Chapter Five.The happy holidays passed all too soon away, and it was not till the very last of them that Frederica went with her bundle of papers to the office of Mr St. Cyr.“Mama could write a note and send Dixen, of course,” said she to Theresa. “But in a matter so troublesome every care should be taken, and I shall go myself.”She almost wished she had not, however, when she reached his house. The outer door was standing open, and instead of ascending a step or two as to most other houses in the street, one went down a step to the threshold, and when that was passed, the dark and gloomy hall looked not at all inviting to Frederica’s eyes. It was too late to think of running away now, however, and she sat down in the dingy outer office to wait till her name was taken in to Mr St. Cyr. Her courage revived when he came out to her; for he welcomed her warmly, and asked her into his private office with great ceremony, quite as if she had been a grownup young lady, she told Theresa afterwards.He took the papers, which the made haste to present as an excuse for her coming, and examined them carefully for a minute or two. He nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders, and said mademoiselle should have no more trouble with them, unless he were much mistaken. And then Frederica knew that the right thing for her to do would be to rise and thank him, and go away. But she did not. She sat looking round the dim room upon the numberless shelves and drawers and pigeon-holes, and then through the dusty window into a narrow court shut in by high Walls—as dismal a place as one could imagine. Her eyes were very grave when they came back again to Mr St. Cyr’s face.“Well, my little cousin, what do you think of it all?” asked he. “Do you live here always, Mr St. Cyr?”“Yes; here by day, and upstairs at night.”“And do you live alone? Have you no one else in this house?”“I have old Babette, whom you saw at the door.”“And no one else?”“Is not that enough?”“And has there never been any one else? And are you happy here?” asked Frederica, wonder struggling with the gravity in her face.“Ah, well! as to that—like the rest of the world, I suppose,” said Mr St. Cyr, with his wonderful shrug; but there came a look of pain over his face that startled the little girl, and made her wish that she had gone away before, so she rose hastily, and said,—“Adieu—and—pardon me, Cousin Cyprien.”“To meet soon, my little cousin,” said he, bowing over her offered hand, “as if I were quite grown up,” thought Frederica again, in the midst of her confusion.He went with her through the outer room and through the dim hall to the street door, and then a new thought seemed to strike him.“You will think I am a wicked old spider sitting here in the dark to catch unwary flies, if I let you go so. You shall come upstairs to see that the sun shines here too, and that I am not altogether unlike my fellow-men, though I am quite alone. Come upstairs, my child.”Frederica gave one glance upward, and another into the sunny street. She would much rather have gone away, but Mr St. Cyr was half-way up by this time, and so she could only follow. The stairs were as dim as the hall, and she saw nothing distinctly till she found herself in a large but not very lofty room. Mr St. Cyr drew aside the heavy curtains, and let in the sunshine.“And now you shall sit here till I see what my Babette can find for your refreshment;” said he.There were a great many beautiful things in the room. Though the furniturewasdark and old-fashioned, it was very rich and handsome of its kind. The curtains were of the richest damask, of a shade between crimson and brown, and the carpet was of the same colours, and so thick and soft that never a foot-fall could be heard in the room. There were vases and other ornaments on the mantel-piece, and a quaintly carved cabinet opposite, whose open doors showed many strange and beautiful things. There were pictures on the walls which made Frederica think of the great churches in which she had sometimes been.It was not a pleasant room, notwithstanding all these beautiful things; but quite as gloomy, though in a different way, as the office downstairs. She did not move about to examine any of them, but sat looking at a lovely picture of a woman with a child in her arms, over which the morning sunshine fell. By-and-by Mr St. Cyr came in, followed by a little old woman in an odd dress, who carried a silver tray in her hand. On the tray was a china plate, with a bunch of grapes, which she set down on a little table at her master’s bidding, and then left the room.“And so you do not think it well to be alone, my little cousin,” said Mr St. Cyr, when he had given the grapes into Frederica’s hand. “Will you not come and stay with me then?”Frederica did not answer for a moment. “You have learned enough of things you know,” said he, with his odd smile. “If we can persuade Mr Vane to let you leave school, will you come and stay here with me?”Frederica shook her head.“I could not leave mama. She needs me.”“But she has your sisters, and I am quite alone. Your mother used to come here when she was a child.”“Did she? Yes, she told us so. That must have been a long time ago.”“A long time ago! And so you will not come?”“Papa says he will send me home to England to school for a year or two, after I am done with Mrs Glencairn.”“And would you like that?”“No, not at all. Mama would miss me so much, and Selina. But I don’t intend to make myself unhappy about it. Very likely papa may forget all about it again.”“He forgets with ease some things,” said Mr St. Cyr: “let us hope he may forget this.”“I should not like to go, because of mama,” repeated Frederica.“And that is a good reason why you will not come and stay with me. Ah, well! I do not blame you. This is not the place for a bright little flower like you to bloom in. I must still be alone, I suppose.”“But I will come sometimes and see you, and so will Tessie, if you would like us to do so,” said Frederica, rising to go: “and I shall certainly come if I fall into any more troubles. You said I was to do so, did you not, Cousin Cyprien?”“Surely, I shall expect you.”“And I have come already with these tiresome papers. And ah! I had forgotten. There were several things I wished to say about them.”“You need not say them,” said Mr St. Cyr: “I shall understand them perfectly, I do not doubt, and they shall not trouble you any more, nor your mama either. I only wish all her troubles could be as easily ended as these shall be.”“But, Mr St. Cyr,” said Frederica, pausing at the door, and growing very red, “mama does not wish that you should pay these things. Has not mama enough of money?”“Assuredly, she has ample means. I have no thought of paying these debts. Do not alarm yourself.”“You are not angry with me, are you, Cousin Cyprien?” asked Frederica, wistfully.“Angry! By no means, my little cousin. Why should I be angry? And now, remember you are to come again, you and your sister. Ah! how bright the sunshine is!” added he, as he opened the door.Yes, it was almost dazzling at first, after the dimness within. Frederica walked slowly home, not able, even in the bright sunshine, to shakeoffthe quieting influence of the old man’s solitary home.“I wonder why it seemed so strange?” said she to herself, “it must have been the silence. I wonder if any other voice is ever heard in that room. He must have visitors. And mama used to go there when she was a little girl, with grandpapa, I suppose. If I were to do anything wrong, or were afraid of an enemy, I think I would go there to hide myself. But to live there always!—no, I could not do that; it is too silent and sad.”“Mama,” she asked that night when she had told them of her visit, “was it always so still and gloomy at Cousin Cyprien’s when you used to go there? Was he always alone in those days?”“I do not remember it as gloomy or silent. Mr St. Cyr’s mother lived there then, and there were a great many beautiful things in the house. His brother was there too sometimes, but he was not a cheerful person.”“There are beautiful things there now. The cabinet is full of them, and there are the pictures on the walls,” and she went on to name other things she had seen: “but still I wonder that he can content himself there, it is so solitary and silent.”“Mama,” said Tessie, “I don’t think it says much for Fred’s good sense that she should talk in that way about Mr St. Cyr and his home. Very likely there are crowds of visitors there every night, though there was no one there then.” Frederica shook her head. “No, you would not say so if you went there. Only very old people or shadows could ever be content there.”“Mama, listen to her! Is she sensible?”“Well, perhaps it is foolish,” said Frederica candidly. “But all the same I cannot help being sorry for Cousin Cyprien. What does he take pleasure in, mama?”“My dear, a man like Mr St. Cyr has many sources of interest and pleasure that a young girl like you cannot be supposed to know anything about, or even to understand, if you knew them. I do not think he needs your pity or sympathy very much. He is very religious, I believe.”“And religion is enough to content some people,” said Tessie flippantly. “You know you told me the other day that Miss Baines’ religion made her quite patient and happy, even when she was in great suffering, and not afraid even of death; and perhaps it suits Mr St. Cyr to be religious too.”“Yes; but then his religion must be quite different from Miss Baines’.”“Oh, well! it may be just as good, or it may suit him just as well. I think you are very foolish, and so does Selina.”But Selina said nothing. She listened always to her sister’s talk, and “thought about it afterwards,” as Tessie had said. Now she was repeating to herself, “Patient and happy even in great suffering; that must be a good and beautiful thing.” And many thoughts did she give to Miss Baines and her sufferings, and her patience, before she saw her sisters again.It was a beautiful sight, if there had been anyone to see it—the mother and her daughters as they sat there together on that last night before Frederica and Theresa went back to school. And yet it would have been a sorrowful sight to one who knew their history and their affairs, and who loved them and wished them well. For, except the dear love they bore to one another, there was not a single element of permanence in the happiness they enjoyed together.That the hour of separation was drawing near, none who looked in Mrs Vane’s face could fail to see. It was coming slowly, so slowly that she, who had almost forgotten what it was to be quite well and free from pain, had come to think that her illness was not of a kind that sooner or later ends in death. The thought that it might be so—that she must leave her children, young, without experience, every danger doubled by their own beauty and their grandfather’s wealth, was a very painful one, but she put it from her, whenever it could be put away. Death was terrible to think of for their sakes. Yes, and terrible for herself too; for of the hope which sustains the Christian alike in life and in death, she knew nothing.It is difficult to conceive of ignorance so utter as hers on all religious subjects. Her mother had not lived long enough to teach her the little that she herself understood of the religion of her people, and her father had had no religion. During the first years of her married life, she had sometimes gone to church with her husband, but she had never been much interested in what she heard, or tried to understand it. It had been a mere form with her; as indeed it had been always with her husband. She knew nothing of the way in which a sinner must be prepared for death, that must come some time, and which might be near, and there were times when the thought of this made her afraid.Her daughters knew little more than she did. When the idea of sending them to school was first proposed, Mrs Ascot desired that it should be to one of the convents of the city, and probably there they would have been sent, had not Mr St. Cyr earnestly desired it too. His wish was enough to make Mr Vane decide against it, so bitter was his dislike, and they were sent to Mrs Glencairn’s instead. Their religions teaching while there was, at their father’s request, committed to the charge of the English teacher, Miss Pardie, and her instructions were not of a kind to make much impression on the minds of volatile girls, with whom she was not a favourite. The Scripture lessons which they shared with the other pupils, were too often learned and repeated as a task, and forgotten.So neither the mother nor the children had any knowledge of the true way to find happiness, either in this world or the next. A vague dread and fear had come to Mrs Vane now and then during all the years of her illness, but she had tried to put them from her. They had come oftener of late, but she strove to put them from her still.“Patient and happy in the midst of great suffering, and not afraid even of death.” Many, many times in the days when the two girls had gone, and she was left to the quiet of their solitary days, did these words come back to her again.
