed that stood in the corner, over
which Mrs. Kenyon bent tenderly soothing Eva to sleep with her soft
lullaby.
"She has one tender spot in her heart, anyway," thought Betty, giving
a little cough to proclaim her presence. Mrs. Kenyon turned and came
toward her on tip-toe, drawing the door of her bedroom gently to
behind her.
"Eva was excited and would not go to sleep. I don't generally spoil
her like that, but she's off now as sound as a top."
"I've come to help you for an hour or two if you will have me."
Mrs. Kenyon's bright eyes scanned Betty from head to foot.
"It's not everyone that I could accept help from, but I'll be glad of
it from you."
So the two worked side by side with a will and with scarcely a word
exchanged between them. They shifted boxes, placed furniture in
temporary safety against the walls, but to Betty fell the lion's
share of the lifting.
"I don't know how you do it; you're as strong as a man," said Mrs.
Kenyon, subsiding into a chair for a moment's rest.
"We're made so out here; for one thing we are accustomed to use our
muscles from the moment we can walk. We don't--have our shoes
buttoned up for us," with a sly glance at her companion.
Mrs. Kenyon gave a short laugh. "Nor have I since I came out here.
Since I married I learned the way to clean them. That's six years
ago, and for three years I've made the child's living and my own. It
has not been a bed of roses. I tried various methods, was lady-help
and so on; but now I'm a dressmaker, and that not only pays better,
but leaves me free to keep a little home of my own. I hope the
people in the township need a dressmaker."
"Indeed they do if you are willing to work in the house. The only
woman we can get is engaged weeks beforehand, and then as often as
not fails one at the last minute. If you are good I believe you will
hardly have a day free."
"That's good hearing, but they must accept Eva with me. I can't
leave her, you see. Turn her into the garden and she is as
independent as a puppy. I think I am good at sewing! As a girl at
home I made most of my own gowns and was often asked the name of my
dressmaker. I decided to come here as someone I met told me there
was a good opening."
Betty's eyes rested thoughtfully on the speaker The dusk gave her
courage to express her thought.
"I almost wonder you did not go home. You're not really fitted for a
fight with life."
Mrs. Kenyon's chin lifted. "I chose my lot and will abide by it."
Betty knew she had been guilty of an impertinence in trying to probe
beneath the surface, and rose to go.
"You'll go to bed now; you won't try to do anything more when I'm
gone," she pleaded.
"No, I'll go to bed chiefly because I must."
"And to-morrow won't be a busy day with me; you'll let me come again?"
"Surely yes, and thank you for your kindness. It's been more than
manual help; you've heartened me up; you're so splendidly happy.
Your very step has happiness in it. It must be because you're so
strong."
But there Mrs. Kenyon erred, for Betty's happiness lay rather in the
fact that quite unconsciously she brought happiness to all about her.
The next morning Jack, sent on a message to the township, sauntered
leisurely past the opposite side of the lane from Eva's home, casting
one furtive glance to see if she were anywhere in sight, and then
conscious of a rosy face flattened against the gate, went on with his
eyes held steadily in front of him. Of course if a little girl did
not want to be a big boy's chum--Jack was too young to finish the
sentiment, but a lump of disappointment rose to his throat and a
sudden impulse made him take to his heels and fly, casting never a
backward look.
He was not long gone, for Aunt Betty's orders had been peremptory.
She was pressed for time and there must be no loitering by the way.
He saw that Eva had pushed open the gate and was wandering down the
lane towards the entrance to the paddock, a bright spot of colour in
her little red overall. The green road extended beyond Mr.
Treherne's land to another farm some distance further on, and from
the far end of it Jack saw a young bullock trotting in Eva's
direction. Quite used to animals and wholly unafraid of them this
usually would not have been worthy of remark, but he recognised this
animal as dangerous and perfectly unamenable to training. Only
yesterday he had stood by, an excited spectator, whilst his
grandfather and uncle had been assisting their neighbour in his
efforts to bring the bullock into subjection, but it had proved so
wild and vicious that it had been driven into a paddock by itself
until its owner could decide what to do with it.
"Best get rid of it," Mr. Treherne advised, "get rid of it before it
gets you into trouble. The creature is not safe."
And Mr. Marks, his neighbour, slept upon the advice and waked in the
morning determined to act upon it, so he and his son after much
difficulty had succeeded in roping the bullock's horns and between
them were going to lead it down to the township to the butcher, but
as the farmer opened the gate which led into the lane he relaxed his
hold for a moment and the bullock broke away and was advancing with
rapid trot and lowered horns towards the tempting spot of colour in
front of it.
All this Jack took in at a glance and his one thought was Eva's
danger. There was yet some little distance between her and the angry
beast, and he ran rapidly towards her shouting as he ran.
"Run, Eva, run back home; the bullock isn't safe."
The child, startled by the call, looked round, saw the animal bearing
down upon her and with a howl of terror turned to fly, but her foot
tripped in a rut and she fell face downwards to the ground, roaring
lustily. There was no time to pick her up and console her so, little
Jack sped past her determined to put his small person between her and
the enemy. Behind he saw the farmer and his son in hot pursuit. A
moment's delay and the danger would be averted, but Jack was far too
young to argue out the matter in cool blood.
All he felt was the necessity of preventing the bullock from reaching
Eva, and the spirit inherited from his father made him try to shield
her. But the bullock was dashing towards him with lowered horns and
wild eyes, and Jack with the instinct of self-preservation raised his
arms and threw the parcel he carried straight at its forehead; the
bag broke with the force of the blow and the flour it contained came
pothering out, blinding and confusing the angry animal. For a moment
it stayed its onward course, tossing its head to rid itself of the
intolerable dust, and that moment saved the situation, for Farmer
Marks, who had taken a short cut across another paddock, came
bounding over the fence with his stock-whip in hand and with a
tremendous shout and resounding crack of his whip, caused the bullock
to turn back and plunge madly towards the field from which it had
escaped. It was driven into a far corner, and the gate by which it
had escaped was made doubly fast.
"And this afternoon it must be dealt with if I have to put a bullet
into it," said the farmer to his son, "but upon my word it was a near
shave with the little lad. I never saw a pluckier stand in my life."
Then he hastened back to see what had happened to Jack, and was
considerably concerned to see Mrs. Kenyon kneeling on the road by his
side, and a grave fear filled him lest, after all, the beast should
have gored the boy; but nothing more serious had occurred than that
Jack, having nerved himself up to the effort of turning the animal
from its course, had suffered from nervous collapse and fainted.
Eva, the danger over, had picked herself up and come trotting towards
him, had caught sight of his closed eyes and white face and had
rushed screaming to the house to fetch her mother, crying that a
great big bull had rushed at Jack and he was deaded, deaded in the
road, which alarming information had brought Mrs. Kenyon at full
speed to the rescue. And there Farmer Marks found her chafing the
boy's hands and trying to restore consciousness.
"I'll carry him to your place where you can took after him better,"
he said, stooping to lift the boy with rough tenderness, and as he
carried him he told the story of Jack's plucky defence of the child
that was smaller than he.
"You may blame me," he said, "as I should have blamed myself to my
dying day if anything had happened to either of them, but after all
the thing was an accident. I was acting on Treherne's advice and
taking the creature to be put out of harm's way. That it broke from
me so suddenly was scarcely my fault. I can only assure you it won't
happen again."
"I'm much too thankful a woman to blame anyone," said Mrs. Kenyon,
her bright eyes dimmed with tears. "He's coming to, I think; leave
him to me, and will you let the Trehernes know that he is here and
safe?"
Jack's eyes opened and he looked round him with a puzzled air.
"What's happened? Where's Aunt Betty? I'm all wet," he said.
"It's only a little water I sprinkled on your face," answered Mrs.
Kenyon, seized with an insane desire to laugh.
Then, moved by a passion of emotion that swept over her like a flood,
she took the little boy in her arms and covered him with kisses.
Jack struggled for freedom, not best pleased with this outburst of
affection from a stranger.
"I think, please, now I'll get up and go home to Aunt Betty," he
said, but as he spoke the door opened and Aunt Betty with a halo of
ruffled hair fringing her forehead came towards him, an undefined
fear written in her eyes.
"Jack, Jack, my darling!" was all she said.
Jack held out his arms to her, his face all quivering with the relief
of her presence, and to his own great annoyance began to cry. The
shock to his system was finding a natural outlet, and he was the only
person that regretted the tears.
He was far from feeling a hero as Betty took him home, for Aunt Betty
was always a little vexed with him when he cried.
"I didn't mean to cry; I didn't really. My head aches and I feel
rather sick. You don't think me a baby, Aunt Betty?"
Betty's smile was radiant with secret exultation and pride.
"Not a baby a bit, Jack, but a jolly brave little nipper who can be
trusted to look after any little girl left to his care. Eva will be
chums with you after this you may be quite sure, and Eva's mother
will feel sure that she will come to no harm with you."
She felt Jack fully deserved this amount of praise, but at the farm
very little more was said about the adventure.
"I should hate him to be made into a sort of hero though he is one,"
she said to Jack's grandmother. "There is not one little boy in a
hundred that would have kept his head and known what to do."
So Jack went about the rest of the day a little whiter and quieter
than usual, but when night came, and Aunt Betty had tucked him into
bed after hearing him say his prayers, he showed some reluctance to
let her go, and for once she humoured him and sat down by him for a
few minutes.
"It seems--as if something were rushing at me," he said, half ashamed
to voice his imaginings.
"There's nothing rushing at you really. It's a trick your tired head
is playing on you," said Betty soothingly.
"A great big head with horns and eyes that burn," went on Jack, "a
giant's head."
Betty laughed, such a happy contented laugh. "If a giant at all,
Jack, it was like one of the giants father told you about. You
frightened the big head more than it frightened you. Such a funny
thing to do! to throw a bag of flour at the bullock; throwing dust in
its eyes with a vengeance, and by the time it got over its surprise
it turned round and thought better of it and went back again."
It all sounded so simple and wholesome, that Jack joined in Aunt
Betty's laughter.
"It was just because I had nothing else to throw. Do you think
father would say I'd frightened a giant."
"He might," said Betty guardedly, "but I know what I must say, that
you must go to sleep as quickly as you can. You are a very tired
little boy to-night. Good night, dear boy. I'll leave the door open
so that if that naughty head does not stop aching you can give me a
call."
"He's not a bit himself to-night; he's just a bundle of nerves. I do
hope it won't make him timid in future," she said a little anxiously
as she rejoined the family in the verandah.
"Not a bit of it," said her father, taking his pipe from his mouth.
"I can tell you from practical experience it's not a pleasant feeling
to see a creature with horns making a dead set at you. No wonder the
child is upset, but in the morning he'll forget all about it."
And Mr. Treherne was right. The only lasting effect of little Jack's
adventure was a grave sense of responsibility when he and Eva were
together, for she was a girl to be protected and cared for.
CHAPTER IV
A BUSH BROTHER
It was soon an established fact that the children spent most of their
days together, an intimacy that at first was rather a trouble to Mrs.
Kenyon, who felt that from mere force of circumstance she could make
no adequate return for the kindness shown to her little girl at the
farm. Her days were of necessity spent almost entirely from home, as
her expectation of obtaining work was fully justified. For half the
day, either morning or afternoon, Eva would go with her, but the
other half was almost invariably spent with Jack, who was always
lurking near the gate in readiness to carry off his playmate. It was
in vain for Betty to assure her that this was a satisfactory
arrangement for both parties, that before Eva's coming Jack's life
had been a lonely one.
"It's delightful for the children, but for your people it must be
very often a terrible nuisance; I must think of some way of making
things equal, or it cannot go on," said Mrs. Kenyon, not many weeks
after her coming.
The opportunity presented itself on the first occasion when Betty
brought a message from her mother, asking if Mrs. Kenyon could
reserve the next week's work for them.
"Our sewing is all behindhand, and neither mother nor I have anything
fit to put on, but if you will devise, fit, and cut out, and we all
sit at work together, I think a week will see us through the worst of
it."
"It just happens that I'm free next week, and I'll come gladly--as a
friend, you understand; exchange is no robbery. Think of all you do
for Eva," and Mrs. Kenyon's head lifted with the odd little gesture
that Betty was beginning to interpret as a sign that her decision on
any subject was final. Neither did Betty try at the present time to
combat it.
But she was not pleased about it.
"She's too poor to afford to be so independent, mother," she said,
when she went home.
"My dear, let her have her way. We can make it up to her in many
forms, which she will not detect. Meanwhile one respects that
passionate desire for independence."
"Do you? Carried too far I think it becomes almost a vice. It
blocks real friendship. I should like to know Mrs. Kenyon's story.
I'm sure she has one."
"When she wishes you to know it she will tell you," said Betty's
mother placidly.
The children meanwhile did everything together, or to speak more
accurately, whatever Jack did, Eva, his faithful satellite, tried to
copy. Happiest of all was she when, tired with play, Jack would sit
and tell her stories in which his father played ever a prominent
part, and his title in these stories was always "Father Jack, the
Giant Killer," a name which Eva received with bursts of laughter.
"I shan't tell you any more if you laugh like that," said Jack one
day.
Eva stuffed the corner of her pinafore into her mouth to stay her
unseemly merriment.
"But you don't say all that when you see him. You don't say 'Good
morning, father Jack, the Giant Killer.'"
"O' course I don't," said Jack with displeased dignity, "but this is
a story about the giants father fights. He really fights giants."
Eva's eyes rounded in alarm. "Does he k-kill them like your story
says?"
"No, he catches 'em and makes 'em do what he wants. What do you
think he's catching now?"
"Goannas," said Eva quickly, whose special terror were the large
lizards called iguanas which occasionally invaded the garden, or that
she and Jack found about the farm and which Jack drove away with
adorable courage.
Jack gave a contemptuous laugh. "What silly things girls are! This
is a true story I'm telling you. Father catches the air, at least he
rides up in it in a thing called an airy-plane, and he makes the air
help to carry him along."
It was neither a very lucid nor accurate description of his father's
methods, but it filled his hearer with awe and wonder.
"Not really!"
"But yes," reiterated Jack, "and when I'm old enough, I'll ride in an
airy-plane too. Come along; I've told you plenty of stories for
to-day. Let's come and play airy-planes," so round and round the
paddock scampered the children, with arms outspread like wings, arms
which flapped occasionally as the speed became greater to the
accompaniment of a whirring sound intended feebly to imitate the buzz
of a motor bicycle.
"Faster, faster," cried Jack breathlessly. "Airy-planes flies at an
awful rate," but Eva's fat legs were failing her and her arms fell to
her side with a little gasp like the wheeze of exhausted bellows.
"Can't--run--no--more," she said, throwing herself on the grass, and
Jack after one more triumphant circle threw himself by her side.
Leaning over the gate with his arms folded on the top was a man, who
had stood there unperceived, watching the children's play with quiet
amusement. Now as it came to an end he laughed aloud, a kindly
genial laugh.
"That was really a fine exhibition," he said unlatching the gate and
coming towards them, "and deserves a round of applause," and suiting
the action to the word he clapped his hands together with all his
might.
Jack sprang to his feet, surveying the stranger with frankly
questioning eyes, but Eva, too exhausted to speak, sat where she was.
"Did you know what we were playing at? asked Jack.
"I must confess I heard you naming it. You were pretending to be
aeroplanes, weren't you? but it was so excellent an imitation that I
think I could have guessed. But isn't it rather a tiring game for a
little girl like this?"
"I don't know; Eva likes to do what I do, don't you, Eva?"
Eva sat bolt upright and nodded.
"Your little sister, I expect, and a good deal younger than you?"
"Not sister; we're chums, that's all, but it's just as good. She's
five, and I'm seven, but I'm big for my age, aren't I?"
The stranger laughed, and seating himself on the grass, drew Jack
down beside him.
"Quite big; I thought you might be eight. Having told me this much I
must hear a little more. I'm getting interested. May I hear your
name?"
"Jack--Jack Stephens; but here they always call me Jack, the
Englishman, 'cause father's a captain in the English Navy."
"Ah! I felt somehow that we should be friends. Shake hands, Jack,
the Englishman, for I'm an Englishman, too. I've not been long in
the colony," and Jack's small hand was almost lost in the palm of his
new friend.
"And what does the little girl call herself? I think she has found
breath enough to tell me."
Eva lifted a round face dimpled with smiles to the questioner. His
deep resonant voice and kindly smile inspired confidence.
"Eva," she said.
"And the rest? You must be something besides Eva," but Eva stood
staring at him, not quite understanding the form in which he had put
his question. Jack gave her a little nudge. "Tell him, Eva, that
your mother is Mrs. Kenyon."
A quick change passed over the face of the listener; the humour of it
resolved itself into an earnest gravity.
"Kenyon!" he repeated quickly. "It's a name I know something of. Do
father and mother live anywhere near here, Eva? I would rather like
to go and see them, if I might."
"Haven't no father," said Eva, with a quick shake of the head.
"Never had no father. Mother lives close by."
"Well, come along, Eva. Just take me to see mother. Perhaps she can
tell me something of the Kenyon I am seeking. Are you called Eva
after mother?"
Eva laughed and shook her head. "No; mother has a hard name to say.
I can't always say it just right. Cla--Cla----"
"--rissa," said the strange man, supplying the missing syllables.
"Is mother's Christian name Clarissa?"
Eva clapped her hands, jumping up and down with excitement.
"Oh, Jack, he's like the conjurer what tells you things he doesn't
ought to know. Isn't it clever of him to find out mummy's name?"
But Jack was intently watching the stranger's face, wondering greatly
why it twitched as if he were in pain.
"P'raps he's got the toothache," was his solution of the difficulty,
not knowing that heartache was the trouble.
"Take me to mummy," said the stranger again, holding out his hand.
"We've telled you both our names; you've not telled us yours."
"That will come later; for the present it's enough for you to know
that I'm a bush brother."
The children exchanged bewildered glances; the explanation threw no
light upon the stranger.
"We don't know what that means," said Jack, politely.
"That, too, I must tell you at some other time; but now I must get
Eva to take me home--home to mummy, home to Clarissa Kenyon."
Greatly wondering, the trio moved towards the gate; but there Jack
halted. Some instinct told him that just now he was not wanted, and
much as he wished to know the end of this strange story, he
determined to go home and wait till he saw Eva again.
He was a little piqued that his new acquaintance was apparently too
much absorbed in his own thoughts to take any notice of his leaving,
but Eva glanced back with a little nod.
"I'll be back directly dinner's over, Jack. Does you always walk as
fast as this?" she went on, glancing up at her companion, whose long
stride necessitated a quick trot on her part.
"When I'm in a hurry, Eva; and I'm in a hurry now," and then,
dropping the little hot hand he held, he broke into a run, for coming
down the lane towards them came Eva's mother, returning from a
morning's work to dinner.
And then a strange thing happened, for Eva, who stood stock still
with legs set rather far apart, saw mummy give a start backwards as
if half frightened by something, then heard her break into a little
cry, and the next moment she was caught into the stranger's arms and
held tightly to his breast. She did not like such rough treatment!
Eva was certain she did not like it, for mummy, who never cried, was
sobbing with all her might, great big sobs as if she were angry or
hurt. So Eva fled forward, anxious to defend, hammering with all the
might of her young fists upon the assailant's legs.
"Let go, let go, you wicked, wicked man," she said. "Don't you see
you are hurting my mummy and making her cry? Let go, I say," and the
man did let go, smiling down at the child with eyes that were full of
tears.
"You can ask mummy for yourself if I've hurt or made her glad," he
said very gently.
"Hush, Eva, hush," said Mrs. Kenyon, taking her little daughter by
the hand. "You don't understand that I'm crying because I'm
glad--gladder than I've been for many a year, so glad that it makes
me cry; and all because my brother, your Uncle Tom, has come to see
me; and how he got here and how he has found me out remains yet to
tell. Come in, come in, my Tom. Let us get into the shelter of the
house and let me look at you and make quite sure that it is in very
deed my brother Tom who talks to me. But your voice rings true, your
dear, kind voice that I had thought never to hear again."
