THE VOICE OF CONSCIENCE.
Kathleen did not venture to show her desk to Fred the following
morning, especially as she could hear from the tone of his voice in
speaking to his brother that he was in no pleasant frame of mind.
But when breakfast was over, and Fred had gone out for a stroll, she
called Harry into her room, and exhibited to him, with a mixture of
pride and distress, the beautiful prize which her aunt had so
generously given her.
"It's without any exception the most gorgeous thing of the kind I
ever saw!" cried Harry, raising up the flaps and surveying the paper
and envelopes, the pencils, pens, knives, scissors, india-rubber,
sealing wax, &c., &c., with which it was filled. "It is simply A1,
and I am delighted you got it!"
"Yes; but I am not quite sure whether I ought to keep it."
"Ought to humbug! I can't for the life of me see why you need feel
any scruple about it. You won the prize fairly, and Fred did not."
"Yes, that's the very thing; for, don't you see, Harry, if I keep the
desk, then Aunt Marian will either feel sure Fred put the stones in
on purpose, or she will think I,"--here Kathleen hesitated, suddenly
perceiving she had no real ground of argument to put forward.
"Well, she'll think what?" asked Harry magisterially. "You girls
have as much idea of explaining things clearly as a frog has of
flying. I know perfectly well what the fix is that you are in. You
think it will appear greedy in you to accept a prize as well as Fred,
when there was such a small difference in the weight of the two cans;
and, besides, you are just shaking in your two shoes at the thought
of Fred's anger when he finds out that Aunt Marian has given the
first prize to you instead of to him,--now, is not that it, old girl?"
"It is; at least it's nearly that," murmured Kathleen, nervously;
"only I wish,"--here a painful blush covered all her face,--"I wish,
Harry, if you could see Fred, you would tell him that if he will go
and put back the bow in Aunt Marian's boudoir, I will give him this
desk as soon as ever we go home."
"Indeed, you'll do nothing of the kind."
"Please, please, Harry."
"Gammon! I never heard such rubbish. You won your prize as fairly
as you could, and he has not the faintest right to it in any way. He
crammed himself with fruit the whole time the others were hard at
work. He then supplied his can out of mine, which was awfully shabby
of him; and then he put five large stones into the bottom of his, so
as to make it weigh more than the others. I think he was an awful
sneak to do such a mean thing, and I told him so this morning; but he
turns on me every time I speak to him. He says I was as bad as he
was, and that I wanted to fill your can out of mine, which was quite
as sneaky if not worse. I don't think it would have been quite fair
of me to do it, I must say, but still there is a difference somewhere
between the two things if I could put it into words."
"You wanted to help me, and he only wanted to help himself,"
suggested Kathleen, meditatively; "and besides, you gave up your
chance of the prize in my favour. But for all that, if I had won it
I should not have kept it, for I should have known it was not mine
fairly, and I could never have explained it all to Aunt Marian."
"Well, you have expressed yourself clearly for once in your life.
And now let us think what is best to be done, for I can't bear the
idea of Fred's chousing Aunt Marian out of that splendid bow; and
besides, if he lets himself do a thing like that once, he'll be ten
times as likely to do the same kind of thing again, and perhaps get
into a worse scrape. Suppose you and I go down and have a
_parlez-vous_ with him--eh, Kathleen?"
"Very well, whatever you like; but he never minds what I say."
"Doesn't he though? I can tell you what, old lady, bad as you are,
whenever you tell me a thing is not right which I'm doing, it sticks
there like a bone in my throat; and though I often swallow it down in
a rage, and take my own way, still I generally do turn it over in my
mind, and give over whatever it was that was wrong. And Fred's just
the same, only he has a way of telling himself that things aren't
wrong which I don't understand; or, even supposing they are wrong, he
thinks if you aren't found out it's no matter, and that to my mind is
the worst of all."
"Yes," replied Kathleen, "much the worst."
"And now, what do you think he says?"
"What?" asked Kathleen.
[Illustration: "I am so glad I have met you."]
