THE STAR IN THE EAST.
"She has wit and song and sense,
Mirth and sport and eloquence."
--HUNGARIAN.
It was just six months after the arrival of the boatman's unexpected
little guest, that very late one evening, when the long summer
twilight had almost deepened to night, a mysterious horseman was seen
by a few of the villagers, who had not yet closed their doors for the
night, riding in the direction of Jack's riverside cot. Jack never
retired to rest very early, and was still plying his shoemaking trade
by the light of a solitary candle when he too heard the clatter of
the horse's hoofs along the narrow road under the hill, and was
somewhat startled when the sound suddenly ceased before his own door,
which still stood open to let in the sweet summer breeze.
[Illustration: "HE WATCHED THE TALL HORSEMAN ENTER THE COTTAGE AND
HOLD THE CANDLE OVER THE CRIB."]
He hastened forward with a strange sense of expectancy, not unmingled
with dread, for the child had grown so dear to him, that while he had
looked forward with real pleasure to the reward, which would enable
him to do much for her comfort, he often dreaded lest in its place
should come an intimation that the unknown mother was again ready to
claim her child. A noble black horse was pawing the ground with
impatience as Jack appeared in the doorway, and on his back sat a
tall man in a long black riding-cloak, whose features were only dimly
discernible in the uncertain light, but whose voice had a gravely
pleasant ring, as he stooped from the saddle and placed a sealed
packet in Jack's hand, saying, "The child's mother sends you
greeting, with the promised reward for your care of her babe. She
charged me that I should see her, and take back to her a faithful
report of her growth and progress. And if it trouble you not at this
late hour, I will for a brief moment dismount and look at the child."
"My home is humble, good sir," said the boatman, "but methinks that
must be already known to my kinswoman, who honours me with so strange
a trust and acquaintance, while herself unknown to me. The child
sleeps yonder in her cot. I will look to your steed while you see
her." He watched the tall horseman enter the cottage and hold the
candle over the crib, so that its light fell on the tiny face nestled
on the white pillow, and lit up the halo of golden curls which
surrounded it with a soft, gleaming radiance. The piercing eyes of
the messenger softened as they dwelt upon the sweet picture of infant
beauty and sleeping innocence, and he turned away with a sigh,
saying, "She is wondrous fair--and you love her?" "As my own,"
answered Jack warmly. "She is the apple of my eye! Sir, I beg you
to tell my kinswoman that hitherto I have done for the child all that
love could do, and that her health and happiness have well repaid me;
but that now it has pleased her to send me this gift, I will likewise
do all that money shall make possible to increase her comfort and
please her baby heart." "That is well," said the stranger. "I will
assure her, on my part, that the child is in good keeping, and that
she has not been deceived in the trust she placed in you. Nay, good
Jack, no questions! I will be no mouthpiece for your kinswoman. Be
faithful to your charge, and ask me nought that she does not herself
reveal to you. Farewell; I must away." And hastily remounting his
coal-black steed, he passed on down the narrow road by the riverside,
crossed the ford just below the bridge, and was lost to view in the
wooded lane beyond. Jack went to bed with feelings of mingled relief
and perplexity. The possession of the money was pleasant; the
continued possession of the child he realised to be even a greater
joy than he had imagined in his already fond heart, but the whole
subject was one of great perplexity, and the visit of the messenger
had thrown no light whatever upon it. To stifle curiosity and live
on from day to day in unquestioning enjoyment of his darling's sweet
ways and ever-growing beauty was the only course open to him, and he
fell asleep at last with only a pleasant sense of resignation
uppermost in his mind.
To still the curiosity of his neighbours was, however, a harder task,
for he had not been at his work many hours next day before he
discovered that the ringing sound of the black steed's hoofs had been
plainly heard in the stillness of the summer night, and that every
one knew it was at his own door that the sound had ceased. But he
had not much to tell, and his friends grumbled not a little at his
dulness and want of natural curiosity. Had they been in his place,
they one and all declared, the messenger should not have been
suffered to depart in such haste, but should have been forced to give
some account of himself and his errand. However, Jack looked stolid
over the matter, and evidenced no desire whatever on his own part to
discover what the child's relations chose to conceal from him, and
declared that so long as he was allowed to keep her he was content.