The happy holidays passed all too soon away, and it was not till the very last of them that Frederica went with her bundle of papers to the office of Mr St. Cyr.
“Mama could write a note and send Dixen, of course,” said she to Theresa. “But in a matter so troublesome every care should be taken, and I shall go myself.”
She almost wished she had not, however, when she reached his house. The outer door was standing open, and instead of ascending a step or two as to most other houses in the street, one went down a step to the threshold, and when that was passed, the dark and gloomy hall looked not at all inviting to Frederica’s eyes. It was too late to think of running away now, however, and she sat down in the dingy outer office to wait till her name was taken in to Mr St. Cyr. Her courage revived when he came out to her; for he welcomed her warmly, and asked her into his private office with great ceremony, quite as if she had been a grownup young lady, she told Theresa afterwards.
He took the papers, which the made haste to present as an excuse for her coming, and examined them carefully for a minute or two. He nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders, and said mademoiselle should have no more trouble with them, unless he were much mistaken. And then Frederica knew that the right thing for her to do would be to rise and thank him, and go away. But she did not. She sat looking round the dim room upon the numberless shelves and drawers and pigeon-holes, and then through the dusty window into a narrow court shut in by high Walls—as dismal a place as one could imagine. Her eyes were very grave when they came back again to Mr St. Cyr’s face.
“Well, my little cousin, what do you think of it all?” asked he. “Do you live here always, Mr St. Cyr?”
“Yes; here by day, and upstairs at night.”
“And do you live alone? Have you no one else in this house?”
“I have old Babette, whom you saw at the door.”
“And no one else?”
“Is not that enough?”
“And has there never been any one else? And are you happy here?” asked Frederica, wonder struggling with the gravity in her face.
“Ah, well! as to that—like the rest of the world, I suppose,” said Mr St. Cyr, with his wonderful shrug; but there came a look of pain over his face that startled the little girl, and made her wish that she had gone away before, so she rose hastily, and said,—
“Adieu—and—pardon me, Cousin Cyprien.”
“To meet soon, my little cousin,” said he, bowing over her offered hand, “as if I were quite grown up,” thought Frederica again, in the midst of her confusion.
He went with her through the outer room and through the dim hall to the street door, and then a new thought seemed to strike him.
“You will think I am a wicked old spider sitting here in the dark to catch unwary flies, if I let you go so. You shall come upstairs to see that the sun shines here too, and that I am not altogether unlike my fellow-men, though I am quite alone. Come upstairs, my child.”
Frederica gave one glance upward, and another into the sunny street. She would much rather have gone away, but Mr St. Cyr was half-way up by this time, and so she could only follow. The stairs were as dim as the hall, and she saw nothing distinctly till she found herself in a large but not very lofty room. Mr St. Cyr drew aside the heavy curtains, and let in the sunshine.
“And now you shall sit here till I see what my Babette can find for your refreshment;” said he.
There were a great many beautiful things in the room. Though the furniturewasdark and old-fashioned, it was very rich and handsome of its kind. The curtains were of the richest damask, of a shade between crimson and brown, and the carpet was of the same colours, and so thick and soft that never a foot-fall could be heard in the room. There were vases and other ornaments on the mantel-piece, and a quaintly carved cabinet opposite, whose open doors showed many strange and beautiful things. There were pictures on the walls which made Frederica think of the great churches in which she had sometimes been.
It was not a pleasant room, notwithstanding all these beautiful things; but quite as gloomy, though in a different way, as the office downstairs. She did not move about to examine any of them, but sat looking at a lovely picture of a woman with a child in her arms, over which the morning sunshine fell. By-and-by Mr St. Cyr came in, followed by a little old woman in an odd dress, who carried a silver tray in her hand. On the tray was a china plate, with a bunch of grapes, which she set down on a little table at her master’s bidding, and then left the room.
“And so you do not think it well to be alone, my little cousin,” said Mr St. Cyr, when he had given the grapes into Frederica’s hand. “Will you not come and stay with me then?”
Frederica did not answer for a moment. “You have learned enough of things you know,” said he, with his odd smile. “If we can persuade Mr Vane to let you leave school, will you come and stay here with me?”
Frederica shook her head.
“I could not leave mama. She needs me.”
“But she has your sisters, and I am quite alone. Your mother used to come here when she was a child.”
“Did she? Yes, she told us so. That must have been a long time ago.”
“A long time ago! And so you will not come?”
“Papa says he will send me home to England to school for a year or two, after I am done with Mrs Glencairn.”
“And would you like that?”
“No, not at all. Mama would miss me so much, and Selina. But I don’t intend to make myself unhappy about it. Very likely papa may forget all about it again.”
“He forgets with ease some things,” said Mr St. Cyr: “let us hope he may forget this.”
“I should not like to go, because of mama,” repeated Frederica.
“And that is a good reason why you will not come and stay with me. Ah, well! I do not blame you. This is not the place for a bright little flower like you to bloom in. I must still be alone, I suppose.”
“But I will come sometimes and see you, and so will Tessie, if you would like us to do so,” said Frederica, rising to go: “and I shall certainly come if I fall into any more troubles. You said I was to do so, did you not, Cousin Cyprien?”
“Surely, I shall expect you.”
“And I have come already with these tiresome papers. And ah! I had forgotten. There were several things I wished to say about them.”
“You need not say them,” said Mr St. Cyr: “I shall understand them perfectly, I do not doubt, and they shall not trouble you any more, nor your mama either. I only wish all her troubles could be as easily ended as these shall be.”
“But, Mr St. Cyr,” said Frederica, pausing at the door, and growing very red, “mama does not wish that you should pay these things. Has not mama enough of money?”
“Assuredly, she has ample means. I have no thought of paying these debts. Do not alarm yourself.”
“You are not angry with me, are you, Cousin Cyprien?” asked Frederica, wistfully.
“Angry! By no means, my little cousin. Why should I be angry? And now, remember you are to come again, you and your sister. Ah! how bright the sunshine is!” added he, as he opened the door.
Yes, it was almost dazzling at first, after the dimness within. Frederica walked slowly home, not able, even in the bright sunshine, to shakeoffthe quieting influence of the old man’s solitary home.
“I wonder why it seemed so strange?” said she to herself, “it must have been the silence. I wonder if any other voice is ever heard in that room. He must have visitors. And mama used to go there when she was a little girl, with grandpapa, I suppose. If I were to do anything wrong, or were afraid of an enemy, I think I would go there to hide myself. But to live there always!—no, I could not do that; it is too silent and sad.”
“Mama,” she asked that night when she had told them of her visit, “was it always so still and gloomy at Cousin Cyprien’s when you used to go there? Was he always alone in those days?”
“I do not remember it as gloomy or silent. Mr St. Cyr’s mother lived there then, and there were a great many beautiful things in the house. His brother was there too sometimes, but he was not a cheerful person.”
“There are beautiful things there now. The cabinet is full of them, and there are the pictures on the walls,” and she went on to name other things she had seen: “but still I wonder that he can content himself there, it is so solitary and silent.”
“Mama,” said Tessie, “I don’t think it says much for Fred’s good sense that she should talk in that way about Mr St. Cyr and his home. Very likely there are crowds of visitors there every night, though there was no one there then.” Frederica shook her head. “No, you would not say so if you went there. Only very old people or shadows could ever be content there.”
“Mama, listen to her! Is she sensible?”
“Well, perhaps it is foolish,” said Frederica candidly. “But all the same I cannot help being sorry for Cousin Cyprien. What does he take pleasure in, mama?”
“My dear, a man like Mr St. Cyr has many sources of interest and pleasure that a young girl like you cannot be supposed to know anything about, or even to understand, if you knew them. I do not think he needs your pity or sympathy very much. He is very religious, I believe.”
“And religion is enough to content some people,” said Tessie flippantly. “You know you told me the other day that Miss Baines’ religion made her quite patient and happy, even when she was in great suffering, and not afraid even of death; and perhaps it suits Mr St. Cyr to be religious too.”
“Yes; but then his religion must be quite different from Miss Baines’.”
“Oh, well! it may be just as good, or it may suit him just as well. I think you are very foolish, and so does Selina.”
But Selina said nothing. She listened always to her sister’s talk, and “thought about it afterwards,” as Tessie had said. Now she was repeating to herself, “Patient and happy even in great suffering; that must be a good and beautiful thing.” And many thoughts did she give to Miss Baines and her sufferings, and her patience, before she saw her sisters again.
It was a beautiful sight, if there had been anyone to see it—the mother and her daughters as they sat there together on that last night before Frederica and Theresa went back to school. And yet it would have been a sorrowful sight to one who knew their history and their affairs, and who loved them and wished them well. For, except the dear love they bore to one another, there was not a single element of permanence in the happiness they enjoyed together.
That the hour of separation was drawing near, none who looked in Mrs Vane’s face could fail to see. It was coming slowly, so slowly that she, who had almost forgotten what it was to be quite well and free from pain, had come to think that her illness was not of a kind that sooner or later ends in death. The thought that it might be so—that she must leave her children, young, without experience, every danger doubled by their own beauty and their grandfather’s wealth, was a very painful one, but she put it from her, whenever it could be put away. Death was terrible to think of for their sakes. Yes, and terrible for herself too; for of the hope which sustains the Christian alike in life and in death, she knew nothing.
It is difficult to conceive of ignorance so utter as hers on all religious subjects. Her mother had not lived long enough to teach her the little that she herself understood of the religion of her people, and her father had had no religion. During the first years of her married life, she had sometimes gone to church with her husband, but she had never been much interested in what she heard, or tried to understand it. It had been a mere form with her; as indeed it had been always with her husband. She knew nothing of the way in which a sinner must be prepared for death, that must come some time, and which might be near, and there were times when the thought of this made her afraid.
Her daughters knew little more than she did. When the idea of sending them to school was first proposed, Mrs Ascot desired that it should be to one of the convents of the city, and probably there they would have been sent, had not Mr St. Cyr earnestly desired it too. His wish was enough to make Mr Vane decide against it, so bitter was his dislike, and they were sent to Mrs Glencairn’s instead. Their religions teaching while there was, at their father’s request, committed to the charge of the English teacher, Miss Pardie, and her instructions were not of a kind to make much impression on the minds of volatile girls, with whom she was not a favourite. The Scripture lessons which they shared with the other pupils, were too often learned and repeated as a task, and forgotten.