"Why, that very likely he did put the stones in to keep down the
leaves,--that he does not exactly know why he put them in. And at
the beginning, you remember, he never denied that he put them in on
purpose. But that's just it, he can persuade himself to think
anything he likes, and then he grows to believe in what he has made
himself think. But, I say, let us go out and try to find him; and if
we can only catch him in a good humour, we might coax him to put back
the bow. The best thing to put it on will be poor mother; for, you
know, if it ever came to her ears, she'd simply never get over it."
The children found Fred strolling in the sycamore walk. He was
sauntering along with his hands in his pockets, and kicking little
pebbles in front of him, as he went along, with the toe of his boot;
but he was neither whistling nor singing, as was his wont, and his
gait had a certain air of depression about it that both Kathleen and
Harry instinctively recognized.
"Well, what are you following me for?" he asked, as he turned at the
sound of their footsteps, and saw them coming rather nervously
forward to meet him.
"We guessed you were dodging about somewhere in these diggings," said
Harry, speaking first, "and we wanted to see you before we began the
jam-covering."
"What for?" asked Fred, kicking another large pebble along the walk,
and his brow darkening. "I should think you and I had had enough of
each other's company this morning."
"Come along, Fred, old boy, and don't be so cranky," cried Harry,
taking his brother by the shoulder and thrusting his hand through his
arm. "I want awfully to pal up with you, and make things straight if
we can. You see Katy and I have been thinking what an awful thing it
will be if mother comes to hear about this tin-can affair; and she'll
be so cut up about it that I don't think she'll ever get over it, and
the whole thing could be set straight so easily."
"Oh ay, I daresay it's an awfully easy thing, is it not, to go and
say, 'I did cheat, and you found me out, and so I can't help making a
clean breast of it'? I tell you now, Harry, once for all, if you and
Kathleen have come down here to wheedle me into putting the bow back,
I'll see you further first before I'll do it, and that's an end of
it."
"But, Fred, only think."
"Think! I've thought until I'm blue in the face with thinking, and
the more I think the more certain I am I did nothing but what was
quite fair, or, at least, no worse than any one else; so if you've no
more to say you had better cut off about your business."
"You'll come in for the jam-covering, won't you?" asked Kathleen
anxiously.
"Not I. I've just as much idea of pasting on old jam covers as I
have of putting a cover on myself. Besides, I am not going to run
the risk of another affectionate note from my aunt, telling me that I
cheated, or, perhaps, accusing me of taking a little out of each pot
I covered. No, no; once is enough for that kind of thing."
"If you don't come in, Aunt Marian will think you are afraid, or
ashamed."
"Afraid! If you think there is any danger of that, I'll go in this
very instant and give them such a piece of my mind that I'll pull the
whole house down about their ears. Afraid, indeed!" and Fred pushed
on before them with great strides of anger.
"We had better leave him alone," whispered Harry. "He's in a stunner
of a temper."
"But he won't go in and say anything to Aunt Marian, will he?"
"Not he; he has just as much idea of doing so as I have. He is just
blustering all round the compass because he knows he's in the wrong.
Oh, how I wish mother were here. Two words from her would set him as
right as a trivet; but I'm such an ass, I always manage to make
things worse. See, he has turned in exactly the opposite direction
to the Hall. I would not be inside his jacket for a great deal."
Harry was quite correct in all his surmises. Fred had not the
smallest intention of going to beard his aunt in her own home; on the
contrary, his own desire was to escape from her sight. Although he
tried to force his conscience into the belief that he had not acted
dishonestly, or at least not more dishonestly than Harry had also
tried to do, still he felt a guilty tremor rush all over and through
every fibre of his body when he thought of coming face to face with
his aunt, and foresaw the conversation which would most probably
ensue; and thus he bad brought himself to the cowardly determination
to absent himself altogether from the afternoon's employment. But oh
the longing he had that he could see his mother,--that he could have
just a few moments' conversation with her, and tell her all. She was
so kind, so easy to speak to, he could confess all to her without
trouble or fear, and could ask her for help and advice. She would
explain to Aunt Marian how all had happened, and return the bow to
the boudoir, which he had not the courage to do, and which he was too
proud to allow his brother or sister to do for him; and Fred, when
well out of sight of the others, in the sombre shade of the
close-growing pines, threw himself down on the grass and cried,
bitterly exclaiming between every sob, "Oh, mother, why are you not
here; why, why are you not here, and then all would be well?"
