TROUBLE.
"THERE's something wrong with Mr. Wilmot!" Other people, besides Mrs.
Mason, were saying this as the summer went on.
Annie was slower to perceive the alteration in him than were many. For
one thing, he did his best to keep up in her presence, fearing to awake
his darling's anxiety. For another, she was young still, and had seen
little of illness. Moreover, she was extremely busy in the Parish, and
was by no means given to conjuring up troubles.
Conjuring was, however, in this matter no longer needed, for a very
real trouble lay already to hand.
The change in Mr. Wilmot had become patent to all who knew him.
A laboured and languid gait replaced the old brisk walk; a fixed
perpetual pallor replaced the old healthy sunburn. If he had to ascend
a little slope, he stood still often to pant for breath. The exertion
of preaching would bring visible drops of moisture to his brow; and
not seldom the once clear and ringing tones were inaudible to half his
congregation.
Yet with this appearance of weakness, there existed an unusual
brightness, and this it was chiefly which helped to blind Annie's eyes.
For a while, in the earlier part of the summer, she and many others had
thought him unwontedly grave and depressed. The gravity and depression
were gone now, utterly. Never had his eyes shone with so calm a light,
never had his smile been so full of sunshine. There were some who noted
in his look and bearing a strange unearthliness—noted it with mingled
awe and fear. Yet they could not have told wherein it consisted; for
even while they noted it, and thought him worn and altered, his laugh
would break out in all its old gaiety, as he paused to speak to some
little child. And how the children loved him!
Annie's eyes remained long strangely shut. She thought him tired
unusually often, but the hot summer seemed to account for this.
By-and-by, he would take his autumn holiday, and that would set all
right.
But there came a day of awakening—sudden and unexpected.
She had had her Bible class as usual one Sunday afternoon, with the
half-dozen girls who regularly came to the Rectory for that purpose. It
was a very interesting hour commonly to them all; not least so to Nancy
Dunn, who by this time loved Miss Wilmot dearly. This day's lesson
proved certainly not less interesting than usual.
Annie had chosen the subject of trouble, and of how to bear trouble.
She had talked it over with her father beforehand, and she had much to
say about the bright side of trouble, the often good effects of it, and
the spirit in which it should be borne.
"I dare say some of you remember that sermon of my father's about being
always ready," Annie said, in the course of the class.
Nancy smiled a response.
"Perhaps we haven't any of us just now any great troubles to bear—only
just little every-day ones. But the great troubles may come at any
time; and when they do, we ought to be ready. I suppose there is
only one way of being really ready, and that is,—" Annie went on
reverently—"that is, living always very close to Jesus. For if we are
fighting close to His side, and under His banner, then whatever He
orders we shall be ready to do—or whatever He gives us we shall be
ready to take.
"I don't mean," she added, after a pause, "that one wouldn't feel
trouble. My father says that is a mistake. When God sends trouble,
He means it to be trouble. And He means it to bring us near to
Him, that He may comfort us. I don't suppose He can comfort us
till we are 'ready' to have whatever He sends. Some don't learn to
be ready till after the trouble comes. But I should like to learn
beforehand—shouldn't you? I should like to be able, when it comes,
to look straight up, and say, 'Thy will, not mine, be done.' That's
what the Lord Jesus could do, even in the midst of His great terrible
struggle in Gethsemane. He could say, 'Not My will, but Thine.' For all
the while He was ready—truly ready. He could always say from His heart,
'Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God!' And that is what we have to learn
to say."
It seemed strange afterwards to Annie herself, as well as to those who
listened, that she should have spoken just on that particular day in
this particular manner.
The class ended, Annie put away her Bible, set the chairs straight,
and went out into the garden, singing softly. She believed her father
to be at the school, where he usually went every Sunday afternoon. A
favourite Homer rose bush near the garden-gate drew Annie's attention.
She thought she would gather a few buds, and put them on father's study
table, to refresh his eyes when he returned. He had not seemed at all
well that morning; and Annie had almost made up her mind to ask Mr.
Rawdon privately some day soon whether Mr. Wilmot ought not to take a
tonic.
Six pretty pinkish half-open blossoms were in hand, when a movement
near made her look up. "Good afternoon," she said, smiling at the sight
of Archie Stuart. Mrs. Stuart's cottage was in Annie's district, and
Annie knew the mother and son well.
"How is Mrs. Stuart?" she asked, as Archie seemed to hesitate outside
the gate.
Archie's mother was "pretty well," he said.
"Her foot quite recovered?" Annie asked, plucking another rose bud. "Do
you think she would like two or three of these? Come in, and I'll give
them to you."
Archie was much pleased. He stepped inside, letting the gate swing to.
"There!" Annie said, handing him a small bunch. "Tell Mrs. Stuart I am
coming very soon to see her again." Then, with another smile, Annie
inquired, "Has she begun to like Nancy Dunn yet?"
Archie's face fell. "No, Miss," he said. "Not as anybody could help
liking Nancy—"
"No, indeed!" put in Annie.
"But she won't hear one word of me and Nancy having things settled
between us," pursued Archie.
"Then you have to be patient a little longer," said Annie. Between
confidences from Archie, from Mrs. Stuart, and from Nancy, she knew
pretty well all about the matter. "Nobody is the worse for a little
waiting, and I think you are pretty sure about Nancy—are you not?"
"Well, I did speak to her, Miss Wilmot, and to Mrs. Dunn too," admitted
Archie. "For I didn't seem as if I was able to keep in any longer. And
my mother she was in a great taking. But Mrs. Dunn said, and Nancy said
too, that it wasn't to be anything settled until mother was willing.
And it does seem as if she never was going to be willing."
"You have waited a very short time yet, and you and Nancy are both
young," said Annie. "I think you must have patience still; and your
mother has been a good mother, hasn't she? I always notice how very
fond she is of you. I am sure you must want to be a very good son to
her."
"Well, yes—that I do, Miss," assented Archie, though perhaps not so
heartily as Annie wished, for his head was full of Nancy. Then he
inquired: "Is Mr. Wilmot better, please? Mother said I was to be sure
and ask. She does set store by Mr. Wilmot, and no mistake, and it's
worried her to see him so ill lately."
"My father! Why, he has not been ill," said Annie in surprise. "He
seemed tired this morning."
Archie looked at Annie somewhat strangely. He had heard many remarks
lately on the Rectors altered look.
"I am expecting him home from Sunday school directly," pursued Annie.
"So I must go indoors now and be ready for him. Good-bye. I do hope
your mother will soon give way about Nancy. But you have to be patient,
haven't you, till then?"
Annie went back into the house, wondering uneasily what could have made
Archie speak so of her father. She would certainly got hold of Mr.
Rawdon as soon as possible, and beg him to see after Mr. Wilmot.
The study door was shut; but Annie, believing her father to be out,
went straight in, meaning to put the rose buds on his study table.
Her light and quick approach was unheralded. The door gave no warning
creak; and Annie had a noiseless manner of turning handles.
The room proved to be tenanted. Mr. Wilmot lay on the sofa, and beside
him sat Mr. Rawdon, bending somewhat forward, and speaking in distinct
tones—
"As for your fear of hydrophobia—"
These words struck upon Annie's ears; and no trumpet-clang could have
rung out with more startling clearness.
In a moment, the two were aware of her presence, and Mr. Rawdon stopped
short.