MATTIE FALLS AND RISES AGAIN.
Mattie had expected Lucy to call for her in the forenoon and take her
out to Wyvil Place to see Miriam. Spending the morning with her father
in the shop, amidst much talk, conducted with the most respectful
docility on the part of the father, and a good deal of condescending
assertion on the part of the child, she had run out twenty times to
look at the clock at St. Jacob's; and at length, finding that Lucy
did not come, had run up and knocked at her door, giving Mr. Spelt
a promissory nod as she passed. Hearing from Mrs. Boxall, however,
that Miss Burton was too tired to go out with her, she turned in some
disappointment, and sought Mr. Spelt.
"Well, mother, how do _you_ do?" she asked, perking up her little gray
face, over which there was now a slight wash of rose-color, toward the
watch-tower of the tailor.
"Quite well, Mattie. And you look well," answered Mr. Spelt.
"And I am well, I assure you; better than I ever expected to be in this
world, mother. I mean to come up beside you a bit. I want to tell you
something."
"I don't know, Mattie," answered Mr. Spelt, with some embarrassment.
"Is it anything in particular?"
"In particular! Well, I should think so," returned Mattie, with a
triumph just dashed with displeasure, for she had not been accustomed
to any hesitation in accepting her advances on the part of Mr. Spelt.
"I should think so." Then, lowering her voice to a keen whisper, she
added, "I've been to see God in his own house."
"Been to church, have you?" said Mr. Spelt.
Now I am sorry to say that Spelt was behaving dishonestly--not from
choice, but from embarrassment and fear springing from a false
conscientiousness. And Mattie felt at once that Mr. Spelt was not
behaving like himself.
"No, Mr. Spelt," she answered with dignity--bridling indeed; "I've
not been to church. You don't call that God's house, do you? _Them!_
They're nothing but little shops like your own, Mr. Spelt. But God's
house!--Take me up, I say. Don't make me shout such things in the open
street."
Thus adjured, Mr. Spelt could stand out no longer. He stooped over his
threshold and lifted Mattie toward him. But the moment her head reached
the level of his floor, she understood it all. In _her_ old place in
the corner sat the little demoniac Poppie, clothed and in her right
mind. A true observer, however, would have seen from her pale, thin
face that possibly her quietude was owing more to weakness than to any
revolution in her nature.
"Well!" said Mattie, with hauteur. "Will you set me down again, if you
please, Mr. Spelt."
"I think, perhaps," said the tailor, meekly, holding the child still
suspended in the air, "I could find room for you both. The corner
opposite the door there, Mattie," he added, looking round suggestively
in the direction of the spot signified.
"Put me down," insisted Mattie, in such a tone that Mr. Spelt dared not
keep her in suspense any longer, but lowered her gently to the ground.
All the time Poppie had been staring with great black eyes, which
seemed to have grown much larger during her illness, and, of course,
saying nothing.
As soon as the soles of Mattie's feet touched the ground, she seemed to
gather strength like Antæus; for instead of turning and walking away,
with her head as high, morally considered, as that of any giant, she
began to parley with the offending Mr. Spelt.
"I have heard, mother--Mr. Spelt--that you should be off with the old
love before you're on with the new. You never told me what you were
about."
"But you was away from home, Mattie."
"You could have written. It would only have cost a penny. I shouldn't
have minded paying it."
"Well, Mattie, shall I turn Poppie out?"
"Oh! _I_ don't want you to turn her out. You would say I drove her to
the streets again."
"Do you remember, Mattie, that you wouldn't go to that good lady's
house because she didn't ask Poppie, too. Do you?"
A moment's delay in the child's answer revealed shame. But she was
ready in a moment.
"Hers is a big house. That's my own very corner."
"Don't you see how ill Poppie is?"
"Well!" said the hard little thing, with a side nod of her head over
the speaking corner of her mouth.
Mr. Spelt began to be a little vexed. He took the upper hand now and
came home to her. She was turning to go away, when he spoke in a tone
that stopped her. But she stood with her back half turned toward him.
