GOD'S WILL AND KATE'S WILL.
THE next day the weather completely changed; the wind came from the
southwest, the rain poured in torrents. The great cold had gone, but
the fierce gale grew fiercer hour by hour. The girls and boys appeared
in the breakfast room with blank, disappointed faces.
"What are we to do with ourselves all day?" said Molly.
"I am glad I have my novel," muttered Matilda.
"For my part, I wish the holidays had come to an end," said Cecil. "I
am wild to get to work again. What do you say, Kate? Suppose we do a
little work this morning. I can help you with your Homer, if you like."
"No, thanks," answered Kate; "I am not in the humor to work."
"Have you a headache?" asked Cecil, looking at her anxiously.
"No, I'm all right; but I don't care to work."
She went to the window and drummed her fingers against one of the panes
of glass as she spoke.
"Aren't you coming, Kitty?" called Molly, in her pleasant voice.
Kate turned slowly and seated herself at the breakfast-table. Her face
was very white, and there were black shadows round her eyes.
"I say, Kitty, you don't look a bit like yourself," said Jimmy, giving
her one of his particularly keen glances.
"I am really quite well," answered Kate; "I mean to go out for a long
walk after breakfast."
"What, in this rain?" exclaimed all the others.
"You forget that an Irish girl never fears the rain."
"It does rain always in Ireland, doesn't it?" asked Charlie, in an
impertinent voice.
"Always, except when it is fine," replied Kate calmly. "Pass me the
toast, please, Jimmy. Yes, I am going out. I enjoy walking in the rain;
I love, beyond all things, watching a great gale of wind."
"Well, I won't go with you," said Cecil.
"I will," said Maurice, "if I may."
"No, thanks, Maurice; don't think me disobliging, but I would really
rather go alone," said Kate.
She ran into her room, and presently returned in her waterproof cloak
and hat.
"If I am not in to dinner, don't wait for me," she said to the others.
As she was running downstairs, she met Matilda.
"I wouldn't fret if I were you," said Matilda, glancing at her.
"What do you mean?" said Kate, pulling herself up short.
"Why," continued Matilda, "if you are a charity girl, you also are----
I have been thinking it over all night, and I have made up mind that I
won't tell; that is, if you will make it worth my while."
"What do you mean?" asked Kate.
"Why, this," said Matilda; "I notice that you have great influence in
the school. I can't understand it; no one seems to mind your low origin
a bit; they seem rather to like you for having been a peasant girl.
Well, now, if you will chum with me, and appear as if you enjoyed my
society, other people will perhaps think me worth cultivating. If you
approach me in a friendly spirit next term, and talk of me as your
friend, why, I'll keep your secret. There! is it a bargain!"
"You can tell every single person in the school what you know about
me," said Kate. "That's my only answer. Now, let me go."
She pushed Matilda aside almost roughly, and ran downstairs. A moment
later she was in the little street. The gale caught her waterproof
cloak, and swept her dress round her legs; it played hide and seek
with her hat, and dashed great drops of rain into her eyes; as to
her umbrella, she could not hold it up for two minutes. Walking up
the street, she had to encounter the full blast of the gale. She,
struggled on bravely, glad of the physical exertion which made her
forget a very real pain in her breast.
"Now, where are you off to, you young scoundrel?" said a voice in her
ear.
She looked up to encounter the keen blue eyes of Mr. Danvers.
"I forgot; I beg your pardon!" said the master, turning red. "I really
thought for a moment that you were Jimmy. But what are you out for?
this is no day for women to be abroad."
"I like being out in the rain and wet," said Kate.
"Well, don't go too near the shore; it positively isn't safe."
Kate laughed in reply.
"I am accustomed to watching the sea in a gale," she answered.
She hurried off.
"What is the matter with that girl?" thought the schoolmaster to
himself; "she has a queer look in her eyes. She is a fine girl; yes,
I'd consider her a fine specimen of young woman-hood if she didn't
murder Homer in the way she does; but something has put her out. What
is the matter with her?"
Kate, meanwhile, continued her stormy walk. By and by she reached the
shore; the tide was out at present, but it was just beginning to turn.
A wide expanse of wet sand and low-lying rocks lay to her left; to
her right rose the high cliffs for which the place was famous. Kate
hesitated for a moment which way to turn. At last she determined to go
straight to the caves; the tide was well out, and there was not the
slightest danger. She could go as far as one of the caves, take shelter
there, watch the gale without being blown away herself, and think out
the question which was tearing her proud heart to pieces.
