CHANGES.
Beyond the body of the crowd, outside the ring kept by the police, stood
Nelly Hardy, watching, without a vestige of colour in her face, for the
news from below. She had given a gasping sigh of relief as the names,
passed from mouth to mouth by the crowd, met her ear, and had leaned for
support against the wall behind her. So great was her faith in Jack's
resources and in Jack's destiny that she had all along hoped, and the
assertion that those who had first gone down to rescue the pitmen must
have fallen victims to the second explosion had fallen dead upon her
ears.
The school had been closed from the date of the accident, and had it not
been so, she felt that she could not have performed her duties. Hour
after hour she had sat in her cottage alone--for her mother had died a
year before--except when Mrs. Dodgson, who had long suspected her
secret, came to sit awhile with her, or Harry brought the latest news.
During this time she had not shed a tear, and, save for her white face
and hard unnatural voice, none could have told how she suffered. Harry
had brought her the news of the smoke being seen from the shaft of the
Logan pit before he carried it to Mrs. Haden, and she had at once thrown
on her bonnet and jacket and joined them as they started from the
village. When she reached the pit she had not attempted to approach, but
had taken her place at a distance. Several of her pupils, with whom she
was a great favourite, had come up to speak to her, but her hoarse, "Not
now, dear; please go away," had sufficed to send them off. But deeply
agitated as she was, she was hopeful; and deep as was her joy at the
news of Jack's safety she was hardly surprised. Dropping her veil to
hide the tears of joy which streamed down her cheeks, she turned to go
home; but she was more shaken than she had thought, and she had to grasp
at the wall for support.
So she waited until the last of the miners arrived at the surface, and
heard the speech of the government inspector. Then when she heard Jack's
elevation announced, the news shook her even more than that of his
safety had done, and she fainted. When she recovered the crowd was gone,
and Harry only stood beside her. He had felt that she would rather stand
and watch alone, and had avoided going near her, but when Jack was
driven off he had hastened to her side. He knew how she would object to
her emotion becoming known, and had contented himself with lifting her
veil, untying her bonnet strings, putting her in a sitting attitude
against the wall, and waiting patiently till she came round.
"Are you better now?" he inquired anxiously when she opened her eyes.
"Yes, I am well now," she said, glancing hastily round to see if others
beside himself had noticed her situation; "I am quite well."
"Don't try to get up; sit still a few minutes longer," he said. "Don't
try to talk."
"He has got his rise at last," she said smiling faintly and looking up;
"he has gone right away from us at a bound."
"I am glad," Harry said simply. "He has earned it. He is a grand, a
glorious fellow, is Jack. Of course I shall never be to him now what I
have been, but I know that he will be as true a friend as ever, though I
may not see so much of him."
"You are more unselfish than I, Harry; but as he was to rise, it was
better that it should be at a bound far above me. Now I am better; let
me go home."
Jack Simpson's fainting fit had been but of short duration. His sturdy
organization soon recovered from the shock which the fresh air and Mr.
Hardinge's announcement had made upon a frame exhausted by privation,
fatigue, and excitement. None the less was he astonished and indignant
with himself at what he considered a girlish weakness. His thoughts
were, however, speedily diverted from himself by a pitman telling him
that Jane Haden was in a second faint close by. Mr. Brook's carriage
had been sent for in readiness, immediately the possibility of his being
found alive had appeared; and that gentleman insisted upon Mrs. Haden
being lifted into it, and upon Jack taking his seat beside her to
support her. He then followed, and, amidst the cheers of the crowd,
started for Stokebridge.
Mrs. Haden recovered before reaching the village; and leaving her and
Jack at their home, with an intimation that the carriage would come at
an early hour next morning to fetch the latter up to the hall, Mr. Brook
drove off alone.
That afternoon was a proud day for Bill Haden and his wife, but a trying
one for Jack.
Every one in the place who had the slightest knowledge of him called to
shake his hand and congratulate him on his promotion, his friends of
boyhood first among them. Harry was one of the earliest comers, and
tears fell down the cheeks of both as they clasped hands in silent joy
at their reunion. Not a word was spoken or needed.
"Go round to Nelly," Jack said in an undertone as other visitors
arrived; "tell her I will come in and see her at seven o'clock. Come
again yourself before that, let us three meet together again."
So quickly did the callers press in that the little room could not hold
them; and Jack had to go to the front door, there to shake hands and say
a word to all who wanted to see him. It was quite a levee, and it was
only the fact that the gloom of a terrible calamity hung over
Stokebridge that prevented the demonstration being noisy as well as
enthusiastic.
By six o'clock all his friends had seen him, and Jack sat down with Bill
Haden and his wife. Then Jane Haden's feelings relieved themselves by a
copious flood of tears; and Bill himself, though he reproached her for
crying on such an occasion, did so in a husky voice.
