glorious night for the expedition. It consisted of the "Buds" and three
boys. For some time all went well, but Gladys's skate needed tightening,
and before it was satisfactorily done, the other four were far away, and
Harry Elliott was left as sole protector to the girl.
Their conversation was mainly about school concerns. The boy was in a
bank, the girl in her last term at the High School.
"If only I could work at something after I'm finished! What shall I do
with my life when I have no more lessons? I think everybody should do
something; I shall soon be tired of lazing through the days."
"Your pater would never let you do anything for money, he is so rich."
"But simply to have a lot of money won't satisfy me, although I'd like
to earn some. To be a teacher would suit me best, and keep my mind from
rusting."
"You are awfully clever, you know. I never cared for books and never
worked till one day--a day I shall never forget."
"What was it about, Harry? Tell me."
The two had chattered about their own concerns without noticing that the
rest of the "Bunch" had kept to the left side of the lake while they had
skated straight forward ignoring the deep bay, and were now nearing the
right shore. The ice was smooth as glass, each was an accomplished
skater, and together they had made a brilliant run without a pause after
the tightening of the screw. Now, hot and breathless, they paused for a
few moments, and only then realised that they were about three miles
distant from the rest of the party. Harry drew off his thick woollen
mittens and unloosened his muffler, as together they stood looking at
the glistening landscape around them.
"I think we ought to turn; we are a long way from home."
"Just let us touch shore first and get to the 'Black Stone'; that would
be a record spin."
"All right, then, come along, and tell me what happened that day. You
know."
Hand-in-hand the two started off once more in the direction of the
"Black Stone." Far and wide there was not a human being visible. Not a
sound except the swish, swish of their skates and their own voices fell
on the clear, still air of the glorious night.
[Sidenote: Harry's Story]
"I never was clever," began Harry, "and am not now. I used to be quite
satisfied that kings and other celebrated people really had lived and
died without learning a whole rigmarole about their lives. Really it did
not interest me a bit. Geography was the same, composition was worse,
mathematics was worst. I seemed always to be in hot water at school.
Then one day the old man (we always called Jackson Spencer that) said
after class was over--and of course I hadn't answered once--'Elliott, go
to my room and wait for me.' I tell you, Gladys, I shivered; I didn't
know what I was in for. Old man walked right in and shut the door, after
having left me alone about ten minutes, and just said, 'Come and sit
down, boy, I want to say something to you.' You could have knocked me
over I was so surprised. He then said: 'Look here, Elliott, you are not
a bad chap, but do you know that you are as blind as an owl?' I rubbed
my eyes and said, 'No, sir, I can see all right.'
"'You must be very short-sighted, then.'
"Of course I said nothing.
"'Did you ever think why your father sent you to school?'
"'No-o, sir.'
"'I thought so, but I'm going to tell you. He is not a rich man, Harry,
but he pays me to teach you all that will help you to rise above the
level of an ignorant labourer. Culture and education are as necessary to
a gentleman as bread is for food. I am doing my utmost, but I cannot
pour instruction down your throat any more than you can make a horse
drink by leading him to the trough. Now look here, boy, with all your
faults you are no coward; haven't you the pluck to get to know yourself
and stop being a shirker? Think what that means! A fellow never to be
trusted, a lazy, good-for-nothing, cowardly loafer. Remember, if you
don't work, you are taking your father's money under false pretences,
which is only another word for dishonesty. Think about what I've said;
turn over a page and start a new chapter. You can go, and mind--I trust
you.'"
"What a splendid old boy!" exclaimed Gladys. "What did you do?"
"Do! I worked like a beaver for the balance of school life, I'd so much
to make good. We shall touch the 'Stone' in a couple of----"
The sentence was never finished, for without warning, out of sight of a
helping hand, Gladys and Harry skated right through a large hole, left
by an ice-cutter without being marked by boughs, into ten feet of
freezing water.
The shock was tremendous, but being fine swimmers they naturally struck
out, trying to grasp the slippery ice.
To his horror Harry knew that his gloves were in his pocket, and now,
try as he would, his hands would not grip the ice. Gladys had been
entrusted to his care: not only would his life be the price of having
separated from the "Bunch," but infinitely worse, she must share the
same fate.
Despair lent him strength to support the girl with his left arm while he
tried to swing his right leg over and dig the heel of his skate into the
ice.
But all in vain, he tried and tried again. Numbed with cold, he felt
himself growing weaker and he knew that the end could not be far off
should the next attempt fail.
