MOUNT SALEM.
NEXT morning Christie was awake early, which was not wonderful, as he
had slept all the afternoon of the previous day, and all night too. But
he had barely time to wonder how and where he could wash himself, and
to feel how very much he wished to do so, when Debby came out of the
house to call him.
"So you are up, Christie Brent! Have you said your prayers? Master
desired me to ask."
"Miss, I quite forgot them, I'm sorry to have to say."
"Go back then and say them, and then come to me."
Christie went into the stable and said his prayers. He never, poor
fellow, went beyond the short and childish form taught him by poor
Kate, with the Lord's Prayer, which I fear he used with as little
understanding as if he had said it in its Latin form.
"I declare," he said to himself when he rose, "I was beginning to think
that the Lord did not take any care for me. Yet, the mountain side is
dangerous, what with rocks and quags; and no one followed me, and the
folk here seem very good and kind. If I may serve that pale lady that
smiled just like mother, and the young one that looks like what the
angels must be, I shall really feel sure that He does."
Do not despise him. There was another wanderer once who said, "If the
Lord will keep me and give me" this and that, "then I will serve Him."
And poor Christie was very ignorant.
When he went into the house, he found that Debby had put a big tub into
a small room behind the kitchen, and some rough towels.
"I'll give you water and soap," said she, "and you're to wash and tidy
yourself up a bit. What has become of your jacket?"
"I gave it to a tinker man for some bread. Such a little piece as he
gave me, but then the jacket 'was' old. I had no money."
"You had the medal."
"Ah, well, I'd sooner go hungry than sell that. Give me that pail,
miss, and let me get the water."
He drew two pails full, and had a most delightful wash. Fortunately for
him, his mother had loved cleanliness. With an old broken comb, which
he called a rack, and which, when used as he used it on his very curly
hair, must have caused nearly as much suffering as a real rack, he
reduced his hair to order, pulling out a good handful in the process.
Then he put on a flannel shirt of his father's, which Hessie had put in
the bundle, and which was several sizes too large for him. And now he
felt highly respectable. The want of a jacket is nothing when you have
on a dark flannel shirt!
He found Janet and Debby sitting down to breakfast, and was invited to
join them. Good stirabout, good bread, butter, and milk! Christie felt
that he had come to a land of plenty.
"Do you think, miss—" he began.
"Don't call us miss, Christie. Just Janet, and Debby."
"Oh! I'm afraid I couldn't, but if you like, I'll try. Do you think, I
was wanting to ask, that your master has any work for me?"
"I shan't be a bit surprised if he has," answered Janet. "I know the
mistress and Miss Persis want him to keep a boy. And if you get the
place, you'll be in luck—though they would say 'that's' no word to
use. It is dull, no doubt, but I've been in service in finer places—I
was under-housemaid at Sir Gilbert Hare's—and I never knew such kind
people as these are. And good—rather too good; but then 'tis real and
no pretending."
"What did you call the young lady?"
"Miss Persis."
"That's in the Bible somewhere—I'm sure it is. So she ought to be,"
said Christie.
A bell rang, and the maids began to prepare breakfast for the family.
Christie thought he was in the way, so he went out into the yard,
hunted up a broom and a shovel, and cleaned up yard, stable, and
cow-house. The cow was not at home, having been milked and turned out
into the field while he was washing himself.
He was wondering whether he might open the door of another small
building, in which his ears had informed him there were cocks and hens,
when a voice said softly—
"Good-morning, Christie. What have you been doing here?"
It was Persis, in her simple grey dress, with a large white apron on,
and carrying a tin pail full of food for the fowls.
"I thought I might clean up the yard, miss. Maybe I had no right to?"
"I am very much obliged to you, for Debby and I find it hard work to
keep it nice. A man comes once a week, but it will be nice to have it
done every day."
"It would be nice to be let do it," Christie said wistfully; "I 'do'
want work, miss."
"Go round to the hall door, my father is there. He wants to talk to
you. Take courage, Christie, he is so good and kind."
Christie drew a long breath: Persis opened a wicket in the big gate and
let him out.
"Any way, Miss Persis, may I clean up the henhouse for you?"
"You may," she said with a smile.
She was nothing more, to ordinary observers, than a fair,
healthy-looking girl, with pretty eyes and a most pleasant expression,
but poor young Christie thought again about the angels, and to his
dying day always pictured them to himself just like Miss Persis.