"Thou art going to leave us, Jack," Jane Haden said; "and though we
shall miss thee sorely, thou mustn't go to think that Bill or me be
sorry at the good fortune that be come upon you. Thou hast been a son,
and a good son to us, and ha' never given so much as a day's trouble. I
know'd as how you'd leave us sooner or later. There was sure to be a
time when all the larning thou hast worked so hard to get would bring
thee to fortune, but I didn't think 'twould come so soon."
Bill Haden removed from his lips the pipe--which, in his endeavour to
make up for loss of time, he had smoked without ceasing from the moment
of his rescue--and grunted an acquiescence with his wife's speech.
"My dear mother and dad," Jack said, "there must be no talk of parting
between us. As yet, of course, it is too soon to form plans for the
future; but be assured that there will be no parting. You took me when I
was a helpless baby; but for you I should have been a workhouse child,
and might now be coming out of my apprenticeship to a tinker or a
tailor. I owe all I have, all I am, to you; and whatever fortune befall
me you will still be dad and mother. For a short time I must go to the
hall, as Mr. Brook has invited me; and we shall have much to arrange and
talk over. Afterwards I suppose I shall have to go to the manager's
house, but, of course, arrangements will have to be made as to Mr.
Fletcher's widow and children; and when I go there, of course you will
come too."
"Thee'st a good un, lad," Bill Haden said, for Mrs. Haden's tears
prevented her speech; "but I doubt what thou say'st can be; but we
needn't talk that over now. But t' old 'ooman and I be none the less
glad o' thy words, Jack; though the bit and sup that thou had'st here
till you went into th' pit and began to pay your way ain't worth the
speaking o'. Thou beats me a'together, Jack. When un see's a good pup un
looks to his breed, and un finds it pure; but where thou get'st thy
points from beats me a'together. Thy mother were a schoolmaster's
daughter, but she had not the name o' being fond o' larning, and was
a'ways weak and ailing; thy dad, my mate Jack Simpson, was as true a
mate as ever man had; but he were in no ways uncommon. The old 'ooman
and I ha' reared ye; but, arter all, pups don't follow their
foster-mother, for the best bull pup ain't noways injured by having a
half-bred un, or for the matter o' that one wi' no breed at all, as a
foster-mother; besides the old 'ooman and me has no points at all, 'cept
on my part, such as are bad uns; so it beats me fairly. It downright
shakes un's faith in breeding."
Here Harry's tap was heard at the door, and Jack, leaving Bill Haden to
ponder over his egregious failure in proving true to blood, joined his
friend outside.
Scarce a word was spoken between the two young men as they walked across
to Nelly Hardy's little cottage by the schoolhouse. The candles were
already lighted, and Nelly rose as they entered.
"My dear Nelly."
"My dear Jack," she said, throwing her arms round his neck as a sister
might have done, and kissing him, for the first time in her life; and
crying, "My dear Jack, thank God you are restored alive to us."
"Thank God indeed," Jack said reverently; "it has been almost a miracle,
Nelly, and I am indeed thankful. We prayed nearly as hard as we worked,
and God was with us; otherwise assuredly we had never passed through
such danger uninjured. I thought many a time of you and Harry, and what
you would be doing and thinking.
"I never gave up hope, did I, Harry?" she said; "I thought that somehow
such a useful life as yours would be spared."
"Many other useful lives have been lost, Nelly," Jack said sadly; "but
it was not my time."
"And now," Nelly said changing her tone, "there are other things to talk
of. Will you please take a chair, sir," and she dropped a curtsy.
"Didn't I tell you, Jack," she said, laughing at the astonishment in
Jack's face, "that when you congratulated me on getting my post here and
called me Miss Hardy, that the time would come when I should say, Sir to
you. It has come, Jack, sooner than we expected, but I knew it would
come."
Then changing her tone again, as they sat looking at the fire, she went
on, "You know we are glad, Jack, Harry and I, more glad than we can say,
that needs no telling between us, does it?"
"None," Jack said. "We are one, we three, and no need to say we are glad
at each other's success."
"We have had happy days," Nelly said, "but they will never be quite the
same again. We shall always be friends, Jack, always--true and dear
friends, but we cannot be all in all to each other. I know, dear Jack,"
she said as she saw he was about to speak vehemently, "that you will be
as much our friend in one way as ever, but you cannot be our companion.
It is impossible, Jack. We have trod the same path together, but your
path leaves ours here. We shall be within sound of each other's voices,
we shall never lose sight of each other, but we are no longer together."
"I have not thought it over yet," Jack said quietly. "It is all too new
and too strange to me to see yet how things will work; but it is true,
Nelly, and it is the one drawback to my good fortune, that there must be
some little change between us. But in the friendship which began when
you stood by me at the old shaft and helped me to save Harry, there
will be no change. I have risen as I always had determined to rise; I
have worked for this from the day when Mr. Pastor, my artist friend,
told me it was possible I might reach it, but I never dreamed it would
come so soon; and I have always hoped and thought that I should keep you
both with me. How things will turn out we do not know, but, dear
friends," and he held out a hand to each, "believe me, that I shall
always be as I am now, and that I shall care little for my good fortune
unless I can retain you both as my dearest friends."