Precisely at three o'clock the next afternoon Chuckles appeared. He was in his Sunday garb—an immaculately clean white sailor suit; but he looked at Sidney rather suspiciously.
"I don't know what I've comed for. Aunt Monnie said I was to listen to you, Miss Sid. What are you going to say?"
"We're going to enjoy ourselves," said Sidney, producing a box of chocolates. "Help yourself, Chuckles, and you shall choose where we shall sit, under a tree or in a tree. But I vote for the garden and not the house."
Chuckles gave a swift glance round; then his eyes rested on the river in the distance, and he promptly said:
"I chooses to sit in the boat."
For an instant Sidney hesitated; then she gave consent, and they marched down to the bottom of the garden.
"We won't unmoor her as it is Sunday, and I never use her on Sunday."
Chuckles looked a little dissatisfied, but clambered in, and Sidney followed him, thinking to herself that the boat had one distinct advantage, for that Chuckles could not so easily run away from her.
"What am I to listen to you about?" the small boy demanded, folding his arms and looking up at her with a glint of defiance in his brown eyes.
"Oh, just talk," said Sidney happily. "Why weren't you at church this morning?"
"I don't like it. I—I washed the yabbits' house." Chuckles "r's" had a way of escaping him sometimes. "And then I wented down and built sand castles on the sand, but the sea comed in, and I had to come home. Aunt Dannie says I'll never go to heaven."
He said this quite cheerfully.
"I'm going to tell you a story," said Sidney promptly. "One fine day two men walked along by the seashore, and they suddenly said to each other: 'We'll build a house to live in by the sea; it's so beautiful here.' So they began to build, and first they walked about to choose the place. And one was quicker than the other, and he started the very next day. He chose a nice flat place on the sand, a good way from the sea, and he got some men to help him, and every day his house grew bigger and higher. When his doors and windows were in, he looked at his friend's house, and he could see no sign of it. At last he went over and called his friend.
"'What are you doing? Just look at my house. You've done nothing but dig, dig, dig. Every day you dig, and I have had no digging at all.'
"'Yes,' his friend said, 'I've been watching you, and I'll allow your house is getting built very quickly, but, you see, I want a good strong foundation, for this is a stormy part, so I am digging into the rock.'
"'Oh, that's waste of time; there's nothing to show for your labour.'
"'We'll wait and see,' the slow builder said. And so days passed; his house grew very slowly, but it was firm.
"The house on the sand was finished very soon, and the man furnished it, and took his family to live in it, and everybody said what an industrious worker he had been, and how quick and how clever he was. And they laughed at the rock builder; they said he would be an old man before his house would be finished. But he did not care; he went slowly and steadily on. At last his house, too, was complete, and he went into it to live with his family.
"Now, Chuckles, which house would you lived in?"
Chuckles had been following this story with open mouth and eyes.
"I like sand better than rock," he remarked reflectively; and Sidney was glad his aunt was not there to hear him say it.
"Well, you would have chosen a house on sand. What happens to your sand castles?"
"Oh!" said Chuckles, with a beaming face. "You're going to make a storm knock it down. I should like to have been there to see it."
Sidney went on hurriedly.
"Yes; one day the clouds rolled up, and the sky got black, and the wind rolled the waves in with a boom and a crash, and the two men got inside their houses and hoped they would be safe. But, alas! The house on the sand soon began to rock and sway, and the sea rushed in at the bottom, and then suddenly it all crumpled up and fell down with an awful crash, and the man and his family were crushed to death."
"And the other house?"
Chuckles' eyes were nearly starting out of his head.
"Well, the slow man looked out of his window, and saw his neighbour's house destroyed, and his wife began to cry and say: 'It will be our turn next.' And then he said, with a proud smile: 'No; we are built upon the rock, and the ocean itself and all the storms in the world won't wash us away.'
"He was right. The waves dashed against his house, and the wind beat it, and the rain poured down; but when the storm was over and the sun shone out there was his house safe and sound, and the other was in ruins. Now, which do you think was best?"
"The rock," said Chuckles with conviction. "I'll build a castle on the rocks next time."
There was a pause. It was one thing to tell the story, another to apply it; and Sidney began to feel that her subject was above a child's comprehension.
"That's a story from the Bible, Chuckles. Jesus told that one, and He said that people who tried to live without Him were like the man who wouldn't build on the rock. He is the Rock of Ages, you know. And God wants us all to be builders; only we must take care we build properly."
Chuckles leant over the side of the boat, and began to splash the water with his hands.
"I don't know nothing about God," he remarked carelessly, "and I can't live with Jesus. He is up above the stars, millions of miles away. Aunt Dannie told me so."
"He is here now, Chuckles—close to us. He sees you, and He hears what you say."
Chuckles looked fearfully round; then he shook his curly head.
"I would rather He didn't."
"That is because you don't know Him, Chuckles. I want you to get to know Jesus Christ. I want Him to be your best friend."
"The las' friend I made was our washwoman's husban'. He mends umbrellas and china, and he sharpened my knife for nuffin. He lived in London once, but the fog got on his chest. I've got an awful lot of friends."
"But I don't think you have one friend who died to save you. And Jesus loved you so much that He did this for you. If He was on earth, He would draw you gently to Himself, and put His arm round you. He would tell you He had died so as to let you go to Heaven, for He had been punished instead of you. He would tell you He wanted to live in your little heart, and make you happy and take care of you; and if you only saw His kind, loving face, if you only heard His voice, you would look up and say: 'I will follow You all my life. I will try to please You every day.'"