She struggled to the seat in the verandah and pulled him down beside,
gazing into his face with hungry eyes. It was bliss enough to look
at him after the long lapse of years, to hold his hand between her
own, which would hardly cover one of his.
"You always had such big hands, Tom, such big, kind hands that seem
to carry help and consolation in their very touch. Oh, how I've
wanted you sometimes since--he died."
She did not name her husband, but Tom knew well enough she referred
to the father little Eva could not remember.
"But you could have had me for the asking," he said gently.
"I know, I know, but pride would not let me. How could I appeal to
you for help when father and Walter--that elder brother of mine--told
me that in marrying George I made my final choice between them and
him? And you were away, away in Canada, and George just about to
return to the colony. We were madly in love, he and I, so I married
him and came out with him. I don't say life was easy, Tom; I don't
know whether I did right or wrong in marrying George, but I do know
this--that from that day to this I never regretted it. He was the
dearest and best of men, and we were devoted to each other. I own
that when he got ill he suffered agonies of self-reproach in having
allowed me to come out with him, but if I had life over again I
should have chosen him before all living men. You see father had
decided on another match. George, as he lay dying, tried to make me
promise to go home, but I told him I never would do it, that I was
strong enough and young enough to support myself and the child."
"Young enough, but scarcely strong enough, I take it," said Tom,
slipping his arm round the slight frame.
She crept up closer to him. "I don't feel young," she said. "The
buffeting of life has made me feel old and cold. If I could forgive
father the part he played----"
"Ah, hush," said her brother, "surely you will forgive him, as God
will forgive us all. Father died a few months ago."
Clarissa drew herself away, stiffening into stony silence, her hands
folded in her lap. Dead! her father dead, and she not a moment since
speaking angry, unforgiving words of one who had passed into the
presence of the Great White Throne! It was forgiveness for herself
that she craved for now, forgiveness for all the hard thoughts she
had harboured against him since they parted in such hot anger,
forgiveness that in her pride she had made no effort to break through
the barrier of silence built up between them. Never a line had she
either written to home or received from it since that hasty flight of
between six and seven years ago.
Eva, feeling that matters had passed beyond her childish ken, had
slipped away into the back garden, and was solacing her loneliness
with a game with the new kitten that they had given her up at the
farm, so the brother and sister were left alone. Tom understood
something of the conflict that was passing in his sister's mind and
wisely held his peace. He left her to the teaching of the still
small voice which was making itself heard in her heart with gentle
insistence.
"I suppose he never forgave me," she said at last.
"I did not hear him mention your name until his last illness. Then,
when his mind wandered, your name was often on his lips, showing that
you still held your place in his heart. He left you an annuity of
£150 a year. Walter tried his level best to track you to tell you
about it, but up to this time his search was quite unsuccessful. We
wrote to the post-office authorities, but they did not help us; we
gave your name to the leading firm of lawyers in Launceston and
Hobart, we advertised in the local papers, but nothing came of any of
our enquiries. Then I decided to come and work as a bush parson in
the colonies for some years before settling down in an English
parish, and I thought it not unlikely that I might find some clue to
your whereabouts, and all in a moment I found you by the most
unlikely means in the world. I stood watching two little children
playing in a field near by, went in and made friends with them, and
discovered in one of them my own little niece, who brought me
straight home to mummy. Some people may call it a happy chance, but
I prefer to regard it as a direct Providence."
"What made you come here at all?"
"The fact that your own parson broke down, as you know, quite
suddenly, and was ordered away for rest; the bishop knew I was at
work somewhere in this neighbourhood, and wrote to ask me if I could
combine my peregrinations in the bush with Sunday services in this
and the other churches connected with this parish until such time as
he can find a _locum_. He is terribly short-handed at present. I'm
very thankful to be able to give my services free of charge, for
while the bulk of the property goes with the estate to Walter, my
father has left me a sufficient income to make me independent of any
stipend from the Church. If I take an English living at some future
period it will be one with a simply nominal income that a man without
private means could not accept. At present I find my nomadic life so
absorbingly interesting that I have no immediate intention of
returning home."
"And you will work near here? How wonderful and delightful! What a
change one short half-hour has made in life's outlook. Poor father!
Did he leave me that annuity out of pity, do you think? No, you need
not be afraid that I shall refuse it. My pride is broken down. It
seems a poor thing to have let it stand between him and me, and
now--I can't even say I'm sorry."
"I forget the exact wording of the will, but I think it said 'lest
she should come to want.'"
Clarissa flushed a little. "I have not wanted, but it's been a hard
struggle, and if my health had failed"--her voice broke for a moment.
"But now, with £150 a year at my back, the worst fear, the one that
has kept me awake at nights sometimes, that the child would suffer,
is entirely taken away. One can live the simple life out here, none
despising you."
"And you think I shall be content to leave it at that?"
"You will have to be content," and his sister slipped her hand into
his. "If I needed help at any time I know you will be glad to give
it, but I chose my own life in marrying my George, and I'll abide by
it. I've no wish to return to England, and what will keep me here in
comfort would be grinding poverty at home."
"Walter will never consent to your remaining out here."
Clarissa smiled a little sadly. "He may protest a little, but in his
inmost heart he'll not be sorry to leave things as they are. We
shall get on quite nicely fifteen thousand miles apart."
A little head peeped round the corner, and a piteous voice made
piteous appeal.
"Mummy, I'm not naughty. Mayn't I have my dinner, please? Bush
brother can stay if he wants to."
CHAPTER V
A CHURCH OFFICIAL
Neither game nor story was needed for the children's amusement that
afternoon. They sat side by side on the grass with their heads very
close together discussing the exciting event of the morning, the
strange man's visit and his puzzling profession; at least Jack was
extremely puzzled and not at all satisfied by Eva's explanation.
"He's mummy's brother, don't you see? and my uncle. That's what he
means when he says he's a bush brother."
Jack shook his head incredulously. "Mummy's brother and bush brother
can't mean the same," he said.
"Pr'aps he calls himself 'bush' 'cause he's got a beard," Eva
suggested.
"That's silly! A bush has got nothing to do with a beard."
"Yes, it has," said Eva nodding her head, "birds build in bushes and
they build in beards."
Jack fairly screamed with laughter. "Who's stuffed you up with that
nonsense?"
"It's not nonsense," said Eva, almost in tears. "It's in a book
mummy gave me, and there's a picture of the man and a verse about him
too, so it must be true. Mummy teached me the verse."
"Say it, then," said Jack, mockingly, and Eva folded her arms behind
her plump little person, knitting her brows in the effort to quicken
memory.
"There was an old man with a beard,
Who said 'It's just as I feared,
Two owls and a wren, four larks and a hen
Have _all_ built their nests in my beard.'
"THERE!"
Only capital letters could express the triumph of the final
exclamation, but Jack laughed louder and longer than ever.
"But it isn't true," he said.
"O' course it's true. It's in a book, and there's the picture.
Mummy shall show you," reiterated Eva, stamping her foot.
The quarrel promised to be a pretty one, when, all unperceived, the
man whose beard was under discussion had come into the garden and
stood by them. Eva ran towards him, putting her hand in his.
"Uncle Tom, tell him, please. He won't b'lieve me."
"It's all about beards," said Jack. "Eva says birds build in 'em
same as they do in bushes, and o' course they don't. It's just
nonsense."
"No bird has tried to build in mine at present," said Uncle Tom,
stroking his thoughtfully. "What made you think of such a funny
thing, Eva?"
It took a minute or two to unravel the thread of the children's
discussion, and Uncle Tom sat chuckling to himself as they talked.
"The simplest way of putting the matter straight will be to tell you
what I mean by calling myself a bush brother, won't it?"
"Yes," said the children in chorus.
"It's neither being mummy's brother nor the beard I grow that gives
me the title----"
Jack gave Eva a nudge.
"But it's the calling that I've chosen for the present. There were a
few parsons in England----"
"Oh! it's parsons who are called bush brothers, is it?" asked Jack, a
little disappointed at so commonplace an explanation.
"No, not all parsons, but just a few of us who have undertaken a
particular kind of work. We heard of Englishmen who had emigrated to
the colonies and settled in places very far away from their fellows,
who year after year lived out their lonely lives never getting a
chance to have their little children baptized, or their sick people
visited, whose Sundays were just spent like other days because they
had no services to go to, so a few of us banded ourselves together in
a sort of brotherhood----"
"What's that mean?" Jack asked.
"A society or company that binds itself together to do the same work,
and the work we brothers put before us was to come out to the
colonies for a few years and make it our special business to find out
all the lonely settlers in the bush and visit them, and try to gather
them together for little services. Now you see why we call ourselves
bush brothers: because our work lies, not in townships and places
such as this, although I am going to be here on Sundays for a little
while whilst your clergyman is away on sick leave, but we wander from
place to place, to all the most distant homesteads, some of them
buried miles and miles away in the bush."
"Does you walk?" asked Eva in her matter-of-fact fashion.
"Sometimes I walk and sometimes, when I know the distance is too
great, I hire a horse and ride, and sometimes the way is hard to
find, and I get lost. I was lost for two whole days not long ago,
and had to camp out at night without either food or shelter. I was
glad, I can tell you, when I struck the track again and found myself
not far from a farm where they showed me the greatest kindness. I
spent a Sunday there, and the farmer and his sons gathered together a
few other people not far away, and we had service in a barn, and I
baptized three little children that had been born since last a parson
had visited them. I stayed there for a week, and gave the children
lessons every day, and they were so pleased and eager to learn, poor
mites. They did not even know the stories about Jesus when He was a
baby. It's not often I find children as ignorant as that, but many
of them get very little teaching about the Bible. Very often there
is not a Bible in the house. I don't always have tiny congregations.
Last Sunday I was miles away up there," pointing to the bush-clad
hills which bounded the horizon, "where there are some large lumber
works, and quite a lot of men are at work there. So I spent the few
days before in making friends with them, and asking them to meet me
at service on Sunday, and we had quite a fine service in the open
air, and you should have heard the singing. It was glorious."
"I'd like it ever so much better than going to the wooden church down
here," said Jack.
Uncle Tom laughed genially. "Aren't you fond of going to church,
then?"
"Not very; you've got to sit so quiet. I like the singing though,
and it's not so dull now Eva comes too."
"Well, well; we'll see if you can't learn to like it better.
Meanwhile, let's have a game before I pay my respects to your
grandfather and grandmother."
"Cricket?" cried Jack joyfully.
"Capital! it's ever so long since I played a game of cricket."
Betty, as fresh as the morning in her trim white gown, came out to
join the party in the garden, and Jack hastened to introduce her to
his new friend.
"Here's Aunt Betty; she'll play too, if you ask her. She's a
splendid field, and will catch you out first ball unless you're
careful."
Betty and Uncle Tom laughed as they shook hands.
"I've already made friends with your nephew, Miss Treherne, and was
coming to call on the rest of you this afternoon, when the children
beguiled me by the way. Will you really honour us by joining in our
game, though I ask it in fear and trembling after hearing of your
prowess?"
"Jack gives me the credit for doing everything better than anyone
else, a reputation I find it impossible to sustain, but I love to
play."
A very spirited game followed, which ended finally in Betty's
catching out the parson, to Jack's unspeakable triumph.
"And after your warning, too," he said, throwing down the bat in
comic despair. "And now I must pay my call, and then Eva and I must
trot home. My sister said she would be back at six o'clock, and we
must be there to meet her."
"I'm so glad you've come; it will be so lovely for Mrs. Kenyon to
have one of her own relations with her. I think she has been very
lonely."
Uncle Tom turned to the kindling, sympathetic face.
"She would have been desolate indeed without the kindness she has
received from you and yours. It was an unhappy chance that separated
us, but such separation will be impossible again," said Tom Chance,
and that was all the explanation that he felt it needful to offer or
that Betty wished to hear.
When Tom and Eva returned at last to the cottage, the sound that
greeted them as they entered was vigorous scrubbing, interspersed
with fitful singing, and Tom pushed open the door of the inner room
to see his sister on her knees scrubbing the floor with might and
main, until the boards shone again with whiteness. He put his arms
round her and swung her to her feet.
"How dare you do it, Birdie? What shall I say to you for setting to
work like that at the end of a long day's sewing?"
The joy of hearing her old pet name, and feeling the masterful touch
of his strong hands, brought tears to Clarissa's eyes, but a laugh to
her lips.
"It's so good to hear you talk," she said, bending back her face to
kiss him, "but I was bound to do it to get the room all fresh and
clean for you to-night, for of course you'll come here to your
prophet's chamber, just a bed and a chair and candlestick.
"Betty looked in half-an-hour ago, and wanted to do the scrubbing,
but I would not let her. That joy was mine, I told her."
"Ah, I saw her slip away as I sat chatting with the old people, but I
did not know she was off to lend you a hand."
"Lend a hand! she seems blessed with a dozen pairs, and they are
always busy in helping other people, notably me. Had I a sister, she
should be made on Betty's model. You must not think that I live in a
muddle like this, but a visitor--and such a visitor--has upset the
equilibrium of my establishment. Tea is laid out in the verandah.
Just give me a moment to tidy my hair and wash my hands, and you will
see I've not been unmindful of your creature comforts."
And truly, the meal prepared looked dainty and appetizing.
"I should say the catering of this household runs to extravagance,"
said her brother, smiling at her.
"Yes, for to-night, it's a case of fatted calf, and besides, I feel
money at my back."
In clearing away afterwards, Tom showed himself as handy as any
woman. Washing up plates and dishes he declared his speciality!
"But how did you learn it all?" asked Clarissa, pausing in her task
of drying the things Tom handed her.
"In the same way you have done, by experience. In the course of my
wanderings I have come across many a young fellow as gently nurtured
as I am, batching in what I call squalor, so my task has been to put
things straight, and keep them tidy and clean, as far as I knew how
to do it. I think it lowers a man's self-respect to live in dirt and
discomfort, so when any fellow has put me up for a day or two, I've
tried to repay his hospitality by the labour of my hands, to make
myself worth my keep as I hope to do here, if you will let me."
"But I won't! My augmented income will allow me to have a girl in
now and again to do the hard work, and oh! if you knew the joy it is
to me to have someone of my very own to look after again. Come
along, Eva; it's time for bath and bed, and then, Tom, you and I will
sit out in the verandah and talk."
Their conversation lasted far into the night, albeit desultory in
character. They made no effort to pick up tangled threads, but
Clarissa, nestling against her brother's side, with his protecting
arm thrown round her, with the star-spangled sky overhead, and the
silence of the night about her, experienced a sense of peace and
happiness that had not been hers for years. Her mind went back to
the early days at home, and many a childish reminiscence was
recalled, over which the brother and sister joined in laughter that
had something of pathos in it. And then she spoke of the first
bitter trouble of her girlhood, the loss of the mother she adored
when she was only twelve years old.
"I can't help feeling that if mother had lived, I never should have
come to loggerheads with father. We both should have acted
differently. He would have been less hard, and I less stubborn, but
it's curious how the knowledge that he is dead has changed my own
point of view. To-day I've felt myself more to blame than he. I
wish I had taken dear George's advice, and offered to go back. Even
if he had refused to have me, I should feel now that I had made some
effort towards reconciliation."
"He would not have refused," Tom said. "I believe he was hungering
after you in his inmost heart, but it's no use going back on the
past. It only saps your energy for present action. If you made a
mistake, dear, you've paid for it heavily, and God in His goodness
can make even our mistakes stepping stones to lead us up to Him."
"I don't feel as if I had even begun to climb," said Clarissa, in a
whisper.
"Ah, yes," was the reassuring answer, "in your devotion to husband
and child, in your self-sacrifice, absolute and complete, you must
have drawn nearer to God, whether you knew it or not."
Clarissa gave an indrawn sob. "You were always such a dear boy, Tom.
You used to pick me up and console me when I fell, and the falls were
so numerous--I was such a tom-boy--and now you are picking me up
after a more serious stumble, and making me feel as if I shall walk
again."
"I will run in the way of Thy commandments," said Tom, more to
himself than to his sister. "I always think the man who wrote that
led a very joyous sort of existence, a cheerful sort of fellow who
had given up his whole life to God."
"You make religion seem so real, Tom. You always did."
There was a long pause, and the answer when it came was spoken from
the depth of the man's heart.
"Surely--it's the one great reality; nothing else matters much."
The next day was Saturday, and directly breakfast was over Tom went
down the township to find the little wooden fabric which represented
the English church. He got the key from a house near by and let
himself in by a door which had sunk on its hinges, and opened
unwillingly. There was no sign of beauty in the barn-like building,
and except that the altar was nicely cared for and had flowers upon
it the whole place filled Tom with a sense of desolation. Truly
church life in many of these places needed reformation. Small wonder
that it took the heart out of many a man who began life filled with
zeal and hopefulness to find himself with three or four scattered
country parishes on his hands, with people kindly inclined and ever
hospitable, but with narrow means, and whose church-life from want of
fostering had become almost dead. To Tom Chance, fresh from the
stirring life of a town parish at home, it seemed as if it needed a
special outpouring of the Holy Ghost to set the thing in motion, and
it was for that he prayed as he knelt for a few minutes on the
altar-step. And then a step roused him, a child's step coming in at
the door, and turning he saw his friend of yesterday, Jack Stephens,
with his hands full of flowers, and a letter carried between his
teeth. He laid down the flowers with due care, took the letter and
turned it over lovingly in his hands.
"It's my very own," he said, smiling up at Tom, "I fetched it from
the post office just now. I get one every week from father, and I
have to answer it, but my letters are very short and his are very
long."
"And the flowers," asked Tom.
"Oh, they are Aunt Betty's; I bring them down every Saturday, and she
comes presently and puts them up there," pointing to the altar.
"I s'pose I'll have to wait until she comes to hear my letter."
"You can't read it for yourself, then."
"Not just all," breaking open the envelope and unfolding the letter.
"I know the beginning: 'My dearest Jack,' and the end"--swiftly
turning over the sheet he held and tracing the words with his
finger--"'Loving father, Jack,' but I can't read the middles yet. I
s'pose you can read letters as easily as Aunt Betty."
"I expect I can."
"Then you could read this to me, and I needn't wait."
"Will Aunt Betty mind, do you think?"
"Why should she? There's no secrets in it."
So Tom sat down on one of the wooden benches, and Jack sat beside
him, and the letter was read aloud.
"Once more, please," said Jack, when it came to the finish, "and then
I shall know all it says." So once again Tom read the letter very
distinctly.
"I don't think it's wrong to read father's letter in church. He
seems such a very good kind of man," said Tom, as he handed the
letter back to Jack's keeping.
"Why should it be wrong?" Jack answered in great astonishment.
"Because this little house is God's special house, not to be used for
just everyday things; but there are some letters one likes to read
aloud here--St. Paul's for example."
"I did not know he wrote any," Jack said.
Tom took up a Bible and showed Jack some of the Epistles, explaining
to him that the word meant the same as letter, and Jack grew quite
excited and interested.
"And did they come by post same as mine," he said.
"No, there were no posts then; they were all carried by hand, and we
can think of some room like this quite full of people listening to
what the apostle had written to them. Such long letters they were;
ever so much longer than father's, with a number of messages to
different people at the end. As you grow older, you'll be able to
read them for yourself."
It all sounded so real and interesting that Jack did not in the least
realise that he was having a Bible lesson, and when Betty came in, he
ran to tell her all about it.
"So you do the flowers. I thought them the prettiest thing in the
church."
"It's not pretty, and there is no money to make it pretty," said
Betty regretfully. "We are none of us well-to-do, and there are not
many who seem to think it matters. The bell came down a little while
ago, and no one has made any effort to rehang it."
Yes, there it lay in the corner of the porch; such a small bell, and
yet it had served to show the church was alive and at work.
"But that seems such a small matter. Surely that could be
readjusted."
"Well, father thought it really did not matter, for any boy who
happens to be here rings it and pulls it too roughly, and it gets out
of order."
