CHRISTMAS AT OAKFIELD
'Round the world and home again,
That's the sailor's way.'--WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
Captain Maitland did call at the cottage, as he had said, the very day
after Godfrey's adventure. Angel and Betty felt a little alarmed, for
they never had any visitors except the vicar of the parish of which
Oakfield was an outlying hamlet. They sat up rather straight on the
company chairs in the parlour, and Penelope, who had kept the visitor
waiting at the door while she put on her best cap, brought in a bottle
of gooseberry wine and a plate of sweet biscuits, for the cake which
Angel had hoped would be ready against the time when the captain called
was still in the oven. Perhaps it was the disappointment about the
cake that upset Penny's ideas, for she never looked where she was going
as she came in with the tray, and the consequence was that she stumbled
over the round footstool with two wool-work doves sitting in a wreath
of roses. It was a dreadful moment, while Penny came staggering
forward with the gooseberry wine slipping off the tray, until she went
full tilt into the arms of the captain, who had sprung to his feet, and
managed very adroitly to catch the tray in one hand and hold up Penny
with the other, while the sweet biscuits hailed upon him like bullets.
Poor Penny turned and ran, with her cap over one ear, too much abashed
even to see what damage was done, and Betty felt that if only the floor
would open under her it would be a comfort. Only for half a moment.
Then the captain turned round and said, with a most comical expression:
'I can't drink this whole bottle by myself. May I pour you out a
glass?'
Betty could do nothing but burst out laughing, and Angel, in spite of
her dismay, joined in, and as to Captain Maitland, he laughed out more
heartily than any of them, and from that moment there was no more
stiffness between them. The captain, though he seemed quite old to
Godfrey, and indeed to his aunts too, was not thirty, for he had
attained his promotion rapidly for courage and coolness in an encounter
off the French coast. He had the frank cheery manners of a sailor too,
so that it was not difficult to feel at home with him; besides, as
Betty said afterwards, where was the use of pretending they didn't
remember that he had had Penny in his arms, and that he had been on his
knees under the table picking up the sweet biscuits?
He would be at home for about a fortnight, he said; he had not been to
Oakfield for nearly seven years, not since his mother's death; and
Angel thought the bright sunburnt face looked a little wistful, and
felt sorry for him having no one to welcome him. But he smiled again
directly as he said how glad he was to find the place so little
changed; and then he asked if he might see the garden, he remembered
being brought there when he was a very little boy; did the clove pinks
still grow in the border under the yew hedge? So they all went out
together, and the captain had forgotten nothing and greeted Miss Jane
as an old friend; there had been a ship in the squadron off the Spanish
coast, he said, whose figurehead always reminded him of her. And he
remembered the view from the paddock, and missed the big elm that had
been blown down two winters ago, and said what a good thing it was the
storm had spared Sir Godfrey's tree; it would be a misfortune indeed if
anything happened to that, but it seemed all right at present, as stout
a heart of oak as the Admiral's flag-ship. And he heard that Cousin
Crayshaw was coming down for Christmas, and said he remembered him and
should do himself the honour of calling upon him. And then they all
walked with him to the end of the lane.
'Do you know,' Betty said as they turned, back, 'I keep on forgetting
that he is Kiah's captain, and yet I like to think he is.'
Angel and Godfrey felt much the same. It did seem so impossible that
this cheery, simple man, who had laughed over the gooseberry wine, and
been so interested in the garden, could be the hero who would perhaps
be in the history books of the future. Why, they had been talking the
whole time, telling him about the great gale which had blown the elm
down, when he knew what a storm at sea was like, with waves mountains
high, and mighty ships and brave men swallowed up among them, and he
had asked about the bees and the best way of layering pinks as if he
really cared to know. Could he have room in his thoughts for such
simple things when strife and danger and bloodshed and the
life-and-death struggle of nations were familiar to him?
As Betty said, they found it hard to believe, and yet it was very nice
to think of, and seemed to mean that being a hero need not take one
quite away from everything that other people loved and cared about,
just as the good Admiral Collingwood noted on the eve of a great
sea-fight that it was his little Sarah's birthday, and remarked while
the French were pouring their broadside into his ship that his wife
would be just going to church. And gentle Angel said to herself that
perhaps after all, when Godfrey was a great man, he might be her
Godfrey still if he could manage to copy Captain Maitland. And,
meanwhile, she felt very glad and thankful on her boy's account for the
captain's coming; for here at last, she said to herself, was what she
had wanted so long, some one whom he could look up to and admire and
try to copy. What a happy thing it was that he should have learnt from
his first hero that lesson that the beginning of victory is the
conquest of self.
