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"Forbes," said Mr. Hodson, laying a kind hand on the boy's shoulder,"you remind me of a verse in Proverbs, 'He that rulethhis spirit is greater than he that taketh a city.'"
"Thanks awfully," was all that Jack could think of to say, then after a moment's pause he asked, "What are you going to give Geoff?"
"I'm giving him a walking stick, a regular wopper. I got it while you and he were looking after the doll. It has a knob at the end the size of my fist. I've asked them to send it out to Hazelbury for me, as I was afraid Geoff would see me carrying it."
"I say Forbes," said Jack colouring, and in a low voice, "you wouldn't, I suppose, give Geoff the ruler and let me have the stick?"
"No, certainly not," said Forbes angrily. "You are an ungrateful sneaking little scamp, get away with you."
Jack burst into tears at this, and ran past Mr. Hodson and Geoff, who had overheard Forbes' words, as he had raised his voice in his anger.
Mr. Hodson turned round and looked at Forbes. The light of a lamp close by shewed him the indignant light in the boy's eyes.
"He's gone to complain to nurse now I suppose," he said, angrily looking after Jack's little figure, as he ran crying up the drive and into the house.
"Forbes," said Mr. Hodson, laying a kind hand on the boy's shoulder, "you remind me of a verse in Proverbs, 'He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city.' You have the chance of being a greater man then even Alexander—for though he conquered the world, he could not conquer his own temper, and killed his best friend in a fit of anger."
"Thank you Sir," said Forbes, "I'll remember."
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TAKING A CITY.
Geoffrey remembered Mr. Hodson's words later in the evening.
He did not turn in at the garden gate with Forbes, but telling him he had some business to do before going in to tea, he gave his presents into his brother's keeping, and ran down the hill on the summit of which their house stood.
At the bottom of the hill, he came upon a tumbled-down cottage, standing quite by itself. Old Rachel, of whom Mrs. Green had told them, lived here.
The thought of Rachel had lain very heavily on Geoffrey's heart the last two or three days. He could not forget that she was a mother, and a mother neglected by her only child, who, when she gave her anything at all, only passed on to her what she couldn't eat herself. He was thinking of Rachel when the apple puffs were passed round at dinner.
Now apple puffs was a favourite dish of Geoffrey's, as I fancy it is of most boys. They looked particularly tempting to-day, and he ate the first with a relish. It was just as he was taking his second, that Mrs. Green's words came across his mind, "and if ever she gives her anything, you may be quite sure it ain't fit to eat, something they can't eat themselves because it's turned."
Geoffrey looked at the puff as it lay so invitingly on his plate. It was three cornered, and a little burnt at the edges, which made it all the nicer in Geoffrey's opinion, and a nice layer of white sugar lay on the top.
How good it looked! For a moment the boy gazed at it undecidedly, then, when no one was looking, he put it into his jacket pocket, and resolved to take it round to old Rachel when they came back from Ipswich.
"For once," thought Geoff, "she shall have something that somebody else wants."
He had had some difficulty in knowing how to stow away his many presents so as not to crush his apple puff, but he had managed somehow, and now as he stood outside the door of Rachel's cottage, he took the puff out and was glad to find it still whole. It certainly looked very tempting, and Geoffrey was hungry after his walk. No one would see if after all he ate it, instead of giving it to old Rachel, and no one would consciously miss it.
For a moment the boy's resolution wavered, then he knocked at the door.
Now an apple puff was not a very great thing to give up for the sake of another, and perhaps some of my little readers may think that it would not have signified very much if Geoffrey had eaten it after all. But we must remember, that life is made up of little things, and the great battle of life, on which so much depends, consists often of little victories and little losses, and this small victory that Geoffrey gained that afternoon helped him in after years to gain a far greater one.
When he grew up to be a man, there was something he wanted very much, which was far more worth having than this apple puff. He wanted it so much that he sometimes felt he would almost give his life to possess it for ever such a short time; but somebody else wanted it too, someone who was weaker than he was, and who perhaps needed it more than he did, and Geoffrey gave it right up for the sake of that other.
I do not think he would have acted so nobly when he was a man, if he had not begun quite early in life to deny himself. If he had lost this little battle and had eaten the apple puff outside old Rachel's door, in all probability he would have lost that greater battle in after life.
