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Title: Two secrets, and, A man of his word
Author: Hesba Stretton
Illustrator: F. E. Hiley
Sydney Seymour Lucas
Release date: March 21, 2025 [eBook #75676]
Language: English
Original publication: United Kingdom: The Religious Tract Society, 1897
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO SECRETS, AND, A MAN OF HIS WORD ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: "I'VE SAID I'LL PUT A STOP TO IT AND I'LL DO IT."]
TWO SECRETS
AND
A MAN OF HIS WORD
BY
HESBA STRETTON
AUTHOR OF "JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER," "ALONE IN LONDON,"
"NO PLACE LIKE HOME," "THE CHRISTMAS CHILD," ETC.
London
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4, BOUVERIE STREET AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD
BUTLER & TANNER
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS
FROME, AND LONDON.
STORIES BY HESBA STRETTON
The Children of Cloverley | The King's Servants
Enoch Roden's Training | Little Meg's Children
Fern's Hollow | The Lord's Purse-Bearers
In the Hollow of His Hand | Alone in London
Pilgrim Street | Lost Gip
A Thorny Path | Max Kromer
Cassy | The Storm of Life
The Crew of the "Dolphin" | Jessica's First Prayer
Jessica's Mother | Under the Old Roof
Left Alone | No Place Like Home
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 4 BOUVERIE STREET
CONTENTS
TWO SECRETS
A MAN OF HIS WORD
CHAP. I. HIS ONLY CHILD
" II. "CAST OUT"
" III. HIS GRANDSON
" IV. HIS OWN WAY
" V. A CRITICAL MOMENT
" VI. A TRUE MAN
TWO SECRETS
AND
A MAN OF HIS WORD
TWO SECRETS
[Illustration]
ABOUT a stone's throw from the last house in the small country town of
Armitage stood a cottage which had scarcely changed in aspect since it
had been built two hundred years ago. The gambrel roof was high-pitched
and closely thatched, with deep eaves, under which the swallows built
their nests; the little elbow in the slope of the gable gave it a
quaint look, as if the cottage had drawn a hood over its head. Along
the top of the roof grew a row of purple flags, which contrasted well
with the brown thatch and golden lichens. Casements, with small diamond
windows, glistened in the light. A garden full of old-fashioned flowers
ran down from the road to the little porch, which sheltered the door
from rough weather, and made a pleasant and shady seat in the summer.
It was certainly the most picturesque dwelling in the neighbourhood.
"What is the name of your cottage?" asked an artist, who had just
finished a sketch of it.
"Oh! It hasn't any name, sir," answered Joanna Terry—"it's nothing;
only our home."
She had been born there, and had not been away from it for a whole
week at a time for fifty-five years. She hardly knew any other house.
The ground floor of the cottage contained a large, old-fashioned
living-room, with two very small ones opening out of it, one of which
was a kind of scullery, and the other the bedroom in which she had
been born, and where she had slept all her life. Under the gable of
the thatched roof there was a large attic covering the whole area of
the cottage, with sloping ceiling and two windows, one at each end,
looking east and west. Joanna's mind could not grasp the idea of any
improvement in the arrangement of her little homestead.
The tall, spare old woman was still very active and alert, with an
eye keen to detect every weed venturing to grow in the garden, and
every speck of dust that might blow in through the open window and
door. Scarcely a bud opened on the roses and clematis climbing up the
half-timber wall without her notice. The hollyhocks and sunflowers,
standing as erect as herself, were every one known to her. The
potato-patch behind the cottage, which her husband, Amos Terry,
cultivated in his leisure time; the long rows of peas and beans; the
beds of onions and lettuce; the fruit-trees which paid their rent—they
were almost like children to her. Indoors, the old oak settle by the
fireside, the oak table and dresser, all shining with the active work
of her own hands, teemed with associations and memories which formed
the sum and substance of her life. The roof-tree was not more planted
to the spot than Joanna was.
Still more firmly rooted there, if possible, was her only child,
Charlotte, who lived in the pleasant attic under the roof. She was
lame, and an invalid from a spinal complaint, the result of a fall when
she was a little child. It was very seldom that she felt well enough to
creep painfully down the rude staircase to the ground floor. But from
her two windows her eye could overlook both of the garden patches lying
before and behind the house; and she knew everything growing in them as
well as her mother did. Eastward her view was bounded by a low ridge of
hill, above which the morning clouds hung tinged with lovely hues some
time before the sun showed itself over the wooded outline. To the west
there was a wide stretch of undulating land, with meadows and coppices
and scattered cottages, ending far-off in a glimpse of the sea, which
often glittered like gold under the setting of the sun. Charlotte
seldom missed seeing both sunrise and sunset.
She was thirty years of age now, pallid and emaciated, with the
pathetic look in her eyes which cripples and deformed people so often
have. She looked almost as old as her mother. The mother and daughter
had been slowly changing places for the last fifteen years. Charlotte
was the adviser now, the head of the little household, the referee to
whom every question was brought. She was always brooding over schemes
for her father and mother's comfort, and suggesting gently what their
actions should be from day to day. Joanna was still young in spirit,
apt to act impetuously; occasionally giving way to almost girlish fits
of temper, which she confessed and repented of by Charlotte's bedside.
It did not seem possible there could ever come a secret between these
two.
Amos Terry, who was two years older than his wife, had been a rural
postman for thirty-seven years. The daily routine of his work had
never altered. At six o'clock, summer and winter, he presented himself
at the post-office in the town, and received the various letter-bags
which he had to convey along a route, the farthest point of which was
seven miles away. As it was out of the question for him to return home
and walk the same distance again, he remained at this farthest point
all day, and hired a small out-building, where he occupied his time
profitably in mending the boots and shoes of a considerable circle
of customers who valued his careful work. At four o'clock he started
homeward, collected the bags he had distributed in the morning, and
was timed to be at the post-office again at half-past six, soon enough
to make up the evening mail. The old church clock never struck seven
before he was at home, going first thing upstairs to his daughter's
attic. The sight of her face, wan and drawn as it was with pain, but
always lit up with a smile of welcome, was the most precious sight in
the world to him. He had never had a secret from her in his life. His
whole heart and mind and soul lay open to her as absolutely as it is
possible for one human being to be open to another.
"I don't think there's anybody in the world as happy as me," said Amos,
perfectly convinced of the truth of his assertion, "at least, not one
bit happier; they couldn't be."
"Not if Charlotte was strong and well?" suggested Joanna, with a sigh.
It was she who had let her child fall when a baby.
"Maybe I should have gone away and left you," said Charlotte; "it 'ud
never have done for me to live idle here. Or I might have been married,
you know," she added, with a faint blush and a smile.
"Anyhow, it is as the Lord has willed it," Amos answered, "and
sometimes I think He'll be weary of me sayin' how happy I am."
There was very little to disturb that happiness. Ambition was unknown
to them. No religious or political questions perplexed their humble
souls. Care was a long way off, for they had more than enough for
their simple wants. They needed neither fine clothes, nor dainty food,
nor costly furniture. A few old-fashioned books, gathered together by
Joanna's forefathers, were enough for their mental requirements. The
"Pilgrim's Progress" and "Holy War," the "Vicar of Wakefield," the
"Fool of Quality," and "Paradise Lost," were ranged on a little hanging
shelf in Charlotte's attic, and with their Bible and a hymn-book
provided amply for Joanna and Amos, whilst more modern books were now
and then lent to Charlotte by friendly visitors from the town. They had
beautified their little home, and cultivated their garden according to
their own fancy; and if three wishes had been given to them, they would
have been puzzled to fix upon one.
If Joanna knew and loved her house almost as her own soul, Amos also
knew and loved the route he traversed daily in all weathers. More than
six hundred times a year he passed the same cottages, tramped along the
same lanes between high hedgerows, and looked up to the same constantly
changing sky overhead. He loved it ardently though dumbly, possessing
no language that could express his feelings. He was fond of singing,
but he sang somewhat as the birds sing, that know only a strain or two.
Amos knew only a few hymns, and he generally sang them through again
and again as he went to and fro, until the cottagers on his route knew
when he was drawing near, and hastened to their doors or windows to
give him a friendly nod.
It was getting well on In October. The low-lying hills were covered
with coppices of beech-trees, now wearing the loveliest tints of
autumn. Down each valley ran a little rivulet, joining a broad and
rapid but shallow stream, which hurried along a stony channel to the
sea. Amos seldom went home without taking some flower or leafy branch
for Charlotte; and he was gathering a cluster of crimson berries from a
climbing bryony, when a young man, the eldest son of Squire Sutton, of
Sutton Hall, where he had just called for the letter-bag, came running
quickly, though cautiously, after him. He did not shout or call to
Amos; and he was almost out of breath when he reached him.
"Amos," he gasped, "here's a letter. It's a matter of life or death to
me. Let me put it into father's bag."
He had brought the key with him, and Amos watched him unlock and lock
the bag again. He had recovered his breath now, and he looked at Amos
with a world of anxiety in his face.
"You are never too late, I suppose?" he said.
"Now, Master Gerard, you've known me all your life," answered Amos,
"and you might almost as well ask if the sun 'll set at the right time.
I have come and gone on this road nigh on forty year, and never missed
yet. Nobody ever gave me a letter for life or death afore; and it 'ud
be odd indeed if I missed tonight."
As Amos trudged on the sun went down behind the sweet round outline of
one of the low hills, and the sky looking nearer than in the summer,
seemed about to close, like brooding wings, over the quiet woods. Two
or three robins were chirping cheerfully among the thinning leaves,
which came down with a rustle as the cool evening breeze blew up the
valley from the sea. A profound peace rested on all the silent lanes
and meadows he traversed, which would have been too solemn if he had
not loved it so profoundly.
But all in a moment a tumult of children's voices scattered the
silence, and Amos saw a troop of terrified little ones running towards
him and screaming for help. Looking beyond them he saw that one of
their playfellows had fallen into the stream, which was carrying the
child swiftly away towards the sea. He had no time to deliberate; there
was not a moment to lose. In another minute the drowning child would be
abreast of the spot where he stood. He laid his bags down safely on the
bank, and waded into the shallow river, which, a few minutes ago, was
running like a thread of gold between its banks in the radiance of the
setting sun.
There was no great risk in what Amos was doing. The river, unless it
was swollen by rain, was never more than breast-high. He caught the
child in his hands as the current bore it past him, and carried it
in safety to the bank. But there was no one in all the band of its
companions old enough to take care of the little creature. The child's
head had struck against a stone, and it lay a heavy load in his arms.
He must carry it himself to the nearest cottage, which was almost a
mile away. With his letter-bags slung across his shoulders, and his
clothes heavy with water, Amos could not make very rapid progress. The
cottagers were not very willing to take in a strange child, belonging
to nobody but gipsies, and he had some trouble to get them to relieve
him of his charge. More than an hour was gone before he could hasten on
his ordinary way.