"But here you have a ready-made bellringer," said Tom, looking at
Jack. "Standing upon a hassock, Jack could quite well ring that
little bell, and he would do it gently and carefully. I think Jack
must be the bellringer, and I will see about the bell being put in
order to-day. I think a bell is a good thing. It lets people know
we are at work."
Jack grew crimson with delight. It made him feel quite a man that he
should be singled out to ring the bell.
"May I, Aunt Betty: May I ring the bell?"
"Surely, Jack, if you're man enough."
So that afternoon saw Tom at work with a carpenter he had got hold of
in the township, climbing up to the tiny bell-turret, and getting the
bell once again into position with a brand new rope hanging inside
wherewith to pull it, and on Sunday Jack awoke with the dawn and
talked of nothing but the honour which was to be his that day, the
office of bell-ringer. He was to call for Tom Chance on his way down
to the church and to have his first lesson.
Eva was left to follow later with her mother, and never was boy
prouder than Jack when he marched off, hand-in-hand, with the parson.
"S'pose I can't do it," he said with a little gasp as he entered,
pulling off his straw hat.
"But you're sure to do it; it's a small bell and handled gently will
be quite easy to ring. You may have to stand upon a chair."
That Sunday as the congregation dribbled into church much amusement
and some pleasure was felt at the sight of the grave-faced little boy
in a spotless sailor suit who stood upright as a dart upon a chair
ringing the bell with care and precision, pink with the importance of
his mission.
A nod from Tom as he came out of the tiny vestry in his robes told
him when to stop, and he climbed down to the floor, tied up the rope
so that no one should play with it, and crept to his place by Aunt
Betty's side.
"He won't find it dull any more now he has his own work to do,"
thought Tom at the end of service, and Tom was right.
There was no keener churchman in the township than little Jack.
CHAPTER VI
MINISTERING CHILDREN
Jack's life seemed full of happenings at present, but the greatest of
them was the advent of the bush brother. There was really more to
tell father than the page of ruled copy-book paper upon which his
weekly letter was written could compass. With the stimulus of that
weekly letter his writing progressed by leaps and bounds, and
expression did not seem so difficult when Aunt Betty told him to try
and put down on paper the very things he would just say to father
were he there to talk to, but it must be owned that the spelling,
even with constant prompting from Aunt Betty left much to be desired.
"ive a chum a little gurl not so big as me we dus lesuns at wunce,
but she nos nothin but her letters."
Then a few weeks later:
"a man has cum a parsun, but not like ours hes a bush bruther and hes
tort me ring the bell so now I go quite erly to church on sunday and
ring quite regler."
Betty indulged in many a laugh over the letters when completed, but
to Jack's father they brought huge delight.
Much of what Jack said to father, and father said to Jack, was
confided to Tom Chance at the rare intervals when the little boy
could secure the parson's attention to himself, for Tom was a busy
man and away for the principal part of every week, either touring in
the bush or visiting the other three parishes, none less than twelve
miles from the township, that were confided to his temporary care.
Father's parable about Giants was also passed on in full with a few
embellishments of Jack's own.
"A good notion that of father's," said Tom, "a notion that catches
on. After all the world is just full of giants that we must subdue
to our will. There's a many-headed giant that we may call Evil that
we've all promised to fight, that we pray against every day. Deliver
us from evil; everything that is wicked and bad, and then there's
another giant God suffers in the world, the giant of illness and
bodily suffering, but there are people who are fighting that with
might and main, kind and clever doctors, such as you have here. If
you want to find giants to subdue you will have no difficulty in
discovering them."
"But I'm going to be just the same as father," said Jack sturdily.
"I'm going to be an airman, same as he."
"Well, well, time will show," said Tom good-humouredly.
That talk had taken place one Sunday as they went down to church
together. Tom usually made his re-appearance in the township on
Saturday afternoon, and the moment after their dinner, Jack and Eva
would wander down to the end of the lane and between their games
watch eagerly for his coming. It was a matter of weekly speculation
how he would arrive, whether walking, or on horseback, or upon a
bicycle. It all depended upon the distances that he had to compass
during the week, but it made the watching all the more exciting; but
whenever and however he appeared he was sure of an enthusiastic
welcome from his two devoted adherents. Although the vicarage was
empty he remained with his sister, as it did not seem worth while to
set up an establishment of his own for so short a period.
On one particular Saturday afternoon when the time for his appearing
was long past, the children's patience began to ebb.
"Don't b'lieve he's coming at all," said Eva dejectedly.
"Lots of things may have happened," Jack answered, "his bike may have
punctured, or his horse may have cast a shoe, or he may be very tired
and can't walk fast."
Jack was prepared for every contingency but the notion that Tom would
not turn up at all, that would be little short of a calamity, but a
prolonged glance down the road showed something moving in the far
distance.
"There's someone on horseback riding beside a wagon, but I don't
think it's Uncle Tom," Jack continued, for Tom Chance had adopted him
as nephew. "He's crawling like a snail."
But as the wagon drew nearer the outrider was without doubt their
uncle, and Jack raised a shout of welcome which received no response
by word or look. The clergyman's face was turned towards the wagon.
"It may be a----funeral," said Jack, under his breath. "Uncle Tom
looks so solemn and sad."
Eva's rosy cheeks paled. "I think I'm going home to mummy," she said
trotting off down the lane, but Jack divided between anxiety and
curiosity held his ground.
"Uncle Tom, what is it? Why don't you look at me?" he said, drawing
near as the wagon approached.
"A girl who's very ill; I'm taking her to the doctor. Run home now,
Jack. I may see you later. If Aunt Betty is about ask her to come
on to the doctor's. I know she will be of use."
Jack took in the situation with one frightened glance. The bottom of
the wagon was filled with a mattress and pillows on which a girl of
about thirteen or fourteen was stretched. Her eyes were closed and
lines of pain were round nose and mouth, and occasionally a moan of
pain broke from her lips. Pain was a new experience in his childish
life, and Jack, charged with his message, turned and fled.
He soon found Aunt Betty, and told her about it, and the next minute
she had put on her hat and was flying by a short cut across the
paddock towards the doctor's house where the wagon had just arrived.
Dr. Wilson gave a pleased nod when he caught sight of Betty.
"Run on, will you, to Mrs. Mason's, just opposite the church. She
will take in my patient if she has a bed to spare, and knows the way
to look after them," and Betty with one sympathetic glance at the
pretty face of the sufferer sped on her way. Mrs. Mason was at home
and was able to put a room at the doctor's disposal, and Betty only
waited until the girl was safely lodged there and to find out if
there were any needs that she and her mother could supply, before
slipping off home again. She found the family at supper, but Jack
saw the face that nearly always smiled at him shadowed with anxiety.
"Is it a bad case, do you think?" her mother asked. "What is the
poor child's name?"
"Jessie Butler, and she comes from some back block behind Wylmington.
The only chance of saving her life was to bring her right away to the
doctor, so Mr. Chance saw to her removal, but the doctor thinks badly
of her. It's some injury to her spine, and he must operate to-night."
Jack had laid down his knife and fork, and was listening with bated
breath.
"He's so clever, p'raps he'll conquer," he said.
Mr. Treherne turned with a little smile at the quaint phrase.
"Who told you Dr. Wilson was clever?" he asked.
"Uncle Tom," said Jack flushing a little; the talk which had led up
to the remark he kept to himself, but of the doctor's victory over
pain he felt fairly confident, although facts seemed against him.
After supper Betty ran down to Mrs. Kenyon's to ask for the latest
news, but Clarissa could only tell her that her brother had looked in
for a few minutes to snatch a meal, but had gone again to his patient
who it was feared would not live throughout the night. It was not
until daylight that he crept home to get a few hours' rest before his
Sunday work. Jessie had dropped asleep, and seemed a little easier.
Jack came as usual to walk with him to church.
"There must be no bell-ringing to-day, Jack," said Uncle Tom. "There
is Jessie Butler, the girl I brought here yesterday, lying very ill
just opposite the church, and we must make no unnecessary noise."
"Oh!" said Jack, drawing a deep breath of disappointment.
"I'm sure you would not wish to wake her out of sleep, would you?"
said Tom kindly, "but there is something we can all do for her to-day
which may be of real help to her."
"What," asked Jack eagerly.
"Pray for her at the service. You listen with all your ears, and
you'll hear her name given, and the prayers of the congregation will
be asked for her and you must say yours, Jack, say them with all your
heart."
"But you said--you said Dr. Wilson was so clever that he often
conquered pain," said Jack a little reproachfully.
"With God's help, yes! We none of us can do anything without it, and
it's God's help we are going to ask for."
So Jack's service that morning was just one eager waiting for the
mention of Jessie Butler's name, and when it came he folded his hands
over his eyes and just said, "Jessie Butler, Jessie Butler," over and
over again. No other words presented themselves to his mind, but
surely the name so earnestly repeated reached the listening ear of
the good God to whom he appealed.
The next few days were just a tussle between life and death with
Jessie Butler, but life conquered, and on the fourth day the doctor
was able to pronounce her out of danger. Her recovery would be slow
and tedious, and she might have to remain where she was for a great
many weeks, but she was going to live. Tom had confined his
ministrations to the township during the days of danger, so as to be
near when Jessie asked for him. He had taken his share of watching
by her bed every night whilst the crisis lasted, and was as tender
and handy as any woman, Mrs. Mason told the doctor.
"Yes, he's a good sort," said the doctor.
Jack's excitement and delight were great when Tom told him that
Jessie was going to get better.
"Soon, will it be soon?" he said.
"No, it will be a long time before she's quite well, but she has
taken the right turn."
"Is the pain gone?" asked Jack in a half whisper, remembering the
white face and the little moan.
"It's better but not conquered yet, but it will get better every day.
Would you like to come with me the next time I go, and take her a
bunch of flowers?"
Jack's head went down. "Not if she shuts her eyes and makes a
noise," he said.
"But her eyes are very big and wide open, and she'll smile at you and
be so pleased to see you. I want you and Eva to go sometimes to see
her. It's rather dull for her lying there all day long, although
soon she will be wheeled out into the verandah."
Thus reassured Jack accepted Tom's suggestion. Yet he experienced an
inward tremor as he found himself at the house-door which Tom opened
and entered without knocking, but he knocked at the half-open door of
the room just inside, and a girl's voice bade him enter.
"I've brought you a visitor, Jessie, a little boy who has been very
anxious you should get well."
Jack laid his flowers on the bed. There was no room for fear or
distress in looking at the girl who lay there with her pretty oval
face framed in two big braids of dark hair, and with great, big grey
eyes that smiled a welcome.
"Are they for me?" she said, nodding at the flowers. "I'd like 'em
near, so as I could smell them," so Jack shifted his nosegay nearer
the pillow.
"You must know his name, for he's coming again, and going to bring a
little chum of his with him, my niece, Eva Kenyon. This is Jack
Stephens, and his titles are numerous. He's Jack the Englishman, and
Jack the Bell-ringer--he rings the bell in church, don't you, Jack?"
"Not last Sunday, because we didn't want to make a noise as you were
ill," said Jack gravely.
"I'll hear it next Sunday, maybe," said Jessie. "I wish I could
come. It's months and months since we've been to church. We live
too far away from one, and I've been ill a long time, too."
"When you're well enough to be wheeled out into the verandah, you'll
hear the hymns on Sunday night. We always prop the door open."
"That'll seem like old times," said Jessie, with quaint
old-fashionedness. "I lived in the township with Grannie until I was
ten years old, went to the State school every day and to Sunday
school over there"--with a nod at the church. "Then Grannie died,
and I went home to father and mother, but I don't like it. It's so
lonesome in the bush. It's lovely to lie here and see the coach go
by twice a day and the horses and bullock drays and things."
But Tom, watching the delicate face flush, thought Jessie had talked
enough, and kneeling down, said a prayer or two, and standing, sang a
hymn, and then bade the girl good-bye.
"Will you come again, and bring the little girl you spoke of?" asked
Jessie, as Jack laid a shy hand in hers.
"Yes," said Jack gravely.
Once outside, he was full of talk about his visit.
"I shall go every day; she liked it, didn't she?"
"Yes, but you must not go too often yet, until she's stronger. She
still has a good deal of pain to bear, though we hope it will grow
less every day."
"I thought Dr. Wilson had conquered it."
"He's made it better, but only time can make her well."
"But she's smiling all the time."
"Yes, she's extraordinarily brave, as many girls are."
"Not so brave as boys," said Jack quickly.
"Often a great deal braver in bearing pain."
"I could take her some toys, p'raps," said Jack, not caring for the
turn the conversation had taken.
"Books are more in her line; she's a great reader."
"I s'pose you'd have to read if you could not run about," Jack said.
"But Jessie loves reading as much as playing games, almost
better,"--a statement so wonderful that it reduced Jack to silence.
"It was odd of you to take Jack to see that poor sick child," said
Tom's sister that evening. "He's been telling Eva about it, and
she's wild to go with him, but I don't think I shall let her."
"Why not?"
"Oh, I think children should be kept away from the sight of painful
things as long as possible."
"But there is nothing painful to see in visiting Jessie. She's a
singularly pretty child, lying in bed and nearly always smiling.
Don't you think the sooner children learn to think about other people
the better?"
"Oh, I don't know; let them be happy as long as they can, poor mites.
I don't believe in leagues for making children kind. It only turns
them into self-conscious prigs."
"I quite agree, but to teach children to minister to others without
being conscious of such ministry, is surely only teaching them the
lesson of unselfishness. They should give out sympathy as a rose
gives out scent. Besides, I really think the child will be lonely
when I'm away. I've been staying about here purposely, as long as
she was in danger, but next week I must be off again about my
business. Mrs. Mason gives her all the necessary looking after she
requires, but has no time for sitting with her or diverting her
thoughts, and it struck me that the children looking in from time to
time would be very delightful for her and for them."
"Oh well, Eva shall go with Jack sometimes, and the fowls are laying
pretty steadily now, so I shall be able to send a few eggs
occasionally."
"I knew you would do what I asked; you always do," Tom said, smiling
at his sister.
"But it's too delightful to have you here to ask things." said
Clarissa, bending down to kiss him.
The pleasure the children's visits gave at the cottage was mutual.
On their side it was delightful to plan little gifts by way of a
surprise to Jessie, in which they were aided and abetted by their
home people, but Jessie on her side proved a capital companion, who
could teach them quiet games, such as "Beggar my neighbour," etc., or
she would tell them wonderful tales of the bush, of fires, or people
who were lost, tales that were true, that she had picked up from one
or another.
But, greatly as Jessie looked forward to her little visitors, the
happiest hours of her week were still on Saturday and Sunday, when
her clergyman friend came to see her, for he was making the most of
the time of Jessie's enforced inactivity to talk to her and teach her
about sacred things, and he found in her one of the brightest and
most intelligent pupils he had ever had. She was fairly familiar
with the Bible stories, but as must necessarily be the case in wide
districts where one clergyman has to do the work of four, her
definite Church teaching was of the slightest.
And yet, that she had very strong groping in that direction was
discovered to Tom one Sunday when, after some simple, direct teaching
about her baptism, she looked up into his face with a sudden smile,
and said:
"Why can't I be confirmed? I was all ready once, about six months
ago. There was a confirmation at Wylmington, and then I could not
go, and I cried myself sick with disappointment. I was ill, you see.
My back had begun to be troublesome. Can't you confirm me?"
Tom did not smile at the vague conception of what confirmation meant,
but answered the hungry longing for more grace that the question
implied.
"You've asked me something I'm unable to give you, Jessie," he said
gently. "The rite of Confirmation is not mine to perform. It's the
Bishop, the chief shepherd of the flock, to whom belongs that Laying
on of Hands, which brings with it, we believe, very special gifts of
the Holy Spirit."
Jessie hung her head and blushed a little.
"I knew it was the Bishop who came to Wylmington, but I did not know
just what you were. You seem quite different from most clergymen. I
thought, maybe, you could confirm people."
"No, I'm just an ordinary every-day Parson, but as you seem keen
about it, we will have some talks, and see how much you understand of
its meaning. Who prepared you before?"
"Oh, Mr. Marston, the clergyman who has gone away ill, would stop
after service on the Sundays; he came up to Wylmington, and told us
boys and girls who wished to be confirmed to stay behind whilst he
talked to us about it. And he asked us to get our Catechism perfect
in between, and he said, if we kept regular to the Sunday class, he
would try to see each one of us separately before the Bishop came,
but I could only go to one or two of the classes, what with bad
weather and being ill, but if I'd been well enough to get there on
the day, I believe he'd have let me come, because I wanted it so
much."
"Be confirmed, you mean," said Tom. "Why were you so eager?"
"Because, because," stammered Jessie with shining eyes, "it will help
to make one good. You promise to be good, and God helps you."
It was not a very lucid way of explaining it, but the spirit was
willing if the learning was weak, and Tom left her with a
determination that, if possible, the girl should have her heart's
desire.
CHAPTER VII
A BISHOP'S VISIT
"Everything comes to an issue to him who knows how to wait," said Tom
Chance, folding up the local newspaper with an air of deep
satisfaction.
He was sitting in the verandah at the farm, and Betty busied herself
with a pile of mending that lay on the table before her. Tom often
found his way up to the farm on a Saturday evening when his work was
finished, for devoted as he and his sister were to each other, in
Betty he found a more understanding sympathiser with his work. She
looked up now with a quick smile.
"What have you been waiting for?"
"Waiting to catch the Bishop, and I believe the time has come when I
may hope to hook him. Anyway, I will write to-night."
"Then he's likely to be in the neighbourhood?"
"He's advertised in that paper as due at Rumney in a fortnight's time
to open their new little church."
"Not really!" cried Betty, laying down her work. "How perfectly
delightful! Do you know that church has taken twenty years in the
building? at least the first money for it was collected twenty years
ago, but it was not nearly enough to cover the cost, so it was laid
aside to wait for better days, and it seemed as if the better days
were never coming. Now one energetic farmer has taken it up, and
pushed it through by hook or crook, but I did not know it was so near
completion. I must get over to the opening."
"It is to be a very gala day by the newspaper account, and I think
you might take me with you, and we'll get hold of the Bishop and
bring him back with us. Can you manage it, do you think?"
"What makes you want him so much?"
"I'll tell you if you care to hear."
Betty nodded, and there, in the glory of the setting sun which was
flooding the western sky with every hue of the rainbow, she sat and
listened to Jessie's story, her eyes filling with tears.
"But how lovely," she said, when he finished. "So you've planned
that the Bishop shall come here on purpose to confirm her?"
"If he will and can; I've never had a keener candidate. Since that
first talk with her I've been giving her a regular course of
preparation for confirmation, not holding out any hope that it might
be here and now, in case no opportunity presented itself, but just to
have her ready in case one might be given me."
"Shall you tell her about it?"
"Not till I get the Bishop's answer. The disappointment would be too
bitter if it came a second time."
But the Bishop's answer was kind and favourable. He had just four
hours to spare, and provided he could be fetched and taken back to
the nearest railway station when the service was over, he would be
delighted to come.
The children happened to call immediately after Tom had brought
Jessie the wonderful news, and found her simply radiant with joy.
"The Bishop's coming on purpose to confirm me. Isn't it good of him
and of Mr. Chance to have settled it? I'm so happy, I don't know how
to lie still. I'd like to be up and jumping for joy."
But Jack stood looking at her with wondering eyes.
"I don't understand," he said. "What makes you so happy?"
"That I'm going to be confirmed," said Jessie simply. "I've wished
it ever so much, and thought I might wait for years."
"What's being confirmed?"
Jessie flushed a little. "Being strengthened by God's Holy Spirit.
It's only the Bishop who can confirm you, you know."
Jack asked no more; here was something quite beyond his
understanding. Perhaps Uncle Tom could make it clearer if he could
talk to him about it when they were quite alone.
He approached the subject cautiously on the following morning as he
trotted down to church by Tom's side.
"Is a Bishop a sort of head doctor?" he asked.
Tom gave an inward chuckle, but kept outwardly grave.
