JOAN'S SEARCH
Miss Priscilla Parry's head servant, old Nathan, took to Joan from the
first. He was a white-headed, strong old man, nearly seventy years of
age, but still able to do a fair day's work, or to take the whole
management of affairs, if Miss Priscilla were laid up, which she never
had been in all her life. He had lived as a boy with her grandfather,
and as a man with her father, and the farm seemed to belong as much to
him as to her. Like most of the people about, he was no Churchman; and
being very ready of speech he was a favourite preacher to the little
congregations meeting in some of the farm-houses scattered about the
mountains.
Every Sunday evening there was a service held in Priscilla's kitchen,
when twenty or thirty of the neighbours would come in to listen to
Nathan's sermons. Of late years a number of young men, some of whom came
long distances, had been in the habit of attending these Sunday evening
meetings.
Old Nathan liked this very much; but Aunt Priscilla's heart was devoured
by anxiety. Some of the new hearers were neighbours' sons, steady, dull
young farmers, too awkward and shame-faced to push themselves forward;
but there were others, bold young sailors, used to voyaging hither and
thither and to making their own way in strange places, who did not
hesitate to put themselves in the very front, close by the settle where
she sat, and to sing bass to Rhoda's treble, and even to find the text
for her in the Bible. One of them, a notorious young scamp, Evan Price,
was Aunt Priscilla's greatest plague and aversion; but she never caught
a single word or glance from Rhoda which could show that the girl
encouraged him, or any one among the others; and as long as that was the
case she was willing enough for them to look at her treasure, or long
for it, but she could not bear the idea of losing it.
To little Joan everything was delightful. There had been the hay
harvest, and the corn harvest, and the cutting of fern on the mountains
for winter fodder, and the threshing of the corn on the barn-floor, and
the piling up of great heaps of straw in the wide bays on each side of
the barn.
And now Christmas was coming. Joan had never kept Christmas, and knew
nothing about it. But at Aunt Priscilla's farm it was a great day, as it
always had been since she could remember. Every relative who could come
to the farm was invited weeks beforehand; and nothing else was talked of
but Christmas Day. The Sunday evening before it came old Nathan's sermon
was all about the shepherds in the field, and how they found the little
babe lying in the manger; and he told the story so well that Joan did
not go to sleep at all, but sat listening to him with her dark eyes wide
open.
"Is it our manger, Rhoda?" she asked, when they went upstairs to their
own little room to bed. "Will the babe be lying in our manger to-morrow
morning?"
"Perhaps," answered Rhoda; "nobody knows whose manger He will come to."
"Oh! I wish it could be ours!" cried Joan eagerly. "I wish Mary and
Joseph 'ud bring the little baby here, and the shepherds 'ud come to
seek for Him. Would n't you love it, Rhoda?"
"Shall we two get up early, very early in the morning, like the
shepherds did, and go and look in our manger if He 's there?" asked
Rhoda.
"Oh, yes, yes!" answered Joan, almost wild with delight. "Oh! Rhoda,
only suppose the baby should be there!"
Long before old Nathan was stirring, or anyone else in the house was
awake, Rhoda and Joan crept quietly down their own little staircase, and
after lighting the candle in Nathan's great horn lantern, they let down
the bar of the house-door and stepped out into the fold. It was very
dark, but the dim light from the lantern sparkled upon a fine
hoar-frost, which lay like silver on the causeway and glittered on every
straw scattered about the yard. Not a sound was to be heard, except a
very soft, low moan from the sea, and that they listened for as they
stood still on the doorstep. Joan's heart was beating fast, and her
small fingers clasped Rhoda's hand tightly as they stole along the
causeway to the cow-shed just beyond the barn.
The cow-shed was divided into two, and they passed through the outer
one, where the cows were lying in their stalls, and turned their large,
sleepy eyes upon the two girls, as if to inquire why they were disturbed
so early. In the little shed beyond the fodder and the hay were kept,
and the stalls were empty. The barn opened into it, and the deep black
space under the high roof of the barn served to deepen the delicious awe
in Joan's little heart. Rhoda herself trembled a little with a strange
feeling of seeking something which possibly might be found. She had
never realised so vividly that the Lord Jesus Christ was indeed born in
a stable and cradled in a manger; and she trod softly, with her heart
beating, like Joan's, faster than usual.