And he did hasten. In spite of his wet clothes and sodden boots, he
pushed on along the darkening lanes, and across the dusky meadows, not
losing a moment. It was always Charlotte's custom during the summer to
be at the window about the time he was due, to give him a smile as he
passed by; and when the evenings closed in early she placed a candle on
the window-sill, that its feeble glimmer should show him a welcome. The
candle was shining through the diamond panes, but he hardly saw it as
he rushed past. What Amos did see was the world of anxiety in the young
squire's face, as he said, "You are never too late, I suppose?"
The postmaster was standing out on the pavement, looking down the quiet
street, and the gaslight was turned low in the office, usually so busy
a scene till the time for closing, when Amos staggered, breathless and
worn out, up to the familiar door.
"Why, Amos, my man!" exclaimed the postmaster. "However is this? We
waited till the last moment, and the mail has gone down to the station
these ten minutes. Hark! There's the whistle! The train's off!"
Amos reeled up against the door, as if struck by a gun-shot. He was
too late! It was some minutes before he could tell his story; and the
postmaster, with a good deal of sympathy and approbation, tried to
console him.
"Nobody could blame you, Amos," he said. "I must report the matter to
headquarters, of course, and there will be some inquiry about it, no
doubt. Ten to one there is no letter of importance in your bags."
"Oh, sir!" cried Amos. "Is there nothing can be done? Think if there is
anything can be done."
"Well," he answered, after a moment's pause, "you might catch the
express at Norton Junction. It's perhaps worth trying, but I'm afraid
the department will not allow the expenses. We'll see about that. A
light cart and a good horse would run you into Norton in two hours."
"I'll try for it," said Amos. "Please send word to my wife and
Charlotte, or they'll be fretting all night."
It was an anxious night to Joanna and Charlotte, even though the
postmaster called himself to tell them all that had happened, and to
praise Amos to them. The praises were very gratifying; but the two
women could not help thinking of him driving through the chill October
night in his wet clothing. How sharp the air felt, when they opened the
window to see if there was any rain or fog! The hours wore slowly away.
Joanna kept up a good fire, and had the kettle boiling, and put the old
brass warming-pan ready to warm the bed as soon as Amos came in cold
and famished. But no one came.
"Mother," said Charlotte, towards four o'clock in the morning, "of
course they'd never drive straight there and back again. The poor horse
'ud have to rest, you know."
"Ay, dear love," answered Joanna; "but Amos might come home by the
mornin' mail, and that's just due, I'm thinkin'."
Still the time crept on slowly, and there was no click of the garden
gate, and no step coming down the gravel walk. At the first dawn Joanna
looked out on the garden, with its tall hollyhocks and sunflowers still
bearing a little blossom; but all appeared dull, and grey, and gloomy
to her sleepless, aching eyes. If anything should happen to Amos, even
the Garden of Eden would be a desert to her.
But the worst that happened was a sharp attack of rheumatic fever for
Amos, following upon a kind of fainting fit, which seized him just as
he delivered up his letters to the clerks in the travelling post-office
at Norton Junction. He was promptly carried to the Norton Cottage
Hospital; and there Joanna found him the following afternoon; and she
wept tears of mingled joy and sorrow as she sat at his bedside and
listened to the tale of his remarkable adventures.
"We shall never leave off talkin' of them," he said with a smile, "when
I come home to you and Charlotte."
It was six weeks before he came home. The doctors told him he was quite
well again and might resume his work, but he must take care of himself.
Amos knew this even better than they did. The old buoyant strength, the
careless, untiring delight with which he had been wont to stride along
the old familiar roads, were gone for ever. He loved them as much as
ever; but he did not go out of his way now to look into some secluded
dingle, and he could not afford to pause and listen to any strange cry
in the wintry woods. It was as much as he could do to accomplish his
task. He was even compelled to hire a substitute when the snow lay
heavy on the road, or when torrents of rain were falling. He had paid a
heavy price for saving the life of a tramp's child. No one had thanked
him for it; and he had not even the satisfaction of knowing whom or
where the little creature was.
When he first called at Sutton Hall after his long illness, the
servants told him how the young squire had made a runaway match, much
to his father's displeasure. The young squire and his bride had gone to
foreign parts, nobody knew where; and his father refused to continue
his allowance, though he could not cut off the entail. This was the
matter of life or death; and Amos was not sure that he would have
driven off to Norton in his wet clothes if he had known the secret of
the young squire's anxiety.
"But what's done is done," said Amos to himself; "and I thought I was
doin' what the Lord set for me."
As time went on it became the custom for Joanna to take her husband's
bags, at least every other day, and always in bad weather. The
postmaster, who was friendly to them both, winked at this irregularity;
and none of the great people on the road complained of it. It was
little to Joanna to walk the seven miles out and back again; and the
load was never very heavy. But the long wait of seven or eight hours at
the farthest village was a severe trial to her. She took some sewing or
knitting; but her heart was at home, wondering how Amos and Charlotte
were going on, and longing after her accustomed work in the house and
the garden. Her home seemed, if possible, to grow dearer to her every
day; and her love was heightened by these enforced absences. There was
no other real place in the world to her; it was her world. The joy of
going back to it, and to those who lived in it, was the deepest earthly
joy her soul could feel.
This home was held on a peculiar tenure, which she had all but
forgotten. Joanna's father and uncle had clubbed their money together
to buy it for three lives: their own, and the life of Joanna's cousin,
a lad fifteen years younger than herself, whose probable term of
existence was so far longer than hers. But as her father paid the
larger share of the purchase money, he had stipulated that Joanna
should have the right of inhabiting the cottage on payment of a low
rent to her cousin. When the three lives were ended the freehold went
back to the original owner.
It was nearly three years after Amos met with those adventures, which
had formed the topic of endless conversations, before the postmaster
succeeded in persuading him to resign his post and take the small
pension due to him for his forty years' service. This step would
make a radical change in their lives, and it was as important to him
personally as the resignation of a prime minister.
"We shall get along rarely," said Joanna, though with a shade of
anxiety in her voice; "the garden is worth £12 a year to us; and when
you're at home to help, we shall make more of it. We can hire a bit o'
land, and grow more things, and your pension 'll be a grand help."
"Surely! Surely!" assented Amos.
"And, mother," said Charlotte gently, "let us remember the words of our
Lord Jesus, how He said, 'Take no thought for the morrow—'"
"Ay; but somebody must take thought," Joanna interrupted, "or how 'ud
the work get done? How 'ud the seeds get sown, and the house minded,
and food bought in? Thee and Amos mayn't take thought, but it falls
upon me to do it."
[Illustration: ONE MORNING, AFTER A NIGHT OF HEAVY RAIN,
JOANNA SET OUT FOR THE POST OFFICE.]
"But, mother," said Charlotte, "it means, 'Be not anxious for your
life.' I used to puzzle over it hours and hours, because one must
use forethought, till Mr. Seaford told me the words meant, 'Never be
anxious.' Our Lord says, 'Your Father knows ye have need of these
things'—food, and clothing, and shelter—and He will provide them. Yes,
we shall get along finely."
The question troubled no more any of the three simple souls. Amos was
to give up his work at Christmas, when he would complete the fortieth
year of daily work as a rural letter-carrier, and until then he or his
wife would carry the letter-bags along the familiar roads. One morning
late in October, after a night of heavy rain, Joanna set out for the
post-office, leaving Amos at home in bed, bearing his rheumatic pains
courageously and patiently. She made the fire up with a huge lump of
coal which would smoulder for hours, until Amos got up.
It was still dusk when she passed the cottage on her journey out, and
the beloved roof, with its deep eaves, stood darkly against the cold
grey dawn. A thin column of smoke wavered upward in the dank air.
Joanna held a letter in her hand, directed to herself, which she had
got at the post-office; and the temptation was strong to go in and
strike a light and read it before she went on her way. She received a
letter so seldom! But then every other letter entrusted to her would be
delayed; and who could tell what might be the consequences if she was
unfaithful to her charge? Besides, Amos would be worried. She passed by
steadily, giving a loving nod to the old home under whose roof her only
two beloved ones were sleeping.
It was not until she reached the end of her journey, and had delivered
the last bag at the village post-office, that she sat down in the shed
where Amos was wont to work as a cobbler, and took up the letter. She
read the outer inscription to herself solemnly, and carefully opened
the blue envelope. It was dated from Norton, and began with the word
"Madam!"
"Oh, it's a mistake," cried Joanna, half aloud. "Nobody never called me
Madam!"
But the address was plainly "Mrs. Amos Terry."
"There's nobody else of that name in our place," she reflected, and
went on slowly spelling her way through the letter.
It was to the effect, expressed in formal phraseology, that her cousin,
the third beneficiary under the tontine by which her cottage was held,
being now dead, the freehold fell to the original owner; and the writer
of the letter, being his agent, was instructed to give her immediate
notice to deliver up the cottage in good and tenantable repair.
Joanna read and re-read the letter. She was an intelligent woman, but
at first she could not grasp the meaning in its full bitterness. No
word had come to her of her cousin's illness and death. It was true
they did not correspond except on the quarter-days when she sent the
rent and he acknowledged it. By-and-by her brain began to act clearly.
If her cousin was really dead, a man not much more than forty years of
age, then, of course, the tontine was ended, and the cottage was hers
no longer. At the thought of it, her heart died within her.
She leaned her trembling grey head against the wall, and shut her
aching eyes. A phantasmagoria of the beloved home passed swiftly
through her mind. She saw it in winter with snow upon the thatch, and
long icicles fringing the eaves, all the garden round it sleeping in
wintry sleep, and nursing the roots and seeds in its frozen bosom; in
spring-time, with the young, fresh green of the lilacs and roses and
honeysuckles budding out around it; in summer, almost smothered in
blossoms; and in autumn, as she had seen it this morning, dank with
rain, but snug and dry as a nest within. Every flower that had bloomed
during the last summer, the fruit-trees laden with fruit, the long
rows of beans and peas—all seemed to stand up clearly before her eyes,
asking if it was possible for them to grow out of that soil under any
other care than hers.
Then she had visions of herself: a baby crawling over the low
door-sill; a little child running in and out with her prattle to the
father and mother; a tall girl going to school and winning prizes to
take home to them; and then, when Amos came courting, how the click
of the garden gate sent her in trembling and blushing to her mother's
side. And all the years since—the long stretch of nearly forty peaceful
happy years—lived under the old roof, until every lifeless thing had
become alive with memories. Not a nail had been knocked in any wall,
not a patch put into the thatch, but she knew all about it: and having
not much else to think about, she could remember how and when and why
each slight change had been made.
Joanna did no work that day. She sat still in the little shed,
oblivious of cold and damp and hunger, brooding over the terrible
letter. She forgot to eat the dinner she had brought with her. One
decision only she could come to—to keep her secret as long as she
could. Why should Amos and Charlotte suffer as she was suffering, until
she had done all she could do?
