surprise of every one concerned, he did.
At first it grieved Mr. Wycherly that any one should teach either of the
little boys except himself. He grudged Edmund to the minister, even
while he knew that the minister was far more fitted to teach him than he
was himself. His only consolation was that, as Edmund disliked lessons
so much, there would have been some danger of his extending his dislike
to the giver of them, and that Mr. Wycherly could not have borne.
It happened that soon after Edmund first went for lessons to the Manse
whooping-cough broke out among the village children. It was a bad kind,
and Miss Esperance was very anxious that neither Montagu nor Edmund
should take it. Thus it came about that one Sunday, one particularly
fine Sunday at the beginning of June, she decided that she would not
take them to church with her for fear of infection. The doctor himself
had suggested this only the day before, and after a sleepless night, in
which she had prayed for guidance, Miss Esperance decided that the
doctor was probably right and that she should run no risks for them,
whatever she might do for herself. Mr. Wycherly offered to look after
them both during her absence, and it was characteristic of Miss
Esperance that, although she had her misgivings, she made no suggestions
as to how their time should be spent in her absence. That would have
been to reflect upon Mr. Wycherly.
The little boys will always remember that Sunday, not only because they
did not go to church, and did play in a field near the Manse, but
because of something that happened.
When the church bells had stopped and the village street was deserted,
Mr. Wycherly, the two little boys and Mause went to play in a field that
adjoined the Manse. To get to this field, which was rich in buttercups
and hedge parsley, and was bordered by ash trees giving a pleasant
shade, you turned down a lane, which was also a short cut to the
station, lying a mile or so south of the village. The Manse was at one
end of the lane, the main street of the village at the other: the gate
leading into the field about half-way down. As the little boys neared
it they saw a stranger coming from the opposite direction.
It was unusual to meet anybody in that lane, especially at this time of
day on the Sabbath, and the children waited at the gate to see the
stranger pass. Mr. Wycherly, whose long-distance sight was failing a
little, put up his eye-glasses lest he might know the stranger and pass
him by without greeting, as he was rather prone to do. Hardly had he
placed the glasses on his nose than they dropped off again, and with an
exclamation of surprise he hurried forward, holding out both his hands,
which the stranger grasped and warmly shook.
He was a tall young man, with very large bright eyes and an abundance of
curly black hair, worn rather longer than was usual at that time.
He seized Mr. Wycherly by the arm and bore him up the lane again,
talking eagerly the while.
"I must see her," the little boys heard him say. "I must see her
somehow, and I daren't go into the house, for he has forbidden me. Could
you tell her? Could you fetch her? I'll stay with the youngsters. Oh,
dear old friend, for God's sake don't frighten her, but bring her to me
somehow. She isn't in church, I know, for I watched every one go in
from behind the hedge in the churchyard. I was coming to you in any
case...."
Mr. Wycherly and the young man had passed out of earshot. Montagu and
Edmund looked at one another with large, round eyes, and Mause looked
after Mr. Wycherly and sniffed the air inquiringly.
"Do you think he's a relation?" Edmund asked. "Do you think he's come
to stay with us?"
"He can't stay with us," Montagu answered decidedly; "there isn't any
room. I wish he could, though," he added; "he looks rather nice."
A sound of quick footsteps in the lane, and the stranger was back again,
but without Mr. Wycherly.
"Now," he said, "what shall we play at?"
He said it in a business-like way, and Edmund did the stranger the
honour to take him at his word.
"Can you be a tiger?" he demanded excitedly, "and we'll hunt you. You
must crawl in the grass, and crouch in the ditch--it's quite dry--and
bounce out at us and growl, not too loud, because it's the Sabbath."
Never was such a tiger; so fierce, so elusive, so dashing, so
unexpected. This man threw himself into his part at once and required
no tedious explanations. The intrepid hunters had a quarter of an
hour's blissful excitement, and the tiger had rolled over dead for the
fifth time when he suddenly rose to his feet, went to the gate, and
looked up the lane toward the Manse.
Mr. Wycherly was coming slowly down the lane, and a lady leant upon his
arm. The quondam tiger brushed some grass from off his clothes and
turned to the little boys, who were following him eagerly. "Boys," he
said, "we've had a good play, we'll have another some day, but now I
must go and speak--to my mother----"
He went down the lane very quickly toward Mr. Wycherly and the lady.