So neither the mother nor the children had any knowledge of the true way to find happiness, either in this world or the next. A vague dread and fear had come to Mrs Vane now and then during all the years of her illness, but she had tried to put them from her. They had come oftener of late, but she strove to put them from her still.
“Patient and happy in the midst of great suffering, and not afraid even of death.” Many, many times in the days when the two girls had gone, and she was left to the quiet of their solitary days, did these words come back to her again.
Chapter Six.The reluctance with which the sisters always left home to return to school, was usually forgotten by them as soon as they found themselves among their companions, and busy with their lessons again. But this time it was not so with Frederica. She was restless and unhappy, finding it quite impossible to interest herself in her school-work, or to settle quietly to anything.It was all the more difficult for her to do so, that she was in few regular classes in the school. It was quite true as she had told her father, she had gone through and through all the books generally used by Mrs Glencairn’s pupils. This was not saying much, for few of the girls stayed in school so long as they ought to have done—none had been so long as Frederica. Under the guidance of Miss Robina Glencairn, a clever and cultivated woman, she had gone far beyond the usual routine of school lessons, and had taken much pleasure in her reading, though she had read alone, but she could not interest herself in it now. It seemed foolish and wrong for her to be at school, learning things that she could very well do without, when her mother and Selina needed her so much at home. Theydidneed her, she was sure; and she grew irritable and impatient under the restraint that kept her from them, till she was in danger, her sister told her, of losing the reputation for politeness and amiability, which she had been all those years acquiring.“And where is the good of fretting? If you can end it at the summer holidays, you may be very glad. You may be sure that Prickly Polly will not hear of your coming home just now. If I were you, I would learn the dictionary from the beginning to the end, or do something else to pass the time. Or you might ask Miss Robina for a story-book. She will give you one—you are such a pet of hers, I’m sure.”“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” said Frederica.There was to be no walking that day, because of the rain, and her book would have been little pleasure to her in the large schoolroom, where the girls usually passed the recreation hour on rainy days. But she knew where to find a refuge, to which, without special permission, even Tessie could not follow her. Frederica, because of Miss Robina’s favour, and for some other reasons, was permitted to go to it if she chose, provided her presence was not required elsewhere. So she was soon knocking at the door of a room at the head of a dim staircase that led to no other room in the house.“May I come in, Mistress Campbell?” said she, pausing on the threshold.“Is it you, missy?” said a voice from behind a great basket of clothes that was standing on the floor. “Who would have expected to see you at this hour? Have you no’ got the play? It canna be that you have a lesson to get over again!”“No,” said Frederica. “This is not a lesson book. But I have got a headache, and I am cross, and I can’t be bothered with the girls; but I shall be very quiet and good, and not be in the way, if you will let me stay.”“Well, if you’ll promise no’ to fash me with your foolish talk while I am busy, you may stay.”“Shall I fash you here?” said Frederica, laughing, and springing up into the wide seat of one of the large dormer windows by which the room was lighted.“Whisht now, and no’ put me out of my count,” said Mistress Campbell.She was sitting on a low stool, sorting and laying out on large trays at her side the clothes of pupils and teachers that had just come up from the laundress, a work which needed both patience and care, and Frederica knew that she must not be disturbed. Instead of opening her book, she sat for a moment watching her. She was a small, bowed woman, crippled by rheumatism, with a thin brown face, and deep-set, sharp, grey eyes. She wore a dark linsey gown, with a shawl of Campbell tartan over her shoulders, and she had a “mutch” with two or three rows of stiff borders on her head. She sung at her work, or rather chanted an old ballad which Frederica had heard before; but every now and then, as she counted and folded, and laid the different garments aside, she put their numbers and the names of their owners, and her thoughts about them, into the tune, without a pause; and Frederica knew by this that she had quite forgotten her presence in the room.“A droll little person,” she called her to herself, and then she thought how strange a being “old Eppie” would seem to her mama and Selina, and wondered how it was that she had never told them about her. She had mentioned her to them, but now she looked at her, and around the low, wide room, with eyes that meant to see everything for their benefit. It was a large room, which yet did not seem very large, because of the many things crowded into it, and because of the sloping roof which on three sides came almost to the floor. It was the attic of the wing in which the large classroom and dining-room were. The walls were roughly plastered and whitewashed, and underneath were arranged old bureaux and boxes and chests of drawers, filled with such clothing as was not often needed, and under Eppie’s particular care. Besides these, there were articles of furniture, broken or out of use, such as will accumulate in a house where many people live—chairs and tables, pictures, and faded ornaments of all kinds.There was a bed at that side of the room where the roof did not slope, but at this moment it was almost hidden by the great piles of linen arranged upon it. There was a small open stove, in which a coal fire smouldered, and over that part of the floor which was unencumbered by furniture a faded carpet was spread. There was not one beautiful thing in the room, Frederica thought, except a rose tree covered with buds and blossoms, that stood in the window opposite.The windows were pleasant, but from them Eppie could only see the sky, they were so high above her. From the one on the high seat of which she sat, Frederica could see thousands and thousands of city roofs, with bits of open space here and there, and the river beyond. But it was not a fair sight under drizzling rain and a leaden sky, and so she turned her eyes into the room again. Order was gradually coming out of the confusion of the innumerable white garments by which the little old woman had been surrounded. One after another the great trays were carried and emptied, into the many drawers beneath the eaves; and then coming back to place her empty baskets in a recess made beneath the high window, Eppie saw Frederica.“Preserve us a’ lassie! I had no mind o’ your being here. It is time for playing yourself now. Why should you be here at this hour?”“I don’t care to play with children any more,” said Frederica gravely.“Eh, sirs! You’ll be growing ower-womanly for the like of that, I suppose. Weel, weel! But you shouldna sit so quiet as to make me forget that you are here. I might be saying things that it wouldna be wise to say in your hearing. Are you no coming down out of that?”“Yes, I am coming, Mrs Campbell. Don’t you ever get tired of this place? Is it not awfully dull?”“Dull!” repeated Eppie, “and tired of it! Is it this chamber you mean? Where could I go if I tired of it? I am very thankful to bide in it, I can tell you.”“Yes, I suppose so. But don’t you get tired of it all the same? What do you look forward to? There is nothing in your life but mending, and keeping count, and—”“Hear the disrespectful lassie! Folding and keeping count, said she. That’s but for one day in the week. The mending whiles takes two or three, and there’s many a thing besides that I canna be speaking to the likes of you about.”“Yes; but not pleasant things, Eppie.”“Pleasant things, quo’ she! They’re my duty. What other would I hae?”“But, Mistress Campbell, dear, if I thought I had to live all my life here, even in this house, I should be miserable.”“But then it’s no your duty to live here all your life, and that makes the difference. If I were to make myself miserable as you call it, it would be for fear that I mightna get leave to bide here all my life, but I daresay it will be time enough to fret when I’m bidden go.”“That will never be. What would Mrs Glencairn and Miss Robina do without you?”“There’s no telling,” said Eppie, nodding her head many times; “but we’ll say no more about it. Are you no coming down from that cold window when I bid you?”“Yes, I’m coming. But, Eppie, how can you be content? Are your father and mother dead? Have you any brothers and sisters? Will it be just the same all your life till you die?”“Now, missy, come down this moment when I bid you. That’s an unwholesome book you’ve been reading, to put thoughts like that into your mind. It’s no me that’s like to grow discontented, it’s you. And I was just thinking of inviting you to tea.”Frederica sprang down from the window so suddenly as to make the old woman start.“Oh, do, Eppie dear,” cried she eagerly, “that is just the thing I should like. I want to speak to you, and I don’t want to go down to that rubbishing history; and I’ll read to you. I have not read a page yet, and it’s a very nice book they say.”“Is it a story book? But I would far rather hear about the wee beasties out of your lesson book. And I’m no just sure that Miss Robina would be pleased that you should take tea with me so soon again, and I’m no sure that I hae scones enew.”“Oh! Miss Robina will be sure to let me; and never mind the scones. I’ll go down for whatever we need, and I’ll ask Miss Robina. Let me stir the fire.”Frederica had forgotten the gloomy day, and the nun, and all imaginable subjects of discontent. She urged her petition eagerly; for she knew that Eppie liked to be entreated.“Let be the fire, missy. You’ll do mischief, and spoil your hands. You may bide if you get leave. But I doubt your sister will no be well pleased. It is ‘making fish o’ the one and flesh o’ the other,’ I doubt.”But Frederica did not stay to listen. It was a great honour and an exceptional one, to be asked to tea by Mrs Campbell. No other girl now in school, except Tessie and one or two of the elder pupils, had ever been asked to drink tea in the garret. Except for the fun of the thing, or for the sake of a change from the dreary school routine, few of them would have cared to do so. For Eppie was only a little old woman, bowed and lame, who even in her best days had only been a sort of upper servant in Mrs Glencairn’s house. The present race of girls did not often see her. Some of them had never seen her; for her daily journey to the lower part of the house to get what she needed was accomplished with much labour and effort at time when the girls were sure to be in school.Frederica was often in the garret. Miss Robina, whose pet, as Tessie had said, she was, seldom refused her permission when she wished to escape from the other girls, few of whose lessons she shared, either for work or amusement. But taking tea there was another matter; and Frederica, rather tired of being dismal, entered eagerly into the preparations. Miss Robina did not object; on the contrary, she was very glad to let her have the pleasure, heartily wishing that she might share it. She did share it for a little while, and added to it. For she came upstairs, carrying in her own hands a tray, on which were some fresh “scones” and a bit of “paddie,” each wrapped up in a snowy napkin, as was absolutely necessary to their perfection. She could not stay long—only long enough to be thanked and petted, and called “bonny bird” and “good bairn” by Mistress Campbell. She had a beautiful and good face, though it was rather pale and tired-looking, Frederica thought, as she sat for a moment smiling in the flickering firelight; and the first thing she said, when she and Eppie were left alone, was,—“How pretty and nice Miss Robina is! What a pity it is that she has to keep a school?”To this no reply was given.“It must be so tiresome to do the same thing over and over again every day of the year,” added she.“There are worse things than that in Miss Robina’s life, I’m thinking,” said Eppie gravely.“Are there? Tell me about them,” said Frederica, eager for a story.