It was hard to go in home that night. She must be her usual self,
cheery, and a little talkative, asking trifling questions about what
they had done all day, whilst her heart felt breaking at the sight of
every familiar object. But she did her best, not daring to complain
of any ache or pain, lest Amos should insist upon going out in the
continued bad weather. At last, the first fine day, when he could
undertake his duty, Joanna found some excuse for going to Norton. She
had learned to know the place well while Amos lay ill in the hospital.
The agent who had written to her was in his office; and after a little
delay she was admitted to see him. He was a busy man, pompous in his
manner, and he could see nothing to interest him in a plain, ill-clad
country woman, whose homely face was no more eloquent than her words.
She had but little language in which to plead for what was a matter of
life or death to her.
"My good woman," he said at last, rather angrily, "I have no time for
further discussion. I am instructed to sell the property; and £150 has
been offered for it. If you can make me a better offer, I am willing to
take it. If not, you must be out before Christmas."
It was like listening to a death-sentence. The house was going to be
sold! Could she offer more than £150? She might as well think of buying
one of the crown jewels. Leave before Christmas! Why, that was only six
weeks off; and Amos and Charlotte had no thought of such a thing yet.
She went home stunned, not knowing what to do. It was as if Fate had
put a dagger in her hand, and bade her pierce the hearts of her two
beloved ones. She did her best to shake off the feeling of doom which
was crushing her; and for some days she went about her daily work with
a Spartan-like cheerfulness. But the bitterest anxiety and despondency
were gnawing at her heart. The only relief was when Amos was obliged to
stay at home, and she could trudge along the wintry lanes, unseen by
eyes that loved her homely face and watched it.
But the time came at last when she could no longer delay to strike the
blow which would wound Amos and Charlotte as her own heart was wounded.
It was necessary to seek some other roof to shelter them; for December
was come, and on Christmas Eve they must leave the old home.
"Amos," she said, in a tremulous voice one cold, dark night, after she
had come in from her long tramp, "my cousin's dead."
"Ah! Dear heart!" he answered her. "And did he die happy?"
She had never thought of that.
"I don't know," she cried, bursting into tears, "but oh! Amos, we shall
have to lose our old place!"
He had been stirring up the fire to make a cheerful blaze, but now he
sat himself down beside her on the oak settle, and put his old arm
round her, drawing her closely to him. He was trembling too with the
suddenness of the shock her words had given to him. The firelight
played upon their wrinkled faces, and upon the hard and withered hands
which clasped each other so fast. Both of them were silent for a few
minutes. Amos knew full well the anguish that filled his wife's heart.
"Let us go and tell Charlotte," he said at last.
It was one of her bad days, and she had not left her bed. A patchwork
counterpane, made by Joanna, covered her, and patchwork curtains
sheltered her from the draught of the window. Her aching head and
pallid face lay on a down pillow, with a linen slip spun and woven by
Joanna's mother. The attic looked like a home that had been long and
intimately occupied. Joanna sank down on her knees, with a deep moan,
beside the bed; whilst Amos, in a faltering voice, told the sad news
briefly.
"Then that's what it means!" cried Charlotte, lifting up her head, and
looking at him with shining eyes. "All day long, for the last five or
six days, there's been a whisperin' in my mind, 'Though He slay me, yet
will I trust in Him.' It's God's voice, father. He's spoken beforehand
to me, to comfort you and me."
Joanna raised her care-worn and tearful face, and Amos laid his rough
hand tenderly on his daughter's head. Neither of them doubted that God
had indeed spoken to her.
"A father couldn't do anything to his child that seems worse than
slaying it," continued Charlotte, "but I've read of fathers, loving
fathers, that have done it rather than let them fall into the hands of
wicked men that would kill them cruelly. The children would trust their
fathers to kill them. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.'"
"Ah! Dear heart! We'll trust in Him," Amos answered.
They sat up late that night talking over the utter change in their
future life, and trying to face the calamity from every point of view.
But, after all their discussion, there was nothing for it but to accept
the sorrow as God's will, to which they must meekly submit their own.
The trouble fell most lightly on Amos. His home was where his wife and
daughter were; and he had lost neither of these. All his days had been
passed away from the cottage, and his life had not been so closely
interwoven with it. Besides, he was almost as ignorant as a child
about ways and means. His weekly wages had always been handed over, as
soon as he received them, to Joanna, who provided for him everything
he needed, leaving him only a few pence in his pocket to meet any
unforeseen contingency. The faculty of dealing with money, which is one
of the latest we acquire, and one of the earliest we lose, had never
been developed in Amos. No anxious foreboding troubled him as to food,
shelter, and clothing. Joanna was there; she would see to all that.
Charlotte, also, had never had the spending of five shillings in her
life. All she needed came to her as the air and the light came, without
care and without thought. Joanna had shielded her always from all
anxiety. It would be a great grief to quit the old home; but there
rose in her something of the self-sustaining spirit of a martyr. If
she must suffer, she would suffer with rejoicing. There had been
women who trusted in God whilst they were wandering about in deserts,
and mountains, and caves, and holes in the earth, being destitute,
afflicted, tormented. This trial of her faith was nothing compared with
theirs. God should find her trusting Him through sorrow and trouble,
as she had trusted Him in peace and tranquility. She would take up the
cross willingly, and follow the Lord whithersoever He pleased to lead
her.
Was the burden lighter to Joanna because the others bore it lightly?
All her life had been spent laboriously in providing for and shielding
her two beloved ones. Every shilling, for their sakes, had been made to
do the duty of thirteenpence. She had diligently practised industry,
and thrift, and forethought every hour of every working day; and now
she could not enter into the Sabbath rest of Charlotte and Amos.
The future loomed very dark and dreary. There would be no immediate
distress; for had not she scraped painfully together as much as £50,
which was safely deposited in the post-office savings bank? But she
always regarded that as a nest-egg for Charlotte, if she should happen
to outlive her and Amos. As she sought for some cheap and comfortless
lodging in the town, she wondered how she could manage where there was
no garden where she could grow vegetables and savoury herbs, and where
she could keep a few fowls. Every egg, every potato even, would have to
be bought; and the only money coming in would be the small pension due
to Amos. She foresaw herself spending, with a constant heart-pang, the
nest-egg laid by for Charlotte.
Joanna fought hard against distrust of God. She listened, with a ghost
of a smile, to Charlotte's consoling and courageous thoughts, but she
could not enter into them. It was strange how this new misery made
everything about her start into greater vividness. Every object about
the cottage, and within it, seemed to be almost alive and thrusting
itself into her notice. Even the old cracks in the window-panes
impressed themselves upon her mind. Still more keenly did she see and
read afresh the familiar faces of her husband and daughter. Perhaps we
see least those whom we love most. They live so closely beside us that,
though their voices are in our ears, and the sense of their presence
is always with us, we hardly look at them, and time leaves traces
on their beloved features undetected by us. Joanna was startled to
recognise how Amos was looking an old man, and how pallid and worn was
Charlotte's face. Oh! If the blessed Lord would only let them all pass
away together from this world before the great sorrow came!
A few days before Christmas the postmaster handed a foreign letter
to Amos when he came at six o'clock in the morning for the bags. He
read it, as Joanna had read hers, in his cobbler's shed. It came from
Madeira, and was written by young Squire Sutton, whose runaway marriage
he had unconsciously helped. There were only a few words, for in it
was enclosed a letter to Joanna, which was not to be opened or spoken
of till Christmas Day. Amos put the letter carefully aside, smiling
a little sadly to himself as he thought he had a secret as well as
Joanna. But he did not dwell upon his secret much. The dreaded crisis
had come, and his old home was being dismantled. These few days were
full of slow, suppressed anguish to Joanna, as one by one she carried
the smaller treasures of her home to the dreary lodgings in the town.
Each night when Amos came in some familiar household goods were
missing, and their empty places stared him eloquently in the face.
Forebodings of the immediate future began to peer at him through the
shadow of the coming event. He almost forgot he had any secret, and he
ceased to smile when it crossed his mind.
Christmas Eve came at last—the dreaded day. Heaven had not interfered
to prevent their exile. Only the heavier pieces of furniture remained
to be moved—the oak settle from the hearth; the old four-post bedstead
on which they had slept so peacefully all their married life, on which
Joanna's forefathers had died, and on which she and Amos had expected
to lie down and die as peacefully as they had slept. The tall clock in
the corner, which had stood there over a hundred years, must be taken
down. It was to Joanna as if she saw the roof-tree give way when she
watched their old friends touched by strange hands. Every stroke of a
hammer stunned her; every creak of the old furniture pierced her to the
heart.
The doctor came in the middle of the day, and kindly carried Charlotte
away in his carriage to their new abode. Joanna was left alone, for she
had insisted upon Amos going this last day of all upon his round. He
would come back rich with Christmas boxes; but what were any gifts to
Joanna just then? She watched the cart-load of heavy goods start off,
and then she looked round with bitter despair at the dismantled rooms.
She went outside and paced mournfully round the beloved garden, dearer
to her than any other spot on earth. It was a clear wintry day, with
a blue sky, and a white frost which silvered over every leaf of the
evergreen bushes and every bare branch and twig of the trees. A fringe
of icicles hung from the eaves, sparkling like diamonds in the sun. But
there was no smoke rising from the chimney, no face at any window, no
sign of habitation. The cottage seemed to feel itself deserted. Such
forlornness had not befallen it for uncounted years. It and Joanna were
going to part, and it had already a forsaken look, which brought a
burst of bitter tears to her old eyes.
She walked feebly away, looking neither to the right hand nor the
left, and the neighbours had compassion on her, leaving her alone with
her grief. The two rooms which formed their new home were in a state
of utter confusion. The men who had removed the heavy furniture were
putting up the bedstead in the room which must now be bed-chamber,
kitchen, and all. A little room at the back, opening on to walls, and
chimneys, and roofs, was to be Charlotte's.
Joanna set to work at putting things to rights a little; but she was
bewildered and confused, and Charlotte, with a tender and gentle voice,
told her what to do, as if she had been in the habit of directing
household matters. Joanna obeyed her as if in a dream.
Amos came in at his usual hour, and gave Charlotte a kiss, as he had
done each night ever since she came into the world. Then he looked
hesitatingly and shyly at his wife's sad face, and his old arm went
round her neck, and her head sank upon his breast. There was something
sacred and sacramental in the unwonted caress. It was the first moment
of consolation that had come to Joanna, and her face was brighter when
she lifted it up. At any rate, she had lost neither Amos nor Charlotte,
she said to herself.
There was little sleep for any of the three that night. The
unaccustomed noises in the street, the closer air, the sense of being
in a strange place, all kept them awake. Joanna got up early in the
dark Christmas morning, and pottered about with a candle among their
littered goods to find the articles necessary for breakfast.
"A happy Christmas to you, mother!" called Charlotte from the inner
room.
A lump rose in Joanna's throat, and for a minute or two she could not
bring herself to speak. Fifty-seven happy Christmases had found her in
her old home; but now! Then she said in a whisper, "Lord, forgive me!"
