SAYING GOOD-BYE.
The summer was gone and early autumn had come before Grace Moffat walked
beyond the precincts of Bayview. Sorrow not sickness had kept her
solitary. With the bitterness of her grief she could not endure friends
or strangers to meddle, and so all alone she bore the first brunt of her
trouble, all alone she formed her plans, rooted up the old projects and
fanciful aims of her past life, and, spite of her former convictions on
the subject of absenteeism, determined to leave Ireland, if not for
ever, at all events for a considerable period.
In truth, without sacrificing her liberty she could not well have
remained there.
Although in the eyes of Kingslough she was fast verging towards the sere
and yellow leaf period of life, she was not old enough to set Mrs.
Grundy at defiance and reside at Bayview without a duenna, and that was
an encumbrance Grace had no desire to burden herself with. Further, she
knew that every eligible man within reach would rush to offer her
consolation in the first instance, and his hand in the second; and that
mothers would outvie each other in offering to supply a father’s place
to so eligible a daughter-in-law as herself.
She was of course a much more desirable investment in the matrimonial
market than had been the case during her father’s lifetime. All he once
possessed was hers now unreservedly; and amongst men in search of rich
wives, the increased value of Miss Moffat’s hand might readily have been
computed by a rule-of-three sum.
All this Grace felt bitterly. Now when she wanted a friend as she had
never wanted one before, she found herself surrounded by those who all,
she suspected, held a second purpose concealed behind their kindly
advances.
Perhaps she wronged the impulses of many a warm heart by this idea, but
money was an article truly needed at that time amongst the Irish gentry.
Heiresses were scarce, encumbered estates numerous. So to speak, the
bulk of the old families were in a state of insolvency, and driven to
their wits’ ends to avert the final catastrophe which the famine only
precipitated, which it alone certainly never could have induced amongst
an aristocracy already tottering to the verge of ruin.
How were the heirs of impoverished estates covered with debt as with a
garment to mend their position except by marriage?
Every profession was overstocked; they could not go into trade. Even had
they possessed the requisite ability necessary to carry on a business
successfully, the prejudices of the country must have deterred them from
attempting to mend matters by a move in that direction.
A few went to India, where some succeeded and others died. Australia and
the West Indies absorbed most of the adventurous or speculative youth of
the period. In Australia they led a not disagreeable life, spite of
hardships they certainly never could have endured at home. In the West
Indies success resolved itself into a game at hazard with death. If
death won, why they died, and there was an end of it; if they won, they
won wealth as well.
For the male gentry who remained at home on the ancestral acres, there
were but two courses open. One to marry a girl without money, and so
hasten the advent of ruin; the other to marry a girl with money, and so
defer to another generation that bankruptcy which it was impossible
could be averted for ever.
In such a state of society the woman herself counted for very little.
Love matches were made, it is true, every day, and resulted in a good
deal of domestic unhappiness, pinching, saving, meanness, and an
infinite number of children; but in those cases where love and prudence
might have been supposed able to travel together, prudence turned love
out of court, and no heiress, let her be as good and beautiful as she
pleased, could make quite sure whether it were she who was being wooed,
or the comfortable thousands the care and affection of some
exceptionally fortunate ancestor had saved for her benefit.
Had she been deaf, humpbacked, lame, afflicted with a squint, eighty
years of age, an heiress need not have despaired of attracting suitors.
When sons were shy or indifferent, when they seemed inclined to balk, as
a hunting gentleman described their reluctance to go wooing, mothers
courted sometimes not unsuccessfully in their stead; and had Grace been
one of the blood royal, she could scarcely have had greater attention
showered upon her than was the case once the funeral was over and the
terms of her father’s will known.
But to visitors Grace sedulously denied herself; invitations she
steadily refused to accept, with the exception of one which she took
time to consider.
