CHAPTER XIXTHE FOND ADVENTUREBut warily tent, when ye come to court me,And come na unless the back—yett be ajee.Old Song.Miss Esperance was decidedly better, and she had at last allowed Montagu to tell Mr. Wycherly of old Elsa's sudden death, and also of her own illness. The letter, according to her instructions, put it, that she had been "rather ailing," and this guarded statement produced a telegram from Mr. Wycherly announcing his return next day.Therefore the little household was commanded to retire especially early, and by half-past eight that night every light in Remote, save that of the fires, was extinguished; and the whole family were, as Robina would have put it, "safely bedded."Miss Esperance had that evening insisted that Montagu should return to the bedroom he shared with Edmund; declaring that she was perfectly capable of getting anything that she wanted for herself. No one guessed how terribly Miss Esperance missed old Elsa's ministrations at every turn, for the old woman, though frail and incapable of any hard work for some time past, was yet most jealous of all personal service to her mistress, and Robina had never been permitted to do anything that brought her into direct contact with that lady.Robina, bustling, buxom, industrious, and far handsomer at three and twenty than she had been at seventeen, had for a long time now entirely managed the housework; but as a personal attendant she left much to be desired. When she brought her mistress a cup of excellent beef-tea, she invariably slopped it over into the saucer, often on to the tray-cloth. She was economically minded, too, as regards laundry work (most people are when they have to do it themselves), and looked upon stains as a very minor matter in setting out a tray. It was Montagu who noticed the intense disfavour with which Miss Esperance regarded such small untidinesses: how often the nourishing dishes prepared by Robina with the utmost care were sent away untasted because they were not daintily served; and he took the matter and the trays into his own hands, with the result that things were served even as Elsa had served them, and Miss Esperance drank her beef-tea without remark.Not that she was unobservant; she noted everything that Montagu did for her; and even when she was at her weakest and worst, she was filled with a tender, admiring sort of amusement at the boy's deft, dainty ways of waiting upon her—ways undoubtedly acquired during his long and close association with Mr. Wycherly.At first Robina exclaimed in horror at the enormous number of tray-cloths and dinner napkins discarded by Montagu if they had the smallest spot or stain; but Montagu pointed out that it was better to have mountains of washing than that his aunt should be starved; and the girl gave in gracefully, for she was very eager to fill Elsa's place as far as she possibly could.There is no doubt that she thoroughly enjoyed her new dignity and independence, and she wrote to the still faithful Sandie that he might, if he was in the mind, look in and see her one evening—"the mistress had said she was perfectly willing, though still confined to her bed."Sandie was now in partnership with a butcher on the other side of Edinburgh, ten long miles from Burnhead, and the bicycle was not within everybody's reach in those days. Still he managed every fortnight or so to get over to see Robina, for they were now formally betrothed, and their engagement was smiled upon by the authorities.Sandie wanted to get married at once, but Robina had declared long before Elsa's death that she could not bring herself to leave Miss Esperance, and now she felt that such a course was quite out of the question. Besides, she was in no hurry to get married. That she could get married, and well married, whenever she liked was a matter for complacent reflection, but otherwise she was very contented with things as they were.Sandie was hardly so satisfied. If not exactly an ardent lover, he had assuredly proved himself a very faithful one, and he ruled his life largely by the somewhat strict conceptions of Robina.Montagu was very tired. He had had a hard fortnight, with many broken, anxious nights. The responsibility had lain heavily on his young, slender shoulders. He was supremely thankful that Mr. Wycherly would be home on the morrow. It was pleasant to lie once more in his big four-post bed instead of in the somewhat cramped and stuffy cupboard where he had spent his nights lately. He stretched himself luxuriously, and turned and turned that he might find the absolutely comfortable position in which to fall asleep. But somehow sleep would not come. Every smallest sound disturbed him. Whenever a little piece of cinder fell into the grate from the fire in his aunt's bedroom, he started up to listen, thinking she had moved and might want him. But all was perfectly quiet.Edmund, who preserved his infantile capacity for falling asleep directly he lay down, slumbered peacefully in the little bed beside the big one. Miss Esperance slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of old age and exhaustion. Mause, old now and very deaf, slept soundly in her kennel outside the little house, and Robina already slept the healthy sleep of hard-working youth. Only the little boy in the big bed with carved oaken posts and brocade canopy lay wide-eyed and wakeful with that dreadful, useless wakefulness that comes sometimes to the overtired. There was no moon to shine companionably through the blind, the room was in absolute, black darkness, and when Montagu had been in bed about half an hour it seemed to him that it must be the middle of the night. The casement window was wide open, but the night was so still that the blind never stirred. Again and again he sat up to listen for some sound from his aunt's room; it would have been a relief had she wanted him, but there was no sound of any kind.Still he could not sleep, and at last his listening was rewarded, for he heard a step outside—a stealthy step that paused hesitating, then crept fumblingly forward.There was no doubt whatever that it was a step; and Montagu, convinced that it must at least be midnight, immediately jumped to the conclusion that whoever was there could be there for no lawful purpose.If it was a burglar, he must be got away without noise. That was Montagu's first thought. On no account must Miss Esperance be wakened or alarmed.He flew out of bed, and, squeezing in behind the dressing-table, leant out of the window. Soft, impenetrable, wet darkness met him and enveloped him. A fine rain was falling, and he could see nothing, but he distinctly heard the hesitating footsteps turn and go round the house toward the front.Softly, on naked feet, he made his way to Edmund's side and shook him. But Edmund was difficult to wake, for Montagu did not dare to speak above a whisper, and it was not until he had reiterated several times: "There's someone creeping round the house; it's a thief, probably," in the eeriest of stage whispers, that Edmund was roused.When he did grasp the situation, however, he arose instantly, exclaiming in a joyful whisper, "Come on, and let's bash his head for him; then he can make no noise, nor break in neither.""That's all very well," said the more cautious Montagu, whose teeth were chattering, partly from cold and partly from fear for his aunt. "We've got to catch him first. Let's come to Guardie's room and see if we can get a glimpse of the fellow from the window. The night's as black as pitch though."Very quietly Montagu lit a candle, and the two little boys sped across the landing to Mr. Wycherly's room."Close the door behind you and that'll stifle his groans," the valiant Edmund whispered as they reached their goal. "I just wish we had the villain here.""I don't," Montagu responded gloomily, "he might jump about and make no end of a row before we got him under."They had no sort of doubt as to their ultimate triumph over the nefarious designs of this prowling stranger, but they were, unfortunately, handicapped by the necessity for extreme quietude."I expect it's the parlour he'll be wanting to break into," Edmund suggested. "All those silver cups and things on the sideboard, you know. The basket with the forks and spoons is in aunt's room. We must take care he doesn't go there. Don't let him see a light!" and Edmund promptly blew out the candle that Montagu held.Together they softly opened the window and leant out. Neither could, of course, see anything, nor at the moment was anything to be heard."We'll wait a wee while," Edmund whispered. And wait they did in breathless silence, shoulder pressed to shoulder, the only sound the quick beating of their hearts.Their patience was rewarded. The hesitating steps came slowly round to the front of the house and paused under their very window. Then somebody gave a low whistle.Montagu dragged Edmund back from the window. "That's to summon his confederates. What'll we do? If there's more than one, they're sure to wake Aunt Esperance and frighten her dreadfully. We must do something—quick!""Will I fling out the poker on the chance of hitting him?" inquired Edmund, who had already provided himself with that weapon."No, that won't do, for if you don't hit him, it would warn him we'd seen him——""Perhaps it would make him run away.""Not it. I've got it! Let's empty the ewer of water over him first. I think he's just under the window, and that's sure to startle him, and he'll jump out. Then you must say in an awful voice, 'Throw up your hands without a sound (you mustn't say it loud, mind) or you're a dead man.' And you'll light the candle and show me holding one of the big pistols hanging at the stair-head. I brought one in with me.""I don't think he'd better see you," Edmund objected; "he mightn't be a bit terrified.""Perhaps we'd better keep the room dark, then, and mebbe he'll think it's Guardie.""Guardie's voice isn't a bit awful. I'll be a lot more frightening than him, I can tell you. Have you got that jug? Steady, now; mind you don't let the ewer go, too, else we'd catch it from Robina. Listen a minute!"Again the low whistle immediately under their window.Very carefully they balanced the heavy bedroom jug on the window-sill. "It must go all at once in one big splash!" Montagu whispered, "Now!"A very big splash undoubtedly followed.A series of gasps, and the sound of a voice raised in lamentation exclaiming: "Lord hae mercy! What like a way's that to greet a body? An' it that dark I couldna' find the back door. Hoo was I