To reach the caves she had to walk with the wind full in her face; the
temptation, therefore, to go the other way and be blown along by the
fierce gale was overpowering for a moment or two; she determined to
resist it, and made for the caves. To reach them she had to walk a good
deal over a mile. These caves could only be reached quite at low water,
and the way to them lay on the soft, yielding sand. Kate found, as she
struggled along, that she was by no means so strong as she used to be
when she had lived in the cottage at home. In those happy days she had
never known fatigue. To fight with nature, as she was now doing, only
brought out her splendid physical powers; she rejoiced in the old days
in conquering wind and weather. Her dangerous illness had weakened
her far more than she had any idea of, and her legs trembled as she
hurried forward. She was so spent when she reached the first cave that
she literally could not walk another yard; she entered it, and sat
down to rest. Out of the gale she had suddenly entered into a perfect
haven of calm. The cave was a deep one; it went back far into the
rock. At its farthest extremity was a shelf, on which lay two skeletons
in a fair state of preservation. These skeletons had been found in
the clay some years ago, and were left undisturbed in their resting
place; the angry sea often nearly touched them, but not quite. At high
tide, the rest of the cave was generally under water, but the sea had
never yet been known to reach the spot where the skeletons of a woman
and child, who may have died thousands of years ago, were still in a
state of preservation. People from far and near used to come to see
these relics of the past, but Kate had never visited the caves before.
She sat now in the entrance, drawing a big stone forward and making
a temporary seat of it. From here she could watch the angry sea, and
even take pleasure in the wild sight which met her eyes. She was too
tired at first even to think, but after a time she became more rested.
She took off her hat, arranged her storm-tossed hair, twisted it up
afresh, and drew it out of her eyes. She held her hat in her lap--it
was soaked through; the rain had even penetrated her waterproof cloak;
her stockings and shoes were sopping.
"I have got to fight a devil," she said suddenly aloud. "There is
a demon here,"--pressing her hand to her breast,--"and he must be
conquered, or he'll conquer me. I shall fight him here in this cave,
and either he or I must die in the encounter. If he wins the victory,
the noble part of me will have died, and I shall go straight to
Redgarth and tell Miss Forester that I can't--I never will--accept
her charity. If he dies, why, then, _then_, I shall return to the
lodgings to-day, to the society of Molly and Cecil and the boys, a
broken-hearted girl. Oh, I know beforehand that I shall not conquer in
this fight. But here, alone with nature, the thing must be reasoned
out. Now, then, to begin."
Kate clasped her hands round her knees and looked straight out at the
angry sea; the waves were already mountains high; the spray was dashing
straight into the cave and wetting her face; the tide had well turned
now, and the sea was coming up in splendor. Kate never thought of this.
It would take a very long time before the tide reached the cave, and
meanwhile she had her battle to fight. There were few girls prouder
than Kate O'Connor. Her pride had a great many noble elements in it; it
scorned deceit and humbug of all kinds. She was not a scrap ashamed of
those things which smaller-minded girls would have tried to conceal,
would have smuggled out of sight, and buried deep in their own hearts.
The fact that her grandfather was poor, that her own early life had
been spent in a small cottage by the sea, that she had not been waited
on by servants, nor worn fine clothes, nor done the ordinary things
of the ordinary young lady, never caused her a moment's regret. When
she arrived at school she did not speak of her early life, not because
she feared to do so, but because she did not consider one of her
companions worthy to know the story of the beloved old grandfather,
and the grand poem which he had lived. Kate's grandfather had been
religious in the highest sense of the word; he had lived very simply,
and according to the golden rule--he had done to others as he would
wish others to do to him; he had thought well of his fellow-man; an
unkind and uncharitable sentence had never been heard to pass his lips.
Kate had tried to live up to his standards but whereas his religion had
been tested in the fire of a long life and many cruel circumstances
which his grandchild knew nothing about, hers was simply the result of
training, and had never been tested at all. He had taught her a good
deal, and although she had never learned according to modern ideas,
she was in many respects a very well-informed girl. Her imagination
was of the highest order; there was a strong dash of mysticism and
idealism in her character. In this prosaic world, she herself was a
living embodiment of old romance; she delighted in poetry, in nature;
there was not a scrap of the worldly spirit about her, but for all that
she was proud. To eat the bread of charity would be indeed gall and
wormwood to her. She thought, as she sat now in the mouth of the cave
and looked out on the splendid scene which lay before her eyes, that
she would rather be the poorest servant in a farmhouse at home than
stoop to this.
