CHAPTER XVII.CHRISTMAS-TIDE.
BUT in the midst of all his newly-found happiness Bertie did not forget his old friends.
He had told the Squire all about his affection for David, and had been encouraged to show all the kindness in his power to the fisher lad, who had been kind to him when he was a lonely little outcast.
So almost every day he visited the humble cabin, and wandered with David among the sandhills, and found in him as sympathetic a confident, now that he had happy secrets to tell, as in the old days when these had all been sad.
“I do be glad, that I be,” said David again andagain, when Bertie told him of his happiness. “I just knew the Lord couldn’t forget thee—didn’t I always tell thee so?”
“Yes, you did, and you were quite right. He didn’t ever forget me, though He didn’t remember me in the way I expected quite.”
“Maybe He does things in His own way,” remarked David, simply. “My teacher says as He knows best.”
“Yes,” answered Bertie, softly, and with childish reverence. “You know I always tried to say ‘Thy will be done’ too. I’m so glad I did; for I’m sure His will is best.”
Sometimes David would look earnestly at his little companion and ask,—
“Don’t thou want to remember what thy name is or who thou really be?”
And Bertie’s face would put on a grave, far-away look as he would answer,—
“I want Him to do just what He thinks best. He’s given me such a lot of things that I know He’s not forgotten me; and I’d like to leave it all to Him.”
“Maybe that’s best,” David would say. “I do be glad He’s made thee so happy.”
The Squire, who took an interest in everything and everybody that made a part of Bertie’s life, began to take notice of David now, and found out from his mother that he did not seem physically adapted for the seafaring life that would naturally fall to his lot.
He loved his home near the sea, and the sea itself, but he had no taste for the career of fisherman or sailor, and when the Squire asked the good dame if she would like to see him employed about the garden or farm connected with the Manor House her eyes brightened with pleasure, and she answered, that there was nothing in all the world he would like so well; it would keep him at home, and yet near Master Bertie.
Every one round and about Arlingham knew the substantial advantage of entering the Squire’s service. None of his laborers or workpeople were ever “turned off” when work was slack, none were dismissed when old age robbed them of their former powers. If they behaved themselves well, they might stay upon the place from early youth to hoary old age. Such had been the traditions of the house for many generations, and many were the men who had grown grey-headed in the service of the Squires of Arlingham,and who had learned to love and revere the masters who were always just, yet always generous, and who looked after them in sickness and in health with a quiet, kindly sovereignty that never became tyrannical and never degenerated into undue familiarity. The master was always the master, and yet each one of his servants, even if they feared him a little, knew that he was at heart the staunchest friend they need wish to have, so long as they earned his good-will by quiet attention to duty.
So David’s mother was deeply delighted at the prospect of seeing her son enter the Squire’s service, knowing well that an opening in life would be thus secured which would afford him a means of livelihood for as long as he cared to remain.
The next step was to speak to the lad himself and discover the bent of his tastes. It would be hard to say which of the boys was most pleased at the prospect thus held out—David or Bertie. The Squire was a good deal amused by the animation of his little adopted son, and was pleased at David’s visible gratitude and eagerness. A few questions soon elicited the fact that the farm attracted him more than the garden. He had a great love for all live animals, and had been more or less used to cowsand pigs all his life, having often been employed by one or another of the village folks to look after their beasts when they themselves were too busy to do so.
So David was promoted to be a cow-boy at the Manor Farm, and greatly did both he and Bertie rejoice in the new dignity thus conferred upon him. He had a certain number of cows to milk and look after, and the favorite Alderney was amongst these. Bertie began now to haunt the farm like a little “Squire born,” as the men used to say among themselves: “For all the world like poor Master Tom,” the elder laborers would add. And they all looked kindly upon the little boy, who on his side always spoke nicely and courteously to every one of the people, and they sometimes said amongst themselves that if Master Bertie succeeded in his day as Squire of Arlingham, there would be no fear but that the old traditions would be kept up. He was not the sort to let them die out.