"That's not exactly how I should describe him; he is the head of the
clergy in any diocese where he may be placed, a diocese means a
certain division of the church which is given into his keeping, and
the clergy have to look up to him as their head. What made you think
he was a head doctor?"
"I didn't understand, but Jessie said he would lay his hands upon her
and make her strong."
They had reached the church door, and Tom unlocked it and passed in
before he answered. Then, in the simplest language he could command,
he drew Jack to his side and gave him his first lesson on the
sacraments, the outward signs which--God appointed--convey the inward
grace. He talked to him of baptism, pointing to the tiny font, as he
spoke, where the water poured on the baby's face, accompanied with
the clergyman's prayer, was the sign of the Holy Spirit descending
upon the little child; how, after confirmation, that child would be
dedicated to God to be His faithful soldier and servant until his
life's end.
"And when you are a big boy, Jack, you will, I hope, do what Jessie
is so anxious to do now, you will stand before the Bishop----"
"Will Jessie stand. Will she be strong enough?" broke in Jack.
"No, God will know she can't stand, but she will lie with folded
hands and make her promise to go on serving God all her life and to
fight against the devil and all his works, and then the Bishop will
lay his hands upon her head and pray that the Holy Spirit may come
upon her and make her strong enough by His gifts to keep this
promise. It is that strength, we believe the laying on of hands
conveys."
"Then it won't make Jessie walk?" said Jack dejectedly.
"Dear boy, it will make her walk straight on the road towards God,
and that is the first thing, the most important thing in all the
world, to get nearer to God. But if ever she is able to walk again
it will be God that gives her the power. And now it is time you
began to ring the bell."
But Jack had some more questions to ask.
"Shall I see Jessie confirmed, see the Bishop lay his hands on her
head?"
"Why, surely, if you wish it, and join your prayer with his. 'Pray
God give Jessie Thy Holy Spirit.'"
"And when will I be big enough?"
"To be confirmed, do you mean? It's not so much a question of years,
or size, as of understanding, Jack; understanding what you are doing.
Jessie quite understands."
"You said when I was big. I want to be big most of all to go to
father. He will fetch me when I'm big enough."
"Well, perhaps it might be before father fetches you, in this very
church. Who knows? But no one can settle that now."
Jack did not speak of his talk with Uncle Tom even to Aunt Betty, but
it sank deep in his heart, taking its place side by side with the
great event that he looked forward to in future years, when "he was
big," when father would come to fetch him; and before that, Uncle Tom
had suggested that he might be confirmed as Jessie was going to be
confirmed. He could not have put the notion into words yet, but the
seed which was planted in his heart that Sunday sprouted lustily.
Meanwhile, the day of the opening of Rumney Church and of Jessie's
confirmation drew near. Happily the day proved fine, one of those
wonderfully brilliant Tasmanian days that almost beggars description.
Tom presented himself in good time at the farm, and failing to find
anyone in the house, passed round to the stables at the back, where
he found Betty putting Tim, the handsome mettlesome pony, into the
shafts of the cart.
"But let me," said Tom, springing to her assistance.
"Thank you, no," said Betty with a laugh. "Tim resents strangers and
gets possessed of an evil spirit if anyone handles him but a known
and trusted friend. I always have to harness him when I go anywhere.
Gently, Tim, gently," as Tim's head went up with a snort as Tom drew
near. "I hope you don't mind trusting yourself to me. There's no
room for father if we bring the Bishop back. It's a lovely drive,
but very rough for the last two miles through a bush road. To go
round makes five miles difference."
"If I minded unmade roads or untrained horses I should hardly be
fitted for my work as a Bush parson," said Tom with a gay laugh.
"Very well, get in then, and we'll be off."
The descent through the paddock was made chiefly on the pony's back
legs, but once on the open road he settled to his paces and
conversation was possible. The going was rapid, for uphill or
down--and in that part of the world it is always one or the
other--seemed to make no difference to Tim.
"'My steed on his journey was gay, As I on my journey to Heaven'"
quoted Tom, "a little break-neck, perhaps, for the bush road you
promise me for the last part of the way."
"Which shows how little you know of Tim; you will see how soberly and
sure-footedly he will pick his way. I believe you are nervous,
notwithstanding your boast when you started!"
"Well, I will promise not to have hysterics or clutch at the reins,"
said Tom, jumping down to open the gate which barred the bush road
from the highway. And here it meant careful going, for bullock drays
had been lately along carting away some freshly hewn timber, and in
many places the cart sank into the ruts almost up to the axles. Tom
got out and walked to lighten the weight on the pony's back. It was
really pretty to see the dainty way the creature put down its feet,
avoiding bigger stones and curvetting past the huge logs that
often-times blocked the road, making a diversion into the
fern-clothed sides necessary.
"But it's hardly a safe way for even as good a driver as Betty," he
thought, and almost before the thought framed itself, Tim was rearing
and backing, and then, with a swift swerve, would have smashed
himself, Betty, and the cart, against the enormous bole of a tree,
but for Tom's hasty dash to his head. For a moment the issue seemed
doubtful, but Tom's strong hand and soothing voice brought him into
subjection, and he stood trembling from head to foot.
"And what was all the fuss about?" said Tom, patting Tim's head with
as much confidence as if they were friends of long standing. "Let's
have a look, old man, and see if we can't get over the difficulty,"
and round the curve which Tim had just come, Tom saw the half length
of a tree which had been lately felled from which a long piece of
bark had been stripped and the dazzling flicker of sunshine across it
had startled Tim and terrified him.
But realizing now what it was, the difficulty was at an end, and Tim
passed by without further resistance.
"It's smoother now; you can get in if you like," said Betty, a little
crossly, and Tom mounted to her side.
"It's a nasty fall to my pride," she said after a moment. "We should
have been smashed up into matchwood but for you, and hitherto I'm the
only one in the family with whom Tim has never misbehaved himself."
"But it puts me on equal terms with you again, and soothes my wounded
vanity. You can't forget that on the first occasion we met you
caught me out at cricket," Tom answered, good-humouredly.
"But I am doubly in the wrong, for I told you Tim would not let you
touch him, and he was as a lamb in your hands," went on Betty, still
put out.
"But that is something I was born with: that is no credit to me. I
love all animals, and I think they know it."
They were through the bush now and trotting gaily along the road to
Rumney, passing groups of people from the various farms, all bent in
the same direction.
"Everyone comes," said Betty, "on an occasion of this kind. Roman
Catholics and every denomination that calls itself Christian."
"That seems to me rather beautiful. Ah! there is the Bishop waiting
by the foot of the hill with quite a cluster of people about him."
"I'll let you down with your bag and drive on to the inn, and put up
Tim," said Betty, and Tom tactfully made no offer to do it for her.
Very soon she was wending her way, with many others, to the new
little church built on the side of a hill just beyond the township in
a clearing in the bush. There was no fence round it, no
properly-made path to lead up to it, but there was a nameless charm
in the primitive simplicity of it all, and Betty went in and thanked
God that at last the church, so long in hand, was completed.
There was a pretty little altar with a wooden cross and vases of
fresh flowers on either side of it, a prayer desk, which at present
had to serve as lectern desk, and pulpit, and a very simple font, but
benches had had to be borrowed from the school-house hard by. It was
hoped that the offerings of the day might help to provide some new
ones. But Betty's attention was arrested by the sound of singing,
and glancing through the open door of the porch, she saw a little
procession of clergy winding its way up the hill towards the church,
the Bishop bringing up the rear.
"The Church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord----"
so the words rang--at first only sung by the clergy, but as they
neared the door the congregation rose as one man to their feet, and
the well-known hymn was taken up lustily until the little building
was filled with the volume of sound.
To Betty, all unused to church functions, it seemed the most
beautiful service she had ever attended, the touching words of
consecration, the collects that followed when the Bishop, kneeling in
the middle of the step that led up into the tiny sanctuary, prayed
God to let His blessing rest upon this house and upon the people that
should worship therein, and last of all the Bishop's address, quite
short and simple, so that everyone present could fully understand,
and yet so forcible in its simplicity, so impressive on the
importance of this dedication day, which he begged them to observe as
a _holiday_ from that time forward, a day of joyous thanksgiving that
God had allowed them, as to Solomon, to build Him a house. And then
the Bishop raised his hands in supplication.
"Prosper Thou the work of their hands upon them, O Lord; O prosper
Thou their handiwork."
The Blessing and a recessional hymn closed the short and simple
service, and then, whilst the congregation trooped off to the
paddocks where sports were to finish the day's holiday, the Bishop,
after a hasty lunch provided at the farmer's house near by, announced
himself ready to accompany Betty and Tom Chance.
An hour later the cart drew up at the door of the cottage opposite
the church, and the Bishop stood for a moment bareheaded on the
threshold.
"Peace be to this house," he said in his kindly tones, then stooped
to pat the head of the little boy in a white suit who stood with his
cap in his hand earnestly looking up into his face.
"Jessie's little brother?" he suggested.
"No, my little nephew," smiled Betty, "but he was very anxious to see
Jessie confirmed."
"And it's always well to have a congregation," answered the Bishop,
and then he passed into the room where Jessie lay, a pretty picture
in her soft tulle cap and white muslin jacket which Betty had
provided for her confirmation day. A flush was on her cheeks, and
her eyes glowed like stars as the Bishop bent over her and took her
hand, speaking a few kind encouraging words. And then his eye
glanced round the crowded room, for Jessie's parents had driven over
for the day, and a neighbour or two had expressed the wish to be
present.
"It seems rather close and crowded, doesn't it?" said the Bishop,
turning to Tom who stood by the open doorway, "and there is plenty of
room over there," with a nod at the little church opposite. "I think
we could carry her, bed and all, over there, don't you? Will you see
to it, whilst I adjourn to the vestry and put on my robes?"
"But of course I could nearly carry her alone," said Tom, so between
him and her father, Jessie was gently moved over the road through the
porch, and into the church beyond, whilst Jack to make the thing
complete, climbed on to his usual hassock and rang the bell until the
Bishop, preceded by Uncle Tom, issued from the vestry, and then he
slipped quietly into a seat where he could watch the whole service
from beginning to end. It was just as Uncle Tom had pictured it;
Jessie lay there with folded hands and a radiant face making her
promise with a clear confident voice, and then the Bishop drew near
and laid his hands upon her head, and Jack watched with awe-struck
eyes, and wondered if the wind that came rushing down from the hills
at that moment and went whistling by the church was the outward sign
of the Holy Spirit descending upon Jessie and making her strong. She
was not strong at present for she was crying!
And then the Bishop still stood by her looking down on her with a
tender smile, and talked of how once our Lord had called a child to
Him, and how he was sure His call had come to her to-day, a call to
which she was very ready to listen, and he believed she would follow
Him to her life's end.
"Yes, I'll try," said Jessie, smiling through her tears.
There was quite a long pause at the end of the service, when the tiny
congregation remained kneeling, praying for the child who had so
earnestly renewed her baptismal promises.
"Don't carry me back home yet. I want to see the Bishop, and to
thank him for coming," whispered Jessie, and the Bishop, bag in hand,
came down the church and took her hand in his.
"Mr. Bishop, if I live to be quite an old woman, I won't forget your
coming here to-day," she said.
"It's been a happy day for us both, Jessie," was the kind answer.
"God have you in His keeping now and evermore," and with that final
blessing the Bishop hurried off to his train. After putting him into
the cart, Tom and her father returned to carry Jessie back.
"Yes, I'm ready to go now," she said. "I'm very tired, but it has
been the happiest day of my life, the grandest, happiest day!"
"And when I'm big I'll be confirmed like Jessie," thought Jack, as he
sped home, "but I hope I'll stand on my feet, not lie on a bed as she
did."
"It was the loveliest confirmation I have ever been at," said Tom to
his sister that night. "I wish you had come to it, Clarissa."
"I was too shy," his sister answered.
CHAPTER VIII
TWO LEAVE-TAKINGS
It seemed quite natural to Jack that Jessie's strength improved
marvellously from the day of her confirmation, for although Tom had
tried to teach him something of the outward sign which denotes the
spiritual grace, his childish mind recurred to his first idea, and he
did not for a moment question that Jessie's quickened recovery was
chiefly due to the Bishop's laying on of hands.
"You said the Bishop's hands would make her strong, didn't you?" he
remarked one day to Tom, and Tom smiled down on him.
"I was talking of her soul rather than her body, Jack, but it seems
as if God in His goodness were sending her both together."
So it was that from sitting up in a chair for a considerable portion
of the day, Jessie soon began to walk a little, first to the garden
gate, then a few steps along the road, and one summer evening in the
autumn, to Jack's great excitement and delight, he saw her seated in
a chair at the bottom of the church when he went down as usual to
ring the bell. What did not please him so well was that his
wandering thoughts in the service were brought back to everyday life
by the mention of her name in church, in what connection he was too
greatly astonished to discover. He was only certain that he had
heard her name, and what could be the good of saying prayers for her
when she was sitting behind all the time and looking nearly well?
His puzzledom, it almost might be called annoyance, at the
unreasonableness of the thing kept his mind straying for the
remainder of the service, and he was glad that under cover of waiting
behind to carry something back for Uncle Tom after church, he had a
chance of putting the matter before him.
"Uncle Tom, we didn't want to pray for Jessie Butler, to-night. What
did you do it for? Did not you see, she was in church and quite
better?" he said.
"Which shows you weren't listening very much, Jack, or you would have
found out we weren't praying for her in the way of asking God to give
her anything. We were thanking Him for making her better, and, of
course, it was much better to wait until she could be there to give
thanks for herself. It would have very little meaning else. Now, I
will tell you a story," and very picturesquely Tom related the story
of the ten lepers.
"Only one out of the whole lot, Jack, who remembered to give thanks
to God. A lot of us are like that! We say 'Give us this day our
daily bread,' and at the end of the day we forget to thank God for
the food we never lack."
Jack said little, but the lesson went home.
Jessie's lessons with her clergyman still continued for many weeks
after her confirmation, for Tom was preparing her for her first
Communion, and the next time he was able to hold a celebration at the
little church, Jessie was one of the communicants. Jack's interest
over that was far less keen than about her confirmation. It was
"something grown-up people stayed for, and children could not," was
all that he grasped at present, and Tom left it at that, willing that
the teaching about the greatest Sacrament should be given a little
later. Very quickly after Jessie's first Communion there came the
letter suggesting that it was time for her to go home. She was quite
independent now of the doctor's attendance. She showed the letter to
Tom when he came to see her, making no comment.
"You'll be glad to go back and see them all again, I expect," but
Jessie lifted her great eyes to him quite full of tears.
"Yes--no--" she said. "Of course, I want to see them, but although
I've been ill down here, and had a lot of pain, I've had the happiest
time of my life. You've taught me a lot, and I've been confirmed and
been to Communion, and when I go back I'll see no one p'raps for
weeks and weeks. It seems so easy to be good when you are here, but
when no one talks to you, and Sunday after Sunday you never get nigh
a church, and you work and work and always feel tired it doesn't come
so easy."
"But you won't work for a bit yet, Jessie; you're not fit for it."
"It's easier to work than to sit still all day and do nothing, and
see mother bustling round with never a minute to herself. Here there
is no work I ought to be doing, you see."
Tom sat pondering. "Well, for the present you must try and make
yourself content. I quite see that your father and mother,
hard-working people, can't afford to keep you here any longer than is
necessary----"
"Yes, I was selfish. I'd forgotten that," said Jessie.
"And I want you to think of this, Jessie; that God who has given you
so much help lately will still be near you, and able to keep you in
the straight path when He takes some of those helps away. I know
it's much more difficult for you, but it may help to strengthen your
spiritual life, to teach you to stand alone. You'll say your prayers
and keep your Bible reading regular."
"Yes," Jessie said, "but it's not easy when there's no one who can
tell you what it means when you get puzzled."
"I can't quite tell where I shall go when my time here comes to an
end, but I will try and see you sometimes."
"Oh, thank you, ever so much! That will make everything different;
for when I sit sewing in the verandah--I'll do all the sewing--I
shall feel that one time I shall look up and see you come riding
through the bush, and p'raps--p'raps, if you've nowhere else to go,
you'll stop the night. Mother would be pleased."
"There are many more improbable things than that," Tom said.
The children were loud in their lamentations over Jessie's leaving.
"Why can't you stop forever and ever?" Eva demanded.
"Because I've got a mother and father who want me back again."
"It's miles and miles away; we can't come and see you, can we?" said
Jack.
"Oh, I don't know. We're three miles back from Wylmington Falls,
where people come picnicing in summer time. If you came out there
one day you might get on to us."
It did not sound very probable.
"When are you going?" he asked rather drearily.
"The day after to-morrow; they're sending the buggy to fetch me."
"We'll come to the corner at the bottom of the lane to see you and
wave to you, won't we, Eva?"
"Yes, wave to you," echoed Eva, beginning to smile again, the
prospect of active service consoling her for Jessie's departure.
So on the following Saturday two eager children, with flowers in one
hand and handkerchiefs in the other, stood waiting at their corner.
This time the waiting was a short one, for a buggy came slowly up the
hill, and in front, supported by cushions, sat Jessie by her father's
side, whilst her small belongings were packed in behind; and at sight
of the waiting pair, Mr. Butler drew rein and Eva climbed up with
Jack's assistance to give Jessie a parting kiss, and Jack lifted his
cap and presented his flowers, holding himself very straight lest
Jessie should offer to kiss him too; but she knew better, only shook
him heartily by the hand, and thanked him for all his kindness and
then the buggy moved on, followed by the shouts of the children.
"But I wish she hadn't gone," said Jack as the carriage and its
occupants were lost to sight. "We'll miss her every day."
Tom came up to the farm that evening for he had something to discuss,
and wanted Betty's counsel.
"You know what girls can do more than I," he said when he had settled
down to his pipe in the verandah. "I've Jessie Butler on my mind.
My time here now is short----"
"Oh, I didn't know you were leaving at any definite time," said Betty
quickly.
"Nor did I until to-day, but I've a letter from the Bishop to say
that your late vicar has resigned, and that he is going to put in a
younger man who can compass the work better."
"Why not you?"
"Because I refused to take it," said Tom simply. "It's not what I
came out for, although I've had a very happy time here."
"And the new man is coming soon?"
"As soon as the Bishop can find him. He has one or two that he would
like to send here, but I'm wandering from my point. Before I leave,
I should like to find something for Jessie to do. She's utterly
unfitted for life on a back block. It's too rough for her, and the
work too heavy. She can't do anything yet, but before the winter
sets in I'd like to see her settled at work she can do, something
fairly quiet and regular. What do delicate girls do? What are they
fit for," and Tom glanced appealingly at Betty.
"Sewing would be too sedentary, and she would not get it either,
living where she does," said Betty.
"That's just it; I want to move her from where she is, but she's not
strong enough for service."
"She might help in an infant school where such help is needed. She
has read a good deal and passed all her standards, and has picked up
a good deal of desultory knowledge which, from what the children tell
me of the way she talks to them, I should think she had a gift for
imparting."
"The very thing," cried Tom, "and I believe there is an opening at
Wylmington, which has the advantage of not being far from home in
case of a breakdown. I was in the little school there the other day,
and the teacher, Miss Armstrong, was saying that it was imperative
that she must have help with the tinies, and that she had written to
the department about it. Now, if I could only put an oar in and get
the post for Jessie, she could spend her spare time in study, and in
qualifying herself to pass the examinations necessary for her to
become a certificated teacher. In years to come she might get quite
strong enough to undertake the care of some country school."
Tom lost no time in getting into touch with the authorities, with the
result that in a few weeks' time he had the offer of the post which
he sought for Jessie.
Jessie's imaginings about the parson's first visit to her home only
came partly true, for on one soaking wet afternoon as the light was
beginning to wane, a dripping man, clad in waterproof from top to
toe, came riding up to the door, and she could hardly believe her
eyes when the rider turned out to be Tom. Her greeting was
absolutely incoherent in its gladness.
"Mother, father," she cried flying to the door, "come, come quickly.