Cousin Crayshaw was to arrive two days before Christmas, and Godfrey
and his aunts had been busy decorating the cottage with holly for the
occasion. Cousin Crayshaw was not a particularly interesting visitor
certainly, but Betty, from the top of the stepladder, told Godfrey,
with all the more emphasis because she didn't quite feel it herself,
that they ought to be very thankful they had somebody to welcome.
Martha said that welcoming kept people's hearts warm. The two aunts
and the nephew all had their own delightful Christmas secrets, and
there was much whispering and great excitement and solemn taking of
pennies out of Godfrey's money-box when Pete went to the county town
with some hay. It was a very serious matter, for of course he could
not consult the aunts, and he felt very important when he ran down to
meet Pete, and waited at the end of the lane, jingling the pennies and
listening to the sound of approaching cart-wheels. Peter saw the
little figure waiting, and jumped down at once.
'Anything I can do in town for you, Master Godfrey?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Godfrey, very seriously, 'I am going to give you some money
to spend, Pete, to spend on presents. I want two very beautiful
presents for two ladies, and a little one that would suit an old nurse.'
'Certainly, sir,' said Pete gravely.
Godfrey jingled his pennies thoughtfully.
'There's a good deal of money,' he remarked. 'Perhaps there might be
some over.'
'Very true, sir,' said Pete with much seriousness. Godfrey considered
again. Then that happy Christmas feeling which makes our hearts widen
to all the world got the best of it:
'If there should be any over, Pete,' he said, 'I should like you to
choose another present.'
'I shall be proud to do my best, sir. Would the present be for a lady
or a gentleman, sir?'
'For a gentleman, Pete. A gentleman not very young and not at all
handsome, that doesn't care much about nice things or pretty things, so
it mustn't be an ornament; and that only reads the paper, so it mustn't
be a story-book; and that doesn't like any games, so it mustn't be
anything to play with. Do you think you could do that, Pete?'
'I'd try, Master Godfrey. It 'd be a useful thing, now, the gentleman
would fancy?'
'Yes, certainly useful,' said Godfrey decidedly; 'and rather cheerful
too, if you could manage it, for Cousin Cray--I mean the
gentleman--isn't a very cheerful gentleman, and I thought perhaps a
present might make him a little more cheerful for Christmas.'
'And I'm to spend all this money, Master Godfrey?'
'Yes, all,' said Godfrey generously, pouring his pennies into Pete's
hand; 'you're not to bring back one.'
'I do like giving presents,' he went on, as Pete counted the money and
put it in his big leathern purse. 'If I had a lot more money I know
what I'd do. I'd tell you to choose a present for a gentleman that is
one of the very bravest, best people in the world, a gentleman that
likes ships and fighting and gardens and flowers, and is always kind to
every one except people he ought to kill; but I should think it would
take nearly a hundred pounds to buy a present that would be good enough
for him. Good-bye, Pete; I shall try and run round to the Place before
lessons to-morrow to see what you've got.'
But Godfrey had not to wait till next morning, for just before his
bed-time Penny came to the parlour door to say that Peter was in the
kitchen and asking for the young master.
'It's business,' said Godfrey with an air of great importance--Betty
always called any talk 'business' that Godfrey was not meant to hear.
'Please, Aunt Angel, let Penny stop here while Pete and I are talking
in the kitchen.'
Pete was standing by the back door, with a sprinkling of snow on his
hat and shoulders, and as Godfrey appeared he brought out from some
safe pocket various parcels very tightly tied up, which, when they were
undone, displayed a china cup with
'Remember me
When this you see'
on it in gold letters, two china lambs lying under a tree, and a
needle-book with a picture of Queen Charlotte outside. Godfrey was
lost in admiration. They were perfect, they were just the very things.