"Mattie, do you remember the story Somebody told us about the ragged
boy that came home again, and how his brother, with the good clothes
on, was offended, and wouldn't go in because he thought he was taking
his place? You're behaving just the same as the brother with the good
clothes."
"I don't know that. There's some difference, I'm sure. I don't think
you're telling the story right. I don't think there's anything about
taking his place. I'll just go and look. I can read it for myself, Mr.
Spelt."
So saying, Mattie walked away to the house, with various backward
tosses of the head. Mr. Spelt drew his head into his shell, troubled at
Mattie's naughtiness. Poppie stared at him, but said nothing, for she
had nothing to say.
When Mattie entered the shop, her father saw that something was amiss
with her.
"What's the matter with my princess?" he asked.
"Oh, nothing much," answered Mattie, with tears in her eyes. "I shall
get over it, I dare say. Mr. Spelt has been very naughty," she added;
in a somewhat defiant tone; and before her father could say anything
more she had reached the stairs, and went to her own room.
My reader must imagine her now taking down a huge family Bible her
father him given her for the sake of the large print. She lugs it along
and heaves it upon her bed; then, by a process known only to herself,
finds the place, and begins to spell out the story once more, to
discover whether the tailor has not garbled it to her condemnation.
But, as she reads, the story itself lays hold upon her little heart,
and she finds a far greater condemnation there than she had found in
her friend's reproof. About half an hour after, she ran--Mattie seldom
ran--past Mr. Spelt and Poppie, not venturing to look up, though, ere
she came too near, the tailor could see the red eyes in the white face,
and knocked at Mrs. Boxall's door.
Lucy was still lying on her bed when she heard little knuckles at her
door, and having answered without looking round, felt, a moment after,
a tiny hand steal into hers. She opened her eyes, and saw Mattie by her
bedside. Nor was she too much absorbed in her own griefs to note that
the child had hers, too.
"What is the matter with you, Mattie, my dear?" she asked, in a faint
voice.
Mattie burst into tears--a rare proceeding with the princess. It was
some moments before she could sob out:
"I've been _so_ naughty, Miss Burton--so _very_ naughty!"
Lucy raised herself, sat on the side of the bed, and took the child's
hand. Mattie could not look up.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Mattie. What have you done?"
"Such a shame. Poppie! Far country. Elder brother."
These were almost the only words Lucy could hear for the sobs of the
poor child. Hence she could only guess at the cause of her grief, and
her advice must be general.
"If you have done wrong to Poppie, or any one, you must go and tell her
so, and try to make up for it."
"Yes, I will, for I can't bear it," answered Mattie, beginning to
recover herself. "Think of doing the very same as the one I was so
angry with when mother read the story! I couldn't bear to see Poppie
in my place in mother's shop, and I was angry, and wouldn't go in. But
I'll go now, as soon as I get my poor eyes dried."
Lucy was not able to say much to her, and Mattie was so taken up with
her own repentance that she did not see that Lucy was in trouble, too.
In a few minutes the child announced her intention of going to Mr.
Spelt at once, and left Lucy to her own thoughts. I will first tell how
Mattie finished her repentance, and then return to Lucy.
She walked right under Mr. Spelt's door, and called aloud, but with a
wavering voice:
"Mother, take me up directly. I'm very sorry."
Over the threshold came a pair of arms, and Mattie was hoisted into the
heaven of her repentant desire. As soon as she was in it she crawled
on her hands and knees--even she could scarcely have stood in the
place--toward Poppie.
"How do you do, prodigal?" she said, putting her arms round the
bewildered Poppie, who had no more idea of what she meant than a child
born in heaven would have had. "I'm very glad to see you home again.
Put on this ring, and we'll both be good children to mother there."
So saying, she took a penny ring, with a bit of red and two bits of
green glass in it, from her finger, and put it upon Poppie's, who
submitted speechless, but was pleased with the glitter of the toy. She
did not kiss in return, though: Poppie liked to be kissed, but she had
not learned to kiss yet.
