SUNDAY
'A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich;
A sick man helped by thee shall make thee strong;
Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense
Of service which thou renderest.'
It was Sunday afternoon, and the children sat in the Rose Parlour, with
the windows wide open to let in all the sweet summer scents from the
garden.
Patient Lilian was struggling to teach Bobby a Scripture lesson, for his
form-master had decreed that the names of the books of the Old Testament
must be repeated without a slip immediately after prayers on the ensuing
Monday morning. Poor Bobby had neither a retentive memory nor a great
disposition to learn. He fidgeted, and kicked the leg of the table, and
said it was 'a jolly shame for old Peters to give a fellow Sunday prep.'
He hopelessly confused Ezra and Esther, floundered at Ecclesiastes, and
the minor prophets filled him with despair.
'Oh, Bobby, _do_ try again,' entreated Lilian. 'Obadiah, Jonah, Micah,
Nahum, Habakkuk.'
'It's no use, Lil,' said the despondent Bobby. 'I may as well make up my
mind to take a caning and spare myself the trouble.'
'Lilian dear, are you busy?' said Aunt Helen, putting her head round
the door. 'I thought you might have taken this jar of beef-tea to old
Ephraim. I hear he is not so well again, and he was not in church this
morning.'
'Oh, Auntie, let me take it!' cried Peggy, glad of any excuse to
interrupt the study of her Collect and Catechism.
'Be careful not to spill it, then, and be sure to bring back the basket.
And while you are there, I have no doubt he would be pleased if you read
to him for a little. He is getting so blind now, poor old man! and it is
dull for him, living all alone,' said Aunt Helen, who liked to teach the
children to help their neighbours.
Old Ephraim was a quaint and original character. He had come to Gorswen
from the North country, and had been shepherd for forty years at the
Abbey. He was past work now, and lived in one of the village almshouses,
subsisting partly on the parish dole and partly on private charity; for
though Mr. Vaughan might practise rigid economy in his own private
expenses, he had never a grudging hand towards the poor.
The little low whitewashed cottage was a humble enough place, but it
looked cheerful this Sunday afternoon, with the sunlight streaming in
through the tiny window, and a few early white roses shedding their
sweet perfume in the small garden in front.
Peggy found the old man seated in his elbow-chair by the fireside, his
head enveloped in a huge flat oat-cake, tied on with a red cotton
pocket-handkerchief, so that he resembled some new species of mushroom.
'Why, Ephraim!' she cried, stopping short in amazement; 'whatever is the
matter? And what have you got on your head?'
'Headache, Miss Peggy,' replied Ephraim, shaking his gray locks
solemnly. 'There ain't nothink like a hot oat-cake for a bad head; it do
cure it wonderful, to be sure.'
'Well, it seems a queer thing to put on, anyhow,' remarked Peggy,
wondering privately whether the old man would consume his remedy
afterwards for tea. 'How is the rheumatism?'
'Better, Miss Peggy--gradely better since I've kept a potato in my
pocket. Ah, it's a fine thing for the rheumatics, is a potato. But,'
with a sly wink, 'it must be stolen, or it beant no use at all!'
'Did you _steal_ it, then, Ephraim?' cried Peggy with thrilling
interest.
'That's as may be,' replied the old man, willing to change the subject
now it was growing personal. 'Is your pa keepin' well these days?'
'The Catechism says it's wrong to steal,' observed the righteous Peggy,
keeping sternly to the point, and anxious to improve the occasion.
'Haven't you got a Bible, Ephraim?'
'Ay, ay,' returned the culprit evasively, 'there be one somewheres.'
'Don't you know where it is?' said Peggy severely.
'Oh ay! Hannah Jones was in a' Saturday, sidin' th' top o' th' cupboard,
and I see'd her wi' it in her hand. Oh, I reads the Bible, I does. It's
all about wars--them Israelites foightin' wi' the other heathen.'
'It's about something else, too,' replied Peggy: 'miracles and parables
and epistles, and--oh! lots of things. Wouldn't you like me to read some
to you?'
'Nay now, Miss Peggy,' said Ephraim, much alarmed lest she should expect
him to stir his rheumatic old bones in a search on the cupboard-top. 'I
reckon sometimes 'tis better to think on things nor to read 'em. I've
time to do a deal o' thinkin', settin' here.'
'Perhaps I might read you something else, then?' volunteered Peggy,
determined to be a ministering angel, despite the evident unwillingness
of her protege.
'Yea,' said the old man, considerably relieved; 'there be a drawer full
o' books i' the dresser. Take your choice, miss--take your choice.'
Peggy turned out the drawer by the simple process of emptying it on the
table, and disclosed a very miscellaneous collection of
literature--socialist pamphlets, agnostic newspapers, and radical tracts
were mixed up with teetotal treatises, missionary leaflets, and the
parish magazine. Sheets of ballads, which Ephraim had bought as a boy,
lay side by side with a tattered copy or two of Zadkiel's prophetic
almanac, some advertisements of patent medicines, a recipe for
sheep-dip, and a Wesleyan hymn-book. Peggy gazed eagerly at an ancient
chap-book, which set forth the stories of Dick Turpin and Jack Sheppard,
interspersed with rude woodcuts of the gallows and whipping-post; but
she heroically put it aside, as being unsuitable for the day.