One more struggle--one last effort--and the skate, thank Heaven, had
caught! Then came the last act. Clenching his teeth and wildly imploring
help from on high, Harry gathered together his last remnant of strength,
and swung the girl on to the ice--Gladys was saved!
The boy's heart beat, his panting breath seemed to suffocate him, the
strain had been so fearful; now he could do no more, he seemed to make
no effort to save himself.
"Harry! Harry!" cried Gladys; "you must try more! I'm all right and can
help you--see, I am here close by!" she cried, frantic with terror. "It
will be all right directly," she added bravely as she lay flat down and
crept up to the edge of the ice.
The boy heard her encouraging words, but still made no progress.
"You are not doing your best, Harry! Think of me, if not of yourself.
Remember, I am alone and so frightened. Oh! do be quick. Here, take hold
of my hands."
This time her words went home, and the boy, half-paralysed with cold and
completely worn out, remembered his responsibility.
"Come along, Harry--hold hard! Yes, I can bear the weight!" called out
the courageous girl as she lay in her freezing garments on the ice, the
strain of the lad's weight dragging her arms almost from their sockets.
[Sidenote: Pluck Rewarded]
At last their pluck was rewarded. Heaven was good to them, and Harry
Elliott, trembling in every limb, his teeth chattering, his face pale as
the moon, stood by Gladys on solid ice. There was no time to waste in
words, the boy merely stretched out his hand to the exhausted girl and
started across the lake to the nearest house.
Not a word was spoken; they just sped onward, at first slowly and
laboriously, until the blood began to circulate and progress became
easier. When they reached the shore, they stood encased in solid ice,
their wet clothes frozen stiff by the keen frost of the glorious night.
Not for some days did Gladys betray any signs of the mental shock she
had received. Anxious parents and a careful doctor kept her in bed for a
week, while Harry occupied his usual place at the bank.
It was during that week that the change in Gladys took place. She had
plenty of time for thought. Recollections of her nearness to death, of
her horror while under the ice, of her terror when saved, of seeing her
brave rescuer sink, all these scenes made a deep and lasting impression
on her, and she realised that life can never be made up of pleasures
only.
When she met the rest of the "Bunch," her quietness puzzled them, her
determination to go no more on the ice distressed them. But in her own
heart Gladys felt that she had gained by her approach to death, for in
the deadly struggle she had been brought near to God. As for Harry
Elliott, need I forecast the trend of the two lives that were so nearly
taken away together?
[Sidenote: Mike, the old Raven, is the central figure of this story for
younger girls.]
The Pearl-rimmed Locket
BY
M. B. MANWELL
March came in with a roar that year. The elms of Old Studley creaked and
groaned loudly as the wild wind tossed them about like toys.
"I'm frighted to go to bed," wailed little Jinty Ransom, burying her
face in Mrs. Barbara's lap, when she had finished saying her prayers.
"Ah, dear, 'taint for we to be frightened at anything God sends! Do'ent
He hold the storms in the hollow of His hand? And thou, dear maid,
what's wind and tempest that's only 'fulfilling His word' compared wi'
life's storms that will gather over thy sunny head one day, sure as
sure?" Mrs. Barbara, the professor's ancient housekeeper, laid her
knotted hand on the golden curls on her lap.
But "thou, dear maid" could not look ahead so far. It was more than
enough for Jinty that Nature's waves and storms were passing over her at
the moment.
"Sit beside my bed, and talk me to sleep, please, Mrs. Barbara, dear!"
entreated the little girl, clutching tightly at the old lady's skirts.
So Mrs. Barbara seated herself, knitting in hand, by the little white
bed, and Jinty listened to the stories she loved best of all, those of
the days when her father was a little boy and played under the great
elms of Old Studley with Mike, the ancient raven, that some people
declared was a hundred years old at least. He was little more than a
dream-father, for he had been for most of Jinty's little life away in
far-off China in the diplomatic service. Her sweet, young, gentle mother
Jinty did not remember at all, for she dwelt in a land that is
far-and-away farther off than China, a land:
"Where loyal hearts and true
Stand ever in the light,
All rapture through and through
In God's most holy sight."
"And, really and truly, Mrs. Barbara, was it the very same Mike and not
another raven that pecked at father's little legs same's he pecks at
mine?" Jinty inquired sleepily.
"The very self-same. Thief that he is and was!" wrathfully said Mrs.