"I can't do it!" she murmured; "it isn't in me. Grandfather left me
money, not much, but enough to have me properly educated. I can't stoop
to this. Miss Forester means well, but she doesn't know me--or, yes,
she does know me; she knows that I, Kate O'Connor, poor, proud, peasant
girl that I am, would never consent to this scheme; therefore she tries
to hide it from me. It is good of her, and yet it is not good. It
was Providence who put that letter in my way. Oh, it was shown to me
in an ugly manner! Fancy my reading a letter which was not meant for
me! But I didn't read it; Matilda read it aloud to me. How I detest
Matilda! But if I stoop to this thing--if I consent to become a charity
girl--I shall think myself almost at her level. No, I shall refuse.
I'll go back to Redgarth to-morrow; I will tell Miss Forester the
simple truth. Perhaps I know enough now to try and get a situation as
nursery-governess to little children. Anyhow, I can make an effort in
that direction. Oh, my dreams, my aspirations! I thought to do so much,
and perhaps some day to write something lovely, and to make a name for
myself and for the dear old man who would have been proud of me, were
he alive. No, I can't accept charity. I'm sure grandfather would say I
was right."
Kate paused here. In the midst of her wild thoughts she remembered a
certain evening when she and the old man had been seated together, and
she had read aloud out of the Book of Books to him.
"'Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city,'" she
had read. She was a child at the time; she did not understand the words.
"What does that mean, grandad?" she had said.
"It means that God loves the true conqueror, child," he answered.
"It is the greatest thing in all the world for a man to rule his own
spirit--so to rule it that God's will may be his will."
"I think I know," she had answered vaguely.
She ran away then to feed her chickens, and that ended the matter; but
the verse returned to her to-day.
"If to rule my spirit is to be willing to eat the bread of charity--if
that is God's will, then it can never be mine," she said to herself.
A volume of spray dashed on her face and half-blinded her. She rose,
stretched herself, put on her hat, and prepared to return to the
lodgings.
"I shall go to Redgarth to-morrow morning," she said to herself. "I
suppose I am conquered, but I can't help myself. I never, never will
eat the bread of charity!"
She left the cave, and turned her face homeward. She walked a dozen
steps, then she stood still. How long had she been in the cave?
What had happened? Surely the tide had come up very fast. That long
stretch of beach with the headland at the farther end seemed, somehow,
wonderfully shortened.
"Impossible"--said Kate, with a thrill of horror in her
voice--"impossible that the water can already have reached the
headland. Oh, no! I am deceived by the distance, but I see that I have
no time to lose. I must run, or I shall be shut in by the tide."
She ran fast, and the wind, which was now at her back, helped her. She
was a very swift runner, and, notwithstanding the yielding nature of
the sands, she made rapid progress. With panting breath and hair flying
wildly under her hat, she soon came up to the promontory which she had
to round in order to reach a place of safety. At ten yards distant she
stood still, clasping her hands. She did not yet realize the danger
of her own position. Her eyes sparkled, and she almost laughed at the
majestic beauty of the scene. The angry waves had already reached the
headland, and were dashing with bursts of magnificent spray over the
sharp rocks.
"I never, even in Ireland, saw such waves," said Kate to herself. "How
glorious! Oh, that I could write about them! They fill my heart; such
beauty as this _quite_ satisfies me."
Then a thought, cold and dreadful, stole over her delight.
"The way home is completely shut away!" she cried.
The thought first stole into her brain, then it crept down, down, until
it reached her heart.
"Have I got to die here? Am I to be drowned?" she said to herself. "I
am only seventeen, and I am full of life. Oh, is this the way out of my
dilemma? And I don't want to die. I am not a coward, no; but I don't
want to die, slowly and fearfully, and all alone, and with this awful
noise in my ears. To die by drowning means suffocation. No, I don't
want to die."
There was not a creature in sight. The towering cliffs rose between her
and safety. They were rugged and straight, and impossible to climb. The
belt of sand on which she stood was each moment getting narrower and
narrower. She made a careful calculation: at the present rate of the
in-coming tide, she had probably about an hour and a half to live.
"I must go back to the cave," she said to herself. "Perhaps, if I climb
up on that ledge where the skeletons are, I may find myself above
high-water mark. But I know the signs; I have not lived close to the
Atlantic all my life for nothing. There will be a specially high tide
to-day."