"Come," said Montagu, catching Edmund by the hand, "let's come away,"
and the two little boys trotted off up the lane in the opposite
direction; and they never looked back.
Mrs. Gloag, tremulous and very pale, leant heavily on Mr. Wycherly's arm
as the tall young man came out of the field toward her. Then she
steadied herself. "Dear friend," she said very softly, "I am quite
strong. Will you leave me to wait for my boy? I would like to be with
him alone--once more, together--he and I." She drew her hand from Mr.
Wycherly's arm, and he raised his hat and left her. He passed the
stranger and hurried after the little boys. They heard him coming and
slackened their pace: but they never looked round.
They had turned the corner when Mr. Wycherly joined them, and separated
that he might walk between them as was his custom. He laid a hand on
each soft little shoulder and stopped. "Boys," he said, and his voice
sounded husky and broken. "You are gentlemen--and good fellows--and I'm
proud of you."
The little boys were silent. This that had happened, coming so close
upon the heels of the uproarious tiger game, was very puzzling.
Presently, as though following some train of thought, Edmund said: "She
knew him, I suppose. Will our mothers know us, do you think, when we
get up there? Because, you see, we shall look rather different from
when they saw us last. Now you, Guardie, dear, you hadn't white hair
when you saw your mother last, had you? You were quite a little boy."
"I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "in fact, I may say I am sure, that our
mothers will know us, even if we all three should have white hair."
"I expect," Montagu said thoughtfully, "that they're waiting just like
we waited for you round the corner; they've just gone on first."
"Just gone on," Edmund echoed. "I wonder if it seems long to them till
we come?"
After morning service when the minister turned down the lane, which was
a short cut to the Manse, he found Mr. Wycherly waiting for him outside
his own gate.
As a rule Mr. Wycherly was rather shy and nervous in the presence of the
minister, but there was no sign of this usual mental perturbation as he
stopped him with a courteous gesture. "Mr. Gloag," said Mr. Wycherly,
and he looked the minister straight in the eyes, "I have done something
which you will probably disapprove and condemn. Curly has been here,
and I went to the Manse and told Mrs. Gloag that he was here."
"Did he dare to enter my house?" asked the minister, and he glowered at
Mr. Wycherly from under his heavy brows.
"I think," that gentleman replied, and he met the minister's keen glance
with one that was quite equally combative, "that he would have dared
anything to see his mother. As it happened she came to him. And I want
to spare her the exertion of telling you that she did so."
"Since when," asked the minister, looking as though he would greatly
like to annihilate Mr. Wycherly; "since when has my wife needed a
go-between to spare her the necessity of telling me anything?"
"Good heavens, sir!" Mr. Wycherly exclaimed, "can't you see that what I
want you to realise is that Mrs. Gloag is very ill--that whatever you
may feel on the subject of Curly's coming, it would have been inhuman to
prevent her seeing her son--once more, whatever he had done."
Even as Mr. Wycherly spoke the eyes of the two men that a moment before
had been bright with mutual antagonism changed. The minister's to a
dumb agony, Mr. Wycherly's to an awe-struck pity. He turned and walked
hastily away.
Blindly the minister opened the gate and went through the garden into
his own house.
His wife met him in the hall, and her face, he thought, was as the face
of an angel, full of a soft radiance not of earth.
"Peter," she said in her soft "Englishey" voice, "God has been good to
me. I have seen Curly, and he is not changed. I know it; we may not
like what he has done, but he is not changed. He is good, Peter; he is
our own dear good boy all the same. He didn't come in because he
thought you wouldn't like it, but I had a long, beautiful talk with him
in the lane. I felt somehow that I should see him--once more."
Again the ominous phrase, "Once more."
"Felicity," said the minister, "you have stood much longer than is good
for you," and he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the sofa
in the parlour.
She caught him round the neck and rubbed her soft cheek against his
hair. "Why are you not surprised--and angry?" she asked with a little
nervous laugh, and he felt how her whole body was trembling in his arms.
"Because I knew already," said the minister; and not one other word did
he say on the subject that day, but he noticed that her pretty eyes had
lost their look of strained expectancy and watchfulness, and in its
place there was an expression of beautiful serenity and almost joyous
content.