Here's Mr. Chance, come to see us, and he must be soaking to the
skin."
"Not a bit of it," said Tom, dismounting cheerily from his horse and
shaking the rain from the brim of his hat, "thanks to my overalls. I
have a proposal to make to your father and mother, the answer to
which is urgent, and I could not wait for fine weather."
"Well, everything must wait until you are fed, and warmed, and
dried," said hospitable Mrs. Butler, hastening forward, "Fred," to a
tall boy behind--"Come, take the horse, will you? Come in, come in,
Mr. Chance; it was good of you to ride through the bush on a day like
this, for when it rains it means business in our country."
Ten minutes later Tom sat in the living-room before a log fire
cracking cheerily in the open fireplace, which sent a leaping shower
of flame and sparks up the chimney. The family, of varying sex and
sizes, having accorded the visitor shy greeting, dispersed, leaving
the space clear for Mrs. Butler and Jessie, who bustled round
preparing a meal of the best viands the house could produce at so
short a notice.
After the rough but hospitable meal, Tom resumed his seat near the
fire and laid his proposal before them, that Jessie should become
temporary assistant teacher in the little school at Wylmington, with
the view of following teaching as her profession. Miss Armstrong had
expressed her willingness to give her a helping hand with her
studies, and Jessie could live at the school-house with her. Indeed,
Miss Armstrong would be glad to welcome her there, as the life was
too lonely a one for any girl to face.
Jessie listened to the plan as it unfolded itself with occasional
exclamations of delight, but her father demurred.
"The lass isn't strong. I'd rather have her here under our own eyes
for a bit."
"But it's the future we must look to, Harry. It's putting Jessie in
the way of earning her own living. If anything ails her she's not
far from home," said the more sensible mother. "I believe we must
let her go."
"Thank you," said Tom, as if he were accepting a favour, rather than
conferring one. "I wanted to feel Jessie had found her proper niche
before I said good-bye."
Jessie's heart sank like lead, all the joy at the thought of the life
of useful work which opened out before her dashed by the near
prospect of losing the friend who had so greatly helped her, but she
said nothing. Her regret was too deep for words. She simply turned
imploring eyes upon the speaker as if making dumb appeal to him to
reverse his decision.
"It seems a pity you should leave us," said the farmer with slow
deliberation. "I don't profess to know much about parsons and their
work, but it strikes me you are the right man in the right place."
"Thank you," said Tom, with a little laugh, "but I never came to
stop. I came to fill a gap; I am leaving for the mainland almost
directly."
"Never coming back?" said Jessie, with a choke in her voice.
"Never is a big word, Jessie. I hope certainly to revisit Tasmania
before I go back to England, but it may be a long time first. I did
not come to the colony with a notion of finally settling here."
Then he gave them a short sketch of the work he had been sent out to
do.
"Humph!" said the farmer, "very good as far as it goes, but it seems
to me a bit like lighting a fire and setting it in a blaze and then
leaving it to die down to a heap of ashes."
"But we hope it may lead to an extension of the church's work."
"May be," said Butler, but his tone was incredulous.
Then Tom rose and said he must be getting on his way.
"You'd have some difficulty in finding it on a night like this," said
the farmer with a chuckle. "Listen to it," and across the swirl of
the rain upon the roof and windows came the roar of the wind through
the bush. "Best stay here for the night. We can offer you a shake
down in here, can't we, wife? And a sound roof to cover you."
Tom rose and went to the door before making a final decision, but the
wild rush of wind and rain in his face made him close it again pretty
quickly.
"Thank you; I'll stay, although I'm afraid I'm causing you some
inconvenience, but it would take a more experienced bushman than I to
find my way on a night like this."
"Seems to me," said Mrs. Butler a little shyly, "that having the
parson here, we might have prayers to-night, before we settle in.
It's not Sunday, but it's many a Sunday we have to do without 'em."
"Call the others in, then," said Butler, not altogether pleased by
the innovation, so in trooped the boys and girls wide-eyed and
smiling at the novelty of prayers in the middle of the week.
But they all felt there was something in it when Tom began. His
manly earnestness was infectious and it was quite like church prayers
after all, for he read a Psalm and then a few verses from the Bible,
following on with familiar collects.
"Lighten our darkness, O Lord, and by Thy great mercy defend us from
the perils and dangers of the night," he said, and the thunderous
crash of a tree falling not far from the house reminded his listeners
that the perils of the night were close about them--even at their
doors.
"I should like us to sing a hymn together," said Tom as he rose from
his knees, "something we all know. Shall it be 'Abide with me?'" and
he started it in a strong clear voice and very soon the whole family
joined in, not absolutely correctly perhaps, in time or tune, but
with heartiness that made it effective.
"Thank you," said Butler at the end. "Some folks say that extempore
prayers come more from the heart, but for my part I like those I've
been used to from a boy."
Then the family slipped off to bed, and the sofa was pushed nearer
the fire and a few rugs brought in and soon Tom was settled in for
the night. With the first streak of dawn he was awake and pushed his
way into the outer kitchen in search of soap and water, but there he
found some one had been before him, and everything had been arranged
for his comfort; and later Jessie appeared, carrying him his
breakfast on a neat tray.
"It's kind of you to enable me to make an early start, and the
weather is kind too. What a lovely morning after that wild night,"
but Jessie's heart was too full of other things to think of the
weather.
"Mr. Chance, how will I keep good when you're gone?"
"No one keeps you good," said Tom, "except God's Holy Spirit, which
is yours already and who will abide with you for the asking. And for
the rest, Jessie, do your work lovingly and carefully, as in God's
sight, and on Sunday you can give a helping hand in the school and
teach the little ones about holy things. You can help along the
church's work in the place if you have a mind to."
Then Mrs. Butler came in, and a quarter of an hour later Tom was
wending his way back to Wylmington.
The following Sunday was his last in Wallaroo, and the little church
was packed to hear his last sermon, and quite a number of people
waited outside the church to shake him by the hand and bid him
Godspeed, a send-off he much preferred to the social evening which it
had been proposed to give him in the previous week, but which his
many engagements had forced him to decline.
"Uncle Tom," said Jack, thrusting his hand into Tom's as they walked
home together, "you will come back, won't you, as everyone's so sorry
you're going away?"
"I don't suppose I shall come back as your clergyman, Jack, but I
shall certainly come back before I go to England, in fact whenever a
chance presents itself."
"But Eva and I won't watch for you on Saturday afternoons?"
"No, I'm afraid you won't, but some day, when you least expect me, I
shall come popping in by the coach, or on my feet."
"And you'll come when I'm confirmed same as Jessie?" said Jack.
Tom smiled to himself, well pleased that Jessie's confirmation had
made so deep an impression upon the little boy.
"I don't know even if I shall be in the colony then, but if I'm
anywhere within reach I'll come when you are confirmed," said Tom.
"Aunt Betty," said Jack, as Betty tucked him into bed that night,
"you need not cry any more, Uncle Tom will come back some day."
"But what nonsense you are talking. I'm not crying," was the reply.
"But you _did_ cry in church, and I s'pose it's because Uncle Tom is
going away. If not, what _did_ you cry for?" said Jack, a question
Aunt Betty did not think fit to answer.
CHAPTER IX
A SURPRISE VISIT
Four years had passed since Tom Chance had left Tasmania, and it was
with a pleasurable quickening of pulse that he found himself back in
the island and walking along the hilly road from the station towards
Wallaroo. He had told no one he was coming, for he had planned once
or twice before to pay a flying visit which pressure of work had made
him obliged to defer, so this time he had determined to take his
friends by surprise. His years of absence had been full of strenuous
work, and he had travelled through many parts of the huge continent,
up the Murray River, to New South Wales and Queensland, and wherever
he had gone his strong personality and convincing earnestness had
left behind a certain quickening of church life which in many cases
proved permanent. And now he was conscious of brain fag, of a need
for a holiday, and had made up his mind quite suddenly to take one,
and it was natural that he should spend it with his sister and in
revisiting some of his Tasmanian friends. The coach had not met the
train by which he arrived, and he had left his baggage at the station
and was walking the eight miles which separated the railway from
Wallaroo.
And he commended himself for his decision as he strode leisurely
along the zig-zag road which at every turn disclosed a wider and more
beautiful view, and to his eyes, tired with the arid wastes through
which he had lately travelled, the blue atmosphere and exquisite
colouring of the island seemed little short of Paradise.
Indeed, in all his travels, Tasmania was the spot which had wound
itself most closely round his heart. And from the land his mind
passed on to the faces he was so soon to see again, Clarissa's joyous
welcome, and that of his friends at the farm. Children's memories
were short; he could scarcely hope that Eva would remember him, and
of Jack he had heard not long since that he had developed from the
delightful innocence and frankness of childhood, into a somewhat
bumptious schoolboy, at least such was his sister's report.
"And Betty seems rather harassed with the care of him," she had said
in her last letter. "She said the other day that she so wished he
could have remained under your influence as he needs a man's hand,
and his father is anxious that the boy should remain under her care
until he is fourteen years old, when a sister of his will be
returning for good from India and promises him a home."
It was this report that had made Tom decide to sail for Tasmania at
once. If he could be of service to Betty in the absence of little
Jack's father, he might turn his holiday to good account. Jack had
been sent to the State school some six months ago, and the society of
boys older than himself had probably gone to his head like wine, and
made him lose his balance, in which case a little judicious snubbing
might have good effect.
So thought Tom Chance as he breasted the last steep incline from the
top of which he would catch his first glimpse of the township.
Another mile and he would be at home, and very much at home he felt,
as he walked through the straggling street, exchanging greetings with
one and another who remembered him. Then came the turn into the
familiar green lane, where so often two little friends had waited for
him on a Saturday afternoon; but to-day no one was in sight, but just
as he reached the gate of his sister's house a child with a bright
face and a long plait of dark hair down her back, came running down
the path whom Tom found it difficult to recognise as the curly-headed
dumpling of five that he had left behind him. But no such great
difference had the four years worked upon Tom himself, and Eva stood
still for a moment, regarding him with startled wonder in her eyes;
then as full recognition dawned upon her she came flying towards him
with open arms.
"Mother, mother," she called back over her shoulder. "Here's Uncle
Tom come to see us," and the next instant Eva's arms were round her
uncle's neck.
And Clarissa, a younger, rosier, happier Clarissa, came hurrying up
behind.
"But Tom, how naughty of you not to let us know you were coming," she
said when the first greetings were over, "not to have given me the
joy of anticipation and of preparation. Now you will have to take
just what you can get. I've improved your prophet's chamber though,
since you lived in it. I've added a little writing-table and an easy
chair. Life has taken a different colour altogether since last you
came."
And so she chatted on as she hurried on her preparations for tea,
giving her brother no time for explanations.
"I hope you've come to stop a long, long time," she said at last.
"I've come to spend my holiday with you. I've not had one since I
came to the colony, and suddenly felt in need of it."
"And that's six weeks and sometimes seven in the summer time," said
Eva clapping her hands.
"I was quite flattered that you remembered me, Eva; you were such a
tiny mite when I left, a round dumpling of a niece, and now you have
grown into a little girl, with a pig-tail down your back."
"I couldn't forget," said Eva, "when mother talks of you every day
and your likeness looks at me as I go to sleep. Why I say good-night
to you, same as if you were there."
"I think I'll go over and see them at the farm," said Tom, when tea
was ended. "I want to surprise them as I surprised you, and you can
come with me, Eva, and see your chum."
Eva's head went down, and Tom fancied he saw tears on her long
lashes. "I'll stay with mother, thank you. Jack isn't chummy any
more. He doesn't want me now he has boys to play with."
"Oh, I expect he does," said Tom, consolingly, "but now he goes to
school and has regular lessons he can't have so much time for play,
nor should you have, by rights. I suppose Eva has lessons to learn
as well as Jack?" turning to Clarissa.
"Oh, I don't let her go to the State school; there is a girls' school
opened in the place by a rather nice Englishwoman, and Eva goes to
her every morning and works at home in the afternoon, but it's out of
school hours that she misses Jack. I don't know what has come over
the boy. He says he has 'no use' for girls."
Tom laughed a little, but thought that Master Jack wanted bringing
down a peg or two. However, he would go and see for himself.
It was getting dusk as he crossed the paddock, and no one seemed
moving about the farm premises. He had half hoped that Jack might
have been playing about somewhere, and that his first meeting with
the boy might have been when he was alone. He let himself in gently
by the garden gate and stood looking round him. Every window and
door stood open, and in the verandah, lying back in a long wicker
chair, was Betty. The attitude was such an unusual one that Tom
divined at once that all was not well with her. There was weariness
written on every line of the recumbent figure, not weariness of body
only, but weariness of mind. And then Tom felt he had no right to
watch her and went forward to speak to her.
"I'm a late visitor, Miss Treherne, but may I come in?"
Betty sprang to her feet with a glad cry of welcome.
"Isn't it odd? you were the very man I was wishing for. I wanted to
talk to you about so many things, and now you are here. Father and
mother have gone over to Wylmington to keep the Carltons' silver
wedding day, and I don't expect them back until quite late."
"So that some of the things you want to say to me can be said here
and now," said Tom, sinking down into a chair by her side. "But
first, I must see my friend Jack. Shall I find the rogue round by
the stables?"
"He's in bed," said Betty, shortly.
"So you keep him to early hours," said Tom. "I left Eva talking to
her mother."
"He's in bed because he's naughty, and it's the only punishment I can
inflict, and I should not be surprised any day if he refused to go,
and what my next move would be does not yet appear. It's quite
certain I can't beat him."
"But your father could. I'm no advocate for beating, but
occasionally a boy in the puppy stage is better for it."
"Father is too old and too lenient. Besides, he's my
responsibility," said Betty, with a little laugh that had tears
behind it.
"You should send him home."
"I would if my brother-in-law had anyone there to mother him,
although I should be sending half my heart with him."
"Well, depend upon it he's only passing through one of the rather
tiresome stages of development, which every man-child experiences in
a more or less degree."
"But which it needs a man's hand to guide him through."
"I'm not at all sure that a mother's or aunt's influence does not go
further," said Tom consolingly, "but I shall be here for a few weeks
now, and will do what I can. Besides, I'm so fond of the boy. I
don't think little Jack the Englishman can have gone far astray.
Does your present clergyman have much to say to him?"
"Mr. Curtis?" answered Betty. "He's quite a good man and a very hard
worker, but he has no knack with children. He is shy of them, and
the feeling is mutual."
"And does Jack ring the bell still?" Tom asked, with a little laugh.
"No, he got late one or two Sundays, and Mr. Curtis told him that if
he could not be there in time he would rather ring it himself. The
novelty and honour of the thing had worn off a little, and Jack would
not go any more and I did not think it wise to force him."
"But he goes to church?"
"Oh yes, he goes with me, and to Sunday School also. He announced
last Sunday that he was getting too old to go to Sunday School, but I
promptly sat on him."
"To sum up the matter, Master Jack has grown a little too big for his
boots."
"Metaphorically and literally," Betty answered smiling. "He's such a
big boy for his age and very manly; he is always out-growing his
suits. People often take him for twelve or thirteen, and he's only
eleven, and as it has always been his ambition to be big, he assumes
the airs of boys much older than himself."
Then Tom led Betty's thoughts to other channels, told her something
of his own travels and experiences, and left her at last refreshed
and soothed. But all Betty had told him about Jack troubled him
rather. The boy must be summarily dealt with. Jack was terribly
chagrined in the morning when he heard that Uncle Tom had arrived,
and had asked to see him.
[Illustration: JACK, WITH HIS FACE SKYWARD, SMOKING A CIGARETTE. p.
109]
"What did you say, Aunt Betty?"
"I had to tell him the truth, that I had sent you to bed because
you'd been naughty," said Betty, quietly. "I'd run off directly
after breakfast and find him, if I were you."
But Jack's conscience made a coward of him, and instead of seeking
Uncle Tom he ran off to a far corner of the farm and threw himself
behind a stack, angry with himself and all the world. Half-an-hour
later, Tom, sauntering about the farm in search of him, saw a tiny
thread of smoke blown round the corner of the stack, and, peering
round the corner, discovered Jack stretched full length along the
ground, with his face skyward, smoking a cigarette.
At the sound of a footstep Jack sprang to his feet, thrusting the
cigarette into his pocket, turned scarlet and then very white, and
came forward with a slightly sheepish expression.
"Oh, Uncle Tom, I'm jolly glad to see you," he said, stretching out a
brown paw. "I'm----" and then he came to a pause, disconcerted by
the smiling gaze fixed upon him.
"I'm afraid I disturbed you in the luxury of a quiet smoke," said
Tom, seating himself with his back against the stack. "A new
accomplishment, eh! Jack?"
Jack's face was sickly green now. "I was not smoking," he said,
avoiding the scrutiny of Tom's eyes. "I was only going to light a
bonfire."
The answer was more serious than Tom had believed. The boy lied, and
Tom's heart was hot within him, but his voice was almost alarmingly
quiet.
"Let's have a look at your pockets, old man. I would rather like to
see what you've got in them."
"I won't," said Jack, stung into defiance. "You're not----"
"Not Uncle Tom, were you going to say?" went on Tom Chance. "It was
a pretence relationship, just a baby's whim to call me so. All
right, Jack, so be it, but it is not the welcome I expected from my
friend, Jack the Englishman," and he turned to go, but Jack sprang
after him, seizing him by the hand.
"Don't go, please don't go, Uncle Tom. I did not mean it, really.
I'm truly awf'ly glad to see you, but it's treating me like a baby to
tell me to turn out my pockets."
"Look here, Jack," said Tom, turning upon him a face nearly as white
as his own, "you know quite well why I wanted to see into your
pocket. It's because I wanted to prove that you've lied to me. You
were smoking, which only showed you to be a silly little ass. That
could soon have been mended by a straight talk, but you told a lie to
cover it, and that can't be mended. You'll carry the stain of that
lie to your life's end. I'm deeply, bitterly, disappointed in you,
and if you were my real nephew I'd beat you with the greatest
pleasure in life."
Jack lifted sullen, unrepentant eyes.
"Beat me," he said, "beat me, and have done with it."
"No," said Tom. "Even that would not make things level. You are
neither sorry nor ashamed."
He watched the knot climb into the boy's throat, he could almost see
the fight between the evil and good spirit in his heart, and doubted
which would conquer. He could but admire the boy's outward
appearance, his splendid physique, his handsome head set so firmly on
his broad shoulders, but the charm of the child that knows no evil
was his no longer.
"Jack," said Tom again, "if you are giving me a sore heart, what will
you give your father? How will you look him in the face if you can't
speak the truth and shame the devil?"
Jack's arm went up as if to ward off a blow; he tried to speak but
choked in the effort, and then he threw himself face forward on the
grass, and was sobbing as if his heart would break, and Tom gave a
long sigh of relief, for he knew the evil spirit had departed. He
suffered Jack to cry for quite a long time. At last he bent over
him, and touched him on the shoulder.
"Sit up, Jack. Suppose we have a talk, and see what's gone wrong
with you?"
"I can't," said Jack, still hiding his face. "I feel such a beast."
"But I want to find out what's making you feel like that."
"And you'll hate me for ever and ever," said Jack, disclosing one
scarlet eye.
"God forbid," said Tom, solemnly.
"I didn't mean to tell--a lie"--Jack's tongue stumbled over the
disgraceful word--"I thought you'd be angry with me for smoking and I
said I wasn't, all in a hurry, but I _wish_ I hadn't."
"So do I," interposed Tom.
"But you can have it, you can have 'em all," and Jack rose to his
feet and fumbled in both his pockets, producing a dirty little pocket
handkerchief, with which he mopped his eyes, a ball of twine, which
he threw impatiently on the ground, and finally a box of matches and
a half-smoked cigarette. He handed the cigarette and the matches to
Tom with a shaking hand, who put them into his own pocket.
"Now tell me how you got it?"
"I bought 'em out of my pocket money."
"Then you've smoked before?"