The lambs would stand on Aunt Betty's table and the cup would hold Aunt
Angel's tea, and the needle-book would suit Penny exactly. 'And was
there any more, Pete?' he asked. 'There couldn't have been, surely.'
Pete, for answer, produced another parcel from the depths of his
pocket, and exhibited a wooden wafer-box, painted bright red, and with
a picture of Mr. Pitt on the lid. Pete watched with the deepest
interest while Godfrey opened it.
'You see, Master Godfrey,' he said, 'I was a-thinking the gentleman
would be bound to do a deal of writing; and as you said he was partial
to newspapers, seemed to me Mr. Pitt would come kind o' natural to him
seeing they seem to be mostly about him; and the red colour looks sort
o' cheerful and might liven the gentleman up. Hoping it meets your
fancy, Master Godfrey.'
'I think it's beautiful,' said Godfrey earnestly; 'you are a very
clever person, Pete. Do you mean to say you got it all for that money?'
The smile on Pete's face broadened out, till it reached nearly from ear
to ear.
'Well, sir,' he said, 'fact is, for its size and being such a good
article, it was wonderful cheap, and there was some money out when I
paid for it. And you being so particular about my not bringing a penny
home, seemed to me I'd risk bringing this little thing here, in case it
might come in handy for what you were talking about.'
So saying, Pete brought out another parcel, and out of the paper came a
second box, coloured dark blue this time, and adorned with a picture of
a ship in full sail, surrounded by a wreath of convolvulus.
'You see, Master Godfrey,' explained Pete, 'it seemed to me, with you
saying the gentleman had a fancy for ships and flowers, and the colour
being blue, which stands for sailors, it did seem the sort o' thing you
were just a-wishing for.'
'But, Pete,' said Godfrey, as if hardly daring to believe in so grand
an idea, 'do you think that sort of gentleman would be likely to be
using wafers?'
'Bound to, sir,' said Pete promptly; 'you see, he'd be writing to the
Admiral about all the fine things him and his ship was doing, and
besides he'd be writing home to folks he was fond of, folks that
thought about him, and--and gave him presents and such like.'
'Oh no, Pete, no,' said Godfrey, almost breathless, 'he wouldn't be
writing to those sort of people. But really, Pete, I do think the box
is very, very beautiful; and do you think--do you think he would be
offended if I gave it to him?'
'I'll warrant he'd be as pleased as you like, Master Godfrey,' said
Pete heartily; 'he's not the sort to take offence, isn't the captain.
Why, bless you, Nancy brought him in a few berries out o' the hedges on
Sunday and he made such a work with them as you never saw.' Pete had
dropped the little fiction about the gentleman in his interest, and
Godfrey did not object.
'I'm very, very much obliged to you, Pete,' he said earnestly; 'I'm as
happy as ever I can be. Good-night, dear Pete, and thank you very,
very much.'
And so came Christmas, the children's festival, touching home life and
child life with its great majesty and beauty. Can any one dare to
despise simple things and simple souls when all Christendom comes
adoring to a poor cradle and angels stoop to sing carols to shepherd
folk? Some such thoughts came into Angelica Wyndham's mind when Nancy
ran over on Christmas Eve, very eager and excited, with the captain's
compliments, and would Mr. Crayshaw and the young ladies and Master
Godfrey dine with him next day; and, please, she did hope they would
come, for they were all going to have snap-dragon, and the captain had
sent her out with such a lot of money to buy the raisins. And Angel
wondered whether after all it was not surprising but right and natural
that the captain should care for such things. Wasn't it the Christmas
lesson that the great and the simple lie close together, and that the
men who are foremost in the midst of death and danger have room in
their hearts for children and flowers and home joys and Christmas games
as well? And then Cousin Crayshaw had said he would go, and had
declared he had a great respect for Captain Maitland. Altogether, it
was the happiest Christmas that the sisters had ever spent at Oakfield.
And I think there must have been some magic about that cheerful
wafer-box with the picture of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Crayshaw found it on his
plate on Christmas morning, with an inscription upon it which had been
composed by Pete, but written in Godfrey's own firm round hand, and
with spelling which was also quite Godfrey's own--'To my deer and
respekted cuzon.' And something about the box or the inscription--or
was it just a Christmas thought which they put into his head?--made Mr.