Although Edmund went to the Manse for his lessons, he was faithful
always to the matutinal service of biscuits in Mr. Wycherly's room. He
wouldn't have missed it on any account. Two mornings after their
encounter with the "tiger-man," as they always called him, they sought
Mr. Wycherly after breakfast to find him looking very grave and sad. He
gave them their biscuits as usual, and turning to Edmund said: "You must
not go to the Manse this morning, my dear boy. There is great trouble
there. We have all lost a very dear friend--Mrs. Gloag." Mr. Wycherly
paused, for he could not speak. The little boys looked very solemn,
then Edmund said softly, "I suppose she has gone on."
*CHAPTER XIV*
*A PARTING*
O Royal and radiant soul,
Thou dost return, thine influences return
Upon thy children as in life, and death
Turns stingless!
W. E. HENLEY.
Whooping-cough was still bad in the village on the Sabbath following
their famous tiger-game, and again Miss Esperance did not take her
great-nephews to church.
Again, moreover, the Sunday was memorable, not so much because they did
not attend church, as because Mr. Wycherly did.
The little boys knew there had been a funeral the day before. Mr.
Wycherly had gone to it, and their aunt had sewn a black band upon the
sleeve of each little white blouse. They felt solemn and important; and
for once they would even have been glad to go to church in order to show
this unusual adornment. When they discovered that not only were they to
be left at home, but left at home without Mr. Wycherly, such immunity
was shorn of all its more pleasing attributes.
They were sorry about Mrs. Gloag, with the curious, impersonal sorrow
that children experience in considering the troubles of others. She was
a kind lady, and they liked her. She knew many rhymes and funny
stories, and was almost as good a playmate as that unequalled tiger-man.
But they had not seen her often lately, and at present their chief
concern was with the unusual and uncomfortable sense of depression that
seemed in some subtle, indefinable fashion to separate them from their
aunt and Mr. Wycherly.
And now, having gone to a funeral on Saturday, Mr. Wycherly was going to
church on Sunday. Why was Mr. Wycherly going to church?
That was the question that grievously exercised the little boys, and
perhaps Mr. Wycherly himself would have been hard put to it to explain
his reasons.
There was the protective instinct, the feeling that he could not let
Miss Esperance go alone, so small and sad and solitary: the desire to do
something comforting: an equally strong desire to show his affectionate
respect for Mrs. Gloag, and the hope that perhaps by this means he might
to some small extent show his sympathy with the minister. And at the
back of all these mixed motives and through every one of them there
sounded the voices of habit and tradition; voices which every day of
late had called more and more imperatively to Mr. Wycherly. In the old
days it had been a matter of course that he should take part in any
public ceremony; now, in spite of his long aloofness from any part or
lot in the lives of his neighbours, he felt it incumbent upon him to
make some open and public demonstration of his share in this common
sorrow.
When he first came to live with Miss Esperance, Mrs. Gloag had always
been kind and friendly, stopped him in the road when he would fain have
passed her by, and yet always left him unconsciously cheered by her
greeting. Few others had been kind and friendly then, and Mr. Wycherly
did not forget.
It was surprising how many people remembered such things of her now. It
seemed that every man, woman, and child in the village could and did
tell of something kind Mrs. Gloag had done, of something merry and
heartening she had said. People forgot now that she had sometimes
laughed when it would have been more fitting to look grave. They only
remembered that she had cheered the despondent, strengthened the
weak-hearted, made peace where there were quarrels, and brought gaiety
and good humour into homes where before there were gloom and discontent.
Not for years had the church been so full as on that Sabbath morning,
that sunny Sabbath morning when Mr. Wycherly went to church with Miss
Esperance.
The minister looked much as usual. His face was stern and set, though
his eyes under the bushy, overhanging gray eyebrows were the eyes of a
man who had slept but little. Yet his voice was strong and full, and he
prayed and read the Bible with his customary earnestness and vigour.
The congregation were a little fluttered to notice that in the Manse pew
there were three tall young men, and that the white-haired, Oxfordy
gentleman who lived with Miss Esperance was in her seat, but otherwise
the service was much as usual.
It was not until the time came for the sermon that there was throughout
the congregation that little thrill of excited expectation which
proclaims deep interest.
"What would be the minister's text?"
To most people it was a surprise: it was not even a whole text. The
minister preached upon the four words, "Be pitiful, be courteous." His
sermon was the shortest he had ever given in that church, lasting only
half an hour.