“I doubt you are no speaking with your usual discretion,” said Mistress Campbell gravely. “We’ll take our tea, and not meddle with what doesna concern us. There are few lives in which there are no troubles. Let us be thankful for our mercies.”It was a very nice tea. Scones and fresh butter and honey, to say nothing of “paddies” and other nice things. And such delicious tea made in a funny little black teapot with a broken spout. Everything was charming, Frederica thought and declared. The novelty would have made it charming to her, though there had been nothing else to do so. They did not fall out of talk. Eppie asked questions about the holidays they had enjoyed; and entered with great interest into all the details Frederica gave her about her mother and Selina, and the drives they had had, and all they had enjoyed together. She grew grave as she went on to tell that her mother was not strong, but easily tired and troubled, and to wish that she could leave school, and stay at home with her always. Eppie was grave too, and occupied with her own thoughts for a little while; and as Frederica sat looking into the fire in silence, the unhappy feeling that had passed away in the interest of tea-drinking in such pleasant circumstances came back again.“Are you no going to wash the cups?” asked Eppie in a little.This was always in the evening’s entertainment, and to-night it was happily accomplished, inasmuch as it dispelled the cloud which had hung for a moment over them.“It must be nice to have things to do—useful things I mean,” said Frederica.“I doubt it is a liberty in me to let you wash my cups, or even to ask you to your tea,” said Eppie. “For you are no longer the wee missy that came creeping up the stairs the first day you came to the school. You are growing a young lady now.”“That is just what I was telling mama,” said Frederica eagerly. “I ought to have done with school now, and stay at home, ought I not? I don’t suppose I should wash cups; but there are a great many things I could do for mama and Lina. Do you really think I am growing a young lady, Eppie? I am such a little thing, you know,” said Frederica; “but I am nearly fifteen.”An odd smile flickered for a moment on Eppie’s small wrinkled face.“You needna be in any great hurry about being a young leddy. I doubt you’re but a bairn to the most o’ folk yet,” said she.“Not for myself—I am in no hurry to be grown up for myself; but for mama’s sake.”“But there must be a heap o’ things for you to learn yet,” said Eppie gravely. “There’s time enough.”“But I don’t see the good of learning so many things, and I have gone through all the books the girls learn here. And mama does need me, I am sure of that.”Then Eppie went on to say how important the season of youth is, and how she had no doubt but Mrs Vane would rather deny herself the happiness of her little daughters’ company for the sake of having them become wise and accomplished women, and so on. But Frederica did not seem to be noticing what she was saying; for she asked suddenly,—“Eppie, do you know where Miss Baines is now? Will she ever come back again, do you think?”Eppie shook her head.“Have you not heard? She is dead, my dear.”“Dead!” repeated Frederica.“Yes. She has gone to a better world, I have little doubt.”“To heaven!”“Ay, I am sure of it, as far as a body can be sure of such a thing. She was a good woman. She had some curious notions about things, but she was a good woman.”“She was very religious,” said Frederica.“Yes, she was religious. She was a good woman.”“But then there are so many kinds of religion,” said Frederica.“But there is but one right kind I doubt,” said Mistress Campbell gravely.“And Miss Baines’ was the right kind? It made her patient and gentle with us girls, even when we were naughty. And after her fall, when she suffered so much, it made her patient to bear her pain. And once she told me that she was not afraid to die. I wish I had asked her more about it. I don’t know, but I am almost sure mama would be afraid to die.”Eppie gave her a startled glance; but Frederica did not look as though she had said anything to excite surprise.“But your mama is a good woman. I have always heard you say that.”“Yes. She is very good and dear. But then we have no religion in our house—except Mrs Ascot; and I am afraid hers is not the right kind. It isnotat all like Miss Baines’, at any rate. But then how is one to know?”“But I hope there are good people among all kinds,” said Eppie, not knowing very well what to say.“Yes. Mr St. Cyr is good, though Mrs Ascot is not. That is true. And it does not matter so much, so that we have a religion of some kind. Though, of course, one would wish to have the best.”“You are wrong there, missy. It matters much. And you should be thankful that you were sent here to the school, where the Bible is read, and where you may learn your duty to God and man. That is the best religion.”“But I have not learned it very well,” I fear.“Maybe that is your own fault. I have heard you say that you are not very fond of going to the kirk and reading your Bible.”“That is quite true. And that is the right way, is it? Were you fond of going to the kirk when you were young? We go to the church, you know.”“I would be very thankful to be able to go to the kirk,” said Eppie evasively:“And is your religion just like Miss Baines’? Hers must have been right, because it made her happy when she was in great trouble, and it made her not afraid to die. Is yours the same, Mistress Campbell?”Eppie looked at her, wondering a little at her persistency, and then she said, “Ay is it—the very same. The same in kind, though not in degree. Miss Baines was a good woman, a far better woman than the like of me.”“Tell me about it,” said Frederica.Mistress Campbell looked sadly at a loss.“How did they teach you to be religious when you were young?”“We were taught to read our Bibles and to say the catechism, and to go to the kirk. And my father had worship morning and evening, and we were bidden do our duty, and be content with our lot.”Eppie hesitated, by no means satisfied with her attempt to make the matter clear, and then she said,—“To be religious is to be good, and to do our duty to God and our fellow-creatures. Don’t you mind what the Bible says? ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.’ And in another place it says, ‘Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction.’ That is religion,” said Eppie, with a pleased sense of having got well out of a difficulty.Frederica nodded.“Yes, I have read that. That is the way is it? Do good people all do that? But then they must begin at the very beginning of their lives.”Eppie shook her head.“We are poor imperfect creatures at the best,” said she. “But God’s ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. We are unprofitable servants. If we got what we deserve, it would go ill with us. But He is merciful and gracious, and full of compassion, and of tender mercy.”Frederica considered gravely for a little while.“And is that all? I think I could manage to do all that, except perhaps to love my neighbour as myself,” said she, thinking of Prickly Polly.“But you would need to do that too, I doubt,” said Eppie, not wishing to make religion seem a thing too easy. “And you would need to say your prayers, for the best of us need to be forgiven, and the strongest and wisest need to be helped and guided, and the Lord is good.”“And if I don’t know very well at first. He will help me. But, Eppie dear, I think Miss Baines must have had something more than this. I wish I had asked her about it,” said Frederica, regarding the old woman with wistful eyes.“Dear me, lassie,” said Eppie, at a loss what to say to her; “what has putten such like thoughts into your head? you are not an ill bairn, and you will learn as you grow older. You have no call to vex yourself with such thoughts more than usual.”“But, Eppie, it is for mama. She is ill, and suffers a great deal, and she has only Selina with her; and if I only knew what made Miss Baines so happy, I could tell mama. But mama could not begin at the beginning, and go to church, and visit poor and sick people. There must be some other away for her. For, Eppie, I am almost sure that mama would be afraid to die.”There were no tears in the great wistful eyes turned towards her, but there was something which the old woman found it quite as hard to meet.“Poor body,” murmured she; “the Lord help her!”“And, Eppie, Miss Baines said something about the Lord Jesus caring for her. And He died, you know. It is in the service, ‘Crucified, dead, and buried,’ and in the Bible there is something about it.”“Surely,” said Eppie, eagerly, “that is just it. We are sinners, both by Adam’s fall and by actual transgression. And God sent His Son to die in our room and stead. And we must lippen to Him. He will save us.”“And it would not make any difference because mama is a Jewess, would it?”“Preserve us a’! What will the lassie say next?” muttered the bewildered Eppie. “No difference but what would be in her favour, I would think. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, the Word says, and the apostles were bidden begin at Jerusalem,” said she, the long-forgotten words coming back to her in the exigency of the moment. “And they are all to be gathered in, Paul says. I mind weel my father and our minister ay used to pray for the ingathering of the Jews. No, I’m sure it would be in her favour rather than the contrary,” repeated Eppie confidently, growing more assured as she went on. “They were a grand people, the Jews—God’s own chosen people. They did ill things. They killed our Lord, and I canna just reconcile it all, but I’m sure the Lord loves them yet.”Frederica did not reply, but sat gazing in among the dying embers in the grate. As she sat watching her abashed but anxious face, a great longing to help and counsel her came over the poor old woman’s kind heart, but there came also sharply a sense of her utter inability to do so, a vague but painful doubt whether she had ever seen clearly the way of safety herself.“I’m but a poor ignorant sinfu’ woman, my dear bairn,” said she humbly; “I havna lived up to the little light I have, and it’s no for me to teach you. But one thing I can tell you: read your Bible, and ask the Lord Himself to teach you, and you’ll need no other teaching, or if you do He’ll provide it. But see, the fire’s near out, and it’s more than time you were down the stair, and I must go to my bed. So good night to you, and mind your prayers.”“Good night,” said Frederica, and she went downstairs pondering many things.
The reluctance with which the sisters always left home to return to school, was usually forgotten by them as soon as they found themselves among their companions, and busy with their lessons again. But this time it was not so with Frederica. She was restless and unhappy, finding it quite impossible to interest herself in her school-work, or to settle quietly to anything.
It was all the more difficult for her to do so, that she was in few regular classes in the school. It was quite true as she had told her father, she had gone through and through all the books generally used by Mrs Glencairn’s pupils. This was not saying much, for few of the girls stayed in school so long as they ought to have done—none had been so long as Frederica. Under the guidance of Miss Robina Glencairn, a clever and cultivated woman, she had gone far beyond the usual routine of school lessons, and had taken much pleasure in her reading, though she had read alone, but she could not interest herself in it now. It seemed foolish and wrong for her to be at school, learning things that she could very well do without, when her mother and Selina needed her so much at home. Theydidneed her, she was sure; and she grew irritable and impatient under the restraint that kept her from them, till she was in danger, her sister told her, of losing the reputation for politeness and amiability, which she had been all those years acquiring.
“And where is the good of fretting? If you can end it at the summer holidays, you may be very glad. You may be sure that Prickly Polly will not hear of your coming home just now. If I were you, I would learn the dictionary from the beginning to the end, or do something else to pass the time. Or you might ask Miss Robina for a story-book. She will give you one—you are such a pet of hers, I’m sure.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” said Frederica.
There was to be no walking that day, because of the rain, and her book would have been little pleasure to her in the large schoolroom, where the girls usually passed the recreation hour on rainy days. But she knew where to find a refuge, to which, without special permission, even Tessie could not follow her. Frederica, because of Miss Robina’s favour, and for some other reasons, was permitted to go to it if she chose, provided her presence was not required elsewhere. So she was soon knocking at the door of a room at the head of a dim staircase that led to no other room in the house.
“May I come in, Mistress Campbell?” said she, pausing on the threshold.
“Is it you, missy?” said a voice from behind a great basket of clothes that was standing on the floor. “Who would have expected to see you at this hour? Have you no’ got the play? It canna be that you have a lesson to get over again!”
