The glorious surprise of Charley’s safety greeted Hamish on his return
home to dinner. In fact, he was just in time, having come in somewhat
before one o’clock, to witness Charley’s arrival from the college
schoolroom, escorted by the whole tribe, from the first to the last.
Even Gerald Yorke made one, as did Mr. William Simms. Gerald, the smart
over, thought it best to put a light, careless face upon his punishment,
disgraceful though it was considered to be for a senior. To give Gerald
his due, his own share in the day’s exploits faded into insignificance,
compared with the shock of mortification which shook him, when he heard
the avowal of his mother, respecting Roland. He and Tod had been the
most eager of all the school to cast Arthur’s guilt in Tom Channing’s
cheek; they had proclaimed it as particularly objectionable to their
feelings that the robbery should have taken place in an office where
their brother was a pupil; and now they found that Tom’s brother had
been innocent, and their own brother guilty! It was well that Gerald’s
brow should burn. “But she’d no cause to come here and blurt it out to
the lot, right in one’s face!” soliloquized Gerald, alluding to Lady
Augusta. “They’d have heard it soon enough, without that.”
Mr. William Simms, I have said, also attended Charles. Mr. William was
hoping that the return of Charley would put him upon a better footing
with the school. He need not have hoped it: his offence had been one
that the college boys never forgave. Whether Charley returned dead or
alive, or had never returned at all, Simms would always remain a
sneak in their estimation. “Sneak Simms,” he had been called since
the occurrence: and he had come to the resolution, in his own mind,
of writing word home to his friends that the studies in Helstonleigh
college school were too much for him, and asking to be removed to a
private one. I think he would have to do so still.
Hamish lifted Charley to him with an eager, fond movement. A weight was
taken from his mind. Although really irresponsible for the disappearance
of Charles, he had always felt that his father and mother might inwardly
attach some blame to him--might think him to have been wanting in care.
Now, all was sunshine.
Dinner over, Mr. Channing walked with Hamish to the office. They were
some time in getting there. Every other person they met, stopped Mr.
Channing to congratulate him. It seemed that the congratulations were
never to end. It was not only Mr. Channing’s renewed health that people
had to speak of. Helstonleigh, from one end to the other, was ringing
with the news of Arthur’s innocence; and Charley’s return was getting
wind.
They reached Guild Street at last. Mr. Channing entered and shook hands
with his clerks, and then took his own place in his private room. “Where
are we to put you, now, Hamish?” he said, looking at his son with a
smile. “There’s no room for you here. You will not like to take your
place with the clerks again.”
“Perhaps I had better follow Roland Yorke’s plan, and emigrate,” replied
Hamish, demurely.
“I wish Mr. Huntley--By the way, Hamish, it would only be a mark
of courtesy if you stepped as far as Mr. Huntley’s and told him of
Charles’s return,” broke off Mr. Channing; the idea occurring to him
with Mr. Huntley’s name. “None have shown more sympathy than he, and he
will be rejoiced to hear that the child is safe.”
“I’ll go at once,” said Hamish. Nothing loth was he, on his own part, to
pay a visit to Mr. Huntley’s.
Hamish overtook Mr. Huntley close to his own home. He was returning from
the town. Had he been home earlier, he would have heard the news from
Harry. But Harry had now had his dinner and was gone again. He did not
dine at the later hour.
“I have brought you some news, sir,” said Hamish, as they entered
together.
“News again! It cannot be very great, by the side of what we were
favoured with last night from Mr. Roland,” was the remark of Mr.
Huntley.
“But indeed it is. Greater news even than that. We have found Charley,
Mr. Huntley.”
Mr. Huntley sprang from the chair he was taking. “Found Charley! Have
you really? Where has he--Hamish, I see by your countenance that the
tidings are good. He must be alive.”
“He is alive and well. At least, well, comparatively speaking. A barge
was passing down the river at the time he fell in, and the man leaped
overboard and saved him. Charley has been in the barge ever since, and
has had brain fever.”
