If...
Thou hide thine eyes and make thy peevish moan
Over some broken reed of earth beneath,
Some darling of blind fancy dead and gone.
Keble.
There is such a thing as slack tide in the affairs of men, when a crisis
seems as if it would never come, and all things stagnate. The Law Courts
had as yet not concerned themselves about the will, vacation time had
come and all was at a standstill, nor could any steps be taken for
Lucas’s exchange till it was certain into what part of India Sir Philip
Cameron was going. In the meantime his regiment had gone into camp, and
he could not get away until the middle of September, and then only for
a few days. Arriving very late on a Friday night, he saw nobody but his
mother over his supper, and thought her looking very tired. When he
met her in the morning, there was the same weary, harassed countenance,
there were worn marks round the dark wistful eyes, and the hair,
whitened at Schwarenbach, did not look as incongruous with the face as
hitherto.
No one else except Barbara had come down to prayers, so Jock’s first
inquiry was for Armine.
“He is pretty well,” said his mother; “but he is apt to be late. He gets
overtired between his beloved parish work and his reading with Bobus.”
“He is lucky to get such a coach,” said Jock. “Bob taught me more
mathematics in a week than I had learnt in seven years before.”
“He is terribly accurate,” said Babie.
“Which Armie does not appreciate?” said Jock.
“I’m afraid not,” said his mother. “They do worry each other a good
deal, and this Infanta most of all, I’m afraid.”
“O no, mother,” said Babie. “Only it is hard for poor Armie to have two
taskmasters.”
“What! the Reverend Petronella continues in the ascendant?”
Bobus here entered, with a face that lightened, as did everyone’s, at
sight of Lucas.
“Good morning. Ah! Jock! I didn’t sit up, for I had had a long day out
on the moors; we kept the birds nearer home for you. There are plenty,
but Grimes says he has heard shots towards River Hollow, and thinks some
one must have been trespassing there.”
“Have you heard anything of Elvira? apropos to River Hollow,” said his
mother.
“Yes,” said Jock. “One of our fellows has been on a moor not far
from where she was astonishing the natives, conjointly with Lady Anne
Macnalty. There were bets which of three men she may be engaged to.”
“Pending which,” said his mother, “I suppose poor Allen will continue to
hover on the wings of the Petrel?”
“And send home mournful madrigals by the ream,” said Bobus. “Never was
petrel so tuneful a bird!”
“For shame, Bobus; I never meant you to see them!”
“‘Twas quite involuntary! I have trouble enough with my own pupil’s
effusions. I leave him a bit of Latin composition, and what do I find
but an endless doggerel ballad on What’s his name?--who hid under
his father’s staircase as a beggar, eating the dogs’ meat, while
his afflicted family were searching for him in vain;--his favourite
example.”
“St. Alexis,” said Babie; “he was asked to versify it.”
“As a wholesome incentive to filial duty and industry,” said Bobus.
“Does the Parsoness mean to have it sung in the school?”
“It might be less dangerous than ‘the fox went out one moonshiny
night,’” said their mother, anxious to turn the conversation. “Mr.
Parsons brought Mr. Todd of Wrexham in to see the school just as the
children were singing the final catastrophe when the old farmer ‘shot
the old fox right through the head.’ He was so horrified that he
declared the schools should never have a penny of his while they taught
such murder and heresy.”
“Served them right,” said Jock, “for spoiling that picture of domestic
felicity when ‘the little ones picked the bones, oh!’ How many guns
shall we be, Bobus?”
“Only three. My uncle has a touch of gout, the Monk has got a tutorship,
Joe has gone back to his ship, but the mighty Bob has a week’s leave,
and does not mean a bird to survive the change of owners.”
“Doesn’t Armine come?”
“Not he!” said Bobus. “Says he doesn’t want to acquire the taste, and he
would knock up with half a day.”
“But you’ll all come and bring us luncheon?” entreated Jock. “You will,
mother! Now, won’t you? We’ll eat it on a bank like old times when we
lived at the Folly, and all were jolly. I beg your pardon, Bob; I didn’t
mean to turn into another poetical brother on your hands, but enthusiasm
was too strong for me! Come, Mother Carey, _do_!”
“Where is it to be?” she asked, smiling.