It came from Mrs. Hartley, and was couched in these words:—
“I have been thinking much about you and your position, and putting my
own selfish wishes on one side, really and truly believe the best thing
you can do is to come to me for a time. If you stay where you are you
will be driven to marry some one. The day must come when in utter
weariness of saying ‘No,’ you will say ‘Yes;’ not because you care much
for the suitor, or he is especially eligible, but because you feel one
husband is preferable to a host of lovers.
“We shall not bore each other; you shall go your way, and I shall
continue on mine.
“We will travel if you like; I shall not herald your arrival amongst my
friends in the character of an heiress, be sure of that. I have no pet
young man free of the house to whom I wish to see you married. Come and
try the experiment, at all events. If you still preserve your Utopian
ideas on the subject of Ireland’s regeneration, it may be as well for
you, before you begin the work, to see that the inhabitants of another
country really manage to keep their doorsteps white—and their children’s
hair combed without the intervention of philanthropists like yourself,
or demagogues like Mr. Hanlon. By the way, I hope you are not getting
entangled in that quarter.
“No doubt the young man is clever, and behaved well at the time of your
poor father’s attack; but still, these are no reasons why he should
marry your father’s daughter.
“_It would not do_, Grace. If by your marriage to such a man you were
able to ensure a meat dinner every day to all the tenant farmers in
Ireland, you would find even that desirable result dearly purchased at
the cost of so unsuitable an alliance. I do you the justice to feel
certain your heart is unaffected, but the circumstances have been
propitious for touching your fancy; and I know of old what a snare that
lively imagination you possess is capable of proving.
“Talking of imagination, what has become of the handsome hero of your
teens? What has he done? What is he doing? I see the young earl is dead;
and I understand that where the sapling fell it is to lie, as the means
of the family do not permit of a second grand funeral within so short a
time. Opinions here are divided as to the chances of Mr. Robert
Somerford succeeding to the title.
“Some persons say the new earl is privately married and has a family,
others that he will marry, others that he is and has always been single,
that he has one foot in the grave and will shortly have another in
likewise. It is a case in which I should decline to advise if you asked
my opinion.
“If you marry Robert Somerford he may be Earl of Glendare. If you wait
till he is Earl of Glendare, you may never be Countess of Glendare. And
indeed I shall not desire to see you raised to the peerage. I do not
think greatness would sit easily upon your shoulders. I believe you
would be far happier married to some honest, honourable man in our own
rank of life than you could be amongst the nobility. But there is no
honest, honourable young man in our own rank of life residing near here
whose cause I wish to plead, so you will be quite safe in coming to me.
Will you _think_ the matter over and come?”
Which letter Grace, after having thought the matter over, answered in
these words:—
“I will go to you. Amongst all the people I know, there is no one I
trust so fully, I believe in so implicitly as I do in you. I will let
Bayview furnished. I will set my affairs in order, and leave the dear
old place which has grown hateful to me—temporarily only, I hope—for I
should like, when I have advanced sufficiently in age, to wear caps, and
set the world’s opinions at defiance, to return to Ireland, and spend my
declining years and my income amongst mine ‘ain folk.’”
“Were I a stronger-minded woman, I suppose I should be able to conquer
my grief and defy public criticism by starting on what you would call a
career of philanthropy; but sorrow and the world, this little world of
Kingslough, are, I confess, too much for me. As you say, I believe I
should marry out of mere weariness of spirit.”
“My pensioners I shall leave to Mrs. Larkin, who will rejoice in seeing
the poor crowd round her door like robins in the winter.
“If anything were capable of making me laugh now, I should laugh at your
idea of there being the slightest tender feeling between me and Mr.
Hanlon. It is because by some nameless instinct I comprehend he never
could by any chance care for me that I have seen more of him since my
irreparable loss than has been perhaps, situated as I am, quite wise. I
do not mean that he has called here often, or that I have chanced to
meet him more than two or three times in my solitary walks by the
seashore; but still you know what all small places are, what this small
place is especially.