"Yes, four times, but it made me--rather ill. I wanted to smoke
until the chaps at school could see I could. They said I was a kid
and couldn't. I wanted 'em to see I could do the same as they did."
"It seems to me you've been an uncommonly silly little boy, not a bit
better than a monkey that tries to copy all its companions' silly
tricks. Nothing seems to me quite so ridiculous as a boy who tries
to be a man before his time, and it's wrong as well. You can spoil
the splendid health and body God has given you by beginning to smoke
too soon. And do the big boys you are so anxious to copy tell lies,
too, and cheat at lessons? Are you learning that as well?"
Jack quivered as if Tom had hit him.
"I haven't lied until now. I wish you'd beat me."
Instead, Tom caught him in his arms, and held him fast a minute.
"Thank God for that. At least we can thank Him for that, that it is
your first, and, let us trust, your last lie. I could not love or
trust a boy whose word I could not believe, but you've got out of the
right road, boy, and you must come back again. You've altered
strangely from the little boy I left behind me."
"I've grown big," said Jack, a little resentfully.
"Yes, and you fancy yourself much bigger than you are. Lots of
little things tell me that, although I only came back last night.
You've thrown over your chum, you are troublesome to Aunt Betty, you
fancy yourself too big for Sunday School--as if we were ever, any of
us, too big to go on learning how to serve and please God! You've
got to relearn that you're just a little boy, who, if he ever means
to be of any good in the world and be a real man, must learn first
himself to be obedient, brave; and truthful, and must keep his own
course straight, however crooked other boys may go. Have you
forgotten about your Confirmation, Jack? You were keen about it when
I went away."
"I don't care so much about it now."
"What has made you change your mind?"
"Dick Chambers says it's all silly rot, only fit for girls, and does
them no good. Mr. Curtis came after him and asked him about it, and
he said he would not go to the classes for anything."
"Humph, and you'd rather take Dick Chambers' opinion than Mr.
Curtis's, or mine, or Aunt Betty's. But we can leave the matter of
your Confirmation alone at present. Come along, now, and take me
over the farm, and show me all the changes since I went away."
Jack obeyed the summons readily enough. It was an enormous relief to
talk of something else, and something of the misery of the morning
faded in the fascination of Tom's companionship, but as they finally
neared the house Jack drew back a little.
"Uncle Tom, shall you tell Aunt Betty?"
"No, the telling is yours, not mine."
"Whom must I tell?"
"God first and ask Him to forgive you, and your father, and ask him
the same thing."
Jack winced. "Write it down; write down that I've smoked and told a
lie?"
"Yes, put it down in black and white and look at it. It will make
you remember, and I don't fancy you will do either again."
The letter to father was written next day, and Jack drank his cup of
humiliation to the dregs as he handed the letter, as usual, to Aunt
Betty with a crimson face.
"You can read it if you like," he said.
"You'll be very sorry to hear that I've told a lie and smoked four
cigarettes, but I promise faithfully not to do it any more. Uncle
Tom said I must tell you and God."
Betty laughed and cried over that letter at the same time, and
thanked God that Uncle Tom had come back just in time to bring little
Jack to repentance.
CHAPTER X
A BUSH TOUR
Tom did not propose to spend his four or five weeks of holiday in
idleness. Whilst making his sister's house his headquarters, he
determined to revisit such places as lay within reach, and would
start off with his knapsack on his back, taking a two or three days'
tour at a time.
"Why can't I walk with you?" Jack asked one day, wistfully. "I'm
ever so strong on my legs!"
"Not strong enough for that," said Tom, but it set him thinking what
to do to brighten Jack's holiday. The boy was manfully doing his
best; had reinstated himself in Eva's good graces by a renewal of
friendship and a demand for her companionship, but having tasted the
strong drink of the fellowship of boys there was no question that to
go back to a girl playmate was a little like sipping milk and water.
His manner to Aunt Betty changed from the confiding affection of
infancy to an obedient deference that she found distinctly
attractive, for Uncle Tom was constantly impressing upon him by
precept and example, that all women should command gentleness and
respect from the masculine sex, so that not again had Betty to
complain of rude answers or disobedience. What had passed between
Jack and Tom she could only dimly guess, but the result of Tom's
treatment was entirely satisfactory.
One morning Tom presented himself at the farm quite early in the day.
"I've a plan to unfold, and I want your consent before I speak to
Jack about it," he said. He had followed Betty to the dairy where
she was busy among her milk pans, and stood leaning against the
door-post.
"Your treatment of him proves so entirely salutary that you have my
consent before I even guess what your plan may be," she said, looking
up at him with smiling eyes.
"That's good hearing. I have hired a horse for a week, and am going
to take a riding tour to various townships and outlying farms that
are beyond my reach on foot, and I should like to take Jack with me.
Is there any pony on the farm that he could borrow?"
"Father has let him ride Tim lately. Tim has quieted with age, and
though still full of spirit, seldom indulges in tricks. I don't know
if the pony could be spared for so long, but it would be so big a joy
to Jack that I feel as if father is certain to consent."
"Where may your father be found? I'll go and ask him. I want to get
off quickly while the day is fairly cool. Meanwhile, will you put up
in Jack's school knapsack such things as are absolutely needful for a
few days' bush riding? Make it as light as you can."
"You are accepting father's consent as a foregone conclusion."
"I think so; it's his own fault that I do so. He never yet has
refused me anything I've asked."
Jack was nearly wild with joy when, half-an-hour later, he and Tom
were trotting down the green lane side by side. He turned in his
saddle to wave his cap to Eva and her mother who stood watching their
departure from the gate, then settled himself in his seat with a
quivering sigh of enjoyment.
"It's just splendid of you to have thought of it. Just think of
riding with you for a whole week. I wish it were for ever and ever."
Tom laughed over Jack's enthusiasm. "I expect we should both get
pretty tired of it and of each other then, Jack."
"I shouldn't," declared Jack, stoutly, putting Tim into a canter.
"I'd never be tired of being with you. You're the jolliest grown-up
I've ever seen except father. I'd like to stay with you until I can
go to him. It's queer he doesn't want me now. I keep on telling him
in every letter how big I am. Where are we going to first?"
"I propose to ride first to Jessie's home. We shall drop in there
just about dinner-time."
"How jolly! We've seen her several times since we saw you. She
comes down here about once a year. She's left Wylmington School ever
so long, and has gone as second teacher in a girls' school in
Launceston, so I don't expect we'll find her."
"You forget it will be her holiday time too. I often hear from her,
and she seems to have grown quite strong."
"Yes, and Aunt Betty says she's pretty," said Jack, who had no
opinion of his own about girls' looks at present.
The ride for the first eight miles was entirely normal, along
beautifully engineered roads which climbed ever up and up by zig-zag
courses through the hill forests to Wylmington. Beyond were the
falls which in summer-time were a favourite resort for picnic
parties, but, leaving them to the right, Tom followed one of the bush
roads bearing to the left, which was nothing more than a cart track,
in some places almost overgrown, and in others, where more clearing
had been done, opened out into a glorious view of surrounding hills.
As they rode along Tom told Jack of his experience the last time he
had passed that way in a gale of wind and rain, and how he had been
weather-bound for the night at Woodlands, Jessie's home.
"We won't stop there to-night, will we?" asked Jack, whose one idea
was to put as great a distance between himself and home as possible.
"Oh, no, I want to get on to the next homestead, about ten miles
further on, but it will be slow going, as there is little more than a
bridle-track to travel by, and we could easily lose our way."
"What fun! I hope we shall."
"I don't," said Tom. "It's no laughing matter to be lost in the
bush. It's a very lonesome spot we are going to, and we shall
probably sleep in a shakedown in the barn."
Jack gave a joyous laugh of anticipation, but here they were in sight
of Woodlands, and he sprang from his pony to open the gate which
separated the home clearing from the bush. Before they rode up to
the door Jessie had caught a glimpse of them and came running towards
them with a radiant face. She had changed from a girl to a young
woman and a pretty young woman too, Tom thought, as he dismounted and
one of the boys came forward to take his horse.
"We'll off-saddle them for an hour or two if we may," he said, "and
we've counted on Woodlands hospitality to give us something to eat."
"But of course," cried Jessie joyously. "I told mother that the
feeling in my bones meant something good was to happen to-day, but I
never thought of anything half so good as this."
Then came the farmer and his wife to welcome their guests. The
family dinner was over and the boys dispersed about the farm, but a
meal of sorts should be ready in a brace of shakes, and the "nipper"
looked ready for it, which the nipper was, for the ride had given him
a hearty appetite. And whilst Jessie flitted to and fro in
hospitable preparation, Tom noticed the stamp of refinement which
illness had left upon her, but there was something more than
refinement written on her face--a certain radiance which he accepted
as the outward manifestation of an inward grace, a heart at peace
with God and all the world.
"You found the right work for the girl," said the farmer, following
the direction of Tom's eyes. "She just dotes on her teaching, and
gets on well with it. We shall have her up here some day, I expect,
setting us all to rights as school-teacher at Wylmington."
"Not yet, father," laughed Jessie, shaking her finger at him. "I
want to know ever so much more before I try for a school of my own."
"And will it be a school in the bush when that time comes?" Tom
asked. "Time was when you did not like the Bush much."
"I don't know; being away from them all makes you long to be back,
though a town school, where I am now, teaches you a lot about
discipline and such things, but sometimes now I think I'll get back
to the country, where you can get to know all your children and love
them and have care of them out of school as well as in it. And one
can do something for the church in these country places. I'm
learning to play the harmonium, and I could play perhaps on Sundays
when we have service. There's no one to do it now, not even anyone
who can lead the singing. Don't you remember how you said once that
it was a clergyman's work to set the machinery in a place going, the
spiritual machinery, and the work of the people to keep it alive and
active?"
"Did I say that? You can't expect me to remember all I said four
years ago."
"But I remember, because you were the first one to talk to me about
the church's order. You said most people left their religion to
chance and odd times, and we ought to be as careful over it as over
our other work."
"You were an attentive pupil, it seems," said Tom, smiling at her.
"Because you put things clearly so that I could understand them,"
said Jessie simply. "When you went away and I could not talk to you
any more, I wrote down a good many things you said, so as to teach
them to my class in the Sunday School."
"Then you are a Sunday School teacher?"
"Oh, yes, for over three years now. I love it best of any of my
teaching, and the Sunday School is all alive where I am now. Here I
found it very difficult to get the children to care."
Jack had slipped away with Jessie's father to see a fresh brood of
chickens, which gave Tom an opportunity of some talk with Jessie
about her work, but presently he looked at his watch and said they
must be moving on, but, before the horses were re-saddled, Mrs.
Butler insisted upon a cup of tea, and sent them on their way with a
well-filled wallet of provisions in case they got detained upon the
road.
"_Is_ Jessie pretty?" Jack inquired, as they rode upon their way.
"Yes, I think she is, but she's more than pretty: she's good."
"How d'you know?" Jack asked.
"By her look--goodness, like evil, writes itself upon people's faces,
Jack--by her ways and by her words," said Tom.
The saying did not altogether please Jack.
"It's rather horrid people can tell whether you are good or bad by
looking at you," he said.
"Then you must take care only to do and think such things as will
give you a good face," said Tom, with a little laugh, and then he
began talking about other things.
How the week sped, a week which Jack was old enough now to look back
upon with pleasure all his days! It was an unusually hot and dry
year for Tasmania, and the sun, beating upon the forests and rich
undergrowth through which they rode day after day, brought out a
pungent fragrance that acted like a tonic, preventing any
consciousness of fatigue. There was a sense of adventure, too, in
travelling by these unknown and little trodden tracks that was quite
delightful to a boy, and delightful also was Tom's companionship, and
in fuller measure came back his old ascendancy over Jack. Before it
had been the affection of a little child, but now it took the form of
a boy's hero-worship, the wish to grow into a man something like
Uncle Tom or father. The mere fact that Tom could turn his hand to
almost anything was a deep source of admiration, from lighting a fire
to shoeing a horse. And Tom on his side grew deeply attached to the
little boy, whose pluck and courage might have belonged to a boy
twice his age, whose interest in all he saw or heard was so
singularly alive, and quite unconsciously his influence for good over
the boy almost every hour of the day was making itself felt. It was
more from what he did than what he said, although with a man like
Tom, whose first object and aim in life was to serve God himself and
to teach others to serve, it was scarcely possible to live with him
many days without some mention of higher things. The mention of such
things might pass unnoticed, but the fact that when they passed one
or two nights in a shed together, Jack saw Tom kneel down and say his
prayers with absorbing earnestness before he crept into his bed of
straw, was an object-lesson Jack could not well forget. And again,
when they woke in the morning, Tom's hand searched in the knapsack
which had served as his pillow for the Testament he always carried
about with him, and he would read aloud to Jack some parable, or
miracle, said or worked by our Lord, and invest it with an entirely
new character, making Jack feel it a reality instead of something
written in an old book that might or might not be true. On the last
morning of their tour, as they sat together on the bole of a huge
forest tree that had been felled and left lying along the ground
until such time as it was carted away, Tom chose for the morning
reading the account in the Acts of the churches that had not yet
received any open manifestation of the Spirit, and of how the
Apostles were sent for to bestow the great gift.
"And that is what we now call Confirmation, Jack, that is the Bible
teaching about it. I wonder if anyone ever showed Dick Chambers that
passage, or tried to make it clear to him. He might change his mind
about its being all stuff and nonsense."
Jack coloured a little.
"But everyone who is confirmed isn't good, Uncle Tom."
"I don't say they are, Jack; I only tell you it is a great help, a
gift of God that I want every boy and girl baptised in our church to
look forward to and get ready for. If you use a gift it may help you
immensely; if you neglect it or throw it away that is not God's
fault: it's yours."
Jack did not make any answer; Tom did not know if he even understood,
but from that day forward Jack renewed his determination to be
confirmed some day, when he was old enough, "same as Jessie was."
Perhaps it was Jessie's confirmation that helped to give her a "good
face," in which conjecture there was more truth than little Jack was
aware of.
And that evening found the companions at home again, Jack very
bronzed and voluble about all his experiences of the different places
they had stayed at, and of the almost wild children they had come
across, of the snakes they had killed in the bush, of their picnic
meals, etc.; but, of the things that had gone deepest, of his talks
with Uncle Tom and of the way Uncle Tom said his prayers, he never
spoke at all. They had sunk too deep to come up to the surface. But
Eva, as he talked to her, bemoaned the fate that, in making her a
girl, cut her off from all these delightful pleasures.
"Uncle Tom, we ought to have a blow-up for Eva before you go," Jack
said one day soon after their return. "It _is_ rather dull being a
girl, you know. Could not we have a picnic a long way off on
Thursday? It's my birthday; I shall be twelve years old, but we
could pretend it was Eva's."
Uncle Tom was rather pleased at this budding thoughtfulness for
Jack's chum, and caught readily at the notion.
"We'll talk to my sister and Aunt Betty and see what can be done," he
said. "Has Eva ever been to Wylmington Falls? If not, we could hire
a brake, get some of the neighbours to join us, and we'll call it
Eva's party."
The notion caught on like wildfire, and Eva herself was in ecstasies
of delight. She watched every cloudlet that flecked the sky with
grave forebodings lest the longed-for day should prove wet.
"Not a chance of it," said Uncle Tom. "The farmers are all longing
for rain to save their crops, which bush fires are constantly
destroying," but that rain should fall on Thursday was more than he
or any of the others could wish. And it did not rain! Never was a
more perfect day for a picnic. The families at the farm and the
cottage were early astir, for everybody was coming except Mr.
Treherne, who had to stay behind for the task of looking after the
animals, for it was to be a real long summer holiday, beginning with
dinner directly they arrived, and closing with tea before their
return, which would give the horses a nice long rest. So soon after
eleven the brake started off with Mrs. Kenyon, Mrs. Treherne, Betty,
and all the provisions packed in hampers, and behind came the pony
cart from the farm driven by Tom, with Jack and Eva tucked in by the
side of him, and various other vehicles joined them on the way,
carrying invited guests, so that it was quite a cavalcade that wound
its way along the circuitous road, and there was much laughter and
rivalry as to who should take the lead, and who could keep it, and
for one proud triumphant moment Tom and the pony led the way, to be
superseded very quickly by the brake with its stout pair of horses.
But for the long, long climb at the end, all were reduced to walking,
and many of the passengers got out, amongst them the children, who
plunged into the bush below and above them, bringing back handfuls of
flowers and berries.
"And this afternoon, Eva, whilst the others are lazing about, you and
I will go blackberrying in the bush. We'll make a surprise for Aunt
Betty, who'll be awfully pleased when we bring back a lot of berries
ready for jam," said Jack magnanimously, determined to make the day
altogether delightful for Eva.
"How lovely!" said Eva. "Don't forget we're to keep it a secret. No
one shall guess what we mean to do."
But now the carriages had turned into the rough track which led to
the famous falls, whose nearness proclaimed itself by a distant roar
of falling water, a sound which mingled with the swirl of the river
under the bridge they had just driven over.
A quarter of a mile through the green overgrown track brought them to
a large clearing, where open sheds had been built for the special
benefit of picnicers, where a general halt was called, and whilst the
men busied themselves in taking out their horses and giving them a
rub down before securing them in the sheds, the women and children
collected fuel for the fire, but Jack and Eva, fascinated by the
sound of the falling water, stole off hand in hand to obtain a nearer
view of the Falls. Arched over their heads was a long avenue of tree
ferns, under their feet the rocks and stones which the winter floods
brought with them, but now the river had withdrawn to its natural
bed, and an exquisite undergrowth of flowers and maidenhair fern
concealed the roughness of the way. More than once Eva would have
lost her footing but for Jack's hand, but at last they reached the
point where they could obtain their first full view of the falls,
three separate cascades of foaming, sparkling water growing greater
and stronger in its fall, until it lost itself in the turbulent river
below.
"One would not have much chance if one fell in," said Jack.
"No, it's lovely, but it frightens me and makes me giddy to look at
it. Take me back to the others," Eva answered.
Jack longed to linger, longed to scale the rough ladders set against
the hill, which would lead him up to the higher falls, but the day
was Eva's, and he turned and gave her his hand.
"It's a dreadful pity you're not a boy," was all he said.
CHAPTER XI
A NARROW ESCAPE
After the mid-day meal people agreed to separate and go their several
ways. A goodly number proposed to climb up to the second and third
falls, an impossible feat until lately, when the touring club had
provided upright fixed ladders to scale the most inaccessible places,
but the ladders were steep and slippery with damp, and it was only
the younger and more venturesome of the party who proffered for the
excursion.
"I shall want to take a few snapshots. They tell me the falls,
viewed from the top, are simply magnificent," said Tom, slinging his
camera across his shoulders. "Jack, you shall come with us. I'll
answer for your safety," with a kindly hand laid on the boy's
shoulder.
"I can't unless Eva is going too. I've promised to be with her this
afternoon, as it's her day, you know."
"Eva!" laughed Eva's mother. "Eva won't go, will you, pussy? She's
the most arrant little coward in the world, but, encouraged by Betty,
I mean to venture, Tom, and it will take all your time to look after
me. Betty can look after herself."
"I should think so," said Betty, with fine scorn. "I should be
ashamed of myself if I needed help to climb a few ladders."
It was with eyes of longing regret that Jack watched the party start
off through the aisle of tree ferns and heard their merry voices
gradually dying away in the distance, but Eva's hand tugged at his.
"It was just splendid of you, Jack, to stay with me instead of going
with them, and now, as mother and Aunt Betty are gone, we need ask no
one's leave to go off by ourselves."
"Of course not," said Jack, a little shortly, still smarting with the
pain of refusal. "I'm big enough to take care of a girl half your
age."
Mrs. Treherne and various other matrons drew out their work and their
books and settled themselves on a green oasis not far from the river,
where they could catch a glimpse of it as it rushed in headlong
impetuosity towards the valleys below, and the children slipped away
through the trees towards the bridge which they must recross on their
way to the bush track which Jack had traversed with Tom only a few
days ago.