“No,” said Frederica. “This is not a lesson book. But I have got a headache, and I am cross, and I can’t be bothered with the girls; but I shall be very quiet and good, and not be in the way, if you will let me stay.”
“Well, if you’ll promise no’ to fash me with your foolish talk while I am busy, you may stay.”
“Shall I fash you here?” said Frederica, laughing, and springing up into the wide seat of one of the large dormer windows by which the room was lighted.
“Whisht now, and no’ put me out of my count,” said Mistress Campbell.
She was sitting on a low stool, sorting and laying out on large trays at her side the clothes of pupils and teachers that had just come up from the laundress, a work which needed both patience and care, and Frederica knew that she must not be disturbed. Instead of opening her book, she sat for a moment watching her. She was a small, bowed woman, crippled by rheumatism, with a thin brown face, and deep-set, sharp, grey eyes. She wore a dark linsey gown, with a shawl of Campbell tartan over her shoulders, and she had a “mutch” with two or three rows of stiff borders on her head. She sung at her work, or rather chanted an old ballad which Frederica had heard before; but every now and then, as she counted and folded, and laid the different garments aside, she put their numbers and the names of their owners, and her thoughts about them, into the tune, without a pause; and Frederica knew by this that she had quite forgotten her presence in the room.
“A droll little person,” she called her to herself, and then she thought how strange a being “old Eppie” would seem to her mama and Selina, and wondered how it was that she had never told them about her. She had mentioned her to them, but now she looked at her, and around the low, wide room, with eyes that meant to see everything for their benefit. It was a large room, which yet did not seem very large, because of the many things crowded into it, and because of the sloping roof which on three sides came almost to the floor. It was the attic of the wing in which the large classroom and dining-room were. The walls were roughly plastered and whitewashed, and underneath were arranged old bureaux and boxes and chests of drawers, filled with such clothing as was not often needed, and under Eppie’s particular care. Besides these, there were articles of furniture, broken or out of use, such as will accumulate in a house where many people live—chairs and tables, pictures, and faded ornaments of all kinds.
There was a bed at that side of the room where the roof did not slope, but at this moment it was almost hidden by the great piles of linen arranged upon it. There was a small open stove, in which a coal fire smouldered, and over that part of the floor which was unencumbered by furniture a faded carpet was spread. There was not one beautiful thing in the room, Frederica thought, except a rose tree covered with buds and blossoms, that stood in the window opposite.
The windows were pleasant, but from them Eppie could only see the sky, they were so high above her. From the one on the high seat of which she sat, Frederica could see thousands and thousands of city roofs, with bits of open space here and there, and the river beyond. But it was not a fair sight under drizzling rain and a leaden sky, and so she turned her eyes into the room again. Order was gradually coming out of the confusion of the innumerable white garments by which the little old woman had been surrounded. One after another the great trays were carried and emptied, into the many drawers beneath the eaves; and then coming back to place her empty baskets in a recess made beneath the high window, Eppie saw Frederica.
“Preserve us a’ lassie! I had no mind o’ your being here. It is time for playing yourself now. Why should you be here at this hour?”
“I don’t care to play with children any more,” said Frederica gravely.
“Eh, sirs! You’ll be growing ower-womanly for the like of that, I suppose. Weel, weel! But you shouldna sit so quiet as to make me forget that you are here. I might be saying things that it wouldna be wise to say in your hearing. Are you no coming down out of that?”
“Yes, I am coming, Mrs Campbell. Don’t you ever get tired of this place? Is it not awfully dull?”
“Dull!” repeated Eppie, “and tired of it! Is it this chamber you mean? Where could I go if I tired of it? I am very thankful to bide in it, I can tell you.”
“Yes, I suppose so. But don’t you get tired of it all the same? What do you look forward to? There is nothing in your life but mending, and keeping count, and—”
“Hear the disrespectful lassie! Folding and keeping count, said she. That’s but for one day in the week. The mending whiles takes two or three, and there’s many a thing besides that I canna be speaking to the likes of you about.”
“Yes; but not pleasant things, Eppie.”
“Pleasant things, quo’ she! They’re my duty. What other would I hae?”
“But, Mistress Campbell, dear, if I thought I had to live all my life here, even in this house, I should be miserable.”
“But then it’s no your duty to live here all your life, and that makes the difference. If I were to make myself miserable as you call it, it would be for fear that I mightna get leave to bide here all my life, but I daresay it will be time enough to fret when I’m bidden go.”
“That will never be. What would Mrs Glencairn and Miss Robina do without you?”
“There’s no telling,” said Eppie, nodding her head many times; “but we’ll say no more about it. Are you no coming down from that cold window when I bid you?”
“Yes, I’m coming. But, Eppie, how can you be content? Are your father and mother dead? Have you any brothers and sisters? Will it be just the same all your life till you die?”
“Now, missy, come down this moment when I bid you. That’s an unwholesome book you’ve been reading, to put thoughts like that into your mind. It’s no me that’s like to grow discontented, it’s you. And I was just thinking of inviting you to tea.”
Frederica sprang down from the window so suddenly as to make the old woman start.
“Oh, do, Eppie dear,” cried she eagerly, “that is just the thing I should like. I want to speak to you, and I don’t want to go down to that rubbishing history; and I’ll read to you. I have not read a page yet, and it’s a very nice book they say.”
“Is it a story book? But I would far rather hear about the wee beasties out of your lesson book. And I’m no just sure that Miss Robina would be pleased that you should take tea with me so soon again, and I’m no sure that I hae scones enew.”
“Oh! Miss Robina will be sure to let me; and never mind the scones. I’ll go down for whatever we need, and I’ll ask Miss Robina. Let me stir the fire.”
Frederica had forgotten the gloomy day, and the nun, and all imaginable subjects of discontent. She urged her petition eagerly; for she knew that Eppie liked to be entreated.
“Let be the fire, missy. You’ll do mischief, and spoil your hands. You may bide if you get leave. But I doubt your sister will no be well pleased. It is ‘making fish o’ the one and flesh o’ the other,’ I doubt.”
But Frederica did not stay to listen. It was a great honour and an exceptional one, to be asked to tea by Mrs Campbell. No other girl now in school, except Tessie and one or two of the elder pupils, had ever been asked to drink tea in the garret. Except for the fun of the thing, or for the sake of a change from the dreary school routine, few of them would have cared to do so. For Eppie was only a little old woman, bowed and lame, who even in her best days had only been a sort of upper servant in Mrs Glencairn’s house. The present race of girls did not often see her. Some of them had never seen her; for her daily journey to the lower part of the house to get what she needed was accomplished with much labour and effort at time when the girls were sure to be in school.
Frederica was often in the garret. Miss Robina, whose pet, as Tessie had said, she was, seldom refused her permission when she wished to escape from the other girls, few of whose lessons she shared, either for work or amusement. But taking tea there was another matter; and Frederica, rather tired of being dismal, entered eagerly into the preparations. Miss Robina did not object; on the contrary, she was very glad to let her have the pleasure, heartily wishing that she might share it. She did share it for a little while, and added to it. For she came upstairs, carrying in her own hands a tray, on which were some fresh “scones” and a bit of “paddie,” each wrapped up in a snowy napkin, as was absolutely necessary to their perfection. She could not stay long—only long enough to be thanked and petted, and called “bonny bird” and “good bairn” by Mistress Campbell. She had a beautiful and good face, though it was rather pale and tired-looking, Frederica thought, as she sat for a moment smiling in the flickering firelight; and the first thing she said, when she and Eppie were left alone, was,—
“How pretty and nice Miss Robina is! What a pity it is that she has to keep a school?”
To this no reply was given.
“It must be so tiresome to do the same thing over and over again every day of the year,” added she.
“There are worse things than that in Miss Robina’s life, I’m thinking,” said Eppie gravely.
“Are there? Tell me about them,” said Frederica, eager for a story.
“I doubt you are no speaking with your usual discretion,” said Mistress Campbell gravely. “We’ll take our tea, and not meddle with what doesna concern us. There are few lives in which there are no troubles. Let us be thankful for our mercies.”
It was a very nice tea. Scones and fresh butter and honey, to say nothing of “paddies” and other nice things. And such delicious tea made in a funny little black teapot with a broken spout. Everything was charming, Frederica thought and declared. The novelty would have made it charming to her, though there had been nothing else to do so. They did not fall out of talk. Eppie asked questions about the holidays they had enjoyed; and entered with great interest into all the details Frederica gave her about her mother and Selina, and the drives they had had, and all they had enjoyed together. She grew grave as she went on to tell that her mother was not strong, but easily tired and troubled, and to wish that she could leave school, and stay at home with her always. Eppie was grave too, and occupied with her own thoughts for a little while; and as Frederica sat looking into the fire in silence, the unhappy feeling that had passed away in the interest of tea-drinking in such pleasant circumstances came back again.
“Are you no going to wash the cups?” asked Eppie in a little.
This was always in the evening’s entertainment, and to-night it was happily accomplished, inasmuch as it dispelled the cloud which had hung for a moment over them.
“It must be nice to have things to do—useful things I mean,” said Frederica.
“I doubt it is a liberty in me to let you wash my cups, or even to ask you to your tea,” said Eppie. “For you are no longer the wee missy that came creeping up the stairs the first day you came to the school. You are growing a young lady now.”
“That is just what I was telling mama,” said Frederica eagerly. “I ought to have done with school now, and stay at home, ought I not? I don’t suppose I should wash cups; but there are a great many things I could do for mama and Lina. Do you really think I am growing a young lady, Eppie? I am such a little thing, you know,” said Frederica; “but I am nearly fifteen.”
An odd smile flickered for a moment on Eppie’s small wrinkled face.
“You needna be in any great hurry about being a young leddy. I doubt you’re but a bairn to the most o’ folk yet,” said she.
“Not for myself—I am in no hurry to be grown up for myself; but for mama’s sake.”
“But there must be a heap o’ things for you to learn yet,” said Eppie gravely. “There’s time enough.”
“But I don’t see the good of learning so many things, and I have gone through all the books the girls learn here. And mama does need me, I am sure of that.”
Then Eppie went on to say how important the season of youth is, and how she had no doubt but Mrs Vane would rather deny herself the happiness of her little daughters’ company for the sake of having them become wise and accomplished women, and so on. But Frederica did not seem to be noticing what she was saying; for she asked suddenly,—
“Eppie, do you know where Miss Baines is now? Will she ever come back again, do you think?”
