GERTIE’S BIBLE.
Gertie Heckett sat by the bedside of her grandfather, holding his thin,
trembling hands in hers.
It was a bright sunshiny day, and the light streamed in through the
curtained window and fell upon the fair young face as it bent in gentle
sympathy over the prostrate and suffering man.
Gertie had been with her grandfather all the afternoon. Much had been
said. Gertie had told the old man the simple history of her later life,
and how she had heard once that he had gone away never to come back any
more.
The old man’s eyes never left the child’s face.
‘You’re rare and like my girl, Gertie,’ he said once—‘rare and like my
poor lass! P’r’aps if I’d seen how like you was to her years ago I’d
have been the better for it. I didn’t use yer well, Gertie, but it was
all fur the best. You’ve been brought up like a lady, and you found
good friends. It was all for the best—all for the best.’
Bess came in by-and-by to shift the old man’s pillows, and see if he
wanted for anything.
‘Missus,’ said Josh, in the low voice he always spoke now, ‘missus, ask
the young master to come in, will you? I’ve summat as I want to say to
my gal as I wants yer both to hear.
I carn’t make no will, but there’s things as I wants Gertie to ‘ave,
and maybe if you hears what they be, you’ll know it’s all right when
I’m gone——’
‘Oh, grandfather, you will get well perhaps!’ said Gertie, her eyes
filling with tears.
‘Nay, my lass—I’m goin’ home! Larst night I seed my gal a-sittin’
there, and I knows what that means. They say you allus sees the dead
when you’re goin’ to die yourself.’
Gertie said nothing, only in her heart she wondered if her grandfather
was fit to die. She longed to ask him if he had asked God to forgive
him, but she dared not.
When Bess returned with George the old man bade them shut the door and
lock it. His old caution had never left him.
‘That’s right, mum,’ he said; ‘now stoop down and give us the
letter-box as is under the bed.’
Bess did as Josh asked her, and handed him a tin box.
He raised himself in the bed, and Bess propped him up with the pillows.
‘Give us my keys, they’re under the pillow,’ he said, hugging the box
to his breast.
When he had the keys he unlocked the box, and waited a moment before he
opened it.
‘Listen here, guv’nor, and you, too, missus, now, ’cos I’m agoing to
make my will. I carn’t write it, so I say it. There’s jewels and things
in this here box as I’ve kept by for years, ’cos they was proputty and
easy to carry about. Some o’ these here walyables I should like given
to a church or something—some place as’ud be likely to do good with’em.
I carn’t give’em to the gal, ’cos why, ‘cos they ain’t clean. There’s
that on’em as makes’em not fit for my gal’s gal to have.’
He opened the box and drew out a beautiful diamond ornament.
George started back in astonishment.
‘Why, Heckett,’ he exclaimed, ‘where did you get that from? They’re my
mother’s jewels!’
‘What!’ cried Josh, his white face flushing. ‘Why o’ course they are! I
forgot. These here things are what I got at the Hall.’
‘Good Heavens, man!’ said George, ‘why didn’t you tell me you had them?
They’re all conclusive evidence of my innocence of that monstrous crime
of which I was suspected.’
‘Don’t talk so quick,’ said Heckett, ‘don’t talk so quick, guv’nor. I’m
weak, and I carn’t think in a hurry. Yes—yes—these are all yours. No
church won’t have’em. I can give ‘em back to you. It’ll be a sin off my
soul, won’t it?’
George had taken the box from the old burglar’s trembling hands, while
Bess and Gertie looked on, astonished spectators of the scene.
‘These are the jewels,’ cried George, lifting them to the light, ‘that
my poor father prized and never would part with! Often have I seen him
gazing at them and whispering my mother’s name.’
Suddenly from the things in the box George drew a faded sheet of paper,
and looked at it steadfastly.
‘It’s my father’s handwriting,’ he said softly, placing it to his lips.
‘Poor old dad! poor old dad!’
Gently he unfolded the writing and read it from beginning to end; then
he lifted his eyes, streaming with tears, and said:
‘Thank God! thank God! he forgave me!’
George Heritage had read the codicil by which his father had revoked
the will which left his property to Ruth Adrian, and had given
everything once more to his beloved son.
For years it had lain concealed among the old burglar’s treasures,
mixed up with the contents of the box stolen from the Hall, and thrust
away together by the thief in a secure hiding place. Josh Heckett
little knew the value of the bit of paper that had kept the stolen
jewels company, to see the light when on his death-bed he wished to
make reparation for the past.
‘Heckett!’ exclaimed George excitedly, holding the paper up; ‘there is
the band of Providence in this! You have done much evil in your long
life, I fear; but now, lying here near your end, God has made you the
instrument of His sovereign justice. You have united the husband and
wife whom you helped to separate—you have restored an honest man his
good name, and a disinherited son his rightful fortune!’