"But how lovely this is!" said Eva, peering into the recesses of the
bush on either side. "We can pretend that all sorts of things are
happening; that we've lost our way, you and I, and--and--the best of
pretending things is that you've all the fun of things happening and
never get frightened. We might pretend that it was night, and that
we'd had nothing to eat all day."
But Jack, a matter-of-fact schoolboy, whose days of pretending were
over, had little patience with all these fancies.
"But where's the good of pretending when we aren't lost, and when
we've had tons to eat? I'll tell you what isn't pretence. If you
went on along this track through a big clearing which we shall come
to presently, you would reach Woodlands, Jessie's home."
"Could we get there?" said Eva excitedly. "I'd rather see Jessie
than gather cartloads of blackberries."
"That's the worst of girls," retorted Jack. "You never know what
they want! Which would you _really_ rather do--get blackberries or
go to Jessie, for it's flat we can't do both?"
Eva hesitated, moving restlessly from one foot to the other.
"Well, speak up! blackberries or Jessie? for, if you choose Jessie,
we've no time to lose. It's a goodish distance."
"Could I walk it?"
"Yes, I think you could."
"Well, then, let's make for Jessie. She _will_ be surprised to see
us, more surprised even than when you went with Uncle Tom, because,
you see, you were on horseback, and I'm only on my legs. She'll
wonder how on earth I got there," and Eva gave an anticipatory
chuckle at the thought of the astonishment her appearance would
create.
It was rough walking through the bush, and Eva's legs began to ache a
little.
"Is it a great deal further, Jack?"
"We're only about half way there. I believe we'd better go back,
though we shall look rather fools having done neither one thing nor
the other," but the suggestion of turning back did not please his
companion.
"Let's rest a little, and then I'll get on all right. There's heaps
of time before us," so they sat with their backs supported against
the trunk of a tree, whilst Jack told stories of his late
experiences. At last he sprang to his feet.
"And now if we mean to get there at all this afternoon," he said, "we
must be getting on, unless you would rather go back."
"No, I'll go on; Jessie will be so surprised," reiterated Eva, and
the children little knew that the decision, made so lightly, possibly
saved both their lives. As they neared the clearing which was only
about a mile and a half from Jessie's home, Jack became aware of a
distant fitful roar that he could only imagine was the rising of the
wind before a coming storm, and wondered within himself what he could
do with Eva in such a predicament.
"The sun's gone in and the sky's all copper-coloured," said Eva, as
they emerged into open country, "I believe it's going to thunder;"
but Jack's quick eyes, glancing towards the horizon, saw flames
partially concealed by smoke leaping and dancing through the bush,
and knew that for the first time in his life he was within reach of a
bush fire. He had watched many a one with delight from the safe
distance of his grandfather's farm, but to see one racing towards
him, urged on by a wind behind, was a wholly different matter, and it
was the far-off roar of flames that he had heard, and even Jack's
brave little heart quailed before the danger which threatened them,
but it was of Eva's safety that he thought rather than his own, and
the sense of responsibility weighed heavily upon him.
[Illustration: THEY RACED ALONG HAND IN HAND. p. 131]
Two courses seemed open to him; either to turn back or to push on at
all possible speed towards Woodlands, and once more he turned to see
which direction the fire was taking, and was alarmed to find that
retreat was impossible, for the wind was carrying the flames along
the forest of ringed trees and dried undergrowth through which they
had just come at such terrific speed that long before they could get
back by the way they had come they would be caught in the flames.
Not only so, but the whole fire was widening its course, creeping
across the clearing to the half-felled wood on the other side,
licking up everything that came in its way, so that they stood in a
half circle of fire, and might find themselves surrounded unless
fleetness of foot and coolness of brain could save them.
All this flashed through Jack's brain with the rapidity of lightning.
"Eva," he said, speaking as quietly as he could, "we must hurry up a
bit; that fire is coming our way. Give us your hand! We must get
along as fast as ever we can."
But Eva stood stock still, looking round with eyes dilated with
terror.
"Take me back, Jack! Oh! how I wish we had never come."
"We can't get back," Jack answered with a little thrill in his voice.
"You mustn't cry, Eva! There's no time to cry. Be a brick, do as I
tell you, and _don't be afraid_! We'll get through all right."
Something of Jack's high courage gave Eva fresh heart, and they raced
along hand in hand, but Jack though he spoke cheerily, was fully
aware of their danger; the roaring of the fire drew ever nearer and
nearer; clouds of smoke and sparks flew close on their heels, and the
glowing heat of the wind was making itself felt very unpleasantly.
Presently Eva released the hand that dragged her along with a gasp.
"I can't, I can't," she cried, with sobbing breath. "I can't run
another yard."
"You'll get your second wind in a minute," said Jack, almost in
despair. "Look here!"--sinking on to his knees. "Climb up, climb up
I say. I'll carry you on my back," and almost before she knew what
he did he had hoisted her on to his shoulders, but with all the will
in the world it was only for a very short distance that he could
carry her. The perspiration was dripping from his head and face, and
Eva saw it and knew he was nearly played out.
"Let me down," she said, struggling to free herself. "My breath is
coming back. I'll run again now."
"All right," Jack said, slipping her gently to the ground. "Keep
your pecker up! We shall beat the old fire yet! D'you see that it's
coming up slowly this way and turning away from where Woodlands is
yonder? Another few minutes, if we can keep up the pace, we'll be
out of its reach," so half walking, half running, they hurried on
again, casting fearful glances backwards and around to see if the
flames were gaining ground. Presently Jack threw up his arms with a
wild hurrah.
"We're through, Eva, we're through all right! I hear the cries of
the beaters fighting back the flames," and true enough, at some
distance from them were the farmer and his sons and a neighbour or
two who had hurried to the rescue, beating back the flames which,
snake-like, were creeping insidiously along towards the farmer's
crops.
All danger of being surrounded now by the fire was over, and the
wayworn travellers proceeded more leisurely to the homestead, which
was close at hand, but as Jack's fingers wrestled with the latch of
the gate, he found them trembling so much as to be almost beyond
control. They were scarcely inside it, before Mrs. Butler and
Jessie, who stood watching the progress of the fire in the verandah,
recognised them and hurried down to meet them.
"Jack! Eva!" cried Jessie, and the surprise in her tone was even
greater than Eva had pictured it, but the poor child was far too worn
out with fatigue and excitement to understand anything but that she
was with friends and in a place of safety. She threw out her arms to
Jessie with a little cry, and the next moment was sobbing her very
heart out on her shoulder.
"But where do you come from?" asked Mrs. Butler, looking down on
Jack's quivering face.
"From Wylmington Falls. We came up there--a lot of us--for a picnic,
and it suddenly came into our heads, Eva's and mine, that we'd walk
on and pay you a surprise visit, but we've been racing the fire, and
she's about done for."
"Poor lamb! Give her to me," said Mrs. Butler, stretching out her
arms for Eva. "The child is half dead with terror and fatigue.
We'll put her to bed at once, and she'll sleep it off."
But a fresh terror presented itself to Jack's mind. What would those
they had left behind them think of their non-appearance? Aunt Betty
was not one to make a fuss, but if he and Eva did not come that
night, Jack, boy as he was, guessed something of the pain she would
endure, and there was Eva's mother as well. Something must be done
to let them know that they were safe, but what did not yet appear.
* * * * *
The party at the falls were detained much longer than they expected
on their climb. First one or two of them were anxious to obtain the
very best possible views of the upper cascades, and their companions
were quite willing to rest whilst the photographers were at work, and
then, in descending from the topmost fall, Clarissa slipped,
wrenching her ankle rather severely, and first handkerchiefs were
sacrificed to make a bandage, and then it was a matter of real
difficulty to get her down the remainder of the way, so that it was
nearly two hours before the company were reassembled for tea. Mrs.
Kenyon, who was in considerable pain, was made as comfortable as
possible in an improvised easy chair of cushions and brake fern, and
the party scattered in different directions, collecting wood for the
fire whilst Tom carried off the billy to the river to fill, in
readiness for tea.
"Cooey for the children, will you?" said Betty, lifting a hot face
from the fire she was coaxing into ablaze. "The idle rogues should
have had this all ready for us. Jack is a famous boy for a fire."
So Tom returned to the river, looking up and down its banks for the
children, who he felt sure were not far off, and sent a long cooey
ringing down the water, but no answer came to his call.
"I can't see them anywhere," he said, returning to Betty.
"How tiresome of them to have wandered so far. I wonder what
direction they have taken. Mother, did you see Jack and Eva go off
together? Do you know what has become of them?"
"I fancy I caught sight of them hurrying off towards the bridge,"
said another lady. "Jack had a basket slung on his back, so depend
upon it they were in search of berries of sorts. There are a good
many ripening just now in the bush."
"Here, mother, put in the tea; the billy is boiling," said Betty.
"I'll just run up towards the bridge and have a look for them."
"I'd come with you if I weren't as lame as a duck," said Clarissa,
"but ever since the bullock incident, I've always felt Eva as safe
with Jack as with a man."
"I'll come," said Tom. "You shall look in one direction, and I in
another. It's impossible that they can be very far away," and he
took his place at Betty's side.
"How oppressive the day has become! or is it that I'm hurried, and a
little flurried as well?" Betty said with an uneasy laugh. "I'm not
a nervous woman, but I confess I'm rather frightened at the children
not being here, and I'm blaming myself also for having left them so
long."
"Depend upon it we shall see them coming over the bridge lugging an
enormous basket of blackberries. Eva was full of importance over
some secret scheme that she and Jack were going to carry out, and it
may have taken longer than they calculated, as our expedition did
this afternoon."
The commonplace suggestion soothed Betty without quite satisfying
her. Tom threw up his head suddenly, scenting the hot air.
"The heat is explained also, I think, by the fact that there must be
a bush fire not very far away. I smell the delicious pungency of its
burning, and the coppery look of the clouds veiling the sun suggests
smoke."
"A bush fire near here," said Betty, turning a white face on him.
"You don't think that by any chance the children have wandered into
the bush and----" her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth,
refusing to voice her fears.
"Oh, dear no," said Tom ready to bite out his own tongue at having
hinted at the fire. "I feel that they have wandered far down the
river, possibly to some haunt Jack thought a likely one for
blackberries."
That suggestion did not comfort Betty greatly. What was more likely
than that Eva, venturing too near the river, might have slipped in,
and that Jack and she had drowned together in his effort to save her.
and were they caught in the fire in the bush their fate would be no
less horrible! The fear, kept to herself, was too terrible to bear.
"I'm frightened," she said, trying to smile off her terror. "I feel
as if something frightful had happened to the children."
"It's scarcely like you to give way to nerves," Tom said with a
smile. "You go along the road for a little way, and I will follow on
by the river bank. Cooey when you want me to come back;" but he
could not smother his own anxiety as he scrambled along.
Presently he heard a long cooey, and cooeyed an answer with a sense
of triumph.
"And here we've been full of fears, like a couple of grandmothers,
and she's found them coming back like a pair of puppies, a little
ashamed of themselves for having run away," he said, with a joyous
little laugh, but it was Betty alone he saw crossing the bridge when
he arrived there.
"I thought surely you were bringing them with you."
"I've found--this," Betty said, holding out a large white ribbon bow.
"It's Eva's bow."
"And where?"
"At the turning which leads to the bush."
Their eyes met for a moment. "That, at any rate, gives us some clue
as to where to look for them. We ought to be thankful for the bow
and its message."
"What message?" asked Betty.
"That they are safe somewhere, I feel certain of it. I was more
frightened by the river than the bush. Strayed children can be
found."
The sound of wheels from behind them made them look round, and they
saw that already some of their party were on their homeward way.
"What are you about, you two?" said the man, drawing rein with a
good-natured laugh. "Tea will be over and done with before you get
back. I've got to be back with my missus to look after the farm.
I'd advise you to hurry up if you don't want to miss your rations,"
and before they could answer, or explain the cause of their delay, he
had whipped up his horses and had passed on his way, the grating
sound of the brakes dying out in the distance.
"We must get back and tell them," said Betty, "and then we must set
about a systematic search. I'm thankful those people did not stop to
learn what was the matter."
Neither spoke as they hurried back to their companions. Clarissa
Kenyon's terror when she heard the children were lost was absolutely
ungovernable in its expression.
"Lost!" she cried. "And you two stand here and do nothing?"
She tried to get on to her feet, but the pain in her ankle made her
sink back into her seat with a little cry.
"We will do all we can," said Tom quietly, "and we have some little
clue in Eva's ribbon."
Clarissa snatched it from him, and covered it with kisses.
"Joseph's coat, Joseph's coat," she said wildly. "Some evil has
befallen the child as it had befallen him. Ah! what will become of
me if I am to lose her?"
Betty knelt beside her with her arms round her.
"We must neither say it nor think it," she said. "Your brother and I
and one or two others are off in search of them. Mother, will you
and Clarissa go home? It's quite impossible that you can stay here."
"I shall stay whatever happens," said Clarissa. "Is it likely I
shall go whilst Eva's fate hangs in the balance?"
"But it doesn't hang," said a husky voice from behind. "It's because
I knew you'd be in such a funk about her that I've come," and there
advanced into the circle a boy with grimed face and torn clothes that
only those who knew him best could recognize as Jack.
"Jack! Jack!" cried Betty, throwing her arms about him, and her
enormous feeling of relief found vent in hysterical laughter.
Questions poured in on the boy from every side.
"Where had he come from, where was Eva?" etc., but Tom, watching
Jack's face paling under its grime, knew him fairly played out.
"Eva is with Jessie," was all he could gasp out, and he would have
fallen to the ground but that Tom's arms caught him and laid him down
gently on a bed of fern.
"Give him air and space and a drink of water. His story can wait
till later. It's enough to know they are safe."
Tom's intervention saved Jack from fainting, and in a few minutes he
was able to relate what had occurred.
"And when Eva was put to bed," he said, "I ran off to join the
beaters, but I found the fire had swept on, taking a different
course, so there was no need for further alarm. Then I sneaked off
on my own to see if there was a chance of getting back to you, and I
got through somehow."
"Came through the bush?" said Tom. "It was a horrible risk."
"But someone had to come, and I found a place where the fire had not
caught on much, and I made a dash for it and dodged it, racing from
tree to tree. No, I've not a burn on me. The soles of my boots are
scorched and my clothes half off my back, because I could not stop to
pick my way, and the fire had only penetrated quite a narrow way into
the bush. The puzzle was when I came to the far side of it to find
the track. I should have been here quicker else."
"But you found it all right at last."
"Yes, I found it safe enough. That's why I wanted to get off whilst
it was daylight. Even with a moon I should have lost my way."
"But what of those left behind?"
Jack made a little grimace. "I never thought of them, only of you,
but it's different, isn't it? Eva's all right. She'll sleep as
sound as a top till the morning, and for the rest, I don't belong to
them as I do to Aunt Betty."
"No, no," said Clarissa Kenyon, seizing one of Jack's hands, and
laying her soft cheek against it. "They will only wonder vaguely
what has become of you, but my heart was breaking, Jack, breaking
with the fear that I had lost my little Eva. God bless you for
bringing me the news of her safety."
Jack drew away his hand uneasily as her tears fell on it, and tried
to rub it clean.
"Come along, Jack, come down to the river and have a wash and a comb
up before we start for home," said Aunt Betty, in her matter-of-fact
way, but Jack never guessed that her heart was thumping against her
ribs with joy and pride in the boy who was ready to go through fire
or water if he thought that duty demanded it of him, and her pride
found its lawful expression later when she found herself alone with
Tom for a minute.
"Yes," he answered with quiet satisfaction. "He promises to turn
into a boy that his father will be proud of one day."
CHAPTER XII
GOING HOME
"Jack," called Betty, a few days afterwards, "come in a minute. I
want to speak to you."
Jack passed in rapid review his conduct of the last few days, and
decided that there was nothing Aunt Betty could want to lecture him
about, and yet the brevity of the summons sounded like the preface to
a lecture. He came up the paddock rather reluctantly.
"Well," he said, joining her in the verandah, but not sitting down.
"Don't keep me long, there's a dear. I'm making an aeroplane, and
it's frightfully exciting."
"But I think the news I have for you will be frightfully exciting
too," she said smiling at him.
Jack's eyes shone like stars. "Is it that father's coming?"
Betty's heart smote her that she had raised the boy's hope so high
only to dash it again.
"Not quite so exciting as that, but something that will get you more
ready to go to England. Father wants you to go to school in
Melbourne, a boys' school that Uncle Tom knows about, and thinks a
good one. Father is very anxious that you should be working hard now
so that you will be able to take your place with other boys of your
age when you go home."
Jack seized his cap from his head and sent it spinning into the air
with a whoop of triumph.
"I should say it just was exciting! Why, Aunt Betty, it's glorious."
His delight was so natural, that Betty would not dim it by any
expression of personal regret. Besides, although she did not tell
Jack this, his father's decision was the result of her own advice.
She did not consider that the experiment of sending him to the State
school had answered. He was too well known to every boy in the
place, and was contracting acquaintances she did not care for him to
make, and imitating follies that were by no means harmless, and she
believed a complete change of companionship would be better for him
and for his progress in learning. She knew that Captain Stephens was
making not only a name but some money by his inventive skill and
mastership of aircraft, and that it was his full intention to give
Jack a good education, so she had written some months back suggesting
the change of school and saying that she believed her influence over
Jack stood a better chance of making itself felt when he was away
from her and constantly in need of her than now, when more than half
his time was spent out of her sight, and when her presence at home
was so completely a matter of course that he scarcely realised its
value. And from Jack's father had come an entirely reassuring
answer. No mother could have his little son's interests more
entirely at heart than Betty, and he was quite willing to accept her
judgment, and that of the man who had acted the part of a kind and
wise elder brother to Jack, and to send him to the school Tom Chance
recommended.
"And you need not worry about ways and means. Let Jack have a proper
school outfit. You will know what he needs better than I. It was
certainly my wish at first that he should remain with you at all
hazards until I could come and fetch him, but the time has been
longer than I at first expected, and I quite see the force of your
argument that he shall be able to take his proper standing with other
boys of his age on his return, and possibly the education of a State
school would hardly prepare him for this. Is it asking too much that
Tom Chance will keep an eye to him as regards religious matters? A
boy's first plunge into school life is an important era in his life.
I'm not sure that Mr. Chance is still in the colony, but if you are
in touch with him tell him what I feel about it."
All this was running through Betty's mind as she listened to Jack's
outpouring of delight.
"And when am I going, Aunt Betty?"
"Next term if you can be taken in. I've already written to the
head-master about you, for this has been in our heads for some time,
although I could not mention it to you until I knew father's
decision. Now I see no reason why you should not travel back to
Melbourne under Uncle Tom's care."
Jack fairly danced with joy.
"I'm off, Aunt Betty; I'm off to find Uncle Tom, and to tell Eva.
She'll mind rather much, I fancy, but I'll tell her she can write to
me if she likes, and I'll answer as I get time," and away he flew,
leaving Betty half amused and half heart-sore.
"A budding lord of creation," she said to Tom later in the day when
he came to talk matters over with her.
"Women and girls find their right place in looking after him."
The words were playful, but there was an under-lying sadness in them.
"It's partly the fault of the women and the girls who spoil boys and
men, isn't it? But there's scarcely one amongst us but owns in his
secret heart that all that is noble in him he owes to the influence
of some good woman--a mother, a sister, or an aunt--and Jack, come to
man's estate, will look back and call Aunt Betty's name blessed."
Tears stood in Betty's eyes, but her smile was sweet and tender.
"If that prophecy comes true, I shall consider that life has been
worth living," she said.
"Let us hope that there may be other causes by that time which will
make your life very much worth living; others who will need you even
more than little Jack, a husband, perhaps, and--children of your own."
The colour mounted to Betty's face flooding it from brow to chin,
then faded leaving her deadly pale. Tom was standing over her
looking down on her with a smile that told her more clearly than any
words that he loved her, that the husband his imagination pictured
was himself.