tae ken ye'd a' be gane tae yer beds at nine o'clock? Ye didna' use to be sae awfu' airly. But I'll just tell you this, Robina lass, it's the last time you'll catch me trailin' awa' over here to speer after ye—to get sic a like cauld welcome, as though it wasna' wet eneugh onny wye. I'm din, I can tell ye."Montagu clutched Edmund by the arm, exclaiming in horrified tones, "I do believe it's Sandie Croall." Then leaning as far out of the window as he could, "Is it you, Sandie? Because, if so, we're most awfully sorry; only please don't speak so loud, for Aunt Esperance is asleep, and she's been so ill. We thought you must be somebody trying to break in. What made you come in the middle of the night?""It's no' the middle o' the night," Sandie grunted indignantly, "the church clock has only just chappit nine. It happened I could get over, an' I thocht I'd just look in an' see Robiny—little thinkin' I'd get sic a like reception. I'm jest drooket through an' through. What for did ye no' speer wha it was, young gentleman, and no' go droonin' honest folk?""Would you like to come in and get dry?" Edmund suggested hospitably; "there's sure to be some fire in the kitchen.""No, thank ye," Sandie replied, still somewhat huffy, "I'll get awa' hame to my mither, an' she'll dry my claes to me whiles I'm in my bed.""Shall I tell Robina you called?" Montagu asked politely.Sandie paused. "I'm thinkin', young gentleman," he remarked severely, "that the less you say about to-night's wark the better it will be for you. If I am content to pass the matter over with obleevion, it's the least you can dae to dae the same.""We're most awfully sorry," the boys said once more in subdued chorus."Just gang awa' back tae yer beds," said Sandie, and with these parting words he felt his way out to the green gate, and they heard his footsteps going plop-plop on the wet road till they died away in the distance.Edmund sighed. "It was a pity we couldn't bash his head or anything," he murmured regretfully. "I hope a real one'll come some day when Aunt Esperance is well, and we don't need to be so hushified. Then we could have a jolly good mill."Rather dispirited and extremely cold they crept back to bed."I wonder," Montagu murmured thoughtfully, "why he didn't want Robina to know he'd been here."Edmund gave a smothered laugh. "My word, but he did catch his breath when we douched him, an' wasn't he cross when he thought it was Robina? I wonder if she's ever done it before?"CHAPTER XXA QUESTION OF THEOLOGYNae shauchlin' testimony here—We were a' damned, an' that was clear,I owned, wi' gratitude an' wonder,He was a pleisure to sit under.R.L.S.The while that Mr. Wycherly looked after Montagu's secular education, Miss Esperance undertook the religious, and long, weary Sunday evenings did he spend in wrestling with the polemics of the "Shorter Catechism.""Why shorter?" he would ask bitterly. "It's as long as ever it can be.""There's a longer one than that, my dear son," Miss Esperance would answer cheerfully; "but you won't need to learn it unless you become a minister.""I shall never be a minister," said Montagu firmly, one day when he had made four mistakes in the answer which defines "Effectual Calling"—an answer, by the way, which he could have learned in two minutes had he been in the slightest degree interested. "I shall never be a minister. I shall be an Epicurean when I'm grown up. Mr. Wycherly was telling me about them yesterday, and I liked them."Miss Esperance gave a positive gasp of dismayed astonishment. "Oh, my dear!" she exclaimed. "I hope that you will always be too sincere a Christian ever to dream of being anything else. I must indeed have taught you badly that any such idea should be possible.""Oh, no, dear aunt," said Montagu reassuringly, rubbing his head against her shoulder. "It's not that at all; but people do sometimes change their religion, you know, when they're grown up—like Calvin and Luther you told me about—and you know I really think I like the old gods best; they were very pleasant on the whole.""Montagu, Montagu, you don't know what you are saying! Those heathen gods that you speak of never existed. There were no such beings.""Are you sure, auntie?" Montagu asked earnestly. "They sound very real, quite as real, and much cheerfuller than—the Shorter Catechism," he concluded lamely, checked by the unfeigned horror he saw in his aunt's face.Miss Esperance took off her spectacles and wiped them, then she put them on again and laid her frail old hand over the square, brown little hand lying on her knee, saying gently: "Montagu, dear, you are talking of what you do not understand. It will in no wise be counted against youbecauseyou do not understand, but you must not say such things; really, my dear boy, youmustnot, and it grieves me the more in that I somehow must be in fault. My teaching has in no way been blest if you are so filled with doubts already."Poor Miss Esperance looked terribly distressed, and the little boy at her knee, who, child as he was, had realised her sweetness and her truth every day of the years he had been with her, wondered, with a sorrowful vagueness, what he could have said to vex her so. And inasmuch as he could find no words to express the thoughts that were in him he flung his arms round his aunt's neck, exclaiming: "I love you so, I won't be an Epicurean if you don't want me to; but you know, dear Auntie, it must have been so happy in those days—there were never any Sabbaths."Miss Esperance held him close and prayed silently; she even forbore to dilate upon the blessed privileges of that Sabbath which, as she had just been instructing Montagu, "is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy.""Is dinner a necessity or a mercy?" Montagu had asked one day, he himself being distinctly inclined to look upon it as a mercy, for it followed morning church, and after the children came, in deference to a suggestion of Mr. Wycherly's, founded upon certain youthful reminiscences of his own, there was always dessert on Sundays.Now it happened that on the Sunday previous to Montagu's announcement of his approaching conversion to Epicureanism, the Reverend Peter Gloag had given a lengthy and vigorous discourse on Eternal Punishment. He was a true disciple of Calvin in that he believed that the majority of mankind needed herding into the right path by the sheep-dog of sheer terror as to what would most certainly befall them should they stray from it; and he succeeded in striking dire dismay to the very soul of one small member of his congregation. The minister had also touched upon predestination and election, and Montagu, who was tender-hearted and imaginative, was suddenly panic-stricken by the idea that perhaps he and Edmund, and even Mr. Wycherly, who never came to church, might be already numbered among those whom the Reverend Peter Gloag had denounced as being "rejected, left to sin, to unbelief, and to perdition."Long after he was put to bed in the big four-post bed, while Edmund slept peacefully in the little bed beside him, did Montagu lie awake wondering whether he would die that night. The very prayer that he said every evening at his aunt's knee took on a new and terrible significance:If I should die before I wake,I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.Montagu repeated it over and over again with dry lips, while he turned from side to side in a vain endeavour to get away from the constant beating as of a hammer upon an anvil that sounded ceaselessly in his ears."If I should die"—the child whispered to himself, then gradually he fell once more into thinking of his beloved Greeks; they, too, if they did not actually fear death, met it sorrowfully, for it meant leaving the bright light of the sun, and presently the reiterated "If I should die" changed to the cry of Alcestis, "Lay me down, I have no strength in my feet. Hades is nigh at hand, and dark night steals over mine eyes." Then more familiar and less terrible came the thought of that "old man, the guide of the dead, who sitteth at the oar and the helm"—who in Montagu's mind was inextricably mixed up with a saturnine old boatman he knew at Leith, till at last he drifted into the blessed haven of sleep.Next day in the Horace lesson Mr. Wycherly happened to mention that in religion he was an Epicurean, whereupon Montagu, as was his wont, asked innumerable questions, which his tutor set himself to answer as fully as possible; dilating, in his pleasantly detached and impersonal fashion, on the fact that Epicureanism pure and undefiled did away with the fear of death among its professors; and quoted the philosopher himself to the effect that "When we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not." How that in his time the great incubus of human happiness was fear—fear of the gods and fear of death—and that pleasure pursued with prudence and tempered by justice and self-control was the true end and aim of all wise men.That what he said could by any remote possibility have any personal application to Montagu never occurred to him for a moment. He described the doctrines of Epicurus with as little expectation of their affecting the boy's attitude toward life as that the use of the prolative infinitive in his Latin prose should cause him any searchings of the heart. But he had reckoned without the minister, for Montagu, fresh from the terrors of the previous night, suddenly determined to adopt as his own a religion which seemed so singularly free from any disquieting tenets.Edmund's curly head was never perplexed or troubled with vain imaginings or hankerings after the old gods; but equally little did he aspire to any considerable knowledge of the Shorter Catechism. Lessons of any kind he frankly detested, and as he learned by heart with difficulty, he "went through," in two senses, an inordinate number of "Shorter Catechisms" in the cinnamon paper bindings, such as Miss Esperance was wont to provide for the instruction of her grand-nephews. Hardly ever did Edmund get any answer absolutely without mistake, except the one which replies to the question, "What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?" When he would respond in a dismal sort of chant, "All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of Hell for ever." This Edmund would repeat with positive relish till sensitive Montagu shook in his shoes, and wished harder than ever that he had been born in an age when there seemed fewer possibilities of wrong-doing, followed by such appalling punishment; and youths and maidens, light-footed, crowned with garlands, trooped gaily to propitiate their easy-going gods by means of gifts.