Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration: "I'VE SAID I'LL PUT A STOP TO IT AND I'LL DO IT."]
TWO SECRETS
AND
A MAN OF HIS WORD
BY
HESBA STRETTON
AUTHOR OF "JESSICA'S FIRST PRAYER," "ALONE IN LONDON,"
"NO PLACE LIKE HOME," "THE CHRISTMAS CHILD," ETC.
London
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
4, BOUVERIE STREET AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD
BUTLER & TANNER
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS
FROME, AND LONDON.
STORIES BY HESBA STRETTON
The Children of Cloverley | The King's Servants
Enoch Roden's Training | Little Meg's Children
Fern's Hollow | The Lord's Purse-Bearers
In the Hollow of His Hand | Alone in London
Pilgrim Street | Lost Gip
A Thorny Path | Max Kromer
Cassy | The Storm of Life
The Crew of the "Dolphin" | Jessica's First Prayer
Jessica's Mother | Under the Old Roof
Left Alone | No Place Like Home
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, 4 BOUVERIE STREET
CONTENTS
TWO SECRETS
A MAN OF HIS WORD
CHAP. I. HIS ONLY CHILD
" II. "CAST OUT"
" III. HIS GRANDSON
" IV. HIS OWN WAY
" V. A CRITICAL MOMENT
" VI. A TRUE MAN
TWO SECRETS
AND
A MAN OF HIS WORD
TWO SECRETS
[Illustration]
ABOUT a stone's throw from the last house in the small country town of
Armitage stood a cottage which had scarcely changed in aspect since it
had been built two hundred years ago. The gambrel roof was high-pitched
and closely thatched, with deep eaves, under which the swallows built
their nests; the little elbow in the slope of the gable gave it a
quaint look, as if the cottage had drawn a hood over its head. Along
the top of the roof grew a row of purple flags, which contrasted well
with the brown thatch and golden lichens. Casements, with small diamond
windows, glistened in the light. A garden full of old-fashioned flowers
ran down from the road to the little porch, which sheltered the door
from rough weather, and made a pleasant and shady seat in the summer.
It was certainly the most picturesque dwelling in the neighbourhood.
"What is the name of your cottage?" asked an artist, who had just
finished a sketch of it.
"Oh! It hasn't any name, sir," answered Joanna Terry—"it's nothing;
only our home."
She had been born there, and had not been away from it for a whole
week at a time for fifty-five years. She hardly knew any other house.
The ground floor of the cottage contained a large, old-fashioned
living-room, with two very small ones opening out of it, one of which
was a kind of scullery, and the other the bedroom in which she had
been born, and where she had slept all her life. Under the gable of
the thatched roof there was a large attic covering the whole area of
the cottage, with sloping ceiling and two windows, one at each end,
looking east and west. Joanna's mind could not grasp the idea of any
improvement in the arrangement of her little homestead.
The tall, spare old woman was still very active and alert, with an
eye keen to detect every weed venturing to grow in the garden, and
every speck of dust that might blow in through the open window and
door. Scarcely a bud opened on the roses and clematis climbing up the
half-timber wall without her notice. The hollyhocks and sunflowers,
standing as erect as herself, were every one known to her. The
potato-patch behind the cottage, which her husband, Amos Terry,
cultivated in his leisure time; the long rows of peas and beans; the
beds of onions and lettuce; the fruit-trees which paid their rent—they
were almost like children to her. Indoors, the old oak settle by the
fireside, the oak table and dresser, all shining with the active work
of her own hands, teemed with associations and memories which formed
the sum and substance of her life. The roof-tree was not more planted
to the spot than Joanna was.
Still more firmly rooted there, if possible, was her only child,
Charlotte, who lived in the pleasant attic under the roof. She was
lame, and an invalid from a spinal complaint, the result of a fall when
she was a little child. It was very seldom that she felt well enough to
creep painfully down the rude staircase to the ground floor. But from
her two windows her eye could overlook both of the garden patches lying
before and behind the house; and she knew everything growing in them as
well as her mother did. Eastward her view was bounded by a low ridge of
hill, above which the morning clouds hung tinged with lovely hues some
time before the sun showed itself over the wooded outline. To the west
there was a wide stretch of undulating land, with meadows and coppices
and scattered cottages, ending far-off in a glimpse of the sea, which
often glittered like gold under the setting of the sun. Charlotte
seldom missed seeing both sunrise and sunset.
She was thirty years of age now, pallid and emaciated, with the
pathetic look in her eyes which cripples and deformed people so often
have. She looked almost as old as her mother. The mother and daughter
had been slowly changing places for the last fifteen years. Charlotte
was the adviser now, the head of the little household, the referee to
whom every question was brought. She was always brooding over schemes
for her father and mother's comfort, and suggesting gently what their
actions should be from day to day. Joanna was still young in spirit,
apt to act impetuously; occasionally giving way to almost girlish fits
of temper, which she confessed and repented of by Charlotte's bedside.
It did not seem possible there could ever come a secret between these
two.