"Mother," Mattie went on, "I was behaving like--like--like--a wicked
Pharisee and Sadducee. I beg your pardon, mother. I will be good. May I
sit in the corner by the door?" "I think," answered the little tailor,
greatly moved, and believing in the wind that bloweth where it listeth
more than ever he had believed before--"I think if I were to move a
little, you could sit in the corner by the window, and then you would
see into the court better. Only," he said, as he drew his work about
his new position, "you must not lean much against the sash, for it is
not very sound, and you might tumble in the court, you know."
So Mattie and Poppie sat side by side, and the heart of the tailor had
a foretaste of heaven.
Presently Mattie began to talk to Poppie. She could scarcely,
however, draw a single response from her, for she had nothing to say.
Interchange of thought was unknown to the elder child, and Mattie's
words were considerably less intelligible to Poppie than the autumn
wind that blew round their nest. Mattie was annoyed. The romance of the
reconciliation was dimmed. Instinctively she felt that the only way to
restore it was to teach Poppie, and she took her in hand at once.
There was more hope for Poppie, and Spelt, too, now that Mattie was
in the work, for there is no teacher of a child like a child. All the
tutors of Oxford and Cambridge will not bring on a baby as a baby a
year older will. The child-like is as essential an element in the
teacher as in the scholar. And the train of my story is not going so
fast but that I may pull up at this siding for a moment to say that
those who believe they have found a higher truth, with its higher
mode of conveyance, are very apt to err in undervaluing, even to the
degree of wishing to remove the lower forms in which truth, if not
embodied exactly, is at least wrapt up. Truth may be presented in
the grandeur of a marble statue, or in a brown-paper parcel. I choose
the sculpture; my last son prefers the parcel. The only question is
whether there is truth--not in the abstract, but as assimilable by the
recipient--present in the form. I cannot, however, resume without a
word on the other side. To the man who sees and feels the higher and
nobler form, it is given to teach _that_. Let those to whom the lower
represents the sum of things, teach it with their whole hearts. _He_
has nothing to do with it, for he cannot teach it without being false.
The snare of the devil holds men who, capable of teaching the higher,
talk of the people not being ready to receive it, and therefore teach
them in forms which are to their own souls an obstruction. There is
cowardice and desertion in it. They leave their own harder and higher
work to do the easier and clumsier work of their neighbor. It is
wasteful of time, truth, and energy. The man who is most careful over
the truth that lies in forms not his own, will be the man most careful
to let no time-serving drag him down--not to the level of the lower
teachers, for they are honest--but to the level of Job's friends, who
lied for God; nay, lower still; for this will soon cease to be lying
even for God, and become lying for himself.
When Mattie left her, Lucy again threw herself down, and turned her
face to the wall, and the story of which Mattie had been talking
straightway began to mingle with all that filled her troubled mind.
For who was a prodigal son but her lost Thomas? Lost indeed! But there
was another word in the parable to balance that--there was _found_ as
well. Thomas might be found again. And if the angels in heaven rejoiced
over the finding of such a lost wanderer, why should she cut the cable
of Love, and let him go adrift from her heart? Might she not love him
still? Ought she not to love him still? Was he not more likely to come
back some day if she went on loving him? The recent awaking of Lucy's
spiritual nature--what would be called by some, her conversion--had
been so interpenetrated with the image, the feeling, the subjective
presence of Thomas--she had thought so much of him while stooping her
own shoulders to the easy yoke, that she could not leave him out now,
and it seemed as if, were she to give him up, she would lose half the
incentive to press forward herself. The fibres of her growth had so
twined around him, that if the idea of his regeneration departed from
her, the hope of her own would sicken, at least, if not die. True,
Pride hinted at the disgrace of being allied to such a man--a man
who had stolen; but Faith replied, that if there were joy in heaven
over him, she too might rejoice over him when he came back; and if the
Father received the prodigal with all his heart, she too might receive
him with all hers. But she would have no right to receive him thus if
she did nothing to restore Him; nor would she have any right to put
forth in full her reclaiming influence except she meant thus to receive
him. Her conscience began to reproach her that she had not before done
all that she could to reclaim him, and, if she only knew the way, she
was now at least prepared to spend and be spent for him. But she had
already done all that she was, at this juncture of his history, to be
allowed to do for the wretched trifler. God had taken the affair out of
her hands, and had put it into those of somewhat harder teachers.