"Would I, do you think?" said Chuckles thoughtfully. "If I could really see Him, p'raps I would. Only Aunt Dannie always says He wants me to be puffickly good, and have no fun at all."
"I am sure the Lord Jesus Christ loves to see you have fun—fun that makes you and everybody else happy is quite right. It is only fun that hurts or destroys anything and anybody that is wrong. Now, Chuckles, will you have the Lord Jesus for your best friend?"
Chuckles gave a little wriggle.
"I don't know Him."
"No, you don't; but I'm going to try to get you to know Him. I shall talk to you about Him, and tell you stories about Him, and read you messages from Him, until you won't be able to keep from loving Him. He is my best friend, and I want Him to be yours. And when you come to see me on Sunday afternoons, you are coming to meet Him and make His acquaintance. He is so close to us now that I am going to speak to Him, and you can listen to what I am saying, if you like."
Sidney bent her head. Chuckles watched her with keen interest.
"O Lord Jesus, will you be Chuckles' Friend? Will You speak to him Yourself, and make him love You and know You. For Thy Name's Sake. Amen."
"Why, that's praying!" said Chuckles. "You said Amen."
"Praying is only speaking," said Sidney. "Now I have talked to you enough. You talk to me."
"There's a man smoking the other side of the wall," said Chuckles, springing up in the boat. "Why, it's Cousin Ran!"
And Randolph it proved to be. He had walked down to fetch the small boy home to tea, but how long he had listened to the Sunday lesson on the other side of the wall, he did not say. Sidney wondered. And she wondered if she had made any impression upon Chuckles. As she stooped to kiss him and wish him good-bye she said:
"Have you liked our talk?"
He nodded.
"I liked about the storm and houses. I shall play at that."
"And remember, darling, that you're a little building belonging to God, and unless you are a part of Jesus Christ, Who is the Rock, you'll never stand the storm that will come to you."
"That's too differcult," said Chuckles, and then he turned to Randolph.
"She's going to make me have a New Friend," he said with a little nod of his head at Sidney. "But I haven't said 'Yes' yet."
Randolph's eyes met Sidney's.
"Ah!" he said. "You have made me wish myself a boy again, Miss Urquhart. I used to have Sunday lessons in a garden once upon a time."
Then, without another word, he marched Chuckles off, and Sidney went to her father wondering again if she had done any good or not by her first effort towards Chuckles' spiritual education.
Up the road the man and boy walked together.
"I love Miss Sid," Chuckles asserted. "I ate twenty chocolates, and she never said 'Stop.'"
"Mind you remember what she tells you," said Randolph, somewhat severely.
"Did you listen to her behind the wall?"
Randolph scorned embarrassment.
"If I did, it was for my own profit."
"Tell me honest now," said Chuckles gravely, "do you know this Friend? You don't think she's taking me in. I don't like church and catechism, you know, but she made it out quite different, and she says Jesus will like me to have fun. Do you know Him like she does?"
"That I don't."
"Not at all?"
"Well, perhaps a little."
"Is it proper for men and boys to know Him?"
"Quite proper," said Randolph, with a smile, and as he spoke the words from some distant cell in his memory came almost to his lips: "'Neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glorieth, glory within, that he understandeth and knoweth Me.'"
"I'll think about it," said Chuckles in a loft manner, "and tell her next Sunday whether I'm going to do what she wants or not. But I shall cut the rope when she isn't looking, and then we shall drift out to sea and be shipwrecked."
As Chuckles' intentions that were told never came off, Randolph made no remark. His thoughts persistently followed Sidney, and at times he was perplexed and annoyed by the vagaries of his brain.
When Monica met them coming in at the garden gate, she looked a trifle anxiously at Chuckles.
"I hope you have been good," she said.
"Me and Miss Sid don't want to be good," said Chuckles with his chin in the air. "We don't talk about such stupid things as that."
Monica wisely forebore to question him further. It was enough for her that he had been and was willing to go again.
ON A SANDBANK
MRS. DE CRESSIERS' political dinners were a great success. When Sidney was returning home again, that lady said to her:
"I wish you were my daughter. You are such a help to me when I am entertaining."
"Or daughter-in-law, mother," put in Austin. He was driving Sidney back in his high dogcart, and could not resist adding to his mother's words.
Sidney laughed.
"I will come whenever you want me, Cousin Clarice."
Then, as they drove away, she reproved Austin for his levity:
"Your mother looked quite shocked."
"Oh, no," Austin said calmly. "I often tell her if I had come into the world a little sooner, I might have had a chance with you. As it is, you scorn me and call me a mere boy."
"And so you are, and ever will be in my eyes; so don't you try to be different."
"As long as we're chums, I don't much care. When is that man going away?"
"Which man?"
"Oh, there aren't so many about here—Neville. I took him fishing, and didn't cotton to him."
"For any reason?"
"Now, don't speak with that distant air. He wouldn't unbend. I chaffed him about his politics. Hate a fellow who won't stand chaff! He treated me like a fly upon the wall."
"You're very young," said Sidney; then, meeting a glare from the corner of Austin's eye, she added quietly: "and impudent."
"A de Cressiers is never snubbed in these parts," said Austin laughing. "That's my mother's creed, you know, and Neville gave her the biggest snub she has received for a long while, so she and I both bear him a grudge. Why is he so superior?"
"He never strikes me to be anything different from ourselves," said Sidney. "He is a reserved man, and not a very happy one. He is a disappointed man, I should say. Life has treated him hardly."
"You seem to know a lot about him. I'm a disappointed man, and life is treating me hardly, but I don't talk to people as if I am in the sky and they in the gutter."