Mr. Wycherly sat with his elbow on the desk in front of him, his white,
slender hand shading his eyes.
Miss Esperance was visibly affected; and of the three young men in the
Manse seat, one laid his head down on his crossed arms, but he assuredly
was not sleeping.
When the service was over and Mr. Wycherly and Miss Esperance were
walking home, she said timidly: "It was a beautiful discourse, don't you
think?"
"I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "that he preached that sermon for his
wife; and that it will be remembered when all his other sermons are
forgotten. I am glad to have been there."
That afternoon the little boys took their Sunday picture-books into the
garden and sat on the grass under the alder tree; Mr. Wycherly, too, sat
in a garden chair reading a sober-looking calf-bound book.
Miss Esperance had returned from afternoon church, but she was so tired
and upset that Elsa persuaded her for once to go and lie down in her
room, and the children were warned not to disturb their aunt.
Edmund's book was a large Bible Alphabet with gaily-coloured pictures,
which Miss Maggie Moffat had given him at the New Year. Montagu had
brought out "Peep of Day," a work he detested, but choice on the Sabbath
was limited in the house of Miss Esperance, so he looked at the "Child's
Bible Alphabet" with Edmund, and so often had they pored over the volume
that they were familiar with all the characters from Abraham to
Zacchaeus.
Presently Edmund shut the book with a bang. "I shall know all these
folks when I meet 'em, anyway," he said decidedly. "I've looked at 'em
and looked: I've had enough of seeing them, Isaac and Noah and Jacob and
Mrs. Potiphar and that dancing woman, Miriam--none of them very
handsome, either," Edmund continued discontentedly. "Oh, I do wish the
Sabbath was over, it's such a long, long day."
"I wonder," said Montagu musingly, "why the Bible people are always so
ugly in pictures; so red and blue: real people aren't as ugly as that
even if they are a bit plain. Can you tell how it is, Guardie, dear?
D'you suppose they're really like the people in Edmund's book?"
"I expect," Mr. Wycherly said cautiously, laying down his "Alcestis" and
smiling at Montagu's earnest upturned face, "that they were very like
the people we see every day, some neither very handsome nor very plain.
Some beautiful and delightful."
"I shall be disappointed," Edmund remarked, "if, after all, they turn
out to be different from what they are in my book, after I've taken so
much trouble to know them when Aunt Esperance covers the little poem at
the bottom and the letter. You do think they'll be like they are here,
don't you?" he asked anxiously.
"I fear not," Mr. Wycherly said, shaking his head. "We can't tell what
they were like. You see, the artists who made the pictures in your book
could only give their idea of the people they wished to represent----"
"Then they aren't kind of fortygraphs!" Edmund exclaimed aghast. "I
sha'n't really know them when I meet them, after all--they may be quite
different! What a shame!"
"I wish we might have the Theogony out on Sunday," Montagu grumbled.
"The people there are pretty enough. Do you think we could, Guardie,
dear?"
"I fear not. I don't think Miss Esperance would like it."
"Is your book a Sunday book?" Edmund asked severely.
"Well, no, perhaps not exactly; it is a very beautiful play."
"What's a play?"
"Something that can be acted."
"Is it wicked to act?"
"No, I don't think so--but there are people----"
"Why, then, did Elsa say the tiger-man was wicked?" Edmund interposed.
"He's an actor, isn't he?"
Mr. Wycherly was spared an answer to this question, as at that very
moment some one was seen coming through the garden toward them--a tall
young man in black, who proved to be none other than the tiger-man
himself.
The boys rushed at him, shouting joyfully. "Oh, tiger-man, have you come
to play with us? You promised you would, you know."
"I've come to say good-bye," he said, as each child seized a hand and
hung on to him. "I have to go to-night."
"But you'll have a little play with us first; just one? It's been such
a long Sabbath, and it isn't nearly tea-time yet."
Edmund's voice was very piteous.
"Poor mites," said the tiger-man. "I'll tell you what we'll do. You go
down to the bottom of the garden under the trees and wait for me for
five minutes. Then I'll come to you and we'll do something--it mustn't
be noisy--but we'll make some sort of a play. Just let me have five
minutes with Mr. Wycherly here--see, there's my watch--when the five
minutes are up you give me a call."