“And how did he come home?” wondered Mr. Huntley, when he had
sufficiently digested the news.
“The barge brought him back. It is on its way up again. Charley arrived
under escort of the barge-woman, a red handkerchief on his head in lieu
of his trencher, which, you know, he lost that night,” added Hamish,
laughing. “Lady Augusta, who was going out of the house as he entered,
was frightened into the belief that it was his ghost, and startled them
all with her cries to that effect, including the bishop, who was with my
father in the drawing-room.”
“Hamish, it is like a romance!” said Mr. Huntley.
“Very nearly, taking one circumstance with another. My father’s return,
cured; Roland’s letter; and now Charley’s resuscitation. Their all
happening together renders it the more remarkable. Poor Charley does
look as much like a ghost as anything, and his curls are gone. They had
to cut his hair close in the fever.”
Mr. Huntley paused. “Do you know, Hamish,” he presently said, “I begin
to think we were all a set of wiseacres. We might have thought of a
barge.”
“If we had thought of a barge, we should never have thought the barge
would carry him off,” objected Hamish. “However, we have him back now,
and I thank God. I always said he would turn up, you know.”
“I must come and see him,” said Mr. Huntley. “I was at the college
school this morning, therefore close to your house, but I did not call.
I thought your father would have enough callers, without me.”
Hamish laughed. “He has had a great many. The house, I understand, has
been like a fair. He is in Guild Street this afternoon. It looks like
the happy old times, to see him at his post again.”
“What are you going to do, now your place is usurped?” asked Mr.
Huntley. “Subside into a clerk again, and discharge the one who was
taken on in your stead, when you were promoted?”
“That’s the question--what is to be done with me?” returned Hamish, in
his joking manner. “I have been telling my father that I had perhaps
better pay Port Natal a visit, and join Roland Yorke.”
“I told your father once, that when this time came, I would help you to
a post.”
“I am aware you did, sir. But you told me afterwards that you had
altered your intention--I was not eligible for it.”
“Believing you were the culprit at Galloway’s.”
Hamish raised his eyebrows. “The extraordinary part of that, sir, is,
how you could have imagined such a thing of me.”
“Hamish, I shall always think so myself in future. But I have this
justification--that I was not alone in the belief. Some of your family,
who might be supposed to know you better than I, entertained the same
opinion.”
“Yes; Constance and Arthur. But are you sure, sir, that it was not their
conduct that first induced you to suspect me?”
“Right, lad. Their conduct--I should rather say their manner--was
inexplicably mysterious, and it induced me to ferret out its cause. That
they were screening some one, was evident, and I could only come to the
conclusion that it was you. But, Master Hamish, there were circumstances
on your own part which tended to strengthen the belief,” added Mr.
Huntley, his tone becoming lighter. “Whence sprang that money wherewith
you satisfied some of your troublesome creditors, just at that same
time?”
Once more, as when it was alluded to before, a red flush dyed the face
of Hamish. Certainly, it could not be a flush of guilt, while that
ingenuous smile hovered on his lips. But Hamish seemed attacked with
sudden shyness. “Your refusal to satisfy me on this point, when we
previously spoke of it, tended to confirm my suspicions,” continued Mr.
Huntley. “I think you might make a confidant of me, Hamish. That money
could not have dropped from the clouds; and I am sure you possessed no
funds of your own just then.”
“But neither did I steal it. Mr. Huntley”--raising his eyes to that
gentleman’s face--“how closely you must have watched me and my affairs!”
Mr. Huntley drew in his lips. “Perhaps I had my own motives for doing
so, young sir.”
“I earned the money,” said Hamish, who probably penetrated into Mr.
Huntley’s “motives;” at any rate, he hoped he did so. “I earned it
fairly and honourably, by my own private and special industry.”
Mr. Huntley opened his eyes. “Private and special industry! Have you
turned shoemaker?”