Austin finished with a little chuckle. His naturally sunny temper overcame his sudden prejudice.
"We'll let him go hang!" he said. "Will you come out sand-eeling with me to-morrow?"
And in the interest of this new topic, Randolph sank into the background.
About a week later, Randolph went to dine with the Admiral. He arrival punctually at eight o'clock, but found the house in a commotion. The Major met him at the door.
"Have you seen my niece? We thought she might be at the Farm."
"Is she lost?" Randolph asked lightly.
"By George!" said the Major, bringing his fist down with force upon the hall table. "Do you think we're going to allow that for a moment? She went out after lunch, and said she would be back to tea. It's close on eight now, and no one seems to have seen anything of her."
"She has not been near the Farm," said Randolph, sobering at once. "Did she go on the river?"
"She never said she was going," said the Major. "Is the boat missing?"
No one seemed to have thought of looking. The Admiral came forward:
"It was only ten minutes ago that we discovered that she was not in the house. I have been out riding all the afternoon, and have not been in long. Wherever she is, she must have been delayed by some grave cause, for she is never late for dinner."
Randolph almost smiled as he recalled Monica's remark to him about the clockwork regularity of the Admiral's household, and then he was surprised at the anxiety tugging at his heart. Why should Sidney's unpunctuality be of such moment to him? He almost ran down to the boathouse. There was no boat in it, nor was it moored to its anchorage. The tide was out, and the low sandbanks across the river were plainly discernible.
"She's stuck on the mud somewhere," was his thought, and he shouted it out to the Major, who was following him down the garden.
He shook his head.
"Don't believe it! She has more gumption than that. She knows the river better than we do."
Randolph lost no time. He pulled out another boat close by—a boat built for the sea, and not for the river. He threw off his overcoat and dress-coat; turning up his white shirt sleeves, he shoved off and cautiously rowed in the shallow current down towards the sea.
The Major shouted after him: "I'll go down to the village and make inquiries there. Don't get on the mud yourself."
Randolph rowed off, and as he looked back, saw the old Admiral fussing round his horse, and evidently preparing to ride off again in search of his daughter.
"Three of us," he said, bending to his oars with a will. "I mean to come in winner."
It was getting dark, and the navigation of his boat was difficult. Progress was necessarily slow.
He wondered now if he had better have ridden along the banks and trusted to his sharp eyes to discover her whereabouts. To add to his discomfort, black clouds rolled up, and soon torrents of rain poured down almost perpendicularly.
"I'm rather a fool if she has landed safely hours ago and is making her way home," he muttered, but he knew that nothing would make him go back. Three miles down was the sea and the fishing village of Yalstone. This was his goal. He knew she invariably rowed seawards.
Suddenly he slipped in his oars and listened. Was it fancy that the following words were wafted over the water towards him?
"For what is the use of endless sorrow?Though the sun goes down, it will rise to-morrow."
Was it a trick of imagination? The rain was lessening. He struck a match and lighted up his pipe whilst he listened; and then very distinctly came a "Hallo!" across the river. He shouted back, and Sidney's voice came like a bell in response:
"I'm on a sandbank. Don't come too close."
"Why," he muttered to himself, "I was within an ace of passing her!"
Deftly and cautiously, he worked the boat towards the centre of the river.
"Go on singing," he shouted. "I can't see, but I can hear."
"I've sung myself hoarse!" came the cry.
Then came a rift in the rolling clouds, and a watery moon showed itself for a moment or two. Randolph saw his goal, and in a few minutes had pulled up by the side of a low sandbank.
Sidney was there in her boat, stuck hard and fast.
"Take care!" she cried. "You will stick too!"
Randolph was reckless.
"I've come down all right; I can go back. Now step in."
Sidney extended two very cold hands with her gay laugh.
"I really never expected that you would be my rescuer. I pictured you in the midst of the pudding course."
"Did you imagine that we should dine without you?"
He was wrapping her in his overcoat. Sidney protested.
"My dear man, I am soaked through. What I want is exercise, not wrappings. I really think our best plan will be to land and walk home. We shall only get stuck on another sandbank. I know them better than you. It's just a fluke that you rowed safely down. It's too dark to see anything."
"Can we land?" Randolph said, peering through the darkness.
"I'm afraid it must be on the wrong side—this side; there's a bit of beach close to us. I was making for it when I got stuck."
"Let's chance rowing back."
"We shan't do it. Father won't sleep if I'm out all night."
"Will you steer, then, as you know where you are? Confound the boat; I believe it has stuck."
He backed with all his might and just saved it. Sidney steered still downstream.
"We shall get to the end of this bank and then slip across. Now, then, row for your life. Give me an oar."
It was a breathless moment, but they did it, and drove the boat fast and firm on a stony beach.
In another moment both were out on dry ground.
"There!" said Sidney. "Now we'll say good-bye to our boats and make the best of our way home. It's a good six miles round by the bridge, but there are no obstacles to prevent speed."
They scrambled up a steep bank, after making the boat fast to a post close by, and found themselves on a good high road.
Sidney slipped out of Randolph's overcoat and held it out to him.
"I really couldn't walk in it," she said apologetically; "but it has sent a little circulation through me."
"You are wet through," he said, just for one moment letting his hand rest on her shoulder.
"Yes; but I'm hardy, and am going to enjoy my walk. I honestly am very grateful to you. I was preparing to make myself comfortable for the night when I heard the splash of oars, so then, Lorelei-like, I began to sing, knowing that I might be luring you to a similar fate."
"Who did you think it was?" demanded Randolph.
"Not you."
"Why not? You knew I was coming to dine."