They stood still for a minute on the low door-sill, their lantern
casting its dim rays into the silent shed. Behind them was the deep
breathing of the cows, and the slow sound of their munching, and all
about them was the sweet, familiar scent of the hay. But this silent,
empty spot, half lit up by the lantern, seemed a strange, unfamiliar
place they hardly dared to enter. Rhoda lingered with a vague awe in her
heart, whilst little Joan grasped her hand as if in terror.
"Let us sing 'Hark! the herald angels!'" whispered Rhoda.
Very softly, with a timid and tremulous voice, Rhoda began the hymn, and
little Joan took it up in an undertone. They sang the verses through,
gathering courage as they did so. Then with solemn steps they approached
the manger and raised the lantern to look into its cradle lined with
hay. It was empty.
"I suppose Mary is gone somewhere else," said little Joan, half grieved;
"it was n't in her way to come here, p'rhaps, or you and me we'd have
been so glad, Rhoda!"
"Perhaps she 'll come next Christmas," answered Rhoda. "We 'll come and
look every Christmas morning, and sing our hymn, and perhaps we shall
find them some time--Mary, and Joseph, and the babe, wrapped in
swaddling clothes and lying in the manger. Now we'll go back, and wake
up aunty, and tell her all about it."
Aunt Priscilla hardly knew what to think of it. Rhoda had always been
given to "making believe." She had often played at being David killing
Goliath with a smooth pebble from the brook, or Ruth gleaning in the
fields, or the Queen of Sheba, with a crown of cowslips, visiting King
Solomon. For the last few years these fancies had left her, but they
were all coming back again with little Joan. And going to look for the
child Jesus in the manger; was it right or wrong? She spoke privately to
Nathan, and the old man smiled, though he shook his white head.
"They 'll grow older and wiser in time," he said; "and sure the Lord 'ud
never be angered wi' two young creatures seeking after Him in any way!"
But when the next Christmas came all was changed at the farm-house on
the mountain. There had been no preparations made for keeping it as a
holiday, and no gathering of kinsfolk was invited by Priscilla Parry.
Nathan unbarred the kitchen-door, and lighted little Joan across the
fold; but she went into the stable alone, and stood on the threshold
singing the Christmas hymn with a sad, pale face that wore a lonely and
frightened expression. The manger was empty, as it had been the year
before; but the home seemed empty too.
All Joan knew of the beginning of this mournful change was, that she
awoke one pleasant sunny morning and found Rhoda gone.
That day Aunt Priscilla roamed about the farmstead and the scattered
fields her grandfather had enclosed upon the mountain, like one
distracted, calling everywhere for Rhoda. The farm-labourers loitered
about the fold and the little blacksmith's shop, whispering mysteriously
whenever Joan had been within hearing. There had been nobody to keep
them to their work, for Nathan was away all day, and did not return till
the late sunset was past and even the loftiest peak of the highest
mountain stood grey and dark against the sky.
Nobody had bade Joan to go to bed, and she was afraid of her little,
lonely, separate room, if Rhoda was not coming back to sleep with her.
Not a single word had Aunt Priscilla spoken to her all the day, and if
the young servant-girl had not given her some bread and a bowl of milk
she would have been left without food, for Aunt Priscilla had not eaten
a morsel, or sat down in the kitchen, since the early morning.
Joan had curled herself up in a corner of the oak settle, which stood as
a screen on one side of the corner fireplace, and had fallen fast asleep
there, when she was aroused by Nathan's voice. He spoke so quietly and
sadly that it did not quite awake her, and her drowsy ears took in the
sound as if he had been talking to some one a long way off. But suddenly
Aunt Priscilla spoke, in a voice so terrible and loud that she woke up
in a fright. Her aunt was standing in the middle of the floor, and the
light from a candle fell upon her face, weary and grey, and drawn into a
frown of stern and passionate anger.
"She shall never enter my doors again!" she exclaimed; "neither she nor
her husband, Evan Price--the worst scamp in the country! I 'll never
forgive her. Deceiving me all these months! Let nobody ever name her
name to me again; she's dead to me for evermore."