Eppie shook her head.
“Have you not heard? She is dead, my dear.”
“Dead!” repeated Frederica.
“Yes. She has gone to a better world, I have little doubt.”
“To heaven!”
“Ay, I am sure of it, as far as a body can be sure of such a thing. She was a good woman. She had some curious notions about things, but she was a good woman.”
“She was very religious,” said Frederica.
“Yes, she was religious. She was a good woman.”
“But then there are so many kinds of religion,” said Frederica.
“But there is but one right kind I doubt,” said Mistress Campbell gravely.
“And Miss Baines’ was the right kind? It made her patient and gentle with us girls, even when we were naughty. And after her fall, when she suffered so much, it made her patient to bear her pain. And once she told me that she was not afraid to die. I wish I had asked her more about it. I don’t know, but I am almost sure mama would be afraid to die.”
Eppie gave her a startled glance; but Frederica did not look as though she had said anything to excite surprise.
“But your mama is a good woman. I have always heard you say that.”
“Yes. She is very good and dear. But then we have no religion in our house—except Mrs Ascot; and I am afraid hers is not the right kind. It isnotat all like Miss Baines’, at any rate. But then how is one to know?”
“But I hope there are good people among all kinds,” said Eppie, not knowing very well what to say.
“Yes. Mr St. Cyr is good, though Mrs Ascot is not. That is true. And it does not matter so much, so that we have a religion of some kind. Though, of course, one would wish to have the best.”
“You are wrong there, missy. It matters much. And you should be thankful that you were sent here to the school, where the Bible is read, and where you may learn your duty to God and man. That is the best religion.”
“But I have not learned it very well,” I fear.
“Maybe that is your own fault. I have heard you say that you are not very fond of going to the kirk and reading your Bible.”
“That is quite true. And that is the right way, is it? Were you fond of going to the kirk when you were young? We go to the church, you know.”
“I would be very thankful to be able to go to the kirk,” said Eppie evasively:
“And is your religion just like Miss Baines’? Hers must have been right, because it made her happy when she was in great trouble, and it made her not afraid to die. Is yours the same, Mistress Campbell?”
Eppie looked at her, wondering a little at her persistency, and then she said, “Ay is it—the very same. The same in kind, though not in degree. Miss Baines was a good woman, a far better woman than the like of me.”
“Tell me about it,” said Frederica.
Mistress Campbell looked sadly at a loss.
“How did they teach you to be religious when you were young?”
“We were taught to read our Bibles and to say the catechism, and to go to the kirk. And my father had worship morning and evening, and we were bidden do our duty, and be content with our lot.”
Eppie hesitated, by no means satisfied with her attempt to make the matter clear, and then she said,—
“To be religious is to be good, and to do our duty to God and our fellow-creatures. Don’t you mind what the Bible says? ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.’ And in another place it says, ‘Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction.’ That is religion,” said Eppie, with a pleased sense of having got well out of a difficulty.
Frederica nodded.
“Yes, I have read that. That is the way is it? Do good people all do that? But then they must begin at the very beginning of their lives.”
Eppie shook her head.
“We are poor imperfect creatures at the best,” said she. “But God’s ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. We are unprofitable servants. If we got what we deserve, it would go ill with us. But He is merciful and gracious, and full of compassion, and of tender mercy.”
Frederica considered gravely for a little while.
“And is that all? I think I could manage to do all that, except perhaps to love my neighbour as myself,” said she, thinking of Prickly Polly.
“But you would need to do that too, I doubt,” said Eppie, not wishing to make religion seem a thing too easy. “And you would need to say your prayers, for the best of us need to be forgiven, and the strongest and wisest need to be helped and guided, and the Lord is good.”
“And if I don’t know very well at first. He will help me. But, Eppie dear, I think Miss Baines must have had something more than this. I wish I had asked her about it,” said Frederica, regarding the old woman with wistful eyes.
“Dear me, lassie,” said Eppie, at a loss what to say to her; “what has putten such like thoughts into your head? you are not an ill bairn, and you will learn as you grow older. You have no call to vex yourself with such thoughts more than usual.”
“But, Eppie, it is for mama. She is ill, and suffers a great deal, and she has only Selina with her; and if I only knew what made Miss Baines so happy, I could tell mama. But mama could not begin at the beginning, and go to church, and visit poor and sick people. There must be some other away for her. For, Eppie, I am almost sure that mama would be afraid to die.”
There were no tears in the great wistful eyes turned towards her, but there was something which the old woman found it quite as hard to meet.
“Poor body,” murmured she; “the Lord help her!”
“And, Eppie, Miss Baines said something about the Lord Jesus caring for her. And He died, you know. It is in the service, ‘Crucified, dead, and buried,’ and in the Bible there is something about it.”
“Surely,” said Eppie, eagerly, “that is just it. We are sinners, both by Adam’s fall and by actual transgression. And God sent His Son to die in our room and stead. And we must lippen to Him. He will save us.”
“And it would not make any difference because mama is a Jewess, would it?”
“Preserve us a’! What will the lassie say next?” muttered the bewildered Eppie. “No difference but what would be in her favour, I would think. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, the Word says, and the apostles were bidden begin at Jerusalem,” said she, the long-forgotten words coming back to her in the exigency of the moment. “And they are all to be gathered in, Paul says. I mind weel my father and our minister ay used to pray for the ingathering of the Jews. No, I’m sure it would be in her favour rather than the contrary,” repeated Eppie confidently, growing more assured as she went on. “They were a grand people, the Jews—God’s own chosen people. They did ill things. They killed our Lord, and I canna just reconcile it all, but I’m sure the Lord loves them yet.”
Frederica did not reply, but sat gazing in among the dying embers in the grate. As she sat watching her abashed but anxious face, a great longing to help and counsel her came over the poor old woman’s kind heart, but there came also sharply a sense of her utter inability to do so, a vague but painful doubt whether she had ever seen clearly the way of safety herself.
“I’m but a poor ignorant sinfu’ woman, my dear bairn,” said she humbly; “I havna lived up to the little light I have, and it’s no for me to teach you. But one thing I can tell you: read your Bible, and ask the Lord Himself to teach you, and you’ll need no other teaching, or if you do He’ll provide it. But see, the fire’s near out, and it’s more than time you were down the stair, and I must go to my bed. So good night to you, and mind your prayers.”
“Good night,” said Frederica, and she went downstairs pondering many things.
Chapter Seven.Attached to the large old-fashioned house in which Mrs Glencairn lived were a garden and orchard of very large old apple trees, which now in the spring time were full of wonderful possibilities for enjoyment and amusement to children who had for the most part been obliged to find amusement within doors during the long winter. And so no wonder that Frederica, without whom no game was complete, should forget her serious thoughts, and her troubles, and even her mother’s doubtful state, unless something particularly recalled them to her mind. She was such a little creature, that, though she led the elder girls in their lessons, and was indeed far before them, she did not seem to be at all out of place when she led the plays and games of the little girls too.Even in her visits to the garret, with her “Animated Nature” in her hand, she and Eppie kept to the safe subject of beasts and birds and creeping things, in the discussions into which they fell. She had taken up botany, too, in a less elementary form than had been given her before, and her interest was greatly quickened, and her attention happily given to it. And strange to say, Eppie, the recluse of the garret, who had not set her foot on a green thing growing beyond the orchard for many a year and day, even she gave eager interest and stimulus to the girl’s pursuit, and with spectacles on nose peered into triticums and anemones brought from the mountain, and into apple blossoms, and even into dandelions and buttercups gathered in the orchard, for want of rarer flowers.“And what for no,” said Eppie, “when Solomon himself, the wisest of kings and men, spoke about green growing things from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall? And God made them a’. They mind me of my father’s house and the fir belting, and the heather hills beyond. And they mind me o’ the days o’ my youth, that are gone like a blink,” added she with a sigh.“Yes,” said Frederica, turning compassionate eyes on the kindly wrinkled old face.“I’m no complainin’ you’ll understand. I hae had my day as you’ll have,” said Eppie, nodding her head gently a great many times. “But I was ay fond o’ flowers. I liked to notice their likeness, and their difference, though I didna ken that they were a’ written down in books. Eh! it’s just wonderful how true nature is to herself. That bonny yellow flower might be the one that grew on the bush beside my father’s door, and yon rosebush that Miss Robina brought up the stairs to-day is the very marrow o’ the one that Sandy Gow the laird’s gardener brought down and gave to my sister Annie more than fifty years ago. It’s like a dream to look back upon.”“But, Eppie, I have often wondered that you only care for one or two flowers at a time, when you are so fond of them; you could have quite a greenhouse of them in this south window. I could bring you dozens of them,” said Frederica.But Eppie shook her head.“I tried it, my dear, when sore against my will I had to betake myself to this place—a dismal place it seemed for a while. I tried having many flowers. Miss Isabel was here then, and she and Miss Robina took great pains to get me the best and the bonniest. But I soon saw that it wouldna do. I couldna get them kepit to my mind without troubling somebody. They were ay needing something done, and I couldna even get a spadeful of earth without another pair of hands. I was more helpless then than I am now, and even the bringing of water for them up the stairs was more than I could ay manage; so I just gave them up; for unless a body can do justice to the bonny things, they are more pain than pleasure. And I couldna bide to fash other folk. So now Miss Robina brings me one as it blooms, and I hae been few days without a flower all the seven years I have been in this room. I aye hae my wallflowers, and once I had heather, but it didna thrive, and I thought a pity to have it dying before my eyes, so I got no more.”It was growing too dark by this time to pore over either books or flowers. Eppie had had her tea, Frederica knew, because she saw the tray with the dishes standing near the door, and she knew that she would be welcome to stay till the school bell rang again for prayers. So she sat in the window watching the clouds that were still bright, though the sun had disappeared. By-and-by she said,—“Tell me something that happened when you were young, something that you never told me before.”Eppie took up the stocking on which she could work as well in the dark as in the light.“There was many a thing happened to me when I was young that I never told anybody, but I might happen on an old story that you have heard before, as is the way with old bodies like me. And I hae no feast o’ tellin’ bits out o’ my own life just for folk’s diversion.”But Frederica knew that she would have a story for all that; she was not so sure that it would be a new one.“Were there many flowers in your garden when you were a little girl?” asked she after a pause.“Weel! there were na just so many, but eh, missy! they were awfu’ bonny flowers. But I mind the flowers among the hills, and by the burn sides best. The names of them? I canna mind a’ the names, and if I could they would seem like common flowers to you, but they gave us just a wonderful delight. And there were other things besides the flowers. We got many a day’s pleasure out of the rushes by the burn, and the brackens in the wood, and we ay had the heather. And, oh! wasna it a bonny sight to see when the summer began to wear over! Flowers! High above the glen where my father’s house stood, there whiles were miles and miles o’ the purple blossom. I can see it now when I shut my eyes,” said Eppie, leaning back in her chair, and letting her stocking fall upon her lap.