"But you don't know the tricks of our river, and Uncle Ted does. I'm disappointed in him."
"I got to the boat first," explained Randolph. "He didn't give you credit for sticking in the mud; said you had too much gumption."
Sidney laughed out.
"I've never done such a thing in my life before; and now he'll never let me forget it. I was a fool, I own I was, but—I was thinking too much."
She hesitated, and Randolph, not liking the drop in her voice, said cheerfully:
"How long shall we give ourselves for getting round?"
"Four miles an hour. In an hour and a half we shall be walking up the drive. Oh, yes, I feel you have no faith in my walking powers, but when I wind myself up I'm equal to any man—and the difficulty is to stop. When I'm thoroughly in it, I feel I could walk on for ever."
She walked as if she liked it; her feet hardly seemed to touch the ground, her tread was so light and springy.
"What a pity you don't smoke!" Randolph said. "Would you object to my pipe?"
"Of course not. Dad is old-fashioned; I think I am too. I never could take to it. I assure you I'm a century behind most contemporaries of mine."
Randolph did not respond.
She went on:
"It's an advantage in one way. I don't get sick longings for an active independent life. I'm too pleased with myself and my surroundings. Don't you think I'm a very self-satisfied creature? Aunt Dannie says I am."
"I think you would be contented with very little," said Randolph gravely. "I wish I could be. Hand your secret on to me. I can't be content with my circumstances."
"Ah," said Sidney, drawing a long breath, "content or discontent is a matter of long or short sight, isn't it? I have learnt that it is."
Randolph began to think it out.
"How?" he questioned. "Even a sandbank in a deluge doesn't affect your spirits."
"Well, it might be worse," said Sidney; "and I'm not going to have you think me other than I am. A fit of discontent took me out this afternoon and abstracted me from the present. When I stuck, I readjusted my focus, and then felt better."
"Still I don't understand."
"'For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.'"
The words came softly but very firmly from Sidney's lips.
"But you don't apply that to the sandbank?"
Sidney's laugh rippled out.
"I was going to the cause that made me drift to the sandbank. We were talking of general content and discontent, weren't we? That quotation gives present and future; if we see as far as the end of it, there's not much to grumble at, is there?"
"You're very religious," Randolph said vaguely.
"Oh, I'm not. I wish I were; but I stake my all on the Book from which that saying comes. I believe it through and through. And it's such a cheerful creed."
Randolph walked along silently for a few minutes. He thought over his disappointments and disillusions in life, and he wondered if he had taken the Bible as his guide whether it would have brought him cheer and comfort.
"I wish you would tell me more," he said. "If you bring disaster wilfully upon yourself, can you still look ahead and forget the present? It sounds ghostly and unreal. What is our future? Who can tell? It is the present that matters."
"Well," said Sidney gaily, "our present is rather a nasty one. I'm treading water in my shoes, and haven't a dry inch on me, but we're not taking it to heart much; we're getting home—on our way there—and the thought of the fires and food and comforts that will be ours makes us think lightly of the present, does it not?"
"You're going home," said Randolph with emphasis.
"We've all got the same home at the end of life—at least, we can have it if we want to—and we're getting home, that's what I keep saying to myself."
Strange memories crowded into Randolph's heart. He had had a good mother, and he knew that she had reached home and expected to see him there. In a vague fashion, he expected to meet her again; but he had never troubled his head about the way to do it. He felt as if he would like to walk on for ever, listening to Sidney's soft bright voice as she spoke so naturally of the things that were usually locked away from ordinary conversation. They tramped along; from grave subjects they turned to gay; once Sidney spoke regretfully of her father and his anxiety.
"I wouldn't make him uneasy for worlds. I do hope, he hasn't sallied out anywhere after me. He has had a cold, and his throat is always delicate. What a dinner party for you! I really think you most long-suffering not to be enraged with me!"
"I haven't missed my dinner," said Randolph quietly; "but this will be my last visit to you. I am off to-morrow."
"Are you, really? We—my father will miss you."
"Why did you correct yourself?" Randolph asked with a short laugh. "I should like to think you missed me. I haven't too many friends; perhaps it's as well. The fewer you have, the fewer you lose. They want me in town about a billet abroad."
"Why do you leave poor old England? I heard you were a good speaker. We have not many at present in Parliament."
Then Randolph spoke with passion underlying his tone:
"They are offering me a frontier post. I shall have things my own way there; but it's a disgrace to the Empire at present. I shall get a chance of a good sweep out, and a general clean up. If I can clean one corner for the country and keep it clean, it's better work than fighting for party, and swallowing one's convictions and conscience with one gulp."
"Yes," said Sidney slowly; "perhaps. And we want strong men for those isolated frontiers. You are going to accept it?"
"Most certainly. I am a single man and have no ties; there isn't a soul who will miss me. I have nothing and nobody to keep me at home."
Bitterness was in his tone.
"Oh, don't say that."
"It's true. You were good enough to hint you might miss me down here. But for how long? A month hence your remembrance of me will be vague. A few years hence you may take up a paper and read of the death by fever or some such epidemic of a certain Randolph Neville. And you will say to your father, 'Wasn't that the man who visited Monnie once? I seem to remember the name.'"
Very lightly Sidney laid her hand on his arm, and the touch thrilled Randolph, though he was furious to have to acknowledge it to himself.
"Have I deserved such a speech?"
"I don't know why I'm talking of myself at all," said Randolph gruffly; "it isn't my way."
"Life will be better to you than you think. It's a good world to live in. Don't doubt everything and everybody."
"Ah, you have as yet had no disillusions!"