“Kingslough has talked, is talking—Kingslough says my head is turned,
and that I am bent on flinging myself and my money away on a man who,
some say—you remember Kingslough was always remarkable for its vehemence
of expression, ‘should be drummed out of the town’—and others think
worthy of being—do not faint at the phrase, it is not mine—‘strung up.’
“I have told you that I am positive Mr. Hanlon has no intention, even
for the weal of the nation, of ever asking me to marry him; and yet I
have an uneasy conviction he has some purpose to serve in cultivating
better relations between us, which purpose I cannot at present divine.
Moreover, I fear he has not given so direct a denial to those rumours
which have bracketed his name and mine in such an undesirable connection
as I think, were I a man, I should have done under similar
circumstances. Kingslough says positively I have lost my heart and my
senses—of the state of both you will be able to judge when we meet.
“Mr. Robert Somerford has at length given me the opportunity of refusing
the honour of allying myself to the house of Glendare. I am glad of
this, for I should scarcely have liked to leave Bayview whilst a chance
remained of his doing so. He is handsomer than ever—years only improve
his appearance; but were he beautiful as Adonis he could never be my
hero more.
“He was first sentimental and sympathetic, next pressing in his
entreaties, and sceptical as to the genuineness of my ‘No.’ Lastly he
was insolent and made as much of himself and his position as though he
had been nursed in the lap of royalty, and lived all his life on terms
of equality with kings and queens. Familiarity may in my case have bred
contempt, but I certainly never in the days when I admired him most
considered he was so much my superior as appears is the case.
“I was equal, however, to the emergency; my desolate position, and my
heavy mourning, the sorrow I have passed through, all combine to give me
a courage I lacked in former times.
“Whilst he was still exalting himself and depreciating me—reciting the
glories of the Glendares and contrasting the rank to which he could have
raised me with the level of obscurity in which my refusal doomed me to
remain for life, maundering on as one might have thought only an angry
ill-bred woman or a spoiled child could have maundered—I rose and rang
the bell.
“‘Perhaps you will go now, Mr. Somerford,’ I said, ruthlessly cutting
across a sentence in which he was drawing a picture of my future life
when married to a poor apothecary who had not even the recommendation of
being possessed of all his senses. ‘Perhaps you will go now, and spare
yourself the vexation of being asked to leave before a servant.’
“I never saw a man so taken by surprise. He got up, made me a low,
mocking bow, and quitted the room without uttering another word.
“Next time he asks any one to marry him, he says, he will take care the
lady is in his own rank of life.
“He had been gradually provoking me, so at that point I broke silence
and suggested the advisability of his ascertaining at the same time
whether her worldly means were as excellent as his own.
“You will blame me for this, of course; but if I had bitten back the
words they would have choked me.
“There was a time when I could have married him, and probably repented
doing so every hour of my after life. I told him this, and he pressed me
much to say when my feelings underwent so great a change.
“‘On that day,’ I answered, ‘when you forced me to remark,—We had made
you welcome at Bayview, and we now make you welcome to stay away.’
“It is only women with money, I fancy, who have to endure impertinence
at the hands of their suitors. I suppose the fact is a feeling of
tenderness for the beloved one mingles even with the bitterness of
losing her; but the wildest fancy cannot suppose any feeling of
tenderness towards a fortune that a man sees plainly can never be
possessed by him.
“Every obstacle to my accepting your invitation is now removed.
“Our servants seem determined to celebrate the event of their master’s
death with a series of weddings. He left them each a sum of money which,
though it would appear little to English people of the same rank, is
wealth to them, and a number of alliances have been arranged on the
strength of these legacies which would have amused you had you seen the
match-making in progress.
“On the whole, I am inclined to think that even in Ireland the
possession of a nest egg produces the same effect upon human beings as
it does upon a hen. A desire to lay another beside it becomes at once
irresistible. After that remark you will not be surprised to hear the
marriages in this establishment are chiefly remarkable for prudence.