Finally, she settled upon a little worn volume bound in calf, with the
title, 'A Sigh of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, breathed by an Earthly
Vessel known among Men by the Name of Samuel Fish.'
'I'm sure Aunt Helen would think this all right to read to him,' she
said to herself, as she drew a chair to the other side of the fire.
It was not very easy reading, for the print had faded till it was almost
the colour of the yellow leaves, and the 's's' were all long, so that
Peggy found herself continually reading 'fins' instead of 'sins'; but
she did her best, conscientiously, and the old man nodded in his chair,
sitting up briskly, however, when he felt her reproachful eyes upon him.
Peggy stopped, quite hot and weary, at the end of the first chapter.
'Do you like it, Ephraim?' she inquired anxiously.
'Ay, Miss Peggy, it be foine, it be, surely,' said the old man.
'What does it all mean?' said the child. 'It is so hard to read, I can
scarcely understand it.'
'Why, as to that, miss,' answered Ephraim, 'it seems to me as long as
it's pious words, there beant no call to understand 'em, let alone I'm
that deaf to-day, it seems naught but a buzzin' like when you read.'
Peggy closed the book hurriedly.
'I think I had better be going now,' she announced. 'I hope your
headache will be well soon. Can't I put the kettle on for you?'
'Ay, miss, if you be so bountiful. My rheumatics be cruel bad when I
stir me.'
Peggy filled the kettle from the pump in the back garden, and hung it on
its hook over the fire. She found the old man's cup and saucer, and set
out his tea on the little round table by his side, and finally took her
departure, feeling she had at least attended to his temporal wants, and
might leave the rest to older and wiser heads than hers.
'I'll call and see Mrs. Davis; there'll be plenty of time before tea,'
she said to herself, as she came back up the village street, swinging
her empty basket.
Mrs. Davis was a dear old Welshwoman, and a particular friend of
Peggy's. She was one of Nature's gentlewomen, for her kind heart
prompted those little gracious, courteous acts which in a higher class
we call good breeding. She made quite a picture in her short
linsey-woolsey petticoat, with the check apron, her plaid shawl crossed
over her cotton bodice, and the frilled white cap framing the kind old
face, with its apple cheeks and soft white hair. She was sitting among
her bees this Sunday afternoon, beating with an iron spoon upon an old
tin kettle.
'They be swarming, indeed, Miss Peggy,' she said. 'And here I've had to
sit the whole of the day, beating this old tin--and Sunday, too! But we
can't expect the poor creatures to understand that, can we?'
'I suppose not,' said Peggy, settling herself on a low wooden seat, at a
safe distance from the agitated hives, and letting her glance wander
round the little garden, where the tall yellow lilies reared their
stately heads over a mass of sweet cottage flowers, pinks and
forget-me-nots, poppies and double daisies, sweet-williams--loved of the
bees--pansies, lupins, and snap-dragons; over the cottage, where the
white roses climbed up the thatch to the very chimneys, and where
through the open doorway could be seen the neat kitchen, with its
red-brick floor, the settle placed by the fireside, the tall
grandfather's clock ticking away in the corner, and the oak dresser,
with its rows of blue willow-pattern plates; and back again at last to
where Mrs. Davis sat with her grandchild by her knee, a small round-eyed
boy, whose thumb was stuck perpetually, like a stopper, in his mouth,
and who stood watching the bees with stolid indifference.
'Won't he get stung?' asked Peggy, who thought he looked far too near to
the swarming hives for safety.
'No, dearie. I think they know me and Willie now, though they'd attack a
stranger as soon as not.'
'I was dreadfully stung once,' confided Peggy. 'I lifted off the little
box on the top of one of the Rectory hives, just to see how the bees
were getting on, and they all came rushing out and settled on me. Mr.
Howell seized me, and put my head under the pump, and Father was ever so
cross, for he said I shouldn't have meddled with them.'
'The bees don't like to be interfered with,' said Mrs. Davis. 'You
should never touch them in the daytime. Always take the honey at night.'
'Joe says you must tell them if there's a death in the house, and tie a
piece of crape on the hive, or they'll all fly away.'
'Well, I don't quite hold with all folks say about them, but they are
strange creatures, with queer ways of their own. They seem quiet just
now, so I think I might leave them for a few minutes. I have a pot of
honey I should like to send to your aunt, miss, if you would kindly take
it to her. I'll go inside and fetch it. No, Willie, my pretty, you can't
come. Granny's going up the ladder into the loft.'
'I'll take care of him. Come with me, Willie dear--come and see the
pretty flowers.'
And Peggy seized the stolid infant by his disengaged hand.
Willie did not look enthusiastic about the attractions of the flowers,
but he allowed himself to be led away, staring at his new guardian with
round eyes of solemn distrust, and solacing himself with his thumb.
