"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est la,
Simple et tranquille.
Cette paisible rumeur-la
Vient de la ville.
Qu'as-tu fait, O toi que voila
Pleurant sans cesse,
Dis, qu'as-tu fait, toi que voila
De ta jeunesse?"
PAUL VERLAINE.
The sound of the anthem came faint and sweet over the ivied wall into
the garden of the Dower House, where Harry was standing alone under the
cedar in his black clothes, his hands behind his back, mournfully
contemplating the little mud hut which he and Tommy had made for the
hedgehog which lived in the garden. His ally Tommy, who was a member of
the choir, was absent. So was the hedgehog. It was not sitting in its
own house looking out at the door as it ought to have been, and as Tommy
had said it would. Harry had shed tears because the hedgehog did not
appreciate its house. That prickly recluse had shown such unwillingness
to intrude, to force his society on the other possible inmates, indeed,
although conscious of steady pressure from behind, had offered such
determined and ball-like resistance at the front door, that a large
crack had appeared in the wall.
Harry heaved a deep sigh, and then slowly got out his marbles. Marbles
remain when hedgehogs pass away.
Presently the nurse, who had been watching him from the window, came
swiftly from the house, and sat down near him, on the round seat under
the cedar.
"Must I stop?" he said docilely at once, smiling at her.
"No, no," she said, trying to smile back at him. "Go on. But don't make
a noise."
He gravely resumed his game, and she gazed at him intently, as if she
had never seen him before, looking herself how worn and haggard in the
soft September sunshine.
It was one of those gracious days when the world seems steeped in peace,
when bitterness and unrest and self-seeking "fold their tents like the
Arabs, and as silently steal away." No breath stirred. High in the
windless spaces above the elms, the rooks were circling and cawing. The
unwhispering trees laid cool, transparent shadows across the lawns. All
was still--so still that even the hedgehog, that reluctant householder,
came slowly out of a clump of dahlias, and hunched himself on the
sun-warmed grass.
The woman on the bench saw him, but she did not point him out to Harry.
Why should not the hedgehog also have his hour of peace? And presently,
very pure and clear, came Annette's voice: "They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any
heat."
The Riff Choir knew only two anthems. The nurse leaned her tired head in
its speckless little cap against the trunk of the cedar, and the tears
welled up into her eyes.
She was tired, oh! so tired of hungering and thirsting, and the sun and
the dust, so tired of the trampling struggle and turmoil of life, of
being pushed from pillar to post, from patient to patient. For seventeen
grinding years she had earned her bread in the house of strangers, and
she was sick to death of it. And she had been handsome once, gay and
self-confident once, innocent once. She had been determined that her
mother should never know want. And she had never known it--never known
either the straits to which her daughter had been reduced to keep that
tiny home together. That was all over now. Her mother was dead, and her
lover, if so he could be called, had passed out of her life. And as she
sat on the bench she told herself for the hundredth time that there was
no one to fight for her but herself. She felt old and worn-out and
ashamed, and the tears fell. She had not been like this, cunning and
self-seeking, to start with. Life had made her so. She shut her eyes, so
that she might not see that graceful, pathetic creature, with its
beautiful eyes fixed on the marbles, of whom she had dared to make a
cat's paw.
But presently she felt a soft cheek pressed to hers, and an arm round
her neck.
"Don't cry, Nursie," Harry said gently. "Brother Dick has gone to
heaven," and he kissed her, as a child might kiss its mother. She winced
at his touch, and then pushed back her hair, still thick and wavy, with
the grey just beginning to show in it, and returned his kiss.
And as he stood before her she took his hands and held them tightly, her
miserable eyes fixed on him.
A silent sob shook her, and then she said--
"You know where God lives, Harry?"
Harry disengaged one hand and pointed to the sky above him. He was not
often sure of giving the right answer, but he had a happy confidence
that this was correct.
"Yes," she went on, "God lives in the sky and looks down on us. He is
looking at us now."
Harry glanced politely up at the heavens and then back at his companion.
"He is looking at us now. He hears what I say. I'm not one that believes
much in promises. Nobody's ever kept any to me. But I call Him to
witness that what I have taken upon myself I will perform, that I will
do my duty by you, and I will be good to you always and be your best
friend, whatever may happen--so help me God."