Jane, the dairymaid, is going to invest her money in cows, and a husband
who owns a small cottage, the right of grazing over a large tract of
common land, and a cabbage-garden, in which he proposes to erect byres.
The cook, whom you may perhaps remember for the excellence of her
omelets and the warmth of her temper, clubs her legacy with that of the
coachman, and they intend to take a public-house five miles down the
coast, and add posting to the business. I will not weary you with
further matrimonial details.
“The youngest and prettiest of the establishment, my own little maid,
takes her money, supplemented by a gift from me, back to her sickly
mother.
“‘I shall be able to stay with her always now, Miss Grace,’ she said,
crying and laughing in the same breath. ‘I know enough, thanks be to
you, to teach a little school, and we’ll be happy as the day is long.’
“I have spoken to no one concerning my own plans; though of course every
one knows I am going to leave Bayview, no person suspects that I intend
to visit England.
“It has indeed been stated that I mean to spend the winter abroad with
Lady Glendare. Her ladyship sent me a very civil note, favoured by Mrs.
Dillwyn, saying how grieved she was to hear of my bereavement, speaking
of her own loss, and adding that, if I thought a thorough change would
prove beneficial to my health and spirits, she would be delighted if I
would visit her.
“Which was very kind, particularly from a member of a family famous for
the shortness of their memories of favours received.
“This, I conclude, gave rise to the first report, which has now,
however, been superseded by another. I am going to stay with Mr.
Hanlon’s mother, who is to come so far as Dublin to meet me!
“I mean to-day to bid good-bye to the Scotts; to-morrow, the next day,
and the next, I shall employ in paying farewell visits and in gratifying
the curiosity of my friends. Can you not fancy the entreaties with which
I shall be assailed to stay in my own country and amongst my own people?
My father’s solicitor is delighted with the proposal that he and his
family shall occupy Bayview for the autumn. He will endeavour to let it
from November next.
“I shall break my journey at Dublin, from which place I will write to
you again; but under any circumstances I hope to be talking to you face
to face within a fortnight from the present time.”
And having sealed and despatched this letter, Grace, as has been stated,
for the first time since her father’s death left behind her the grounds
of Bayview, and wended her way towards the Castle Farm.
With a feeling of sick surprise she paused when she reached the top of
the divisional road and looked at the fields to right and left. The
meadows were still uncut; acres of long rich grass had been laid by the
rain, trampled by the cattle. The potato blossoms had flowered and
faded; the potato apples were beginning to turn brown on the stems, but
not a spade had been put in to dig the roots out of the ground.
In the other lands lying around she saw hayricks; she beheld men busy at
work; she heard the voices of the women and children who were almost
playing at their labour, so rejoiced were all hearts to find the heavy
crop the upturned earth disclosed; but at the Castle Farm there was no
sign of toil or of gladness.
There was a dead stillness about the place which told Grace the
beginning of the end had begun. Spite of the rich grass thick with
clover, spite of the wealth lying buried in the broad ridges of the
potato fields, spite of the luxuriance of the ripening corn, she knew
ruin was sitting by the once hospitable hearth, stealthily biding its
time till it should turn husband and wife and children out of house and
home upon the world.
No active signs of grief—no outbreak of sorrow could have affected Grace
like the dumb testimony which gave evidence of the crisis that had come.
When before, in hay-time, had Amos and his boys and his men not been up
at the first streak of light, in order to get well on with their labour
before the sun gaining power—and the dews drying off the grass—made
mowing weary work?
When had the potatoes ever lain in the ground as they were lying now?
when had not all needful tasks been expedited and got well out of hand
before the time came for the ingathering of the corn?
Miss Moffat’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at the deserted
fields that had borne their increase only to point more forcibly the
ruin which was come to the Castle Farm.
If she had seen a sale going on in the place; had she beheld a crowd of
strangers in the yard, and heard a babel of tongues in the air; had the
horses and the cows and the busy fussing hens, and the fat well-to-do
pigs been taken away while she looked, the scene could scarcely have
struck her with the numb dread that for a time paralysed her steps.