Amos Terry, who was two years older than his wife, had been a rural
postman for thirty-seven years. The daily routine of his work had
never altered. At six o'clock, summer and winter, he presented himself
at the post-office in the town, and received the various letter-bags
which he had to convey along a route, the farthest point of which was
seven miles away. As it was out of the question for him to return home
and walk the same distance again, he remained at this farthest point
all day, and hired a small out-building, where he occupied his time
profitably in mending the boots and shoes of a considerable circle
of customers who valued his careful work. At four o'clock he started
homeward, collected the bags he had distributed in the morning, and
was timed to be at the post-office again at half-past six, soon enough
to make up the evening mail. The old church clock never struck seven
before he was at home, going first thing upstairs to his daughter's
attic. The sight of her face, wan and drawn as it was with pain, but
always lit up with a smile of welcome, was the most precious sight in
the world to him. He had never had a secret from her in his life. His
whole heart and mind and soul lay open to her as absolutely as it is
possible for one human being to be open to another.
"I don't think there's anybody in the world as happy as me," said Amos,
perfectly convinced of the truth of his assertion, "at least, not one
bit happier; they couldn't be."
"Not if Charlotte was strong and well?" suggested Joanna, with a sigh.
It was she who had let her child fall when a baby.
"Maybe I should have gone away and left you," said Charlotte; "it 'ud
never have done for me to live idle here. Or I might have been married,
you know," she added, with a faint blush and a smile.
"Anyhow, it is as the Lord has willed it," Amos answered, "and
sometimes I think He'll be weary of me sayin' how happy I am."
There was very little to disturb that happiness. Ambition was unknown
to them. No religious or political questions perplexed their humble
souls. Care was a long way off, for they had more than enough for
their simple wants. They needed neither fine clothes, nor dainty food,
nor costly furniture. A few old-fashioned books, gathered together by
Joanna's forefathers, were enough for their mental requirements. The
"Pilgrim's Progress" and "Holy War," the "Vicar of Wakefield," the
"Fool of Quality," and "Paradise Lost," were ranged on a little hanging
shelf in Charlotte's attic, and with their Bible and a hymn-book
provided amply for Joanna and Amos, whilst more modern books were now
and then lent to Charlotte by friendly visitors from the town. They had
beautified their little home, and cultivated their garden according to
their own fancy; and if three wishes had been given to them, they would
have been puzzled to fix upon one.
If Joanna knew and loved her house almost as her own soul, Amos also
knew and loved the route he traversed daily in all weathers. More than
six hundred times a year he passed the same cottages, tramped along the
same lanes between high hedgerows, and looked up to the same constantly
changing sky overhead. He loved it ardently though dumbly, possessing
no language that could express his feelings. He was fond of singing,
but he sang somewhat as the birds sing, that know only a strain or two.
Amos knew only a few hymns, and he generally sang them through again
and again as he went to and fro, until the cottagers on his route knew
when he was drawing near, and hastened to their doors or windows to
give him a friendly nod.
It was getting well on In October. The low-lying hills were covered
with coppices of beech-trees, now wearing the loveliest tints of
autumn. Down each valley ran a little rivulet, joining a broad and
rapid but shallow stream, which hurried along a stony channel to the
sea. Amos seldom went home without taking some flower or leafy branch
for Charlotte; and he was gathering a cluster of crimson berries from a
climbing bryony, when a young man, the eldest son of Squire Sutton, of
Sutton Hall, where he had just called for the letter-bag, came running
quickly, though cautiously, after him. He did not shout or call to
Amos; and he was almost out of breath when he reached him.
"Amos," he gasped, "here's a letter. It's a matter of life or death to
me. Let me put it into father's bag."
He had brought the key with him, and Amos watched him unlock and lock
the bag again. He had recovered his breath now, and he looked at Amos
with a world of anxiety in his face.
"You are never too late, I suppose?" he said.
"Now, Master Gerard, you've known me all your life," answered Amos,
"and you might almost as well ask if the sun 'll set at the right time.
I have come and gone on this road nigh on forty year, and never missed
yet. Nobody ever gave me a letter for life or death afore; and it 'ud
be odd indeed if I missed tonight."
As Amos trudged on the sun went down behind the sweet round outline of
one of the low hills, and the sky looking nearer than in the summer,
seemed about to close, like brooding wings, over the quiet woods. Two
or three robins were chirping cheerfully among the thinning leaves,
which came down with a rustle as the cool evening breeze blew up the
valley from the sea. A profound peace rested on all the silent lanes
and meadows he traversed, which would have been too solemn if he had
not loved it so profoundly.
But all in a moment a tumult of children's voices scattered the
silence, and Amos saw a troop of terrified little ones running towards
him and screaming for help. Looking beyond them he saw that one of
their playfellows had fallen into the stream, which was carrying the
child swiftly away towards the sea. He had no time to deliberate; there
was not a moment to lose. In another minute the drowning child would be
abreast of the spot where he stood. He laid his bags down safely on the
bank, and waded into the shallow river, which, a few minutes ago, was
running like a thread of gold between its banks in the radiance of the
setting sun.
There was no great risk in what Amos was doing. The river, unless it
was swollen by rain, was never more than breast-high. He caught the
child in his hands as the current bore it past him, and carried it
in safety to the bank. But there was no one in all the band of its
companions old enough to take care of the little creature. The child's
head had struck against a stone, and it lay a heavy load in his arms.
He must carry it himself to the nearest cottage, which was almost a
mile away. With his letter-bags slung across his shoulders, and his
clothes heavy with water, Amos could not make very rapid progress. The
cottagers were not very willing to take in a strange child, belonging
to nobody but gipsies, and he had some trouble to get them to relieve
him of his charge. More than an hour was gone before he could hasten on
his ordinary way.