* * * * *On the evening of the day on which Montagu had announced his preference for the doctrines of Epicurus Miss Esperance knocked at the door of Mr. Wycherly's study about nine o'clock. This was a most unusual proceeding on her part, for they rarely met after supper, as Miss Esperance usually went to bed about a quarter to nine.When Mr. Wycherly saw her standing on the threshold he rose hastily and led her in and set her in his special chair by the fire, taking up his own position on the hearth-rug. The reading lamp shone full on Miss Esperance, but his face was in shadow."Mr. Wycherly, I am anxious about Montagu," Miss Esperance began somewhat tremulously."Is he ill?" that gentleman interpolated hastily. "He seemed quite well at dinner-time.""Oh, he's well enough in health, I think, I am thankful to think—but—" here Miss Esperance paused as if she found it somewhat difficult to broach the subject, "I am not equally confident as to his spiritual condition.""His spiritual condition!" Mr. Wycherly repeated vaguely. "Montagu's! He is surely a very young boy to have attained to a—spiritual condition?""That's just it," said Miss Esperance, despair in her voice, and grave disquietude writ large upon her face. "That's just it. Would you not say that he was far too young to be assailed by doubts? Would you not expect so young a child to accept the teaching of our religion without question or rebellion? And yet Montagu—" Here poor Miss Esperance again faltered, then by a mighty effort forcing herself to voice the dreadful thing—"told me to-day, when I was hearing him the Shorter Catechism, that he intended to become an Epicurean when he was grown up! What are we to do with him?"It was well for Mr. Wycherly that his face was in shadow, for although his mouth remained quite grave, there were little puckers round the corners of his eyes, not wholly to be accounted for by the lines that time had drawn there. He coughed slightly, and cleared his throat. "Am I, dear Miss Esperance, to gather that you think I am in some degree to blame for Montagu's unregenerate frame of mind?" he asked gently."Not to blame!" she hastily ejaculated. "Not to blame! But perhaps he is learning rather too much about those old days, those unenlightened heathen times, and evidently you render it all so entertaining that he gets rather carried away, and is unable to distinguish between what is mere fable and what is historical, vital truth. He is very little," she continued pleadingly. "Do you think it is quite wholesome for him to learn so much mythology? Don't you think it is apt to unsettle him?"Mr. Wycherly was silent for a minute. "Do you know," he asked suddenly, "that with the exception of the little 'gilt-books' you had as a child, we haven't a single child's book in the house? Perhaps I was wrong to discuss any school of philosophy with him—but as regards mythology, I have only told Montagu such stories as are in reality the foundation of most of the child-stories that have ever been written. I don't think they have really hurt him, and such knowledge will be of use to him by and by.""But why should he seem positively to dislike proper religious instruction?" persisted Miss Esperance. "I am sure that when I was a child it never occurred to me to do other than learn what was set me with the greatest reverence. Montagu's critical and rebellious attitude was undreamt of in my young days.""Montagu has a curiously analytic mind," said Mr. Wycherly slowly, "and a passionate longing for pleasantness and gaiety. It is probably inherited. You remember dear Archie loved cheerfulness, and perhaps that poor young mother—a Cornish girl, if I remember rightly—perhaps she, too, had the Southern love of colour and brightness in life. We are old people to have to do with children, Miss Esperance, and I—perhaps my aim has been too exclusively to teach Montagu to love study by making the approach to it as pleasant as possible. It is a great temptation, for I find him so docile, so receptive, so eager to please. But perhaps I have been wrong—though Socrates would bear me out. It is pleasant to wander in the Elysian fields with a young boy—but if you think—" Mr. Wycherly's voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and here he paused altogether. He seemed to have been talking to himself rather than to Miss Esperance, and to be looking past her into that pleasaunce of memory which is the priceless heritage of the old. Miss Esperance did not interrupt him, and presently he went on again. "Perhaps the recollection of my own mother that is clearest to me is that of seeing her come dancing down a garden path toward me. To me now she seems so inexpressibly young, and gay, and gracious; and I have remembered her more distinctly lately, because the other day when I was reading with Montagu that portion of the Odyssey which describes Nausicaa at play among her maidens, he interrupted me to exclaim: 'Mymother was like that, so beautiful!' Now he has never spoken to me of his mother before. I did not even know that he remembered her, and it has made me think of how distinctly I remember my own. She was not five and twenty when she died."Miss Esperance sat upright in Mr. Wycherly's chair, the lamplight falling full on her troubled face. In spite of her ready sympathy, a sympathy so spontaneous that it seemed to give itself at all times independently of her volition, she felt that her dear old friend was wandering from the real question at issue. It was all very well to point out that Montagu loved beauty. She was perfectly aware of it herself, and it was not without an agreeable thrill that she recalled a little scene enacted that very evening. Montagu, according to custom, had been reading aloud to her from one of the very "Gilt-Books" Mr. Wycherly had mentioned, when the child came upon the somewhat gratuitous and ungrammatical assertion with regard to the fleeting character of personal beauty: "People's faces soon alter; when they grow old, nobody looks handsome."Then Montagu brought his fist down on the page with a thump, declaring indignantly: "That's nonsense! You and Mr. Wycherly are both old—and you are quite beautiful. There's a beautiful oldness as well, don't you think so, Aunt Esperance?"The delicate colour that came and went so easily flushed her face as Miss Esperance met the child's eager, admiring eyes. "For none more than children are concerned for beauty, and, above all, for beauty in the old." She not only thought so, but knew so; but it was not the custom for women of her stamp to acknowledge that they took any sort of interest in their personal appearance, and although she was distinctly gratified, she merely shook her head, saying gravely: "What the writer would point out, Montagu, is this—that without beauty of character mere personal beauty is of but small account."Montagu, unlike Miss Esperance, who never allowed her back to "come in contact with her chair," lolled comfortably in his, disposed to argue the question. "I think it matters very much how people look," he said decidedly. "I hope I shall grow up to look like Achilles in the book Mr. Wycherly gave me."Miss Esperance looked down at the thin, little, brown boy beside her, remarking dryly: "Well, at present, Montagu, I see small likelihood of any such transformation," and returned to the perusal of "The History of More Children than One."But Montagu had not yet "threshed the subject out." In spite of his aunt's forefinger laid entreatingly at the line where he had left off, he continued in the tone of one who grants something to a vanquished foe. "Of course, young people look nicer in Greek clothes—I don't think, f'r instance (Montagu was very fond of "for instance," a favourite phrase of Mr. Wycherly's), that Mr. Gloag would look nice with only a wee towel."Miss Esperance chuckled, and was fain to close the "History of More Children than One" for that day.All this time those two dear old people waited in silence—Miss Esperance fondly remembering Montagu's unconscious compliment of the morning; Mr. Wycherly absorbed in his vision of the girl who, clad in a high-waisted, skimpy, muslin frock, with sandalled, twinkling feet, came dancing down the broad central path of a Shropshire garden nearly sixty years ago.The sunlight was on the grass, the air charged heavily with the scent of the tall lilies on either hand, and she held out her arms toward him, singing as she came.Miss Esperance gave a faint little cough, and Mr. Wycherly came back to the present with a start, saying: "Doubtless I have been wrong in the way I have taught Montagu. For the future we must have more grammar and less romance. I am sorry you should have been worried. It is my fault.""No, no!" cried Miss Esperance. "I am sure that all you have done, all you are doing, is right and wise, but I—what am I to do? How can I make him see the beauty and priceless value of that knowledge without which all other knowledge is as dust and ashes?"Mr. Wycherly turned to look at Miss Esperance, and fresh as he was from his vision of a woman in all the radiance of her first youth and beauty, he agreed with Montagu that there is a very beautiful oldness, and that such beauty is to the understanding heart perhaps most fair of all.She held out her hands in her eagerness, and leant forward, straining her eyes to read his face in the shadow."You are far more fit to deal with such subjects than I," he said hesitatingly, "but since you have done me the honour to consult me—if I might venture, I would suggest that for a boy of Montagu's temperament much dogmatic teaching is a mistake. In childhood we can only realise the Infinite through the finite. Some of us in that respect never get beyond childhood; I, myself, somewhat resemble Montagu, and therefore I think it might be better to defer the—er—Shorter Catechism until he is older and more able to grapple with—" Mr. Wycherly seemed to swallow something in his throat, and the lines round his eyes deepened "its—er—theology.""No," said Miss Esperance firmly, "he must learn his catechism whether he understands it or not.""Well, don't be disappointed if he doesn't understand it, dear Miss Esperance. I don't, but then I never read it until the other day."There was an ominous silence for a minute. He and Miss Esperance had seldom before touched upon any religious question. Now she sighed and said sadly: "I