In his grief and utter misery of mind Fred's heart rushed out
spontaneously to the mother who had been all to him in his life. He
had been in his childhood a delicate boy, and therefore of necessity
his mother had watched over him with a peculiar care, and had
shielded him from the troubles and sorrows of boyhood with a zealous
watchfulness; and now that he had outgrown his former delicacy, and
had to push his way through the rough world like the others, he
turned at every rude breath to the shelter of her side, and still
tried to draw the strength of his character from hers.
But those who choose willingly to lean all their weight on a human
friend, must some time or other come to find that the reed, though it
may bend and bow almost to the ground with its willingness to endure
and be leaned upon, must give way some time, and then the fall is all
the more helpless and hopeless. And this Fred's mother had many a
time pointed out to her son, imploring of him in his troubles, which
were many, to go to a higher and more certain Friend, and to draw
help and succour from Him. She knew how frail her own life was, and
she knew equally well the weakness of Fred's nature,--a nature keenly
susceptible to pain and terribly open to the attacks of
temptation,--and she had hesitated long and long before she consented
to accept the invitation to Jubilee Hall; but in the end she and her
husband had felt that it was well to give Fred the opportunity of
acting and thinking for himself, and for testing how far his strength
of character could be relied on.
Could Fred only have listened to the pleading voice that had been
urging him on to the easy and silent confession of his guilt demanded
from him by his aunt, how immeasurably better it would have been for
him: for conscience, once rudely thrust aside with a resolute hand,
lies often silent and crushed, and allows perhaps a worse error to
creep in unnoticed and unopposed; the truth of which terrible danger
Fred was also but too soon to experience. But for the present, blind
as he was to the future and the temptation creeping silently at his
heels, he only thought of the trouble which oppressed him, and not of
the guilt which stood as yet unrepented of and unforgiven before the
throne of God.
Fred, with his face on the grass and his hands pressed on his ears,
did not hear in his trouble the sound of footsteps approaching slowly
and lightly over the moss-covered ground, nor did the fear of any
one's stumbling accidentally upon his retreat enter into his
calculations for a moment. It was therefore in no low or suppressed
accents of pain or entreaty that he called on his mother for help and
assistance, and sobbed out his grief into the ferns and creeping ivy
leaves.
Once a sound had startled him, and he had raised his head in terror,
but it was only a cock pheasant calling to his mate; and in the
intense stillness of all around him the rabbits were eating
peacefully close by, or stroking the muffled down on their faces with
their velvety and heathery paws.
But beyond this wild copse, where in the autumn the gun of the
gamekeeper often made sad havoc, ay Aunt Marian's dairy-farm, in
which she took a warm interest, and which, when time allowed, she
personally superintended. This morning she had gone down to see the
calves fed, and to doctor a poor heifer which had leaped a wire fence
and hurt itself severely, and the time had glided so quickly by that
she had not noticed it was nearly luncheon time until the farmyard
bell had sounded for the workmen's dinner, and she knew that only ten
minutes intervened between this bell and the gong which announced to
the assembled guests that luncheon was on the table. She chose,
therefore, the short cut through the wood, walking quickly though
lightly, and arousing at every footstep some wild inhabitant of the
copse; but when she had traversed about half the way she paused for a
moment, hearing a cry of pain which seemed to come somewhere from the
ground close by. She fancied at first that it was a wounded cat
which had crawled somewhere among the ferns to die; for the
gamekeeper had no compassion on these semi-wild animals, which ate
his young rabbits and rifled the nests of the young game fledgelings,
and from many a branch in the wood depended the dead bodies of three
or four of these marauders. But as she paused, Aunt Marian caught
distinctly the sound of a human voice, and approaching a few steps
nearer heard, with pain and self-reproach, Fred's piteous
lamentations and the cry for his mother's help, which brought quick
and hot tears to her eyes, and for a moment made her irresolute
whether to pass on noiselessly, or to stop and proffer her assistance
and comfort to the boy.
