WAYFARING MEN
A Novel
By Edna Lyall
Author of “Doreen,” “Donovan,” “We Two,” “To Right the Wrong,” etc., etc.
_“Every man’s task is his life-preserver. The conviction that his work
is dear to God and cannot be spared, defends him.”_
--Emerson
New York
Longmans, Green, and Co.
London And Bombay
1896
Thou goest thine, and I go mine,
Many ways we wend;
Many days, and many ways,
Ending in one end.
Many a wrong, and its curing song;
Many a road, and many an inn;
Room to roam, but only one home
For all the world to win.”
--George MacDonald
[Illustration: 0001]
[Illustration: 0007]
WAYFARING MEN
CHAPTER I
“So is detached, so left all by itself,
The little life, the fact which means so much.
Shall not God stoop the kindlier to His work,
Now that the hand He trusted to receive,
And hold it, lets the treasure fall perforce?
The better; He shall have in orphanage
His own way all the clearlier.”
R. Browning.
|I wonder what will become of Ralph Denmead,” said Lady Tresidder, “it
is one of the saddest cases I ever heard of; the poor boy seems to be
left without a single relation.”
“Yes,” said Sir John, musingly. “Just the way with these old decayed
families, they dwindle slowly away and then become extinct. There was
no spirit or energy in poor Denmead, the man was a mere hermit and
knew nothing of the world or he wouldn’t have made such a mull of his
affairs.”
“Yet Ralph seems to have the energy of ten people,” said Lady Tresidder,
glancing as she walked at the river which wound its peaceful way through
the park and reflected in the afternoon light the early spring tints of
the wooded bank on its further side. At no great distance a boat glided
swiftly over the calm water: in the stern sat a dark-haired, handsome
girl of nineteen, while the vigorous little rower seemed to be not more
than eleven.
“Poor little chap,” said Sir John, “he is terribly cut up about his
father’s death. I wish we could have kept him here a few days longer,
but it’s better that he should be put at once into his guardian’s hands.
There’s no fear that Sir Matthew Mactavish will not do all that’s right
for him, if only for the sake of his own reputation.”
“I suppose he is a very charitable man,” said Lady Tresidder.
“Oh, yes, extremely charitable, and very well thought of. For myself,
I frankly own I don’t like the way in which he mixes up speculation and
philanthropy, and I’m not at all sure that he was always a good adviser
to poor Denmead. But he’ll be kind enough to Ralph I’ve no doubt. The
boy is his godson, and Denmead was one of his oldest friends. By the
bye he was to be at the Rectory by five o’clock, and the boy ought to
be there to receive him. They had better be landing, and Mabel can drive
him to Whinhaven in the pony chaise.”
He began to make vigorous signals to the occupants of the boat, who
somewhat reluctantly came ashore and slowly mounted the rising ground to
the house.
“Come in and have some tea while they are putting in Ranger,” said Lady
Tresidder, kindly. “Sir John thinks you ought to be at the Rectory when
your guardian arrives, and Mab will like a drive with you.”
Ralph grew grave at the thought of a return to the desolate Rectory
with its darkened windows and awful stillness; he sighed as he followed
comfortable motherly Lady Tresidder into the drawing-room where flowers
and well-used books and a cosy tea-table, and some needle work, just put
aside, gave a curiously homelike air to the whole place.
“Come and sit by me,” said his hostess in that friendly voice which more
than anything helped him to forget his troubles. And perhaps it was the
thought of the hard future confronting him which made Lady Tresidder
glance so often at the little fellow who had outgrown the stage for
petting, and who in spite of his smallness was really thirteen, innocent
and ignorant of the world, and with a touch of the chivalrous gentleness
of manner that had characterised his father, but in other respects just
a high spirited, enthusiastic, hungry boy.
His honest brown eyes grew less wistful as he waded blissfully through
the huge slice of Buzzard cake with which Mabel had provided him, but he
found the goodbyes hard to say, all the harder because of the kindness
he received. It was only afterwards, as they drove up the steep hill
in the park, and turned for a last look at the river, that he could
remember without a choking in his throat, Lady Tresidder’s motherly
kiss, and Sir John’s kindly farewell and cheery words about future
visits, and the half sovereign with which he had “tipped” him.
