THE BEASTS OF THE VILLAGE.—ABEL SICKENS.—THE GOOD SHEPHERD.—RUFUS PLAYS
THE PHILANTHROPIST.—MASTER SWIFT SEES THE SUN RISE.—THE DEATH OF THE
RIGHTEOUS.
AMID the havoc made by the fever amongst men, women, and children, the
immunity of the beasts and birds had a sad strangeness.
There was a small herd of pigs which changed hands three times in ten
days. The last purchaser hesitated, and was only induced by the
cheapness of the bargain to suppress a feeling that they brought
ill-luck. Cats mewed wistfully about desolated hearths. One dog moaned
near the big grave in which his master lay, and others, with sad
sagacious eyes, went to look for new friends and homes.
It was a day or two after the burial of the miller’s three children,
that, as Jan sat at dinner with Abel and his two parents, he was struck
by the way in which the mill cats hung about Abel, purring and rubbing
themselves against his legs.
“I do think they misses the others,” he whispered to his foster-brother,
and his tears fell thick and fast on to his plate.
Abel made no answer. He did not wish Jan to know that he had given all
his food by bits to the cats, because he could not swallow it himself.
But, later in the day, Jan found him in the round-house, lying on an
empty sack, with his head against a full one.
“Don’t ’ee tell mother,” he said; “but I do feel bad.”
And as Jan sat down, and put his arms about him, on the very spot where
they had so often sat together, learning the alphabet and educating their
thumbs, Abel laid his head on his foster-brother’s shoulder, saying,—
“I do think, Janny dear, that Mary, she wants me, and the others too. I
think I be going after them. But thee’ll look to mother, Janny dear,
eh?”
“But _I_ want thee, too, Abel dear,” sobbed Jan.
“I be thinking perhaps them that brought thee hither’ll fetch thee away
some day, Jan. But thee’ll see to mother?” repeated Abel, his eyes
wandering restlessly with a look of pain.
Jan knew now that he was only an adopted child of the windmill, though he
stoutly ignored the fact, being very fond of his foster-parents.
Abel’s illness came with the force of a fresh blow. There had been a
slight pause in the course of the fever at the mill, and it seemed as if
these two boys were to be spared. Abel had been busy helping his father
to burn the infected bedding, etc., that very morning, and at night he
lay raving.
He raved of Jan’s picture which swung unheeded above Master Chuter’s
door, and confused it with some church-window that he seemed to fancy Jan
had painted; then of his dead brothers and sisters. And then from time
to time he rambled about a great flock of sheep which he saw covering the
vast plains about the windmill, and which he wearied himself in trying to
count. And, as he tossed, he complained in piteous tones about some man
who seemed to be the shepherd, and who would not do something that Abel
wanted.
For the most part, he knew no one but Jan, and then only when Jan touched
him. It seemed to give him pleasure. He understood nothing that was
said to him, except in brief intervals. Once, after a short sleep, he
opened his eyes and recognized the schoolmaster.
“Master Swift,” said he, “do ’ee think that be our Lord among them sheep?
With His hair falling on’s shoulders, and the light round His head, and
the long frock?”
Master Swift’s eyes turned involuntarily in the direction in which Abel’s
were gazing. He saw nothing but the dark corners of the dwelling-room;
but he said,—
“Ay, ay, Abel, my lad.”
“What be His frock all red for, then? Bright red, like blood. ’Tis like
them figures in—in”—
Here Abel wandered again, and only muttered to himself. But when Jan
crept near to him, and touching him said, “The figures in the window,
Abel dear,” he opened his eyes and said,—
“So it be, Janny. With the sun shining through ’em. Thee knows.”
And then he wailed fretfully,—
“Why do He keep His back to me all along? I follows Him up and down, all
over, till I be tired. Why don’t He turn His face?”
Jan was speechless from tears, but the old schoolmaster took Abel’s hot
hand in his, and said, with infinite tenderness,—
“He will, my lad. He’ll turn His face to thee very soon. Wait for Him,
Abel.”
“Do ’ee think so?” said Abel. And after a while he muttered, “You be the
schoolmaster, and ought to know.”
And, seemingly satisfied, he dozed once more.