Crayshaw turn away to the window as if to admire the striking likeness
of Mr. Pitt, and then take off his spectacles and rub them and put them
on again; and then he did what he had never done before, came round to
Godfrey's chair, and put his hands on the little boy's shoulders and
kissed his forehead. They walked to church along the ringing frosty
road, with the wide white common spreading away on each side like the
snow-fields of Godfrey's Arctic stories. And at the churchyard gate
they paused, because there were two figures going slowly up the path
before them, Captain Maitland, walking erect and steady, with old Kiah
Parker on his arm.
'Easy now, easy now, Kiah,' he was saying, 'you'll have me on my nose
if you go that pace, man; you and I are more at home on deck than on
slippery ground; don't send me sprawling at the very church door, my
hearty.'
And as for Kiah, he looked prouder than the Admiral of the Fleet.
After church, however, he hobbled on ahead with Peter and Nancy, while
the captain stayed to speak to the party from the cottage. He had had
the most beautiful Christmas present, he said, just the very one thing
he couldn't have done without any longer. And somebody must have
chosen it just to suit him, for it was a real bit of the old blue, and
as for the ship, why the _Mermaid_ might have sat for the portrait.
'Just the thing for a present to a sailor from a sailor that is to be,'
he said; and Godfrey looked as if he had nothing else in the world to
wish for.
'Are you going to let me have the little lad one day, sir?' the captain
said to Mr. Crayshaw, when Godfrey had walked on in front between his
two aunts.
'You do him very great honour, sir,' said the lawyer. 'I have not
thought much at present about the boy's future career. He has been a
difficulty, Captain Maitland, something of a difficulty. I was afraid
that his unfortunate surroundings during his early childhood had had a
very bad effect upon his character; but he is much improved, very much
improved indeed. You think something may be made of him?'
'I think he is the sort of stuff that heroes are made of,' said the
captain thoughtfully, 'and he has such influence about him now as makes
heroes.'
Mr. Crayshaw glanced at the three in front of him and coughed in an
embarrassed way.
'Angelica is--is a very good girl,' he said; 'indeed they are both very
good girls, very good girls. I had my doubts as to the desirability of
leaving Godfrey under their charge, but I feel satisfied now that at
present I could hardly do better for him.'
'I think he is having such training as will bless his whole life,' said
Captain Maitland gravely, and Mr. Crayshaw did not contradict him.
Perhaps a thought came over him that if he had had a gentle Angelica
and a bright, loving Betty beside him when he was young, his life might
have been a better and a more beautiful thing.
An invitation to dinner was such a rare thing at Oakfield that there
was a good deal of excitement about getting ready for it. Penny and
Angel and Betty all brushed Godfrey's hair in turn, until he was
thankful to escape and leave his aunts to get dressed on their own
account. But he very soon came rushing upstairs again two steps at a
time, and asked eagerly at their door if he might come in.
'Aunt Angel, Aunt Betty, look!' he exclaimed as he burst into the room,
'presents, from Cousin Crayshaw. Oh, do look!--A seal, a real proper
seal that belonged to grandpapa, with words on, that makes a mark when
you hold it down on your hand hard. And this box has got things in for
you; he said so. He was so funny, and he said it so fast I didn't hear
it all; but he said I was to give it to you, Aunt Angel, because it was
yours really, and perhaps it would help you to remember some things
that were past and to forget some others. What did he mean? Only open
it, do open it!'
So Angel opened the box, with Betty looking over her shoulder and
peering between her falling curls, and Penny peeping over her. And it
was Penny who was the first to exclaim, while she hugged both her young
ladies in her delight:
'Oh, bless you, my dears, they're your dear mamma's jewels! Dear,
dear! and don't I know 'em if any one does, me that put them on her
times enough.'
'Mamma's things! Oh, Angel!' said Betty in hushed tones, touching the
trinkets with reverent fingers. Angelica had put her hands before her
eyes. A great rush of memory was sweeping over her, for it is the
little things that take hold of our minds when we are children, and the
sight of them in after years brings the big things in their train. And
those pearls used to be twisted among the sunny curls of the head that
had bent over her little bed on long ago evenings, and the ruby ring
had sparkled on the hand that used to clasp her baby fingers. And that
miniature with its gold setting? Did not mamma wear it on a gold chain
out of sight? Had not Betty's little restless fingers pulled it out
one day, and had not Angel wondered as her mother kissed it with dewy
eyes and put it back? Betty was holding it to the light.
