CHRISTMAS-TIDE.
BUT in the midst of all his newly-found happiness Bertie did not forget
his old friends.
He had told the Squire all about his affection for David, and had been
encouraged to show all the kindness in his power to the fisher lad, who
had been kind to him when he was a lonely little outcast.
So almost every day he visited the humble cabin, and wandered with David
among the sandhills, and found in him as sympathetic a confident, now
that he had happy secrets to tell, as in the old days when these had all
been sad.
“I do be glad, that I be,” said David again and again, when Bertie told
him of his happiness. “I just knew the Lord couldn’t forget thee—didn’t
I always tell thee so?”
“Yes, you did, and you were quite right. He didn’t ever forget me,
though He didn’t remember me in the way I expected quite.”
“Maybe He does things in His own way,” remarked David, simply. “My
teacher says as He knows best.”
“Yes,” answered Bertie, softly, and with childish reverence. “You know I
always tried to say ‘Thy will be done’ too. I’m so glad I did; for I’m
sure His will is best.”
Sometimes David would look earnestly at his little companion and ask,—
“Don’t thou want to remember what thy name is or who thou really be?”
And Bertie’s face would put on a grave, far-away look as he would
answer,—
“I want Him to do just what He thinks best. He’s given me such a lot of
things that I know He’s not forgotten me; and I’d like to leave it all
to Him.”
“Maybe that’s best,” David would say. “I do be glad He’s made thee so
happy.”
The Squire, who took an interest in everything and everybody that made a
part of Bertie’s life, began to take notice of David now, and found out
from his mother that he did not seem physically adapted for the
seafaring life that would naturally fall to his lot.
He loved his home near the sea, and the sea itself, but he had no taste
for the career of fisherman or sailor, and when the Squire asked the
good dame if she would like to see him employed about the garden or farm
connected with the Manor House her eyes brightened with pleasure, and
she answered, that there was nothing in all the world he would like so
well; it would keep him at home, and yet near Master Bertie.
Every one round and about Arlingham knew the substantial advantage of
entering the Squire’s service. None of his laborers or workpeople were
ever “turned off” when work was slack, none were dismissed when old age
robbed them of their former powers. If they behaved themselves well,
they might stay upon the place from early youth to hoary old age. Such
had been the traditions of the house for many generations, and many were
the men who had grown grey-headed in the service of the Squires of
Arlingham, and who had learned to love and revere the masters who were
always just, yet always generous, and who looked after them in sickness
and in health with a quiet, kindly sovereignty that never became
tyrannical and never degenerated into undue familiarity. The master was
always the master, and yet each one of his servants, even if they feared
him a little, knew that he was at heart the staunchest friend they need
wish to have, so long as they earned his good-will by quiet attention to
duty.
So David’s mother was deeply delighted at the prospect of seeing her son
enter the Squire’s service, knowing well that an opening in life would
be thus secured which would afford him a means of livelihood for as long
as he cared to remain.
The next step was to speak to the lad himself and discover the bent of
his tastes. It would be hard to say which of the boys was most pleased
at the prospect thus held out—David or Bertie. The Squire was a good
deal amused by the animation of his little adopted son, and was pleased
at David’s visible gratitude and eagerness. A few questions soon
elicited the fact that the farm attracted him more than the garden. He
had a great love for all live animals, and had been more or less used to
cows and pigs all his life, having often been employed by one or another
of the village folks to look after their beasts when they themselves
were too busy to do so.
So David was promoted to be a cow-boy at the Manor Farm, and greatly did
both he and Bertie rejoice in the new dignity thus conferred upon him.
He had a certain number of cows to milk and look after, and the favorite
Alderney was amongst these. Bertie began now to haunt the farm like a
little “Squire born,” as the men used to say among themselves: “For all
the world like poor Master Tom,” the elder laborers would add. And they
all looked kindly upon the little boy, who on his side always spoke
nicely and courteously to every one of the people, and they sometimes
said amongst themselves that if Master Bertie succeeded in his day as
Squire of Arlingham, there would be no fear but that the old traditions
would be kept up. He was not the sort to let them die out.