thought perhaps you would be able to help me, but your advice has been that, having put my hand to the plough, I should turn back, and that I cannot do. I wish," she continued timidly, "that should a suitable opportunity arise, you could see your way to speak to Montagu. You have such great influence over him, anything that you say would have so much weight. Don't you think that you could?""I cannot promise," he answered nervously; "should a suitable opportunity arise, perhaps I might, but I cannot promise. I confess that I should have the greatest difficulty in approaching these subjects in cold blood, and I question very much whether it would be wise on my part. I have always and purposely avoided anything that bore upon religious instruction in my dealings with Montagu because—well, you know, my dear Miss Esperance, that your good minister, Mr. Gloag, considers me lamentably latitudinarian in these matters, my whole training, my whole mental outlook, is so opposed—" Again Mr. Wycherly stopped, helplessly clasping and unclasping his long, thin hands. Miss Esperance regarded him sadly, then sighed, saying gently, "I can only leave the issue in wiser hands than ours.""And there," said Mr. Wycherly, reverently, "it will be perfectly safe."Miss Esperance rose, and as he opened the door for her he held out his hand, saying humbly: "You must try not to be angry with me: it is pure incapacity, not wilfulness, that renders me so useless as an adviser."Miss Esperance took the proffered hand in both her own. "Are you sure that you really care?" she asked gently.CHAPTER XXIIN WHICH MR. WYCHERLY HANGS UP HIS COLLEGE ARMSFor who can always act? but he,To whom a thousand memories call,Not being less but more than allThe gentleness he seemed to be.In Memoriam.Mr. Wycherly, a look of great perplexity upon his face, sat by the hearth far into the night. The lamp burned low, went out, and he sat on staring into the darkness till the dawn, cold and gray-mantled, came creeping through the unshuttered windows to find him still seated, clear-eyed and contemplative, but with the puzzled lines smoothed out of his forehead as by a kind hand. Bewilderment and self-reproach had given place to memory, as the years since the children had come passed before him in procession.There was that strange, dreadful journey homeward from Portsmouth, the long cramped hours of sitting, he and Miss Esperance, each with a child clasped in stiff, unfamiliar arms: those first bewildering days when the children made all sorts of incomprehensible demands upon his inexperience. As he sat alone in the darkness Edmund's indignant lamentations because he could not "make a 'abbit" sounded in his ears, and his triumphant outcries when once the manufacture of the creature was accomplished.The rabbit scenes came back to him, and a thousand others—those pretty daily doings full of quaint solemnity, that parents take for granted, but that come with an ever-recurring shock of almost reverential pleasure upon such gentle-hearted maids and bachelors as have to do with little children late in life.It had never ceased to fill Mr. Wycherly with amazement that baby Edmund managed to put his spoon into his mouth and not into his eye; and he never fastened those absurd little strap shoes that were for ever coming undone, without a slight trembling of the hands. It seemed so wonderful that he, of all people, should be permitted to officiate at these mysteries. His memory was clamorous with the children's endless demands for "stories." Picture after picture unrolled before him of attentive, eager-eyed Montagu, listening with breathless interest to the tales that are old and new as life itself; of sturdy, fidgety Edmund with the loud laugh and handsome, fearless face.... And in all the pictures, the figure of Miss Esperance, bent now, but quick as ever to deeds of kindness, moved like the sound of music, gracious and beneficent.The clock on the mantel-piece struck four, and the room was suddenly filled with the clear, rosy light that proclaims the advent of the day. Mr. Wycherly raised himself stiffly from his chair, and crossing the room to Montagu's table, rearranged his already tidy pile of books with gentle, tremulous hands. As he left the room to go to bed he stood still on the threshold and looked back into it as though to fix its image on his mind.When Montagu came in to lessons that morning his tutor was not as usual seated at his writing-table, but in the big chair by the fire. He was not reading, and was so evidently waiting for the little boy that Montagu, instead of going to his own seat in the window, went straight to Mr. Wycherly, who stood him between his knees, laid his hands on the child's shoulders, and looked long and earnestly into his face. Montagu, although rather puzzled by this unusual proceeding, was always patient, and waited in silence, holding the lapels of his old friend's coat the while, till he should choose to speak.At last he said, "Montagu, tell me exactly what you meant when you told Miss Esperance that you would like to be an Epicurean when you are grown up?"It seemed a sudden reversal of the accepted order of things that Mr. Wycherly should ask Montagu to explain anything, and as that youth had entirely forgotten his enthusiasm for the doctrines of Epicurus directly his own fear of death had evaporated, he looked rather foolish and mumbled:"It seems a comfortable sort of religion.""And do you consider our religion uncomfortable?" asked Mr. Wycherly, putting one finger under the little boy's chin and lifting the downcast face to his."Yes, I do," he replied with great decision, looking his teacher straight in the eyes, "most uncomfortable, with so many ways you can go to Hell, and people you like, too, and no getting back when you're once there, either." And Montagu grew quite red in the face with the vehemence of his objection to these doctrines.Mr. Wycherly withdrew his hand from under Montagu's chin and laid it on one of the little brown hands holding his coat so firmly."Why do you bother your head about it?" he said gently. "You may take it from me that no one, above all, no little boy who tries his best to behave well and pleasantly, ever goes to Hell—and as for the others—who knows? you certainly don't. Besides, do you honestly think that any wise person would choose a religion merely because it was comfortable? There is very little use in any religion that does not at times make us most uncomfortable, and spur us every day to try to do better. Dear me, Montagu! when I was your age I believed what I was told, and never troubled my head about such things. I learned my catechism without a murmur.""The Shorter Catechism?" Montagu interrupted."No, not that one, but it's very much the same thing," said Mr. Wycherly mendaciously."Well,Ibelieve what I'm told," said Montagu somewhat aggrieved by this unsympathetic attitude on the part of his old friend. "That's what makes me so uncomfortable. If I didn't believe it, sir, it wouldn't matter.""I assure you, Montagu, if you ask Miss Esperance, or Mr. Gloag, himself—he is a most sensible man on the whole—they will both tell you that it is absurd for you to worry yourself about Hell. You don't know anything about your own religion yet, far less that of the Epicureans. But now I want you to listen to me very attentively for I have something serious to say to you. You may take absolutely on trust, either upon this or upon any other subject, anything that Miss Esperance may tell you. She is a far safer guide than I, or Mr. Gloag, or indeed any one that you know. And above all, I beg you to try even harder with whatever lessons she may set you, than you do with mine. You must try to please her, to make her happy...."Mr. Wycherly paused and cleared his throat, the earnest, puzzled face looking up into his grew suddenly dim, and the little boy felt his tutor's hand tighten on his own, as he asked suddenly, "Montagu, have you ever seen anybody drunk?""Yes, lots of times: they look horrid, and walk crookedly and have hoarse voices, the people on the road to Leith are often drunk.""There was once a man, Montagu, who got into the habit of drinking more than was good for him. How and why he got into that habit does not matter, it was at all events no excuse."He grew worse and worse—I don't think he ever looked quite like the people you mention, but I don't know. His brain was going, his friends were ashamed of him, there seemed no place for him in this world, and how should he dare face the next? He was not altogether a stupid man, he knew many things, and best of all that the weakness he encouraged was a fatal weakness, but he seemed to have no strength of mind or body to pull himself together till an angel from heaven took him into her house and helped him, and protected him against himself—till he was cured. It was not done quickly, and God, who gave her her great heart, alone knows what she had to bear in the doing of it."Mr. Wycherly paused, he felt Montagu's body tremble between his knees, but the child did not speak, and the broken voice went on, "The angel was your aunt, Montagu, and I, I was the man. And the last time I was drunk, your father, not much older than you are now, brought me home."The clock ticked loudly, and a thrush was singing on the alder tree outside. There was no other sound in the room till Montagu, moved to a sudden passion of tears, flung himself forward into his old friend's arms, clasping him round the neck and exclaiming between his sobs, "What does it matter? Why did you tell me? I didn't think Icouldlove you any more, but I do, I do, I do!"
CHAPTER XIX
THE FOND ADVENTURE
But warily tent, when ye come to court me,And come na unless the back—yett be ajee.Old Song.
But warily tent, when ye come to court me,And come na unless the back—yett be ajee.Old Song.
But warily tent, when ye come to court me,
And come na unless the back—yett be ajee.
Old Song.
Old Song.
Miss Esperance was decidedly better, and she had at last allowed Montagu to tell Mr. Wycherly of old Elsa's sudden death, and also of her own illness. The letter, according to her instructions, put it, that she had been "rather ailing," and this guarded statement produced a telegram from Mr. Wycherly announcing his return next day.
Therefore the little household was commanded to retire especially early, and by half-past eight that night every light in Remote, save that of the fires, was extinguished; and the whole family were, as Robina would have put it, "safely bedded."
