That afternoon, as John was on the way to the station, he saw Miss Toosey wending her way thoughtfully up High Street, and he crossed over and joined her. She was on her way home from the rectory, and her first remark to John Rossitter was, "Do you believe in miracles, Mr. John?"
"As described in the Bible?"
"Oh, no; of course every one believes in them. I mean miracles now."
"Well, Miss Toosey, if you mean winking Virgins and hysterical peasant girls, I am afraid I am rather skeptical."
"Ah, Mr. John! that's what I thought to myself. It's popish to believe in such things nowadays,—all superstition and such like,—so I'm glad I did not tell Miss Baker what came into my head."
"May I ask what it was? I don't think you are at all popish."
"Well, I'll tell you. It's my missionary-box. Now, Mr. John, how much do you think there was in it?"
"I have not the least idea."
"Well, there was six pounds nine and seven-pence three farthings." Miss Toosey's voice sank to an impressive whisper, and she stood still, looking at John as if he might be so overcome by surprise as to drop his bag and umbrella, or require support to prevent him from falling. But he only said,—
"You don't say so," in a very ordinary tone of voice.
"Six pounds nine and sevenpence three farthings," repeated Miss Toosey, emphasizing the six pounds, as if he had not appreciated the vastness of the sum.
"Ah!" said John; "I'm sure it does credit to you, Miss Toosey; who would have thought that 'Your change, with thanks' would have added up so. I am afraid you must have gone to sleep in church very often."
"But it could not have been that," went on Miss Toosey solemnly. "One pound nine and seven-pence three farthings were principally in coppers, and any sixpenny or fourpenny bits I could account for. But the five pounds were in a note, so it could not have been change or a fine."
"You must have slipped it in some day by chance with other money."
"No, for I never have notes. When I draw my money I always get it in gold, for I am always afraid of notes blowing into the fire or getting torn up. And, besides," went on Miss Toosey, "I am not so rich, Mr. John, that I could lose even sixpence without knowing it."
"It is very strange," said John.
"Strange!" seemed a mild expression to Miss Toosey, to whom it appeared miraculous. "I don't know how to account for it, Mr. John. I suppose it's wrong to think it a miracle, but I could not help thinking of what happened this morning."
"What was that?"
"Why, don't you remember that dear child putting her penny into the box?"
"Oh, yes; and making such a hullaballoo afterwards."
Miss Toosey did not wish to recall that part of the affair. "It was so sweetly done."
"Yes; but you gave it back directly."
Miss Toosey felt quite cross at such inconvenient remarks interrupting her miracle; but she continued, relapsing into a confidential whisper,—
"You see, Mr. John, it was a lad that brought the five barley-loaves, and I thought perhaps the baby's penny might have been turned into a five-pound note."
John made no comment, and she went on as much to herself as to him,—
"I suppose it's popish to think of such a thing; and besides one would have thought if it had been a miracle it would have been quite a new Bank of England note; but it was one of Tuckey's, crumpled and dirty, that had been cut in half, and joined down the middle with the edge of stamps, and it had Mr. Purts's name written on the back. But still," said Miss Toosey wistfully, as they came to the station-road, and John shook hands in parting, "it's God that gives the increase anyhow, miracle or not, and He knows all about it."
Miracles do not happen every day; and Miss Toosey's money-box did not contain a bank note the next time it was opened, or any sum that Miss Toosey could not well account for; indeed, it was rather less than more than she expected, even though the cost of her sitting in church was added to it. She did not, however, carry out her plan of sitting in the free seats, for when she spoke to Mr. Budd about giving up her seat, Mr. Peters happened to be present, and he would not hear of such a thing. "Why, Miss Toosey, we should not know ourselves if you were not in your usual place." And Mr. Budd added, that "Some one, as did not wish to be mentioned, had offered to pay the rent rather than Miss Toosey should give it up." So it was arranged that she should still occupy the seat, at any rate till it was wanted for some one else; and as the Martel congregation were not overflowing, Miss Toosey was not likely to be turned out. She did not quite like this arrangement: she felt rather like an impostor as she passed the free seats, and Mr. Wyatt opened the pew-door for her; and it took off much of the pleasure when she dropped the money (that would otherwise have been paid to Mr. Budd) into her box; for, as she said, she did not feel the want of it, so it hardly seemed like giving at all.