So Bertie went about very much as if he had been born and bred upon the
place. He learned to milk the cows and to understand their ways. He had
his own chickens and turkeys, and was fattening one of the latter with
untiring assiduity for the Squire’s Christmas dinner. He could talk
quite gravely and knowingly about the price of corn or the quality of
hay, and modelled himself in all things upon the Squire in a way that
often provoked a smile.
He was very happy in those days—happier than he had once believed it
possible for him to be. The forgotten past did not haunt him with vague,
fleeting images and illusive dreams. The present was full of
satisfaction and pleasure, and amid its many and vivid interests he
never felt that blank sense of emptiness that had once so weighed upon
his spirit.
Dr. Lighton began to shake his head when questioned now as to the
probability of the vanished past ever returning to him.
“It may do still,” he would say: “the sight of a familiar face or a
place that he has known might bring it all back in a flood; but he is so
young that a few years of this life may cause actual forgetfulness,
irrespective of the original injury, and he may never be able to recall
the past at all. If he were older, the chances would be much greater; as
things stand now, I confess I am doubtful.”
The Squire showed no uneasiness at hearing this. People were beginning
to say that he looked ten years younger already than when Bertie had
first come; and the young doctor, who was on more intimate terms with
him than anybody else in the neighborhood, was much impressed by the
change in him.
“To tell the truth, doctor,” said the Squire, smiling, “I am in no wise
anxious to discover the child’s parents. I did my best at first, but
quite failed in tracing them. I have grown fond of him. He is like my
own child now; and, without wishing to be selfish, I shall be personally
glad if he is never claimed. He has settled down very comfortably here,
and I think I can make him happy.”
“There is no doubt as to that, I think. I incline to hope, for both your
sakes, that he never will be claimed.”
Christmas-time came round in due course; but it did not bring back
Bertie’s little playfellows to the empty house behind the trees. He had
a letter from Queenie saying that they were all going to spend the
holidays at the house of an uncle and aunt; but that she thought they
would come home again in March or April, and she hoped it would not be
too late to get the young sea-gulls.
The Squire was afraid Bertie might be disappointed at not seeing his
young friends and sharing together the Christmas festivities; but the
child was quite content that it should be so, and, putting his arms
about his so-called father’s neck, he whispered,—
“I’ve got you, papa. I don’t want anybody else.”
The lonely man and the lonely child had grown very dear to one another
during these past weeks. They were together during the greater part of
the day, and they shared each other’s confidence in a way that was quite
peculiar.
They had a world of their own, too, other than the material world around
them, and one quite unknown to any but themselves. It was the world of
the Squire’s buried past, that for many long years he had shut away in
his own heart and had striven to forget. A long closed door had at last
been unlocked by a childish hand, and old memories awakened into a new
life that seemed to bring them a strange sense of peace and consolation.
Tom and Charley, Mary and Violet, the gentle mother and the baby Donald,
were now as household words on the lips of one who had thought never to
speak their names again. To the little boy, who was never tired of
hearing stories of their brief lives, they were real and living friends,
whose personality was as vivid to him as if they still ran races in the
hall and flocked about their father at dusk to beg for the stories he
always kept for them.
The Squire was called upon as imperiously now for stories as ever in the
sweet days of the happy past, and no stories were so eagerly welcomed as
those that told of the children whom he began to look on as not lost,
but only gone before.
There was one story that Bertie longed to hear, but that he had never
asked for yet. Many times the request had been on the tip of his tongue,
but had never actually passed his lips. He had heard a part of the story
from Mrs. Pritchard, he had imagined it many times for himself, but he
had never heard it from the Squire, and he felt that until he did so he
should never be entirely satisfied.
