THE LAW OF LOVE.
SPRINGCLIFFE is a long straggling village, stretching inland for nearly
a mile in length, and consisting of but one principal street, in many
parts of which the houses are but very thinly scattered. The lower
village, or that portion of it which is near the sea, presents all the
well-known peculiarities of a fishing village; whilst in the upper
portion, everything wears an agricultural aspect. Springcliffe church
is in the upper village; it is a plain stone structure, with a Norman
tower, and a sweet peal of bells.
A stream runs through some rich pasture meadows on its way to the sea;
and in its course works a large flour-mill, belonging to the proprietor
of one of the large farms in the neighbourhood, who thus combines the
trade of farmer and miller. In the mill cottage, close to the stream,
lived Frank Hardy's parents and their numerous family. On the other
side of the stream, steep wooded hills rise almost perpendicularly from
the water's edge; and from the summit of the hills the eye wanders far
away over a richly-wooded country, a great proportion of which is the
property of Squire Forbes, Oak Glen.
John Hardy and his wife had a large family of children, of whom Frank
was the eldest. They had lived for many years in the mill cottage;
for, although Hardy was by no means a steady man, and did not bear
the best of characters in the place, his master kept him on out of
kindly feeling towards his wife, who had lived many years as servant at
the farm before she married John Hardy. Then she had been an active,
bright-looking girl, full of life and spirits; now, she was a poor,
sickly, slatternly woman, finding it hard work to get food for herself
and her nine children.
Had John Hardy been steady and industrious, he might, long since, have
been foreman at the mill; but, more than once, he had seen younger
but steadier men promoted to the post, whilst he remained in the same
position he had held for years.
There was a roadside public-house, called "The Plough," not far from
the mill; and there John Hardy spent a good part of his weekly earning.
Whether, in former days, Mrs. Hardy had done her best to make her
husband's home comfortable, whether she had at all times remembered
that "a soft answer turneth away wrath," is very doubtful; but at the
time of which we are writing, John Hardy rarely spent an evening at
home, and his wife and children were frequently without food.
It was Mr. Giles, the farmer and miller, who had apprenticed Frank to
Mr. King, and who paid for the schooling of the elder children; always
upon condition, however, that they should be sent regularly to the
Sunday-school and to church. Hardy and his wife were seldom seen in
God's house; and it is not to be wondered at if very little of that
charity which "suffereth long, and is kind," was to be found in such a
godless home.
"Whatever brawls disturb the streets," says good Dr. Watts, "there
should be peace at home;" but there was little peace at the mill
cottage. Both parents were very passionate, and it was scarcely to
be expected that their children would be otherwise. Never taught to
control their tempers, the young Hardys were notorious in the village
as quarrelsome, disobedient, noisy children. There was one exception,
and that was little Grace Hardy, or "blind Gracie," as she was
generally called. When only two or three years old, she had been thrown
down by her father, who had stumbled against her as he entered his
cottage in a fit of intoxication. The child fell against the sharp edge
of the fender, and received such severe injury in the eyes that, after
much suffering, she became totally blind.
At the time when the accident happened, Mrs. White lived in a small
cottage near the Hardys. It was shortly after her husband's death, and
she had not yet been set up in her little shop. Always kind-hearted,
and clever at nursing, she had assisted Mrs. Hardy in her care of poor
Gracie, and the child became much attached both to her and to Walter,
who would sit for the hour together, endeavouring to amuse the blind
child.
Gracie's affliction had proved a blessing to her. Our greatest trials
are often blessings in disguise. In Gracie's case, God had sent His
Holy Spirit to soften the little girl's naturally self-willed and
passionate nature; and the once peevish, ill-tempered child became
gentle and patient under its blessed influence. The greatest pleasure
little Grace knew was going to the Sunday-school, where her gentle ways
and her loving disposition made her a great favourite with her teacher.
She had a sweet voice, and would sit in the summer time, for hours
together, by the banks of the stream, at the end of the garden, singing
over the hymns she had learned at school, and repeating over to herself
what texts of Scripture she could remember. The memory of blind persons
is generally more retentive than that of other people; God in His great
mercy seeming to make up to them in this way for the loss of sight.
No one could look at Little Gracie and fail to see that her blindness
was to her a great mercy. Living in a little world of her own, shut out
from seeing the unkind looks, the angry gestures, which so embittered
the lives of all the other members of her family, she was the only
happy inmate of the mill cottage. Her one real sorrow was the dislike
which her father ever seemed to feel towards her since the time of the
accident. Whether or not it was that Gracie's sightless eyes seemed
a constant reproach to him for his conduct, and that her presence
continually reminded him that the fearful lesson had been thrown away
upon him, it is certain that he scarcely ever addressed a kindly word
to her, and would coldly repel any little affectionate advances on her
part. John Hardy little knew the depth of love in his child's heart
which he thus wantonly rejected, and dreamed not that the day would
come when he would have given worlds to have possessed it; but it was
too late.
"If father would only love me!" Gracie would say to her mother.
And then, Mrs. Hardy, who was gentle towards her blind child, though
harsh and cold to everybody else, would whisper words of comfort,
always ending with, "Some day he will, Gracie."
At one time the child had tried by numberless little endearing ways
to win her father's love. She would creep gently up to him as he sat
by the fire in the winter having his supper, and once, but only once,
she had ventured to put her hand in his. But the little hand had been
thrust from him with angry words, and the child had crept sorrowfully
to her bed. After that she never went near her father, if she could
help it; and the sound of his coming footsteps, or of his voice, was
the signal for her to retreat. In summer she would hide herself in the
garden; in winter, in the little room where she and her sister slept.