“Out by the Long Hanger would be a good place,” said Bobus, “where we
found the Epipactis grandiflora.”
“Or the heathery knoll where poor little mother got into a scrape for
singing profane songs by moonlight,” laughed Jock.
“Ah! that was when hearts were light,” she said; “but at any rate we’ll
make a holiday of it, for Jock’s sake.”
“Ha! what do I see?” exclaimed Jock, who was opposite the open window.
“Is that Armine, or a Jack-in-the-Green?”
“Oh!” half sighed Barbara. “It’s that harvest decoration!” And Armine,
casting down armfuls of great ferns, and beautiful trailing plants, made
his entrance through the open window, exchanging greetings, and making a
semi-apology for his late appearance as he said--
“Mother, please desire Macrae to cut me the great white orchids. He
won’t do it unless you tell him, and I promised them for the Altar
vases.”
“You know, Armie, he said cutting them would be the ruin of the plant,
and I don’t feel justified in destroying it.”
“Macrae’s fancy,” muttered Armine. “It is only that he hates the whole
thing.”
“Unhappy Macrae! I go and condole with him sometimes,” said Bobus. “I
don’t know which are most outraged--his Freekirk or his horticultural
feelings!”
“Babie,” ordered Armine, who was devouring his breakfast at double
speed, “if you’ll put on your things, I’ve the garden donkey-cart ready
to take down the flowers. You won’t expect us to luncheon, mother?”
Barbara, though obedient, looked blank, and her mother said--
“My dear, if I went down and helped at the Church till half past twelve,
could not we all be set free? Your brothers want us to bring their
luncheon to them at the Hanger.”
“That’s right, mother,” cried Jock; “I’ve half a mind to come and
expedite matters.”
“No, no, Skipjack!” cried Bobus; “I had that twenty stone of solid flesh
whom I see walking up to the house to myself all yesterday, and I can’t
stand another day of it unmitigated!”
Entered the tall heavy figure of Rob. He reported his father as much the
same and not yet up, delivered a note to his aunt, and made no objection
to devouring several slices of tongue and a cup of cocoa to recruit
nature after his walk; while Bobus reclaimed the reluctant Armine from
cutting scarlet geraniums in the ribbon beds to show him the scene in
the Greek play which he was to prepare, and Babie tried to store up all
the directions, perceiving from the pupil’s roving eye that she should
have to be his memory.
Jock saw that the note had brought an additional line of care to his
mother’s brow, and therefore still more gaily and eagerly adjured her
not to fail in the Long Hanger, and as the shooting party started, he
turned back to wave his cap, and shout, “Sharp two!”
Two o’clock found three hungry youths and numerous dead birds on the
pleasant thymy bank beneath the edge of the beach wood, but gaze as
they might through the clear September air, neither mother, brother, nor
sister was visible. Presently, however, the pony-carriage appeared, and
in it a hamper, but driven only by the stable-boy. He said a gentleman
was at the house, and Mrs. Brownlow was very sorry that she could not
come, but had sent him with the luncheon.
“I shall go and see after her,” said Jock; and in spite of all
remonstrance, and assurance that it was only a form of Parsonic tyranny,
he took a draught of ale and a handful of sandwiches, sprang into the
carriage, and drove off, hardly knowing why, but with a yearning towards
his mother, and a sense that all that was unexpected boded evil. Leaving
the pony at the stables, and walking up to the house, he heard sounds
that caused him to look in at the open library window.
On one side of the table stood his mother, on the other Dr. Demetrius
Hermann, with insinuating face, but arm upraised as if in threatening.
“Scoundrel!” burst forth Jock. Both turned, and his mother’s look of
relief and joy met him as he sprang to her side, exclaiming, “What does
this mean? How dare you?”
“No, no!” she cried breathlessly, clinging to his arm. “He did not
mean--it was only a gesture!”
“I’ll have no such gestures to my mother.”
“Sir, the honoured lady only does me justice. I meant nothing violent.
Zat is for you English military, whose veapon is zie horsewhip.”
“As you will soon feel,” said Jock, “if you attempt to bully my mother.
What does it mean, mother dear?”
“He made a mistake,” she said, in a quick, tremulous tone, showing how
much she was shaken. “He thinks me a quack doctor’s widow, whose secret
is matter of bargain and sale.”
