A DISPUTE SETTLED.
Next morning Minnie was down at Hollowmell before any one in that region
was stirring. She had carried down with her a basket filled with
provisions, feeling sure that under the sorrowful circumstances it would
be required. She found, as she had expected, that Mrs. Malone was dead.
She died at about four o'clock in the morning, her husband informed
Minnie, and her last words had been the words he had been reading to her
from the fourteenth chapter of John, "Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid."
He was sitting beside the remains of his wife with the book in his hand,
as if he had never moved since the moment of her death, when Minnie
entered.
He had really loved his wife with all the fervour of his passionate
Irish nature, and the remembrance that but for his intemperance, and his
cruelty to her, when under the influence of drink, she might have still
been alive and happy, had overcome him to such an extent that he had
fallen into a half unconscious state, and did not seem to be able to
realise anything except that she would speak to him no more.
Minnie could not wait then, so she ran into another cottage a little way
further on, the door of which was already open, and finding the object
of her search (Molly Gray) engaged in the preparation of her own
breakfast, she told her of the calamity which had befallen the Malones,
and begged her to go in and help them.
Molly only waited to refill her kettle that she might find it ready for
any emergency, and carrying her own tea with her in a can wherewith to
refresh the worn-out watcher, she at once repaired to the bereaved home.
Greatly relieved to be able to leave them under efficient care, Minnie
hastened home, having first seen the grief-stricken husband swallow some
tea, and a few mouthsful of bread, but she had no appetite for her own
breakfast, though she made a pretence of eating to escape comment, and
rose to prepare for church without having tasted a morsel.
None knew of her last night's visit except her father and Charlie, and
as her father did not mention it and Charlie had not yet appeared, she
was not annoyed with the questions and expressions of wonder which she
had hardly hoped to elude. Mabel was not at church, neither was she at
school next day, an excuse being sent for her absence, stating that she
was confined to the house with a slight attack of influenza. Minnie's
excitement of Saturday night, thus augmented by anxiety on her friend's
behalf, now began to tell upon her, so much, indeed, that before the
work of the school was over, every one observed its effect in her
heightened colour, and the unnatural brightness of her eyes round which
dark circles had formed. They all attributed it to Mabel's illness and
did not think it necessary to enquire into the cause of her apparent
feverishness, so that she got away from school also without being
embarrassed by troublesome explanations.
She went straight from school to Mabel's, running all the way in her
anxious haste. The fresh wind and the exertion of running had a
beneficial effect upon her, both physically and mentally, for by the
time she arrived at Mr. Chartres' door, the feverish flush was replaced
by a healthy glow, and the strange, indefinable feeling of restlessness
which had all day possessed her, seemed to have been swept away by the
breath of the wind.
Mabel was still in bed, her aunt informed Minnie, though in her opinion,
she was considerably better, and requested her to go up herself to
Mabel's bedroom.
Minnie needed no second invitation, but immediately flew upstairs, and
opening the door softly, peeped in before she entered. She was lying
with her eyes closed, but the opening of the door, quietly though it was
done, caused her to unclose them again just as Minnie looked in. She
looked very pale and exhausted, but brightened up wonderfully under the
influence of Minnie's cheerfulness, and was altogether so much better by
the time for her departure, that she felt persuaded she would be able to
attend school again on the morrow.
"That notion about influenza, you know," she remarked confidentially to
Minnie, "was nothing more than a delusion on aunt's part. I have really
no more influenza than she as herself, but she must have some reason for
my being ill, and there would be no use contradicting her, unless I
could supply a reason myself, which I can't. I thought it just as well
to let it be influenza as anything else."
Minnie agreed that perhaps it was, and conjuring her to "shake herself
up" and be out to-morrow, departed.
That night, after tea she was sitting in the parlour with her two
brothers, Archie and Seymour, the one of whom, Seymour, was older than
she, and the other, Archie, a year younger.
"I say, Min," began Archie, "aren't you going to tell us what the row
was on Saturday night? What mysterious traffic is going on between you
and Charlie? I was teasing him to tell me yesterday, but he was as
silent as the Sphinx."
"And what if I intend to be as silent as that famous monument also?"
Asked Minnie.
"O, come now!" Replied he, in a coaxing tone, "you couldn't, you know,
you're just dying to tell, as much as I am to hear what before-unheard
of circumstance induced him to turn out on a Saturday night, and a wet
and stormy one too."
"Am I?" She asked, looking at him with a provokingly doubtful
expression, but feeling rather nervous all the time. "Then I must
congratulate you on being a great deal better acquainted with my state
of mind than I am myself. I don't know how it is, but for my own part, I
confess that I cannot find any indication of such a condition as you
describe."