Miss Esperance had that evening insisted that Montagu should return to the bedroom he shared with Edmund; declaring that she was perfectly capable of getting anything that she wanted for herself. No one guessed how terribly Miss Esperance missed old Elsa's ministrations at every turn, for the old woman, though frail and incapable of any hard work for some time past, was yet most jealous of all personal service to her mistress, and Robina had never been permitted to do anything that brought her into direct contact with that lady.
Robina, bustling, buxom, industrious, and far handsomer at three and twenty than she had been at seventeen, had for a long time now entirely managed the housework; but as a personal attendant she left much to be desired. When she brought her mistress a cup of excellent beef-tea, she invariably slopped it over into the saucer, often on to the tray-cloth. She was economically minded, too, as regards laundry work (most people are when they have to do it themselves), and looked upon stains as a very minor matter in setting out a tray. It was Montagu who noticed the intense disfavour with which Miss Esperance regarded such small untidinesses: how often the nourishing dishes prepared by Robina with the utmost care were sent away untasted because they were not daintily served; and he took the matter and the trays into his own hands, with the result that things were served even as Elsa had served them, and Miss Esperance drank her beef-tea without remark.
Not that she was unobservant; she noted everything that Montagu did for her; and even when she was at her weakest and worst, she was filled with a tender, admiring sort of amusement at the boy's deft, dainty ways of waiting upon her—ways undoubtedly acquired during his long and close association with Mr. Wycherly.
At first Robina exclaimed in horror at the enormous number of tray-cloths and dinner napkins discarded by Montagu if they had the smallest spot or stain; but Montagu pointed out that it was better to have mountains of washing than that his aunt should be starved; and the girl gave in gracefully, for she was very eager to fill Elsa's place as far as she possibly could.
There is no doubt that she thoroughly enjoyed her new dignity and independence, and she wrote to the still faithful Sandie that he might, if he was in the mind, look in and see her one evening—"the mistress had said she was perfectly willing, though still confined to her bed."
Sandie was now in partnership with a butcher on the other side of Edinburgh, ten long miles from Burnhead, and the bicycle was not within everybody's reach in those days. Still he managed every fortnight or so to get over to see Robina, for they were now formally betrothed, and their engagement was smiled upon by the authorities.
Sandie wanted to get married at once, but Robina had declared long before Elsa's death that she could not bring herself to leave Miss Esperance, and now she felt that such a course was quite out of the question. Besides, she was in no hurry to get married. That she could get married, and well married, whenever she liked was a matter for complacent reflection, but otherwise she was very contented with things as they were.
Sandie was hardly so satisfied. If not exactly an ardent lover, he had assuredly proved himself a very faithful one, and he ruled his life largely by the somewhat strict conceptions of Robina.
Montagu was very tired. He had had a hard fortnight, with many broken, anxious nights. The responsibility had lain heavily on his young, slender shoulders. He was supremely thankful that Mr. Wycherly would be home on the morrow. It was pleasant to lie once more in his big four-post bed instead of in the somewhat cramped and stuffy cupboard where he had spent his nights lately. He stretched himself luxuriously, and turned and turned that he might find the absolutely comfortable position in which to fall asleep. But somehow sleep would not come. Every smallest sound disturbed him. Whenever a little piece of cinder fell into the grate from the fire in his aunt's bedroom, he started up to listen, thinking she had moved and might want him. But all was perfectly quiet.
Edmund, who preserved his infantile capacity for falling asleep directly he lay down, slumbered peacefully in the little bed beside the big one. Miss Esperance slept the heavy, dreamless sleep of old age and exhaustion. Mause, old now and very deaf, slept soundly in her kennel outside the little house, and Robina already slept the healthy sleep of hard-working youth. Only the little boy in the big bed with carved oaken posts and brocade canopy lay wide-eyed and wakeful with that dreadful, useless wakefulness that comes sometimes to the overtired. There was no moon to shine companionably through the blind, the room was in absolute, black darkness, and when Montagu had been in bed about half an hour it seemed to him that it must be the middle of the night. The casement window was wide open, but the night was so still that the blind never stirred. Again and again he sat up to listen for some sound from his aunt's room; it would have been a relief had she wanted him, but there was no sound of any kind.
Still he could not sleep, and at last his listening was rewarded, for he heard a step outside—a stealthy step that paused hesitating, then crept fumblingly forward.
There was no doubt whatever that it was a step; and Montagu, convinced that it must at least be midnight, immediately jumped to the conclusion that whoever was there could be there for no lawful purpose.
If it was a burglar, he must be got away without noise. That was Montagu's first thought. On no account must Miss Esperance be wakened or alarmed.
He flew out of bed, and, squeezing in behind the dressing-table, leant out of the window. Soft, impenetrable, wet darkness met him and enveloped him. A fine rain was falling, and he could see nothing, but he distinctly heard the hesitating footsteps turn and go round the house toward the front.
Softly, on naked feet, he made his way to Edmund's side and shook him. But Edmund was difficult to wake, for Montagu did not dare to speak above a whisper, and it was not until he had reiterated several times: "There's someone creeping round the house; it's a thief, probably," in the eeriest of stage whispers, that Edmund was roused.
When he did grasp the situation, however, he arose instantly, exclaiming in a joyful whisper, "Come on, and let's bash his head for him; then he can make no noise, nor break in neither."
"That's all very well," said the more cautious Montagu, whose teeth were chattering, partly from cold and partly from fear for his aunt. "We've got to catch him first. Let's come to Guardie's room and see if we can get a glimpse of the fellow from the window. The night's as black as pitch though."
Very quietly Montagu lit a candle, and the two little boys sped across the landing to Mr. Wycherly's room.
"Close the door behind you and that'll stifle his groans," the valiant Edmund whispered as they reached their goal. "I just wish we had the villain here."
"I don't," Montagu responded gloomily, "he might jump about and make no end of a row before we got him under."
They had no sort of doubt as to their ultimate triumph over the nefarious designs of this prowling stranger, but they were, unfortunately, handicapped by the necessity for extreme quietude.
"I expect it's the parlour he'll be wanting to break into," Edmund suggested. "All those silver cups and things on the sideboard, you know. The basket with the forks and spoons is in aunt's room. We must take care he doesn't go there. Don't let him see a light!" and Edmund promptly blew out the candle that Montagu held.
Together they softly opened the window and leant out. Neither could, of course, see anything, nor at the moment was anything to be heard.
"We'll wait a wee while," Edmund whispered. And wait they did in breathless silence, shoulder pressed to shoulder, the only sound the quick beating of their hearts.
Their patience was rewarded. The hesitating steps came slowly round to the front of the house and paused under their very window. Then somebody gave a low whistle.
Montagu dragged Edmund back from the window. "That's to summon his confederates. What'll we do? If there's more than one, they're sure to wake Aunt Esperance and frighten her dreadfully. We must do something—quick!"
"Will I fling out the poker on the chance of hitting him?" inquired Edmund, who had already provided himself with that weapon.
"No, that won't do, for if you don't hit him, it would warn him we'd seen him——"
"Perhaps it would make him run away."
"Not it. I've got it! Let's empty the ewer of water over him first. I think he's just under the window, and that's sure to startle him, and he'll jump out. Then you must say in an awful voice, 'Throw up your hands without a sound (you mustn't say it loud, mind) or you're a dead man.' And you'll light the candle and show me holding one of the big pistols hanging at the stair-head. I brought one in with me."
"I don't think he'd better see you," Edmund objected; "he mightn't be a bit terrified."
"Perhaps we'd better keep the room dark, then, and mebbe he'll think it's Guardie."
"Guardie's voice isn't a bit awful. I'll be a lot more frightening than him, I can tell you. Have you got that jug? Steady, now; mind you don't let the ewer go, too, else we'd catch it from Robina. Listen a minute!"
Again the low whistle immediately under their window.
Very carefully they balanced the heavy bedroom jug on the window-sill. "It must go all at once in one big splash!" Montagu whispered, "Now!"
A very big splash undoubtedly followed.
A series of gasps, and the sound of a voice raised in lamentation exclaiming: "Lord hae mercy! What like a way's that to greet a body? An' it that dark I couldna' find the back door. Hoo was I tae ken ye'd a' be gane tae yer beds at nine o'clock? Ye didna' use to be sae awfu' airly. But I'll just tell you this, Robina lass, it's the last time you'll catch me trailin' awa' over here to speer after ye—to get sic a like cauld welcome, as though it wasna' wet eneugh onny wye. I'm din, I can tell ye."
Montagu clutched Edmund by the arm, exclaiming in horrified tones, "I do believe it's Sandie Croall." Then leaning as far out of the window as he could, "Is it you, Sandie? Because, if so, we're most awfully sorry; only please don't speak so loud, for Aunt Esperance is asleep, and she's been so ill. We thought you must be somebody trying to break in. What made you come in the middle of the night?"