And he did hasten. In spite of his wet clothes and sodden boots, he
pushed on along the darkening lanes, and across the dusky meadows, not
losing a moment. It was always Charlotte's custom during the summer to
be at the window about the time he was due, to give him a smile as he
passed by; and when the evenings closed in early she placed a candle on
the window-sill, that its feeble glimmer should show him a welcome. The
candle was shining through the diamond panes, but he hardly saw it as
he rushed past. What Amos did see was the world of anxiety in the young
squire's face, as he said, "You are never too late, I suppose?"
The postmaster was standing out on the pavement, looking down the quiet
street, and the gaslight was turned low in the office, usually so busy
a scene till the time for closing, when Amos staggered, breathless and
worn out, up to the familiar door.
"Why, Amos, my man!" exclaimed the postmaster. "However is this? We
waited till the last moment, and the mail has gone down to the station
these ten minutes. Hark! There's the whistle! The train's off!"
Amos reeled up against the door, as if struck by a gun-shot. He was
too late! It was some minutes before he could tell his story; and the
postmaster, with a good deal of sympathy and approbation, tried to
console him.
"Nobody could blame you, Amos," he said. "I must report the matter to
headquarters, of course, and there will be some inquiry about it, no
doubt. Ten to one there is no letter of importance in your bags."
"Oh, sir!" cried Amos. "Is there nothing can be done? Think if there is
anything can be done."
"Well," he answered, after a moment's pause, "you might catch the
express at Norton Junction. It's perhaps worth trying, but I'm afraid
the department will not allow the expenses. We'll see about that. A
light cart and a good horse would run you into Norton in two hours."
"I'll try for it," said Amos. "Please send word to my wife and
Charlotte, or they'll be fretting all night."
It was an anxious night to Joanna and Charlotte, even though the
postmaster called himself to tell them all that had happened, and to
praise Amos to them. The praises were very gratifying; but the two
women could not help thinking of him driving through the chill October
night in his wet clothing. How sharp the air felt, when they opened the
window to see if there was any rain or fog! The hours wore slowly away.
Joanna kept up a good fire, and had the kettle boiling, and put the old
brass warming-pan ready to warm the bed as soon as Amos came in cold
and famished. But no one came.
"Mother," said Charlotte, towards four o'clock in the morning, "of
course they'd never drive straight there and back again. The poor horse
'ud have to rest, you know."
"Ay, dear love," answered Joanna; "but Amos might come home by the
mornin' mail, and that's just due, I'm thinkin'."
Still the time crept on slowly, and there was no click of the garden
gate, and no step coming down the gravel walk. At the first dawn Joanna
looked out on the garden, with its tall hollyhocks and sunflowers still
bearing a little blossom; but all appeared dull, and grey, and gloomy
to her sleepless, aching eyes. If anything should happen to Amos, even
the Garden of Eden would be a desert to her.
But the worst that happened was a sharp attack of rheumatic fever for
Amos, following upon a kind of fainting fit, which seized him just as
he delivered up his letters to the clerks in the travelling post-office
at Norton Junction. He was promptly carried to the Norton Cottage
Hospital; and there Joanna found him the following afternoon; and she
wept tears of mingled joy and sorrow as she sat at his bedside and
listened to the tale of his remarkable adventures.
"We shall never leave off talkin' of them," he said with a smile, "when
I come home to you and Charlotte."
It was six weeks before he came home. The doctors told him he was quite
well again and might resume his work, but he must take care of himself.
Amos knew this even better than they did. The old buoyant strength, the
careless, untiring delight with which he had been wont to stride along
the old familiar roads, were gone for ever. He loved them as much as
ever; but he did not go out of his way now to look into some secluded
dingle, and he could not afford to pause and listen to any strange cry
in the wintry woods. It was as much as he could do to accomplish his
task. He was even compelled to hire a substitute when the snow lay
heavy on the road, or when torrents of rain were falling. He had paid a
heavy price for saving the life of a tramp's child. No one had thanked
him for it; and he had not even the satisfaction of knowing whom or
where the little creature was.
When he first called at Sutton Hall after his long illness, the
servants told him how the young squire had made a runaway match, much
to his father's displeasure. The young squire and his bride had gone to
foreign parts, nobody knew where; and his father refused to continue
his allowance, though he could not cut off the entail. This was the
matter of life or death; and Amos was not sure that he would have
driven off to Norton in his wet clothes if he had known the secret of
the young squire's anxiety.
"But what's done is done," said Amos to himself; "and I thought I was
doin' what the Lord set for me."
As time went on it became the custom for Joanna to take her husband's
bags, at least every other day, and always in bad weather. The
postmaster, who was friendly to them both, winked at this irregularity;
and none of the great people on the road complained of it. It was
little to Joanna to walk the seven miles out and back again; and the
load was never very heavy. But the long wait of seven or eight hours at
the farthest village was a severe trial to her. She took some sewing or
knitting; but her heart was at home, wondering how Amos and Charlotte
were going on, and longing after her accustomed work in the house and
the garden. Her home seemed, if possible, to grow dearer to her every
day; and her love was heightened by these enforced absences. There was
no other real place in the world to her; it was her world. The joy of
going back to it, and to those who lived in it, was the deepest earthly
joy her soul could feel.
