AT CHURCH.
On the following Sunday morning, Mr. Mordaunt had a large congregation.
Indeed, he could scarcely remember any Sunday on which the church had
been so crowded. People appeared upon the scene who seldom did him the
honour of coming to hear his sermons. There were even people from
Hazelton, which was the next parish. There were hearty, sunburned
farmers, stout, comfortable, apple-cheeked wives in their best bonnets
and most gorgeous shawls, and half a dozen children or so to each
family. The doctor's wife was there, with her four daughters. Mrs.
Kimsey and Mr. Kimsey, who kept the druggist's shop, and made pills, and
did up powders for everybody within ten miles, sat in their pew; Mrs.
Dibble in hers, Miss Smiff, the village dressmaker, and her friend Miss
Perkins, the milliner, sat in theirs; the doctor's young man was
present, and the druggist's apprentice; in fact, almost every family on
the country side was represented, in one way or another.
In the course of the preceding week, many wonderful stories had been
told of little Lord Fauntleroy.
The Reverend Mr. Mordaunt had told the story of Higgins at his own
dinner table, and the servant who had heard it had told it in the
kitchen, and from there it had spread like wildfire.
And on market-day, when Higgins had appeared in town, he had been
questioned on every side, and Newick had been questioned too, and in
response had shown to two or three people the note signed "Fauntleroy."
And so the farmers' wives had found plenty to talk of over their tea and
their shopping, and they had done the subject full justice and made the
most of it. And on Sunday they had either walked to church or had been
driven in their gigs by their husbands, who were perhaps a trifle
curious themselves about the new little lord who was to be in time the
owner of the soil.
It was by no means the Earl's habit to attend church, but he chose to
appear on this first Sunday--it was his whim to present himself in the
huge family pew, with Fauntleroy at his side.
There were many loiterers in the churchyard that morning. There were
groups at the gates and in the porch, and there had been much discussion
as to whether my lord would really appear or not. When this discussion
was at its height, one good woman suddenly uttered an exclamation.
"Eh!" she said; "that must be the mother, pretty young thing."
All who heard turned and looked at the slender figure in black coming up
the path. The veil was thrown back from her face and they could see how
fair and sweet it was, and how the bright hair curled as softly as a
child's under the little widow's cap.
She was not thinking of the people about; she was thinking of Cedric,
and of his visits to her, and his joy over his new pony, on which he had
actually ridden to her door the day before, sitting very straight and
looking very proud and happy. But soon she could not help being
attracted by the fact that she was being looked at and that her arrival
had created some sort of sensation. She first noticed it because an old
woman in a red cloak made a bobbing curtsy to her, and then another did
the same thing and said, "God bless you, my lady!" and one man after
another took off his hat as she passed. For a moment she did not
understand, and then she realised that it was because she was little
Lord Fauntleroy's mother that they did so, and she flushed rather shyly,
and smiled and bowed too and said, "Thank you" in a gentle voice to the
old woman, who had blessed her. She had scarcely passed through the
stone porch into the church before the great event of the day happened.
The carriage from the Castle, with its handsome horses and tall liveried
servants, bowled round the corner and down the green lane.
"Here they come!" went from one looker-on to another.
And then the carriage drew up, and Thomas stepped down and opened the
door, and a little boy, dressed in black velvet, and with a splendid mop
of bright waving hair, jumped out.
Every man, woman, and child looked curiously upon him.
"He's the Captain over again!" said those of the on-lookers who
remembered his father. "He's the Captain's self, to the life!"
He stood there in the sunlight looking up at the Earl, as Thomas helped
that nobleman out, with the most affectionate interest that could be
imagined. The instant he could help, he put out his hand and offered his
shoulder as if he had been seven feet high. It was plain enough to every
one that however it might be with other people, the Earl of Dorincourt
struck no terror into the breast of his grandson.
"Just lean on me," they heard him say. "How glad the people are to see
you, and how well they all seem to know you!"
"Take off your cap, Fauntleroy," said the Earl. "They are bowing to
you."
"To me!" cried Fauntleroy, whipping off his cap in a moment, baring his
bright head to the crowd, and turning shining, puzzled eyes on them as
he tried to bow to every one at once.
"God bless your lordship!" said the curtsying, red-cloaked old woman who
had spoken to his mother; "long life to you!"