And in this happy, though withal, to them, highly unsatisfactory
state of mind, they were obliged one by one to leave him.
Twice every year the mysterious black horse clattered over the
village road and stopped at the boatman's cottage, and Little Miss
Primrose was lifted up into the saddle and admired, and her little
hand regretfully kissed by the gallant horseman; and then he rode
away again, and no one was any the wiser, or any nearer the solution
of the mystery. And Little Miss Primrose herself grew prettier and
prettier, her hair more golden, and her dark eyes more deep and full
of beautiful meaning; and in spite of her lowly bringing-up, her ways
grew more and more like those of the little "Queen of the Flowers"
Jack called her. She took very happily to her new ways of life; and
while Jack was busy over his shoemaking, she would sit for hours at
the little casement which overlooked the river, watching the water
rushing below the bridge, and counting the ripples when she flung in
pebbles from a cherished store kept for the purpose of disturbing the
river's quietude, as it passed with more gentle flow beneath the
window. When the summer came, she would take out her little stool
and sit on the bridge, patiently holding a purse in her hand,
sometimes for hours together, ready for the passers-by to drop in
their toll-pennies as they crossed. She was very proud of being
toll-keeper, and would willingly spend a whole afternoon on the
bridge, with her doll for company, for the chance of bringing home
just one bright penny to dad at the time of the evening meal. "I am
the Queen of the Bridge!" she used to say proudly to those who asked
her name as they passed. And she would add graciously, "I am Little
Miss Primrose."
And so the tiny golden-haired tax-collector came to be well known in
the country-side, and was missed greatly when the winter winds blew
cold through the valley, and she had to be kept indoors. Then her
bright little face was anxiously looked for by her old friends at the
casement; and she would look out and wave her tiny hands, and tap
loudly on the window-pane if they forgot to look for her.
Jack's dwelling underwent great changes during the first year or two
after his adoption of the child, for with the money brought by the
Black Horseman, he not only improved and beautified the original
structure till it was scarcely recognisable, but added a little room
for the sole and especial use of his darling, which he fitted up with
every comfort and luxury that she could possibly need for years to
come. No little lady of distinction could have slept in a daintier
cot than the one Jack chose for his little guest, and his lady
neighbours were astonished at the taste and discretion he displayed
in the furnishing and adornment of the baby's state apartment.
Certainly it appeared that he was not considering her by any means as
a "poor relation," or thinking of bringing her up as the descendant
of relatives presumably sunk very low in the social scale. But since
the money had been paid in so regularly, Jack's theory of the low
estate of his distant kinsfolk had somewhat fallen through, and he
confessed that in the lapse of years they might possibly have done
far better for themselves than he himself had done.
It was on a dark Christmas Eve, when Little Miss Primrose was,
according to Jack's idea, about four years and a half old, that, as
she sat at the parlour window gazing out into the darkness at the big
castle on the hill, and trying to coax Jack into a promise to take
her some day to its frowning summit, she suddenly made the startling
announcement; "Dad, dad, I can see the Star in the East! Come quick,
and look!" Now Jack, who knew well that it was snowing fast, and
that no stars were visible, and who, moreover, was very busy
finishing off a new pair of boots for a customer to wear on Christmas
morning, did not look up from his work, and believing that the Bible
stories he had told Primrose on the previous evening had turned her
small brain, took no notice, beyond saying in an abstracted tone;
"There are no stars to-night, my pretty. Come away from the window;
'tis cold for you to be standing there, whatever." "Dad," said the
child, drawing herself up with dignity, "Little Miss Primrose can see
the star--a bright red star, up on the hill. You mustn't contradict
Primrose--and you've told a story!" This terrible reproof drew the
boatman to her side with a laugh, and sure enough she was right, for
far away in the blackness in which the Castle Hill was shrouded a
bright red star shone steadily, gleaming straight down upon the
river, and, as it were, gazing fixedly in at Jack's little window.