Then, aghast, he recollected; and her tense cry once more came to his ears: "Teach me to forget! Teach me to forget!"
"I have had a few," said Sidney very quietly; "but the world is big, and we are not meant to grow bitter in it."
Randolph caught his breath.
Then through the darkness came a shout, and the next moment the Admiral's groom reined up his horse by them.
"Oh, Baker, is that you? I am all right, and we're coming home as fast as we can."
Sidney's voice was brisk and cheerful.
"Ride back and tell the Admiral I'm coming. I got stranded on a sandbank."
The groom galloped off.
All serious talk was over, and very soon they were in the hall, with the Admiral and the Major fussing round them. The Major had just got in, very tired and rather cross now that the excitement was over.
"We thought your boat had got upset," he said testily. "We never expected you would stick in the mud."
"I'm so sorry I have disappointed you," said Sidney; then she put her arms up round her father's neck, and gave him a hug. "You are not sorry to see me back again, are you, dad?"
Her father laid his hand caressingly on her head.
"I shall say my prayers to-night with a grateful heart," he said; then he looked towards Randolph. "Thanks much to you for bringing me back my little girl. I could not live without her."
Then Sidney slipped away to change her wet clothes. Half-way up the low broad staircase, she stopped and looked down at the little group in the hall.
"Make Mr. Neville change his wet things, dad. Uncle Ted's clothes will fit him. And we shall be ready for dinner in twenty minutes."
The belated dinner was served at half-past ten, and it was a cheerful meal. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, Randolph bade Sidney good-bye.
"Shall we never meet again?" she exclaimed, as she laid her hand in his, and felt the emphasis of his words. "I don't like to make friends and lose them so quickly. Won't you be in these parts again before you sail?"
He shook his head.
"If I go, I go next week. Miss Urquhart, I shall be a lonely man out there. Will you write me a line occasionally? May I write to you? Just to keep up our friendship, which I trust we have started."
"I shall like to hear from you how you are getting on, and will certainly answer your letters," responded Sidney gravely.
Randolph's eyes for one moment rested upon her slim graceful figure as she stood before him. Surely, he thought, those fringed grey eyes that looked with a sunny calm into his could be trusted! And then he saw them droop before his gaze, and was not sure whether it was only his imagination that made him think he saw a glistening drop hanging on the tip of those dark curled lashes.
He went, and Sidney watched him go with a strange sinking of heart.
"I feel so sorry for him," she said, turning to her father; "he is conscious of his integrity and clean hands; but has always been abused and misunderstood and deceived by those whom he trusted most."
"Well, you seem to know a lot about him," said her father; "but Neville will make his way. He is a rising man, and if he gets this billet, he'll be the right man in the right corner."
"Monnie has told me a good deal about him," said Sidney, with a wistful look in her eyes. "He is not a happy man, I am afraid; and yet, he deserves to be. I wish he were not going out to such desolation."
"It's time some right-minded man tackled that job," the Admiral said. "I happen to know a good bit about that place. We coasted round it once. There is only a handful of Europeans, and they say English lads sent out there either die in five years' time, or come back hopeless drunkards. They go to pieces; climate, isolation, and drink are too much for them. But they've had bad administrators; it's a blot on our Empire. Neville will remedy that."
"I wish he had never left the House," said Sidney warmly. "He will be wasted out there. We want strong men at home in the present state of affairs."
"We want them in all quarters of the globe," said the Admiral. And his daughter said no more.
Randolph did not go to bed very early that night; when he got back, he sat up with Monica over a little log fire, the first she had had; but the rain was heavy. And though she had no idea how much he had been exposed to it, she expected that he would have a wet walk home. She and he were very good friends, and she was genuinely sorry that he was leaving her the following day.
"You have done me a lot of good," she said to him. "I get into a rut of my own, and want to be shaken out of it. But dear though Aunt Dannie is, she is not a conversationalist, and we think so very differently that we agree to go our own ways. You make me see that my ways are not infallible; and your presence here has been good for Chuckles. Oh, Randolph, do you think I shall make a good man of him? I get so anxious. Sometimes I think I am too severe; sometimes overindulgent. And it is such a loss for a boy to have no father!"
"I don't know," said Randolph; "it rather depends on the father. I believe a woman is better at training than a man—up to a certain age. I know all the good that ever came to me was through my mother. I remember her teaching; it has stuck to me through life—at least, some of it has; I don't remember anything learnt from my father. He was indifferent to me, and died when I was ten. A woman lays a better foundation than a man."
Monica sighed. Sidney's words came to her: "Duty is a good foundation; but it is not the right one."
"I shall get Sidney to help me with him," she said. "She happens to have that happy knack of teaching without any effort. I get ponderous when I talk to him for his good. And he and I are both relieved when it is over. I wonder when you will come down here again?"
"Not for some years, I should say."
"Oh, don't bury yourself out there. You must have a home of your own one day, Randolph. I know you don't feel like it now; but time brings changes to our feelings, as well as to everything else. And do choose an English girl for a wife!"
"Are you afraid I shall choose a dark-skinned one?" Randolph said, with a little laugh.
"I know you will be lonely out there," said Monica gravely.
"I don't know the meaning of that word," said Randolph, squaring his shoulders and compressing his lips, quite forgetting his parting words to Sidney. "I have always lived alone and thought alone; but that is second nature to me. The difficulty to me is to include my fellow-creatures in my calculations."
"Now, that is nonsense! No one has worked harder for his fellow-beings than you have."
"Yes, and have received kicks and abuse for it accordingly. Never mind! I suppose I must have one more try, and then, if I come back a failure, I'll struggle no more against the stream."