"A happy Christmas to you, Charlotte!" she called back in a shrill and
strained voice.
It was a comfortless breakfast amid their disorderly possessions; but
Amos kept making light of it, and apologizing, as if in some way it was
his fault. As soon as it was ended, he and Joanna went into Charlotte's
room to reckon up the presents which had been given to him the day
before. He was an old man, and a favourite, and his Christmas boxes
amounted to more than five pounds.
"But good sake!" he cried suddenly. "I've got a Christmas letter for
you, mother, and I shouldn't wonder if there weren't a pretty card or
something in it. It's from young Squire Sutton, and it came to me a
week ago, but I weren't to speak a word of it till Christmas Day in the
morning. Here, Charlotte; it's for your mother, my dear, but you'll
read the writin' the easiest."
The young Squire began his letter by saying that but for Amos Terry's
promptitude in carrying on the letters entrusted to him he would
himself have missed the happiness of his life. He had heard the whole
story from a friend in the neighbourhood.
"We were sorry to hear Amos was ill with rheumatism, and now we hear
that he is obliged to give up being postman. We have often wished to
share our happiness with you two old friends, and as soon as we heard
your cottage was for sale we commissioned an agent to buy the freehold
for you, and we ask you both to accept it as our Christmas gift. With
all our hearts we wish you a happy Christmas."
Joanna fell down on her knees, and bowed her grey head upon her hands.
"Lord, forgive me! Lord, forgive me!" she sobbed. A positive pang of
gladness ran through her; it was like a rush of life poured into dying
veins. All the anguish and forlornness, all the dread and foreboding
were gone. The old home, dearer to her than ever, was hers again, and
by no uncertain tenure. Not only hers, but Charlotte's, if she should
outlive her. There was no danger now that Charlotte would ever be
homeless. When she lifted herself up and looked at her two beloved
ones, Charlotte's pale face had a tinge of colour, and Amos was looking
almost frightened at his fortune.
"Amos!" cried Joanna. "We must go and look at it this minute!"
They stood together, the old man and woman, at the garden gate, gazing
down on the paradise they had almost lost. It looked more lovely, more
desirable, more home-like than it had ever done, and now it was their
own. It seemed almost as if God had sent them the gift direct from
heaven.
"If it hadn't been for that tramp's child,"' said Amos slowly, "I
shouldn't ha' missed the mail that evenin'. And if I hadn't missed the
mail, the young Squire 'ud never have thought o' buyin' the house for
us. I've often and often wondered about that tramp's child; but there
now! 'Ye are of more value than many sparrows.'"
"Ay! That's true," said Joanna, with a sob of happiness.
A MAN OF HIS WORD
CHAPTER I
His Only Child
IF you take a railway map of England and Wales, you will see that, in
spite of its close network of railroads, meeting and crossing in all
directions, there are still many tracts of country where the villages
must be several miles from any station. In these out-of-the-way
spots life is more at a standstill now than even in the days when
stage-coaches and wagons were wont to run from town to town, taking
the villages in their route, and carrying with them the common gossip
of a whole neighbourhood. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, before the
railway system was as fully developed as it is at present, but when
it had already given a death-blow to the old coaching business, many
a village was cut off thus from its former intercourse with the outer
world, and left to live apart from the common life of the nation, or to
find its own way to a reunion.
In such a remote place, on the borderland which is half English and
half Welsh, lived Christmas Williams. The village was scarcely more
than a hamlet, having no pretension to a village street, its scattered
cottages standing alone in their own gardens. A brown, shallow,
brawling little river, which filled the quiet air with its singing, ran
along under the churchyard walls, over which the tall lime-trees threw
their deep shadows on the busy stream. West of the churchyard, still
on the bank of the river, lay Christmas Williams' garden: his special,
favourite garden, not the common piece of ground beside his house open
to every foot, but his own locked up, fenced-in plot, reached by a
footpath across his orchard.
Just within sight of the church stood Christmas Williams' house, the
village inn, holding a conspicuous position on a slope of ground, with
a primitive sort of terrace in front of it; over the wall of which
he could often be seen leaning, to look down on the carts and wagons
passing in the lane below, and to send messages, some friendly and some
hostile, by the drivers to their masters, on the various farmsteads
lying round the village.
There was no one in the neighbourhood who was considered better off,
or who had so widespread an influence as Christmas. He had been
churchwarden for many years, as well as constable of the township; for
rural police were not yet in existence. It was he who kept the keys of
the church, as well as of the crib, which was a small jail built in one
corner of the churchyard, and the terror of all the children of the
parish.
Yet the crib was seldom occupied, except sometimes after a club-day at
the village inn, when any drunken brawl was sure to excite Christmas
Williams' wrath, and bring down swift punishment on the offenders.
It was in vain to urge the argument that hard drinking was to his
own profit; he only permitted his customers to have as much as he
considered good for them; and if by any mischance they overstepped the
doubtful line between sobriety and drunkenness, down came the keys
of the crib, to which, as constable, he felt pledged to commit all
brawlers and disturbers of the public peace.
There was not a soul for miles round, as far as the distant town to
which he went to market twice a month, who did not know Christmas
Williams to be a just, upright man, and, above all, a man of his
word. His word was as good as another man's oath. His father had kept
the village inn before him, and had borne the same character. His
grandfather, too, had been landlord, churchwarden and constable; an
honest, plodding man. The house, with its wainscotted walls, and its
large, open kitchen, spacious enough to hold comfortably all the men in
the village; the office of churchwarden, with its close connection with
the rector; and the post of constable, making him the official guardian
of the public peace: all these had become almost as hereditary as the
estates of the duke, who owned a good part of the county. The duke was
not prouder of his descent and name than was Christmas Williams.
It was a peaceful, pretty village, with low round hills encircling it,
their soft outlines stretching across the sky, with coppices of young
larch-trees and dark Scotch firs climbing up their slopes. The air,
sweeping over a thousand meadows, where cowslips and buttercups grew
in profusion, bore no slightest taint of the smoke of cities. A soft
tranquility seemed to brood over the place in almost unbroken silence.
The grey old church, with no charm about it except its age, wore a look
of idleness and disuse, as if it had done with active service, and was
resting before settling down into ruins. Even on Sundays the doors
yawned merely to admit a handful of old-fashioned, steady-going people,
who listened sleepily to the old rector, as he read to them one of
Blair's Sermons, out of a volume from his library, not even taking the
decent trouble of making a manuscript copy of it.
The rector was an unmarried man, with few ideas beyond the pursuit of
country pleasures, which he had followed so long that they had mastered
him, and now held him in utter bondage. He was keen after a fox, and
could not keep away from a coursing match. His parishioners saw much
more of him in Christmas Williams' snug fireside corner than in his
desk and pulpit.
Who can tell how the mischief crept in? Little by little, step by
step; first a Sunday-school class in Widow Evans' cottage; a quiet
prayer-meeting or two; then an afternoon preaching. A change was coming
over the village; or, more truly speaking, over a small portion of the
villagers, but those were the steadiest and best. Christmas took no
notice of it at first; and the rector cared for none of those things.
The Sunday-school could hardly come under Christmas Williams' eyes,
for he spent the most of every Sunday in his garden by the churchyard,
scanning his well-kept beds, and strolling to and fro along the
walks, from which he could see the headstones on his father's and
grandfather's graves, and be forced sometimes to think of the far-off
time when his own should be standing beside them. It was the chief
trouble of his prosperous life that he had no son to carry on the name
of Christmas Williams. Still, his trouble was a slight one, for he had
a gentle, pretty little daughter, whom he had christened Easter, and
whom he loved almost as if she had been a son. Easter must marry young
and well, that he might hear her children call him grandfather.
But when the afternoon preaching began, and Widow Evans' son, a young
stripling who was not yet out of his time as a draper's apprentice,
stood up boldly, and with ready speech taught his fellow-villagers
what he himself was learning in the distant market-town, of eternity,
of the Saviour, and of God, Christmas roused himself. Worse than that,
by-and-by the lad brought with him a grave, earnest, eloquent man, who
preached such words as pricked the people to their hearts, and sent
them home talking and pondering over these new things. It was high time
for Christmas to bestir himself, both as churchwarden and constable.
"You can do nothing, Christmas," said the rector, sitting in his
favourite chimney-corner; while Easter, as she went about her work
softly and quickly, filled his glass for him from the brown jug on the
table between him and her father. "Come, live and let live. They don't
hurt me, and they ought not to hurt you. What harm is there in a bit of
psalm-singing and Bible-reading in a cottage? Bless you! I wonder any
one of them sets his foot inside the church; and I'll be the last to
blame them if they don't."
"I've said I'll put a stop to it, and I'll do it," cried Christmas.
"I'm a man of my word. I'll duck young Evans in my horsepond, if I can
only catch him. They shall be cut up root and branch. You'll see I'll
make short work of it."
"You cannot hinder them from meeting in Widow Evans' house, my man,"
replied the rector; "and you cannot stop them singing, and praying, and
preaching, as they please. She's my tenant, and I'll not disturb her,
poor soul! Let the thing alone, I say. Nobody knows better than me that
it was a mistake putting me into the Church; I'm no more fit for it
than for heaven itself. If I believed it would do me any good, I'd go
to their meetings myself."
He spoke sadly, and bent his head down for a minute; and Easter, seeing
it, drew nearer to the grey-haired old clergyman, whom she had known
and loved all her lifetime.
"Well, if I cannot put a stop to it," exclaimed Christmas, "no man,
woman, or child goes from my house to any of those fools' meetings.
Whoever does that, shall never cross my threshold again."
Easter's fair face grew pale, and her hands trembled as she rested them
for support on the table at which they were sitting. But there was a
steady light in her eyes, resolute as her father's, as she fastened
them upon his angry face.
"Father," she said, in a low, tremulous voice, "father, I've been there
every Sunday since they began. And I am converted, and believe in God,
and I must obey Him rather than you."
CHAPTER II
"Cast Out"
EASTER hardly knew how heroic an act was her confession of faith
in God. She was a little afraid of her father, but her love of him
was deep, though untried; and, like thousands of other converts to
Christianity, from the days of our Lord Himself, when the man born
blind was cast out and disowned by his parents, she had felt no fear
of the cruel and unnatural separation which might befall her through
any bigotry and obstinacy of her father. She stood in the flickering
firelight, which was bright enough for them to see, without any other
light, her eyes glistening, and the colour coming and going on her
face, ready to fling her arms round her father's neck, and burst into a
passion of tears upon his breast.
But his face was harsh and stormy, as he stood up with his stern eyes
riveted upon her. "Say that once more, Easter," he muttered, "and
you'll never darken my doors again."
"No, no, my man! No, no, Williams!" interposed the rector hastily. "Let
Easter alone. I'll answer for her. She has always been a good girl, and
she'll be a good girl now."