"There!" said the child triumphantly. "The Star in the East, dad!
You told me Christmas was coming to-morrow. Let us go up quick, dad,
and find the little cradle. Would the little Baby be inside it yet,
do you think?" "Bless thy little heart, my precious!" said Jack
humbly. "You always speak the truth, and your old dad didn't know
what he was talking about. Yes, there is a star indeed, and I'm
sorry I contradicted you, Primrose;" and he gave her an apologetic
embrace. "Well, come and find the little Baby, dad," urged the
child, quite satisfied, and tugging at his hand impatiently. "Come
quick!" "It was Christmas morning He came, my pretty," said Jack;
"very, very early Christmas morning, while you and I would be asleep
in our beds. It wouldn't be any use for us to go up now, Primrose.
You shall sit and look at the star awhile, and then you must be fain
to shut those great wondering eyes, and to go to sleep as fast as you
can. Then it will be quite Christmas when you wake in the morning,
and dad will tell you all over again about the little Baby." "And we
will go and see Him?" said Primrose eagerly. "We'll see," said Jack,
"we'll see. Maybe it will snow too hard. Look how the snow comes
down. Verily it is a cold night." And having succeeded in diverting
the baby's mind from her impossible request, he turned his own to the
subject of supper, muttering, as he prepared it, "'Tis a pretty fancy
of the child's, but for all that it's nothing but a light in one of
the castle windows, and that is passing strange, for who is there to
light it? 'Tis never likely the young earl has come suddenwise at
this time of the year; and if he had so done, the lights would surely
shine from many a window, not one only. Cheerful, indeed, it would
be to see them; and I would he indeed thought fit to come to the old
place and stir up the love of his people! No, that star is a riddle
to my understanding. Verily, they do tell strange tales about the
castle, and maybe the gipsy witch would tell us that some unquiet
spirit burns a lamp up there alone in some darksome chamber. 'Tis
long since she last came wandering around, with her malicious rhymes.
Ah, it is indeed well she is a woman, for I have at times found it
hard not to lay my hands upon her. Well, Primrose, my darling, you
must let the star shine by itself awhile, and come to your supper."
"The star looks at me, dad," said Primrose, quitting the window seat
lingeringly. "It looks straight in at me through the window. You
look at it, dad, when I am in bed, and tell me if God puts it out."
And when she was comfortably tucked up in her warm bed, and the long
lashes had nearly fallen over the big grey eyes, she murmured
sleepily; "Is my star put out yet, dad?" and fell fast asleep before
Jack could answer. No, it was not put out, and when Jack himself
went to rest, some hours later, it still shone through the gloom as
brightly as ever. Little Miss Primrose awoke with her mind full of
her new discovery, and Jack was much relieved to find the snow still
falling thick and fast, when he found that her desire to climb the
Castle Hill and look for the Holy Child's cradle had only revived
with greater force in the morning light. He succeeded at last in
persuading her that such an attempt was impossible, and consoled her
with the promise that, if the snow cleared off, he would carry her in
the afternoon to the little church on the hillside; "for," said he to
himself stoutly, "I can verily never bring my mind to hear Master
Jones discourse this morning at the chapel. He hath too much spoken,
in my hearing, against the king and the Prayer Book; and though I
would fain feel peace and goodwill towards him, as becomes a
Christian on Christmas morn, I must needs close my ears to his
doctrines." So Jack and his little charge spent a very quiet
Christmas morning, watching the snow-flakes fall, and talking much of
the star and its story; and in the afternoon, when the storm had
ceased, he carried her, according to promise, to the tiny ivy-covered
church, a mile away on the snowy hillside, where, since the day he
had discovered from the Black Horseman to be her fourth birthday, he
had taken her regularly Sunday after Sunday, in order that she should
grow up a loyal church-woman and faithful subject to King James; "for
I can at least train her up in the way she should go," he was wont to
say to his neighbours. "And," he would add with a sigh and a certain
