FRIENDS IN MISFORTUNE.
Ominous words--A visitor--Harry breaks down--A confused story--What is
to be done?--In good keeping.
Harry reached the farm about six o'clock--later than his usual time,
and he knew his mother would be sure to inquire the reason; and,
besides, his hair was very rough, and there was a suspicious-looking
red mark on his left cheekbone. However, he was no sooner inside the
house than he ran straight up-stairs to his mother. Her bedroom door
was just ajar, and hearing a strange voice proceeding from the room.
Harry knew some one was with her; so he sat down on the stairs, hoping
that it would not be long before he might go in to see her. His heart
was bursting to tell her all. He could keep it a secret no longer.
To-morrow was the dreaded day when he was to be taken before Dr Palmer,
and what the punishment might be, he dared not think. Expulsion,
perhaps: certainly the loss of his place in his class, and nothing
scarcely could be worse than that. Poor boy, he was in ignorance (and
happily so) of the extent of the fault of cribbing. Most boys would
have said: "I shall get a good caning, but I can get my crib again soon
enough."
It was a lady who was with Mrs Campbell; so Harry knew from the voice,
which was soft and sweet. She was talking quietly to his mother about
her death; and as the words fell upon the silence. Harry listened
eagerly for every syllable, nervous and trembling, and grew more
miserable as each minute stole wearily by.
"It wouldn't have been so hard to die," Mrs Campbell was saying, "if he
could only have been with me till the last. Dear Alan! I wonder where
he is now?"
"Yet think, dear Mrs Campbell, how he is spared the pain of seeing you
suffer," said the doctor's wife, for it was she. "You love him well
enough, I know, to enable you to think this, don't you?"
"Oh, yes! yes!" answered the dying wife. "God knows what is for our
good. It may have saved him much pain and sorrow. Dear Alan!" and her
voice grew very low. She was talking half to herself. Then, as the
new thought flashed across, she said again aloud, "But what will become
of Harry when I am gone, and Alan out at sea?"
And Harry, where he sat on the stairs in the deepening dusk, burst into
tears. His mother's quick ears caught the sound of his sobs, and she
exclaimed:
"Why, there is Harry crying on the stairs? Tell him to come in, will
you, Mrs Bromley?"
Harry needed no telling. He was soon in the room, at his mother's
bedside, and clasped in her arms.
"Don't cry, Harry, darling," the weak voice said. "Don't cry so!"
"You aren't really going to die, mamma? What shall I do without
you?--all alone--and--and Dr Palmer won't believe me. I know he
won't," sobbed Harry.
"Dr Palmer won't believe you? What is it, dear? and what is the matter
with your face? Oh, Harry, you haven't been fighting, have you?" she
added, and her voice bore shadow of reproach in it.
"Yes, mamma, I have," answered Harry, "but I didn't begin; they all set
on me, and shied balls at me, and said I cribbed, and called me a liar
and a coward, and I fought Warburton, and licked him," and then came
the English schoolboy's triumphant glance, through his tearful eyes.
"Said you cribbed? When, dear? How?" asked Mrs Campbell. "Tell me
all about it."
And, then, when the two had at length succeeded in quieting Harry, he
began his story. Through excitement, it was naturally very confused at
first, but, by degrees, he had made everything plain.
"But why don't you tell Dr Palmer that it was Egerton's crib? and all
that you saw in morning school?" said Mrs Campbell.
"Yes," chimed in the doctor's wife, "you can tell him you distinctly
saw Egerton using the book."
"That's no good, mamma," answered Harry, despondingly. "He wouldn't
believe me. He'd say I put it off on Egerton, because he was next me
in class."
"What _is_ to be done?" said Mrs Bromley. "I quite see what the poor
boy means."
"Never mind, Harry, dear, tell the truth, as I know you will," said Mrs
Campbell, "and it will all go well with you. Egerton will be found out
sooner or later, and Dr Palmer will be sorry if he has punished you for
nothing."
"I shall tell Mr Bromley to go and speak to Dr Palmer. That horrid
boy, Egerton! I could give him a good shaking!" said Mrs Bromley,
excitedly. "And now, dear Mrs Campbell, I must go. I will try and
send you round some grapes in the morning. They will be so good for
your thirst. I shall come and see you again soon. Keep up," she
added, in a whisper. "Think of what we have been saying. God is but
calling you to a better country, and He will guard your motherless boy!"
"He will! He will, I know! Good-bye. You are so good and kind to me.
Come again soon, won't you?"
"Come, Harry," said the doctor's wife, turning to him, "come down with
me, and Mrs Valentine will give you your tea."
"And ask her to bathe your face, dear boy," added Mrs Campbell, "and
put a vinegar pad on it."
And then Mrs Bromley, kissing her affectionately, led Harry from the
room, looking wistfully at his mother as he went.
"Ah, Alan, darling Alan!" she sighed, when she was alone in the silent
twilight of the room, "if you were only here, it would be so much
easier to die! Just to say good-bye once more. And you'll only see my
grave when you come home. Oh, God," she prayed, "forgive me, and take
me to Thyself." And then her words grew wandering. "Scotland with
uncle Robert--how rough the waves are!--when shall we get to
Malta--Alan! Alan! when will Alan come?--Alan, darling, don't be
long!--I am so tired!" and so she fell into a broken slumber.