This home was held on a peculiar tenure, which she had all but
forgotten. Joanna's father and uncle had clubbed their money together
to buy it for three lives: their own, and the life of Joanna's cousin,
a lad fifteen years younger than herself, whose probable term of
existence was so far longer than hers. But as her father paid the
larger share of the purchase money, he had stipulated that Joanna
should have the right of inhabiting the cottage on payment of a low
rent to her cousin. When the three lives were ended the freehold went
back to the original owner.
It was nearly three years after Amos met with those adventures, which
had formed the topic of endless conversations, before the postmaster
succeeded in persuading him to resign his post and take the small
pension due to him for his forty years' service. This step would
make a radical change in their lives, and it was as important to him
personally as the resignation of a prime minister.
"We shall get along rarely," said Joanna, though with a shade of
anxiety in her voice; "the garden is worth £12 a year to us; and when
you're at home to help, we shall make more of it. We can hire a bit o'
land, and grow more things, and your pension 'll be a grand help."
"Surely! Surely!" assented Amos.
"And, mother," said Charlotte gently, "let us remember the words of our
Lord Jesus, how He said, 'Take no thought for the morrow—'"
"Ay; but somebody must take thought," Joanna interrupted, "or how 'ud
the work get done? How 'ud the seeds get sown, and the house minded,
and food bought in? Thee and Amos mayn't take thought, but it falls
upon me to do it."
[Illustration: ONE MORNING, AFTER A NIGHT OF HEAVY RAIN,
JOANNA SET OUT FOR THE POST OFFICE.]
"But, mother," said Charlotte, "it means, 'Be not anxious for your
life.' I used to puzzle over it hours and hours, because one must
use forethought, till Mr. Seaford told me the words meant, 'Never be
anxious.' Our Lord says, 'Your Father knows ye have need of these
things'—food, and clothing, and shelter—and He will provide them. Yes,
we shall get along finely."
The question troubled no more any of the three simple souls. Amos was
to give up his work at Christmas, when he would complete the fortieth
year of daily work as a rural letter-carrier, and until then he or his
wife would carry the letter-bags along the familiar roads. One morning
late in October, after a night of heavy rain, Joanna set out for the
post-office, leaving Amos at home in bed, bearing his rheumatic pains
courageously and patiently. She made the fire up with a huge lump of
coal which would smoulder for hours, until Amos got up.
It was still dusk when she passed the cottage on her journey out, and
the beloved roof, with its deep eaves, stood darkly against the cold
grey dawn. A thin column of smoke wavered upward in the dank air.
Joanna held a letter in her hand, directed to herself, which she had
got at the post-office; and the temptation was strong to go in and
strike a light and read it before she went on her way. She received a
letter so seldom! But then every other letter entrusted to her would be
delayed; and who could tell what might be the consequences if she was
unfaithful to her charge? Besides, Amos would be worried. She passed by
steadily, giving a loving nod to the old home under whose roof her only
two beloved ones were sleeping.
It was not until she reached the end of her journey, and had delivered
the last bag at the village post-office, that she sat down in the shed
where Amos was wont to work as a cobbler, and took up the letter. She
read the outer inscription to herself solemnly, and carefully opened
the blue envelope. It was dated from Norton, and began with the word
"Madam!"
"Oh, it's a mistake," cried Joanna, half aloud. "Nobody never called me
Madam!"
But the address was plainly "Mrs. Amos Terry."
"There's nobody else of that name in our place," she reflected, and
went on slowly spelling her way through the letter.
It was to the effect, expressed in formal phraseology, that her cousin,
the third beneficiary under the tontine by which her cottage was held,
being now dead, the freehold fell to the original owner; and the writer
of the letter, being his agent, was instructed to give her immediate
notice to deliver up the cottage in good and tenantable repair.
Joanna read and re-read the letter. She was an intelligent woman, but
at first she could not grasp the meaning in its full bitterness. No
word had come to her of her cousin's illness and death. It was true
they did not correspond except on the quarter-days when she sent the
rent and he acknowledged it. By-and-by her brain began to act clearly.
If her cousin was really dead, a man not much more than forty years of
age, then, of course, the tontine was ended, and the cottage was hers
no longer. At the thought of it, her heart died within her.
She leaned her trembling grey head against the wall, and shut her
aching eyes. A phantasmagoria of the beloved home passed swiftly
through her mind. She saw it in winter with snow upon the thatch, and
long icicles fringing the eaves, all the garden round it sleeping in
wintry sleep, and nursing the roots and seeds in its frozen bosom; in
spring-time, with the young, fresh green of the lilacs and roses and
honeysuckles budding out around it; in summer, almost smothered in
blossoms; and in autumn, as she had seen it this morning, dank with
rain, but snug and dry as a nest within. Every flower that had bloomed
during the last summer, the fruit-trees laden with fruit, the long
rows of beans and peas—all seemed to stand up clearly before her eyes,
asking if it was possible for them to grow out of that soil under any
other care than hers.
Then she had visions of herself: a baby crawling over the low
door-sill; a little child running in and out with her prattle to the
father and mother; a tall girl going to school and winning prizes to
take home to them; and then, when Amos came courting, how the click
of the garden gate sent her in trembling and blushing to her mother's
side. And all the years since—the long stretch of nearly forty peaceful
happy years—lived under the old roof, until every lifeless thing had
become alive with memories. Not a nail had been knocked in any wall,
not a patch put into the thatch, but she knew all about it: and having
not much else to think about, she could remember how and when and why
each slight change had been made.
