THE LOST BROOCH.
Jem had been brought up as a painter, and had served his time in that
trade. But painters are often slack, as he knew to his cost; and when he
had nothing much to do he used to employ his fingers in another way.
Besides, there were long evenings and half holidays when he could pursue
the avocation which he liked much better than even painting.
During the years in which he had been learning his trade he had been
thrown with carpenters and builders of every class, and he soon had made
up his mind that he would learn all he could, so that, should the
opportunity ever come, he should know how to be a builder himself.
But times had not as yet been propitious, and at twenty-five he found
himself still only a painter, with a very fair knowledge of carpentering
into the bargain.
About a year ago he had been taken on as a permanent hand at a large
decorating-house, who undertook work in the country; and Jem, valued for
his trustworthiness and general ability, was often sent as one of those
who knew his own trade well, and also could turn his hand to several
others.
Thus it came to pass in the early spring of this same year he had been
sent to help in repairing Mrs. MacDonald's handsome house, and had
stayed there for two months.
He had soon met with Meg, and had been struck with her gentle modesty of
demeanour.
Hitherto the girls he had met had been dressed to the very utmost of
their means, and had behaved in a flighty, loud manner which grated on
his feelings.
"No such wife for me," he had said to his mother one evening, when they
had just met one of their acquaintances in gaudy finery, which could not
hide her slovenly boots or pinned-together dress.
His mother quite agreed. Hard-worked and poor as she was, no one had
seen her anything but neat.
But Meg was different. As now and then he met her flitting up the stairs
at the hall, or passing to and from her mother's cottage, he knew he had
to do with quite a different woman from those with whom he was
accustomed to meet.
He was sauntering along a lane one afternoon in March when his work was
over, thinking of all this, and enjoying the quiet twilight, when he saw
a stooping figure in front of him eagerly looking for something.
"Have you lost anything?" he asked, coming up to the figure. "Can I help
you?"
He found with a start that the subject of his thoughts was close to him.
Hitherto she had only nodded civilly in return for his passing greeting,
and now in the dusk hardly recognized him, though she knew he was a
stranger to their village.
"Oh, thank you!" she answered.
"What is it?" he asked.
"It is my mother's little brooch. I can't think how I came to drop it. I
should not mind so much only that it has my father's hair in it. She
values it very much."
"I dare say we shall manage to find it. When did you miss it?" he asked.
"Just now--not two minutes ago. I know I had it at that stile, because I
turned there to look at the new moon, and I had it in my hand then."
They searched in silence for some minutes, but the twilight had deepened
quickly, and the dewy grass seemed all one mist under their feet.
"This is damp for you, ain't it?" he asked suddenly.
"Yes; that was how I came to drop it. I gathered up my dress, and it
must have slipped then. Whatever shall I do?--we cannot see any
longer."
"I dare say they have a lantern at the stables; I will go and ask."
"I will wait here," she answered.
"Don't do that. You go home; I'll come back and look till it's found."
"I cannot trouble you with that," said Meg. "Mother and I will come
early to-morrow. No one passes this lane before seven. We could see soon
after six now."
"It will be no trouble," Jem answered earnestly; "and if it can be found
to-night it is far better nor waitin'. There is some things gets better
for waitin', but others----"
Meg listened: surely there was a serious tone in this man's talk, such
as her mother loved.
They were rapidly nearing the light in her mother's window.
"That is your home, ain't it?" asked Jem, pointing.
"Yes; how did you know?"
"I heard you lived there. May I come up to the door with you?"
Meg assented. She was rather surprised, but not sorry that he wished it.
When, however, he got to the door, he bade her an abrupt good-bye, and
hastened back along the path.
She saw his form disappear in the direction of the stables, and then she
opened the door and told her mother all about it.
"He's been working at the Hall for this month, mother; but I've never
spoken to him before."
Mrs. Archer went to the door and looked anxiously down the lane, as if
with her old eyes she could see the lost brooch herself.