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"You are old Rachel, aren't you?" asked Geoffrey."Well, what if I be?" she answered.
"Come in," said a quavering voice as Geoffrey knocked, and on entering, he saw a haggard looking old woman, with a forbidding expression of face, and grey straggling hair, crouching over a small fire.
"You are old Rachel, aren't you?" asked Geoffrey, who had never seen her before.
"Well, what if I be?" she answered in a low gruff voice, "I don't want no one to come interfering with me, leastways a child. What do you want—eh?"
"I've brought you an apple puff," said Geoffrey, standing still by the door.
"Shut the door, can't ye," said Rachel shivering, "the draught's enough to cut one in two. An apple puff is it? That ain't the kind of food I want, I ought to be fed on arrowroot I tell ye, and sweet puddings and the like. But Jane never sends me what I need, it's either somethin' that's turned bad, or else what I can't eat."
"This is quite new and fresh," said Geoffrey, shutting the door and coming a little nearer, while he laid the puff on the table, "perhaps you've never tasted a puff—it's awfully good—I wish you'd try it."
"That's a likely story, if Jane sent it," said Rachel glancing at it, and then looking up suspiciously at Geoffrey.
"No one sent it," interposed Geoffrey. "We had them for dinner to-day, and I thought you'd like one as they were so good. I'm Geoffrey Fortescue, and I heard of you from Mrs. Green."
Rachel looked back again at the fire, muttering to herself, and Geoffrey looked round the room, and thought how bare it was, and how lonely Rachel looked.
"Haven't you any money to get things with?" he asked.
"Money ain't for such as me: the big folk that don't need it, they have the money. This world's comforts ain't for me."
"There's Heaven for you," said Geoffrey.
Rachel darted a quick look at the boy, and as she saw the earnest young face looking at her so pitifully, the expression on her own face softened, and she shook her head.
"I take it Heaven is a long way off," she said sadly.
"It doesn't seem so very far," answered Geoff, "Mother is there, and I sometimes feel she's quite close."
"Heaven ain't meant for such as me," muttered Rachel, cowering closer to the fire.
"I thought God loved everybody, and meant Heaven for the whole world," said Geoff, "and," he added earnestly, "I'm quite sure God must want you there, because you are so lonely."
Rachel wiped away a tear or two with her apron. She had not cried for many a long day. She had harboured too bitter thoughts to allow of tears, but to-day, something in the boy's simple words touched her hard old heart.
"I mustn't stop," said Geoffrey, looking out of the window at the darkness, "or Nurse won't like it. But I'll ask Mr. Hodson to come and see you, and I'll leave the apple puff, for it's ever so good, if you'll only try it."
Rachel nodded her assent to the last sentence, but added:
"But don't you bring no parsons to see me. I don't want no parsons here, unless," she added with a sob, and beginning to rock herself backwards and forwards, "unless he can tell me the way straight and plain to Heaven. I'd like to know that."
Closing the door softly after him, Geoffrey ran as fast as he could to Mr. Hodson. Although he ran the risk of a scolding from Nurse for being late, he felt that Rachel must not be left in her misery.
He arrived at the house nearly breathless, and told his friend what had happened.
Mr. Hodson, who had together with the Vicar for many a year tried in vain to overcome Rachel's objection to see a clergyman, was glad enough of the news Geoffrey brought him, and prepared at once to go and see her.
"Mr. Hodson," said Geoffrey anxiously, "God loves her, doesn't He? And He won't turn her away from Heaven, if she asks to be let in."
"If Rachel really wants to find God, He certainly will not turn her away," answered Mr. Hodson. "The Lord Jesus Christ has made a way there for us all, and old Rachel's way is the same as yours and mine. Do you remember the story Geoff," he added, as he put On his coat to start off at once, "of the man who saved his children by making a bridge of his own body from the window of his burning house to that of the opposite one? The houses were very near together, and he could reach from one window to another."
"His children one by one crossed over his body into safety, and just as the last child was saved, the house fell in, and the man was killed. When the Blessed Lord Jesus died on the Cross, He made a bridge for Rachel, and for you and for me to Heaven. You see, I have good news for your old friend, Geoff my boy, so you run home as fast as you can or you'll get a scolding."
And Geoff did get a scolding. Nurse met him at the door.