Master Swift hurried away. He had business in the village, and he wanted
to catch the doctor, and ask his opinion of Abel’s case.
“Will be get round, sir?” he asked.
The doctor shook his head, and Master Swift felt a double pang. He was
sorry about Abel, but the real object of his anxiety was Jan. Once he
had hoped the danger was past, but the pestilence seemed still in full
strength at the windmill, and the agonizing conviction strengthened in
his mind that once more his hopes were to be disappointed, and the desire
of his eyes was to be snatched away. The doctor thought that he was
grieving for Abel, and said,—
“I’m just as sorry as yourself. He’s a fine lad, with something angelic
about the face, when ye separate it from its surroundings. But they’ve
no constitution in that family. It’s just the want of strength in him,
and not the strength of the fever, this time; for the virulence of the
poison’s abating. The cases are recovering now, except where other
causes intervene.”
Master Swift felt almost ashamed of the bound in his spirits. But the
very words which shut out all hope of Abel’s recovery opened a possible
door of escape for Jan. He was not one of the family, and it was
reasonable to hope that his constitution might be of sterner stuff. He
turned with a lighter heart into his cottage, where he purposed to get
some food and then return to the mill. There might be a lucid interval
before the end, in which the pious Abel might find comfort from his lips;
and if Jan sickened, he would nurse him night and day.
Rufus welcomed his master not merely with cordiality, but with fussiness.
The partly apologetic character of his greeting was accounted for when a
half starved looking dog emerged from beneath the table, and, not being
immediately kicked, wagged the point of its tail feebly, keeping at a
respectful distance, whilst Rufus introduced it.
“So ye’re for playing the philanthropist, are ye?” said Master Swift.
“Ye’ve picked up one of these poor houseless, masterless creatures? I’m
not for undervaluing disinterested charity, Rufus, my man; but I wish
ye’d had the luck to light on a better bred beast while ye were about
it.”
It is, perhaps, no disadvantage to what we call “dumb animals” if they
understand the general drift of our remarks without minutely following
every word. They have generally the sense, too, to leave well alone,
and, without pressing the question of the new comer’s adoption, the two
dogs curled themselves round, put their noses into their pockets, and
went to sleep with an air of its being unnecessary to pursue the topic
farther.
Master Swift shared his meal with them, and left them to keep house when
he returned to the mill.
His quick eye, doubly quickened by experience and by anxiety, saw that
Jan’s were full of fever, and his limbs languid. But he would not quit
Abel’s side, and Master Swift remained with the afflicted family.
Abel muttered deliriously all night, with short intervals of complete
stupor. The fever, like a fire, consumed his strength, and the fancy
that he was toiling over the downs seemed to weary him as if he had
really been on foot. Just before sunrise, Master Swift left him asleep,
and went to breathe some out-door air.
The fresh, tender light of early morning was over every thing. The
windmill stood up against the red-barred sky with outlines softened by
the clinging dew. The plains glistened, and across them, through the
pure air, came the voice of Master Salter’s chanticleer from the distant
farm.
It was such a contrast to the scene within that Master Swift burst into
tears. But even as he wept the sun leaped to the horizon, and, reflected
from every dewdrop, and from the very tears upon the old man’s cheeks,
flooded the world about him with its inimitable glory.
The schoolmaster uncovered his head, and kneeling upon the short grass
prayed passionately for the dying boy. But, as he knelt in the
increasing sunshine, his prayers for the peace of the departing soul
unconsciously passed almost into thanksgiving that so soon, and so little
stained, it should exchange the dingy sick-room—not for these sweet
summer days, which lose their sweetness!—but to taste, in peace which
passeth understanding, what GOD has prepared for them that love Him.
* * * * *
It was whilst the schoolmaster still knelt outside the windmill that Abel
awoke, and raised his eyes to Jan’s with a smile.
“Thee must go out a bit soon, Janny dear,” he whispered, “it be such a
lovely day.”
Jan was too much pleased to hear him speak to wonder how he knew what
kind of a day it was, and Abel lay with his head in Jan’s arms, breathing
painfully and gazing before him. Suddenly he raised himself, and
cried,—so loudly that the old man outside heard the cry,—
“Janny dear! He’ve turned his face to me. He be coming right to me.
Oh! He”—
But HE had come.