Here Seymour looked up.
"I think," he remarked, quietly. "That I might give you a _little_
further information on the subject, since you seem so very much
interested in it. Minnie was along with Charlie on Saturday night, on
his interesting errand, and also Miss Chartres."
Archie gave a low whistle of surprise, and stared at Seymour, as though
expecting him to say more, but if such was his expectation, he was
doomed to disappointment, for Seymour having delivered in these few
words the full extent of his information on the topic under discussion,
closed his lips and turned his attention to his book again.
Minnie looked distressed, but Archie did not notice it in his
astonishment and eagerness to know more about this mysterious
proceeding.
"Is it true, Minnie?" he demanded. "Seymour, who told you that?--I
declare I don't believe a word of it."
"Edward Laurence told me," replied Seymour, without looking up. "His
mother was down there at Hollowmell yesterday, and came home full of it.
I did not know before to-day that I had a saint for a sister; and as for
not believing it, if you don't, just look at her and you soon will."
And sure enough her face was dyed with a hot flush that mounted even as
he spoke to the roots of her hair, though he could only have been
instinctively aware of her confusion, for his head was still bent over
his book.
Archie looked from the one to the other in open-mouthed astonishment for
a minute or two, and then it dawned upon him that Minnie looked, to say
the least of it, uncomfortable, and stifling his curiosity, which was by
this time greater than ever, as best he could, suddenly relapsed into
silence.
Soon afterwards Seymour left the room, and Minnie resolved to seize this
opportunity of telling Archie the real facts of the case.
"It was so kind of you," she commenced rather confusedly, "to help me as
you did just now. I could not tell you about it while Seymour was here,
for you know very well how he laughs at religion, and says it is all
done for show, and that there is no heart in it at all. I don't mean
that I should have told you if Seymour had not been here, for I wouldn't
have mentioned it if he had not--"
"Never mind about that," interrupted Archie, impatiently, "proceed with
the story--or," he hastily interrupted himself, "not if it bothers you
to talk about it. I don't mind much, you know."
Minnie smiled, knowing well how much he did mind, and assured him that
it would not bother her at all to tell him, as she knew he would listen
patiently, and not ridicule anything she might say.
She then proceeded to tell him in as few words as possible, what had
taken place at Hollowmell on Saturday night, and how it came about that
Mabel happened to be there at such a late hour.
"Why," exclaimed Archie, when he had listened with an interest, which
surprised himself as entirely as it surprised Minnie; for though of an
unusually curious disposition, he invariably found his interest flag
after drinking in the first few details of anything. "Why, if you aren't
a party of complete 'bricks--' Seymour called you a saint, but I say a
'brick,' and if you aren't content with that, I don't know what _will_
content you." And he stared at her with an expression of intense
approval that was irresistible.
"But what I want to know is this," he continued in a tone of
confidential deliberation, when her amusement had subsided. "However did
you manage to get Charlie into such a pie? He and Seymour go together in
these affairs; I should have considered Ned a more suitable subject for
a purpose of that kind."
"O, I hadn't time to think, I suppose, I was in too great a hurry to get
away--and besides I wasn't sure whether Ned was in or not. I'm glad now
it was Charlie, for I don't think he'll look on these things with the
same eyes now, as he used to, after what he saw of their value and
necessity when nothing else could avail."
"Ah, well, I don't know much about it myself, but I suppose we must
attend to them some time, though there's no particular hurry at present
for any of _us_ that I can see."
"Oh, but there is!" cried Minnie anxiously, "don't you see that the end
may come any day, and that though we are young, we haven't any guarantee
that we will live even one day more--there are so many ways we may die,
and just consider that one of them might overtake us within an hour."
"O, yes, of course, it _might_," was his light reply, "but that's very
unlikely. It's a rather dull sort of subject this--I think I'll run
round to Jack Durnard's for a map I lent him yesterday."
He walked out unconcernedly, and Minnie made no effort to stop him,
knowing how useless further remonstrance on this point would be.
Next day Mabel was allowed to come to school, greatly to Minnie's
delight, and was not worse on that account contrary to her aunt's
confident expectation, indeed the life and activity with which she found
herself surrounded there, and into which she was ere long sucked, seemed
to raise and disperse the cloud of depression which had enveloped her,
so that in a few days she was her old self again.
The examination in which Mona and Minnie were to take part, was now
drawing near, and both were very hard at work in consequence. Minnie,
who never did anything by halves, wrought with all her energy, and
denied herself the pleasure of being at Hollowmell as often as usual,
that she might keep herself in right working order.