Then it all came upon her. They had sown, but they might not reap; they
had planted, but they might not gather; on the land they had held so
long they were trespassers, and if they still remained in the old
homestead it was only because there is nothing more difficult than to
get rid of people who have determined to remain.
Amos Scott had so determined; but the law was closing him in slowly,
surely.
It was eating his substance first; while he had a pound in the
traditional stocking, or the ability to borrow a pound—while he had a
shoe to his foot and a shirt to his back, it refrained from cutting
short his torture, but once let the cruise fail, and the law would
scourge him with scorpions out of that once happy garden which never
again might seem like paradise to Amos or one of his family.
Out of the sunlight Grace passed into the house, where, by reason of the
glare from which she had come, she could at first scarcely distinguish
any object; but after a second or two she beheld Mrs. Scott, aged and
haggard, who, in her hands holding a coat of her husband’s she had been
engaged in patching, rose and bade her visitor welcome.
She was quite alone; a rare thing in that populous house. Inside as out
the same stillness prevailed, a stillness like unto the Egyptian
darkness, inasmuch as it could be felt.
The first words uttered were by Mrs. Scott, in sympathy for Miss
Moffat’s affliction; but Grace, though her burden seemed heavy, knew the
dead had no need of help or remembrance, and here face to face with her
was at least one human being who had.
“Tell me about yourselves,” she said, passing her handkerchief across
the large soft eyes that would encourage tears to shelter themselves
under the white lids and long lashes. “We cannot do anything more for
_him_. It was a great shock. I sometimes seem as if I were unable to
realize it even yet; but it is true, and I must learn to bear the
greatest trouble God sends one of his creatures.”
“The greatest, Miss?” said Mrs. Scott inquiringly; she was sympathetic
and respectful, but she could not quite fall in with this opinion.
She had her trouble, and if she heard that the trouble of another might
be greater, who shall blame her for being slow of belief.
There cannot be much doubt that the man who has broken his leg feels
sceptical when told that his next neighbour who has broken his ankle is
in worse case than he. As a matter of theory, people may sympathize with
the griefs of their fellow-creatures, but as a matter of fact the only
sorrows which are ever thoroughly understood are those a man has himself
to bear; and this is reasonable enough, remembering that after the lapse
of even a short time, a man finds it difficult to recall vividly the
anguish and the shame and the agony he may once have been obliged to
pass through.
Mrs. Scott’s pain was very present with her, however, on that beautiful
morning. She was in the midst of a trouble which might well have
exhausted a more patient woman. She had to sit still and see her
household gods broken one by one; she was forced, as she said herself,
to “bide quiet” whilst ruin stalked towards their home, drawing nearer
every hour. Death to her seemed naturally a less trial than this
lengthened torture, and she could not agree with her visitor when Miss
Moffat answered,—
“The greatest because it is hopeless.”
“Not making light of your trouble, Miss Grace, don’t you think it may be
just as hopeless a grief as death to feel yourself coming to want and
your children to beggary?”
“If there were no way to avert such misfortunes, perhaps not,” was the
reply; “but it is because we cannot avert death, because we can never
hope in this world to see those who are gone, that I say death is so
terrible a grief.”
“It is terrible,” Mrs. Scott agreed; “but I don’t feel as if it was as
hard a sorrow as to see everything going, and not be able to put out a
finger to save us from ruin. There are the potatoes undug in the ground,
and I dursn’t take up a root of them to boil for the dinner. We have had
to sell the cows, for we were “threatened” if we tried to graze them.
The boys have nothing to do, and the meadows are all laid; but they
warned Amos off when he went to mow. They poisoned our dog because he
flew at one of the bailiffs Brady sent; and they tell me now Brady is
going to get the grass in, and the potatoes up, and the corn cut when it
ripens, if he has to bring a regiment of soldiers to protect his men.”