"Master Geoff," she cried, "I'm downright ashamed of you for setting the children such an example. There I've been worrying after you for the last twenty minutes, and thought you'd come to some accident or other. I'm downright ashamed of you."
"I had some business to do," said Geoffrey, trying to pass her. But Nurse placed her portly figure in his way.
"Business! A chit like you talking of business! What'll you come to next, I wonder. You're a naughty boy and ought to be ashamed of yourself. What business have you had to do, I should like to know, except to be a good obedient boy. That's the business you ought to be doing I take it."
Geoffrey flushed angrily. His mother never scolded him in this way, and he had often run messages for her as late as this by himself.
"Let me pass, Nurse," he said angrily, trying to push past her, "I've not been doing anything wrong."
"Nothing wrong!" exclaimed Nurse, catching hold of his arm. "Nothing wrong to make me that anxious about you that I didn't know what to do—nothing wrong that you've kept us all waiting for tea, and have set a bad example to all the children. I'm ashamed of you Master Geoff. Now I should like to know what you've been about, and I mean to know too."
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But at the sight of the bread and water, he lost his temper completely,and taking up the glass, he threw it on to the ground.
Now Geoff did not wish to tell Nurse about the apple puff, and felt exceedingly angry at being treated like a little boy, and held by the arm in this way. So raising his hand he struck nurse's arm as hard as he could, and then pale with anger, he rushed into his bedroom and locked the door.
"Well I never!" ejaculated nurse. "If that isn't a wicked temper, I don't know what is."
When she went back into the nursery a few minutes afterwards, she informed the children that Geoff had been a naughty boy, and was to have no tea that evening, but that Forbes might put a glass of water and some bread outside his door, but was not to speak a word to him.
Forbes, in utter astonishment at his elder brother being punished in this way, obeyed wonderingly.
Now it was a great pity that Geoffrey had not at once explained to nurse the cause of his absence. She might have given him a slight scolding, for not asking her leave before going, but her kind heart would have sympathized with him, in his wish to do a kindness.
But Geoffrey's pride had stood in the way. He could not endure being treated like a little boy, and scolded like a naughty child, and as he paced up and down his room, his indignation rose, and reached its climax when he heard Forbes' footstep outside, and the sound of him quietly laying down his tea, as he supposed, by his door without a word. Was he to be treated then like a mere baby? And to be held in disgrace like Jack or Dodie would have been, if they had been naughty?
He opened his door impatiently to call after Forbes to take away his tea, but at the sight of the bread and water, he lost his temper completely, and taking up the glass, he threw it on to the ground, smashing it to pieces. Then locked his door again, and would not open it, though nurse shook it violently.
Then it was that Mr. Hodson's words about Alexander came into his mind, and Geoffrey stood quite still in his walk.
"'He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city,'" thought Geoff.
Half an hour afterwards, to Forbes' intense astonishment, Geoffrey appeared in the nursery and apologized to nurse.
Nurse said nothing, but going to the cupboard, she mixed some gregory powder in a wineglass, saying, "anyone who shows temper like that, I take it, must be ill. There my dear," she added kindly, "you drink that, there's a good boy—and you'll feel better to-morrow."
And Geoff drank it to the dregs, and in so doing was greater than Alexander the Great.
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"POOR LITTLE LAD."
Geoffrey could not fail to acknowledge to himself that after all, Nurse had been wise in putting Dodie into a frock with high neck and long sleeves, for the winter was unusually severe.
Snow lay for several days some inches thick in the garden, and though the boys enjoyed the snowballing well enough, and were able to keep themselves thoroughly warm, little Dodie seemed to feel the cold very acutely, and often came in from her daily walk crying from the pain of freezing fingers.
In fact, the child did not seem herself, and Nurse began to grow uneasy about her, particularly as in seven days' time, Major Fortescue was expected and she was naturally anxious that all the children should be looking their best on his arrival.
In Geoffrey's eyes, Dodie seemed to be growing thinner and smaller altogether, and a terrible fear seized him lest she was going to be ill, and would be so when his Father arrived.
As the days past, he gave up snowballing, and spent his time in the nursery with Dodie, who was not allowed out.
"I think the cold has struck her," said Nurse, as one day she altogether refused to eat her dinner. "I've a mind to send for Dr. Booth, the powders I've been giving her don't seem to be what she wants."