I must not stop to describe at any length Miss Toosey's other missionary efforts, though she did not forget the other barley-loaves of which the Bishop had spoken,—"her time, her influence, and her prayers,"—or I could tell you of her numerous disappointments in answering advertisements such as,—"To those of either sex anxious to increase their income;" and "£2 weekly easily realized;" and of her venturing a 5s. subscription to a "Ladies' Needlework Society," which entitled her to send six articles for sale to a shop in a fashionable part of London; and how she accomplished an antimacassar of elaborate design to send up there. As to her influence, that was a puzzling matter to one who had such a humble opinion of herself as Miss Toosey; and she nearly worked herself into a nervous fever through her attempts to mention the subject to some of the wealthy shopkeepers or others in Martel; and at last she adopted the plan of distributing leaflets, and invested in a small bundle on missionary subjects, which she left about in a surreptitious, stealthy way, in shops, or at the railway station, or slipped between the pages of a "Society" book, or even sometimes on the high road, with a stone to keep them from blowing away. Even with these precautions she managed to give great offence to Mrs. Gardener Jones, who found a leaflet in a book sent on from Miss Toosey's, and who, being of a very dark complexion and Eastern cast of countenance, took the matter as a personal insinuation about her birth. So it was quite a relief to Miss Toosey to run to the last barley-loaf that the Bishop had mentioned,—"her prayers;" at any rate, she could give that with all her heart. She found a missionary prayer in an old magazine, written in an inflated, pompous style, with long words and involved sentences, as different as possible from the great simplicity of that prayer in which children of all ages and degrees of learning through all time are taught to address "Our Father;" but she was not critical; and the feeling she expressed in those words was not rendered less simple or earnest by its pompous clothing.
"Where is Miss Toosey?" John Rossitter asked his mother one Sunday morning, as they drove home from church; "she was not there this morning."
"Well, I think I heard some one say she was ill. Yes, it was Mr. Ryder told me she was laid up with cold or something. She has not been at church for several Sundays; and really the draught from the vestry door is dreadful."
After church that evening, a sudden impulse seized John to go and see how Miss Toosey was; and when he had packed his mother into the brougham, with her rugs and furs, he turned off towards North Street, among the groups of people returning from church. It was a cold October evening, with great, solemn, bright stars overhead, and a frosty stillness in the air, which sets one listening for something above the trifling noises of this little world. Sunday visitors were rare at Miss Toosey's and, as Betty said, "It give her quite a turn" when John's sharp knock came at the door.
"She's very middlin'," she said, in answer to John's inquiries; "and she've been terribly low this evening, as ain't like her."
"What's the matter?"
"Well, Mr. Ryder do say as it's the brongtypus and indigestion of the lungs," said Betty in an awful voice, feeling that so many syllables must prove fatal; "and as I was setting by the latching fire last night a coffin popped right out, and"—
"All right," said John. "Is she in bed?"
"No; she ain't kep' her bed a whole day, though she did ought to. But come in, doee now; it will cheer her up a bit to see you."
John Rossitter was quite shocked to see the change in Miss Toosey when he went into the parlor. She was sitting in the arm-chair by the fire, wrapped up in a big shawl, looking so small and shrunken and old and feeble that you could hardly have recognized the brisk little lady who was prepared to cross the seas and enter on the toils and perils of a missionary life; indeed, she looked more ready for the last short journey across Jordan's narrow stream, which ends all our travelling days, and to enter into the life where toils and perils are replaced by rest. She had been crying too, and could hardly summon up a wintry smile to receive John; and the tears overflowed more than once while he talked of his journey down, and his mother's rheumatism, and the tree that had been blown down the night before in their garden, trying to interest her and distract her thoughts by talking on indifferent subjects. His hand was resting on the table as he spoke, and, without thinking, he took hold of the missionary-box close by, and weighed it in his fingers. He hardly knew what he had in his hand till Miss Toosey burst out crying, and covered her eyes with her handkerchief.
"It is nearly empty," sobbed the poor old lady; "nearly empty!"
And then John Rossitter pulled his chair nearer to hers, and laid one of his warm, strong hands on her poor little weak cold one, and said, "What is it you are fretting about? Tell me."