One of Walter White's first efforts at carpentering on his own account
had been to erect a little rustic seat for Gracie, under an old elm
tree which grew near the bunks of the stream at the bottom of her
father's garden.
There, in the summer time, the blind child would pass hours together,
listening to the song of the birds, the hum of the insects, the
rustling of the leaves stirred by the passing breeze, and the pleasant
rushing sound of the mill-stream. At such times the child's thoughts
would wander far away into the distant future—to that blessed day when,
as her Bible told her, "the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the
ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart,
and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters
break out, and streams in the desert. And the ransomed of the Lord
shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon
their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing
shall flee away." (Isa. xxxv. 5-6, 10).
Gracie knew every word of the chapter whence these verses are taken;
she had learned it at the Sunday-school, and was never tired of
repeating it to herself.
"It sends away all my troubles," she would say to Walter, who was the
only one to whom she ever talked on the subject; none of her own family
would have understood her.
Even her mother, kind though she was to the blind child, could not
enter into her feelings on religious subjects. Gracie's "precious
Bible" was not yet "precious" to her mother. It is only through God's
grace that the Bible can ever be to any one what it was to little blind
Gracie,—
"Mine to comfort in distress,
If the Holy Spirit bless,"
as says the poet. What need, then, for us to pray that God would, of
His tender mercy, make His Word to be indeed a lamp unto our feet,
shining through the darkest earthly day, and guiding our steps towards
that heavenly country where there will be no more need of sun or
candle, "for the Lord God giveth them light?"
Gracie's brothers and sisters had each Bibles of their own, given them
by Farmer Giles; but they never opened them, except at school; and
whenever Gracie asked either of them to read a little to her in the
evening, they would burst into an unfeeling laugh, and say they were
not going to read unless they were obliged.
So the blind girl had to content herself with such passages as she
could remember, and would look forward to the visit which Walter
generally managed to pay her every Sunday afternoon, when he always
read chapter to her, in spite of the ridicule with which Frank and the
other Hardy boys never failed to assail him. Walter heeded them not.
He knew that he was doing a kind action, and that there was nothing
"unmanly," as they called it, in reading God's Holy Word to a blind
child.
"What are they all laughing at so?" asked Gracie, when Walter joined
her at the seat under the elm tree. They always sat there when the
weather was fine. "Were they laughing at you?" continued the child,
as Walter returned no answer to her question.
"I think they were, Gracie, but I don't mind."
"But please, Walter, I mind, and I don't like that you should be
laughed at for my sake."
Walter laughed at Gracie's serious tone. "Being laughed at breaks no
bones, as mother says, Gracie, and, somehow, it always makes me feel
stronger; that is, when my conscience tells me I am only doing what is
right. That's the true test, Gracie; doing wrong is the only thing one
need really feel ashamed of."
"You are very brave, Walter," said the child, and tears rolled down her
cheeks as she spoke. "I am not so; Frank laughed at me the other day
for singing a hymn, and I could not bear his laughing, and so I left
off singing. Was it very wicked, Walter?"
"Little girls are not as strong as—" men, Walter was going to say,
but he checked himself. "I mean, you can't expect to be as strong as
I am, Gracie; but still you ought to try and not be ashamed of doing
what is right. Our Saviour says we are not to be ashamed of confessing
Him before men; and when you let your brother's laughter make you stop
singing your hymn, it would seem to him as if you were really ashamed
of showing that you loved your Saviour."
"I didn't mean that; indeed I didn't, Walter," cried Grace, in distress.
"I don't think you did, Gracie; but there is a verse in the Bible which
says we are to keep 'from all appearance of evil'. (1 Thess. v. 22). I
was reading the chapter to mother last night, and she explained it to
me as meaning that it is not enough for us to feel in our hearts that
we do not mean wrong,—we must so act that there can be no mistake about
our motives. We must boldly do what we know to be right, regardless of
consequences. You may have made Frank think that, after all, you do
not really care about God and Jesus Christ, or you would never allow
yourself to be laughed out of your singing your hymn. Perhaps, too, he
did it for the very purpose of trying you."
"I will pray to God to make me braver next time, Walter." And then she
added, with a sigh, "How I wish my mother would talk to me as yours
does to you!"
"My mother is one of my great blessings, Gracie; I often think of those
lines:
"'Not more than others I deserve,
Yet God has given me more.'
"But where is Frank, Gracie? He was not in the kitchen when I passed
through. There was only Joe and Ned there. I made sure he would have
been at home this afternoon, and I wanted to speak a word to him."
"I heard him and Tom Haines unfastening the boat about half an hour
since," said Gracie, "and I think they went across into the wood, for I
heard the rustle under their feet."
"Is Tom Haines often here?"
"Almost every night; sometimes quite late. I hear them coming across in
the boat after I have been in bed a long, long time. He says it is such
a near way for him to come, now that he works near Oak Glen."
Walter was on the point of saying that Tom could not be coming home
from work so late at night; but he refrained himself, and merely said,—
"I don't think Tom a good companion for Frank, Gracie. I wish he would
not go with him."
"I don't like him, because he has such a loud, rough voice," said the
blind child; "and once when I was sitting in the boat, he said in a
loud whisper to Frank, he wondered what business I had there, and
that I should do something. I could not catch what he said, but Frank
answered I was safe enough, for I was blind. What do you think they
meant, Walter?"
Walter guessed what they meant full well, but he did not wish to alarm
Gracie; so he told her to keep as much out of their way as possible.
"Frank said I was never to sit in the boat again," said Gracie, "and
I don't much care about it; so now I always sit here, and then mother
says they cannot see me when they come down to the boat, because the
laurel hedge hides me from them."