Barbara, who detested the venerable raven, a bird that gave himself the
airs of being one of the family of Old Studley, and stirred up more
mischief than a dozen human boys even.
"Why," grumbled on the old lady, "there's poor Sally Bent, the henwife,
she's driven distracted with Mike's thievish tricks. This week only he
stole seven eggs, three on 'em turkey's eggs no less. He set himself on
the watch, he did, and as soon as an egg was laid he nipped it up warm,
and away with it! If 'twasn't for master's anger I'd strangle that evil
bird, I should. Why, bless her! The little maid's asleep, she is!"
And Mrs. Barbara crept away to see after her other helpless charge, the
good old professor who lived so far back in the musty-fusty past that he
would never remember to feed his body, so busy was he in feasting his
mind on the dead languages.
Next morning the tearing winds had departed, the stately elms were
motionless at rest, and the sun beat down with a fierce radiance, upon
the red brick walls of Old Studley.
Jinty Ransom leaned out of her latticed window and smiled contentedly
back at the genial sun.
"Ah, thou maid, come down and count over the crocus flowers!" called up
Mrs. Barbara from the green lawn below. "I fear me that thief Mike has
nipped off the heads of a few dozens, out o' pure wicked mischief."
Presently Jinty was flashing like a sunbeam in and out of the old house.
"I must go round and scold Mike, then I'll come, back for breakfast,
Mrs. Barbara. Grandpapa's not down yet."
[Sidenote: Mike on the War-path]
But scolding's a game two can play at. Mike charged at Jinty with a
volley of angry chatter and fierce flappings of his heavy black wings.
It was no good trying to get in a word about the headless crocus plants
or the seven stolen eggs.
"Anybody would think that I was the thief who stole them, not you!"
indignantly said Jinty. Then Mike craned suddenly forward to give the
straight little legs a wicked nip, and Jinty fled with shrieks, to the
proud ecstasy of the raven, who "hirpled" at her heels into the
dining-room, into the learned presence of the old professor, by whom the
mischievous Mike was welcomed as if he were a prince of the blood.
The raven knew, none better, that he had the freedom of the city, and at
once set to work to abuse it. A sorry breakfast-table it was in less
than five minutes. Here and there over the white tablecloth Mike
scuttled and scrambled. His beak plunged into the cream-jug, then deep
into the butter, next aimed a dab at the marmalade, and then he uttered
a wrathful shriek became the bacon was too hot for his taste.
"My patience! Flesh and blood couldn't stand this!" Mrs. Barbara came
in, her hands in the air.
But the professor neither saw nor heard the old housekeeper's anger.
"Wonderful, wonderful!" he was admiringly ejaculating. "Behold the
amazing instinct implanted by nature. See how the feathered epicure
picks and chooses his morning meal!"
"If a 'feathered pickyer' means a black thief as ever was, sir, that
bird's well named!" said the housekeeper wrathfully.
At last Mike made his final choice, and, out of pure contrariness, it
was the bowl of hot bread and milk prepared for Jinty's breakfast from
which he flatly refused to be elbowed away.
"My pretty! Has it snatched the very cup from thy lip!" Mrs. Barbara's
indignation boiled over against the bold audacious tyrant so abetted by
its master--and hers. "If I'd but my will o' thee, thou thief, I'd flog
thee sore!" she added.
"Quoth the raven: never more!"
solemnly edged in the professor, with a ponderous chuckle over his own
aptitude which went unapplauded save by himself.
"I want my breakfast, grandpapa," whimpered Jinty.
It was all very funny indeed to witness Mike's reckless charge of
destruction over the snowy tablecloth, but, when it came to his calm
appropriation of her own breakfast, why, as Mrs. Barbara said, "Flesh
and blood couldn't stand it."
"Have a cup of black coffee and some omelette, dearling!" said the
professor, who would not have called anybody "darling" for the world.
Then the reckless old gentleman proceeded to placidly sort the letters
lying on the breakfast-table, comfortably unconscious that little maids
"cometh up" on different fare from that of tough old veterans.
"Why, why! Here's a surprise for us all!" Pushing back his spectacles
into the very roots of his white hair, the professor stared feebly round
on the company, and twiddled in his fingers a sheet of thin foreign
paper.
"Yes, sir?" Mrs. Barbara turned to her master eagerly alert for the
news, and Jinty wondered if it were to say the dream-father was coming
home at last.