Not that she hoped to stand first on the list, for that hope she had
abandoned when she resolved to keep back her Latin translation, but
there were candidates from other schools in the neighbourhood, and the
honour of the school was as much a consideration with her as any
individual honour could be.
They were both too busy just at that time to indulge in any of their
usual skirmishes, even if they had been particularly inclined, which,
singularly enough, neither happened to be. Mona, to do her justice, had
not, since the day on which she had been so ignominiously defeated about
the Hollowmell scheme, troubled Minnie with any of her ordinary most
provoking remarks; she held aloof, it is true, in a way which many
considered to bode no good to their future peace when she would once
more be at liberty to resume her attacks.
In this, however, they were mistaken, for matters remained "in statu
quo" after the examination was over, and the school had fallen into its
usual routine again.
There was a good deal of speculation as to which would stand highest,
but as it would be some time before the result could be communicated,
these speculations were soon allowed to die away, and be replaced by
objects of more immediate interest.
About this time the girls were making preparations for a grand floral
demonstration which was to take place at the end of June, for their work
had been going on now for four months. It was still almost a month till
then, but the hearts of these youthful missionaries were already growing
troubled as they contemplated the ambitious nature of their undertaking,
when an incident occurred which, not in itself having any connection
with their project, yet grew into a solution of their difficulty, or
rather out of it grew the solution.
They had thought of asking the parents and friends of the boys and girls
to be present and share in the festivity, but found that their limited
space forbade the carrying into effect of this amiable project. They
were very loath to abandon it, however, as at that time there was great
discontent among the miners, and indeed a strike was threatened.
They were not vain enough to imagine that the result of this scheme
would be to avert the impending catastrophe, but they had such faith in
the soothing effect of good-natured social intercourse with them, and a
display of real and unaffected interest in them and all concerning them,
that they hoped at least to lessen in some degree the spirit of
disaffection that pervaded the district.
Some one suggested that they should hire a hall which stood at that end
of the town, erected for temperance purposes but seldom used, and this
suggestion, being favourably received, would have been carried out at
once, but for the unfortunate reason that the hall was engaged for every
Saturday up to that time and several weeks beyond it for meetings of the
miners.
There was no other place at all suitable to be had, and so they found
their good intentions frustrated at the very outset.
"I am afraid we shall have to give it up," sighed Bessie Raynor, one of
the most energetic and indomitable among them in the pursuit of anything
on which she had set her heart; and on the carrying out of this scheme
she _had_ set her heart, as its success involved a private one of her
own.
Her father was also a coal-master like Minnie's, but his works were in
quite a different part of the country so that they were inaccessible to
her at present. They had a house there, though, just outside the little
mining village, and there they usually removed during the Summer months.
Fired by Minnie's example, Bessie had formed the resolution of
initiating something of the same kind among her father's work-people
when she should be among them again in a few weeks' time at most;
accordingly, she was anxious to acquire as much experience as possible
in the different sections of the work set on foot by the "Hollowmell
Mission," and their varied results.
The case was felt to be hopeless indeed when Bessie gave in, and as
nothing further could be done, and no fresh idea was promulgated, the
meeting separated with the intention of giving the matter a careful
re-consideration in case any solution might present itself hitherto
unthought of.
Minnie was in very low spirits indeed, for her father was looking more
care-worn and troubled every day, and was even now away attending one of
those meetings from which he usually returned only to shut himself up in
his study without seeing or speaking to any one.
Mabel was not out that day, she was naturally rather delicate, and had
drooped very much of late, indeed, she had not been right since the
night of Mrs. Malone's death, and this added a new cause for anxiety to
Minnie's already troubled mind.
She walked slowly home trying to think of a way of bringing their plan
to a successful issue, and so doing something, at least, towards the
diffusion of a better spirit among the people. She could not bear the
thought of being idle while there was a vague possibility of the
slightest improvement being made in the present aspect of affairs. But
her brain seemed willing to turn to anything but that, and she found
herself as far off as ever from any settlement by the time she reached
home.
Her father had not yet returned, and the boys were out, so she sat down
in the window to await their arrival. She had fallen into a sort of
dream, and was performing all sorts of impossible feats before an
admiring audience, composed for the most part of miners, but among whom
she could distinguish the faces of her father, Mabel, Charlie, and a
certain Mr. Laurence, the identical good-looking Methodist minister to
whom Mona Cameron had on one occasion alluded.
Strangely enough, or rather, not strangely at all, for what impossible
thing is not possible in a dream, Mona was her fellow-actor in this
vision, and the two were in the midst of some wonderful acrobatic
display, when they happened to touch each other and the result was a
sudden "phiz," not a moral "phiz," such as the pupils of Miss Marsden's
school were in the habit of witnessing, but a real, or rather what
seemed to her a real chemical "phiz" in which both were involved, and
without much surprise she beheld herself seethe and bubble "just like
lemonade," as she afterwards described it, and finally vanish into
viewless vapour.