"You will never become a drifter," said Monica with conviction.
The next morning, at breakfast, Chuckles was told of Randolph's coming departure.
"Why are you going away, Cousin Ran? I'm very fond of you. I was hoping you would take me with you to London."
"I'm going a little farther than London," said Randolph. "No, you'll have to do your growing without me for a bit now, Chuckles. When I come back, I'll find you a first-class farmer, I hope."
"I'd rather be a builder," said Chuckles, looking across at his aunt with his mouth full of bread and butter. "I'm specially intellested in building just now. Miss Sid is talking a lot to me about it."
"What does she say?" asked Randolph, laughing at the child's solemn eyes.
"We've all got to build," Chuckles said. "I'm practisin' on the sand, but I always put a big stone first at the bottom of my castles. That's the funation, you know. It must be a stone—rock, the Bible says. The funation is awfully differcult. Miss Sid says we're all builders. Fancy! God put us in the world to build! Did you know that?"
"Well, I'm going to do a bit of Empire building, I trust," said Randolph, looking across at Monica with a queer smile, "so I shall be fulfilling my destiny."
"Yes," she answered gravely, "and I, in my corner, building up a prosperous heritage, I trust, for a certain small boy, who may defeat and disappoint my hopes."
"Not if Miss Urquhart is as successful a builder in her corner as you are," returned Randolph.
"Yes, I'm a better builder at farms than characters," said Monica with a little sigh.
"So we're all building something, Chuckles," said Randolph, looking at the small boy with a twinkle in his eyes. "I've been an unsuccessful builder so far; two of my cherished castles have toppled over."
Chuckles clapped his hands exultantly.
"That's acause you didn't have a stone funation, like the man on the sand. The winds blew, and the flood came, and the big sea washed it over."
"Yes," said Randolph, the twinkle dying away; "the winds blew, and the flood came, and the big sea washed them quite away. I'm having another try now. Wish me success, little man."
Chuckles looked at him with big eyes.
"How high will you build? Up to heaven?"
"Go on with your breakfast," said Monica quickly.
Chuckles said no more until his good-bye came, and then he looked with awe at the small gold piece pressed into his chubby palm.
"Why, that will buy me a pony, won't it?" he questioned, beginning to caper up and down. "Oh, Cousin Ran, thank you truly! And may I come out to see you building in India one day? Me and Miss Sid will come out togever."
"And what will become of Aunt Monnie?"
"She'll come, too. We'll all come, and we'll all build togever!"
"A happy family!" laughed Randolph, as he waved his adieux.
He had much food for thought during his journey up to town, and somehow or other Sidney's slim gracefulness, her sweet vibrating voice, her eager shining eyes, haunted him. He carried away the impress of her personality with him, and also the lisping words of the child: "How high will you build? Up to heaven?"
THE WIDOW
LIFE went on very quietly for Monica and Sidney after Randolph left them.
But one afternoon, as Sidney and her father were sitting together in the garden, Major Urquhart came limping out to them in some excitement.
"It's what I always say," he declared, sitting down heavily in a garden chair; "brain and knack are better servants than strength. Six men—brawny fellows, too—all perspiring and cursing and shouting, and with no more notion than a child how to get a bit of furniture in at a door!"
"And then you walked by with your brain and knack, and the thing was done," said Sidney laughing. "At which village move have you been assisting? I know there are one or two flittings on hand."
"Lovelace's Cottage—bottom of the hill."
Sidney sat up and looked interested.
"I heard a lady had taken that. Did you see her?"
"Yes, I did. An uncommonly sensible little woman; but her workmen were bunglers. I passed by and lent a hand."
"I can see you do it!"
"She's got some very good bits of furniture," the Major pursued, "and this gigantic bureau, of course, came to pieces. They only wanted a screwdriver, but none of them had thought of it. She's come from Norfolk, she told me, and is a widow."
"Does she know anybody here?"
"Yes. She's a connection of Mrs. de Cressiers."
"Oh, she'll be all right, then. I wonder Austin did not tell us about her. He was here yesterday. Is she all alone, poor thing?"
"My dear Sidney, a 'poor thing' doesn't apply to her. Wait till you make her acquaintance."
"I don't know that I'm fond of widows," Sidney said meditatively. "Is she old or young?"
"Young—quite young; a very sensible young woman! So natural. I've promised to put her up a shelf or two to-morrow. She has some good books, but no place to put them."
"Well," said Sidney admiringly, "you have got on!"
The Admiral chuckled.
"You'll be kept busy, Ted," he said. "Mark my words, if she has her wits about her, she'll make use of you. I should, if I were in her shoes. You're a first-rate carpenter."
"She gave me a first-rate cup of tea," said Major Urquhart; "boiled some water up in a spirit lamp in a jiffy. She's good for emergencies, I can tell you! Wasn't flustered or fussed, but sat down and told me a rattling good story of an experience she had in Ireland with the Paddies. Her husband was a soldier. She seems to have been in all quarters of the globe."
"She sounds interesting," said Sidney; "I'll call on her as soon as ever I can."
"I told her you'd be down first thing to-morrow morning, and she's coming to lunch. Her maid doesn't come to her till to-morrow evening."
The Admiral laughed out.
"I wonder you didn't offer her a bed, and bring her back to dinner," he said.
"I offered it," said the Major, quite unabashed. "I knew Sidney would be delighted, but she declined."
"But why hasn't Mrs. de Cressiers befriended her, if she is a connection?" asked Sidney.
"I didn't ask. Shouldn't think she's a little woman to hang on to her connections; too independent for that."
