“Read about the Israelites and the Plagues of Egypt,” suggested
Willie.
“Very well,” the mother said equably. Her day’s work was done, she had
time now, and was willing to please the children in their own way.
“‘_And Moses stretched forth his rod towards the heaven, and the Lord
sent thunder and hail----_’”
“I wish He would,” murmured the Vicar.
“‘_And the fire ran along the ground, and the Lord rained hail upon
the land of Egypt.…_’”
She was going on in her monotonous, uneducated voice, when the
youngest child suddenly screamed and hid his face in the cushions of
the sofa.
“Whisht, whisht!” she called out, by way of soothing him. “Why, you
silly body, haven’t ye heard it all before?”
The child continued to sob.
His face remained hidden. Sternly his parent ignored his hysterical
outburst.
“How old were the children of Israel?” asked Willie, by way of
distracting the attention of his elders from this bad conduct on his
brother’s part, which would assuredly end in both being sent off to
bed. Crying was never allowed. “Were they as old as me, or only as old
as John?”
Mrs. Cooper now gave her mind to the destruction of this erroneous
impression under which her children had been labouring, and when it
was done she raised her voice, and called “Hannah!” to the maid, who
was to be heard moving heavily about in the passage.
John raised his tear-stained face from the sofa, a wild terror in his
eyes. Willie clasped his hands together, and together they pleaded
with an unaccountable vehemence.…
“Oh, no, no, Mother; please, Mother--we don’t want to go to bed. We
can’t! We can’t!” both wailed.
“And what for no?” asked the mother, raising her strongly marked black
eyebrows. “Why not to bed, to-night, same as other nights?”
“Because--because--oh, Mother! because we want another story. We want
Abram and Isaac,” pleaded William. It was only an excuse, and the
mother knew it.
“One story is quite enough for one evening,” she answered severely;
“and John did not behave particularly well over that; I won’t hear any
fond nonsense. Now you just trot along both of you! You are both as
cross and sleepy as you can be. Bed’s the safest place for you!”
Her rough soothing was of no value. The children’s faces, as Hannah
came in, were blanched with terror. John ran up to the kindly
servant-maid, and hid his face in the folds of her linsey gown.
“I want to speak to you,” he sobbed.
“Noo, what then, ma honey?” said Hannah good-humouredly, stooping,
till her smooth head touched his touzled one. “Well!”--as she raised
her head--“did ye ever hear the like? What sets ye asking that?
Mistress, he wants to know if they mayn’t creep in aside of father and
mother to-night?”
“Please let us, Mother,” they murmured, almost inaudibly.
“I never heard anything so fond!” exclaimed Mrs. Cooper, laughing
grimly. “Be off with ye both quietly, now, and let me hear no more
nonsense.”
“We did once, Mother!”
“Once! Yes! when they were mending the roof of your bedroom; but the
roof’s safe and sound over your heads now, at any rate. Why,” she
laughed, “why, when I give ye a nice big bed to yourselves, should I
go and cram my own and the master’s with two tiresome children, to
kick me black and blue before morning? What are ye afeared of, I say?”
But they would own to nothing, and averted their eyes. A little
underswell of sobbing, whimpering breaths testified to their distress.
“What’s come to the bairns, I wonder?” She was puzzled, through her
thick mental hide of unsympathy. “They’re as fractious! It’s this
unked weather sets us all out of our wits.”
“It _must_ break,” said her husband, “there’s no sense in it. We may
have rain to-morrow. I forgot to look at the glass as I passed in
to-night. There may be a change soon, nay, there must be.… Come here,
children, and say your prayers, and let’s have no more crying.”
They all at once realized the hopelessness of it all, and came meekly
to his knee, Hannah folded her hands and looked on approvingly at the
two flaxen heads, as in their innocent, pretty, piping voices they
begged blessings on their hardened elders, and murmured deep
contrition for the sins they had not yet committed. They wound up as
usual with the prayer--
“‘_Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and by Thy great
mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the
love of Thine only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen._’”
Sadly they rose and kissed their parents, who had so carelessly
crossed them in their strong instinctive desire, and murmured
inaudible good-nights. Then Hannah, taking a little submissive hand of
each, led them out of the room.
They went past the weather-glass in the hall, whose strongly marked
signs and signals of change they were too young, and Hannah too
ignorant, to understand, and walked round by half roofless passages to
the kitchen. Then Hannah, laughingly propelling “mischief in front of
her,” inducted them up the shaky wooden staircase that led into the
large room where they always slept, brooded over by the enormous
over-arching elm-tree. Its branches tapped the little skylight pane
when it was windy, but now they hung still like a drooping banner in a
calm.