“Madame! I offered most honourable terms.”
“Terms, indeed! I told you the affair is no empirical secret to be
bought.”
“Yet madame knows that I am in possession of a portion of zie discovery,
and that it is in my power to pursue it further, though, for family
considerations, I offer her to take me into confidence, so that all may
profit in unison,” said the Greek, in his blandest manner.
“The very word profit shows your utter want of appreciation,” said Mrs.
Brownlow, with dignity. “Such discoveries are the property of the entire
faculty, to be used for the general benefit, not for private selfish
profit. I do not know how much information may have been obtained, but
if any attempt be made to use it in the charlatan fashion you propose, I
shall at once expose the whole transaction, and send my husband’s papers
to the Lancet.”
Hermann shrugged his shoulders and looked at Lucas, as if considering
whether more or less reason could be expected from a soldier than from a
woman. It was to him that he spoke.
“Madame cannot see zie matter in zie light of business. I have offered
freely to share all that I shall gain, if I may only obtain the data
needful to perfect zie discovery of zie learned and venerated father. I
am met wit anger I cannot comprehend.”
“Nor ever will,” said Caroline.
“And,” pursued Dr. Hermann, “when, on zie oder hand, I explain that my
wife has imparted to me sufficient to enable me to perfectionate
the discovery, and if the reserve be continued, it is just to demand
compensation, I am met with indignation even greater. I appeal to zie
captain. Is this treatment such as my proposals merit?”
“Not quite,” said Jock. “That is to be kicked out of the house, as you
shortly will be, if you do not take yourself off.”
“Sir, your amiable affection for madame leads you to forget, as she
does, zie claim of your sister.”
“No one has any claim on my mother,” said Jock.
“Zie moral claim--zie claim of affection,” began the Greek; but Caroline
interrupted him--
“Dr. Hermann is not the person fitly to remind me of these. They have
not been much thought of in Janet’s case. I mean to act as justly as
I can by my daughter, but I have absolutely nothing to give her
at present. Till I know what my own means may prove to be I can do
nothing.”
“But madame holds out zie hope of some endowment. I shall be in a
condition to be independent of it, but it would be sweet to my wife as a
token of pardon. I could bear away a promise.”
“I promise nothing,” was the reply. “If I have anything to give--even
then, all would depend on your conduct and the line you may take. And
above all, remember, it is in my power to frustrate and expose any
attempt to misuse any hints that may have been stolen from my husband’s
memoranda. In my power, and my duty.”
“Madame might have spared me this,” sighed the Athenian. “My poor
Janette! She will not believe how her husband has been received.”
He was gone. Caroline dropped into a chair, but the next moment she
almost screamed--
“Oh, we must not let him go thus! He may revenge it on her! Go after
him, get his address, tell him she shall have her share if he will
behave well to her.”
Jock fulfilled his mission according to his own judgment, and as he
returned his mother started up.
“You have not brought him back!”
“I should rather think not!”
“Janet’s husband! Oh, Jock, it is very dreadful! My poor child!”
She had been a little lioness in face of the enemy, but she was
trembling so hopelessly that Jock put her on a couch and knelt with his
arm round her while she laid her head on his strong young shoulder.
“Let me fetch you some wine, mother darling,” he said.
“No, no--to feel you is better than anything,” putting his arm closer--
“What was it all about, mother?”
“Ah! you don’t know, yet you went straight to the point, my dear
champion.”
“He was bullying you, that was enough. I thought for a moment the brute
was going to strike you.”
“That was only gesticulation. I’m glad you didn’t knock him down when
you made in to the rescue.”
She could laugh a little now.
“I should like to have done it. What did he want? Money, of course?”
“Not solely. I can’t tell you all about it; but Janet saw some memoranda
of your father’s, and he wants to get hold of them.”
“To pervert them to some quackery?”
“If not, I do him great injustice.”
“Give them up to a rogue like that! I should guess not! It will be some
little time before he tries again. Well done, little mother!”
“If he will not turn upon her.”
“What a speculation he must have thought her.”
“Don’t talk of it, Jock; I can’t bear to think of her in such hands.”
“Janet has a spirit of her own. I should think she could get her way
with her subtle Athenian. Where did he drop from?”
