Not that Elsie and Jim had many leisure hours. Like all else in the
little household, they had their work to do. McAravey's "farm" was but
a little patch of ten acres, part of it not even yet quite won back
from rock and bracken. On this he toiled as only a man can toil who
works for himself, and is assured of his interest in the soil on which
he drops his sweat. That he had no grown-up son (as might have been)
to aid his declining strength was a hidden sorrow to the old man. He
worked on, however, and bravely did his uncomplaining wife assist him.
Neither of them had ever known an hour of either ill health or
idleness, and they were guiltless of any conscious or intentional
cruelty when they early and sternly disciplined their young charges to
the same laborious life. The duties of the children were manifold.
Jim herded McAravey's two or three cows, or acted as scarecrow in the
little patch of corn, each precious grain of which was grudged to the
passing birds. Elsie scoured the house, and carried out milk to one or
two somewhat distant neighbours. But the most arduous labour of the
children was one that they shared together. When the weather
suited--after a stormy night, or when there was a spring tide--they
would stand for hours on the beach, often wet to the waists, dragging
the tempest-tossed sea-weed to the shore with large wooden rakes. This
occupation was not merely arduous but dangerous. More than once had
little Jim, who was of lighter build than the girl, been fairly dragged
off his feet by the force of the receding wave, as it wrestled with him
for the possession of the mass of floating weed which he had hooked in
his rake. The weed thus drawn to shore was subsequently sorted, the
greater part being used for manure, while the rest was burned in one of
those rough kilns that abound along the coast, and reduced to kelp,
which is used in the manufacture of soap and glass, and from which
iodine is extracted. Thus, almost from infancy, the children had been
inured to labour, and alas! for them the sunny hours of idle rambling
amid the tangled foliage of the glen were few and far between. Neither
child had received any education. The only school was nearly four
miles off, up on the open moorland. It was only in summer that the
children could possibly attend, and even then their visits were
infrequent and irregular. On all religious subjects their young minds
were dark as night. Even a few days at school had taught them that
such things as reading and writing existed, and Jim especially had
developed in him vague ideas as to the power and wealth that might be
obtained if once he could master these mysterious subjects. But
religion was only known to them as being provocative of party quarrels
and domestic disagreements. Harsh and brief as was the general style
of intercourse between Mr. and Mrs. McAravey, there was no absolute
anger or violence about it, except when allusion was made to the
difference that through life had separated husband and wife. Even then
it seemed strange to the children that such fierce feelings and such
ill words should be excited by a matter that had absolutely no
influence on ordinary life, and which was never introduced but as a
bone of contention. Nor hitherto had the poor neglected ones any
opportunity of learning the blessed truths of a Father's and a
Saviour's love from any other quarter. There was no place of worship
in the glen. The Presbyterian chapel was a mile away, and even there
no Sunday-school was held. As for the Church, into the fold of which
the poor babes had been received, it was scarcely to be thought of,
being fully four miles off, across a rough mountain district. Here the
Rev. Cooper Smith ministered to a congregation that fluctuated much,
but was never very large. The parish was enormous, and the
Church-people dotted over it in a most unmanageable fashion. Yet it
was surprising what a considerable number of people were brought
together on a fine Sunday morning in summer. The clergyman, too,
persevered in keeping together what was at least the nucleus of a
Sunday-school, consisting of some twelve or fifteen children, whom he
and the clerk taught in the church before service. But from this means
of grace Elsie and Jim were cut off by distance, even if, as was more
than doubtful, their foster-parents would have allowed them to attend.
In the glen that sloped down to Tor Bay, there were no Church-people,
and but few children of any sort. Thus spiritual darkness reigned
supreme throughout this beautiful domain. Twice during five years in a
professional capacity (though several times on pic-nics) had the Rev.
Cooper Smith made his way to Tor Bay. The people had received him with
a patronising kindness, that was peculiarly irritating to his sensitive
and somewhat small nature.
"Sit down, mon, and rest yeresel' a bit; ye must be tired," said
McAravey, looking over his shoulder as he stalked out of the cottage.
"Don't you think you ought to send those children to school, Mrs.
McAravey?" asked the clergyman, whose kind heart had been touched, on
the occasion of a recent pic-nic, to see the half-drowned little ones
toiling amid the heaps of wet and writhing sea-wrack.
"Maybe ye 'd send yere carriage to fetch them up the brae!" remarked
Mrs. McAravey, with a harsh, disagreeable laugh at her own pleasantry.
"Well, it is rather far," replied Mr. Smith, somewhat apologetically;
"but it grieves me to see them growing up in ignorance, and without any
knowledge of the Saviour."
"Thank ye, sir," cried Mrs. McAravey, satirically, "but I think ma mon
and mysel' knows our duties, and can teach the wains, too, wi'out any
parson comin' to help us. A pretty thing to tell us we knows nothing
o' the Saviour! I can tell you, mon, I've walked more miles o' the
Sawbath to my place o' worship than some folks as I know walks in a
week."
The clergyman, somewhat taken aback at this outbreak, felt a rising
flush of anger, and could only reply--
"I think, my good woman, you might remember whom you are speaking to,
and might be civil to a stranger when he comes into your house."
To judge by the response, the second part of this appeal was more
effective than the first. An appeal to authority or respect of persons
is not usually successful in Ulster.
"I knows rightly who I 'm speakin' to, and I don't see as it makes any
differ; but I 'm sorry I spoke sharp, seein' ye come so far, only I
can't thole to be towd I 'm na fit to train up a wain in the knowledge
o' the Saviour."
Expressing a hope that Elsie and Jim would come to school when weather
and work permitted, and with a somewhat vague remark about "calling
again," the Rev. Cooper Smith beat as graceful a retreat as was
possible.
His other calls that day were scarcely more satisfactory, for though he
encountered no such actual rudeness, there was everywhere the same
patronising familiarity.
Andrew McAuley, the wealthiest farmer in the glen, invited him to have
"a drop o' something," adding, by way of encouragement, "Ye needn't be
afeerd--there's plenty iv it in the house."
The only person who seemed to recognise his spiritual office was widow
Spence, who, as the clergyman stood hesitating before leaving the
cottage (he was debating whether he should offer the old woman a
shilling), sympathetically remarked--
"Maybe, then, ye 'd like to mak' a wee bit o' a prayer afore ye go
back?"
Unreasonably, perhaps, the rector felt rebuked and annoyed by this
incident, and he walked home with a heavy heart. What could be done
for Tor Bay--so beautiful, yet so barbarous--so out of the way in every
sense? His personal efforts did not seem likely to be rewarded with
success, even if he could keep--which he did not himself believe that
he could--to the often-made resolution to be more frequent and regular
in his visits across the hill. He had been wounded in many points that
day, yet he had not gone away without hearing one note of
encouragement. Many a day and many a night he saw, like Paul, the
figure of one who said to him, "Come over . . . and help us." Only the
figure was that of a brown, blushing, merry-eyed girl of nine, who held
by the hand a delicate-looking, white-haired, timid boy. Again and
again he fancied himself walking sadly and dreamily on the pure smooth
sand of the beautiful secluded bay. Again and again he was murmuring
the lines--
"Every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile"--
when he hears a voice, and turning, sees the half-amused, half-eager
look of Elsie as she had said--
"Please, Jim says he 'd like to go to school, minister; and I 'd like
too, if it wasn't so far."