But Mike, though some folk believe that ravens understand every word you
say, continued to dip again and again into his stolen bread and milk
with a lofty indifference. It might be an earthquake that had come to
Old Studley for all he knew. What if it were? There would always be a
ledge of rock somewhere about where he, Mike, could hold on in safety if
the earth were topsy-turvy. Besides, he had now scooped up the last
scrap of Jinty's breakfast, and it behoved him to be up and doing some
mischief.
His bold black eye caught a gleam of silver, an opportunity ready to his
beak. It was a quaint little Norwegian silver salt-cellar in the form of
a swan. Mike, with his head on one side, considered the feasibility of
removing that ancient Norse relic quietly. Then, afraid perhaps of
bringing about bad luck by spilling the salt, he gave up the idea and
stole softly away, unnoticed by his betters, who seemed ridiculously
occupied with a thin, rustling sheet of paper.
But to this day Mrs. Barbara has never found the salt-spoon, a little
silver oar, belonging to that Norse salt-cellar, and she never will,
that's certain.
"Extraordinary, most extraordinary!" the professor was repeating. Then,
when Mrs. Barbara felt she could bear it no longer, he went on to read
out the foreign letter.
It was from his son, Jinty's father, and told how his life had been
recently in grave peril. His house had been attacked by native rioters,
and he would certainly have been murdered had it not been for the
warning of a friendly Chinaman. Mr. Ransom escaped in the darkness, but
the loyal native who had saved him, paid the cost with his own life. He
was cruelly hacked to pieces for his so-called treachery. When the
rioters were quelled by a British detachment, Mr. Ransom's first
thought was for the family of his faithful friend. But it was too late.
With the exception of one tiny girl all had been killed by the rioters.
This forlorn little orphan was already on her way crossing the Pacific,
for she was to be housed and educated at Old Studley with Mr. Ransom's
own little daughter, and at his expense. Common gratitude could do no
less.
[Sidenote: Ah Lon]
The letter went on to say that Ah Lon, the little Chinese maiden, was a
well-brought-up child, her father belonging to the anti-foot-binding
community which is fast making its way throughout China. She would
therefore be no more trouble in the old home than a little English girl,
than father's own Jinty, in fact.
"Well, of course," said the Professor meditatively, "the heavy end of
the beam will come upon you, my good Barbara. There's plenty of room in
the old house for this young stranger, but she will be a great charge
for you."
"'Deed, sir, and it's a charge I never looked to have put upon me!"
quavered the scandalised Mrs. Barbara, twisting the corner of her apron
agitatedly. "A haythen Chinee under this respected roof where there's
been none but Christian Ransoms for generations back!"
"There, there!" said her master soothingly. "Your motherly heart would
never turn away a poor orphan from our door!"
But Mrs. Barbara sniffed herself out of the room, and it was weeks
before she reconciled herself to the new and disagreeable prospect.
Indeed, when poor, shivering Ah Lon arrived at Old Studley, the good
woman nearly swooned at the spectacle of a little visitor arrayed in
dark blue raiment consisting of a long, square-shaped jacket and full
trousers, and a bare head stuck over with well-oiled queues of black
hair.
"I thought as Mr. William wrote it was a girl, sir!" she gasped faintly,
with a shocked face.
But the old professor was in ecstasies. All he could think of was the
fact that under his roof was a being who could converse in pure Chinese;
in truth, poor bewildered Ah Lon could not speak in anything else but
her native tongue. He would have carried her off to his study and
monopolised her, but Mrs. Barbara's sense of propriety was fired.
"No, sir," she interposed firmly. "If that being's the girl Mr. William
sent she's got to look as such in some of Miss Jinty's garments and
immediately."
So Ah Lon, trembling like a leaf, was carried off to be attired like a
little English child.
"But as for looking like one, that she never will!" Mrs. Barbara
hopelessly regarded the strangely-wide little yellow face, the singular
eyes narrow as slits, and the still more singular eyebrows.
"Oh, never mind how she looks!" Jinty put her arms round the little
yellow neck and lovingly kissed the stranger, who summarily shook her
off. Perhaps Ah Lon was not accustomed to kisses at home.
It was a rebuff, and Jinty got many another as the days went on. Do what
she could to please and amuse the little foreigner, Ah Lon shrank from
her persistently.
[Illustration: HORRIBLE DREAMS OF MONSTERS AND DEMONS.]