“He overtook me on my way back from the Church, for indeed I did not
mean to break my appointment. I don’t think the servants knew who was
here. And Jock, if you mention it to the others, don’t speak of this
matter of the papers. Call it, as you may with truth, an attempt to
extort money.”
“Very well,” he gravely said.
“It is true,” she continued, “that I have valuable memoranda of your
father’s in my charge; but you must trust me when I say that I am not at
liberty to tell you more.”
“Of course I do. So the mother was really coming, like a good little
Red-riding-hood, to bring her son’s dinner into the forest, when she met
with the wolf! Pray, has he eaten up the two kids at a mouthful?”
“No, Miss Parsons had done that already. They are making the Church so
beautiful, and it did not seem possible to spare them, though I hope
Armine may get home in time to get his work done for Bobus.”
“Is not he worked rather hard between the two? He does not seem to
thrive on it.”
“Jock, I can say it to you. I don’t know what to do. The poor boy’s
heart is in these Church matters, and he is so bitterly grieved at the
failure of all his plans that I cannot bear to check him in doing all he
can. It is just what I ought to have been doing all these years; I only
saw my duties as they were being taken away from me, and so I deserve
the way Miss Parsons treats me.”
“What way?”
“You need not bristle up. She is very civil; but when I hint that
Armine has study and health to consider, I see that in her eyes I am the
worldly obstructive mother who serves as a trial to the hero.”
“If she makes Armine think so--”
“Armie is too loyal for that. Yet it may be only too true, and only my
worldliness that wishes for a little discretion. Still, I don’t think
a sensible woman, if she were ever so good and devoted, would encourage
his fretting over the disappointment, or lead him to waste his time when
so much depends on his diligence. I am sure the focus of her mind must
be distorted, and she is twisting his the same way.”
“And her brother follows suit?”
“I think they go in parallel grooves, and he lets her alone. It is very
unlucky, for they are a constant irritation to Bobus, and he fancies
them average specimens of good people. He sneers, and I can’t say but
that much of what he says is true, but there is the envenomed drop in it
which makes his good sense shocking to Armine, and I fear Babie relishes
it more than is good for her. So they make one another worse, and so
they will as long as we are here. It was a great mistake to stay on, and
your uncle must feel it so.”
“Could you not go to Dieppe, or some cheap place?”
“I don’t feel justified in any more expense. Here the house costs
nothing, and our personal expenditure does not go beyond our proper
means; but to pay for lodging elsewhere would soon bring me in excess of
it, at least as long as Allen keeps up the yacht. Then poor Janet must
have something, and I don’t know what bills may be in store for me, and
there’s your outfit, and Bobus’s.”
“Never mind mine.”
“My dear, that’s fine talking, but you can’t go like Sir Charles Napier,
with one shirt and a bit of soap.”
“No, but I shall get something for the exchange. Besides, my kit was
costly even for the Guards, and will amply cover all that.”
“And you have sold your horses?”
“And have been living on them ever since! Come, won’t that encourage you
to make a little jaunt, just to break the spell?”
“I wish it could, my dear, but it does not seem possible while those
bills are such a dreadful uncertainty. I never know what Allen may have
been ordering.”
“Surely the Evelyns would be glad to have you.”
“No, Jock, that can’t be. Promise me that you will do nothing to lead to
an invitation. You are to meet some of them, are you not?”
“Yes, on Thursday week, at Roland Hampton’s wedding. Cecil and I and
a whole lot of us go down in the morning to it, and Sydney is to be a
bridesmaid. What are you going to do now, mother?”
“I don’t quite know. I feel regularly foolish. I shall have a headache
if I don’t keep quiet, but I can’t persuade myself to stay in the house
lest that man should come back.”
“What! not with me for garrison?”
“O nonsense, my dear. You must go and catch up the sportsmen.”
“Not when I can get my Mother Carey all to myself. You go and lie down
in the dressing-room, and I’ll come as soon as I have taken off my boots
and ordered some coffee for you.”