“Not shoemaker,” laughed Hamish. “Book-maker. The truth is, Mr.
Huntley--But will you promise to keep my secret?”
“Ay. Honour bright.”
“I don’t want it to be known just yet. The truth is, I have been doing
some literary work. Martin Pope gave me an introduction to one of the
London editors, and I sent him some papers. They were approved of and
inserted: but for the first I received no pay. I threatened to strike,
and then payment was promised. The first instalment, I chiefly used to
_arrest_ my debts; the second and third to liquidate them. That’s where
the money came from.”
Mr. Huntley stared at Hamish as if he could scarcely take in the news.
It was, however, only the simple truth. When Martin Pope paid a visit to
Hamish, one summer night, frightening Hamish and Arthur, who dreaded
it might be a less inoffensive visitor; frightening Constance, for that
matter, for she heard more of their dread than was expedient; his errand
was to tell Hamish that in future he was to be paid for his papers:
payment was to commence forthwith. You may remember the evening, though
it is long ago. You may also remember Martin Pope’s coming hurriedly
into the office in Guild Street, telling Hamish some one was starting by
the train; when both hastened to the station, leaving Arthur in wonder.
That was the very London editor himself. He had been into the country,
and was taking Helstonleigh on his way back to town; had stayed in it a
day or two for the purpose of seeing Martin Pope, who was an old
friend, and of being introduced to Hamish Channing. That shy feeling of
reticence, which is the characteristic of most persons whose genius is
worth anything, had induced Hamish to bury all this in silence.
“But when have you found time to write?” exclaimed Mr. Huntley, unable
to get over his surprise. “You could not find it during office hours?”
“Certainly not. I have written in the evening, and at night. I have been
a great rake, stopping up later than I ought, at this writing.”
“Do they know of it at home?”
“Some of them know that I sit up; but they don’t know what I sit up for.
By way of a blind--I suppose it may be called a justifiable deceit,”
said Hamish, gaily--“I have taken care to carry the office books into my
room, that their suspicions may be confined to the accounts. Judy’s keen
eyes detected my candle burning later than she considered it ought to
burn, and her rest has been disturbed with visions of my setting the
house on fire. I have counselled her to keep the water-butt full, under
her window, so that she may be safe from danger.”
“And are you earning money now?”
“In-one sense, I am: I am writing for it. My former papers were for the
most part miscellaneous--essays, and that sort of thing; but I am about
a longer work now, to be paid for on completion. When it is finished and
appears, I shall startle them at home with the news, and treat them to a
sight of it. When all other trades fail, sir, I can set up my tent as an
author.”
Mr. Huntley’s feelings glowed within him. None, more than he, knew the
value of silent industry--the worth of those who patiently practise
it. His heart went out to Hamish. “I suppose I must recommend you to
Bartlett’s post, after all,” said he, affecting to speak carelessly, his
eye betraying something very different.
“Is it not gone?” asked Hamish.
“No, it is not gone. And the appointment rests with me. How would you
like it?”
“Nay,” said Hamish, half mockingly: “the question is, should I be honest
enough for it?”
Mr. Huntley shook his fist at him. “If you ever bring that reproach up
to me again, I’ll--I’ll--You had better keep friends with me, you know,
sir, on other scores.”
Hamish laughed. “I should like the post very much indeed, sir.”
“And the house also, I suppose, you would make no objection to?” nodded
Mr. Huntley.
“None in the world. I must work away, though, if it is ever to be
furnished.”
“How can you tell but that some good spirit might furnish it for you?”
cried Mr. Huntley, quaintly.
They were interrupted before anything more was said. Ellen, who had been
out with her aunt, came running in, in excitement. “Oh, papa! such happy
news! Charles Channing is found, and--”
She stopped when she saw that she had another auditor. Hamish rose to
greet her. He took her hand, released it, and then returned to the fire
to Mr. Huntley. Ellen stood by the table, and had grown suddenly timid.