"What does the girl mean, then," asked Christmas angrily, "talking
of being converted, and believing in God? I can say, 'I believe in
God Almighty,' and all the rest of it, as well as any man or woman in
England. Easter means more than that; don't you, girl?"
"Yes, father," she answered, in a firm, low voice; "I mean they've
taught me how sinful I am, and how the Lord Jesus Christ did really die
on the cross to save me, and that God loves me as if He was my real
father. I'm not saying it like I used to say it in church, out of a
book. I believe it with all my heart."
"Then you've taken up with a lot o' cant, and you may march out of my
house, and see what cant and them that cant will do for you!" said
Christmas, white with fury.
It was all in vain that the rector remonstrated and pleaded for Easter,
and that Easter herself knelt at his feet and with many tears besought
him to let her stay at home. He vowed that unless she would recall all
she had said, and promise solemnly never to hold intercourse with any
of the canting lot again, he would never more call her daughter, or
look upon her in any other light than as an enemy.
Next morning, at the earliest dawn of day, Easter quitted her home.
She had not tried to sleep; and she knew her father had not slept, for
she had heard his heavy footstep moving to and fro in his bedroom. It
had been his command that she should leave the shelter of his roof as
soon as it was light, and she was obeying him. For the last time she
opened her little casement, and looked out on the garden below, where
the roses and hollyhocks and sunflowers were in blossom, and where the
bees in the hive under her window were already beginning to stir. She
was going away, not knowing whither she went: but she believed that God
would be as faithful to His promises as her father was to his word.
As she went slowly and sadly along the village lane, where the
cottagers were still asleep, all the old familiar places looked strange
at this strange hour and in the grey dawn. Even the churchyard, where
she had played for hours together as a child, seemed different and
foreign to her, as though she was cut off from all relations with it
and her past life. Where was she to go? Whom could she turn to? She
must not stay with Widow Evans, lest it should displease her father
more. She was passing under the rectory wall, when she heard the old
rector's voice calling her.
"Easter!" he cried. "Easter, what are you about to do? Are you going to
forsake your father?"
"He has cast me off," she answered, weeping; "he will not let me stay
if I do not deny God."
"Dear! Dear! Dear!" cried the old rector. "He's an obstinate man, and
I don't know what to say between you. You are two wilful ones, I fear.
But I'll do my best to bring him round; and here, my lassie, here's
five pounds for you, and a letter to my cousin, who will find you a
place somewhere. Good-bye, and God bless you, Easter!"
"Do you believe in God?" asked Easter, looking up at him through her
tears.
"Of course I do," he answered testily, "and so does your father. We
believe in Him after one fashion, and you after another. But, Easter,
yours is the best, I know."
He uttered the last words in a mournful tone, and watched her as she
went sadly on her lonely way, until the hawthorn hedge hid her form
from his sight. She was as nearly as possible like his own child
to him; he had watched her growing up from day to day through all
the changes of childhood and girlhood. He was a kindly old man, and
loved to be at peace and on good terms with every one. And here was a
brangle in the very centre of his parish, making desolate the house
he frequented most. Besides, he could recall a time when he had felt
the worth of a courageous faith like that which had sent Easter out
into a world she knew nothing of, in simple reliance upon God and
implicit obedience to the Saviour whose name she had taken. She was
a Christian. Was he a Christian, too? The old rector thought of his
self-indulgences, his country pleasures, and his neglected people; but
he felt his heart heavy and dull. He could not lift it out of the miry
clay in which it had grovelled so long.
Easter's absence made a greater difference to Christmas Williams
than he would ever have owned in words. He had never let her toil
laboriously with her own hands, as her mother and grandmother had
done before her; he had been too choice of her for that. Easter had
been like his favourite garden, where no common fruit or flowers were
suffered to grow. He had delighted in her dainty, winsome ways, as he
had delighted in his splendid show of roses, and of peaches growing
ripe in the sun. He missed her sorely. There was no pretty, smiling
face blooming opposite to him when he sat down to his now solitary
meals. There was no light footstep tripping about the house; no sweet
voice singing gaily or plaintively the old songs he had taught her
himself. She was never to be seen leaning over the terrace-wall,
watching for his coming along the lane. He had no one to buy some
pretty trifle for when he went to market. Christmas had not foreseen
the dreary change. Possibly, if he had foreseen it, he would never have
uttered the oath he had bound upon his conscience.
All the neighbourhood took notice of the gloom that had fallen upon
Christmas and his once pleasant house. He had always been a masterful
man, but he grew morose and tyrannical as time passed on. His servants,
who had been used to stay long periods with him, were constantly
quitting his service, and carried away with them stories of his harsh
and unreasonable conduct. The home gradually became dull and dirty,
with no mistress to look after the maids. It was less and less tempting
to gather about the large fireplace of an evening, as had been the
practice for generations past.
The rector had offended Christmas by interceding for Easter, and by
pooh-poohing his fiery zeal against the meetings in Widow Evans'
cottage, and he turned into the village inn but seldom now. Christmas
felt this to the very soul; but he was too proud to speak of it, or to
yield an inch to his clergyman. It was reported, moreover, that the ale
was badly brewed, or was kept in sour casks: a fact that might possibly
have had something to do with the rector's fewer visits, and with their
brevity when he came.
Christmas made no effort to learn any tidings of his daughter; but
the neighbours took care he should hear them. She had taken a place
as upper nurse in the family of the rector's cousin, who lived in
the market-town he attended; and now and then he fancied he saw her
threading her way through the busy streets on a market-day.
A year or two after she left home, he heard she had married Widow
Evans' son, a poor, delicate young man, assistant only in the draper's
shop where he had served his apprenticeship. Christmas cursed him
bitterly in his heart; though he never uttered his name, or Easter's,
with his lips. The letters Easter wrote to him he returned unopened;
but none the less bitter was his resentment that she should marry
without his consent. She was his daughter still, though he vowed she
was not.
Presently came the news that a grandson was born to him. His own
grandson! He heard it on market-day, and the farmers who were about
him, buying and selling their corn, watched him inquisitively to see
how he took the news. Not a change came over his hard, grim face; yet
suddenly in his mind rose up the memory of that sunny Easter Sunday,
when the bells were ringing joyously in the old church-tower for the
resurrection of the Lord, and some one brought to him his first-born
child. Another memory followed close upon it—the evening shadows of
the same day closing round him as he knelt beside his dying wife, and
heard her whisper in her last faint tones, "I leave my baby to you,
dear Christmas!" All his lonely way home that night these two visions
haunted him.
Still six months later further tidings reached his ears. Two or three
of his oldest and most faithful guests, who yet lingered of an evening
on the old hearth, were talking together, seated within the old screen,
which concealed him from their sight, though they had a shrewd guess
that he was within hearing.
"Widow Evans' son is dead," said one, "and he's left poor Easter a
widow, with her babe!"
"What's she going to do?" asked another of the party.
"They say she's bound to come home to Widow Evans," was the answer.
"She's ailing, is Widow Evans, and growing simple; she wants somebody
to fend for her. And who so natural as Easter, poor lass? They were
praying for her at the meeting last Sunday, and praying hard for 'him,'
as the Lord 'ud soften his heart. You know who! It'll take a deal o'
softening, I'm thinking."
"Ay! Ay!" agreed all the company.
"They say Easter's as white as a corpse," went on the speaker. "Eh! But
she'll be a sight to move a heart o' stone, I say, with her babe and
her pretty young face pinched up in a widow's cap. She's naught but a
girl yet; I recollect her birthday as if it was yesterday. Oh! But what
a feast we should ha' been sure of, in this very house, if Easter had
never taken up wi' those new-fangled ways, and had married to please
her father! But Christmas is too hard, I say."
"Ay! That he is," rejoined the other voices with one consent.
"Widow Evans' money is no more than five pounds a quarter," he
continued, "and it dies when she dies. It will be close living for two
women and a growing boy; though women know how to starve and famish
better than men do, God help them! And to think of Christmas being so
well off! Better than anybody knows fairly, with heaps of money in the
bank. He oughtn't to be so hard!"
CHAPTER III
His Grandson
CHRISTMAS, as they guessed, overheard all their gossip, as he sat
in his own little room behind the screen, with the door ajar. He
felt pricked and stung, and he stole away noiselessly, that none
of them might know he had been there, and went down to his garden
beside the river, where he was secure of being alone. His heart had
always been readily melted at the thought of a widow's loneliness and
helplessness; and now Easter was coming back to her native place, his
little daughter, a poor, friendless widow, burdened with a child!
Why! It seemed but a few days ago that she was tottering along these
smooth walks, her little feet tripping at the smallest pebble, and her
little fingers clasping his own thick finger closely. How long was it
since she watched with him the ripening of the fruit upon the trees,
and with all a child's delight took from his hands the first that was
ready for gathering! How many a time had Easter been seated dry and
warm on his wheelbarrow, and watched him at work, digging, and pruning,
and grafting with his own hands, while he listened all the while to
her prattle! Those were happy, blessed days! And all these pure and
innocent joys might be beginning for him again. His little grandson
would soon be old enough to totter along these same garden paths, and
to call him grandfather. He felt almost heartsick as he looked at the
dream for a moment.
But it was only for a moment. Christmas could not relent; his
long-cherished pride in being a man of his word could not so easily be
conquered. He lashed himself up into more bitter anger against Easter
for this momentary weakness. She might pinch and starve, for him. It
was a strange sort of religion that set a daughter at variance against
her father; and those who preached it might provide for those who
believed them. He would not suffer it, or any one who professed it, in
his house—no, not for a day. He would let Easter know that if she would
humble herself, and promise, even now, to have done with these new
notions, he would take her and her boy home again. But never—he looked
across at his father's and grandfather's graves as he swore it—never
should any canting nonsense be spoken under his roof!
Easter was reluctant to come back to her native village, but there
was no one else to wait upon and nurse her aged mother-in-law. It was
harder work than any one supposed to live on eight shillings a week;
what had been just enough for one was far too little for three. Easter
hoped that it would be possible to get a little needlework from some of
the neighbours' wives; if not, she must take to field-work, and go out
weeding and hoeing with the poorest of the villagers. There proved to
be very little work for her needle; so Easter might be seen going out
to the fields early in the morning on those days when her mother was
well enough to take care of little Chrissie: for she had called her boy
after her father, both because she loved the old name and because she
cherished a secret hope that he would own him as his grandson.
But that hope slowly yet surely died away as year after year passed
by, and no sign was given by Christmas Williams that he ever saw his
daughter. He could not but see her almost daily about the village,
and he could not go to his meadows without passing the little cottage
where she and her baby dwelt. He saw her plainly enough: the sad
girlish face, worn with sorrow and hard times, that gazed at him with
beseeching eyes. He had sent his message to her, and she had answered
firmly that she could not go back from professing her faith in Christ.
The first time they met after that, Easter turned pale, nearly as pale
as her dead mother had been when he saw her last in her coffin; and she
had uttered, in the same clear yet faint voice as that in which her
mother had breathed good-bye, the one word "Father!"