'Why, Angel,' she exclaimed wonderingly, 'it's Godfrey.'
And Penny, with her apron to her eyes, explained,
'No, no, my dear, it's his poor dear papa, that's who it is.'
'My papa!' ejaculated Godfrey, with round eyes, 'why, Penny, it's a
little boy.'
'And so he was a little boy,' sobbed Penny, 'and the dearest,
beautifullest little boy ever I saw or anybody saw, and his dear mamma
had his picture done the day he was eight years old, and she wore it
till she died, bless her heart.'
Angel bent her head and kissed the laughing face as she had seen her
mother kiss it.
'And Cousin Crayshaw sent it to us,' said Betty thoughtfully; 'now I
know what he meant about remembering and forgetting.'
'I don't,' said Godfrey, 'but I want Aunt Angel to hang papa's picture
round her neck.'
'Yes, yes, Angel, you must,' said Betty eagerly, clasping the chain
about her sister's throat; 'you talked to him--you remember--and I
don't really, though I'm sure I feel a kind of something as if I should
know him.'
'Then you must wear mamma's pearls, Betty dear, you must indeed.'
'No, indeed, I mustn't, because you are going to. Yes, you are, Angel,
don't say a word--you are going to wear them in your hair like she used
to. Penny, please put up Angel's hair like mamma's picture. I am
going to have this dear, dear brooch, with all the twisted bits of gold
and the little tiny diamonds; fancy me in diamonds! You ought to have
them really, but I know you like the others best.'
And so, a few minutes later, when Angel met Cousin Crayshaw on the
stairs, he quite started at the sight of her, with the gold chain round
her neck and the pearls among her dark curls.
'You have given us the most beautiful Christmas present in the world,
Cousin Crayshaw,' she said, holding out her hands to him. And Mr.
Crayshaw, with a sudden impulse, kissed her forehead as he had kissed
Godfrey's.
'They were yours already, not mine, my dear,' he said, and then he
added:
'You are very like your mother, Angelica, very like indeed.'
I don't think there could have been a merrier party than that Christmas
dinner party at Oakfield Place.
Captain Maitland held the same opinion as a wise man who once said that
'it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at
Christmas time, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.' And the
captain had the power of not only being quite childishly happy himself,
but of making those about him feel the same. The room was all bright
with holly, and when pretty Patty had brought in the Christmas goose,
and the captain had handed Angelica with courtly politeness to her
place on his right hand, he set himself to keep the whole party
laughing, and succeeded very well. For he told stories about
Christmases at sea, and days when he was a boy at Oakfield Place, and
got into scrapes and out again like other boys who had not grown up
into heroes. And then he positively asked Mr. Crayshaw if he hadn't
some stories of scrapes to tell, now that they were all making
confessions. And before Betty's eyes had got back to their natural
size, after her amazement at the idea of Cousin Crayshaw in a scrape,
that gentleman was answering, with a sort of little cackle which really
was almost a laugh, that he did remember once being out after time on a
half-holiday, and finding the school-gate shut and climbing over it,
and that his coat caught on the top and he hung there till it tore.
And at the thought of Cousin Crayshaw hanging on a nail, Betty at any
rate hid her face and laughed till she cried, and I believe Angel
wasn't far behind her, and, most wonderful of all, Cousin Crayshaw
didn't mind a bit. And when dinner was over, and they had drunk to
'Present Company' and 'Absent Friends,' and Mr. Crayshaw had proposed
'The Navy' in quite a fine speech, and Captain Maitland had proposed
'The Law' in a still finer one, then Patty came in with a twinkle in
her eyes and moved away the table and pushed the chairs against the
walls. And then the captain remarked that it was a cold night, and
wouldn't it be a good thing if they were to warm their feet a little?
And the next minute there was the sound of Kiah's wooden leg in the
passage, and there he was with his fiddle, and the Rogers, all in their
Sunday clothes, just behind him. And Patty ran to put down a line of
mats, because wooden legs were not good for polished floors. And the
captain made Angel such a bow, as if she had been Queen Charlotte
herself, and hoped she would put up with an awkward old sailor for a
partner, and he was sure Pete would show them the way with Miss Betty.
