THE HOME RESTORED.
Three months later in the year, when the new house at Fern's Hollow was
quite finished, with its dairy and coal-shed, and a stable put up at Mr.
Lockwood's desire, a large party assembled within the walls. Martha had
been diligently occupied all the week in a grand cleaning down; and Tim
and Stephen had been equally busy in clearing away the litter left by
the builders, and in restoring the garden to some order. They had been
obliged to contrive some temporary seats for their visitors, for the old
furniture had not yet been brought up from the cinder-hill cabin; and
the only painful thoughts Martha had were the misgiving of its extreme
scantiness in their house with six rooms. The pasture before the cottage
was now securely enclosed, and the wild ponies neighed over the hedge in
vain at the sight of the clear, cool pool where they had been used to
quench their thirst; and behind the house there was a plantation of tiny
fir-trees bending to and fro in the wind, which they were to resist as
they grew larger. Every place was in perfect order; and the front room,
which was almost grand enough for a parlour, was beautifully decorated
with flowers in honour of the expected guests, who had sent word that
they should visit Fern's Hollow that afternoon.
They could be seen far away from the window of the upper storey, which,
rising above the brow of the hill behind, commanded a wide view of the
mountain plains. They were coming on horseback across the almost
pathless uplands; dear Miss Anne, with Mr. Lockwood riding beside her;
and a little way behind them the lord of the manor and his young wife,
who was no other than Miss Lockwood herself. They greeted Stephen and
Martha with many smiles and words of congratulation; and when they were
seated in the decorated room, with the door and window opened upon the
beautiful landscape, Mr. Lockwood bade them come and sit down with them;
while Tim helped the groom to put up the horses in the stable.
'My boy,' said Mr. Lockwood, 'our business is finished at last. Mr.
Thomas Wyley will not try his right to Fern's Hollow by law; but we have
agreed to give him the £15 paid to your grandfather, and also to pay to
him all the actual cost of the work done here. Miss Anne and I have had
a quarrel on the subject, but she consents that I shall pay that as a
mark of my esteem for you, and my old servant your mother. Mr. Danesford
intends to make a gift to you of the pasture and plantation, which were
an encroachment upon the manor. And now I want you to take my advice
into the bargain. Jackson wants to come here, and offers a rent of £20 a
year for the place. Will you let him have it till you are old enough to
manage it properly yourself, Stephen?'
'Yes, if you please, sir,' replied Stephen, in some perplexity; for he
and Martha had quite concluded that, they should come and live there
again themselves.
'Jackson will make a tidy little farm of it for you,' continued Mr.
Lockwood. 'My daughter proposes taking Martha into her service, and
putting her into the way of learning dairy-work, and many other things
of which she is now ignorant. Are you willing, Martha?'
'Oh yes, sir!' said Martha, with a look of admiration at young Mrs.
Danesford.
'In this case, Stephen,' Mr. Lockwood went on, 'you will have a yearly
income of £20, and we would like to hear what you will do with it?'
'There's grandfather,' said Stephen diffidently.
'Right, my boy!' cried Mr. Lockwood, with a smile of satisfaction;
'well, Miss Anne thinks he would be very comfortable with Mrs. Thompson,
and she would be glad of a little money with him. But he cannot live
much longer, Stephen; he is very aged, and the doctor thinks he will
hardly get over the autumn. So we had better settle what shall be done
after grandfather is gone.'
'Sir,' said Stephen, 'I think Martha should have some good of
grandmother's work, if she is only a girl. So hadn't the rent better be
saved up for her till I'm old enough to come and manage the farm
myself?'
Every face in the room glowed with approbation of Stephen's suggestion;
and Martha flushed crimson at the very thought of possessing so much
money; and visions of future greatness, more than her grandmother had
foreseen, passed before her mind.
'Why, Martha will be quite an heiress!' said Mr. Lockwood. 'So she is
provided for, and grandfather. And what do you intend to do with
yourself, Stephen, till you come back here?'
'I'm strong enough to go back to the pit,' replied Stephen bravely,
though inwardly he shrank from it; but how else could the rent of Fern's
Hollow be laid by for Martha? 'Now Miss Anne has raised the wages, I
should get eight shillings a week, and more as I grow older. I shall do
for myself very nicely, thank you, sir; and maybe I could lodge with
grandfather at Mrs. Thompson's.'
'No,' said Miss Anne, in her gentle voice, the sweetest voice in the
world to Stephen, now little Nan's was silent; 'Stephen is my dear
friend, and he must let me act the part of a friend towards him. I wish
to send him to live with a good man whom I know, the manager of one of
the great works at Netley, where he may learn everything that will be
necessary to become my bailiff. I shall want a true, trustworthy agent
to look after my interests here, and in a few years Stephen will be old
enough to do this for me. He shall attend a good school for a few hours
daily, to gain a fitting education; and then what servant could I find
more faithful, more true, and more loving than my dear friend Stephen?
He can come back here then, if he chooses, and perhaps have Martha for
his housekeeper, in their old home at Fern's Hollow.'
'Oh, Miss Anne!' cried Stephen, 'I cannot bear it! May I really be your
servant all my life?' and the boy's voice was lost in sobs.