There had been no particular reason why the Tresidders should have
been so good to him. Sir John was not the Squire of Whinhaven, indeed
Westbrook Hall was not even in his father’s parish: but they had been
practically Ralph’s only friends ever since he could remember and some
of his happiest hours had been spent with Mab, who being many years his
senior and a country girl of the best sort, had been able to teach him
to ride and drive, to fish, to row, and to care for animals as devotedly
as she herself did.
Mab had a frank, hail fellow well met manner which contrasted rather
curiously with her beautiful womanly face and delicately chiselled
features; the world in general considered her somewhat off-hand and
brusque, but she had in her the makings of a very noble woman, and the
boy owed much to her companionship. They were very silent as they drove
through the park, but it was the comfortable silence of friends who
have perfect confidence in each other. Ralph seemed to be looking
with wistful eyes at every familiar turn of the road; his eyes rested
lingeringly on the grey walls of the house down below, and the gleaming
silvery river, and the old hawthorn bushes, and the fine old chestnut
trees.
“Mab,” he said at length, “may we stop for a minute, and just see the
bullfinches? Look, there is one of them out of the nest and trying to
fly; the cat will get hold of it.”
“Why, to be sure,” said Mab. “Will you care to take it with you to
London? It is fledged and I think you could rear it. Would you like it?”
“Rather!” said Ralph emphatically. “And I have a cage at home that would
do for it.”
So the young bullfinch was carefully placed in a covered basket, and
half an hour later Mabel Tresidder put down the two forlorn young things
at the door of Whinhaven Rectory wondering how they would prosper in
life.
A severe-looking old housekeeper came out at the sound of the wheels.
“So you’ve come back, Master Ralph,” she said looking him over
critically to see that he was clean and presentable. “That’s a good job,
for Sir Matthew has been here ten minutes or more, and the lawyer from
London with him. Are you coming in, Miss?” she added glancing with no
great favour at Miss Tresidder, and calling to mind how often in past
days she had led Ralph through bush and through brier to the great
detriment of his clothes.
“No, I will not come in,” said Mab, “and this is not my real good-bye
to you, Ralph, for I shall stay and speak to you to-morrow morning after
the service.”
She waved her hand to him, and drove swiftly off, while old Mrs. Grice
muttered something uncomplimentary about “new-fangled” ways, and not
liking females at a funeral.
Ralph, meanwhile, had carefully hidden away the basket containing the
bullfinch, and now stood in the little hall with a heavy heart. The
quiet of the house was terrible, and the low murmur of strange voices in
the study accentuated the misery and desolateness, which seemed to grow
more and more oppressive every moment.
“For goodness sake!” exclaimed old Mrs. Grice, “don’t stand there
staring at nothing, like a tragedy actor, but go in and make yourself
agreeable to the gentlemen; wait a bit, wait a bit, your hair’s all
rumpled up, not seen a brush since the morning, I’ll be bound.”
Ralph, made meek by his misery, obediently turned into the room to
the right of the door, his own special sanctum where he had worked and
played ever since he could remember, and having brushed his wavy brown
hair into a state of immaculate order went slowly back once more to the
silent little hall which was not even enlivened now by the presence of
old Mrs. Grice. Nothing was to be heard save the ticking of the clock
and the low murmur of voices from the adjoining room, not a creature was
there to take compassion on the shy desolate boy. He looked up at the
black representation of Lord John Harsick and Katharine his wife, which
hung upon the wall above the old oak chest, and the tears started to his
eyes as he remembered how he had helped his father to mount this rubbing
from a brass, some two or three years before. The stately old couple
stood there holding each others’ hands, he fancied that they looked
down on him with a sort of pity because he was left so utterly alone. He
stood hesitatingly on the threshold of the study, dreading to enter, but
at length impelled to move by a worse fear.
“If they come out and catch me here they’ll think I’m eavesdropping!” he
thought to himself, and therewith manfully turned the handle, and walked
in.