vagueness of exact meaning, "if she should depart from it when she is
old, I fear it may be her mother that will see it, and not I." When
the twilight fell again over the valley, and the star shone out once
more from the black hill-top, Jack found himself almost as much
interested in its reappearance as the child herself, who shouted and
clapped her hands for joy. "But it can't be the Star in the East,
you know, Primrose," he said, when she again demanded to follow it,
"because it did not come any more when Christmas Day was over. This
must be another star, and we'll sit at home and watch it every night,
and maybe in time we will be able to find out its name." "It is my
Star in the East," would Miss Primrose answer decisively; but seeing
at last some wisdom in Jack's oft-repeated explanations, she
expressed herself content to watch it only from the window, and it
became a habit of theirs to draw close to the little casement every
evening, as soon as twilight fell, to look for the star's appearing,
and watch it shine till they were tired. Every night it shone out
regularly, as soon as darkness crept over the Castle Hill, and always
was still shining when Jack drew down his window-blind and went to
bed. Once he forgot to draw it down, and happening to wake as the
clock struck twelve, he saw the red light still burning steadily, and
lay and watched it, wondering who the mysterious occupant of the
castle might be, till between one and two in the morning, when it was
suddenly extinguished. He made a few casual inquiries next day among
the villagers, as to whether any of them had heard of the arrival of
the young earl or his servants at the castle, but no one had heard
such a report, or believed for a moment that he was likely to visit
Bryn Afon at this wintry season, and Jack let the matter rest; for
knowing that the "star" could not be seen from any house but his own,
he thought it wiser to keep this fresh mystery to himself. And about
a month after its first appearance it vanished entirely, greatly to
Little Miss Primrose's disappointment.
As she grew in years the child's health and growth were yet on each
visit more carefully noted by the Black Horseman, who appeared well
satisfied both with her physical and mental progress. One day he
brought with him a mysterious phial containing a liquid, which he
informed Jack was, by her mother's instructions, to be administered
to the child at stated intervals, and of which he should himself see
that she was unfailingly supplied. He affirmed it to be a herbal
elixir of wondrously strengthening properties and of absolute
harmlessness, and to be one of those ancient and pricelessly-valued
prescriptions of the far-famed physicians of Glyn Helen, known in all
the country-side some centuries gone by for their marvellous powers
of healing and wondrous discoveries, and still regarded by all honest
folk as supreme benefactors to the human race, and their
prescriptions to be of undying value. He assured Jack that the
elixir prescribed by her mother for Little Miss Primrose had been
bestowed upon her by a living descendant of the Mystic Brethren, who
still practised their ancient arts, and was equally well versed with
his ancestors in all their wondrous lore of plants and herbs, and
that the child's mother placed an unfailing trust in the skill of
this great physician. Therefore Jack, than whom no one was a more
faithful believer in the ancient legends of his country, more
especially in the deserved fame of these learned doctors of renown,
unhesitatingly administered the prescribed elixir at the required
seasons, though not without some secret wondering as to the nature of
the weakness or disease which the unknown mother would appear, by
enjoining its use, to wish to avert from her little daughter. But
the child showing every sign of perfect health both of body and mind
as she grew out of her babyhood and daily increased in loveliness,
her fond foster-father began to regard this daily antidote to an
unknown ill as but the whim of an over-anxious parent, and the elixir
soon began to be both administered and taken as mechanically and with
as little thought as the child's daily bread, though always without
the knowledge of any of the neighbours, the Black Horseman having
warned Jack that the prescriptions of the famous physicians of old
were ever held sacred, nor permitted to be revealed to the careless
public.