And Godfrey did his very best to copy the captain as he gave his hand
to Nancy. And then happened the most wonderful thing that ever had
happened in Oakfield, for as Kiah struck up 'Off she goes!' Mr.
Crayshaw suddenly went up to fair-haired Patty, who hardly knew where
to look, and told her he had not danced for twenty years, but Christmas
seemed the time for a frolic, and he would ask her to help him.
Then, when even Nancy and Godfrey were breathless, there came in one of
Martha's best cakes and a big plate full of oranges. And the captain
called upon Kiah for a song, which Kiah sang readily enough, and played
for himself, too, on the fiddle, with the music a good way behind the
words. And then they all joined in the chorus of 'Hearts of Oak,' and
after that Angel's sweet voice started 'God rest you, merry gentlemen.'
And then out with the lights and in with the blazing dish of
snap-dragon! How valiant Godfrey was in pulling out plums for every
one; how very, very nearly Betty set her lace ruffles on fire; what
queer shadows the flickering light threw on the wall, and how strange
the eager faces looked when the captain threw a handful of salt on the
fire and the flame burnt blue, while Nancy got half frightened and hid
behind Patty's skirts! But at last all the raisins had been pulled out
and the fire was dying, and positively there was the clock striking
ten! What a time of night for Godfrey and Nancy to be out of bed!
But, as the captain said, who looks at the clock at Christmas time? So
Martha and her daughters curtsied themselves out of the room, and Mr.
Crayshaw stood at the door talking quite cheerily with old Kiah, while
Betty kept Pete back a minute to ask about her linnet, which was
ill--Pete knew so much about birds.
Godfrey had climbed into the window seat, and was peeping between the
curtains to see if it looked like another frost.
'Look at the stars, Aunt Angel dear, aren't they bright? Is the Wise
Men's Star there still, do you suppose? That's the Plough, isn't it?
If one was up in the Plough could one see Oakfield, do you think?'
'I used to like to think one could,' said the captain, who had come up
behind them. 'Many's the time, when I was a little bit of a middy, I
used to watch the stars and feel quite friendly to them because they
could see home. And the Plough, when I could see it, was a real old
friend, I knew the look of it so well from this window.'
'I shall do that when I'm a middy,' said Godfrey gravely, 'and I shall
think of them seeing my aunts and Oakfield, and they'll think of them
seeing me.'
'So you've quite made up your mind to be a middy?' said the captain,
with a hand on Godfrey's shoulder.
'Quite,' said the little boy earnestly; 'Aunt Angel says everybody must
be useful, like you and Kiah, and she's teaching me to be. I'm like
her's and Aunt Betty's little oak-tree, and they hope I shall grow up a
very brave sailor. But she's really braver than me, for she says it
will be very hard for her not to mind when the Frenchies shoot my leg
off, and I don't think I shall mind much.'
Angel's cheeks were crimson at hearing her own words repeated. She
looked so very sweet and womanly as she sat there in the window.
They had not lighted the candles again, and only the flickering
fire-light played about her, touching her white dress and the curly
locks, knotted up high behind her head, with the gleaming pearls among
them.
The captain stroked Godfrey's hair.
'Ay, little man,' he said, 'the bravest hearts are the ones we leave at
home; and more shame to us that we're not finer fellows when they take
so much thought for us.'
Just then Betty called Godfrey, and he ran to bid Pete good-night. The
captain stood looking after him.
'His Majesty's navy will be the richer for that lad one day, Miss
Angelica,' he said.
Angel flushed with pleasure.
'I do hope so,' she said simply; 'Betty and I are almost afraid
sometimes when we think what we want him to be, and that there is only
us to teach him and fit him for it.'
'I don't think you need be afraid,' said Captain Maitland quietly; 'the
navy is a rough school, Miss Angelica, but so is the world all over, I
fancy, and I've known plenty of men who've lived and died on board as
pure and simple as if they'd never left home. And they were mostly men
who'd such a home life as your little lad to stick by them and keep
them straight. Never mind about special training, just give him
something to steer by, and trust me he won't go far wrong.'
[Illustration: Chapter VI tailpiece]
[Illustration: Chapter VII headpiece]