Just at that moment a sharp report in her ear caused her to start and
wake, and there, sure enough, was her father in the act of drawing the
cork of a lemonade bottle, while Archie poured out the contents of
another, which must by some mysterious means or other have got into her
dream.
"Well, sleepyhead!" exclaimed Archie, "did you condescend to wake at
last? Do you know how long you have been sleeping?"
Minnie looked round in half-awakened surprise.
The curtains were drawn, the gas-jets lit, and the supper on the table,
nearly finished too.
"Why did you allow me to sleep so long?" asked Minnie in rather an
injured tone.
"As to that," replied Archie, "I'd have wakened you fast enough--you
know my usual accommodating spirit--but papa would not hear of it."
"And really you did look so uncommonly tired," added Ned, "that we all
thought it a charity to let you go on. I hope it was a pleasant
dream--you seemed to do a great deal of talking during it."
Minnie laughed, and taking her seat at the table proceeded to entertain
them with an account of it, and its absurd termination, which was
received with shouts of laughter, and Minnie was glad to observe that
her father joined them in their merriment without the appearance of
force or strain, which she had noticed on similar occasions during the
last few weeks.
"But what put the miners in your head?" He enquired curiously, when they
were at last sober again.
"I suppose it must have been with hearing so much about them for some
time back, and we were talking about them down in the Hollow this
afternoon. I knew you were trying to satisfy them, and I was bothering
myself because I could do nothing when things were going wrong."
"Well, if all that was on your mind, I hardly wonder at your dreaming of
miners," remarked Mr. Kimberly smiling.
"And highly complimented the miners may think themselves," put in
Archie.
"Well, as it turns out," continued Mr. Kimberly, "you needn't have
worried yourself quite so much about your inability, seeing you have
already accomplished a very great deal--you and your young friends who
help you."
"How?" exclaimed Minnie, eagerly, "we seem to be able to do nothing just
now--the only time we could do any real good--"
"Never mind that at the present moment," interrupted Archie, "let us
hear papa's story."
"Then you must know in the first place that the discontent among the
miners is stirred up by a few men who, not content with bringing poverty
and hardship upon themselves, seek to draw others into it also, and seem
never to be so happy as when raising strife of one kind or another. I
know that the most of my men, are perfectly well aware that they receive
good wages for their work, and would be content enough if it were not
for these vampires--for they seem liker that than anything else. Though
I have been at many of their meetings I have never had an opportunity of
speaking until to-day, and you may be sure I made the most of it, laying
before them a plain statement of the case, and asking them if, in their
hearts, they did not endorse every word of it.
"I may as well say that I had very little faith in anything resulting
from this appeal, and was therefore not surprised when I sat down, to
see that the stolid indifference with which they had received me was
still unbroken; but I _was_ surprised at what followed.
"A great burly Irishman--one Malone--who has been working in the pit for
half-a-year or so, stood up and spoke.
"He did not say much, but every word told. He retailed the story of his
wife's death-bed, and how the master's daughter had come, undeterred by
wind and rain, and brought with her the comfort and hope which had made
his wife's last moments the happiest she had ever known. I cannot bring
before you the grandeur of simplicity which carried such weight with it,
nor the terrible sincerity of the rugged giant, as he stood with tears
in his eyes and his voice husky with emotion, but it is a scene I will
never forget as long as I live, and I don't think any one who witnessed
it will ever forget it either.
"He reminded them too, how the master's daughter and her friends had
wrought and thought for their children's good and theirs, and how there
was scarcely one present who had not reaped the benefit of their labours
in comfort and cleanliness alone, not to mention other and better
things.
"In conclusion, he proposed that they should all go back to their work,
after they had given three cheers in honour of the young ladies, for the
sake of whose goodness alone, they should be willing to do much more
than this.
"He sat down amid a perfect burst of cheering, and when that was
subdued, another miner rose and seconded him, and the resolution was
carried by acclamation.
"Some one tried to oppose it, but he was effectually shouted down in
less time than it takes to tell it; and so the dispute was settled, and
my men go back to work on Monday in perfect good humour with themselves
and all the world."
Nobody spoke when he had finished his recital, the minds of all being
intensely occupied, each with its individual reflections on the scene
just described.
"And that man," continued Mr. Kimberly after a long pause, "was, not two
months ago, the most malignant malcontent in Hollowmell."
Still no one else seemed to care about giving expression to any thoughts
they might have on the subject, and in silence they separated for the
night.