Joanna did no work that day. She sat still in the little shed,
oblivious of cold and damp and hunger, brooding over the terrible
letter. She forgot to eat the dinner she had brought with her. One
decision only she could come to—to keep her secret as long as she
could. Why should Amos and Charlotte suffer as she was suffering, until
she had done all she could do?
It was hard to go in home that night. She must be her usual self,
cheery, and a little talkative, asking trifling questions about what
they had done all day, whilst her heart felt breaking at the sight of
every familiar object. But she did her best, not daring to complain
of any ache or pain, lest Amos should insist upon going out in the
continued bad weather. At last, the first fine day, when he could
undertake his duty, Joanna found some excuse for going to Norton. She
had learned to know the place well while Amos lay ill in the hospital.
The agent who had written to her was in his office; and after a little
delay she was admitted to see him. He was a busy man, pompous in his
manner, and he could see nothing to interest him in a plain, ill-clad
country woman, whose homely face was no more eloquent than her words.
She had but little language in which to plead for what was a matter of
life or death to her.
"My good woman," he said at last, rather angrily, "I have no time for
further discussion. I am instructed to sell the property; and £150 has
been offered for it. If you can make me a better offer, I am willing to
take it. If not, you must be out before Christmas."
It was like listening to a death-sentence. The house was going to be
sold! Could she offer more than £150? She might as well think of buying
one of the crown jewels. Leave before Christmas! Why, that was only six
weeks off; and Amos and Charlotte had no thought of such a thing yet.
She went home stunned, not knowing what to do. It was as if Fate had
put a dagger in her hand, and bade her pierce the hearts of her two
beloved ones. She did her best to shake off the feeling of doom which
was crushing her; and for some days she went about her daily work with
a Spartan-like cheerfulness. But the bitterest anxiety and despondency
were gnawing at her heart. The only relief was when Amos was obliged to
stay at home, and she could trudge along the wintry lanes, unseen by
eyes that loved her homely face and watched it.
But the time came at last when she could no longer delay to strike the
blow which would wound Amos and Charlotte as her own heart was wounded.
It was necessary to seek some other roof to shelter them; for December
was come, and on Christmas Eve they must leave the old home.
"Amos," she said, in a tremulous voice one cold, dark night, after she
had come in from her long tramp, "my cousin's dead."
"Ah! Dear heart!" he answered her. "And did he die happy?"
She had never thought of that.
"I don't know," she cried, bursting into tears, "but oh! Amos, we shall
have to lose our old place!"
He had been stirring up the fire to make a cheerful blaze, but now he
sat himself down beside her on the oak settle, and put his old arm
round her, drawing her closely to him. He was trembling too with the
suddenness of the shock her words had given to him. The firelight
played upon their wrinkled faces, and upon the hard and withered hands
which clasped each other so fast. Both of them were silent for a few
minutes. Amos knew full well the anguish that filled his wife's heart.
"Let us go and tell Charlotte," he said at last.
It was one of her bad days, and she had not left her bed. A patchwork
counterpane, made by Joanna, covered her, and patchwork curtains
sheltered her from the draught of the window. Her aching head and
pallid face lay on a down pillow, with a linen slip spun and woven by
Joanna's mother. The attic looked like a home that had been long and
intimately occupied. Joanna sank down on her knees, with a deep moan,
beside the bed; whilst Amos, in a faltering voice, told the sad news
briefly.
"Then that's what it means!" cried Charlotte, lifting up her head, and
looking at him with shining eyes. "All day long, for the last five or
six days, there's been a whisperin' in my mind, 'Though He slay me, yet
will I trust in Him.' It's God's voice, father. He's spoken beforehand
to me, to comfort you and me."
Joanna raised her care-worn and tearful face, and Amos laid his rough
hand tenderly on his daughter's head. Neither of them doubted that God
had indeed spoken to her.
"A father couldn't do anything to his child that seems worse than
slaying it," continued Charlotte, "but I've read of fathers, loving
fathers, that have done it rather than let them fall into the hands of
wicked men that would kill them cruelly. The children would trust their
fathers to kill them. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.'"
"Ah! Dear heart! We'll trust in Him," Amos answered.
They sat up late that night talking over the utter change in their
future life, and trying to face the calamity from every point of view.
But, after all their discussion, there was nothing for it but to accept
the sorrow as God's will, to which they must meekly submit their own.
The trouble fell most lightly on Amos. His home was where his wife and
daughter were; and he had lost neither of these. All his days had been
passed away from the cottage, and his life had not been so closely
interwoven with it. Besides, he was almost as ignorant as a child
about ways and means. His weekly wages had always been handed over, as
soon as he received them, to Joanna, who provided for him everything
he needed, leaving him only a few pence in his pocket to meet any
unforeseen contingency. The faculty of dealing with money, which is one
of the latest we acquire, and one of the earliest we lose, had never
been developed in Amos. No anxious foreboding troubled him as to food,
shelter, and clothing. Joanna was there; she would see to all that.
Charlotte, also, had never had the spending of five shillings in her
life. All she needed came to her as the air and the light came, without
care and without thought. Joanna had shielded her always from all
anxiety. It would be a great grief to quit the old home; but there
rose in her something of the self-sustaining spirit of a martyr. If
she must suffer, she would suffer with rejoicing. There had been
women who trusted in God whilst they were wandering about in deserts,
and mountains, and caves, and holes in the earth, being destitute,
afflicted, tormented. This trial of her faith was nothing compared with
theirs. God should find her trusting Him through sorrow and trouble,
as she had trusted Him in peace and tranquility. She would take up the
cross willingly, and follow the Lord whithersoever He pleased to lead
her.