And then she told him, sometimes interrupted by her sobs, sometimes by the fits of coughing that left her very breathless and exhausted. It had all failed, all the five barley-loaves she had had to offer; they were all worthless. She was too old and foolish and ignorant to give herself for the work; she was too poor to give any money, and the little she had saved with much care must go now for the doctor's bill; she had tried to give her time, but her anti-macassars would not sell, and she could not paint photographs; then she tried her influence; but she did not think she had any, for every one laughed when she spoke to them about the missions, and Mrs. Gardner Jones was offended when she gave her a tract with a negro's face on it, and "Am I not a man and a brother?"
"Then there was only my prayers, Mr. John, and I did think I could have done that at least; and I did keep on regularly with that prayer out of the magazine, but the last three nights I've been so tired and worn out that Betty would make me say my prayers after I was in bed; and I don't really think I could have knelt down; and every night I've dropped off to sleep before I got to the poor heathen. So I've failed in that too. And I've been thinking, thinking, thinking, as I sat here to-night, Mr. John, that perhaps the Lord would not take my barley-loaves, because they were so good-for-nothing; but I'd nothing else, nothing else!"
I do not think that John Rossitter had ever spoken a word on religious subjects in his life; he avoided discussion on such matters like the plague; and he was one of those reserved, deep natures who shrink from letting curious eyes peer into the sanctuary of their faith, and from dissecting their religious opinions with that clumsy scalpel, the tongue. Uninspired words seemed to him to be too rude and unwieldy to convey the subtle mysteries of faith, to break with their jarring insufficiency into the harmony of praise, to weigh down the wing of prayer that is struggling towards Heaven, to trouble the waters where we are trying to see the reflection "as in a glass darkly." There is but one power can open the close-sealed lips of such a nature, and that is when the angel takes a live coal from the great Altar of love and lays it on his mouth; and then he speaks, and with a power wanting in the glib outpourings of a shallower nature. And so John Rossitter found himself speaking words of comfort to Miss Toosey, which seemed like a new language to his unaccustomed lips; telling her how small, how poor everything earthly is in God's sight, and yet how nothing is too small, nothing too poor for the good Lord's notice; how the greatest saint is, after all, only an unprofitable servant; and how He can take a loving, humble heart in His hand and make it as much as He would.
"And you're sure, quite sure, that it's not because He's angry with me that He has not made use of me?"
"Dear old friend, He may make use of you yet."
She was coughing badly just then, and when the fit was over she shook her head. "Not very likely now Mr. John; but He knows I was willing, so it doesn't matter."
She got more cheerful then, and asked him to come and see her again before he went back to London, which he promised to do; and then he rose to go away.
"You must not fret about the empty box," he said, "or I shall scold you next time I come. And look here, Miss Toosey, you have never asked me to subscribe, though I have often teased you by pretending to put buttons and rubbish into the box."
"Will you really?" she said. "I always fancied that you did not hold with missions, and thought them rather nonsense, though you were so kind to me about it; but if you would it would be a comfort to think the box was not quite empty."
He felt in his pocket, but his purse was not there. "You must give me credit, Miss Toosey," he said, smiling; "I shall consider it a debt. I promise to give—let me see—I must think how much I can afford. I promise to give something to your Mission. And now make haste to bed, and get well."
She was collecting her things together to go upstairs,—her spectacle-case, Bible, and one or two books; and out of one of them a printed bit of paper slipped and fluttered to John Rossitter's feet as he stood at the door. It was the prayer for missions cut out of the magazine. He picked it up.
"And don't fret yourself about the prayer either," he said; "let me have it, may I? And suppose I say it for you? And don't you think that 'Thy kingdom come' will do for your missionary prayer till you are better?"
And she smiled and nodded just like her old self as she went out.
"She will soon be better," John said to Betty, as he passed her in the passage; but he did not guess how soon.
"Mother," he said next morning, coming into the breakfast-room with a large bunch of bloomy grapes in his hand, "will you make my peace with Rogers? I have cut the best bunch in his house, and I go in fear of my life from his vengeance."
"My dear John, how very inconsiderate you are! He will be so vexed! Why could not you have asked him for it?"
"It was a sudden temptation that overtook me when I passed through; and I am going to take them to Miss Toosey; and if there is anything else nice you can suggest for that poor little soul, I'll take it along with them."
Mrs. Rossitter was kind-hearted and liberal, and she promised to send one of the maids into Martel that afternoon with some invalid dainties; but John insisted on taking the grapes himself, and marched off with them after breakfast, regardless of the expostulations of his mother and Humphrey, who had other views for passing the morning.