As he spoke he took off his watch and chain and gave it to Montagu. The
little boys ran to the end of the garden and waited by the wall.
"He must have climbed over," Edmund said. "I suppose it isn't very high
when your legs are so long."
"Edmund," said Montagu very seriously, "I don't think we ought to bother
him to play. He looks very sorry. You see, his mother's just
dead--perhaps he doesn't feel at all like playing. You see, before,
when we had that lovely game, he was just going to see her--now----"
Edmund's face fell. The tiger-man's advent had seemed a direct
interposition of Providence on his behalf. Now, it appeared that he was
not to avail himself of it after all.
"Sha'n't you call him when it's the five minutes?" he asked.
"No," said Montagu, "it would be kinder not, don't you think?"
Edmund's mouth went down at the corners. "It's been so mizzable all
day," he sighed. "Aunt Esperance is sorry, and Guardie is sorry, and now
you're sorry, and say he mustn't play wiv me. How long must people keep
on being sorry? He said he'd play his own self."
Montagu was puzzled. He sympathised with his small brother--it had been
a long, dull day for him, too--but yet he felt that the tiger-man ought
not to be bothered. Montagu was sensitive and sympathetic, and even as
he had caught sight of the tiger-man walking up the path he realised
that it was a different tiger-man from the one of a week ago who had
rolled over and over in the grass so joyously.
He looked at the watch in his hand. "It's more'n five minutes now," he
said. "You can call if you like, I sha'n't."
But Edmund did not call. Montagu moved nearer his little brother and
put his arm round him. "We ought to be sorry for the tiger-man, you
know," he said softly. "He's like Guardie and us now."
Edmund leaned against Montagu and sighed. It really was a very sad and
puzzling day.
"Surely, it's more than five minutes," said a voice behind them, and
there was the tiger-man, pale certainly, with red rims round his eyes,
but evidently ready to play.
"Do you mind? Are you sure you don't mind?" Edmund asked eagerly. "If
you'd rather not--we'd rather not, too."
The tiger-man sat down on the rough grass near the wall--it was one of
his agreeable qualities that he was ready to sit down anywhere at any
moment. He held out his hand to each of the little boys, and they sat
down one on each side and cuddled up against him.
"You're jolly, decent little chaps," he said, "and I know just what you
mean, but I'd like to keep my promise because--well, most of all,
because she'd like me to. So now I'll try and be amusing."
And he was amusing. Edmund forgot his low spirits and rolled over and
over on the grass in paroxysms of stifled laughter at the things the
tiger-man did and said.
All too soon the game ended. The tiger-man put on his watch, and kissed
both the little boys in farewell. "Good-bye," he said, "I'm afraid it
will be some time before we meet again, but I sha'n't forget you."
"We sha'n't forget _you_. Good-bye, good-bye," called the little boys,
watching the tiger-man as he vaulted lightly over the wall. Montagu ran
after him. "I'd like to whisper," he said breathlessly.
The tiger-man leant over the wall, and Montagu caught him round the
neck:
"Although we laughed and enjoyed it so," he whispered, "we _are_ sorry,
we really are."
The tiger-man kissed Montagu once more, but this time he said nothing at
all.
*CHAPTER XV*
*THE BETHUNE TEMPERAMENT*
For courage mounteth with occasion.--KING JOHN.
"It is curious, is it not," Miss Esperance said to Mr. Wycherly, "how
entirely those two dear boys differ in character. Sometimes I think
that Montagu must be like his mother's family. He is certainly not like
ours."
"I am not sure that fundamentally Montagu is so very unlike you, Miss
Esperance. In some ways, too, he strikes me as resembling Edmund,
though not on the surface. I don't think that you need feel disturbed.
Montagu is a Bethune _au fond_, although he may seem milder and
perhaps--er--less strenuous than Edmund."
Miss Esperance shook her head, unconvinced.
"No," she said, "from all I remember of my brothers and myself and from
what I know of my dear father, I don't think Montagu is one of us.
Edmund is, absolutely, a Bethune for good and ill--and there's a great
deal of ill, mind, in our characters. But Montagu is too reflective,
too slow to act. He is not impulsive, like the rest of us, and look how
serene he is! He is hardly ever in a temper, and the Bethunes have
always been so hot-tempered and high-spirited."