“You will soon be receiving a visit from my mother and Constance,”
observed Hamish, looking at her. “I heard certain arrangements being
discussed, in which Miss Ellen Huntley’s name bore a part. We are soon
to lose Constance.”
Ellen blushed rosy red. Mr. Huntley was the first to speak. “Yorke has
come to his senses, I suppose?”
“Yorke and Constance between them. In a short time she is to be
transplanted to Hazledon.”
“It is more than he deserves,” emphatically declared Mr. Huntley. “I
suppose you will be for getting married next, Mr. Hamish, when you come
into possession of that house we have been speaking of, and are your own
master?”
“I always intended to think of it, sir, as soon as I could do so,”
returned saucy Hamish. And Ellen ran out of the room.
That same afternoon Arthur Channing was seated at the organ in pursuance
of his duty, when a message came up from the dean. He was desired to
change the selected anthem, taken from the thirty-fifth Psalm, for
another: “O taste, and see, how gracious the Lord is!”
It was not an anthem in the cathedral collection, but one recently
composed and presented to it by a private individual. It consisted of a
treble solo and chorus. Why had the dean specially commanded it for that
afternoon? Very rarely indeed did he change the services after they were
put up. Had he had _Arthur_ in his mind when he decided upon it? It was
impossible to say. Be it as it would, the words found a strange echo in
Arthur’s heart, as Bywater’s sweet voice rang through the cathedral.
“O taste, and see, how gracious the Lord is, blessed is the man that
trusteth in him. O fear the Lord, ye that are his saints, for they that
fear him lack nothing. The lions do lack, and suffer hunger: but they
who seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good. The eyes
of the Lord are over the righteous: and his ears are open unto
their prayers. Great are the troubles of the righteous; but the
Lord delivereth him out of all. The Lord delivereth the souls of
his servants: and all they that put their trust in him shall not be
destitute.”
Every word told upon Arthur’s heart, sending it up in thankfulness to
the Giver of all good.
He found the dean waiting for him in the nave, when he went down at the
conclusion of the service. Dr. Gardner was with him. The dean held out
his hand to Arthur.
“I am very glad you are cleared,” he said. “You have behaved nobly.”
Arthur winced. He did not like to take the faintest meed of praise that
was not strictly his due. The dean might have thought he deserved less,
did he know that he had been only screening Hamish; but Arthur could not
avow that tale in public. He glanced at the dean with a frank smile.
“You see now, sir, that I only spoke the truth when I assured you of my
innocence.”
“I do see it,” said the dean. “I believed you then.” And once more
shaking Arthur’s hand, he turned into the cloisters with Dr. Gardner.
“I have already offered my congratulations,” said the canon, good
humouredly, nodding to Arthur. This was correct. He had waylaid Arthur
as he went into college.
Arthur suffered them to go on a few steps, and then descended to the
cloisters. Old Ketch was shuffling along.
“What’s this I’ve been a hearing, about that there drownded boy having
come back?” asked he of Arthur, in his usual ungracious fashion.
“I don’t know what you may have heard, Ketch. He has come back.”
“And he ain’t dead nor drownded?”
“Neither one nor the other. He is alive and well.”
Ketch gave a groan of despair. “And them horrid young wretches’ll escape
the hangman! I’d ha’ walked ten miles to see em--”
“Gracious, Sir John, what’s that you are talking about?” interrupted
Bywater, as the choristers trooped up, “Escaped you! so we have, for
once. What an agony of disappointment it must be for you, Mr. Calcraft!
Such practice for your old hands, to topple off a dozen or so of us!
Besides the pay! How much do you charge a head, Calcraft?”
Ketch answered by a yell.
“Now, don’t excite yourself, I beg,” went on aggravating Bywater. “We
are thinking of getting up a petition to the dean, to console you for
your disappointment, praying that he’ll allow you to wear a cap we have
ordered for you! It’s made of scarlet cloth, with long ears and a set of
bells! Its device is a cross beam and a cord, and we wish you health to
wear it out! I say, let’s wish Mr. Calcraft health! What’s tripe a pound
to-day, Calcraft?”