Christmas heard her as distinctly as if the word had been shouted in
his ear, but he passed on in silence with a heavy frown upon his face;
though in his heart of hearts there was a secret hope that she would
run after him, and catch him by the arm, and hang about his neck, and
not let him go—let him speak as roughly as he might—until she had
forced him to be reconciled to her. If Easter had but known!
Now that Easter was at home in her mother's cottage, the meetings,
which had become irregular on account of Widow Evans' failing health,
began again with renewed vigour. Every Sunday a large class was held
in the cottage, and Easter started a singing-class, taught by herself,
which attracted all the young folks of the place to it. There was
a slow, but quite a perceptible change in the little village. Even
the farmers and their wives would sometimes condescend to be present
at the service when some preacher from town was coming, for the old
rector was growing more and more careless of his duties, and the
conviction was spreading that there was need of some change. There was
a rumour that the duke had been asked to grant land for the purpose of
building a chapel, and that he was willing to do it if the majority
of the parishioners wished it. The rector said nothing against it,
but Christmas Williams, as churchwarden, opposed it with unflagging
vehemence. The scheme, if ever indeed there had been one, must have
fallen through for want of funds; but the mere rumour of it helped to
widen the breach between him and his daughter.
In the meanwhile Chrissie was growing as fast as a healthy child grows
who is always out in the open air, braving all kinds of weather, and
only kept indoors by sleep. He was a lovely baby, and a bold, bonny
little boy, restless, daring, and resolute; a favourite with all the
neighbours, as Easter herself had been in her motherless childhood.
Chrissie was free of every house in the village: there was no door
closed to him except his grandfather's, and a seat at every table was
ready for Easter's child. His mother, busy with making both ends meet,
hardly knew how to put a stop to the boy's vagrant life. As soon as
he was old enough to dress himself, he would be up and away at the
earliest dawn, rambling about the fields and hedgerows, climbing the
trees, or helping to bring in the cows to be milked from the meadows,
where they had passed the short, cool, summer nights. Chrissie
seemed to be everywhere, and to know everything that passed in the
neighbourhood. Many an hour of silent prayer while she was at work,
and many an hour of wakeful anxiety during the night, did Easter pass.
So long, however, as Chrissie did not fall into any evil ways, she was
wise enough to leave him free. He was truthful and affectionate, and,
on the whole, obedient; and no child could be more apt to learn and
remember the little lessons she tried to teach him whenever she had
time.
Such a child was sure to be constantly under the ken of his
grandfather. It was barely possible for a day to pass without Christmas
Williams having him under his eye half a dozen times. He could hear
the shrill young voice calling up the cows before he left his chamber
in the morning. He would find Chrissie swinging on the gates of his
neighbours' fields, never on his own, the handsome face rosy with
delight. Sometimes, in a more quiet mood, the lad would turn into
the old churchyard, close beside his garden; and one day, Christmas,
hidden behind a tree, hearkened to him spelling out the epitaph on his
forefathers' headstones in a clear, slow voice, loud enough for half
the village to hear.
Was it love or hatred for the boy that filled his heart? Christmas
could not tell, though to himself he called it hatred. It was a
constant source of mortification and bitterness to see one of his own
flesh and blood wandering about in ragged clothing, and half barefoot,
and to know that he was fed by the charity of his neighbours, who
were poor folks compared with himself. After all, it was but little
satisfaction to look over his savings, and see how rich he was growing,
while the very boy who ought in nature to be his heir was hardly
better than a beggar. Not that he would leave a farthing to Easter or
her child. His will was already made, and his money was bequeathed to
rebuild the decaying church, of which he and his forefathers had been
faithful wardens so long, and where a marble tablet on the walls should
proclaim the deed and keep his memory alive.
Churchwarden and constable he was yet; but the other post he had
inherited from his father was gone. Though no chapel had been built in
the parish, a new inn had been opened, and Christmas, in angry disgust,
had not renewed his old licence. He had a farm, which occupied him in
the daytime; but the evenings and nights were dreary past telling. The
large old kitchen, once filled with neighbours, was now always empty
and silent, and seemed to need more than ever the presence of a child
to cheer it up. Christmas used to fall into half-waking, half-sleeping
dreams, in which his little grandson was gambolling about the place,
and filling it with noise and laughter. He could see Easter, sitting
opposite to him, in the cosy chimney-corner, smiling back to him
whenever she caught his eye. Why had he ever vowed that such times
should never be?
Loving him or hating him, Chrissie was never out of his grandfather's
thoughts. He took note of every change in him, as he shot up rapidly
from infancy to the age when lads like him, little lads of eight,
were sent to work in the fields. He knew the exact day when Chrissie
went out for his first day's work, and he watched him from afar off,
plodding up and down the heavy furrows of the ploughed land to scare
away the birds from the springing corn. He saw how footsore and weary
the little fellow was as he trudged homewards through the dusky lanes,
too tired to whistle and sing, as he was wont to do.
Better than Easter herself, he knew how old Chrissie was when he began
to walk, or jump, or run, and he had seen what Easter did not see—the
first time Chrissie ever climbed a tree. The lad's childhood brought
back his own to him. He could look back upon the days when he had gone
nutting under the same hedgerows, and fishing for minnows in the little
brown river. Chrissie would stand patiently an hour at a time on his
own favourite spots, waiting for the long-hoped-for nibble. To watch
the boy was like reading over again an old, half-forgotten story. But
there was no softening of his heart towards Easter. Many a time he
wished the lad never crossed his path, or that he was a sickly, puny
child, such as his father had been before him, who 'stayed at home,
tied to his mother's apron-strings, singing hymns, and making believe
he was a special favourite with God Almighty.'
CHAPTER IV
His Own Way
OLD Widow Evans died, and her small annuity died with her. What was
Easter to do, encumbered as she was with a big, restless, daring, bold
son, eight years of age? She could not bear to think of leaving him
to the care of the neighbours, and going out to service again. Yet it
would be hard work for some years to keep herself and him in anything
like decent poverty. Her cottage, however, was built on the glebe land,
and therefore belonged to the rector, who offered it to her rent-free
as long as he should live.
But the rector was growing old and very feeble, being partially
exhausted by those habits of self-indulgence which he had not been
strong enough to break off. For a long while now his favourite vices
had clung about him like a heavy chain, which he could not escape from,
however sorrowfully his spirit chafed and fretted against its bondage.
"Easter," he said, "I want to have you near at hand when I'm lying
on my deathbed. I cannot alter my habits now; but I long to be gone
away from them, and I shall want to have you near me when my last hour
comes, I know."
"Why cannot you alter them now?" she asked. "God will help you."
"It's too late; too late," he answered. "If I'd only been wise in time,
Easter! But I'm a foolish old man now."
It was winter when these words were spoken, half-sadly, half-angrily,
by the rector. And all through the following spring and summer he
was ailing often; and Easter was always sent for in haste to nurse
him. He could find no rest or peace of mind without her. Chrissie, in
consequence, was left to run wilder than ever, his grandmother being
dead, and his mother frequently away from home.
When she had to stay all night at the rectory, he went to sleep in some
of the cottages near at hand. The cottage folks made much of him, both
for Easter's sake and because they had a settled conviction that he
must some day or other inherit his grandfather's heaps of money. That
all the old fields, and the ancient house, and the wealth gathered
together by two or three generations, should go anywhere except to
Chrissie, seemed almost incredible. He was looked upon as too young to
pay much attention to what elder folks talked about; but he often heard
them speaking of the place as belonging in some way to him. In fact,
Chrissie began to look upon his dreaded grandfather himself as his
special property.
Harvest-time had come: a rich and plentiful harvest, such as opened the
hearts of all who possessed golden cornfields. It was splendid weather,
too; and there was no stint of good cheer and grand harvest-home
suppers in all the farmsteads. Chrissie was in his element, riding
triumphantly on the high-piled wagons, or as willingly tugging at the
heads of the great horses that drew the heavy loads to the stackyards.
He was at every feast except his grandfather's; and even there
Christmas, while carving at the head of the table, caught sight of the
bright, brown little face peeping wistfully in through the open door.
All the village was present, for though Christmas had lost much of his
popularity, his old neighbours shrank from offending him by staying
away from his harvest-home. Not all, though. It had been the rector's
custom to be present at the yearly feast, but this autumn his familiar
face and voice were missing, and the mention of his name caused a
passing gloom to fall on all faces.
"The poor old gentleman's not long for this world," said one of the
farmers; "they say Easter's never left him day or night this last week."
Christmas Williams' face grew hard and dark at this bold mention of his
daughter's forbidden name; but he said nothing. The supper went on, but
while they were still singing their harvest songs, a messenger came
hurriedly from the rectory, to call Christmas to his old clergyman's
deathbed.
He obeyed the summons with reluctance. Not because he had no wish to
bid his old friend farewell, and grasp his hand once more, but because
he dreaded meeting his daughter. It was as he thought. When he entered
the chamber of the dying man, there sat Easter beside the bed, pale,
and sad, and wan: nothing like the fair young girl she was ten years
ago, before he uttered his fatal oath. He would not let his eyes wander
towards her, but fastened them earnestly on the rector's shrunken face.
"You see who is at my side?" said the dying old man.
"Yes," he answered.
"Christmas, my man," continued the rector faintly, "I want to do one
good deed before I die. Easter has been like a daughter to me. I beg of
you, for our old friendship's sake, be reconciled to her before I die."
"I'm a man of my word," answered Christmas sternly, "and everybody
knows it. If Easter will give up her foolish, canting ways, and come
home to be as she used to be in my house, she may come and bring her
boy with her. But this is the last chance I'll give her."
"Christmas," said the dying voice, "Easter's ways are the right ways;
her faith is the true faith. Would to God I could believe and feel as
she does! If I could only believe as she does, that God has forgiven
all my sins, and that I have only to close my eyes and fall asleep
under a Father's care! Do you think she will be miserable, as I am,
when she comes to die? And when you come to die, what will it avail you
that you have said with your lips, Sunday after Sunday, 'I believe in
God the Father Almighty,' if they are nothing but words to you? They
are only words in your mouth; they are truths to Easter. You are not a
man of your word in that, Christmas, my man."
"Father," sobbed Easter, and her voice seemed to pierce him to the
heart, though he hardened it against her, "father, forgive me if I have
sinned against you! Oh! Forgive me, and be reconciled to me! I will do
anything—"
Her voice was broken off by weeping.
"Will you give up the ways I hate?" he asked doggedly and almost
fiercely.
"I cannot!" she cried. "I cannot! I must obey God rather than you. I
must be true."
"What has it to do with God?" he asked. "It's naught but your own
obstinacy. You are a wilful woman, Easter, and you will have your own
way. I don't see what God has to do with it."
"Good-bye, old friend," said the rector, as Christmas turned away
to leave the room in a rage; "these are my last words to you. Be
reconciled to Easter if you desire to be reconciled to God."