"But," began Sidney; and then she stopped herself. She was about to say that surely connections should be asked for hospitality before strangers; but she knew how impulsive her uncle was, and did not want to hurt his feelings.
"You have rather rushed me into a call," she said.
"It's only neighbourly to show her the ropes in a strange place," said her uncle.
And Sidney assented, wondering if she could see Mrs. de Cressiers before she went.
Fortunately, after dinner Austin walked in.
"Came down to be livened up!" he confided to Sidney. "The governor is extra grumpy; the mother on her high horse, so I cut."
"Now you can tell us about the new arrival at Lovelace's Cottage," Sidney said eagerly. "She's a connection of yours?"
"Never heard of her. Who do you mean?"
"She's a Mrs. Norman; her husband was a captain in the 12th Lancers."
"Never heard of her," repeated Austin. "But now I come to think of it, the parents were saying something to each other about Lovelace's. I didn't take much notice. Is she a good sort?"
The Major gave an emphatic nod.
Sidney began to laugh.
"Uncle Ted is bowled over. I'm to go down in the early hours of to-morrow, and she's to feed here till she gets in comfortably. It's all arranged."
"I think I'll stroll round and have a look at her," said Austin. "If I'm a connection, I ought to have first innings."
"Ask your mother about her first," said Sidney.
"Oh, you suspicious, conventional brutes!"
The Major shot this out with vehemence; then walked out of the room, and banged the door behind him.
Sidney could not treat it gravely.
"Dad," she said, "this is worse than we have had hitherto. Uncle Ted is always susceptible, but he never has capitulated quite so rapidly."
"Don't chaff him. You'll make his kind-heartedness into something more if you don't look-out!"
Sidney took her father's rebuke at once, and said no more; but the next morning a groom rode down before breakfast with a note from Mrs. de Cressiers:
"MY DEAR SIDNEY,—Mrs. Norman married the son of the second cousin of my brother-in-law, Colonel St. Orr, who married my youngest sister. Can this be called a connection? Certainly nothing more. I have neither heard nor seen anything of the lady herself, except that my sister mentioned her name in a letter. Why are you so precipitately making her acquaintance? Surely you can wait till I have called upon her? And I certainly am not going to do that till I return from town. I am going up for a fortnight next Tuesday.—Yours in haste, with love—"CLARICE DE CRESSIERS."
Sidney read the first part of this note aloud at the breakfast table. The latter bit she kept to herself, for she knew she would have no peace from her uncle until she had been down to the cottage; and though Mrs. de Cressiers always tried to rule her life, Sidney had never allowed her to do so. Her father was quite aware of Mrs. de Cressiers' failing and always backed his daughter up to resist her sway.
"No woman shall rule my ship," he would say genially; "and these old families are not living in the feudal days; neither are we their serfs. Oh, I know, my dear, your mother was a de Cressier, but the Urquhart blood is quite as good, and a little more vigorous than theirs; and you are your father's daughter, remember, and not Mrs. de Cressiers'!"
So after breakfast Sidney accompanied her uncle down to Lovelace's Cottage.
The front garden was still strewn with empty packing cases and paper and litter of all kinds. As they unlatched the gate, Mrs. Norman came out of the front door. She was a pretty woman; her complexion was good, her eyes rather a vivid blue. She showed a good many teeth when she smiled and talked, and her hair was bright golden. She was dressed in a very short and shabby tweed skirt, a man's bright yellow cardigan jacket was over it, and a soft grey felt hat, with a jay's feather and a bit of staghorn moss in it, gave her a distinctly sporty appearance.
"How awfully kind and friendly of you!" she said, holding out her hand to Sidney. "Your uncle told me what a friend you were to any forlorn strangers. Do come in, if you don't mind the chaos. I'm in the state of the Irishman who said: 'Sure I'm in sech a botheration and commiseration, that I don't know whether me toes come out of me head or me legs!'"
She led the way into the tiny house, found some chairs, and Sidney sat down and looked about her.
"You ought to have had a woman in to clean," she said. "Are you quite by yourself?"
"Absolutely. I quaked in the night when I remembered half of my china was lying in the packing cases in the garden; but then I remembered that the country was not crammed with thieves, and I slept like a dog till nine this morning. I've only just finished my breakfast."
Major Urquhart was already examining the walls of the tiny sitting-room.
"Look here," he said, "this is the place! I'll rig you up some shelves in this recess in no time. And how would a locker at the bottom work, with a lid? It's a tidy contrivance of my own, for women always have a lot of rubbish about—sewing, you call it, don't you? And you can shoot the whole lot in, when you want a tidy room, see? My man will be here directly with some wood."
"Oh, how awfully kind of you! That's what I always say—men are so delightfully prompt. If they promise a thing, they go straight away and do it."
She sprang up, and for the next twenty minutes she and the Major were deep in calculations and measurements. Sidney looked on, half amused, half interested. Then Mrs. Norman turned to her with a laughing apology:
"You will think me most dreadfully rude, but it really is a chance for me, when I have such a kind offer made me. I can't afford to have half I should like in this house. I'm afraid you'll go back, and think me a calculating selfish creature; but I've learnt a good many things in life, and one is how to take from people. There was a time when I preferred to give; but then, of course, I had the means to do it. After all, the world is divided between givers and takers, and if you can't be one, you can be the other."
She laughed as she spoke, and Sidney felt the magnetism of her frank cheerfulness.
"I'm sure you'll be doing Uncle Ted a kindness if you give him work. He has filled our house to overflowing with his handiwork, and now has no scope for half his designs. I don't think I will take up your time any longer; but do come up to lunch, if it will be of any help to you."