It was Christmas day, and the day had been full of pleasure and interest
to little Bertie. Upon the previous afternoon the happy work had begun
in the distribution of Christmas dinners amongst the Squire’s people and
the poor folks of the place. Early in the day there had been another
distribution of warm clothing and bright scarlet cloaks to the old
people, and after morning service a great dinner in the laundry for all
the Squire’s laborers and workpeople who were not married, and preferred
this way of dining to solitary meals or those taken with families who
perhaps preferred their room to their company.
The Squire and Bertie had visited them at dinner, and enjoyed seeing
their happy, jovial faces and the gusto with which they fell to upon the
good cheer before them; but what had delighted the child most was the
big Christmas tree in the barn for the youngsters of the place, where
all kinds of things were given away and nobody was forgotten.
It was many, many years since the Squire had shown himself as he did
this year. Christmas at the Manor House had always been kept with almost
feudal or mediæval liberality and hospitality, and the tree, that had
been inaugurated by the last lady of the Manor only a year or two before
her death, had always been an institution since; but it was fifteen
years since the Squire had seen it or since he had helped to give away
its load of presents.
Bertie had not been forgotten. He had come in for a lion’s share of
pretty things, trifles that children prize so much. The old servants had
each their little offering for the child they all loved. David’s clever
fingers had made a wonderful cap out of sea-gulls’ feathers, which Mrs.
Pritchard had hung upon the tree at his earnest request, and the Squire
had been represented by articles of a more costly and serviceable kind.
But Bertie’s pleasure had been less for himself than in seeing so many
other people happy. He was learning in a very practical and emphatic way
that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
And now all the excitement of the day was over, even the seven o’clock
dinner with the Squire, when they had both partaken of the fatted
turkey, which was said to have done credit to the care bestowed on it.
Eight o’clock had struck, and it was nearly Bertie’s bed-time, but he
fearlessly followed the Squire into his library and climbed upon his
knee as he settled himself in his easy-chair.
There had been a long silence between them, and then Bertie asked,
softly,—
“Have you enjoyed your Christmas, papa?”
The arm that encircled him pressed him a little more closely.
“Yes, my little boy, I have enjoyed it this year. And you?”
“Oh, I have been very, very happy!—I always am now, you know.”
“You are content to be my little boy? You do not want anybody else?”
“I think I would rather be your little boy always now,” answered Bertie;
and then he looked up into the face above him with a peculiar depth of
gravity, and added, “I feel as if God had given me to you.”
“I think He has, my child; and I am grateful to Him. He has given back
to me a part of what He saw fit to take away. He has given me one little
son to be with me in my old age.”
Bertie sat up and looked into the face above him.
“Papa,” he said, softly, “will you tell me one story to-night? I want to
know about—about it all—when He took them all away.”
There was a deep silence for a few minutes after those words were
spoken, and Bertie, gazing into the father’s eyes, half repented of his
question, and yet did not repent. He could not read the look upon that
face, it awed him into unbroken silence; and yet there was no anger
there, no sternness even, only a deep, far-off sadness, as if some
picture were slowly rising above the mental horizon that could only be
looked upon with tear-dimmed eyes and with tender, haunting regret.
The moments seemed very long to Bertie, but he did not speak again.
“My child,” said the Squire at last, “why do you ask for that story
to-night?”
Bertie hardly knew himself.
“You have never told it me,” he answered, shyly; “and to-night—”
“Well, to-night?”
“To-night seems a happy time. It is Christmas, you know, and the angels
are always glad at Christmas. I think they are always nearer us then,
because, you know, the shepherds saw them once, as if they liked to fly
nearer to us at Christmas-time—”
Bertie paused again, hardly knowing how to frame the thought, and again
the Squire said,—
“Well?”
“I thought, perhaps, they might be nearer to us to-night—Tom and Charley
and all of them, you know. Perhaps they are helping the angels to sing;
and if they are, I’m sure they would try to come near us to-night. I
thought you would not mind telling me about them, when perhaps they are
not so very far away. Don’t you think it is rather nice to think that
they are up there—so happy helping the angels to sing, ‘Peace on earth
and glory to God’?”
There was another long silence, which again the Squire broke.
“I will tell you the story to-night, my child, if you wish to hear it.”
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