Christmas strode back to the bedside, grasped the old man's chilly
hand, and faltered out, "Good-bye." But he would not cast another
glance at his daughter.
"Easter," said the rector, "I, too, have been a wilful man, and taken
my own way, and now God refuses to be reconciled to me. He is set
against me as your father is set against you."
"Is He?" she answered softly. "Then don't you see that my father would
take me home again as his child, if I could only repent, and give up my
way to his! He is only set against me so long as I keep to my own way.
It is so with God.
"'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'
"And oh! He is always ready to be reconciled to us; He cannot set
Himself against any one of us. You have but to repent, and give up your
own ways, and He will take you home again."
"But I am taken out of my own ways," he groaned; "I have nothing now to
give up."
"Yet God knows if you truly repent of them," she urged. "He sees
whether you are willing to give them up. If you can only believe in our
Lord's words, even now! God is our Father, Christ tells us; and He is
watching for us to go home."
The old man's weary eyelids closed, and his lips moved in a whisper.
Easter heard him repeating words to himself, which he had often uttered
carelessly in his church; but now he seemed to speak them from his
heart:
"'I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father,
I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to
be called thy son.'"
She bent her head down to his failing ear.
"'But when he was yet a great way off,' she said, 'his Father saw him,
and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.'"
"I don't know what will become of you and Chrissie when I'm gone," he
said, after a while; "you'll have to leave your cottage. But never give
up your trust in God, Easter. Hold fast to that."
"Yes," she answered quietly.
"I ought to have been a better man among my people," he continued;
"they have been as sheep having no shepherd. God will forgive my sins;
but oh, Easter, it is a bitter thing to die, and be called into His
presence as an unprofitable servant, who can never hear Him say, 'Well
done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'
I have never done the Lord's work, and I cannot enter into the Lord's
joy."
"Blessed is he whose sins are forgiven," said Easter softly.
"Ay! But more blessed still he who has worked for Him," he whispered.
"I'm taking a lost and wasted life to lay before Him. Lord, have mercy
upon me!"
His voice had grown fainter and weaker; and now it failed him
altogether. He lay all night, and till morning broke, in a stupor,
while Easter watched beside him. Then he passed away into the unknown
life, which he had wilfully forgotten until his last hour was come.
CHAPTER V
A Critical Moment
EASTER was occupied at the rectory all the next day, and being
satisfied that Chrissie would be taken good care of, she gave little
thought to him. It had been a sorrowful harvest-time to her, and her
future had never seemed quite so dark as now that her best friend was
gone, and her father showed himself altogether irreconcilable. But her
trust in God was not shaken. Once, for a few minutes, when there came
a short interval of leisure, she stood at a window overlooking the
churchyard, where every tombstone was as well-known to her as the faces
of her neighbours. Then the blank, dark future presented itself to her,
and pressed itself upon her.
There was no chance of remaining where she was, among the old familiar
places, surrounded by the sights and sounds which had filled up nearly
all her life. Where was she to be tossed to? What resting-place could
she find? It was with a strong effort that she turned away from the
dreary prospect.
"Take 'no thought for the morrow,'" she said to herself, "'for the
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof.'"
Christmas Williams had never been less master of himself than he was
all that day after hearing that the old rector was really gone. He had
been his clergyman for nearly forty years, and never had an unfriendly
word passed between them, unless he could call his remonstrances on
behalf of Easter unfriendly. He wished he had not left him in a rage
last night. Yet never had his servants seen Christmas so testy and
passionate; until at length, he shut himself up in his own little room.
A lad who crept timorously to peep through the lowest corner of the
lattice casement reported that the master was sitting with his face
hidden by his hands, and the big, strongly-bound family Bible before
him.
But Christmas was not studying any portion of the printed pages; he had
taken it down from the shelf over his old-fashioned desk to pore over
the written entries made in his own hand, of Easter's birth on Easter
Sunday twenty-eight years before, and of her mother's death the same
evening. He had given Easter her last chance, and she had spurned it;
it was time to take her name out of the Bible. He had resolved to tear
the page out of the book, but he could not destroy the record of his
child's birth without destroying that of his wife's death. Which must
he sacrifice—his resolve to wreak his resentment against Easter, or his
lingering tenderness for the memory of his wife?
The long hours of the day passed by miserably for Christmas Williams.
He was irresolute and troubled by vague doubts, such as had never
disturbed him before. How could he possibly be in the wrong? For his
opinions were those of his father and grandfather before him, and his
ways were like their ways. They had never given in to new-fangled
notions, to psalm-singing, and meetings for prayer in cottages. It
was well-known that they had always been true blue. The old church
was good enough and religious enough for them; and they had been
loyal to it, never missing to present themselves on a Sunday morning
in the churchwarden's pew, and to keep Christmas Day and Good Friday
with equal strictness. If God was not pleased with such service, why,
nine-tenths of the people he knew, living or dead, were in a bad way.
But how could they be in the wrong, those honest, thrifty, steady
forefathers of his, whose word was as good as their bond all the
country through?
Yet he could not satisfy himself, or silence the still, small voice of
conscience. What sin was Easter guilty of? What was her crime that must
not be forgiven? She had always been good, and obedient, and true; she
had never crossed him until he required her to be false. There was the
point, and the sting of it. He prided himself on being true; but he
demanded of her to be false; false to herself, false to him, false to
God!
Why should not Easter be true to her word, and resolute, as well as
himself? The old dying rector had declared that her way was really
better than his way. Did he actually believe in God? All these years he
had let the words slip glibly over his tongue every Sunday morning, and
thought no more of them. Had he verily been true in saying them, or had
he been in the habit of standing in the church, before God, with a lie
in his mouth?
"Do you believe in God Almighty, and in Jesus Christ?—in God's Holy
Spirit, and in the forgiveness of sins?" asked his conscience.
And a still deeper and lower voice gave the mournful answer, "No!"
The afternoon had passed by, and the evening was coming on. Already
the sun had sunk low in the sky, and the long shadows fell from the
church-tower and the headstones upon the graveyard where his old
friend, the rector, would soon be lying quietly, after the sunset of
his life's long day. It was an hour when Christmas loved to linger in
his garden, strolling slowly along the walks, and watching his flowers
grow dim in the darkening twilight. The little river was singing the
same tune it sang in his boyhood, and the blackbirds were whistling
from the hedges, as if the years had not touched them as they had
touched him. For, though he was a strong man yet, his hair was growing
grey; and he knew he was going the down-hill path of life to the narrow
valley, soft and dim only for some, but of utter blackness to others.
The little clouds hastening towards the west gave a sweet promise of a
splendid sunset; and Christmas loved to see both sunset and sunrise.
He sauntered leisurely through his orchard, where the commoner fruit
was ripening, to the well-fenced-in garden of his delight. There was
almost priceless fruit growing there, which he watched with a jealous
eye. Not a month ago he had caught a village urchin in his orchard,
and, in spite of all entreaties and beseechings, he had shut him up
in the crib, and taken him before the magistrate the next morning,
and heard him sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment in jail. That
offence was committed in his orchard; but to-day, as he drew near to
his garden, he could hear a sharp snapping of twigs, and the patter
of fruit falling to the ground. He crept cautiously and noiselessly
forward, and carefully lifted his head just above the fence. There was
a thief, and that thief was Easter's boy, his own grandson!
All the passion of his mingled love and hatred flamed up in Christmas
Williams' heart. This merry, ragged, brown-faced, handsome lad was his
own flesh and blood, and seemed to have a natural right to be there.
He watched Chrissie swing himself down from the tree, and strip off
his tattered jacket, and pile up the precious fruit in it. But as the
boy caught sight of his grandfather's face, gazing at him over the
fence, his heart stood still for very fear, and his knees knocked
together. Yet he lifted up his eyes to Christmas with a wistful,
speechless prayer in them. Chrissie could not utter a word, to say how
the lad just returned from jail had lifted him over the fence, telling
him the fruit was all his own, or would be some day. When he met his
grandfather's stern frown and awful silence, his little heart died
within him.
[Illustration: HE MET HIS GRANDFATHER'S STERN FROWN.]
"Grandfather!" he cried at last, dropping his stolen load, and bursting
into tears.
"A thief!" muttered Christmas, between his teeth. It was the first word
he had ever spoken to the lad. This boy of Easter's, this grandson of
his own, was a petty thief already! He thought of the urchin he had
sent to jail a month ago for precisely the same offence. But Chrissie
was so like himself when he was a boy! He could recollect plucking the
fruit without stint from these very trees, while his grandfather looked
on with delight at his dexterity and courage in climbing to the highest
boughs, and pointed out to him the ripest pears and rosiest apples.
Chrissie ought to be doing the same under his eye, not standing there
like a culprit, sobbing and trembling before him. Yet how could he keep
his word and make a difference between this lad and the one just out of
jail for the self-same thing? Besides, now he could make Easter feel;
perhaps bring her to her senses, if anything would do that. She had
been reckless of his displeasure so far; this would bring her on her
knees before him, ready to yield her will to his.
Without uttering a word to the terrified child, he entered his garden,
and seized him by the arm, not roughly, but firmly. He had never
touched him before, and his hand, firm as it was, trembled. Chrissie
lifted his brown, tearful face to him, and submitted without any
attempt at resistance. Silently his grandfather led him along the
pleasant garden paths, across the deep lawn, and through the green
churchyard, under the window of the room where the dead body of the
rector lay, to that dismal and neglected corner, overgrown with
nettles and docks, where the crib was built. It was an old, small,
strongly-built place, with windows closely barred, and a door thickly
studded with iron nails. It looked prepared for the blackest criminals,
rather than for the starved and poverty-stricken poachers and the
frightened urchins who had been its usual occupants. There was a heavy
padlock on the outer door, and this Christmas slowly unlocked, holding
his grandson between his arms and knees, as his hands were busy at
their task.
"Grandfather," sobbed the boy, "don't let mother know; it 'll break her
heart!"
Christmas could not speak a word, for his tongue was dry and parched;
but Chrissie walked in through the dark door unbidden. He listened to
it being closed and fastened securely behind him. This place had been
a terror and dread to him from his earliest days, when he had now and
then strayed with baby feet to the moss-grown step, and heard the wind
moan through the keyhole of the old lock, which had been in use before
the padlock. He stepped over the threshold with the courage of despair.
No hope of softening the heart of his grandfather entered his own, and
he made no effort to do it. If only his mother might not know!
At present there was still a little daylight, and through the close
cross-bars of the window he could see the crimson and golden cloudlets
hovering over the setting sun. He looked away from them with dazzled
eyes to examine shudderingly the interior of his prison. It was gloomy
enough; the only furniture was a low stone bench, but at one end of the
bench a chain was fastened to a ring in the wall, and handcuffs and
fetters were attached to the chain. He was almost glad to think that
his grandfather had not chained him to that ring in the wall. Sitting
down on the stone bench, Chrissie looked up again at the gradually
dying colours in the sky, not caring to turn away his eyes from them,
as they faded softly away into a quiet grey, which scarcely shed a
gleam of light into his dismal cell.