The choristers, in various stages of delight, entered on their
aggravating shouts, their mocking dance. When they had driven Mr. Ketch
to the very verge of insanity, they decamped to the schoolroom.
I need not enlarge on the evening of thankfulness it was at Mr.
Channing’s. Not one, but had special cause for gratitude--except,
perhaps, Annabel. Mr. Channing restored to health and strength; Mrs.
Channing’s anxiety removed; Hamish secure in his new prospects-for
Mr. Huntley had made them certain; heaviness removed from the heart of
Constance; the cloud lifted from Arthur; Tom on the pedestal he thought
he had lost, sure also of the Oxford exhibition; Charley amongst them
again! They could trace the finger of God in all; and were fond of doing
it.
Soon after tea, Arthur rose. “I must drop in and see Jenkins,” he
observed. “He will have heard the items of news from twenty people,
there’s little doubt; but he will like me to go to him with particulars.
No one in Helstonleigh has been more anxious that things should turn out
happily, than poor Jenkins.”
“Tell him he has my best wishes for his recovery, Arthur,” said Mr.
Channing.
“I will tell him,” replied Arthur. “But I fear all hope of recovery for
Jenkins is past.”
It was more decidedly past than even Arthur suspected when he spoke.
A young woman was attending to Mrs. Jenkins’s shop when Arthur passed
through it. Her face was strange to him; but from a certain peculiarity
in the eyes and mouth, he inferred it to be Mrs. Jenkins’s sister. In
point of fact, that lady, finding that her care of Jenkins and her care
of the shop rather interfered with each other, had sent for her sister
from the country to attend temporarily on the latter. Lydia went up to
Jenkins’s sick-room, and said a gentleman was waiting: and Mrs. Jenkins
came down.
“Oh, it’s you!” quoth she. “I hope he’ll be at rest now. He has been
bothering his mind over you all day. My opinion is, he’d never have come
to this state if he had taken things easy, like sensible people.”
“Is he in his room?” inquired Arthur.
“He is in his room, and in his bed. And what’s more, young Mr. Channing,
hell never get out of it alive.”
“Then he is worse?”
“He has been worse this four days. And I only get him up now to have his
bed made. I said to him yesterday, ‘Jenkins, you may put on your things,
and go down to the office if you like.’ ‘My dear,’ said he, ‘I couldn’t
get up, much less get down to the office;’ which I knew was the case,
before I spoke. I wish I had had my wits about me!” somewhat irascibly
went on Mrs. Jenkins: “I should have had his bed brought down to the
parlour here, before he was so ill. I don’t speak for the shop, I have
somebody to attend to that; but it’s such a toil and a trapes up them
two pair of stairs for every little thing that’s wanted.”
“I suppose I can go up, Mrs. Jenkins?”
“You can go up,” returned she; “but mind you don’t get worrying him. I
won’t have him worried. He worries himself, without any one else doing
it gratis. If it’s not about one thing, it’s about another. Sometimes
it’s his master and the office, how they’ll get along; sometimes it’s
me, what I shall do without him; sometimes it’s his old father. He don’t
need any outside things to put him up.”
“I am sorry he is so much worse,” remarked Arthur.
“So am I,” said Mrs. Jenkins, tartly. “I have been doing all I could for
him from the first, and it has been like working against hope. If care
could have cured him, or money could have cured him, he’d be well now. I
have a trifle of savings in the bank, young Mr. Channing, and I have not
spared them. If they had ordered him medicine at a guinea a bottle,
I’d have had it for him. If they said he must have wine, or delicacies
brought from the other ends of the earth, they should have been brought.
Jenkins isn’t good for much, in point of spirit, as all the world knows;
but he’s my husband, and I have strove to do my duty by him. Now, if
you want to go up, you can go,” added she, after an imperceptible pause.