All Jinty's treasures, dolls and toys and keepsakes were exhibited, but
Ah Lon turned away indifferently. The Chinese girl, in truth, was deadly
home-sick, but she would have died rather than confess it, even to the
professor, the only person who understood her speech. She detested the
new, strange country, the queer, unknown food, the outlandish ways. Yet
she was in many respects happier. Some of the old hardships of girl life
in China were gone. Some old fears began to vanish, and her nights were
no longer disturbed with horrible dreams of monsters and demons.
But of all things in and about Old Studley Ah Lon most detested Mike the
raven, and Mike seemed fully to return her dislike. He pecked viciously
at the spindly Chinese legs and sent Ah Lon into convulsions of terror.
"Ah well, bad as he is, Mike's British same's I am, and he do hate a
foreigner!" said Mrs. Barbara appreciatively.
Time went on and Jinty began to shoot up; she was growing quite tall,
and Ah Lon also grew apace. But, still, though the little foreigner
could now find her way about in the language of her new country, she
shut her heart against kind little Jinty's advances.
"She won't have anything to say to me!" complained Jinty, "she won't
make friends, Mrs. Barbara! The only thing she will look at is my pearl
locket, she likes that!"
Indeed Ah Lon seemed never tired of gazing at the pearl-rimmed locket
which hung by a slender little chain round Jinty's neck, and contained
the miniature of her pretty young mother so long dead. The little
Chinese never tired of stroking the sweet face looking out from the rim
of pearls.
"Do you say prayers to it?" she asked, in her stammering English.
"Prayers, no!" Jinty was shocked. "I only pray to our Father and to the
good Jesus. Why, you wouldn't pray to a picture?"
Ah Lon was silent. So perhaps she had been praying to the sweet painted
face already, who could say?
It was soon after this talk that the two little girls sat in the study
one morning. Ah Lon was at the table by the side of the professor, an
open atlas between them and the old gentleman in his element.
But Jinty sat apart, strangely quiet.
Ah Lon, watching out of her slits of eyes, had never seen Jinty so dull
and silent. And all that summer day it was the same.
"What's amiss with my dear maid?" anxiously asked Mrs. Barbara, when
bed-time came.
Then it all came out.
"I've lost my pearl-rimmed locket!" sobbed Jinty. "Ah Lon asked to look
at it this morning the first thing; she always does, you know. And I
took it off, and then Mike pecked my legs and Ah Lon's so hard that we
both ran away screaming, and I must have dropped the locket--and it's
gone!"
"Gone! That can't be! Unless--unless----" Mrs. Barbara hesitated, and
Jinty knew they were thinking the same thing. "Have you told Ah Lon,
deary?"
"I did this afternoon, and she cried. I never saw her cry before!"
"Ah, jes' so! You can't trust they foreigners. But I'll sift this
business, I shall!" vigorously said Mrs. Barbara.
But for days the disappearance of the locket was a mystery. In Mrs.
Barbara's mind there was no doubt that Ah Lon had taken the coveted
picture and concealed it in safe hiding. Jinty almost thought so too,
and a gloom crept over Old Studley. "I dursn't tell the master, he's
that wrapped up in the wicked little yellow-faced creature. I'll step
over to the parson and tell he," Mrs. Barbara decided, and arraying
herself in her Sunday best, she sallied forth to the vicarage.
As she crossed the little common shouts and laughter and angry chatter
fell on her ear.
A group of schoolboys, the parson's four little sons, were closing in
round a dark object.
"Why, if that isn't our Mike! I never knew the bird to go outside of Old
Studley before. What----"
"Oh, Mrs. Barbara, do come along here!" Reggie, the eldest of the four,
turned his head and beckoned her.
[Sidenote: Mike's Mishap]
"Here's a nice go! We've run your Mike in, and see his fury, do! Our
Tommy was looking for birds' eggs in the Old Studley hedge, and he saw a
shine of gold and pulled out this! And Mike chased him, madly pecking
his legs, out here to the common. And now he's fit to fly at me because
I've got his stolen goods. Look, do!"
Reggie doubled up with yells of laughter, and Mike, in a storm of fury,
shrieked himself hoarse.
But Mrs. Barbara stood dumb.
In a flash the truth had come to her.
Mike, not poor Ah Lon, was the thief. She tingled all over with
remorseful shame as she crept home with the locket in her hand.
"Oh, and we thought you had stolen it, Ah Lon dear!" Jinty confessed,
with wild weeping; but Ah Lon was placidly smoothing the precious little
picture. It was enough for her that it had come back. "Grandpapa must
know; he must be told!" went on Jinty, determined not to spare herself.