Geoffrey laid down his knife and fork, feeling a sudden disinclination for the mutton and dumplings before him.
"Do you think Dodie is going to be ill?" he asked anxiously.
"I hope not, my dear, but it ain't like her to turn away from her food, and she has a nasty little cough that don't get better. Anyways I'll ask Dr. Booth to look in, there can't be no harm in that. There, there my darling," she added, taking Dodie on to her knee, "don't cry, there's a pet."
Nurse looked down at Dodie's little face which was lying on her arm.
"I don't like the look of her," she murmured more to herself than to anyone else, "her eyes are too bright to be natural, and she's restless, poor little dear." Then louder she added, "Geoff, you might run down when you've finished your dinner and ask the doctor to be so good as to look in. You'd catch him before he starts out on his rounds if you're quick."
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"Dr. Booth," he said,—looking up into the Doctor's face—"will Dodie be well by the time Father comes home?"
Geoffrey, who had listened with a beating heart to all Nurse had said, sprang up at once, and not heeding Nurse's injunction to finish his dinner first, ran off at once for the Doctor, and returned again in an incredibly short time.
To his excited imagination, the few minutes that elapsed between leaving the message at the doctor's door and his arrival seemed hours, and then at last his ring was heard, and a minute after, he stood looking at Dodie, who still lay in nurse's arms.
Geoff did not move his eyes from his face, till Nurse suddenly looking up and becoming conscious of the three little listeners who stood around, ordered them all peremptorily out of the room. Geoffrey, however, waylaid the Doctor as he left.
"Dr. Booth," he said, standing with his hands thrust deeply in his pockets, and looking earnestly up into the Doctor's face as he put on his coat in the hall, "will Dodie be well by the time Father comes home?"
The Doctor shook his head somewhat ominously.
"That I can't tell you, my boy," he answered, as he buttoned up his coat and smoothed his collar, "with care I hope your little sister will get well before very long—but it will require care—and I can't say exactly when she will be herself again."
"Is she going to be very ill?" asked Geoff.
The doctor turned away somewhat hurriedly from the anxious face looking up into his, and fidgeted a little nervously with his hat before putting it on. Then clearing his throat, he looked round again and patted the boy on the head saying, kindly:
"Care and physic do wonderful things, my boy—for all I know, your little sister will be having a game of snowballing with you this day week."
"I do hope she'll be well by the time Father comes," said Geoff with a sigh.
"Oh well—who knows!" said Dr. Booth jovially—and ramming his hat on his head, he nodded to Geoff, and in a minute more was driving away from the house, but not away from the remembrance of those anxious eyes that had been raised so beseechingly to him,—which remembrance made him shake his head, murmuring "poor little lad."
When Geoff went up to the nursery, he saw Nurse had been crying, but when he asked what the Doctor really thought of Dodie, she told him she had no time to talk and that he had better go down to the other boys in the schoolroom as Dodie had to go straight to bed, and mustn't be disturbed by any noise.
Geoffrey did as he was bid, but with a heavy heart, feeling quite sure that Nurse's tears meant that Dodie was very ill. He could not play with Forbes and Jack, or even read, but sat by the fire, looking silently at the red coals, for an hour or more.
It was the greatest relief when Nurse at last came down and told him he might go upstairs and watch by Dodie's crib while she had her tea, and that was the beginning of a continual watching on the boy's part. Nurse finding how gentle and tender he was, and how noiselessly he could move about when he liked, did not object to his spending many hours by Dodie's crib, and indeed, in her great anxiety, she began to be thankful for the boy's presence. For the Doctor's report of Dodie had been serious. The child had caught a chill, and before many hours were over, Bronchitis declared itself, and notwithstanding the care and physic from which the doctor had hoped such great things, on Christmas Eve little Dodie went to Heaven with a smile on her face, and stretching out her little hands as if someone had come to fetch her.
"I think Mother must have come for her," said Geoffrey in a low voice, as they stood round the schoolroom fire talking about it all.
"Yes," said Jack between his sobs, "Perhaps she was sent to fetch her, lest she should be afraid of all the new people in Heaven. Even kind Abraham might frighten her a little, she was always afraid of people with beards—but she wouldn't mind them a bit, if Mother fetched her."