He returned with the step of one treading on eggs, expecting to find her
half asleep; but her eyes were glittering, and there were red spots on
her cheeks, for her nerves were excited, and when he came in she began
to talk. She told him, not of present troubles, but of the letters
between his father and grandmother, which, in her busy, restless life,
she had never before looked at, but which had come before her in her
preparations for vacating Belforest. Perhaps it was only now that she
had grown into appreciation of the relations between that mother and
son, as she read the letters, preserved on each side, and revealing
the full beauty and greatness of her husband’s nature, his perfect
confidence in his mother, and a guiding influence from her, which
she herself had never thought of exerting. Does not many an old
correspondence thus put the present generation to shame?
Jock was the first person with whom she had shared these letters, and
it was good to watch his face as he read the words of the father whom he
remembered chiefly as the best of playfellows. He was of an age and in
a mood to enter into them with all his heart, though he uttered little
more than an occasional question, or some murmured remark when anything
struck him. Both he and his mother were so occupied that they never
observed that the sky clouded over and rain began to fall, nor did they
think of any other object till Bobus opened the door in search of them.
“Halloo, you deserter!”
“Hush! Mother has a headache.”
“Not now, you have cured it.”
“Well, you’ve missed an encounter with the most impudent rascal I ever
came across.”
“You didn’t meet Hermann?”
“Well, perhaps I have found his match; but you shall hear. Grimes said
he heard guns, and we came upon the scoundrel in Lewis Acre, two brace
on his shoulder.”
“The vultures are gathering to the prey,” said his mother.
“I’m not arrived at lying still to be devoured!” said Bobus. “I gave him
the benefit of a doubt, and sent Grimes to warn him off; but the fellow
sent his card--_his_ card forsooth, ‘Mr. Gilbert Gould, R.N.,’--and
information that he had Miss Menella’s permission.”
“Not credible,” said Jock.
“Mrs. Lisette’s more likely,” said his mother. “I think he is her
brother.”
“I sent Grimes back to tell him that Miss Menella had as much power
to give leave as my old pointer, and if he did not retire at once, we
should gently remove his gun and send out a summons.”
“Why did you not do so at once?” cried Jock.
“Because I have brains enough not to complicate matters by a personal
row with the Goulds,” said Bobus, “though I could wish not to have been
there, when the keepers would infallibly have done so. Shall I write to
George Gould, or will you, mother?”
“Oh dear,” sighed Caroline, “I think Mr. Wakefield is the fittest
person, if it signifies enough to have it done at all.”
“Signifies!” cried Jock. “To have that rascal loafing about! I wouldn’t
be trampled upon while the life is in me!”
“I don’t like worrying Mr. Gould. It is not his fault, except for having
married such a wife, poor man.”
“Having been married by her, you mean,” said Bobus. “Mark me, she means
to get that fellow married to that poor child, as sure as fate.”
“Impossible, Bobus! His age!”
“He is a good deal younger than his sister, and a prodigious swell.”
“Besides, he is her uncle,” said Jock.
“No, no, only her uncle’s wife’s brother.”
“That’s just the same.”
“I wish it were!” But Jock would not be satisfied without getting a
Prayer-book, to look at the table of degrees.
“He is really her third cousin, I believe,” said his mother, “and I’m
afraid that is not prohibited.”
“Is he a ship’s steward?” said Jock, looking at the card with infinite
disgust.
“A paymaster’s assistant, I believe.”
“That would be too much. Besides, there’s the Scot!”
“I don’t think much of that,” said Jock. “The mother and sister are keen
for it, but Clanmacnalty is in no haste to marry, and by all accounts
the Elf carries on promiscuously with three or four at once.”
“And she has no fine instinct for a gentleman,” added Bobus. “It is who
will spread the butter thickest!”
“A bad look out for Belforest,” said Jock.
“It can’t be much worse than it has been with me,” said his mother.
“That’s what that little ass, Armine, has been presuming to din into
your ears,” said Bobus; “as if the old women didn’t prefer beef and
blankets to your coming poking piety at the poor old parties.”
“By the bye,” cried Caroline, starting, “those children have never come
home, and see how it rains!”
Jock volunteered to take the pony carriage and fetch them, but he had
not long emerged from the park in the gathering twilight before he
overtook two figures under one umbrella, and would have passed them had
he not been hailed.
“You demented children! Jump in this instant.”
“Don’t turn!” called Armine. “We must take this,” showing a parcel which
he had been sheltering more carefully than himself or his sister. “It
is cord and tassels for the banner. They sent wrong ones,” said Barbara,
“and we had to go and match it. They would not let me go alone.”
