HOW ANDREW CAME TO THE GRANGE BY NIGHT.
It was about a ten days after Mrs. Golding's death, and we were
beginning to feel as if our desolation was a thing that had always been
and always would be, for so I think it often seems when a grief is new.
However desolate we were, we were not destitute; she who was gone had
cared for that, and we found a modest dower secured to each of us,
without injury to Andrew's rightful inheritance of the Grange and the
lands belonging thereto; also we were to continue dwelling in the Grange
till its new master should come home and make such dispositions as
pleased him. But for all this we were greatly perplexed; we had been
long without news of Andrew, and could not tell how to get word to him
of Mrs. Golding's death.
On the day I speak of, we had been teased by a visit from Mrs.
Bonithorne, who, professing great sorrow for our loss, and her own loss
of one whom she called her oldest friend, soon fell to talking of
Andrew, and how his unlucky doings were all owing to our good aunt's
foolishness in entertaining so pestilent a heretic as James Westrop
under her roof.
'I warned her of it,' quoth she; 'I said to her, "You will rue it yet,
Margaret; with such an one you should have no dealings, no, not so much
as to eat," and now see what has come of her perverseness!' and
such-like stuff she said, which moved Grace Standfast to say
disdainfully, when our visitor was gone, 'Yon woman surely owes us a
little grudge, that 'twas our house and not hers which entertained so
rare a monster as a wandering Quaker; she asked me twenty questions
about him the day after, I remember it well; but we hardly had heart to
laugh, though we were sure enough she had given no such warnings as she
spake of. Althea only sighed and said, ''twas an evil day for her when
she first saw that man;' and as she told me, his two appearances to us
haunted her as she went to rest, and mingled themselves with her dreams.
She woke at last sharply and suddenly, thinking she heard the hail
rattling against the windows as it did when Mr. Truelocke preached his
last sermon in our church; but it was not hail that rattled, it was some
one throwing sand and pebbles up at her window to wake her, and then a
voice calling on her name. She sprang up, and, hurrying on some clothes,
she ran down-stairs; for, as she told me, she had no more doubt of its
being Andrew who called, than if it had been broad daylight, and she
could see him standing below the window; and, being too impatient to
unlock any door, she undid the hasp of the nearest casement and climbed
out; and at the same moment hearing a voice again calling softly,
'Althea,' she ran in the direction of the sound, and came upon a man
whom in the starlight she saw to be Andrew indeed; she spoke his name,
holding out both her hands, and he turning at once grasped them in both
his, and so they stood gazing at each other awhile. Then she said, half
sobbing,--
'You come strangely, Andrew--but you come to your own house, and I am
glad that it falls to me to welcome you to it; it lacks a master sadly;'
and she tried to draw him towards the door, telling him she would set
it open if he would tarry a few minutes while she herself climbed in to
do it.
'Alas!' he said, resisting her efforts; 'what do you mean by calling
this my house? is our aunt indeed gone? I had hoped that part of the
message might be a delusion.'
'What message? I sent none, for I knew not where to send, nor did any of
us,' she replied; 'but it is too true that Mrs. Golding is dead these
ten days; and all things are at a stand for lack of your presence. Come
in; do not keep me here in the darkness and the cold.'
'I will not keep thee long,' he said sadly; 'fear it not, Althea. But I
may not come under this roof which thou sayest is mine. I saw the dim
light in your window,' he went on, like one talking in a dream, 'and I
could not bear to pass by and make no sign, as I ought to have done. For
I love thee too well, Althea Dacre, as thou knowest.'
'How can it be too well,' she answered boldly, 'if you do not love me
better than I do you? and therefore come in to your own home, or I will
not believe there is any love in you at all.'
'That's a foolish jest,' said he half angrily. 'I may not cross the
doorstone of this house to-day, Althea; I am forbidden; so hear me say
what I came to say. There is a heavy burden laid on me. For seven nights
together I saw in vision a dark terrible angel, having his wings
outspread and holding in his hand a half-drawn glittering sword; he was
hovering over this land of England; and it was shown me that he was a
messenger of wrath bidden to smite the land with a pestilence. Now there
be those far holier than I who have seen the like vision; but to me came
the word that I must go up to London, where this year the plague shall
be very sore, and as I go I must warn all men, that they may repent and
amend, before this judgment fall on them.'
There was that in his voice and words that made Althea tremble like a
leaf; she did not disbelieve in his visions while she heard him; but she
strove against the impression, and cried out, when she could find her
voice, that this was indeed madness.
'You have no right,' she said, 'to desert your natural and lawful
duties, and your poor kinswomen too, who are desolate; you will break
our hearts, you will ruin yourself, and all for a delusion.'
'It is no delusion,' said he; 'your own words, Althea, have confirmed
to me the truth of my mission. For it was said to me, "This shall be a
sign to thee, that Margaret, the widow of thy father's brother, lies
sick even to death; and thou shalt see her face no more, nor come under
her roof." And is it not so? for her face is buried out of our
sight,'--his voice shook,--'so dost not see, Althea, I may not come in
as thou wouldst have me? Furthermore, I believe my earthly pilgrimage
shall come to its end in London; I cannot be sure; but, I think, I
return no more alive. That is why I hungered so for one last look at
thee, Althea; also I wished as a dying man to entreat thee not to
despise the Lord's poor people any more. Now I must go; farewell, dear
heart, for ever;' and with these words he assayed to go; but, as she
told me afterwards, she clutched at his coat, passionately protesting he
should never go; and when he unlocked her hands, and besought her not to
hinder him, she dropt on the ground at his feet, clasped him round the
knees, and called on me with all her might.
'Help, Lucia! help, sister!' were the words that woke me, and sent me
flying with breathless speed to the place whence the call came. I
climbed through the window which I found open, and ran to the spot where
I could discern that a struggle was going on; but as I came up Andrew
had got himself loosed; and, saying low and thickly to me,--
'Look to your sister, take her in instantly,' he turned and fled as a
man might flee for his life, while Althea threw herself on the cold
ground, moaning and sobbing like a creature mortally hurt. I took her in
my arms and raised her up, asking her, all amazed, was that indeed
Andrew? but she did nothing but wring her hands and implore me to follow
him and fetch him back; and I had much trouble to persuade her that was
useless and hopeless for us at that hour of the night. At last she was
won to rise and return to the house; and we both found it a difficult
matter to get in where we had got out easily enough; which Mr.
Truelocke, I doubt not, would have moralized in his pleasant way into a
sort of holy parable. But I have not that gift, and I suppose 'twas the
hope in Althea's breast and the fear in mine which had raised our powers
for a moment and made a hard thing easy.
[Illustration: 'Look to your sister, take her in instantly.']
When we had recovered a little, and had got safely to my room, Althea
recollected herself and told me every word that had passed; and we both
agreed that Andrew was running himself into new and strange dangers in
pursuance of what he held as a Divine call. I noted it as a new thing
in Althea, that she could no longer scoff at this belief of his in the
inward heavenly voice that must be obeyed; but this matter was very
terrible to us; and we talked of it till daylight, without coming to any
conclusion as to what we were best to do about it.