Was the burden lighter to Joanna because the others bore it lightly?
All her life had been spent laboriously in providing for and shielding
her two beloved ones. Every shilling, for their sakes, had been made to
do the duty of thirteenpence. She had diligently practised industry,
and thrift, and forethought every hour of every working day; and now
she could not enter into the Sabbath rest of Charlotte and Amos.
The future loomed very dark and dreary. There would be no immediate
distress; for had not she scraped painfully together as much as £50,
which was safely deposited in the post-office savings bank? But she
always regarded that as a nest-egg for Charlotte, if she should happen
to outlive her and Amos. As she sought for some cheap and comfortless
lodging in the town, she wondered how she could manage where there was
no garden where she could grow vegetables and savoury herbs, and where
she could keep a few fowls. Every egg, every potato even, would have to
be bought; and the only money coming in would be the small pension due
to Amos. She foresaw herself spending, with a constant heart-pang, the
nest-egg laid by for Charlotte.
Joanna fought hard against distrust of God. She listened, with a ghost
of a smile, to Charlotte's consoling and courageous thoughts, but she
could not enter into them. It was strange how this new misery made
everything about her start into greater vividness. Every object about
the cottage, and within it, seemed to be almost alive and thrusting
itself into her notice. Even the old cracks in the window-panes
impressed themselves upon her mind. Still more keenly did she see and
read afresh the familiar faces of her husband and daughter. Perhaps we
see least those whom we love most. They live so closely beside us that,
though their voices are in our ears, and the sense of their presence
is always with us, we hardly look at them, and time leaves traces
on their beloved features undetected by us. Joanna was startled to
recognise how Amos was looking an old man, and how pallid and worn was
Charlotte's face. Oh! If the blessed Lord would only let them all pass
away together from this world before the great sorrow came!
A few days before Christmas the postmaster handed a foreign letter
to Amos when he came at six o'clock in the morning for the bags. He
read it, as Joanna had read hers, in his cobbler's shed. It came from
Madeira, and was written by young Squire Sutton, whose runaway marriage
he had unconsciously helped. There were only a few words, for in it
was enclosed a letter to Joanna, which was not to be opened or spoken
of till Christmas Day. Amos put the letter carefully aside, smiling
a little sadly to himself as he thought he had a secret as well as
Joanna. But he did not dwell upon his secret much. The dreaded crisis
had come, and his old home was being dismantled. These few days were
full of slow, suppressed anguish to Joanna, as one by one she carried
the smaller treasures of her home to the dreary lodgings in the town.
Each night when Amos came in some familiar household goods were
missing, and their empty places stared him eloquently in the face.
Forebodings of the immediate future began to peer at him through the
shadow of the coming event. He almost forgot he had any secret, and he
ceased to smile when it crossed his mind.
Christmas Eve came at last—the dreaded day. Heaven had not interfered
to prevent their exile. Only the heavier pieces of furniture remained
to be moved—the oak settle from the hearth; the old four-post bedstead
on which they had slept so peacefully all their married life, on which
Joanna's forefathers had died, and on which she and Amos had expected
to lie down and die as peacefully as they had slept. The tall clock in
the corner, which had stood there over a hundred years, must be taken
down. It was to Joanna as if she saw the roof-tree give way when she
watched their old friends touched by strange hands. Every stroke of a
hammer stunned her; every creak of the old furniture pierced her to the
heart.
The doctor came in the middle of the day, and kindly carried Charlotte
away in his carriage to their new abode. Joanna was left alone, for she
had insisted upon Amos going this last day of all upon his round. He
would come back rich with Christmas boxes; but what were any gifts to
Joanna just then? She watched the cart-load of heavy goods start off,
and then she looked round with bitter despair at the dismantled rooms.
She went outside and paced mournfully round the beloved garden, dearer
to her than any other spot on earth. It was a clear wintry day, with
a blue sky, and a white frost which silvered over every leaf of the
evergreen bushes and every bare branch and twig of the trees. A fringe
of icicles hung from the eaves, sparkling like diamonds in the sun. But
there was no smoke rising from the chimney, no face at any window, no
sign of habitation. The cottage seemed to feel itself deserted. Such
forlornness had not befallen it for uncounted years. It and Joanna were
going to part, and it had already a forsaken look, which brought a
burst of bitter tears to her old eyes.
She walked feebly away, looking neither to the right hand nor the
left, and the neighbours had compassion on her, leaving her alone with
her grief. The two rooms which formed their new home were in a state
of utter confusion. The men who had removed the heavy furniture were
putting up the bedstead in the room which must now be bed-chamber,
kitchen, and all. A little room at the back, opening on to walls, and
chimneys, and roofs, was to be Charlotte's.
Joanna set to work at putting things to rights a little; but she was
bewildered and confused, and Charlotte, with a tender and gentle voice,
told her what to do, as if she had been in the habit of directing
household matters. Joanna obeyed her as if in a dream.
Amos came in at his usual hour, and gave Charlotte a kiss, as he had
done each night ever since she came into the world. Then he looked
hesitatingly and shyly at his wife's sad face, and his old arm went
round her neck, and her head sank upon his breast. There was something
sacred and sacramental in the unwonted caress. It was the first moment
of consolation that had come to Joanna, and her face was brighter when
she lifted it up. At any rate, she had lost neither Amos nor Charlotte,
she said to herself.