So Bertie went about very much as if he had been born and bred upon the place. He learned to milk the cows and to understand their ways. He had his own chickens and turkeys, and was fattening one of the latter with untiring assiduity for the Squire’sChristmas dinner. He could talk quite gravely and knowingly about the price of corn or the quality of hay, and modelled himself in all things upon the Squire in a way that often provoked a smile.
He was very happy in those days—happier than he had once believed it possible for him to be. The forgotten past did not haunt him with vague, fleeting images and illusive dreams. The present was full of satisfaction and pleasure, and amid its many and vivid interests he never felt that blank sense of emptiness that had once so weighed upon his spirit.
Dr. Lighton began to shake his head when questioned now as to the probability of the vanished past ever returning to him.
“It may do still,” he would say: “the sight of a familiar face or a place that he has known might bring it all back in a flood; but he is so young that a few years of this life may cause actual forgetfulness, irrespective of the original injury, and he may never be able to recall the past at all. If he were older, the chances would be much greater; as things stand now, I confess I am doubtful.”
The Squire showed no uneasiness at hearing this. People were beginning to say that he looked tenyears younger already than when Bertie had first come; and the young doctor, who was on more intimate terms with him than anybody else in the neighborhood, was much impressed by the change in him.
“To tell the truth, doctor,” said the Squire, smiling, “I am in no wise anxious to discover the child’s parents. I did my best at first, but quite failed in tracing them. I have grown fond of him. He is like my own child now; and, without wishing to be selfish, I shall be personally glad if he is never claimed. He has settled down very comfortably here, and I think I can make him happy.”
“There is no doubt as to that, I think. I incline to hope, for both your sakes, that he never will be claimed.”
Christmas-time came round in due course; but it did not bring back Bertie’s little playfellows to the empty house behind the trees. He had a letter from Queenie saying that they were all going to spend the holidays at the house of an uncle and aunt; but that she thought they would come home again in March or April, and she hoped it would not be too late to get the young sea-gulls.
The Squire was afraid Bertie might be disappointedat not seeing his young friends and sharing together the Christmas festivities; but the child was quite content that it should be so, and, putting his arms about his so-called father’s neck, he whispered,—
“I’ve got you, papa. I don’t want anybody else.”
The lonely man and the lonely child had grown very dear to one another during these past weeks. They were together during the greater part of the day, and they shared each other’s confidence in a way that was quite peculiar.
They had a world of their own, too, other than the material world around them, and one quite unknown to any but themselves. It was the world of the Squire’s buried past, that for many long years he had shut away in his own heart and had striven to forget. A long closed door had at last been unlocked by a childish hand, and old memories awakened into a new life that seemed to bring them a strange sense of peace and consolation.
Tom and Charley, Mary and Violet, the gentle mother and the baby Donald, were now as household words on the lips of one who had thought never to speak their names again. To the little boy, who was never tired of hearing stories of their brieflives, they were real and living friends, whose personality was as vivid to him as if they still ran races in the hall and flocked about their father at dusk to beg for the stories he always kept for them.
The Squire was called upon as imperiously now for stories as ever in the sweet days of the happy past, and no stories were so eagerly welcomed as those that told of the children whom he began to look on as not lost, but only gone before.
There was one story that Bertie longed to hear, but that he had never asked for yet. Many times the request had been on the tip of his tongue, but had never actually passed his lips. He had heard a part of the story from Mrs. Pritchard, he had imagined it many times for himself, but he had never heard it from the Squire, and he felt that until he did so he should never be entirely satisfied.
It was Christmas day, and the day had been full of pleasure and interest to little Bertie. Upon the previous afternoon the happy work had begun in the distribution of Christmas dinners amongst the Squire’s people and the poor folks of the place. Early in the day there had been another distribution of warm clothing and bright scarlet cloaks to the old people,and after morning service a great dinner in the laundry for all the Squire’s laborers and workpeople who were not married, and preferred this way of dining to solitary meals or those taken with families who perhaps preferred their room to their company.