"No, no," said old Nathan, sorrowfully; "don't thee harden thy heart
against her, Miss Priscilla. She 's been deceived as well as us, poor,
young, ignorant lass! She does n't know what Evan is yet: a handsome
young raskill, as all the girls make much of. If she repents--and she
will repent, poor creature--thou must pardon her."
"Never!" cried Aunt Priscilla, "not on my death-bed!"
"'Forgive us our sins as we forgive them as sin against us,'" he
answered, in a very mournful and solemn voice.
"I'll never pray that prayer again!" she said fiercely. "I haven't
sinned against the Lord as she's sinned against me. I've never brought
shame and disgrace on Him. The Lord may pardon her, but I can't!"
"Hush!" exclaimed Nathan, "hush! God Himself is hearkening to us. Our
sins against Him are as if we owed Him ten thousand talents; and the
sins of our fellow-creatures against us are no more than a hundred
pence. It is our crucified Lord that says it. Ah! thou knowest it well.
'O thou wicked servant, said the lord in the parable,'I forgave thee all
that debt because thou desiredst me; shouldest not thou also have had
compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his
lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay
all that was due unto him. So likewise shall My Heavenly Father do also
unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother his
trespasses.' It's an awful thing when the Heavenly Father delivers a
soul to the tormentors! May God in His infinite mercy deliver thee; only
take heed that thou drive not away His Holy Spirit from thee!"
Aunt Priscilla said no more, but went away upstairs, leaving the kitchen
in utter darkness. Joan trembled from head to foot as she listened to
her heavy tread in the room above. When old Nathan struck a light, her
white, scared little face was the first thing he saw. He sat down on the
settle beside her, and took her tenderly into his arms.
"It's a sad day for thee, too, my little lamb," he said; "thou 's lost
thy playfellow, and there's hard times before thee."
"Where's Rhoda?" asked Joan, trembling.
"She's been tempted away from us," he said sorrowfully, "by one as
pretends he loves her more than us. But thou must go to bed, my little
lass. See! I'll carry thee upstairs. I'm a poor, rough nurse for thee,
but my room's next to thine, on the other side o' the wall, and thee can
cry to me i' th' night if thou 's frightened. And to-morrow I'll knock a
hole through the wall, so as thou can hear me speak to thee. But there's
no wall between thee and the Lord; He's close beside thee, and thou need
never be affrighted."
But little Joan was frightened, both that night and many another dark
hour, when she felt herself alone in the solitary little room. The
child's life became very hard and desolate. Aunt Priscilla took no
notice of her beyond providing her with food to eat and clothes to wear.
She did not talk to her, and she never took her on her lap or kissed
her. Sometimes Joan would creep timidly to her side and look up into her
face, but Aunt Priscilla never seemed to see her.
There was nothing for the little girl to do but to wander solitarily
about the fields or sit up in her lonely room with no one to speak to
her for hours together. She was more desolate than she had been in
London; for there her mother had sometimes come up to the attic to play
with her, or to nurse her in her arms for a few minutes. There was no
one to love her now, except old Nathan.
There was a still greater change in Miss Priscilla Parry. The neighbours
said she was gone out of her mind; and it was true that all her nature
seemed turned to hardness and sternness. She was never seen to smile,
nor did she speak a word that was not absolutely necessary. She gave up
going to church and market, and she refused to see any visitor who came
up to the farm.
On Sunday evening, when the usual meeting was held in her kitchen, and
the curious neighbours came in larger numbers than usual, they no longer
saw her in her old place on the settle, where Rhoda's pretty face had
made so strong a contrast with her aunt's. Miss Priscilla, after Rhoda's
foolish flight, always retreated to her bedroom overhead, in which there
was a small trap-door, made when her mother was bedridden, that she
might hear the prayers and the sermon and the singing in the kitchen
below. It was some weeks before old Nathan, who looked every Sunday if
the trap-door was open, saw that it had been lifted up, and knew his
mistress was listening.
When Miss Priscilla was downstairs about her work it was a sad sight to
see her. Her grey hair had gone quite white, and her eyes were worn out
with weeping. Her shoulders were bent as if she was always stooping
under a heavy burden, and she seldom lifted her head or looked up from
the ground. Joan often saw her lips moving, though no sound came through
them. Everybody except old Nathan thought she was mad.