"Betty," he said, using her Christian name for the first time, "I did
not mean to speak yet. I meant to wait until I am recalled to
England and have a likelihood of a home to offer you, but your regret
at losing your Jack led me on. Should I do, can you think of me as
the husband? Betty, my dear, my whole heart cries out to you, I love
you so. I don't know when it began, but I almost think it was the
first day we ever met, and you caught me at cricket. It will be the
biggest blow of my life if you catch me out now. Betty, my sweet
one, what answer will you give me? My whole happiness hangs on it.
Is it yes, or no?"
Betty looked into his face with a tremulous smile, put out her hands
to him, and the next moment was clasped in his arms.
"My darling," he said, as he reverently kissed her, "you shall never
have cause to regret your decision."
In the first few moments of their tumultuous happiness neither wished
to speak; it was enough for Betty to feel Tom's arm round her, and to
know that she was his for evermore, his helpmeet, sharing his home
and work, the one man in the world she had ever loved, for a pretty
helpful girl like Betty had had other men who wished to marry her,
but not one of them had even set her pulses beating, much less
suggested himself as her husband, but now she had entered her
kingdom! Was ever girl quite as happy as she was at this moment?
Later on they talked of their future. Tom had mapped out work that
would take him about two years to carry through, and then he meant to
go home.
"And you will come with me, Betty darling, come with me as my wife,"
he said joyously. "I wonder if you realise what you are doing in
marrying me. It's rather like catching a lark and shutting it up in
a close dark cage, for my work will lie in some slum parish probably,
where sorrow and sin will close you in on every side, and after your
free country-life out here, you will feel choked by it often and
often."
"I daresay I shall, but--I shall have you," said Betty, simply.
"Shall we go and tell mother?"
Mr. and Mrs. Treherne's consent was a foregone conclusion, and
separation from their only daughter being as yet a thing in the
distance, left them free now to rejoice in her happiness. Ted's
congratulations when he came in from the farm were rather less hearty.
"It's rather a mean trick to play," he said. "You had all England to
choose from, and you come out here and want to carry off our Betty,
and there's not a girl who can hold a candle to her in all the
colony, is there, mother?"
"Not one," said Mrs. Treherne, giving the hand she held a squeeze.
"And that's the very reason why I want to take her home when the time
comes," said Tom with a happy laugh. "I want them to see the kind of
girl the colony can produce. I don't underrate her, Ted."
"I won't stay and be discussed as if I wasn't here," said Betty,
blushing a little. "Ought not we to go and see Clarissa, Tom?" so
they walked off together down the paddock, hand-in-hand.
"And that's how they'll walk off one day for good and all," said Ted,
watching them moodily from the verandah. "Hang it all, mother. I
wonder you can take it so quietly. Why can't she marry some man in
the colony, and stay in the land she belongs to? They will only look
down upon her in England," but that fired Mrs. Treherne into speech.
"Look down on her! Look down on my Betty! Isn't it because I know
that to Tom she is the one woman in all the world that I give my
consent to his carrying her away? But don't rub it in, Ted," and her
tone was a little weary. "She's not going yet for a year or two, and
every mother has to face the fact that the young ones she has reared
and loved will fly off sometime and make nests of their own. It's
God's law, and there is no escaping it."
Ted bent and brushed his bronzed cheek against hers.
"No fear, mother. There's one who will stick by the old birds, and
keep their nest warm and dry for them," he said gruffly, and stirred
by an unusual emotion he strolled off to the farm and solaced himself
with a pipe.
Meanwhile no explanations were necessary with Clarissa. She just
glanced at the smiling faces, saw the clasped hands, and burst into a
laugh.
"So it's settled at last," she said, her own hands closing over their
clasped ones, "but the wonder to me is why you have been so long
about it, for you've known your own minds long enough. Betty, my
dear, you're a lucky woman."
"As if I didn't know it," protested Betty, as Clarissa kissed her.
"But I remember your telling me almost the first night I came that
you should like a sister just like Betty," Tom grumbled.
"So I did, so I do, but all the same I call her a lucky sister in
marrying you," and with that assertion Betty was well content.
"Shall you tell the children?" Clarissa asked later.
"Oh yes," Betty said. "I never see the use of making mysteries out
of things that are clear and true as daylight, and to Jack it will
make no difference. He claimed Tom as his uncle long ago. Where are
they, Clarissa? Jack rushed off here in great excitement to tell the
news of his going to school, and I have not seen him since."
"They are in the garden, I think. Eva is full of lamentation that
she was not born a boy, so that she might go to school with Jack, but
he comforts her by reminding her that she would be in a lower form,
and would see little of him!"
"He's a little beyond himself; he'll come back to his bearings
directly," Tom said. "It's the first event of importance that has
come to him. Come, Betty; we will find them."
They sat side by side in the swing, their heads close together deep
in conversation, but at sight of Aunt Betty and Tom, Jack sprang to
the ground and came rushing towards them.
"Uncle Tom, has Aunt Betty told you? Do you know I'm going to
school?"
"Yes, I know that and something else which makes me very glad,
happier than I've ever been in all my life."
"What?" asked Jack and Eva in chorus.
"That some day, when I go home, Aunt Betty will marry me, and go home
with me as my wife. That's a big bit of news, isn't it, Jack?"
Eva laughed and clapped her hands, but Jack stood looking from Tom to
Aunt Betty, with a slight air of bewilderment.
"Then she'll stay with you for ever and ever?" he said.
"I hope so, Jack," said Tom, with a little laugh.
"And you'll be my real uncle, not a pretence one?"
"Yes," said Tom again.
"Then I'm jolly glad, and oh, Aunt Betty," fresh light dawning on
him, "it will mean that I'll have you always too the same as I do
now. I think I'm almost as glad as Uncle Tom," and forgetful of his
boyish dignity his arms closed round her neck in a rapturous hug, and
Betty, as she held him fast, felt no congratulation on her engagement
was quite so dear and sweet as his.
* * * * *
The days would have dragged heavily after Jack's departure but for
the new great happiness which filled Betty's heart to overflowing.
Tom had taken Jack to school and installed him there, a very good
school Tom told her, with a wholesome religious basis, where "Jack
will get such teaching as you and his father would wish him to have,"
Tom wrote, and Betty was content in this, as in all things, to rely
upon Tom's judgment.
Months passed by, Jack came for his first holidays full of his
school-mates, and, what pleased Betty more, very full of his work.
He was developing rather an extraordinary turn for mathematics and
mechanics, and spent most of his recreation time in the workshop
attached to his school, intent upon models of various sorts, and
Betty rejoiced and sympathised with his hobby. It was all helping to
get him ready for his future work.
Meanwhile, as the months ran into years, Betty went on quite quietly
and contentedly with her own work--her preparations for her marriage
which she now knew not to be far distant. Had not Tom said he would
come to fetch her in about two years? The dainty garments she
fashioned were finished one by one and laid by in a box which she
named her glory box.
"For it is a glory, mother, to be loved by a man like Tom," she said.
"Then my gift shall be the household linen," said Mrs. Treherne, and
side by side with the glory box there stood a large chest which
received Mrs. Treherne's contributions as they were folded and marked
in readiness for Betty's marriage.
And true to his promise when the two years were nearly completed Tom
wrote a letter, almost incoherent in its happiness, to tell her he
was coming to claim his own.
"I shall bring Jack along with me, for, as you know, his holidays
will be due, and the dear boy is looking forward with sober happiness
to his Confirmation day. I always promised to be present at it if I
were still in the Colony, and the Bishop, I hear, holds one at
Wallaroo about the 21st of December. Jack's preparation has been a
careful one, and by his letters to me I think his mind is fully made
up to continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant unto his life's
end. He had his choice of being confirmed in the cathedral at
Melbourne, when some other lads from his school received the laying
on of hands, but he wrote that he would rather wait for the
Confirmation in his own little church at home, 'when you and Aunt
Betty will be there with me.' I thought it sweet of the boy, but,
indeed, my Betty, I think Jack will turn into a boy you will have
every cause to be proud of."
And the post which brought that letter brought another which was
almost as important. Jack's father was coming to take his boy home;
indeed, within a week of the letter's departure he would be on his
way. Pressure of business would make his stay in the colony a short
one, "but I always promised Jack to come and fetch him, and I will
keep my word."
He gave the name of the liner in which his passage was taken, and the
date when she was due at Melbourne.
"But mother--it's too delightful," said Betty, looking up from the
letter. "Jack's father is coming and is due in Melbourne on the 18th
or 19th of December. By good luck he should be here on Jack's
Confirmation day. Won't it be beautiful if he is?"
And through the coming weeks Betty lived on in happy expectation,
wondering what she had done to deserve such happiness. Jack was
coming, and Jack's father, and, what was greater still, her own Tom,
from whom, God willing, she would never again be separated.
Clarissa had clamoured to make her her wedding gown, but Betty
asserted she did not mean to have one.
"Tom and I are of one mind," she said. "We think the greatest and
holiest day of our lives shall not be desecrated by flutter and fuss.
I'll be married in a coat and skirt, a white one if you prefer it,
and we mean to have no fuss of any kind, and we want only those
present who love us, and will say their prayers for us. We have not
yet settled the day, but it will be pretty soon after he comes, for
he has marching orders to return to England. He means to take our
passages for about the end of the year. Don't you wish you were
coming too?"
"No, I don't," said Clarissa, vehemently. "I love this place and its
kind, warm-hearted people, and I love your father and mother, and
mean to make up your loss to them as far as I can. I know it will be
very imperfectly accomplished, but just think of the desolation which
will be theirs when you've left them for good, gone out of their
reach, Betty."
Tears stood in Betty's eyes. "Yes, I know, and often I wonder at
myself for doing it, and yet--it's not that I love them less than I
ever did, that I don't know what I'm leaving behind me, but if Tom
were going to the uttermost parts of the earth I feel my call to go
with him. I love him better than life itself, Clarissa. Don't you
know what I mean?"
Clarissa was very white. "Yes, I loved George like that, but, unlike
you, I married without the sanction of my father, and I never felt
that God's blessing followed me as it will follow you, my Betty,
going before and after like the pillar of cloud that guided the
Israelites. It's because I love George so dearly that I don't want
to go home. I want to live and die in the country where we spent our
short married life together."
On the 16th of December Betty stood in her simple white gown waiting
at the corner of the green lane for the evening coach that was to
bring Tom and Jack from the station, and as she heard the rattle of
the wheels and the sound of the galloping horses breasting the hill,
her own heart beat in joyful sympathy, for her happiness was close at
hand. And almost before the coach stood still, Tom and Jack had
jumped from their seats on the top, and were taking her eagerly
between them up the green lane towards the farm.
"But, Jack, you grow by feet, not by inches," said Betty, putting him
a little away from her that she might see him more distinctly.
"Father will feel quite shy of you."
"More than I'll be of him, then. Do you see he's won a medal for his
last invention, Aunt Betty? Isn't he glorious? The boys at school
chaff me because they say I'm always boasting about father, and I
tell them they would boast too if they had a father like him to boast
about. Why, there's Eva, waiting at the gate. I'll just run on and
have a word with her."
Then Tom and Betty were left alone, and took a long look into each
other's eyes.
"Well, darling! Are you ready for me?"
"Quite ready. Have I not said so often enough."
"And you will marry me any day I like?"
"Yes, mother knows we both wish it to be as quiet as possible, to
have no splash breakfast, not even a wedding cake."
"Then I've settled it," said Tom joyously. "I saw the Bishop at
Launceston and he's kind enough to express a wish to perform the
Service. The Confirmation is to be quite early in the morning of the
twenty-first and if you could fix the wedding to take place
immediately after it, it would be delightful. It's short notice, but
will it suit you, my darling? The time has dragged just lately Your
face, your dear face, has come between me and my work. We've been
pretty patient, I think. Will your mother object?"
"The time will suit me, and I don't think mother will object," said
Betty, slipping her hand into his. "She is prepared for us to sail
about the end of the year. She knows the parting is quite close;
sometimes I think the strain tells on her. It will be better for her
when it's over. We needn't tell anyone, Tom. We'll be married and
slip away somewhere."
"To Melbourne," said Tom, "or we'll keep our Christmas at Launceston
and your luggage can follow us there."
"And it's a good time in a way for us to be going, for Jack's father
will be here and take away the bitterness of the parting. He will be
following us soon to England."
"Betty, are you afraid, afraid to trust yourself to me all that long
distance from home? It's a tremendous trust you give me."
Betty turned her face, glorified by love, to his.
"Afraid! with _you_, Tom!" and Tom was satisfied.
CHAPTER XIII
TWO VENTURES OF HOPE
It was the evening before Jack's confirmation and Tom's and Betty's
wedding day. Up and down the paddock paced Tom and Jack, arm in arm,
and Tom's heart was almost as full of the boy who gripped his arm as
of the fair woman whom he would call wife on the morrow.
"It will be a great day for us both, Jack," he said, giving
expression to his thought.
"Yes, Uncle Tom."
"Your whole life may depend upon your decision."
"Yes, it's rather awful when you come to think of it."
"It would be if you did not feel sure that the hosts of God, that God
Himself is behind you."
"Uncle Tom, I want to grow into just such a man as you."
"Ah no," said Tom quickly. "There is but one model for us all to
copy, the man Christ Jesus."
Jack's heart was too full to answer.
"I do wish father could have got here in time," he said, wistfully.
"Aunt Betty thinks he will appear some time to-morrow, but she does
not think it possible that he can arrive in time for the service."
"I heartily wish he could for all our sakes. Aunt Betty is almost as
keen as you, for she longs to get a glimpse of him before I carry her
off. We leave for Launceston in the afternoon."
"It would be just beastly if I did not know that I shall see you both
in England in a few months' time; but now I shall have father, and
going about with him all the time, I shan't be able to miss anyone
very much. I wish girls didn't cry. Whenever I talk of going to
England, Eva cries or blows her nose to prevent it! Men aren't made
like that, are they? It would be horrid if they were! I always tell
her to dry up, and perhaps some day, when I'm a man, I'll come out
and marry her."
Tom laughed out loud; it was rather refreshing to find that the boy
at his side, so manly in some ways, was still at heart as innocent as
a child.
"But Eva might have found someone else to marry by that time," he
suggested.
"Oh, of course if she did it would be all right, and she would not
want me," said Jack, nonchalantly, in no way affected at the thought
of the loss of his ladylove. "She has cheered up a bit since Aunt
Betty has consented to her being bridesmaid, although she's not to be
dressed up fine, just a new white frock and a white muslin hat, she
says."
Then Aunt Betty's voice, ringing down the paddock, called them both
in to supper.
The little church was full to overflowing on the morrow, for quick as
had been the final choice of the wedding day the rumour of it had
spread like fire through the township, and loving hands had been busy
on the previous afternoon, decorating the tiny sanctuary with Madonna
lilies and other white flowers for the double service. And all had
been carried through so quickly and quietly that no one at the farm
knew anything of it.
It was only a handful of candidates that were presented for
Confirmation, not more than a score, but of those it may be said that
the present Vicar had spent much time and prayer on their
preparation. The candidates were ranged in the front seats, and
quite at the back of the church was seated the party from the farm,
with Clarissa and Eva, and the intervening benches were filled with
neighbours from the township. The only one who had come from a
distance was Jessie Butler, who hearing that her friend of earlier
years was to be confirmed, and remembering his presence at her own
confirmation, had come to stay a night or two with someone in
Wallaroo on purpose to be present when Jack was confirmed.
The congregation rose simultaneously to its feet as the Bishop,
preceded by the Vicar, appeared from the tiny vestry, and the service
began with a hymn, during the singing of which the rather unusual
sound of a motor driving at full speed and brought to a sudden
standstill outside the open door of the little church, fell upon
Betty's ear. Could it be the sudden arrival of a belated candidate.
But creeping quietly into the church, her glad eyes recognised Jack's
father, standing hesitatingly in the doorway. He had motored all the
way from Launceston to be present at his son's Confirmation, and Mr.
Treherne, with a quick movement, motioned him to Betty's side. It
was the one presence she and Jack needed to make the day perfect in
their eyes. And a great joy and thankfulness filled the elder Jack's
heart, as he recognised his tall boy standing at the head of the row
of boy candidates, and heard his emphatic promise to renew his
baptismal promises and serve God manfully for the rest of his life,
and when it came to Jack's turn to kneel before the Bishop and
receive the laying on of hands, Betty's hand sought for a moment that
of her brother-in-law, and together they sank upon their knees and
prayed very fervently for God's blessing on the head of the boy who
was almost equally dear to both of them.
The Bishop's charge was a very simple one, but the earnest words
could scarcely fail to reach the hearts of all who listened to them,
and a reverent hush fell on the congregation as he pronounced the
blessing. And then there was a pause for those who wished to leave
the church, but not one stirred from his place. They waited for what
was to follow. Then Tom, with a glance at Betty, moved to the
chancel steps to be followed immediately by Betty, leaning on her
father's arm, while little Eva with round wondering eyes took her
place behind, and forthwith the wedding service proceeded. Jack's
father, meanwhile, had walked up the church and taken his own place
by his son.
Then, in low clear voices, fully audible to all present, Tom and
Betty spoke out their promises to be true and loyal to each other as
long as life should last. There were those in the congregation who
beforehand had grumbled that such an unusual event as a wedding
should be carried through in what they were pleased to call such a
hole-and-corner fashion, but criticism vanished when the simply
attired bride came down the church upon her husband's arm. All felt
the bright-faced bride was in her right setting.
The Bishop, after shaking hands with the wedding couple, had to hurry
off for another function, and then the wedding party walked quietly
back to the farm, where a meal, laid in readiness beforehand, awaited
them. Jack sat by his father and Tom and Betty were placed in the
centre of the table. Just at the end of the meal, Mr. Treherne rose
to his feet.
"God bless my girl, as good a daughter as ever stepped, and God bless
the man she has married," was all he said, and Betty turned and
kissed him.
The last half hour before the buggy came round to carry them to the
station was spent by Betty in her mother's room. What passed between
them none knew, but when Betty came out in her neat travelling dress,
there were traces of tears in her eyes. Then came the hubbub of
adieus, and more farewells had to be spoken at the gate of the
paddock, where half the township had gathered to wish the bride and
bridegroom farewell. Missiles of all description had been tabooed,
but the kindly cheers of her neighbours, the eager outstretched hands
which grasped hers, were a lovely ending to a happy life, thought
Betty, as she drove off with her husband at her side. For she fully
realised that one page of her life was folded down, but another page,
very fair and white, was spread out before her.
What shall be written upon it is not for us to say. Some blots will
surely blister it.
"Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary."
But now as Betty drives away with sunshine in her face and sunshine
in her heart, we breathe the prayer that such days will be few and
far between.
EPILOGUE
_Extract from an English daily paper five years later._
"Special mention should be made of the amazing exhibition of prowess
on the part of Lieutenant Stephens in yesterday's military aeronautic
manoeuvres on Salisbury Plain. His aeroplane, the combined creation
of his father and himself, is of such perfect construction that it is
likely to make their name famous, and the Lieutenant's command of it
left nothing to be desired. He executed feats of skill which have
rarely been surpassed. England has just cause for pride in her
present race of young men, prepared to face every danger in the
service of their country, for it is an open secret that upon the
efficiency of our air fleet, the future safety of our island home
will very largely depend."
This paper, with others, was forwarded in due time to Mrs. Kenyon,
who read aloud the paragraph just quoted to Eva, now a blooming girl
of seventeen. She flew round the table and snatched it from her
mother's hands.
"Let me read it for myself, mother. We shall all feel proud of him.
He's playing our childish game of subduing giants to some purpose,
isn't he? He's fairly earned his rights to his title of 'Jack, the
Englishman.' I'm ever so glad. I'll run across to the farm and tell
them about it."
Clarissa laughed at the girl's enthusiasm.
"They are perfectly certain to have these papers as well as
ourselves. Isn't he their grandson?"
"And a grandson to be proud of! I wish he were mine, or a brother or
something. Oh mother! I wonder--Shall we ever see him again?"
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