"So—here you are, Christopher. For that, I suppose, is your full name?"
"Yes, sir. Poor mother told me it has a meaning—'Strong for Christ.'"
"Not so, Christopher. It means 'the Christ-bearer,' and is connected
with a legend, or story, which, though pretty, is certainly not true. I
trust your mother was a Churchwoman?"
"I don't know," said Christie shortly, for he did not like to hear that
his mother had made a mistake.
Mr. Arkwright was rather puzzled by his reply.
"I have heard," said he, "all that Deborah Smiles can tell me
concerning you and your parents, and the village of Blackmead. I shall
write to Mr. Smiles, of course, as doubtless he can tell me more. In
the meantime, it is my intention to hire you by the week, until I see
whether you will suit me or not. I shall give you no money just at
first, but if you leave me after a while, I shall pay you. And if I
think well of you, I shall get you a place with one of the farmers
about here. For it is not every boy that would suit me. I want one who
will learn gardening, can attend to a pony, and make himself useful in
many ways. Without any fault of yours, you may not turn out to be the
boy I want."
"Sir, I understand. I will try my very best to please you, and I do
feel very grateful. I can milk, and churn, and work in a garden, and
care a donkey, and tend bees, and make baskets or mend 'em, and make
stirabout and griddle-bread, and knit stockings, and—"
But here Mr. Arkwright burst into a merry laugh, much tickled by this
list of accomplishments.
"And what, boy?—Go on," he said.
Christie laughed too, as he added, "Dig and dry peat, light fires, and
wash a bit. You see, sir, I had poor mother to do for, altogether, for
a long time. She was quite helpless of late. And besides, I can do a
little blacksmith's work, sir."
"Why, you're a regular Jack-of-all-trades, my boy."
"Mother used that very word, sir. She said—and 'twas one of the
last times she talked to me, for she was very silent lately—that a
Jack-of-all-trades could always get work."
"Was your mother a Christian woman, Christopher?"
Christie stared. "I don't fare to understand," said he, using one of
his mother's Devonshire expressions.
"I mean, was she a real heart-Christian? Did she go to church
regularly?"
"There's no church nearer than Grassley. That's too far for any one to
go to it, except to be married or buried. Mother was sorry, she'd have
liked to go. Mother was good, sir, she was indeed. She could read, and
she taught me, and made me read the Bible."
"That is well! That is well! No church—what a deplorable state of
things! How dreadful! I'm quite—knocked down by it. A place not thirty
miles from— But tell me, does not the schoolmaster—"
"There's no school, sir."
"No school! Do you hear this, Dorothea?"
Then Christie saw that Mrs. Arkwright was sitting by the open window.
"I do hear. It is very sad. Christopher, how do the children get any
education?"
Christie considered, and thought that the long word must mean learning.
"They don't get any, ma'am. I was the only boy there that could read
the Bible, and they had no Bibles, that I ever saw. Mother had learned
to write; she came from Plymouth, a long way off south, maybe you never
heard of it. There be schools there. But she had nearly forgotten the
writing, and we had no paper and things, so she did not teach me."
"But if they can neither read nor write, how do they carry on their
trades—their shops?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand, sir.—Trade? Father, before his strength
failed, used to drive John Donkey to Grassley every few days, and
sometimes to Bradstone, and he called it his trade. He bought things
for those that had a few pence, and sold things for those that had
things to sell, and he brought home things that we changed away with
the people. Father could not write, I know, nor read; and if Ben
Marks—the blacksmith, you know, sir—could, he never did, that I saw.
And Hessie would not learn. Mother wanted to teach her."
"If you had no church, Christopher, how did you keep the Sabbath?"
Christie looked doubtful. The word Sunday, even, might have been better
understood; as to Sabbath, he only dimly connected it with the Bible.
After a pause, he said—
"I don't think we had one to keep, sir."
Mr. Arkwright struck his stick upon the ground and exclaimed—
"And this in a Christian land, nineteen centuries after Christ!
Christopher, what parish is Blackmead in?"
"Parish?" echoed Christie. Besides his conscious ignorance, he was
somewhat alarmed.
Mr. Arkwright seemed angry—doubtless the next step would be to send him
away.