The study was in reality the drawing-room of the Rectory, a pretty room
with a verandah and French windows opening on to it, and upon one side
of the fireplace there was a cosy little recess where the Rector had
been wont to keep his choicest flowers, and where the light from
a little western window fell upon the marble bust of a sweet-faced
woman--the mother whom Ralph could remember just in a vague dreamy
fashion. Seated now at his father’s writing-table was an old gentleman
with a kindly, astute face, and remarkably thick white hair. Standing
with his back to the fireplace was a middle-aged man whom Ralph at
once recognised from the photographs he had seen as his godfather, Sir
Matthew Mactavish.
He looked up anxiously into the shrewd Scottish face, with its reddish
hair just touched with grey, its keen steel-coloured eyes, its somewhat
wrinkled forehead and ready smile. It was a powerful and an attractive
face, but with something about it curiously different to the faces to
which Ralph had been accustomed; the genial country squires, and the
country parsons had nothing in common with this brisk, managing man of
the world.
“Well, my boy,” he said with a kindly greeting, “I’m glad to see you.
You’ll not remember me for you were but a little fellow when I was last
here. Let me see, they call you Raphe, don’t they?”
“Not Raphe, but Ralph,” said the boy, and into his mind there darted
the recollection of a scene that had once been funny but now seemed
pathetic, of a discussion upon his name between his father and two old
antiquaries, and of how one of them had patted him on the head with the
gruff-voiced injunction, “If any one calls you ‘Raphe’ tell him he’s a
fool.”
It was impossible to call such a man as Sir Matthew a fool, and the boy
turned to greet the lawyer, and was surprised to find that unlike the
typical solicitor of fiction he was a very noble looking man of the old
school, gentle and courtly in manner, and evidently understanding how
embarrassing the interview must be to a lad of thirteen.
“Sit down, Ralph,” said Sir Matthew, motioning him to a chair, “there
are several things I must talk to you about.”
Ralph obeyed, not without a curious sensation at being ordered about in
his own home by a perfect stranger. “Mr. Marriott and I,” resumed his
godfather, “have been looking into your father’s affairs on our way
from London, and as a matter of fact they were pretty well known to me
before. I grieve to say, my boy, that he has left you quite unprovided
for.”
“I--I knew,” said Ralph, “that father had lost a great deal of money
lately--it was through some company that failed: he told me he never
would have speculated, but he wanted very much to make money and send
me to Winchester and then to Oxford; he couldn’t do that, you know, only
out of the living. But he blamed himself for having done it; he said it
was no better than gambling.”
Sir Matthew had paced up and down the room restlessly during this
speech, he seemed to be moved by it, and it was the lawyer who first
broke the silence. “You are happy,” he said to Ralph, “in having the
memory of a father who was just enough to recognise his own mistakes,
and noble enough to confess them. Be warned, my boy, and never in the
future dabble in speculation.”
Sir Matthew returned to his former position on the hearthrug. “In the
meantime,” he said with displeasure in his tone, “his more useful study
will be how to live in the present.”
“That,” said Mr. Marriott gravely, “is a matter which you, Sir Matthew,
will no doubt help him to consider.”
Ralph, with a child’s quick consciousness that something lay beneath
these words which he did not altogether understand, glanced from one to
the other in some perplexity. He saw that Sir Matthew was angry with the
lawyer, and that the lawyer disapproved somehow of Sir Matthew.
“I wish Mr. Marriott had been my godfather,” he thought to himself. “I
like him twice as well. Sir Matthew orders one about as though he bossed
the whole world.”
And then, as often happens, he was forced to modify his rather severe
criticism of his godfather, for Sir Matthew with a genuinely kind glance
drew him nearer, and laying a hand on his shoulder, said in the most
genial of voices:
“Don’t you be afraid, my boy, I’ll see you through your trouble. Leave
everything to me. We’ll have you a Wykehamist as I know your father
wished, and then make a parson of you, eh?”
“Oh no, thank you,” said Ralph, “I couldn’t be a clergyman, I don’t want
to be that at all.”
“Eh! What! you have already some other idea? Come tell me, for it’s a
real help to know what a boy’s tastes are.”
“I want to be an actor,” said Ralph quietly.