Chrissie's courage had held out fairly; but as the darkness gathered,
his imagination awoke, and called up all the sleeping, lurking fancies
which dwell in every child's young brain. They had been only biding
their time, and now trooped out in crowds to haunt the lonely lad. All
the stories he had ever heard of people being imprisoned for many, many
years, and even starved to death, hurried through his excited mind.
There had been a tale told for generations in the village of a man who
had killed himself in this very place. And were there not outside the
wall, amidst the docks and nettles, the forsaken graves of people too
wicked to lie even in death among their better neighbours? Every one
dreaded being buried there. Was it true that ghosts of wicked people
could not rest in their graves, but came forth at night to visit the
places they had once dwelt in, and to tell fearful secrets to those
they found alone? How fast the night was coming on, and he was quite
alone!
Nobody knew where he was, thought poor little Chrissie; nobody but his
grandfather, who hated him. He could not climb as high as the window,
barred as it was, to show himself through it. He was sorry almost that
he had asked that his mother might not know. She would never, never
know what had become of him, and he fancied he could see her weeping
for him through long years. For he felt certain he should die in this
dreary prison, and his grandfather would bury him secretly at night,
amid the wicked people who lay under the docks and nettles.
The church clock struck ten. It was quite dark by this time, except
for the pale, ghostly gleam of the strip of sky seen through the bars
of the window. The child passed through long ages of pain and terror
before it struck eleven. The dreadful hour of midnight came creeping on
towards him. He had never yet been awake at twelve; and twelve at night
was the most awful and ghostly hour of all the twenty-four. What would
happen then he could not guess; but something beyond all words, and
beyond all thought.
Chrissie could not ask God to take care of him; for had he not been
taken in the very act of breaking God's commandments? There was no
one, therefore, to stand between him and the unknown horrors that were
coming nearer every moment. There was no refuge, no Saviour for him. He
had offended God.
A strange sound somewhere in the prison jarred upon his ear, and with a
scream of terror, which rang shrilly out into the quiet night, Chrissie
lost his senses, and fell like one dead on the stone floor.
CHAPTER VI
A True Man
CHRISTMAS WILLIAMS, after locking the strong, heavy door on his little
grandson, had gone back to his house, having no longer the desire to
spend a quiet, loitering hour in his garden. The smouldering passion,
which had burst into so sudden a flame, was not yet subsiding. He had
held his grandson in his hand, between his arms, had had his little
face close beside his own; yet he had neither embraced nor kissed him.
In the depths of his nature he was longing secretly to do so, and to
claim the bold, brave little rascal for his own. When the lad turned to
him and said, "Don't let mother know; it would break her heart," his
pride had well-nigh given way.
But he had held out so long that it was like tearing up the roots of an
old tree to yield now. What would the world say, if he went back from
his word? How he would be jeered at if Easter was seen going from his
door to those canting meetings!
He had some vague idea of an ancient magistrate who had doomed his own
son to death, because he had sworn so to punish the offenders against
the laws. He had heard read in church how Saul had pronounced the same
fatal sentence upon his eldest son, Jonathan:
"God do so and more also: for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan," said
Saul.
These were men true to their word. How could he look his neighbours in
the face if he meted out one measure of punishment to one thief and
another to his grandson?
But for one of his own blood to go to jail! Christmas Williams'
grandson a jailbird! He wished earnestly he had not been so hard on the
young rascals who had robbed his orchard before, so that he might have
had a decent pretext for letting off Chrissie. He did not doubt that
it would break Easter's heart, and he had merely wished to break her
will. They said lads never got over the shameful fact of having been
sent to jail; that it clung to them for life. His own experience taught
him pretty much the same lesson; he had never known such a lad recover
from the disgrace and become a thoroughly respectable man. He could
count half a dozen instances. The shadow of the jail stretched itself
all across their after lives. If he had only given the last young thief
a few stripes, and sent him about his business, he might have done the
same for Chrissie.
As the evening passed away, these troublous thoughts grew more
clamorous. He was sitting on the hearth where his forefathers had spent
their quiet evenings before him good, honest men; and possibly he
might live to hear of his grandson, their child as well as his, being
convicted of some great crime, and sentenced to transportation or penal
servitude for life. It would have been himself that had given the child
the first push down the long and awful flight of steps leading to the
terrible gulf. That would be the shameful end of his upright, thrifty,
truth-loving race. Had he, then, any right to doom his family, and its
own honoured name, to such a close? Could he not yet turn back only
a half-step, and take another road? He had not gone too far on this
perilous path. Not a soul knew that Chrissie was locked up in the old
crib. He would see if he could make the boy promise faithfully not
to tell if he released him. He had the old blood in his veins, and,
perhaps, young as he was, he could keep a promise.
The clock had struck eleven before Christmas came to this conclusion,
a halting, half-false conclusion, of which he was inwardly ashamed.
He did not like taking a middle course, so he rose up slowly, and
leisurely opened the house-door, still hesitating about this compromise
with his resolution to treat Easter and her boy as if they were utter
strangers. He crossed the lane and paced along the churchyard with
very slow footsteps. All was silent in the village; the only sounds to
be heard were the brawling of the river and the hooting of the white
owl in his barnyard. There was but one light to be seen, excepting the
glimmer through the window of that room where the dead was lying, and
that light was up in one of the rectory attics, shining brightly into
the darkness of the night. Very likely it was Easter's candle, thought
her father; she loved to keep the window open on summer nights.
Christmas was a man who knew nothing of fear, superstitious fear above
all. He paced to and fro in the dark churchyard, thinking of how he
should deal with the boy, and in what manner he should dispose of him
for the rest of the night. Certainly he would upbraid and threaten
him; call him a thief and a disgrace, young and little as he was. He
must frighten him well. But where was he to take his grandson? All the
cottagers were gone to bed; and it would never do to call them up to
take in Chrissie, and so learn the very weakness he wished to hide.
It never occurred to him that the young child was already frightened
almost to death. He had seen him only as bold and daring, and he
could not understand a nature that was full of vague fancies and
imaginations, and superstitions fed on the village traditions. He
fitted the key into the padlock before he had quite settled what he was
about to do; and at that instant Chrissie's wild and agonized shriek
rang through the air. The sound almost paralyzed him. How he managed to
turn the key, he could not tell. He rushed into the utter darkness of
the cell, where he could see nothing and hear nothing.
"Chrissie!" he cried. "Chrissie, my little man! I'm here; thy
grandfather, my lad. I'm not angry with thee any longer. Speak to me!
I've come to take thee home; and thou shalt have as many apples as thee
pleases. Oh, Chrissie! Whereabouts art thou? Rouse up and speak to me."
There was neither voice nor sob to answer him or to guide him. Groping
about in the darkness, he found the little unconscious body of the
child lying in a heap on the stone floor. He lifted it up tenderly,
and pressed it again and again to his heart. He felt no longer any
kind of doubt as to what he would say or do. If he could only hear the
boy's voice, he would throw to the winds all his cherished anger and
resolution, and take his grandson and his daughter home again.
He carried Chrissie into the churchyard, speaking to him imploringly to
wake up and give him some sign of life. As he looked up to the attic
window where the light was burning, he saw Easter's head leaning out.
The cry that had frightened him had startled her also; and she was
listening for it again.
Christmas called to her.
"Easter, come down," he cried, in a lamentable voice; "your boy is
dead, perhaps; and it's your father killed him. Oh, Chrissie! My little
grandson, rouse thee, and speak only one word!"
In another minute Easter was down and beside them, chafing the cold
hands of her boy, and stroking his face, and calling him with her
tenderest voice. But still he lay like one dead on his grandfather's
breast.
"Easter," said her father, with a deep-drawn breath, "I found the child
stealing apples in my garden, and I dealt with him as I've dealt with
others. I locked him up in the crib, and left him alone there. I was
about to let him free again when I heard that terrible shriek, and I
found him like this. Easter, can you forgive me?"
"Father," she answered, in a mournful, solemn voice, "I forgive you
with all my heart."
"What! If the child dies?" asked Christmas, trembling and faltering as
he uttered the words.
"Yes," she said; "I know you did not mean to do it. But oh! He will not
die. My little Chrissie! My only little child! Pray God he may not die!"
"Kiss me, Easter," said her father.
With a strange sense of solemnity and sorrow, Easter kissed her
father's face, with the lifeless body of her child lying between them.
"Come home, Easter, come home!" he said, sobbing.
Almost in silence, Christmas and his daughter trod the familiar
churchyard paths once again together, trodden so many hundreds of times
by them both; but never as now. He bore his beloved burden, groaning
heavily from time to time. If he lost this disowned grandson, he felt
as though his heart must break.
They laid Chrissie in his grandfather's own bed, and both of them
watched beside him all night. The doctor, who had to be brought from
his home five miles off, and who could not reach them till the day was
breaking, told them that Chrissie was suffering from the effects of a
severe shock, but that there was no reason to dread any abiding and
serious results, if he was treated with common care.
Common care! It was no common care that was lavished upon the boy by
Christmas. All the pent-up tenderness of these long years overflowed
upon Chrissie and upon his daughter, now she was at home again. To his
great amazement, he discovered that the world, so far from jeering at
the reconciliation, applauded it far more cordially than it had ever
done his stern resentment. He was congratulated on every hand for
having taken home his daughter and her son; and old friends flocked
about him again as they had not done for years. The whole village
seemed to rejoice over the event. And when Christmas sent for the lad
who had been Chrissie's predecessor in the old crib, and took him his
word to into his own service, pledging his word to make a man of him if
possible, his popularity had never stood so high.
It was then, after giving up his own self-righteousness, and pulling
down the wall he had built up to shut out the light of heaven, that
Christmas Williams became able to learn how man can believe in God
and in Jesus Christ who died for our sins. The creed he had uttered
so often with his lips became the true expression of his heart. As he
stood in the churchwarden's pew, reverently saying, "I believe in God
the Father Almighty," and in "the forgiveness of sins," he would often
glance towards Easter, who had taught him the meaning of those words;
and there was nothing he loved better than to hear Chrissie's voice
repeating them with him.
It is probable that Christmas Williams would have been the first to
have helped, churchwarden as he was, in building a chapel, where the
simple Gospel of Christ could have been preached to the villagers;
but there was no longer any need for it. The clergyman who soon came
to occupy the place of the old rector was an earnest, true, and
enlightened servant of Christ, who knew his Master's will, and was
intent upon doing it.
"A man can't be true," says Christmas, "until he is true towards God.
I prided myself upon being a man of my word, and meaning all I said,
though I spoke a lie every time I said, 'I believe.' I didn't believe
in God, nor in Jesus Christ our Lord, nor in having any sins to be
forgiven. A man must be made true in the darkest corners of his heart
before he can be a man of his word."
THE END
———————————————————
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
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