"It's no' the middle o' the night," Sandie grunted indignantly, "the church clock has only just chappit nine. It happened I could get over, an' I thocht I'd just look in an' see Robiny—little thinkin' I'd get sic a like reception. I'm jest drooket through an' through. What for did ye no' speer wha it was, young gentleman, and no' go droonin' honest folk?"
"Would you like to come in and get dry?" Edmund suggested hospitably; "there's sure to be some fire in the kitchen."
"No, thank ye," Sandie replied, still somewhat huffy, "I'll get awa' hame to my mither, an' she'll dry my claes to me whiles I'm in my bed."
"Shall I tell Robina you called?" Montagu asked politely.
Sandie paused. "I'm thinkin', young gentleman," he remarked severely, "that the less you say about to-night's wark the better it will be for you. If I am content to pass the matter over with obleevion, it's the least you can dae to dae the same."
"We're most awfully sorry," the boys said once more in subdued chorus.
"Just gang awa' back tae yer beds," said Sandie, and with these parting words he felt his way out to the green gate, and they heard his footsteps going plop-plop on the wet road till they died away in the distance.
Edmund sighed. "It was a pity we couldn't bash his head or anything," he murmured regretfully. "I hope a real one'll come some day when Aunt Esperance is well, and we don't need to be so hushified. Then we could have a jolly good mill."
Rather dispirited and extremely cold they crept back to bed.
"I wonder," Montagu murmured thoughtfully, "why he didn't want Robina to know he'd been here."
Edmund gave a smothered laugh. "My word, but he did catch his breath when we douched him, an' wasn't he cross when he thought it was Robina? I wonder if she's ever done it before?"
CHAPTER XX
A QUESTION OF THEOLOGY
Nae shauchlin' testimony here—We were a' damned, an' that was clear,I owned, wi' gratitude an' wonder,He was a pleisure to sit under.R.L.S.
Nae shauchlin' testimony here—We were a' damned, an' that was clear,I owned, wi' gratitude an' wonder,He was a pleisure to sit under.R.L.S.
Nae shauchlin' testimony here—
We were a' damned, an' that was clear,
I owned, wi' gratitude an' wonder,
He was a pleisure to sit under.
R.L.S.
R.L.S.
The while that Mr. Wycherly looked after Montagu's secular education, Miss Esperance undertook the religious, and long, weary Sunday evenings did he spend in wrestling with the polemics of the "Shorter Catechism."
"Why shorter?" he would ask bitterly. "It's as long as ever it can be."
"There's a longer one than that, my dear son," Miss Esperance would answer cheerfully; "but you won't need to learn it unless you become a minister."
"I shall never be a minister," said Montagu firmly, one day when he had made four mistakes in the answer which defines "Effectual Calling"—an answer, by the way, which he could have learned in two minutes had he been in the slightest degree interested. "I shall never be a minister. I shall be an Epicurean when I'm grown up. Mr. Wycherly was telling me about them yesterday, and I liked them."
Miss Esperance gave a positive gasp of dismayed astonishment. "Oh, my dear!" she exclaimed. "I hope that you will always be too sincere a Christian ever to dream of being anything else. I must indeed have taught you badly that any such idea should be possible."
"Oh, no, dear aunt," said Montagu reassuringly, rubbing his head against her shoulder. "It's not that at all; but people do sometimes change their religion, you know, when they're grown up—like Calvin and Luther you told me about—and you know I really think I like the old gods best; they were very pleasant on the whole."
"Montagu, Montagu, you don't know what you are saying! Those heathen gods that you speak of never existed. There were no such beings."
"Are you sure, auntie?" Montagu asked earnestly. "They sound very real, quite as real, and much cheerfuller than—the Shorter Catechism," he concluded lamely, checked by the unfeigned horror he saw in his aunt's face.
Miss Esperance took off her spectacles and wiped them, then she put them on again and laid her frail old hand over the square, brown little hand lying on her knee, saying gently: "Montagu, dear, you are talking of what you do not understand. It will in no wise be counted against youbecauseyou do not understand, but you must not say such things; really, my dear boy, youmustnot, and it grieves me the more in that I somehow must be in fault. My teaching has in no way been blest if you are so filled with doubts already."
Poor Miss Esperance looked terribly distressed, and the little boy at her knee, who, child as he was, had realised her sweetness and her truth every day of the years he had been with her, wondered, with a sorrowful vagueness, what he could have said to vex her so. And inasmuch as he could find no words to express the thoughts that were in him he flung his arms round his aunt's neck, exclaiming: "I love you so, I won't be an Epicurean if you don't want me to; but you know, dear Auntie, it must have been so happy in those days—there were never any Sabbaths."
Miss Esperance held him close and prayed silently; she even forbore to dilate upon the blessed privileges of that Sabbath which, as she had just been instructing Montagu, "is to be sanctified by a holy resting all that day, even from such worldly employments and recreations as are lawful on other days; and spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of God's worship, except so much as is to be taken up in the works of necessity and mercy."
"Is dinner a necessity or a mercy?" Montagu had asked one day, he himself being distinctly inclined to look upon it as a mercy, for it followed morning church, and after the children came, in deference to a suggestion of Mr. Wycherly's, founded upon certain youthful reminiscences of his own, there was always dessert on Sundays.
Now it happened that on the Sunday previous to Montagu's announcement of his approaching conversion to Epicureanism, the Reverend Peter Gloag had given a lengthy and vigorous discourse on Eternal Punishment. He was a true disciple of Calvin in that he believed that the majority of mankind needed herding into the right path by the sheep-dog of sheer terror as to what would most certainly befall them should they stray from it; and he succeeded in striking dire dismay to the very soul of one small member of his congregation. The minister had also touched upon predestination and election, and Montagu, who was tender-hearted and imaginative, was suddenly panic-stricken by the idea that perhaps he and Edmund, and even Mr. Wycherly, who never came to church, might be already numbered among those whom the Reverend Peter Gloag had denounced as being "rejected, left to sin, to unbelief, and to perdition."
Long after he was put to bed in the big four-post bed, while Edmund slept peacefully in the little bed beside him, did Montagu lie awake wondering whether he would die that night. The very prayer that he said every evening at his aunt's knee took on a new and terrible significance:
If I should die before I wake,I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
If I should die before I wake,I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
Montagu repeated it over and over again with dry lips, while he turned from side to side in a vain endeavour to get away from the constant beating as of a hammer upon an anvil that sounded ceaselessly in his ears.
"If I should die"—the child whispered to himself, then gradually he fell once more into thinking of his beloved Greeks; they, too, if they did not actually fear death, met it sorrowfully, for it meant leaving the bright light of the sun, and presently the reiterated "If I should die" changed to the cry of Alcestis, "Lay me down, I have no strength in my feet. Hades is nigh at hand, and dark night steals over mine eyes." Then more familiar and less terrible came the thought of that "old man, the guide of the dead, who sitteth at the oar and the helm"—who in Montagu's mind was inextricably mixed up with a saturnine old boatman he knew at Leith, till at last he drifted into the blessed haven of sleep.
Next day in the Horace lesson Mr. Wycherly happened to mention that in religion he was an Epicurean, whereupon Montagu, as was his wont, asked innumerable questions, which his tutor set himself to answer as fully as possible; dilating, in his pleasantly detached and impersonal fashion, on the fact that Epicureanism pure and undefiled did away with the fear of death among its professors; and quoted the philosopher himself to the effect that "When we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not." How that in his time the great incubus of human happiness was fear—fear of the gods and fear of death—and that pleasure pursued with prudence and tempered by justice and self-control was the true end and aim of all wise men.
That what he said could by any remote possibility have any personal application to Montagu never occurred to him for a moment. He described the doctrines of Epicurus with as little expectation of their affecting the boy's attitude toward life as that the use of the prolative infinitive in his Latin prose should cause him any searchings of the heart. But he had reckoned without the minister, for Montagu, fresh from the terrors of the previous night, suddenly determined to adopt as his own a religion which seemed so singularly free from any disquieting tenets.
Edmund's curly head was never perplexed or troubled with vain imaginings or hankerings after the old gods; but equally little did he aspire to any considerable knowledge of the Shorter Catechism. Lessons of any kind he frankly detested, and as he learned by heart with difficulty, he "went through," in two senses, an inordinate number of "Shorter Catechisms" in the cinnamon paper bindings, such as Miss Esperance was wont to provide for the instruction of her grand-nephews. Hardly ever did Edmund get any answer absolutely without mistake, except the one which replies to the question, "What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?" When he would respond in a dismal sort of chant, "All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of Hell for ever." This Edmund would repeat with positive relish till sensitive Montagu shook in his shoes, and wished harder than ever that he had been born in an age when there seemed fewer possibilities of wrong-doing, followed by such appalling punishment; and youths and maidens, light-footed, crowned with garlands, trooped gaily to propitiate their easy-going gods by means of gifts.