"Question him no more just now, Andrew," said the gentle voice from the
window. "The boy does not quite understand. You are losing the morning
too. Christopher is not to blame in this sad matter, we all know that.
I must go to the maids, my dear; go you to the garden, and see what the
lad can do."
She smiled kindly at Christie, took up her keys, and left the parlour.
Mr. Arkwright led the way to the door in the wall, but so real was his
distress at what he had just heard that he hardly knew what he was
doing. His lips moved, and his spectacles were clouded, and for once,
he opened his garden door and did not see his flowers,—until Christie
suddenly shouted with amazement, for such a garden as that he had never
even dreamed of.
It was a large garden, and all round it ran a narrow border, and next
to that, a broad, smooth walk. Just before them lay a large piece of
grass-plat, cut to the nicest level; cut in it were quaintly-shaped
beds, full of flowers that Christie did not know the names of. Beyond
the grass, a fancy paling, forming arches, went across the garden. The
arches were covered with roses, now of course out of bloom for as yet
the "hybrid perpetual" was not, and a variety of climbing plants with
gay blossoms, crimson, yellow, and purple. The beds held geraniums,
asters,—all sorts of loveliness. Then came a greenhouse, behind which
there was a good fruit and vegetable garden, all in the utmost nicety
of order.
Christie stood and gazed, then said—
"Sir, when I said I could work in a garden, I meant that I can plant
cabbages and grow potatoes. The like of these flowers I never saw. I
hardly believe that I do see them now."
Mr. Arkwright was a most enthusiastic gardener, and the lad's
admiration pleased him. He roused himself, took him all round, showing
him everything, and explaining a great deal more than Christie
could remember. Then he gave him a hoe, and set him to work in the
kitchen-garden, finding that he worked neatly and carefully, he
promised that he should be promoted to the flower-garden in due time.
"Did you not tell me that you understand bees, Christopher?"
"Yes, sir. I'm one of they that can handle them safely. So was mother."
"Ah! I didn't know there was any such distinction."
"Bees have their own notions, sir. Some never go near them but they're
stung. My poor old bees! They hardly ever stung me."
"Mrs. Arkwright once had a fancy to keep bees. Look here—would this be
a good place for them?"
"No, sir, too windy. Wind puts bees out of temper more than anything
almost. There, under the north wall—that would be a fine place for
them."
"I hate the idea of smothering them, though."
"We never did that. Of course if there's no one that can take liberties
with the poor things, there's no other way to get the honey. But we
just cut the hive free, with a piece of cord drawn under it, turn it up
and take out what's good, and leave the dark kind."
Mr. Arkwright looked a little grave. Somehow this seemed hard to
believe, but when he knew Christie better, he believed it easily enough.
Next, Christie was shown the two fields, and introduced to the sleek
and portly cow. Then Mr. Arkwright told him what he would be expected
to do. To milk the cow, to drive her in and let her out again, to
attend to a pony and a little carriage—"I'm going to get them," added
Mr. Arkwright; to draw water for Debby, and to clean boots and shoes
and knives for Janet, and to tend the bees—when there were any bees to
tend. And above all, to work in the garden.
"Can you mow, Christopher?"
"Yes, sir, but not as smooth as 'yon' grass."
"No—but I will teach you. The mowing is really getting to be too much
for me. You can finish off with the shears till you can do it evenly
with the scythe. I was a long time before I learned to do it like
that. Come, it is dinner-time, and we have really done nothing all the
morning. But we'll work a bit after dinner. Go round to the kitchen,
my boy; I 'think'—it is too soon to be certain, but I 'think' you will
suit me. I feel sure that in time, you will take quite a pride in the
garden."
Had Christie only known, those last words represented a great triumph
over what Mr. Arkwright called his selfishness. Any one who really
loves a garden will know that it is very hard to share the pride in it
with a stranger.
Mr. Arkwright's father had been one of the most enthusiastic followers
of the two Wesleys, and had educated his son in the very strictest
principles of what was called in those days the Methodist religion.
But he had never left the Church of England, nor had his son. In fact,
Andrew Arkwright was even more attached to the Church now than when
he was a young man, although he retained many of his father's methods
of thinking and of speaking, and was exceedingly strict as to all
amusements, worldly dress, neglect of the Sabbath, as he called it,
idle books, idle words—in fact he was as strict as so kindly-tempered a
man could well be.