There was little sleep for any of the three that night. The
unaccustomed noises in the street, the closer air, the sense of being
in a strange place, all kept them awake. Joanna got up early in the
dark Christmas morning, and pottered about with a candle among their
littered goods to find the articles necessary for breakfast.
"A happy Christmas to you, mother!" called Charlotte from the inner
room.
A lump rose in Joanna's throat, and for a minute or two she could not
bring herself to speak. Fifty-seven happy Christmases had found her in
her old home; but now! Then she said in a whisper, "Lord, forgive me!"
"A happy Christmas to you, Charlotte!" she called back in a shrill and
strained voice.
It was a comfortless breakfast amid their disorderly possessions; but
Amos kept making light of it, and apologizing, as if in some way it was
his fault. As soon as it was ended, he and Joanna went into Charlotte's
room to reckon up the presents which had been given to him the day
before. He was an old man, and a favourite, and his Christmas boxes
amounted to more than five pounds.
"But good sake!" he cried suddenly. "I've got a Christmas letter for
you, mother, and I shouldn't wonder if there weren't a pretty card or
something in it. It's from young Squire Sutton, and it came to me a
week ago, but I weren't to speak a word of it till Christmas Day in the
morning. Here, Charlotte; it's for your mother, my dear, but you'll
read the writin' the easiest."
The young Squire began his letter by saying that but for Amos Terry's
promptitude in carrying on the letters entrusted to him he would
himself have missed the happiness of his life. He had heard the whole
story from a friend in the neighbourhood.
"We were sorry to hear Amos was ill with rheumatism, and now we hear
that he is obliged to give up being postman. We have often wished to
share our happiness with you two old friends, and as soon as we heard
your cottage was for sale we commissioned an agent to buy the freehold
for you, and we ask you both to accept it as our Christmas gift. With
all our hearts we wish you a happy Christmas."
Joanna fell down on her knees, and bowed her grey head upon her hands.
"Lord, forgive me! Lord, forgive me!" she sobbed. A positive pang of
gladness ran through her; it was like a rush of life poured into dying
veins. All the anguish and forlornness, all the dread and foreboding
were gone. The old home, dearer to her than ever, was hers again, and
by no uncertain tenure. Not only hers, but Charlotte's, if she should
outlive her. There was no danger now that Charlotte would ever be
homeless. When she lifted herself up and looked at her two beloved
ones, Charlotte's pale face had a tinge of colour, and Amos was looking
almost frightened at his fortune.
"Amos!" cried Joanna. "We must go and look at it this minute!"
They stood together, the old man and woman, at the garden gate, gazing
down on the paradise they had almost lost. It looked more lovely, more
desirable, more home-like than it had ever done, and now it was their
own. It seemed almost as if God had sent them the gift direct from
heaven.
"If it hadn't been for that tramp's child,"' said Amos slowly, "I
shouldn't ha' missed the mail that evenin'. And if I hadn't missed the
mail, the young Squire 'ud never have thought o' buyin' the house for
us. I've often and often wondered about that tramp's child; but there
now! 'Ye are of more value than many sparrows.'"
"Ay! That's true," said Joanna, with a sob of happiness.
A MAN OF HIS WORD
CHAPTER I
His Only Child
IF you take a railway map of England and Wales, you will see that, in
spite of its close network of railroads, meeting and crossing in all
directions, there are still many tracts of country where the villages
must be several miles from any station. In these out-of-the-way
spots life is more at a standstill now than even in the days when
stage-coaches and wagons were wont to run from town to town, taking
the villages in their route, and carrying with them the common gossip
of a whole neighbourhood. Twenty-five or thirty years ago, before the
railway system was as fully developed as it is at present, but when
it had already given a death-blow to the old coaching business, many
a village was cut off thus from its former intercourse with the outer
world, and left to live apart from the common life of the nation, or to
find its own way to a reunion.
In such a remote place, on the borderland which is half English and
half Welsh, lived Christmas Williams. The village was scarcely more
than a hamlet, having no pretension to a village street, its scattered
cottages standing alone in their own gardens. A brown, shallow,
brawling little river, which filled the quiet air with its singing, ran
along under the churchyard walls, over which the tall lime-trees threw
their deep shadows on the busy stream. West of the churchyard, still
on the bank of the river, lay Christmas Williams' garden: his special,
favourite garden, not the common piece of ground beside his house open
to every foot, but his own locked up, fenced-in plot, reached by a
footpath across his orchard.
Just within sight of the church stood Christmas Williams' house, the
village inn, holding a conspicuous position on a slope of ground, with
a primitive sort of terrace in front of it; over the wall of which
he could often be seen leaning, to look down on the carts and wagons
passing in the lane below, and to send messages, some friendly and some
hostile, by the drivers to their masters, on the various farmsteads
lying round the village.
There was no one in the neighbourhood who was considered better off,
or who had so widespread an influence as Christmas. He had been
churchwarden for many years, as well as constable of the township; for
rural police were not yet in existence. It was he who kept the keys of
the church, as well as of the crib, which was a small jail built in one
corner of the churchyard, and the terror of all the children of the
parish.
Yet the crib was seldom occupied, except sometimes after a club-day at
the village inn, when any drunken brawl was sure to excite Christmas
Williams' wrath, and bring down swift punishment on the offenders.