* * * * *
On the evening of the day on which Montagu had announced his preference for the doctrines of Epicurus Miss Esperance knocked at the door of Mr. Wycherly's study about nine o'clock. This was a most unusual proceeding on her part, for they rarely met after supper, as Miss Esperance usually went to bed about a quarter to nine.
When Mr. Wycherly saw her standing on the threshold he rose hastily and led her in and set her in his special chair by the fire, taking up his own position on the hearth-rug. The reading lamp shone full on Miss Esperance, but his face was in shadow.
"Mr. Wycherly, I am anxious about Montagu," Miss Esperance began somewhat tremulously.
"Is he ill?" that gentleman interpolated hastily. "He seemed quite well at dinner-time."
"Oh, he's well enough in health, I think, I am thankful to think—but—" here Miss Esperance paused as if she found it somewhat difficult to broach the subject, "I am not equally confident as to his spiritual condition."
"His spiritual condition!" Mr. Wycherly repeated vaguely. "Montagu's! He is surely a very young boy to have attained to a—spiritual condition?"
"That's just it," said Miss Esperance, despair in her voice, and grave disquietude writ large upon her face. "That's just it. Would you not say that he was far too young to be assailed by doubts? Would you not expect so young a child to accept the teaching of our religion without question or rebellion? And yet Montagu—" Here poor Miss Esperance again faltered, then by a mighty effort forcing herself to voice the dreadful thing—"told me to-day, when I was hearing him the Shorter Catechism, that he intended to become an Epicurean when he was grown up! What are we to do with him?"
It was well for Mr. Wycherly that his face was in shadow, for although his mouth remained quite grave, there were little puckers round the corners of his eyes, not wholly to be accounted for by the lines that time had drawn there. He coughed slightly, and cleared his throat. "Am I, dear Miss Esperance, to gather that you think I am in some degree to blame for Montagu's unregenerate frame of mind?" he asked gently.
"Not to blame!" she hastily ejaculated. "Not to blame! But perhaps he is learning rather too much about those old days, those unenlightened heathen times, and evidently you render it all so entertaining that he gets rather carried away, and is unable to distinguish between what is mere fable and what is historical, vital truth. He is very little," she continued pleadingly. "Do you think it is quite wholesome for him to learn so much mythology? Don't you think it is apt to unsettle him?"
Mr. Wycherly was silent for a minute. "Do you know," he asked suddenly, "that with the exception of the little 'gilt-books' you had as a child, we haven't a single child's book in the house? Perhaps I was wrong to discuss any school of philosophy with him—but as regards mythology, I have only told Montagu such stories as are in reality the foundation of most of the child-stories that have ever been written. I don't think they have really hurt him, and such knowledge will be of use to him by and by."
"But why should he seem positively to dislike proper religious instruction?" persisted Miss Esperance. "I am sure that when I was a child it never occurred to me to do other than learn what was set me with the greatest reverence. Montagu's critical and rebellious attitude was undreamt of in my young days."
"Montagu has a curiously analytic mind," said Mr. Wycherly slowly, "and a passionate longing for pleasantness and gaiety. It is probably inherited. You remember dear Archie loved cheerfulness, and perhaps that poor young mother—a Cornish girl, if I remember rightly—perhaps she, too, had the Southern love of colour and brightness in life. We are old people to have to do with children, Miss Esperance, and I—perhaps my aim has been too exclusively to teach Montagu to love study by making the approach to it as pleasant as possible. It is a great temptation, for I find him so docile, so receptive, so eager to please. But perhaps I have been wrong—though Socrates would bear me out. It is pleasant to wander in the Elysian fields with a young boy—but if you think—" Mr. Wycherly's voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and here he paused altogether. He seemed to have been talking to himself rather than to Miss Esperance, and to be looking past her into that pleasaunce of memory which is the priceless heritage of the old. Miss Esperance did not interrupt him, and presently he went on again. "Perhaps the recollection of my own mother that is clearest to me is that of seeing her come dancing down a garden path toward me. To me now she seems so inexpressibly young, and gay, and gracious; and I have remembered her more distinctly lately, because the other day when I was reading with Montagu that portion of the Odyssey which describes Nausicaa at play among her maidens, he interrupted me to exclaim: 'Mymother was like that, so beautiful!' Now he has never spoken to me of his mother before. I did not even know that he remembered her, and it has made me think of how distinctly I remember my own. She was not five and twenty when she died."
Miss Esperance sat upright in Mr. Wycherly's chair, the lamplight falling full on her troubled face. In spite of her ready sympathy, a sympathy so spontaneous that it seemed to give itself at all times independently of her volition, she felt that her dear old friend was wandering from the real question at issue. It was all very well to point out that Montagu loved beauty. She was perfectly aware of it herself, and it was not without an agreeable thrill that she recalled a little scene enacted that very evening. Montagu, according to custom, had been reading aloud to her from one of the very "Gilt-Books" Mr. Wycherly had mentioned, when the child came upon the somewhat gratuitous and ungrammatical assertion with regard to the fleeting character of personal beauty: "People's faces soon alter; when they grow old, nobody looks handsome."
Then Montagu brought his fist down on the page with a thump, declaring indignantly: "That's nonsense! You and Mr. Wycherly are both old—and you are quite beautiful. There's a beautiful oldness as well, don't you think so, Aunt Esperance?"
The delicate colour that came and went so easily flushed her face as Miss Esperance met the child's eager, admiring eyes. "For none more than children are concerned for beauty, and, above all, for beauty in the old." She not only thought so, but knew so; but it was not the custom for women of her stamp to acknowledge that they took any sort of interest in their personal appearance, and although she was distinctly gratified, she merely shook her head, saying gravely: "What the writer would point out, Montagu, is this—that without beauty of character mere personal beauty is of but small account."
Montagu, unlike Miss Esperance, who never allowed her back to "come in contact with her chair," lolled comfortably in his, disposed to argue the question. "I think it matters very much how people look," he said decidedly. "I hope I shall grow up to look like Achilles in the book Mr. Wycherly gave me."
Miss Esperance looked down at the thin, little, brown boy beside her, remarking dryly: "Well, at present, Montagu, I see small likelihood of any such transformation," and returned to the perusal of "The History of More Children than One."
But Montagu had not yet "threshed the subject out." In spite of his aunt's forefinger laid entreatingly at the line where he had left off, he continued in the tone of one who grants something to a vanquished foe. "Of course, young people look nicer in Greek clothes—I don't think, f'r instance (Montagu was very fond of "for instance," a favourite phrase of Mr. Wycherly's), that Mr. Gloag would look nice with only a wee towel."
Miss Esperance chuckled, and was fain to close the "History of More Children than One" for that day.
All this time those two dear old people waited in silence—Miss Esperance fondly remembering Montagu's unconscious compliment of the morning; Mr. Wycherly absorbed in his vision of the girl who, clad in a high-waisted, skimpy, muslin frock, with sandalled, twinkling feet, came dancing down the broad central path of a Shropshire garden nearly sixty years ago.
The sunlight was on the grass, the air charged heavily with the scent of the tall lilies on either hand, and she held out her arms toward him, singing as she came.
Miss Esperance gave a faint little cough, and Mr. Wycherly came back to the present with a start, saying: "Doubtless I have been wrong in the way I have taught Montagu. For the future we must have more grammar and less romance. I am sorry you should have been worried. It is my fault."
"No, no!" cried Miss Esperance. "I am sure that all you have done, all you are doing, is right and wise, but I—what am I to do? How can I make him see the beauty and priceless value of that knowledge without which all other knowledge is as dust and ashes?"
Mr. Wycherly turned to look at Miss Esperance, and fresh as he was from his vision of a woman in all the radiance of her first youth and beauty, he agreed with Montagu that there is a very beautiful oldness, and that such beauty is to the understanding heart perhaps most fair of all.
She held out her hands in her eagerness, and leant forward, straining her eyes to read his face in the shadow.
"You are far more fit to deal with such subjects than I," he said hesitatingly, "but since you have done me the honour to consult me—if I might venture, I would suggest that for a boy of Montagu's temperament much dogmatic teaching is a mistake. In childhood we can only realise the Infinite through the finite. Some of us in that respect never get beyond childhood; I, myself, somewhat resemble Montagu, and therefore I think it might be better to defer the—er—Shorter Catechism until he is older and more able to grapple with—" Mr. Wycherly seemed to swallow something in his throat, and the lines round his eyes deepened "its—er—theology."