“I do believe it’s that ugly, girt tree they’re feared of!” Hannah
thought to herself.
During the passage towards their sleeping place they said nothing, but
the fingers of the younger child closed and unclosed round the maid’s
stout thumb, and the touch struck her as very cold.
“I’d let you both creep in aside o’ me,” she said, “only I’m that
fleyed o’ the mistress! She’d find us out, as sure as my name is
Hannah Cawthorne.”
She set down the candle on the chest in the long, low, empty
loft-room. The chest and the bed were almost the only articles of
furniture in it. The wooden rafters that supported the roof made
fanciful bars and arches over the white dimity quilt. The bed was
large, clean and comfortless.
When the two children had undressed and lain down, Hannah Cawthorne,
of a gloomy North Country turn of mind that ran continually on omens
and predestinations, could not help thinking how like two corpses laid
out they looked, lying so straight, their little bodies outlined under
the quilt, their eyes wide open and staring at the roof. It made her
uncomfortable.
“There’s nought to be afeared on,” she thought, trying to bring
comfort to herself merely, for the children were still, submissive and
past all repining now. “It’s as safe as a church, but all the same.…
Now shut your eyes,” she said aloud, “there’s good lads, and say
‘Gentle Jesus’ till ye feel the sleep coming on ye. Oh, ye’ll sleep
fine, trust me. Shall I leave ye the light?”
This was a wild stretch of authority. She might have lost her place
over it. She was relieved when they shook their heads and declined it.
“See here,” she went on, producing an apple from her pocket. “See
here, ye can munch this atween ye.”
She laid it down on the coverlet, but no little hand came forth to
take it.
“Poor bairns, they’re sad-like.… Eh, she’s a hard woman, is the
mistress! If they were mine, shouldn’t I like them to nestle in aside
o’ me! This room is fair lonesome. Naebody could hear them if they
were to skrike out.…”
“What are ye looking at, my honey?” she asked John curiously, for the
child’s eyes remained obstinately fixed on the roof, as if he saw
something there.
“He’s looking at the hole in the wall,” volunteered the eldest boy at
last. “He’s shiverin’.”
“Hap him up in your arms, ma bonny bairn, that’ll soon warm him.… Now
I must be going, lads.… Good-night to ye both.…”
Hesitating, reluctant, she took up her candle and made a start for the
door.
“I don’t half like leaving them,” she murmured, as she stole out
casting a last look at the two children, lying clasped, according to
her recommendation, in each other’s arms. Their faces were hidden in
each other’s necks, their sad apprehensive eyes were closed,
obediently summoning sleep.
Gently snecking the door, she blundered down the rickety staircase,
and made her way back into the other, safer part of the house.
Ignorant, she passed by the mysterious oracle hanging in the hall,
unable to read or understand the plain meaning which its hands now
bore.
“Eh, but she’s a right hard woman, is the mistress, and master follows
her in all things. _He’d_ have let the poor childer come in aside him,
when they begged and prayed fit to turn a heart of stone.…”
She did not toss on her hard pallet, but lay stupefied in the heavy
slumber that was the meed of her arduous existence. Upstairs, in the
best bedroom, the Reverend Matthew Cooper slept off his headache. His
wife did not drowse, but lay by her husband’s side, straight and still
as she had laid down, congratulating herself on the great healing
storm that was even now breaking over the Vicarage, gloating over its
promise of recomfiture and peace.… It thundered and lightened for two
hours.
When morning dawned the great drought was over, and the air was
refreshed.
Hannah, the maid, rose and went about her duties with a light heart,
and presently, having started the kitchen fire, called the parson and
his wife to resume theirs.
When it was time, she pulled her dirty kitchen apron aside, put the
kettle where it could not for the moment boil over, and went to call
the parson’s children.
She went up the crooked stair and opened the door gently, “not to
waken them sudden.” The first thing she saw, before she screamed, was
the wide, jagged hole on the rafters above the bed where they still
lay in each other’s arms. The lightning that, guided by the tree which
hung over the roof, had passed through to the innocent children and
dealt them their unearned and undeserved death, had not divided them.
They were quiet and unchanged in appearance except for some little
blue marks like shot in the forehead of the one and the breast of the
other.