It was in vain to urge the argument that hard drinking was to his
own profit; he only permitted his customers to have as much as he
considered good for them; and if by any mischance they overstepped the
doubtful line between sobriety and drunkenness, down came the keys
of the crib, to which, as constable, he felt pledged to commit all
brawlers and disturbers of the public peace.
There was not a soul for miles round, as far as the distant town to
which he went to market twice a month, who did not know Christmas
Williams to be a just, upright man, and, above all, a man of his
word. His word was as good as another man's oath. His father had kept
the village inn before him, and had borne the same character. His
grandfather, too, had been landlord, churchwarden and constable; an
honest, plodding man. The house, with its wainscotted walls, and its
large, open kitchen, spacious enough to hold comfortably all the men in
the village; the office of churchwarden, with its close connection with
the rector; and the post of constable, making him the official guardian
of the public peace: all these had become almost as hereditary as the
estates of the duke, who owned a good part of the county. The duke was
not prouder of his descent and name than was Christmas Williams.
It was a peaceful, pretty village, with low round hills encircling it,
their soft outlines stretching across the sky, with coppices of young
larch-trees and dark Scotch firs climbing up their slopes. The air,
sweeping over a thousand meadows, where cowslips and buttercups grew
in profusion, bore no slightest taint of the smoke of cities. A soft
tranquility seemed to brood over the place in almost unbroken silence.
The grey old church, with no charm about it except its age, wore a look
of idleness and disuse, as if it had done with active service, and was
resting before settling down into ruins. Even on Sundays the doors
yawned merely to admit a handful of old-fashioned, steady-going people,
who listened sleepily to the old rector, as he read to them one of
Blair's Sermons, out of a volume from his library, not even taking the
decent trouble of making a manuscript copy of it.
The rector was an unmarried man, with few ideas beyond the pursuit of
country pleasures, which he had followed so long that they had mastered
him, and now held him in utter bondage. He was keen after a fox, and
could not keep away from a coursing match. His parishioners saw much
more of him in Christmas Williams' snug fireside corner than in his
desk and pulpit.
Who can tell how the mischief crept in? Little by little, step by
step; first a Sunday-school class in Widow Evans' cottage; a quiet
prayer-meeting or two; then an afternoon preaching. A change was coming
over the village; or, more truly speaking, over a small portion of the
villagers, but those were the steadiest and best. Christmas took no
notice of it at first; and the rector cared for none of those things.
The Sunday-school could hardly come under Christmas Williams' eyes,
for he spent the most of every Sunday in his garden by the churchyard,
scanning his well-kept beds, and strolling to and fro along the
walks, from which he could see the headstones on his father's and
grandfather's graves, and be forced sometimes to think of the far-off
time when his own should be standing beside them. It was the chief
trouble of his prosperous life that he had no son to carry on the name
of Christmas Williams. Still, his trouble was a slight one, for he had
a gentle, pretty little daughter, whom he had christened Easter, and
whom he loved almost as if she had been a son. Easter must marry young
and well, that he might hear her children call him grandfather.
But when the afternoon preaching began, and Widow Evans' son, a young
stripling who was not yet out of his time as a draper's apprentice,
stood up boldly, and with ready speech taught his fellow-villagers
what he himself was learning in the distant market-town, of eternity,
of the Saviour, and of God, Christmas roused himself. Worse than that,
by-and-by the lad brought with him a grave, earnest, eloquent man, who
preached such words as pricked the people to their hearts, and sent
them home talking and pondering over these new things. It was high time
for Christmas to bestir himself, both as churchwarden and constable.
"You can do nothing, Christmas," said the rector, sitting in his
favourite chimney-corner; while Easter, as she went about her work
softly and quickly, filled his glass for him from the brown jug on the
table between him and her father. "Come, live and let live. They don't
hurt me, and they ought not to hurt you. What harm is there in a bit of
psalm-singing and Bible-reading in a cottage? Bless you! I wonder any
one of them sets his foot inside the church; and I'll be the last to
blame them if they don't."
"I've said I'll put a stop to it, and I'll do it," cried Christmas.
"I'm a man of my word. I'll duck young Evans in my horsepond, if I can
only catch him. They shall be cut up root and branch. You'll see I'll
make short work of it."
"You cannot hinder them from meeting in Widow Evans' house, my man,"
replied the rector; "and you cannot stop them singing, and praying, and
preaching, as they please. She's my tenant, and I'll not disturb her,
poor soul! Let the thing alone, I say. Nobody knows better than me that
it was a mistake putting me into the Church; I'm no more fit for it
than for heaven itself. If I believed it would do me any good, I'd go
to their meetings myself."
He spoke sadly, and bent his head down for a minute; and Easter, seeing
it, drew nearer to the grey-haired old clergyman, whom she had known
and loved all her lifetime.
"Well, if I cannot put a stop to it," exclaimed Christmas, "no man,
woman, or child goes from my house to any of those fools' meetings.
Whoever does that, shall never cross my threshold again."
Easter's fair face grew pale, and her hands trembled as she rested them
for support on the table at which they were sitting. But there was a
steady light in her eyes, resolute as her father's, as she fastened
them upon his angry face.
"Father," she said, in a low, tremulous voice, "father, I've been there
every Sunday since they began. And I am converted, and believe in God,
and I must obey Him rather than you."