“Get in, I say,” cried Jock, who was making demonstrations with the
“national weapon” much as if he would have liked to lay it about their
shoulders.
“Then we must drive onto the Parsonage,” stipulated Armine.
“Not a bit of it, you drenched and foolish morsel of humanity. You are
going straight home to bed. Hand us the parcel. What will you give me
not to tie this cord round the Reverend Petronella’s neck?”
“Thank you, Jock, I’m so glad,” said Babie, referring probably to
the earlier part of his speech. “We would have come home for the pony
carriage, but we thought it would be out.”
“Take care of the drip,” was Armine’s parting cry, as Babie turned the
pony’s head, and Jock strode down the lane. He meant merely to have
given in the parcel at the door, but Miss Parsons darted out, and not
distinguishing him in the dark began, “Thank you, dear Armine; I’m so
sorry, but it is in the good cause and you won’t regret it. Where’s your
sister? Gone home? But you’ll come and have a cup of tea and stay to
evensong?”
“My brother and sister are gone home, thank you,” said Jock, with
impressive formality, and a manly voice that made her start.
“Oh, indeed. Thank you, Mr. Brownlow. I was so sorry to let them go;
but it had not begun to rain, and it is such a joy to dear Armine to be
employed in the service.”
“Yes, he is mad enough to run any risk,” said Jock.
“Oh, Mr. Brownlow, if I could only persuade you to enter into the joy of
self-devotion, you would see that I could not forbid him! Won’t you come
in and have a cup of tea?”
“Thank you, no. Good night.” And Miss Parsons was left rejoicing at
having said a few words of reproof to that cynical Mr. Robert Brownlow,
while Jock tramped away, grinning a sardonic smile at the lady’s notions
of the joys of self-sacrifice.
He came home only just in time for dinner, and found Armine enduring,
with a touching resignation learnt in Miss Parsons’s school, the sarcasm
of Bobus for having omitted to prepare his studies. The boy could
neither eat nor entirely conceal the chills that were running over him;
and though he tried to silence his brother’s objurgations by bringing
out his books afterwards, his cheeks burnt, he emitted little grunting
coughs, and at last his head went down on the lexicon, and his breath
came quick and short.
The Harvest Festival day was perforce kept by him in bed, blistered and
watched from hour to hour to arrest the autumn cold, which was the one
thing dreaded as imperilling him in the English winter which he must
face for the first time for four years.
And Miss Parsons, when impressively told, evidently thought it was the
family fashion to make a great fuss about him.
Alas! why are people so one-sided and absorbed in their own concerns as
never to guess what stumbling-blocks they raise in other people’s paths,
nor how they make their good be evil spoken of?
Babie confided her feelings to Jock when he escorted her to Church in
the evening, and had detected a melancholy sound in her voice which made
him ask if she thought Armine’s attack of the worst sort.
“Not particularly, except that he talks so beautifully.”
Jock gave a small sympathetic whistle at this dreadful symptom, and
wondered to hear that he had been able to talk.
“I didn’t mean only to-day, but this is only what he had made up
his mind to. He never expects to leave Belforest, and he thinks--oh,
Jock!--he thinks it is meant to do Bobus good.”
“He doesn’t go the way to edify Bobus.”
“No, but don’t you see? That is what is so dreadful. He only just reads
with Bobus because mother ordered him; and he hates it because he thinks
it is of no use, for he will never be well enough to go to college.
Why, he had this cold coming yesterday, and I believe he is glad, for
it would be like a book for him to be very bad indeed, bad enough to be
able to speak out to Bobus without being laughed at.”
“Does he always go on in this way?”
“Not to mother; but to hear him and Miss Parsons is enough to drive one
wild. They went on such a dreadful way yesterday that I was furious,
and so glad to get away to Kenminster; only after I had set off, he came
running after me, and I knew what that would be.”
“What does she do? Does she blarney him?”
“Yes, I suppose so. She means it, I believe; but she does natter him so
that it would make me sick, if it didn’t make me so wretched! You see he
likes it, because he fancies her goodness itself; and so I suppose she
is, only there is such a lot of clerical shop”--then, as Jock made a
sound as if he did not like the slang in her mouth--“Ay, it sounds like
Bobus; but if this goes on much longer, I shall turn to Bobus’s way. He
has all the sense on his side!”