‘Have I done all that?’ exclaimed Josh, sinking back on his pillows
exhausted. ‘Lord, Lord, only to think on it!’
‘You have done all this, my poor fellow,’ said George, lifting the old
man’s head gently and putting the pillows right—‘all this and more. You
have made me the happiest man on earth!’
‘I’ve made somebody happy at last,’ sighed Josh, closing his eyes.
‘Don’t speak for a minute or two; I want to lie still and feel what
doin’ good be like.’
The little group sat silent when Josh Heckett lay with closed eyes, his
thoughts wandering far away into the past.
He was the first to speak.
‘Gertie!’
‘Yes, grandfather.’
‘Would you like to read my gal’s Bible to me?’
‘Oh, yes, grandfather, if you would let me!’ cried Gertie, eagerly.
‘Missus, ’said Josh, ‘give the gal her mother’s Bible. I ha’ kept it
all these years, but I never know as I should want it. I kept it for my
gal’s sake. It’s over yonder in the dror there.’ Bess followed the old
man’s finger.
She opened the drawer and drew out an old-fashioned cheap Bible, faded
and worn with age.
‘Give it to me.’
Josh took the book and looked at it reverently.
‘That’s it,’ he said; ‘she was always a-worriting of me to hear summat
out of it, was my gal. “Father,” she used to say, “I wish you’d let me
read yer a bit out of the Bible,” but I never would. It warn’t in my
line then.’
‘Shall I read it to you now, grandfather?’ said Gertie, softly laying
her hand upon the book.
‘Yes, gal, do. I seem to hear your mother’s voice a-sayin’ “Read the
Bible! Read the Bible!”’
‘What shall I read you, grandfather?’
‘Arn’t there summat in it about storin’ away proputty and about
thieves? Once I heard a chap at a street-corner a-lecturin’ on that. I
fancy something about that’ud be best for me to hear, eh?’
Gertie knew what her grandfather meant. She opened the Bible to search
for the passage, and as she did so a paper fluttered down upon the
floor.
George picked it up and read it.
‘Why,’ he exclaimed, ‘it’s a marriage certificate!’
‘A what?’ shouted Heckett, rising in the bed with new-found strength—‘a
what in my gal’s Bible?’
‘It is the marriage certificate of Ralph Egerton and Gertrude Heckett.’
‘God of heaven!’ cried the old burglar, clasping his hands; ‘my gal was
a honest gal arter all! His wife! his wife! My gal—my gal! why didn’t I
look in your Bible afore?’
In his wild excitement the old man had started up, and was clutching
fiercely at the pillows; his face was crimson and his sunken eyes were
starting from his head.
His hand was stretched eagerly towards Gertie, as though asking her to
give him the Bible. As Gertie held it out he clutched it, pressed it to
his lips, and then, with a little cry, fell heavily back upon the
pillows, while the life-blood welled from his mouth. The sudden
exertion had completed the long work of disease. Josh Heckett had burst
a blood-vessel, and was bleeding to death.
Late that evening a cab rattled up to the door of Josh Heckett’s house,
and Mr Duck and a strange gentleman got out.
The strange gentleman knocked at the door.
Bess opened it, and before she could ask their names the men had
brushed past her into a room where they heard the sound of voices.
George and Gertie were sitting in the shadow, and something was lying
quite still upon the bed.
‘Josh Heckett,’ exclaimed the strange gentleman, moving towards the
bed, ‘in the Queen’s name, I arrest you!’
George, forgetting caution, had hardly time to recover from his
astonishment at the entrance of strangers before the detective had
proclaimed his mission.
‘You are too late!’ exclaimed George, seizing the officer’s hand as it
was about to touch the bed. ‘Your prisoner has already gone to answer
for all his offences.’
‘Gone!’ exclaims the officer.
‘Yes, to the Great Sessions where all men are tried—Josh Heckett is
dead!’
‘It is true!’ whispered Jabez Duck; ‘he is dead!’
He had stolen softly to the bed where the dead man lay. At the sound of
George s voice he turned and faced him.
‘George Smith, by all that’s wonderful!’ he exclaimed. ‘Officer, arrest
this man! He is an escaped convict!’
Then, for the first time, did George remember his position. The sudden
death of Heckett and the strange circumstance which had produced it had
made him forget his own perilous position. That night Bess and Gertie
kept watch in the house of the dead, and George lay with the iron bolts
of justice shot upon him.
But his heart was light, for he knew that His hand which had lifted the
veil so far would bring the whole truth to light in His own good time.