His gentle wife thought him right in all things, and Persis was a
docile, loving creature, with a temper so sunny and joyous that she had
never found her very limited life dull. She inherited her father's love
of flowers; indeed, she loved everything, and had not a care on her
young heart except her mother's increasing delicacy.
It was a very happy family which had received poor Christie Brent into
its circle, but one in which most boys of his age would have found life
intolerable. His life, however, had been so hard, so quiet, so full of
work, that to him Kingsfield seemed a paradise, and Mount Salem, as the
Arkwrights had named their place, the most delightful portion of it.
To return, however, to that first day.
When Christie went round, as desired, to the kitchen, he found
Mrs. Arkwright there, and she took him into the little room he had
already seen. Here a wooden stretcher-bedstead had been placed, and
a comfortable bed, with snowy sheets and patchwork cover, made up. A
table, a chair,—everything in fact to make him comfortable, even pegs
in the wall for hanging clothes on, when he had any to hang, had been
provided, and he was informed that this was to be his room. Then the
lady took a tape measure out of her pocket and measured him skilfully,
saying he must have some clothes. This done, she said—
"Now, Christopher, I do trust that you will be a good and useful lad,
and save my dear Mr. Arkwright from over-exerting himself, which he
is far too much inclined to do. Very few, you know, would take you as
a servant under the circumstances, but he is so very kind-hearted. We
shall all do our best to make you happy, but we expect you to do your
best to please us."
"I truly will, ma'am. I'll do my very best. I never can forget all this
kindness: if I could, I really ought to be starved."
Mrs. Arkwright left him.
And soon, the parlour dinner having been served, the three servants sat
down to theirs.
"I'm to go to the Vicarage with a note," said Janet; "'tis about you,
Christie. The master wants Mr. Forster to hear all about Blackmead.
He's as concerned for the place as if 'twas his own fault. I never knew
such a man for fretting himself over things another would never think
twice of."
The result of the note to the Vicarage was, that at six o'clock the
Vicar appeared, by invitation, to take tea with the Arkwrights: and
with him came, uninvited, his younger brother, William, who was a
Fellow of — College, Oxford, but who still called his brother's house,
home. Mrs. Arkwright and Persis were in the parlour, and seeing them
coming, met them at the hall door.
"We did not know that you were here, Mr. William," said the elder lady,
when the first greetings were past.
"But had you known, you would have desired Ned to bring me, Mrs.
Arkwright. Say that you would, or I shall sit down and weep."
"Laughing is more in your way than weeping, Mr. William; nor shall I
say what you know very well without my saying. Come into the garden;
Mr. Arkwright is there, with the boy he wrote of. He would have gone to
you, had the poor lad had respectable clothes."
"As much as to say, Ned, that they did not want us for their own
pleasure. Ah! Miss Persis, these rebuffs are very hard to bear."
Persis laughed, and said eagerly—
"Do you know, Mr. William, that we are to keep a pony and carriage for
mother? And we're to have bees. Our new boy knows all about bees."
"I am right glad to hear about the pony and carriage, but not quite so
happy about the bees. I have too long browsed at will upon your fruit,
to like the idea of being hunted away by bees. And I have remarked
besides, that they always swarm of a Sunday morning."
"Come and see if we can find any raspberries," said Persis.
And so the two young people went up the garden, talking and laughing,
and enjoying themselves very much.
The other two found Mr. Arkwright very busy, potting his chrysanthemums.
As Christie had no idea that his attire was less than respectable,
shoes and stockings not being considered actually necessary in
Blackmead, he was quite unembarrassed by the arrival of visitors.
And Mr. Arkwright said that he was as handy as if he had served his
apprenticeship to the work.
"Now, Christopher—that's enough for to-day, and it is time for you to
see to the cow. I shall want you in the parlour after tea, so be sure
you are ready."
Then they all went in to tea,—a dish of tea, as they called it, and the
little china cups had no handles.
After tea, Christie was sent for, and examined at great length by
the Vicar and Mr. Arkwright, Mrs. Arkwright sometimes interposing to
explain what was said to the boy. Persis and young Forster said little
or nothing.
"I will ascertain what parish the place belongs to" said Edward
Forster, when Christie had been dismissed, "and we must see what can
be done. It is a painful revelation. That's a fine lad, but curiously
ignorant."
"That," said Mr. Arkwright, "must be remedied."
[Illustration]
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