“And then there were the daisies that you told me about,” suggested Frederica in the pause that followed.“Yes, the gowan, and the blue bell, and many a one beside. And I hae seen the hills in a bleeze o’ gold with the yellow broom. Though a broom bush is no’ to call a bonny thing, except a bit away. But a’ things are bonny to young happy eyes, and I daresay they are bonnier to me now, looking back to them over all the long years.”And on she rambled, as she had done many a time before, on the very same theme, and if there had been an hour to spare, or if Frederica had been inclined, this was the time when she would have asked for a song, and the chances were she would have got ten of them chanted in a voice that had once been sweet, but which failed now both in sweetness and in power. Frederica always liked the songs, though she did not always like the singing, but there was something else in store for her tonight—something which she had ceased to expect, a bit out of Eppie’s life. She knew it was coming when the old woman went on to speak about the hills, and the grassy nooks hidden between them, and the days when she used to go out with her father, who was a shepherd, among them.“And I mind one day we were sitting on the lowne side o’ a hill, and there came over it and down upon us, two lads with packs on their backs, and one of them with a book in his hand. When they saw us, they stopped to ask the road to the next town, for they had got in among the morning mists, having risen early for their journey, and so had lost their way. I mind how they both looked, as well as if I had seen them yesterday, and maybe better. One of them was shame-faced about having lost the way, which he said he had been over many a time before; but the other only laughed and said it was a good thing to be mistaken whiles, and for his part he was glad to lie down and rest. And so he lay down among the heather, and turned a thin fair face to the sky. He was an English lad, I think. His tongue was English any way. My father bade me take a plaid I had brought with me, and spread it over him, for there was a cold breath creeping now and then round the hill; and when I went and did what I was bidden, the lad gave me first a surprised look, and then a smile that made his eyes and his whole face beautiful. I see it now, though I have hardly thought of it these thirty years,” said Eppie with a sigh. “And I mind his deep sweet voice, and the sound of the smooth English words he used when he thanked me, and bade me sit down beside him, and tell him my name. I sat down as he bade me, but he took little heed of me for a while. For he looked sore weary and spent with more than just the tramp over the hills, and his eyes had a look as if they were seeing things far, far away.“The other was a fine lad too, I daresay, though o’ a commoner nature. He and my father got very friendly together, he telling and my father listening to all they were doing out in the great world, whose voice came to our glen, not like a real voice, but like an echo casten back from the hills. And by-and-by the English lad’s eyes came back to mine, and what he saw in them I canna say, but he gave me the same smile that lighted his face in a way that was just wonderful—I can see it now—and he bade me look up to the sky, and see a ship that was sailin’, sailin’ away to the west, and what did I think it was carrying there? There was nothing in the sky that I could see, but a long trail of grey cloud, with here and there an edge of light upon it, and he only gave a bit laugh when I looked back at him again wondering. And then he plucked a wee curled head o’ the bracken that grew at his hand, and bade me look at it. Naught could I see but just a bit o’ bracken. I said not a word, only looked from it to his fair smiling face. But then he took out of his pouch a case, and out of the case a glass, and put it between the bracken and my eyes. And I thought, surely a great magician had come to our hills, for it was a bit o’ bracken no longer, but a wonderful network of cells, and veins, and feathery fringes, like nothing I had ever seen before. And next it was a bit of brown heather he took, and then a nodding bluebell, and then the wing of a May fly that had lighted on his hand.“I looked and looked, and at last I cried out to my father to come and see. Even my father wondered. Ilken leaf and blade o’ grass, and even the wee stones that we took from the path were wonderful to see. And then he put the glass on my mother’s plaid, and on his own fine kerchief of lawn, and bade us see the difference between God’s works and man’s—how poor, and coarse, and common was the best that man could do, and how the more and the closer we looked into the works of God, the more worthy of admiration we should see them to be.“And then him, and my father, and the other lad had things to say that I couldna make much of. He was a man of excellent understanding, my father. But just one thing I mind. It was the English lad that said it with a smile, and a great longing in his bonny een. ‘It may be,’ he said, ‘that when we get home to heaven, our glorified eyes shall see the mysteries of beauty hidden in even the least of the things that God has made without a glass between.’ And when my father shook his head, saying that there was no such word in the Bible, and that there was such a thing as being wise above what is written, he smiled, and ‘Ah well!’ he said, ‘our eyes will be opened to see the wonders of grace and the beauty of holiness, for we shall see our Lord Himself, and that will be enough.’“I mind the words, because I heard my father telling them to my mother that night as they were sitting by the fireside. They come back to me now, as other words come, that I havena thought of for many a year and day, a sure sign that I am no’ far from the foot o’ the brae.”“And was that all?” asked Frederica softly, after a long pause, in which Eppie had taken up her knitting again.“That was all, except that they wouldna go to my father’s to bide all night, because they were expected elsewhere, they said; and then I ran home as my father bade me, and brought them milk and oaten cakes, which they ate to their refreshment, doubtless, and to our pleasure, and then they went away.”“And who were they? And did you never see them again?”“We never saw nor heard of them, though doubtless they crossed our hills again. They were just two lads on their way home from the college in the north. We used whiles to see such, though our glen was a bit out of the way for most of them. But we never saw them again. It must be fifty years and more since then. It had gone clean out of my head, till your flowers and your pleasure in them brought it all back again.”There was nothing heard for a while but the “click, click,” of Mistress Campbell’s “wires,” as she went on with her knitting. The old woman and the little girl were thinking their own thoughts.“Eppie, dear,” said Frederica, as she slipped from her high seat to the floor, “I like that about ‘glorified eyes,’ and one seeing hidden things; I mean things that are hidden from us now.”“Ay, the eyes o’ man are never satisfied with seeing, nor his ears with hearing,” said Eppie: “I doubt that is but a carnal notion o’ heaven. This is what David says about it—“‘But as for me, I Thine own faceIn righteousness shall see;And with Thy likeness when I wake,I satisfied shall be.’”“Satisfied!” repeated she; “ay, doubtless, they’ll be satisfied that win there. But, eh me! ‘Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leads to life,’ and I doubt there will be some awfu’ disappointments at that day.”“If one only knew just what to do,” said Frederica gravely.“Be a good bairn, and ay read your Bible, and mind your prayers,” said Eppie. “But there’s your bell, and you will need to go.”And so Frederica went downstairs with the grave thoughts that Eppie’s words had awakened, stirring at her heart again. She read her Bible as Eppie had bidden her, and sometimes she read it with delight, because of the elevation of the thoughts and the beauty of the language; but she came upon nothing in these readings that touched her heart, or that she felt to be suited to her. She read the Old Testament, as the history of her mother’s people. She had been often told of late that she was a Jewess in appearance, like her mother, and she took a real interest in the history of her people, and began to feel pride in being descended from a “nation of heroes.” But pre-occupied with thoughts of this kind, she read on from day to day, seeing nothing in the wonderful words she read to enlighten her on all that she so much needed, and which she believed she so much desired to know.She listened now with attention to such Bible lessons and readings as entered into the regular routine of school work, but the instructions connected with them were often of a kind to influence the reason and affect the imagination, rather than to touch the heart; and though her attention and interest enlarged her knowledge of the letter of Scripture, and won her many good marks and the chance of a prize at the end of the year, the lessons brought her no answer to the question as to which was the right religion, or how one was to get the good of it in the time of trouble, as Miss Baines had done.Indeed, if it had not been for one thing, the grave and anxious thoughts that had been for some time occupying her mind might have passed away, as they pass from the mind and heart of so many of the young and thoughtless, leaving no trace in her life, no influence for good, either to herself or to others. If her mother had been well and happy, if there had been no shadow of dark days and painful nights hanging over her future, if she had not longed so earnestly to learn for her sake the secret of peace and joy, over which these have no power, she might have put all anxious thoughts away from her. But all her thoughts of her mother were anxious thoughts now; for in the only visit they had made since Easter, they had found her no better, but rather worse.
Attached to the large old-fashioned house in which Mrs Glencairn lived were a garden and orchard of very large old apple trees, which now in the spring time were full of wonderful possibilities for enjoyment and amusement to children who had for the most part been obliged to find amusement within doors during the long winter. And so no wonder that Frederica, without whom no game was complete, should forget her serious thoughts, and her troubles, and even her mother’s doubtful state, unless something particularly recalled them to her mind. She was such a little creature, that, though she led the elder girls in their lessons, and was indeed far before them, she did not seem to be at all out of place when she led the plays and games of the little girls too.
Even in her visits to the garret, with her “Animated Nature” in her hand, she and Eppie kept to the safe subject of beasts and birds and creeping things, in the discussions into which they fell. She had taken up botany, too, in a less elementary form than had been given her before, and her interest was greatly quickened, and her attention happily given to it. And strange to say, Eppie, the recluse of the garret, who had not set her foot on a green thing growing beyond the orchard for many a year and day, even she gave eager interest and stimulus to the girl’s pursuit, and with spectacles on nose peered into triticums and anemones brought from the mountain, and into apple blossoms, and even into dandelions and buttercups gathered in the orchard, for want of rarer flowers.
“And what for no,” said Eppie, “when Solomon himself, the wisest of kings and men, spoke about green growing things from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall? And God made them a’. They mind me of my father’s house and the fir belting, and the heather hills beyond. And they mind me o’ the days o’ my youth, that are gone like a blink,” added she with a sigh.
“Yes,” said Frederica, turning compassionate eyes on the kindly wrinkled old face.
“I’m no complainin’ you’ll understand. I hae had my day as you’ll have,” said Eppie, nodding her head gently a great many times. “But I was ay fond o’ flowers. I liked to notice their likeness, and their difference, though I didna ken that they were a’ written down in books. Eh! it’s just wonderful how true nature is to herself. That bonny yellow flower might be the one that grew on the bush beside my father’s door, and yon rosebush that Miss Robina brought up the stairs to-day is the very marrow o’ the one that Sandy Gow the laird’s gardener brought down and gave to my sister Annie more than fifty years ago. It’s like a dream to look back upon.”