“What!” cried Sir Matthew. “Go on the stage? Oh, that’s just a passing
fancy. No gentleman can take up play-acting as a profession. No, no, I
don’t send you to Winchester to fit you for such a trumpery calling as
that. If you’ll not be a parson what do you say to trying for the Indian
Civil Service? I’m much mistaken if you have not very good abilities,
and for a man who has to make his own way in the world, why India is the
right place.”
“I should like to go to India,” said Ralph, thinking of certain tales of
jungle life and thrilling adventures with man-eating tigers that he had
lately read.
“Very well,” said Sir Matthew briskly, “that’s decided then. To
Winchester for six years, then a choice of the Church or the Indian
Civil Service. There’s your future my boy, and I will see you fairly
started in life whichever line you choose. To-morrow you shall come back
with me to London, so run off now and let them get your things together,
and Mr. Marriott and I will make all the necessary arrangements with
regard to your father’s effects.”
Not sorry to be dismissed, Ralph made his way upstairs, where he found
the housekeeper already busy with his packing. She made him collect what
few possessions he had, two or three pictures, some tools, some books
and a toy boat; but what she termed “the rubbish,” such as bird’s
eggs, mosses, fossils, imperfect models of engines, and such like, she
entirely declined to handle. “The rubbish” must be left, and Ralph with
an odd sinking of the heart, as he remembered how short was the time
remaining to him, began his sad round of farewells. He stole quietly up
to the attic from which the harbour could best be seen, and watched the
stately ships going into port. Then he walked through the garden with
lingering steps; he had worked in it with his father so long and so
happily that every plant was dear to him; to leave it just now in this
May weather, when the Gloire de Dijon on the south wall was covered with
exquisite roses, when the snapdragons, which as a little fellow he had
delighted in feeding with spoonfuls of sugar and water, were just coming
into flower, when the bedding-out plants, which but three weeks ago they
had planted were actually in bloom--this was hard indeed! Could it be
only three weeks since that half-holiday when, with no thought of coming
trouble, they had worked so merrily together?
Passing through the green lauristinus arch he paced slowly on between
the strawberry-beds now white with blossom. That Saturday had been their
last really happy day, for the next morning’s post had brought the news
of his father’s great losses, and though the Sunday’s work had been
struggled through, the Rector had never been the same again, the
burdened look had never left his face.
Ralph thought it all over as he rested his arms on the little iron gate
leading into the glebe, his eyes wandering sadly over that distant view
which he had always loved, with its stretch of gorse and heather, and
to the right the beautiful woods of Whinhaven park, just now in the full
perfection of their spring tints. Well, it was all over now, and the
place was to pass into the hands of strangers, and somehow he must get
through his goodbyes. Making his way to the stable, he flung his arms
about the neck of old Forester the pony, choked back a sob in his throat
as he unfastened Skipper the Irish terrier, and picking up in his arms
a scared-looking white cat, ran at full speed down the drive, across the
common, with its golden gorse and dark fir trees, until he reached the
coastguard station. Beneath the flag-staff, with a telescope tucked
under his arm, there stood a cheery-looking official in trim reefer and
gold-laced cap. It was Langston--the head of the coastguard station, and
one of Ralph’s best friends.
“I have come to say good-bye, for to-morrow I’m going to London,” said
the boy hurriedly. “And I want to give you Skipper, if you care to
have him. He’s of a very good breed, father said, and he’s an awfully
friendly dog. And if you had room for Toots as well I should be awfully
obliged. I know he’s not worth anything, and ever since Benjamin was
lost Toots has been sort of queer, always mewing and roaming about
looking for him. But I think if you buttered his feet he would stay, and
he’s a real good mouser.”
Langston promised to adopt both dog and cat, but he would not allow all
the giving to be on one side. He went into his house and returned in a
few minutes with a little pocket compass.
“I’ll ask you to accept that, Master Ralph,” he said, as he gripped the
boy’s hand in a friendly grasp. “You’ll maybe have rough times in life,
but steer well, my lad, steer well, and be the man your father would
have had you.”
“How does one steer if one doesn’t know which is the right way to go?”
said Ralph with a sigh.
“Why it’s then that you’ll hear your captain’s orders,” said the
coastguardsman. “Cheer up, Master Ralph, it don’t all depend on the man
at the wheel.”