'We'll build a little house,' said Peggy, anxious to prevent the
suspicious twitching of her charge's mouth from developing into a roar,
and taking up some bricks and loose stones which lay under the wall.
'See, we'll make a kitchen and parlour, and put down leaves for a
carpet. Here's a little round stone for a table, and the pansy-flowers
will do for dollies. They've such funny little faces. We'll make them
skirts out of laurel leaves, and put them to bed in the corner.'
Peggy's well-meant efforts at entertainment were suddenly interrupted by
a loud sniff from the other side of the wall, and, looking up, she saw
the round, reproachful face of Polly Smith, a girl of about her own age,
who sometimes came up to the Abbey to help Nancy at busy times.
'Why, it's you, miss, I do declare!' exclaimed Polly. 'And making
play-houses in Mrs. Davis's garden on Sunday, too! I _am_ surprised!
_I've_ been to Sunday-school!'
Peggy felt rather caught, but she carried it off as well as she could.
'I was only amusing Willie,' she said. 'He was going to cry because
Granny Davis went indoors and left him.'
'Ay, she's been sittin' swarmin' her bees all day. I see her when I was
goin' to chapel, and I see her again when I come back, and when I goes
to Sunday-school she were still there. My dada says he don't hold with
folks as can't keep the Sabbath holy.'
And Polly turned up her small nose in a distinctly aggravating manner.
'How did you get on at Sunday-school?' asked Peggy, who did not like
insinuations against the moral worth of her dear Mrs. Davis.
'Splendid, miss. I always does. Teacher gave me a prize for sayin'
hymns--such a nice book. Wouldn't you like to look at it?'
'Are you sure it's a Sunday book?' inquired Peggy, who could not forbear
her revenge.
'Oh yes, for I looked at the end chapter, and she dies beautiful, and
they plant snowdrops on her grave; and her big brother, what's so unkind
to her, gets drowned through goin' boatin' on Sunday,' replied Polly,
regarding Peggy as if she thought her courses might lead her to a
similar watery fate.
'Here's Granny!' cried Willie, abandoning his thumb to seek the
protection of the friendly linsey-woolsey petticoat.
'Ay, so it be. _My_ granny sits in the parlour on Sunday afternoons,
with her blinds drawn down, and reads her Bible. She's a godly old
woman, she is!'
And Polly took her departure with a conscious sniff, as if deploring the
depravity of her neighbours.
Peggy was very much upset.
'Is it really wrong to look after the bees and amuse babies on Sunday?'
she asked Father afterwards.
'No, dear, certainly not. The Pharisees came to our Lord with just such
a question, and you know He answered them that it was right to do well
on the Sabbath. God did not mean it to be a day of misery, but a
specially joyful and happy day, in which we were to think a good deal
about Him. Sometimes we can show our love for Him quite as well by
helping others as by reading our Bibles or going to church, though we
should not neglect that either. As for shutting ourselves up on Sundays,
and thinking it is wrong to look at the beautiful things around us, that
is mere ignorance, for Nature is like a wonderful book, written by God's
hand, and the birds and the bees and the flowers are all pages out of it
for those who have eyes to read them rightly.'
Peggy thought of this as she sat among the ruins watching the sunset
that night. The sky, flaming in bands of crimson, violet and orange,
looked like the very gate of heaven, a golden city which you had only to
cross the hills to reach--surely another page in that book of which
Father had spoken.
'It's like one of the pictures in the Interpreter's house in the
"Pilgrim's Progress,"' she said to herself; 'or Christian and Hopeful on
the Delectable Mountains, when they looked through the glass, and
thought they saw "something like the gate, and also some of the glory of
the place."'
She stayed a long, long time among the crumbling old walls, watching the
gold fade gradually out of the sky. It was very still and peaceful in
there, and she liked to sit and think how the Abbey must have looked in
those strange, bygone days when the little steps had led to a dormitory,
and the broken pillars had held up the roof of a church, whose tinkling
bell had rung out at sunset, calling to prayer those old monks who slept
so quietly in their forgotten graves.
An owl began to hoot in the woods beyond the river, a great stag-beetle
came droning by, and the bats flew over her head with their shrill
little cry, flitting here and there like night swallows.
Peggy got up and brushed the dew from her dress, and walked slowly back
to the house in the gathering twilight. In the Rose Parlour Aunt Helen
sat turning out her little writing-desk, and wiping suspicious drops
from her eyes.
'Don't keep old letters, child,' she said, as Peggy crept up to her with
silent sympathy. 'It opens so many wounds to re-read the tender words of
those who are estranged or gone away from us, and all the hopes and
expectations that have come to nothing.'
'Don't read them, Auntie. Let's tear them up and burn them, if they make
you cry.'
'No, no; I can't bear to part with them, after all! We'll lock them up
in the desk again. But, Peggy, take my advice, and if you quarrel with
anyone, go and fight it out at once, and get it over, and don't let
misunderstandings make the breach so wide that nothing can ever mend it
again.'