At the idea of which imposing array Mrs. Scott dropped her work on her
knee, heaved a deep sigh, and remarked,—
“God alone knows what the end will be!”
“I will tell you what the end ought to be,” said Grace kindly. “You
ought to begin to pack up your belongings now, and leave the Castle Farm
as soon as ever you can get out of it.”
“Amos’ll never leave it alive,” she answered. “He is not a hard man to
talk to in a general way, but Brady has tried to head him, and it has
made him that dour, there is no reasoning with him.”
“Have you ever really tried to reason with him?” Miss Moffat inquired.
“Not at first. I’ll own it. I was as keen on as himself for fighting to
the last; but, oh! Miss Grace, when the trouble comes inside the door,
it is the woman feels it. She must hold up and have a bite for the men
folks to eat if her heart is just breaking; and I’m fairly tired of it.
I feel I’d be that glad to creep into any hole where we could be quiet,
I couldn’t tell you.”
“Where is Amos?” asked her visitor, after a pause.
“Gone to Glenwellan to see the lawyer; now we have sold Tom he has to
walk there and back every step of the way. He is spending his all in
law, Miss Grace. Shure the very money I got for the hens and the ducks
and the other cratures he made me give him, and me saving it for the
time when we’ll want it sorely.”
“What does Amos hope to do?” inquired Grace. “What does he expect the
lawyers can do for him?”
“That’s beyond me to tell. He wants his rights, and he says he’ll have
them.”
“What are his rights?”
“Oh, that’s easy telling; this place he paid the renewal of.”
“I am going away,—” began Grace, with apparent irrelevance.
“So I heard tell,” interpolated Mrs. Scott.
“And before I go I want to put this matter before you clearly, as I see
it; as others, wiser and more capable than I, see it also.”
“Yes, Miss,” said Mrs. Scott in a tone which implied that Grace might
talk and she herself might listen, but that her opinions would remain
the same.
And indeed is this not always the case? Is it not always when talking
and listening are signally useless that opinions alter?
“Supposing,” said Grace, a little fluttered by reason of her own
boldness, “I went to Dublin and said I must have a new piano.”
“Likely you will some day,” agreed Mrs. Scott, as her visitor paused for
a moment and hesitated.
“And suppose for the sake of argument,” went on Grace, “I decided to
spend a hundred pounds.”
“It would be a heap of money,” commented her auditor.
“Or fifty, or twenty,” said Miss Moffat, seeing her mistake; “say twenty
pounds; and that I chose a piano and told the man where to send it, and
paid him the money and took no receipt for it. After I leave, another
person sees the same piano, likes it, pays the money, and gets a
receipt. Shortly I begin to wonder why the instrument is not sent home,
and I write to the seller. I receive an answer saying he is dead, and
that no one knows anything about the matter except that the piano I
mention has been sold and delivered to Mr. So-and-so. Now such a case
would be undoubtedly a hard one for me, but I should never think of
throwing good money after bad in trying to put spilt milk back into a
basin; and yet this is what Amos persists in attempting. Do you
understand what I mean?”
“You speak very clever, Miss Grace,” was the reply.
“I am afraid I do not speak at all cleverly,” said her visitor. “I wish
any words of mine could persuade Amos and you how utterly useless it is
for you to continue the resistance he has begun.”
“Would you have him give up everything, then, Miss, and see us turned
out on the world—we who have always tried to keep decent and respectable
as you know, Miss Grace?”
“I do know,” was the answer, “but I see no help for it—if a thing has to
be done at last, it may as well and better be done at first.”
“I am thinking Amos will fight it to the end,” said Mrs. Scott calmly.
“But what folly it is!” exclaimed Miss Moffat.
“Like enough; I wouldn’t be so ill bred as to contradict you, Miss, even
if I could.”
“But it is impossible you can be happy or comfortable living in this
sort of way.”