“There’s a light on the stairs, and you know his room. I’ll take the
opportunity to give an eye to the kitchen; I don’t care to leave him by
himself now. Finely it’s going on, I know!”
Mrs. Jenkins whisked down the kitchen stairs, and Arthur proceeded up.
Jenkins was lying in bed, his head raised by pillows. Whatever may have
been Mrs. Jenkins’s faults of manner, her efficiency as a nurse and
manager could not be called into question. A bright fire burnt in
the well-ventilated though small room, the bed was snowy white, the
apartment altogether thoroughly comfortable. But--Jenkins!
Fully occupied with his work for Mr. Galloway, it was several days since
Arthur had called on Jenkins, and the change he now saw in his face
struck him sharply. The skin was drawn, the eyes were unnaturally
bright, the cheeks had fallen in; certainly there could not be very many
hours of life left to Jenkins. A smile sat on his parched lips, and
his eyelashes became moist as he looked up to Arthur, and held out his
feeble hand.
“I knew you would be cleared, sir! I knew that God would surely bring
the right to light! I have been humbly thanking Him for you, sir, all
day.”
Arthur’s eyes glistened also as he bent over him. “You have heard it,
then, Jenkins? I thought you would.”
“Yes, sir, I heard it this morning, when it was getting towards mid-day.
I had a visit, sir, from his lordship the bishop. I had, indeed! He came
up as he has done before--as kindly, and with as little ceremony, as if
he had been a poor body like myself. It was he who first told me, Mr.
Arthur.”
“I am glad he came to see you, Jenkins.”
“He talked so pleasantly, sir. ‘It is a journey that we must all take,
Jenkins,’ he said; ‘and for my part, I think it matters little whether
we take it sooner or later, so that God vouchsafes to us the grace to
prepare for it.’ For affability, sir, it was just as if it had been a
brother talking to me; but he said things different from what any poor
brother of mine could have said, and they gave me comfort. Then he asked
me if I had taken the Sacrament lately; and I thanked him, and said
I had taken it on Sunday last; our clergyman came round to me after
service. Mr. Arthur”--and poor Jenkins’s eyes wore an eager look of
gratitude--“I feel sure that his lordship would have administered it to
me with his own hands. I wonder whether all bishops are like him!”
Arthur did not answer. Jenkins resumed, quitting the immediate topic for
another.
“And I hear, sir, that Mr. Channing has come home restored, and that the
little boy is found. His lordship was so good as to tell me both. Oh,
Mr. Arthur, how merciful God has been!”
“We are finding Him so, just now,” fervently spoke Arthur.
“And it is all right again, sir, with you and Mr. Galloway?”
“Quite right. I am to remain in the office. I am to be in your place,
Jenkins.”
“You’ll occupy a better position in it, sir, than I ever did. But you
will not be all alone, surely?”
“Young Bartlett is coming to be under me. Mr. Galloway has made final
arrangements to-day. We shall go on all right now.”
“Ay,” said Jenkins, folding his thin hands upon the counterpane, and
speaking as in self-commune; “we must live near to God to know His
mercy. It does seem almost as if I had asked a favour of any earthly
person, so exactly has it been granted me! Mr. Arthur, I prayed that I
might live to see you put right with Mr. Galloway and the town, and I
felt as sure as I could feel, by some inward evidence which I cannot
describe, but which was plain to me, that God heard me, and would grant
me my wish. It seems, sir, as if I had been let live for that. I shan’t
be long now.”
“While there is life there is hope, you know, Jenkins,” replied Arthur,
unable to say anything more cheering in the face of circumstances.
“Mr. Arthur, the hope for me now is, to go,” said Jenkins. “I would not
be restored if I could. How can I tell, sir, but I might fall away from
God? If the call comes to-night, sir, it will find me ready. Oh, Mr.
Arthur, if people only knew the peace of living close to God--of feeling
that they are READY! Ready for the summons, let it come in the second or
third watch!”