As John Rossitter turned the corner into North Street he ran up against Mr. Ryder, and stopped to talk to him about the pheasant-shooting in the Rentmore coverts. "I am just going to ask for Miss Toosey," he said, as they were parting.
"Miss Toosey? Then you need not go any further; she died last night."
"Died!"
"Yes, poor old soul; and it was only a wonder that she lived so long."
John Rossitter turned and went on without another word, leaving the doctor staring after him in surprise. He went on to the house mechanically, and had knocked at the door before he recollected that there was no longer any object to his visit. Betty opened the door, with a red, swollen face and burst out crying at sight of him, and threw her apron over her head in uncontrolled grief.
(John Rossitter and Betty)(John Rossitter and Betty)
"All right," he said, "I know;" and passed by her and went into the little parlor, and sat down in the same chair that he had sat in the night before, and again involuntarily lifted the missionary-box in his hand. Presently Betty, having partly recovered herself, sidled into the room, glad of company in the "unked" quiet of the house. He asked no questions; and by and by she summoned courage to tell him how the quiet end came at midnight. "Miss Baker have been in this morning already, asking me no end of questions; and she were quite put out with me because I hadn't nothing to tell, and because Miss Toosey, poor dear! hadn't said a lot of texes and fine things. She says, 'Was it a triumphal death?' says she. And I said as how I didn't know what that might be; and then she worrited to know what was the very last words as ever Miss Toosey said, and I didn't like for to tell her, but she would have it. You see, sir, the old lady said her prayers just as usual; and when I went in to see as she were all right on my way to bed, she says, 'I'm pretty comfortable, Betty,' says she; 'good-night to you; and you've not forgotten to give Sammy his supper?'—as is the cat, sir. And them's the last words she uttered; for when I come in half an hour after, hearing her cough, I see the change was a-coming. But Miss Baker she didn't like it when I told her, though it were her own fault for asking; and she says, 'So she didn't testify to her faith,' says she. And I didn't know what she might mean, so I says, 'She were always good and kind to me and every one,' says I; and so she were," added Betty, touching unknowingly on a great truth; "and if that's testifying to her faith, she've done it all her life."
And then she left him sitting there and musing on the quiet close of a quiet life, or rather the quiet passing into fuller life; for what is death but "an episode in life?" There was nothing grand or striking in Miss Toosey's death—there very rarely is; it is only now and then that there is a sunset glory over this life's evening; generally those around see only the seed sown in weakness and dishonor; generally when the glad summons comes, "Friend, come up higher," the happy soul rises up eager to obey and leave "the lower places" without giving those left behind even a glance of the brightness of the wedding garment, or a word of the fulness of joy in the Bridegroom's presence.
And presently John Rossitter came away; and though he held the missionary-box thoughtfully in his hand, he put nothing into it. Had he forgotten his promise to Miss Toosey, which he said he regarded as a debt, to give something to her Mission?
* * * * * * * *
"And so there is an end to poor Miss Toosey and her Mission!" said Mr. Peters a few days later, as he met Mr. Glover returning from her funeral at the cemetery; and Mr. Glover echoed the words with a superior, pitying smile: "So there is an end of poor Miss Toosey and her Mission!"
Poor Miss Toosey! Why do people so often use that expression about the happy dead? Surely they might find a more appropriate one for those who have left the sordid poverty of life behind them and have entered into so rich an inheritance! Of course they do not really mean that it was "an end of Miss Toosey," for did they not say every Sunday, "I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting"? and how could they call than an end which was only the beginning of new life? So this was only a figure of speech. But perhaps you will echo Mr. Glover's sigh over the end of her Mission, and regret that such zeal and ardor should have been wasted and produced no results. Wait a bit! There is no waste in nature, science teaches us; neither is there any in grace, says faith. We cannot always see the results, but they are there as surely in grace as in nature.
That same evening John Rossitter wrote to the Bishop of Nawaub, and very humbly and diffidently offered himself, his young life, his health and his strength, his talents and energies, his younger son's portion, all that God had given him, for his Master's use; and the Bishop who never ceased to pray "the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into the harvest," "thanked God and took courage."
[Transcriber's Note: Illustration captions in round brackets were added by the transcriber.]