“Happy, comfortable,” repeated the poor woman, then added with sudden
vehemence, “And who is it that has made us unhappy and uncomfortable,
but that villain Brady? It’ll come home to him though; sure as sure,
Miss Grace, it will. We may not live to see it, but the day will come
that others will mind what Brady done to us and say, ‘Serve him right,’
no matter what trouble is laid upon him.”
“But you do not wish any harm to happen to him?” suggested Grace, who,
having no personal feud with Mr. Brady, naturally felt shocked at Mrs.
Scott’s bitterness of expression.
“Don’t I?” retorted the woman. “It would be blessed news if one came in
now and said, ‘Brady is lying stiff and stark out in the field yonder.’”
“Hush, hush, hush!” entreated Grace, laying her hand on the lean
unlovely arm which had once been plump and comely. “Oh! I wish I could
talk to you as I want to talk. I wish I could say good things as other
people are able. I wish I could persuade you to bear your heavy burden
patiently, feeling certain God in His own good time will lighten it for
you. I cannot think there is any reality in religion if it does not
support us in trials like these, and you are a religious woman, dear
Mrs. Scott. I remember, as if it was yesterday, the Bible stories you
used to tell me when I was a bit of a thing wearing mourning for the
first time.”
Mrs. Scott’s face began to work, then her eyes filled with tears, then
one slowly trickled down her cheek, which she wiped away with the corner
of her checked apron, then with a catching sob, she said,—
“Ay, those were brave days, Miss Grace, brave, heartsome days. It was
easy to feel good and Christian-like then, and wish well to everybody;
but I can’t do it now, I cannot. When I’m sitting here all alone, texts
come into my head; but they are all what I used to call bad ones, about
vengeance, and hatred, and punishment. There are no others I can mind
now. That thief of the world has destroyed us body and soul, but it will
come to him. He will get his deserts yet.”
Grace rose, and walked into an inner room, where, on the top of a chest
of drawers, bright as beeswax could keep them, lay the family Bible,
with Scott’s spectacles, heirlooms like the book, reposing upon it.
Lifting the Bible she carried it out, placed it upon the dresser, and,
turning to the Gospels, read the last six verses of the fifth chapter of
St. Matthew softly and slowly. Then she closed the volume and took it
back again.
“It’s well for them that can do all that,” said Mrs. Scott, not
defiantly, but in simple good faith.
“Some day we shall all be able to feel it, and do it, please God,”
answered Grace, and, stooping over the back of Mrs. Scott’s chair, she
kissed the face of the humble friend who had once been like a mother to
her.
“Good-bye,” she said. “Let Reuben write to me, and get Amos away from
here, if you can, before worse comes of it.”
“What is this, Miss Grace?” asked Mrs. Scott, as her visitor laid a
small packet in her lap.
“It is what you will need,” said Grace, “when perhaps I am not near at
hand to come to for it.”
“Is it money?” inquired the woman.
“Yes; surely you do not mind taking it from me?”
“No, I wouldn’t mind. There aren’t many I could ask to help us, or that
I could take help from; but I am not that high in my turn I’d refuse it
from you. Take it with you though, Miss Grace. Don’t leave it here. I
could not keep it secret from the good man—we have never had anything
separate, and he’d either be angry with me for taking it, or else he’d
want it to spend on the law.”
“In that case I will not leave it,” said Grace emphatically; “only
remember this one thing,—whilst I am alive and have a pound, you need
never want. Bid me good-bye now, for I must go.”
“Good-bye,” answered Mrs. Scott, taking Grace’s hand in her own, after
carefully wiping the latter on her apron; “God send you safe to England
and back again!” and with this customary form of farewell, which,
familiar as it is to those resident in Ireland, always strikes solemnly
on the ear, Mrs. Scott suffered her visitor to depart, watching her
retreating figure till it was lost to sight, and then returning to her
seat and her occupation.
“And back again!” Grace repeated to herself, as she looked over the
glory of land and water—hill and wood lying calm and beautiful under a
flood of golden sunshine. “And back again! what will have happened, I
wonder, by the time I return?”