The Squire and Bertie had visited them at dinner, and enjoyed seeing their happy, jovial faces and the gusto with which they fell to upon the good cheer before them; but what had delighted the child most was the big Christmas tree in the barn for the youngsters of the place, where all kinds of things were given away and nobody was forgotten.
It was many, many years since the Squire had shown himself as he did this year. Christmas at the Manor House had always been kept with almost feudal or mediæval liberality and hospitality, and the tree, that had been inaugurated by the last lady of the Manor only a year or two before her death, had always been an institution since; but it was fifteen years since the Squire had seen it or since he had helped to give away its load of presents.
Bertie had not been forgotten. He had come in for a lion’s share of pretty things, trifles that children prize so much. The old servants had each theirlittle offering for the child they all loved. David’s clever fingers had made a wonderful cap out of sea-gulls’ feathers, which Mrs. Pritchard had hung upon the tree at his earnest request, and the Squire had been represented by articles of a more costly and serviceable kind. But Bertie’s pleasure had been less for himself than in seeing so many other people happy. He was learning in a very practical and emphatic way that it is more blessed to give than to receive.
And now all the excitement of the day was over, even the seven o’clock dinner with the Squire, when they had both partaken of the fatted turkey, which was said to have done credit to the care bestowed on it. Eight o’clock had struck, and it was nearly Bertie’s bed-time, but he fearlessly followed the Squire into his library and climbed upon his knee as he settled himself in his easy-chair.
There had been a long silence between them, and then Bertie asked, softly,—
“Have you enjoyed your Christmas, papa?”
The arm that encircled him pressed him a little more closely.
“Yes, my little boy, I have enjoyed it this year. And you?”
“Oh, I have been very, very happy!—I always am now, you know.”
“You are content to be my little boy? You do not want anybody else?”
“I think I would rather be your little boy always now,” answered Bertie; and then he looked up into the face above him with a peculiar depth of gravity, and added, “I feel as if God had given me to you.”
“I think He has, my child; and I am grateful to Him. He has given back to me a part of what He saw fit to take away. He has given me one little son to be with me in my old age.”
Bertie sat up and looked into the face above him.
“Papa,” he said, softly, “will you tell me one story to-night? I want to know about—about it all—when He took them all away.”
There was a deep silence for a few minutes after those words were spoken, and Bertie, gazing into the father’s eyes, half repented of his question, and yet did not repent. He could not read the look upon that face, it awed him into unbroken silence; and yet there was no anger there, no sternness even, only a deep, far-off sadness, as if some picture were slowly rising above the mental horizon that could only belooked upon with tear-dimmed eyes and with tender, haunting regret.
The moments seemed very long to Bertie, but he did not speak again.
“My child,” said the Squire at last, “why do you ask for that story to-night?”
Bertie hardly knew himself.
“You have never told it me,” he answered, shyly; “and to-night—”
“Well, to-night?”
“To-night seems a happy time. It is Christmas, you know, and the angels are always glad at Christmas. I think they are always nearer us then, because, you know, the shepherds saw them once, as if they liked to fly nearer to us at Christmas-time—”
Bertie paused again, hardly knowing how to frame the thought, and again the Squire said,—
“Well?”
“I thought, perhaps, they might be nearer to us to-night—Tom and Charley and all of them, you know. Perhaps they are helping the angels to sing; and if they are, I’m sure they would try to come near us to-night. I thought you would not mind telling me about them, when perhaps they are not so very far away. Don’t you think it is rather nice tothink that they are up there—so happy helping the angels to sing, ‘Peace on earth and glory to God’?”
There was another long silence, which again the Squire broke.
“I will tell you the story to-night, my child, if you wish to hear it.”