"No," said Miss Esperance firmly, "he must learn his catechism whether he understands it or not."
"Well, don't be disappointed if he doesn't understand it, dear Miss Esperance. I don't, but then I never read it until the other day."
There was an ominous silence for a minute. He and Miss Esperance had seldom before touched upon any religious question. Now she sighed and said sadly: "I thought perhaps you would be able to help me, but your advice has been that, having put my hand to the plough, I should turn back, and that I cannot do. I wish," she continued timidly, "that should a suitable opportunity arise, you could see your way to speak to Montagu. You have such great influence over him, anything that you say would have so much weight. Don't you think that you could?"
"I cannot promise," he answered nervously; "should a suitable opportunity arise, perhaps I might, but I cannot promise. I confess that I should have the greatest difficulty in approaching these subjects in cold blood, and I question very much whether it would be wise on my part. I have always and purposely avoided anything that bore upon religious instruction in my dealings with Montagu because—well, you know, my dear Miss Esperance, that your good minister, Mr. Gloag, considers me lamentably latitudinarian in these matters, my whole training, my whole mental outlook, is so opposed—" Again Mr. Wycherly stopped, helplessly clasping and unclasping his long, thin hands. Miss Esperance regarded him sadly, then sighed, saying gently, "I can only leave the issue in wiser hands than ours."
"And there," said Mr. Wycherly, reverently, "it will be perfectly safe."
Miss Esperance rose, and as he opened the door for her he held out his hand, saying humbly: "You must try not to be angry with me: it is pure incapacity, not wilfulness, that renders me so useless as an adviser."
Miss Esperance took the proffered hand in both her own. "Are you sure that you really care?" she asked gently.
CHAPTER XXI
IN WHICH MR. WYCHERLY HANGS UP HIS COLLEGE ARMS
For who can always act? but he,To whom a thousand memories call,Not being less but more than allThe gentleness he seemed to be.In Memoriam.
For who can always act? but he,To whom a thousand memories call,Not being less but more than allThe gentleness he seemed to be.In Memoriam.
For who can always act? but he,
For who can always act? but he,
To whom a thousand memories call,
Not being less but more than all
The gentleness he seemed to be.In Memoriam.
The gentleness he seemed to be.
In Memoriam.
In Memoriam.
Mr. Wycherly, a look of great perplexity upon his face, sat by the hearth far into the night. The lamp burned low, went out, and he sat on staring into the darkness till the dawn, cold and gray-mantled, came creeping through the unshuttered windows to find him still seated, clear-eyed and contemplative, but with the puzzled lines smoothed out of his forehead as by a kind hand. Bewilderment and self-reproach had given place to memory, as the years since the children had come passed before him in procession.
There was that strange, dreadful journey homeward from Portsmouth, the long cramped hours of sitting, he and Miss Esperance, each with a child clasped in stiff, unfamiliar arms: those first bewildering days when the children made all sorts of incomprehensible demands upon his inexperience. As he sat alone in the darkness Edmund's indignant lamentations because he could not "make a 'abbit" sounded in his ears, and his triumphant outcries when once the manufacture of the creature was accomplished.
The rabbit scenes came back to him, and a thousand others—those pretty daily doings full of quaint solemnity, that parents take for granted, but that come with an ever-recurring shock of almost reverential pleasure upon such gentle-hearted maids and bachelors as have to do with little children late in life.
It had never ceased to fill Mr. Wycherly with amazement that baby Edmund managed to put his spoon into his mouth and not into his eye; and he never fastened those absurd little strap shoes that were for ever coming undone, without a slight trembling of the hands. It seemed so wonderful that he, of all people, should be permitted to officiate at these mysteries. His memory was clamorous with the children's endless demands for "stories." Picture after picture unrolled before him of attentive, eager-eyed Montagu, listening with breathless interest to the tales that are old and new as life itself; of sturdy, fidgety Edmund with the loud laugh and handsome, fearless face.... And in all the pictures, the figure of Miss Esperance, bent now, but quick as ever to deeds of kindness, moved like the sound of music, gracious and beneficent.
The clock on the mantel-piece struck four, and the room was suddenly filled with the clear, rosy light that proclaims the advent of the day. Mr. Wycherly raised himself stiffly from his chair, and crossing the room to Montagu's table, rearranged his already tidy pile of books with gentle, tremulous hands. As he left the room to go to bed he stood still on the threshold and looked back into it as though to fix its image on his mind.
When Montagu came in to lessons that morning his tutor was not as usual seated at his writing-table, but in the big chair by the fire. He was not reading, and was so evidently waiting for the little boy that Montagu, instead of going to his own seat in the window, went straight to Mr. Wycherly, who stood him between his knees, laid his hands on the child's shoulders, and looked long and earnestly into his face. Montagu, although rather puzzled by this unusual proceeding, was always patient, and waited in silence, holding the lapels of his old friend's coat the while, till he should choose to speak.
At last he said, "Montagu, tell me exactly what you meant when you told Miss Esperance that you would like to be an Epicurean when you are grown up?"
It seemed a sudden reversal of the accepted order of things that Mr. Wycherly should ask Montagu to explain anything, and as that youth had entirely forgotten his enthusiasm for the doctrines of Epicurus directly his own fear of death had evaporated, he looked rather foolish and mumbled:
"It seems a comfortable sort of religion."
"And do you consider our religion uncomfortable?" asked Mr. Wycherly, putting one finger under the little boy's chin and lifting the downcast face to his.
"Yes, I do," he replied with great decision, looking his teacher straight in the eyes, "most uncomfortable, with so many ways you can go to Hell, and people you like, too, and no getting back when you're once there, either." And Montagu grew quite red in the face with the vehemence of his objection to these doctrines.
Mr. Wycherly withdrew his hand from under Montagu's chin and laid it on one of the little brown hands holding his coat so firmly.
"Why do you bother your head about it?" he said gently. "You may take it from me that no one, above all, no little boy who tries his best to behave well and pleasantly, ever goes to Hell—and as for the others—who knows? you certainly don't. Besides, do you honestly think that any wise person would choose a religion merely because it was comfortable? There is very little use in any religion that does not at times make us most uncomfortable, and spur us every day to try to do better. Dear me, Montagu! when I was your age I believed what I was told, and never troubled my head about such things. I learned my catechism without a murmur."
"The Shorter Catechism?" Montagu interrupted.
"No, not that one, but it's very much the same thing," said Mr. Wycherly mendaciously.
"Well,Ibelieve what I'm told," said Montagu somewhat aggrieved by this unsympathetic attitude on the part of his old friend. "That's what makes me so uncomfortable. If I didn't believe it, sir, it wouldn't matter."
"I assure you, Montagu, if you ask Miss Esperance, or Mr. Gloag, himself—he is a most sensible man on the whole—they will both tell you that it is absurd for you to worry yourself about Hell. You don't know anything about your own religion yet, far less that of the Epicureans. But now I want you to listen to me very attentively for I have something serious to say to you. You may take absolutely on trust, either upon this or upon any other subject, anything that Miss Esperance may tell you. She is a far safer guide than I, or Mr. Gloag, or indeed any one that you know. And above all, I beg you to try even harder with whatever lessons she may set you, than you do with mine. You must try to please her, to make her happy...."
Mr. Wycherly paused and cleared his throat, the earnest, puzzled face looking up into his grew suddenly dim, and the little boy felt his tutor's hand tighten on his own, as he asked suddenly, "Montagu, have you ever seen anybody drunk?"
"Yes, lots of times: they look horrid, and walk crookedly and have hoarse voices, the people on the road to Leith are often drunk."
"There was once a man, Montagu, who got into the habit of drinking more than was good for him. How and why he got into that habit does not matter, it was at all events no excuse.
"He grew worse and worse—I don't think he ever looked quite like the people you mention, but I don't know. His brain was going, his friends were ashamed of him, there seemed no place for him in this world, and how should he dare face the next? He was not altogether a stupid man, he knew many things, and best of all that the weakness he encouraged was a fatal weakness, but he seemed to have no strength of mind or body to pull himself together till an angel from heaven took him into her house and helped him, and protected him against himself—till he was cured. It was not done quickly, and God, who gave her her great heart, alone knows what she had to bear in the doing of it."
Mr. Wycherly paused, he felt Montagu's body tremble between his knees, but the child did not speak, and the broken voice went on, "The angel was your aunt, Montagu, and I, I was the man. And the last time I was drunk, your father, not much older than you are now, brought me home."
The clock ticked loudly, and a thrush was singing on the alder tree outside. There was no other sound in the room till Montagu, moved to a sudden passion of tears, flung himself forward into his old friend's arms, clasping him round the neck and exclaiming between his sobs, "What does it matter? Why did you tell me? I didn't think Icouldlove you any more, but I do, I do, I do!"