"Dear, dear," she said, "to think I could have let you take it to be
mended, and not have gone myself!"
Poor Meg stood beside her in silence. She wished it too; but how could
she know she would lose it?
Just then a light twinkled down the lane, and passed rapidly onwards.
Meg bethought herself.
"Mother, I _must_ go back," she exclaimed. "What will they say to me? I
told them I should be home early. I'll try to send George over to know
if--if he has found it."
So when after a quarter of an hour's search Jem came back with it to the
cottage, the little bird whom he had hoped to see there was flown.
"I'm naught but a workman," he said to her, when after another month of
seeking the little bird he caught her at last; "and I haven't anything
nice to offer you, Meg. I can't give you such a home as you've been used
to, not even as good as you might ha' had at yer mother's."
Meg was going to speak, but he went on as if he must say all that was in
his heart.
"And I know I'm not so--so--refined, Meg, as you are. You have lived
amongst gentlefolks, I've lived amongst the poor, and I know now what I
didn't perhaps enough understand when I set my heart on you, that my
speech and my bringin' up is not so good as yours. Meg, if I've done you
a wrong in lovin' you, I'll go back home, and never come again--"
He paused: could he say any more? What would he do if she accepted that
last alternative of his?
But Meg put her hand into his.
"It's the heart, that is the thing, Jem," she whispered, "and that's
above fine words and ways."
"If you can be satisfied with that, Meg, we shall be very happy!" he
answered, clasping her hand tightly; "for my whole heart is yours, which
has never loved another."
"And I'm not afraid," Meg went on earnestly, "since you told me all that
happened two years ago. Any one who has felt like that is safe to
trust."
For Jem had told her one Sunday, when, with her mother's permission, he
had walked home from the evening service with her, what a different man
he had been since one particular day.
"I was going down a street near home," he had said, "when some people
came along singin' somethin' which I thought sounded very swinging and
pretty, and I stopped to listen. They marched along slowly, half-a-dozen
of 'em carryin' a banner in front of them, with the words in large
letters on it, 'Come to the hall at 7 o'clock and hear the good news.'
Still they went on with the singin', and I got curious to know what
their good news was.
"'Ye must be born again, again,
Ye must be born again, again;
I verily, verily, say unto you,
Ye must be born again!'
"On it went with a swingin' sort of roll, and I wondered, and followed
on in spite of myself. 'Seven o'clock; hear the good news!' What good
news was there in being told to be born again? Nonsense! this warn't any
good news as I could see. I'd a deal sooner they'd have told me where I
could ha' got a bit more work. That's what would ha' been good news to
me, I thought. But I went with 'em, for all that; and the end of it all
was, that I _was_ born again! That very night I got into a new sort o'
man. I left all the old things far away behind--'as far as the east is
from the west,' the man who preached said, and I got instead such a
white robe to cover me over, as made me feel whiter than the snow they
sang about. And that's how I came to be different--just washed in the
Blood of the Lamb!"
"I know what that means too," Meg had answered softly.
"I knew you did," he had said. And then they did not speak again till
they parted at the Hall gates.
"So, though I'm naught but a workman, you can put up with me, Meg?" he
asked, the day before he was going away, and the repairs were finished.
[Illustration: "Dickie," she whispered, as Jem paused, "don't yer like
to hear about Jesus? That's the Good Shepherd what I've told you about,
as loves the little lambs."--p.38.]
And she answered by putting her hand into his.
"One thing I can promise you," he said: "that as long as God gives me
strength I'll work for you, Meg!"
"And after that I'll work for _you_!" she answered, while two tears
glittered in her eyes.
In three months' time Meg left the sweet country and the great Hall, and
her mother and young sister, and went to London to make Jem happy.
Mrs. MacDonald gave her a nice wedding breakfast, and much good advice,
and Meg entered on her new life as we have seen, full of hope and peace.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]