“Jenkins!” exclaimed Arthur, as the thought struck him: “I have not
heard you cough once since I came in! Is your cough better!”
“Oh, sir, there’s another blessing! Now that I have grown so weak that
the cough would shatter me--tear my frame to pieces--it is gone! It is
nearly a week, sir, since I coughed at all. My death-bed has been made
quite pleasant for me. Except for weakness, I am free from pain, and I
have all things comfortable. I am rich in abundance: my wife waits upon
me night and day--she lets me want for nothing; before I can express a
wish, it is done. When I think of all the favours showered down upon
me, and how little I can do, or have ever done, for God, in return, I am
overwhelmed with shame.”
“Jenkins, one would almost change places with you, to be in your frame
of mind,” cried Arthur, his tone impassioned.
“God will send the same frame of mind to all who care to go to Him,” was
the reply. “Sir,” and now Jenkins dropped his voice, “I was grieved to
hear about Mr. Roland. I could not have thought it.”
“Ay; it was unwelcome news, for his own sake.”
“I never supposed but that the post-office must have been to blame. I
think, Mr. Arthur, he must have done it in a dream; as one, I mean, who
has not his full faculties about him. I hope the Earl of Carrick will
take care of him. I hope he will live to come back a good, brave man!
If he would only act less on impulse and more on principle, it would
be better for him. Little Master Charles has been ill, I hear, sir? I
should like to see him.”
“I will bring him to see you,” replied Arthur.
“Will you, sir?” and Jenkins’s face lighted up. “I should like just to
set eyes on him once again. But--it must be very soon, Mr. Arthur.”
“You think so?” murmured Arthur.
“I know it, sir--I feel it. I do not say it before my wife, sir, for
I don’t think she sees herself that I am so near the end, and it would
only grieve her. It _will_ grieve her, sir, whenever it comes, though
she may not care to show people that it does. I shall see you again, I
hope, Mr. Arthur?”
“That you shall be sure to do. I will not miss a day now, without coming
in. It will do me good to see you, Jenkins; to hear you tell me, again,
of your happy state of resignation.”
“It is better than resignation, Mr. Arthur, it is a state of hope. Not
but that I shall leave some regrets behind me. My wife will be lone and
comfortless, and must trust to her own exertions only. And my poor old
father--”
“If I didn’t know it! If I didn’t know that, on some subject or other,
he’d be safe to be worrying himself, or it would not be him! I’d put
myself into my grave at once, if I were you, Jenkins. As good do it that
way, as by slow degrees.”
Of course you cannot fail to recognize the voice. She entered at that
unlucky moment when Jenkins was alluding to his father. He attempted a
defence--an explanation.
“My dear, I was not worrying. I was only telling Mr. Arthur Channing
that there were some things I should regret to leave. My poor old father
for one; he has looked to me, naturally, to help him a little bit in his
old age, and I would rather, so far as that goes, have been spared to do
it. But, neither that nor anything else can worry me now. I am content
to leave all to God.”
“Was ever the like heard?” retorted Mrs. Jenkins, “Not worrying! _I_
know. If you were not worrying, you wouldn’t be talking. Isn’t old
Jenkins your father, and shan’t I take upon myself to see that he does
not want? You know I shall, Jenkins. When do I ever go from my word?”
“My dear, I know you will do what’s right,” returned Jenkins, in his
patient meekness: “but the old man will feel it hard, my departing
before him. Are you going, sir?”
“I must go,” replied Arthur, taking one of the thin hands. “I will bring
Charley in to-morrow.”
Jenkins pressed Arthur’s hand between his. “God bless you, Mr. Arthur,”
he fervently said. “May He be your friend for ever! May He render your
dying bed happy, as He has rendered mine!” And Arthur turned away--never
again to see Jenkins in life.
“Blessed are those servants, whom the Lord when He cometh shall find
watching.”
As Jenkins was, that night, when the message came for him.