"Thank you, ma'am," said Fauntleroy. And then they went into the church,
and were looked at there, on their way up the aisle to the square
red-cushioned and curtained pew. When Fauntleroy was fairly seated he
made two discoveries which pleased him: the first was that, across the
church where he could look at her, his mother sat and smiled at him; the
second, that at one end of the pew against the wall knelt two quaint
figures carven in stone, facing each other as they kneeled on either
side of a pillar supporting two stone missals, their hands folded as if
in prayer, their dress very antique and strange. On the tablet by them
was written something of which he could only read the curious words:
"Here lyethe ye bodye of Gregorye Arthure Fyrst Earle of Dorincourt
allsoe of Alisone Hildegarde hys wyfe."
"May I whisper?" inquired his lordship, devoured by curiosity.
"What is it?" said his grandfather.
"Who are they?"
"Some of your ancestors," answered the Earl, "who lived a few hundred
years ago."
"Perhaps," said Lord Fauntleroy, regarding them with respect, "perhaps I
got my spelling from them." And then he proceeded to find his place in
the church service. When the music began, he stood up and looked across
at his mother, smiling. He was very fond of music, and his mother and he
often sang together, so he joined in with the rest, his pure, sweet,
high voice rising as clear as the song of a bird. He quite forgot
himself in his pleasure in it. The Earl forgot himself a little too, as
he sat in his curtain-shielded corner of the pew and watched the boy.
His mother, as she looked at him across the church, felt a thrill pass
through her heart, and a prayer rose in it too; a prayer that the pure,
simple happiness of his childish soul might last, and that the strange,
great fortune which had fallen to him might bring no wrong or evil with
it. There were many soft anxious thoughts in her tender heart in those
new days.
"Oh, Ceddie!" she had said to him the evening before, as she hung over
him in saying good-night, before he went away; "Oh, Ceddie, dear, I wish
for your sake I was very clever and could say a great many wise things!
But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be kind and true always, and
then you will never hurt any one so long as you live, and you may help
many, and the big world may be better because my little child was born."
And on his return to the Castle, Fauntleroy had repeated her words to
his grandfather.
"And I thought about you when she said that," he ended; "and I told her
that was the way the world was because you had lived, and I was going to
try if I could be like you."
"And what did she say to that?" asked his lordship, a trifle uneasily.
"She said that was right, and we must always look for good in people and
try to be like it."
Perhaps it was this the old man remembered as he glanced through the
divided folds of the red curtain of his pew to where his son's wife sat.
As they came out of the church, many of those who had attended the
service stood waiting to see them pass. As they neared the gate, a man
who stood with his hat in his hand made a step forward and then
hesitated. He was a middle-aged farmer, with a careworn face.
"Well, Higgins," said the Earl.
Fauntleroy turned quickly to look at him.
"Oh!" he exclaimed; "is it Mr. Higgins?"
"Yes," answered the Earl dryly; "and I suppose he came to take a look at
his new landlord."
"Yes, my lord," said the man, his sunburned face reddening. "Mr. Newick
told me his young lordship was kind enough to speak for me, and I
thought I'd like to say a word of thanks, if I might be allowed."
Perhaps he felt some wonder when he saw what a little fellow it was who
had innocently done so much for him, and who stood there looking up just
as one of his own less fortunate children might have done--apparently
not realising his own importance in the least.
"I've a great deal to thank your lordship for," he said; "a great deal.
I----"
"Oh," said Fauntleroy; "I only wrote the letter. It was my grandfather
who did it. But you know how he is about always being good to everybody.
Is Mrs. Higgins well now?"
Higgins looked a trifle taken aback. He also was somewhat startled at
hearing his noble landlord presented in the character of a benevolent
being, full of engaging qualities.
"I--well, yes, your lordship," he stammered.
"I'm glad of that," said Fauntleroy. "My grandfather was very sorry
about your children having the scarlet fever, and so was I."
"You see, Higgins," broke in the Earl with a fine grim smile; "you
people have been mistaken in me. Lord Fauntleroy understands me. Get
into the carriage, Fauntleroy."
And Fauntleroy jumped in, and the carriage rolled away down the green
lane, and even when it turned the corner into the high road, the Earl
was still grimly smiling.