Aunt Marian had a very soft heart, especially towards boys, and boys'
tears could move her into an almost foolish weakness; and now Fred's
sobbing appeal for his mother's love suddenly and effectually melted
her heart from a kind of growing dislike and distrust of her nephew
to a feeling of tender sympathy and compassion.
She paused, however, a moment before making known her presence, to
settle in what manner she should address him. She feared increasing
his distress, and her whole anxiety at the moment was how but to
reassure and encourage him.
"Fred," she said presently, in a somewhat low but very cordial voice
as she advanced to meet him, "I am so glad I have met you."
Fred started up, his cheeks blotched with tears and his eyes dazed
and misty; but the moment he recognized his aunt a rush of crimson
blood covered every inch of his face, and the expression of shame and
alarmed surprise seemed to intensify the confusion and awkwardness of
the meeting.
But Aunt Marian had looked for confusion and awkwardness of manner at
so unexpected a rencounter, and in her sudden flow of sympathy she
did not recognize the look of guilt and shame.
"Fred," she continued kindly, stretching out her hand to the boy, who
now stood embarrassed and blushing before her, "I have just found you
in the nick of time, for the workmen's bell has rung, and I shall
certainly be late for luncheon, unless you can take this heavy basket
from my hand and allow me to walk free."
"Of course I will, aunt," said Fred, his natural politeness of manner
coming to his aid, though he shrank nervously from the thought of the
long _tête à tête_ walk home together to the Hall.
"May I take your arm," she continued in a peculiarly soft and
pleasing voice; "for I have been standing so long in the dairy fields
I am quite tired. I always make my own boys my walking-sticks," she
added, with a short laugh, "and as they are not here, I must enlist
you in my service."
"Certainly, aunt," replied Fred, growing much more at ease under the
healing influence of Lady Brinsley's kindness.
She took his arm, and they walked on through the copse, Aunt Marian
keeping the conversation going with descriptions of the wild cats and
their thieving propensities, and telling him the quaint sayings of
the head gamekeeper, an Irishman, who was quite a character and full
of genuine wit and humour. She also promised him a day's shooting
with the same gamekeeper, if his father had no objection to his
handling a gun; and Fred, by the time they had come within sight of
the Hall, felt comparatively at his ease and very grateful for his
aunt's kindness and good-natured tact.
It was not until they were within a few paces of the massive oak door
of the Hall that the dreaded topic was touched on, and Fred was so
comparatively off his guard, that his aunt was in the thick of the
subject before he almost understood what she was saying.
"You'll come, of course, and give a helping hand in the jam-covering
this afternoon," she said, taking the basket from his arm and moving
a little forward.
"Oh yes, of course." Fred felt so much at his ease with his aunt
now, that he had no fear or dislike to the occupation, and he
answered without hesitation or reserve.
"I'm glad of that," she said quickly and without looking round; "for
I'm afraid,"--here feeling her own cowardice she turned and looked
Fred full in the face,---"for I fear I have acted very ungenerously
towards you, and accused you of a fault which I fully believe now you
had no intention of committing. We all of us," she added kindly,
tears springing up into her eyes, "make mistakes sometimes, and judge
hastily and without sufficient grounds; but I know, Fred, you will
believe me when I say how truly sorry I am for having given you so
much pain, and that I beg of you not to think of the subject any
more."
"Oh, Aunt Marian, please don't, don't say such things," cried Fred,
his heart leaping up into his throat and his eyes also filling with
impetuous tears. "You, you--Aunt Marian, don't go into the house,
please; I--I--"
But Aunt Marian had said what she had been struggling to gather
courage for during the last ten minutes; and she was now inside the
doorway and hurrying up the stairs to take off her out-door clothes
before the gong should summon the guests to luncheon.