'Come, Stephen,' said the lord of the manor, 'I want you to show us some
of your old haunts on the hills. If Miss Anne had not formed a better
plan, I should have proposed making you my gamekeeper; for Jones has
been telling me about the grouse last year. By the way, if I had thought
it would be any pleasure to you, I should have dismissed him from my
service for his share in this business; but I knew you would be for
begging him in again, so I only told him pretty strongly what a sneak I
thought him.'
They went out then across the uplands, a sunny ramble, to all Stephen's
favourite places. And it happened that when they reached the solitary
yew-tree near which Snip was buried, all the rest strolled on, and left
Stephen and Miss Anne alone. Before them, down at the foot of the
mountains, there stretched a wide plain many miles across, beautiful
with woods and streams; and on the far horizon there hung a light cloud
that was always to be seen there, the index of those great works where
Stephen was to dwell for some years. Near to them they could discern, in
the clear atmosphere, the spires and towers of the county town, where
Black Thompson, who had tempted him on these hills, was now imprisoned
for many years; and below, though hidden from their sight, was Botfield
and the cinder-hill cabin. A band of bilberry-gatherers was coming down
the hill with songs and shouts of laughter; and the frightened flocks of
sheep stood motionless on the hillocks, ready to flee away in a moment
at their approach. Both Miss Anne and Stephen felt a crowd of thoughts,
sorrowful and happy, come thronging to their minds.
'Stephen,' said Miss Anne solemnly, 'our Lord says, "When ye shall have
done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable
servants: we have done that which was our duty to do."'
'Yes, Miss Anne,' said Stephen, looking up inquiringly into his
teacher's face.
'My dear boy,' she continued, 'are you taking care to say to yourself,
"I am an unprofitable servant"?'
'I have not done all those things which are commanded me,' he said
simply and earnestly; 'I've done nothing of myself yet. It's you that
have taught me, Miss Anne; and God has helped me to learn. I'm afeared
partly of going away to Netley; but if you're not there to keep me
right, God is everywhere.'
'Stephen,' Miss Anne said, 'you have forgiven all your enemies: Tim, who
is now your friend, and the gamekeeper, Black Thompson, and my poor
uncle; when you are saying the Lord's Prayer, do you feel as if you
should be satisfied for our Father to forgive you your trespasses in the
same measure and in the same manner as you have forgiven their
trespasses against you?'
'Oh no!' cried Stephen, in a tone of some alarm.
'Tell me why not.'
'It was a rather hard thing for me,' he said; 'it was very hard at
first, and I had to be persuaded to it; and every now and then I felt as
if I'd take the forgiveness back. I shouldn't like to feel as if our
Father found it a hard thing, or repented of it afterwards.'
'No,' answered Miss Anne. 'He is a God "ready to pardon;" and when He
has bestowed forgiveness, His "gifts and calling are without
repentance." But there is something more, Stephen. Do you not seem in
your own mind to know them, and remember them most, by their unkindness
and sins towards you? When you think of Black Thompson, is it not more
as one who has been your enemy than one whom you love without any
remembrance of his faults? And you recollect my uncle as him who drove
you away from your own home, and was the cause of little Nan's death.
Their offences are forgiven fully, but not forgotten.'
'Can I forget?' murmured Stephen.
'No,' she replied; 'but do you not see that we clothe our enemies with
their faults against us? Should our Father do so, should we stand before
Him bearing in His sight all our sins, would that forgiveness content
us, Stephen?'
'Oh no!' he cried again. 'Tell me, Miss Anne, what will He do for me
besides forgiving me?'
'Look, Stephen,' she replied, pointing to the distant sky where the sun
was going down amid purple clouds, and bidding him turn to the grey
horizon where the sun had risen in the morning; 'listen: "As far as the
east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from
us." And again: "He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us; He
will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the
depths of the sea." And again: "For I will be merciful to their
unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no
more." This is the forgiveness of our Father, Stephen.'
'Oh, how different to mine!' cried Stephen, hiding his face in his
hands.
'Yet,' said Miss Anne, 'you may claim the promise made to us by our
Lord: "If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
also forgive you," in a far richer measure, with infinite
long-suffering, and a multitude of tender mercies.'
'Lord, forgive me, for Jesus Christ's sake!' murmured Stephen.
But the dusk was gathering, and the others were returning to them under
the old yew-tree, for there was the long ride over the hills to
Danesford, and the time for parting was come. The day was done; and on
the morrow new work must be entered upon. The path of the commandments
had yet to be trodden, step by step, through temptation and conflict,
and weakness and weariness, until the end was reached.
Stephen felt something of this as he walked home for the last time to
the cinder-hill cabin; and, taking down the old Bible covered with green
baize, read aloud to his grandfather and Martha the chapter his father
had taught him on his death-bed; bending his head in deep and humble
prayer after he had read the last verse: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even
as your Father in heaven is perfect.'
THE END.
* * * * *
STORIES BY HESBA STRETTON.
Cobwebs and Cables.
Half Brothers.
Through a Needle's Eye.
Carola.
Bede's Charity.
David Lloyd's Last Will.
The Children of Cloverley.
Fern's Hollow.
The Fishers of Derby Haven.
Pilgrim Street.
A Thorny Path.
Enoch Roden's Training.
In the Hollow of His Hand.
_The Religious Tract Society, London_.