“But, Eppie, I have often wondered that you only care for one or two flowers at a time, when you are so fond of them; you could have quite a greenhouse of them in this south window. I could bring you dozens of them,” said Frederica.
But Eppie shook her head.
“I tried it, my dear, when sore against my will I had to betake myself to this place—a dismal place it seemed for a while. I tried having many flowers. Miss Isabel was here then, and she and Miss Robina took great pains to get me the best and the bonniest. But I soon saw that it wouldna do. I couldna get them kepit to my mind without troubling somebody. They were ay needing something done, and I couldna even get a spadeful of earth without another pair of hands. I was more helpless then than I am now, and even the bringing of water for them up the stairs was more than I could ay manage; so I just gave them up; for unless a body can do justice to the bonny things, they are more pain than pleasure. And I couldna bide to fash other folk. So now Miss Robina brings me one as it blooms, and I hae been few days without a flower all the seven years I have been in this room. I aye hae my wallflowers, and once I had heather, but it didna thrive, and I thought a pity to have it dying before my eyes, so I got no more.”
It was growing too dark by this time to pore over either books or flowers. Eppie had had her tea, Frederica knew, because she saw the tray with the dishes standing near the door, and she knew that she would be welcome to stay till the school bell rang again for prayers. So she sat in the window watching the clouds that were still bright, though the sun had disappeared. By-and-by she said,—
“Tell me something that happened when you were young, something that you never told me before.”
Eppie took up the stocking on which she could work as well in the dark as in the light.
“There was many a thing happened to me when I was young that I never told anybody, but I might happen on an old story that you have heard before, as is the way with old bodies like me. And I hae no feast o’ tellin’ bits out o’ my own life just for folk’s diversion.”
But Frederica knew that she would have a story for all that; she was not so sure that it would be a new one.
“Were there many flowers in your garden when you were a little girl?” asked she after a pause.
“Weel! there were na just so many, but eh, missy! they were awfu’ bonny flowers. But I mind the flowers among the hills, and by the burn sides best. The names of them? I canna mind a’ the names, and if I could they would seem like common flowers to you, but they gave us just a wonderful delight. And there were other things besides the flowers. We got many a day’s pleasure out of the rushes by the burn, and the brackens in the wood, and we ay had the heather. And, oh! wasna it a bonny sight to see when the summer began to wear over! Flowers! High above the glen where my father’s house stood, there whiles were miles and miles o’ the purple blossom. I can see it now when I shut my eyes,” said Eppie, leaning back in her chair, and letting her stocking fall upon her lap.
“And then there were the daisies that you told me about,” suggested Frederica in the pause that followed.
“Yes, the gowan, and the blue bell, and many a one beside. And I hae seen the hills in a bleeze o’ gold with the yellow broom. Though a broom bush is no’ to call a bonny thing, except a bit away. But a’ things are bonny to young happy eyes, and I daresay they are bonnier to me now, looking back to them over all the long years.”
And on she rambled, as she had done many a time before, on the very same theme, and if there had been an hour to spare, or if Frederica had been inclined, this was the time when she would have asked for a song, and the chances were she would have got ten of them chanted in a voice that had once been sweet, but which failed now both in sweetness and in power. Frederica always liked the songs, though she did not always like the singing, but there was something else in store for her tonight—something which she had ceased to expect, a bit out of Eppie’s life. She knew it was coming when the old woman went on to speak about the hills, and the grassy nooks hidden between them, and the days when she used to go out with her father, who was a shepherd, among them.
“And I mind one day we were sitting on the lowne side o’ a hill, and there came over it and down upon us, two lads with packs on their backs, and one of them with a book in his hand. When they saw us, they stopped to ask the road to the next town, for they had got in among the morning mists, having risen early for their journey, and so had lost their way. I mind how they both looked, as well as if I had seen them yesterday, and maybe better. One of them was shame-faced about having lost the way, which he said he had been over many a time before; but the other only laughed and said it was a good thing to be mistaken whiles, and for his part he was glad to lie down and rest. And so he lay down among the heather, and turned a thin fair face to the sky. He was an English lad, I think. His tongue was English any way. My father bade me take a plaid I had brought with me, and spread it over him, for there was a cold breath creeping now and then round the hill; and when I went and did what I was bidden, the lad gave me first a surprised look, and then a smile that made his eyes and his whole face beautiful. I see it now, though I have hardly thought of it these thirty years,” said Eppie with a sigh. “And I mind his deep sweet voice, and the sound of the smooth English words he used when he thanked me, and bade me sit down beside him, and tell him my name. I sat down as he bade me, but he took little heed of me for a while. For he looked sore weary and spent with more than just the tramp over the hills, and his eyes had a look as if they were seeing things far, far away.
“The other was a fine lad too, I daresay, though o’ a commoner nature. He and my father got very friendly together, he telling and my father listening to all they were doing out in the great world, whose voice came to our glen, not like a real voice, but like an echo casten back from the hills. And by-and-by the English lad’s eyes came back to mine, and what he saw in them I canna say, but he gave me the same smile that lighted his face in a way that was just wonderful—I can see it now—and he bade me look up to the sky, and see a ship that was sailin’, sailin’ away to the west, and what did I think it was carrying there? There was nothing in the sky that I could see, but a long trail of grey cloud, with here and there an edge of light upon it, and he only gave a bit laugh when I looked back at him again wondering. And then he plucked a wee curled head o’ the bracken that grew at his hand, and bade me look at it. Naught could I see but just a bit o’ bracken. I said not a word, only looked from it to his fair smiling face. But then he took out of his pouch a case, and out of the case a glass, and put it between the bracken and my eyes. And I thought, surely a great magician had come to our hills, for it was a bit o’ bracken no longer, but a wonderful network of cells, and veins, and feathery fringes, like nothing I had ever seen before. And next it was a bit of brown heather he took, and then a nodding bluebell, and then the wing of a May fly that had lighted on his hand.
“I looked and looked, and at last I cried out to my father to come and see. Even my father wondered. Ilken leaf and blade o’ grass, and even the wee stones that we took from the path were wonderful to see. And then he put the glass on my mother’s plaid, and on his own fine kerchief of lawn, and bade us see the difference between God’s works and man’s—how poor, and coarse, and common was the best that man could do, and how the more and the closer we looked into the works of God, the more worthy of admiration we should see them to be.
“And then him, and my father, and the other lad had things to say that I couldna make much of. He was a man of excellent understanding, my father. But just one thing I mind. It was the English lad that said it with a smile, and a great longing in his bonny een. ‘It may be,’ he said, ‘that when we get home to heaven, our glorified eyes shall see the mysteries of beauty hidden in even the least of the things that God has made without a glass between.’ And when my father shook his head, saying that there was no such word in the Bible, and that there was such a thing as being wise above what is written, he smiled, and ‘Ah well!’ he said, ‘our eyes will be opened to see the wonders of grace and the beauty of holiness, for we shall see our Lord Himself, and that will be enough.’
“I mind the words, because I heard my father telling them to my mother that night as they were sitting by the fireside. They come back to me now, as other words come, that I havena thought of for many a year and day, a sure sign that I am no’ far from the foot o’ the brae.”
“And was that all?” asked Frederica softly, after a long pause, in which Eppie had taken up her knitting again.
“That was all, except that they wouldna go to my father’s to bide all night, because they were expected elsewhere, they said; and then I ran home as my father bade me, and brought them milk and oaten cakes, which they ate to their refreshment, doubtless, and to our pleasure, and then they went away.”
“And who were they? And did you never see them again?”
“We never saw nor heard of them, though doubtless they crossed our hills again. They were just two lads on their way home from the college in the north. We used whiles to see such, though our glen was a bit out of the way for most of them. But we never saw them again. It must be fifty years and more since then. It had gone clean out of my head, till your flowers and your pleasure in them brought it all back again.”
There was nothing heard for a while but the “click, click,” of Mistress Campbell’s “wires,” as she went on with her knitting. The old woman and the little girl were thinking their own thoughts.
“Eppie, dear,” said Frederica, as she slipped from her high seat to the floor, “I like that about ‘glorified eyes,’ and one seeing hidden things; I mean things that are hidden from us now.”
“Ay, the eyes o’ man are never satisfied with seeing, nor his ears with hearing,” said Eppie: “I doubt that is but a carnal notion o’ heaven. This is what David says about it—
“‘But as for me, I Thine own faceIn righteousness shall see;And with Thy likeness when I wake,I satisfied shall be.’”
“‘But as for me, I Thine own faceIn righteousness shall see;And with Thy likeness when I wake,I satisfied shall be.’”
“Satisfied!” repeated she; “ay, doubtless, they’ll be satisfied that win there. But, eh me! ‘Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leads to life,’ and I doubt there will be some awfu’ disappointments at that day.”
“If one only knew just what to do,” said Frederica gravely.
“Be a good bairn, and ay read your Bible, and mind your prayers,” said Eppie. “But there’s your bell, and you will need to go.”
And so Frederica went downstairs with the grave thoughts that Eppie’s words had awakened, stirring at her heart again. She read her Bible as Eppie had bidden her, and sometimes she read it with delight, because of the elevation of the thoughts and the beauty of the language; but she came upon nothing in these readings that touched her heart, or that she felt to be suited to her. She read the Old Testament, as the history of her mother’s people. She had been often told of late that she was a Jewess in appearance, like her mother, and she took a real interest in the history of her people, and began to feel pride in being descended from a “nation of heroes.” But pre-occupied with thoughts of this kind, she read on from day to day, seeing nothing in the wonderful words she read to enlighten her on all that she so much needed, and which she believed she so much desired to know.
She listened now with attention to such Bible lessons and readings as entered into the regular routine of school work, but the instructions connected with them were often of a kind to influence the reason and affect the imagination, rather than to touch the heart; and though her attention and interest enlarged her knowledge of the letter of Scripture, and won her many good marks and the chance of a prize at the end of the year, the lessons brought her no answer to the question as to which was the right religion, or how one was to get the good of it in the time of trouble, as Miss Baines had done.
Indeed, if it had not been for one thing, the grave and anxious thoughts that had been for some time occupying her mind might have passed away, as they pass from the mind and heart of so many of the young and thoughtless, leaving no trace in her life, no influence for good, either to herself or to others. If her mother had been well and happy, if there had been no shadow of dark days and painful nights hanging over her future, if she had not longed so earnestly to learn for her sake the secret of peace and joy, over which these have no power, she might have put all anxious thoughts away from her. But all her thoughts of her mother were anxious thoughts now; for in the only visit they had made since Easter, they had found her no better, but rather worse.