“No, Babie,” said Jock very gravely. “That’s a much worse sort of
folly!”
“And he will be gone before long,” said Barbara, much struck by a tone
entirely unwonted from her brother. “O Jock, I thought reverses would be
rather nice and help one to be heroic, and perhaps they would, if they
would only come faster, and Armine could be out of Miss Parsons’s way;
but I don’t believe he will ever be better while he is here. I think!--I
think!” and she began to sob, “that Miss Parsons will really be the
death of him if she is not hindered!”
“Can’t he go on board the Petrel with Allen?”
“Mother did think of that,” said Babie, “but Allen said he wasn’t in
spirits for the charge, and that cabin No. 2 wasn’t comfortable enough.”
Jock was not the least surprised at this selfishness, but he said--
“We _will_ get him away somehow, Infanta, never fear! And when you have
left this place, you’ll be all right. You’ll have the Friar, and he is a
host in himself.”
“Yes,” said Babie, ruefully, “but he is not a brother after all. Oh,
Jock! mother says it is very wrong in me, but I can’t help it.”
“What is wrong, little one?”
“To feel it so dreadful that you and Bobus are going! I know it is
honour and glory, and promotion, and chivalry, and Victoria crosses,
and all that Sydney and I used to care for; but, oh! we never thought of
those that stayed at home.”
“You were a famous Spartan till the time came,” said Jock, in an odd
husky voice.
“I wouldn’t mind so much but for mother,” said poor Barbara, in an
apologetic tone; “nor if there were any stuff in Allen; nor if dear
Armie were well and like himself; but, oh dear! I feel as if all the
manhood and comfort of the family would be gone to the other end of the
world.”
“What did you say about mother?”
“I beg your pardon, Jock, I didn’t mean to worry you. I know it is a
grand thing for you. But mother was so merry and happy when we thought
we should all be snug with you in the old house, and she made such nice
plans. But now she is so fagged and worn, and she can’t sleep. She began
to read as soon as it was light all those long summer mornings to keep
from thinking; and she is teasing herself over her accounts. There
were shoals of great horrid bills of things Allen ordered coming in at
Midsummer, just as she thought she saw her way! Do you know, she thinks
she may have to let our own house and go into lodgings.”
“Is that you, Barbara?” said a voice at the Parsonage wicket. “How is
our dear patient?”
“Rather better to-night, we think.”
“Tell him I hope to come and see him to-morrow. And say the vases are
come. I thought your mother would wish us to have the large ones, so I
put them in the Church. They are £3.”
Babie thought Jock’s face was dazed when he came among the lights in
Church, and that he moved and responded like an automaton, and she could
hardly get a word out of him all the way home. There, they were sent
for to Armine, who was sufficiently better to want to hear all about the
services, the procession, the wheat-sheaf, the hymns, and the sermons.
Jock stood the examination well till it came to evensong, when, as his
sister had conjectured, he knew nothing, except one sentence, which he
said had come over and over again in the sermon, and he wanted to know
whence it came. It was, “Seekest thou great things for thyself.”
Even Armine only knew that it was in a note in the “Christian Year,” and
Babie looked out the reference, and found that it was Jeremiah’s rebuke
to Baruch for self-seeking amid the general ruin.
“I liked Baruch,” she said. “I am sorry he was selfish.”
“Noble selfishness, perhaps,” said Armine. “He may have aimed at saving
his country and coming out a glorious hero, like Gideon or Jephthah.”
“And would that have been self-seeking too, as well as the commoner
thing?” said Babie.
“It is like a bit of New Testament in the midst of the Old,” said
Armine. “They that are great are called Benefactors--a good sort of
greatness, but still not the true Christian greatness.”
“And that?” said Babie.
“To be content to be faithful servant as well as faithful soldier,” said
Armine, thoughtfully. “But what had it to do with the harvest?”
He got no satisfaction, Babie could remember nothing but Jock’s face,
and Jock had taken the Bible, and was looking at the passages referred
to He sat for a long time resting his head on his hand, and when at last
he was roused to bid Armine goodnight, he bent over him, kissed him,
and said, “In spite of all, you’re the wise one of us, Armie boy. Thank
you.”