Geoffrey nodded quietly. He did not cry. He had not shed a tear.
When once little Dodie had breathed her last, all sense of his own loss vanished in the overwhelming thought of what his Father's sorrow would be, when he found Dodie had gone.
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THEIR MOTHER'S CHRISTMAS PRESENT.
It was Christmas Eve. The London express was late on account of the heavy storm of snow that had fallen during the day. Thomas, the coachman, muffled up, though he was in his fur cape, felt another quarter of an hour's waiting would freeze him to his seat, and his hands to the reins.
He had been walking the horses up and down for at least an hour outside the station, and the signal was still up.
He had not, however, much longer to wait.
A few minutes more and the red light of the approaching train came into sight, and before long the homeward journey had begun.
Thomas was thankful that his master's enquiries on seeing him, had been after his coachman's wife and family, and not after his own children.
He had been dreading the interview at the station, and was glad when he found himself driving the horses towards home, with his master safely inside the carriage.
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"I couldn't, couldn't keep her alive for you, Father," he sobbed.
Major Fortescue, was a man in the prime of life, with hair nevertheless slightly tinged with grey. He sat leaning back in the carriage, his hand over his eyes. He was passing through deep waters during that drive, and he was thankful that in passing them, he was alone and in the dark, with no eye but that of God upon him.
How different was the home coming to that to which he had looked forward.
Even now, though he knew what pain the awakening would cost him, he allowed himself to imagine for a few moments what it might have been—to picture his sweet wife standing at the door to welcome him, to feel her in his arms again, to kiss her dear forehead, eyes, lips once more. Only half an hour might have been standing between him and her—as it was, five, ten, perhaps twenty years might be between them. He groaned audibly.
His face blanched as suddenly the carriage turned in at the gate, and he caught sight of his three boys standing in the open doorway, with a row of servants behind. For a moment he felt utterly unable to control his feelings, and trembled.
Then with a desperate effort, he turned the handle of the door and sprang out, to find his eldest boy fling himself into his arms.
Geoffrey's self-control gave way at last.
"I couldn't, couldn't keep her alive for you, Father," he sobbed, thinking of little Dodie, who lay so still and sweet in the nursery upstairs.
Major Fortescue, with his thoughts full of his wife, grew a shade paler with his effort to keep calm.
"My poor lad," he said, stroking the rough curly head of the boy.
Geoffrey, supposing from his Father's words that Thomas had informed him of Dodie's death, gave a sigh of relief and grew calmer, as his Father kissed his other little boys, and shook hands warmly with faithful old nurse, who stood sobbing in a corner, and with the other servants.
He had a kind word for each, and no one could have guessed what an effort it cost him. He showed no sign of inward agitation at all, except his exceeding paleness.
"Will you come and see Dodie?" whispered Geoffrey at last, taking him by the hand.
Major Fortescue had missed Dodie from the beginning, but it being late in the evening, he took for granted the child had been sent to bed and he was not sorry. He was glad that he could look upon his little girl, whom everyone had described to him, as being the living likeness of her mother, with no curious eyes upon him. He had dreaded, yet longed to see her, and of all his children, he had thought most often of seeing little Dodie.
He therefore followed Geoffrey without a word towards the nursery.
Geoffrey opened the door softly, and walked on tip-toe across the dimly-lighted room, towards the little crib in the corner.
There was something about the general aspect of the room, and the strong smell of sweet flowers, that made Major Fortescue's heart suddenly stop beating.
He stood on the threshold perfectly still, as if he had received a blow, and then followed his little son, whose head was now reverently bent over the crib, and stood by his side without a word.
Dodie had her little hands crossed over her breast, holding a beautiful white flower. There was still the sweet smile on her lips, and her curly hair lay in clusters over her forehead.
It struck Geoffrey at that moment that after all Dodie was dressed in white to see her Father, and was looking her sweetest and best.
Then Geoffrey looked up at his father, to his dying day he never forgot the look he saw on his face, nor the sound of his voice as he said quietly:
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord."
* * * * *
They gave away the Christmas presents next morning after breakfast.
"Father," said Geoffrey, as afterwards they stood round the fire, "I was thinking last week that we couldn't give Mother a Christmas present, but after all, she has our best, for she has Dodie."
THE END.