"Oh, how kind! But perhaps I had better not. I only want a snack of bread and cheese, and I don't want to encroach upon your kindness!"
"Come up, of course," Sidney said. "But tell me before I go if I can help you in any way."
Mrs. Norman laughed.
"I know I want all sorts of counsel about supplies, but at this moment my bookshelves have ousted everything else. May I pick your brains at luncheon? As you are so very kind as to press me, I will come with pleasure."
Sidney saw nothing for it but to go; she felt instinctively that she was not wanted; she refused to let herself criticise her new neighbour, and went home occupying herself with many household duties for the rest of the morning. Once her father came across her, and asked about the new arrival.
"She is a pleasant little body. You will see her at lunch."
And no more would she say.
Major Urquhart arrived punctually for a wonder, but Mrs. Norman accompanied him. And when Sidney laughingly remarked that her uncle was always late for meals, she said:
"Ah, but, you see, I insisted upon punctuality, for I was an invited guest, and could not take such liberties!"
"Unpunctuality is impossible to me," said the Admiral. "We let Ted go his own way, but my daughter and I never keep each other waiting."
It was a cheery table. Mrs. Norman was very good company, and could talk on a variety of subjects. She discoursed on books and politics to the Admiral, on fishing and carpentering to the Major, on servants and village tradesmen to Sidney. When they rose from the table she gave a little sigh:
"I shall return to my work a Hercules. But, oh, what a problem it is to fit big furniture into a cottage! I should like to tip some of my effects into the river, which flows in such an accommodating way past my back garden. What a temptation to fling all my tiresome burdens into it as well, and let it carry them away for ever!"
"How would you begin?" said Sidney merrily.
"My duties and responsibilities would go first—don't be shocked, Admiral!—They weigh heavily on us all at times, especially if you're a lonely unit, and have none to share them with you! My memories would follow. They are so worrying and depressing. And my bills would complete the list. What a happy creature I should be!"
She laughed, and her laugh was so infectious that even the Admiral joined in it, though he hardly approved of such audacious sentiments being aired.
Major Urquhart insisted upon going back with her to complete his work.
"He's quite infatuated," the Admiral said, turning to his daughter.
"Yes," said Sidney, "aren't we all? She is charmingly natural and original. Don't you think so?"
"No," said the Admiral gruffly. "I've seen a good many of that stamp in my time."
Sidney shook her head at him.
"We shall see a good deal of her, I prophesy; so we will be prepared to like her."
"We shan't see much of her. Ted will."
Sidney said no more. She was strangely anxious to like this new arrival; but as time went on her views changed, and one afternoon she arrived at Monica's farm with a depressed little furrow on her usually smooth forehead.
She found Monica in her store room, packing up some honeycomb from her bees to go to London. Sidney swung herself up on an empty shelf, and began:
"Be rude to me, Monnie! I'm longing for a short abrupt brusque remark from someone. Honey is delicious, but you can get a surfeit of it, can't you? And somehow or other I've been having honey with some sting in it. Do bees ever leave their stings in their honey?"
"I haven't time to talk in parables," said Monica, in her downright way. "What is the matter with you?"
She did not look up from her work. Sidney watched her quick deft movements, as she slipped her cases of honey into the light packing cases on the floor, and said somewhat wistfully:
"I've come over for a talk. Can't you be idle for half an hour?"
"Yes, if you wait ten minutes. These must go to the station this afternoon."
"I sometimes wish I had an entrancingly busy life like yours," Sidney said; "and yet I have my days filled up, only they don't seem as profitable as yours."
Monica did not reply. She worked on until the cases were full; then she called one of her men to nail them down, gave him directions for taking them to the station, and, slipping off her apron, turned to Sidney with a smile.
"Come into the sitting-room, and we will have tea. Aunt Dannie and Chuckles are spending a day at the rectory, so we shall be undisturbed."
The sitting-room looked cheerful with its blazing fire. Outside, a grey mist was coming up from the sea; the leaves on the trees seemed to be shivering under its touch, and many were silently dropping to their death.
Sidney seated herself with a sigh of content in an arm-chair by the fire. Then she looked up into Monica's face affectionately.
"Be a safety valve to me! Oh, Monnie, what should I do without you! You are so safe, so silent, so busy in your world of work, that all my confidences will be safe. I have come over with the overwhelming desire in my heart to pick our new neighbour to pieces. Isn't it truly dreadful of me? Have you seen her yet?"
"Her name is Mrs. Norman, is it not? She is taking milk from us. No, I have not met her."
"You would like her at first sight, as I did. She's a jolly cheery-looking little woman; but, oh, Monnie, I wish with all my heart she had never come near us."
Monica sat down.
"Tell me all about her. Get it off your chest, and you will feel better."
"It's ridiculous of me, but I have an instinctive feeling that she is going to bring havoc into our quiet life. I suppose she is what you call a man's woman; but she is awfully sweet—too sweet to me—only, as a rule, her conversation is directed wholly to Uncle Ted and father. And she makes me feel out of it. I can't explain. I'm not jealous, and I've never been made to feel so in my own home before. She's a great talker, and an amusing one; and she's the kind of person that absorbs all the conversation, and centres it round herself. I've tried awfully hard to like her, but I haven't succeeded; and there are things I have hated in connection with her. She has always given us to understand that she was a lonely widow, with no one belonging to her. Yesterday, quite accidentally, I found out that she has a grown-up daughter who lives with her father's relations. She seems quite indifferent in her feelings towards her.
"Then she posed to father as a great reader, and Uncle Ted was full of her wonderful library. Now we find out the books were her husband's, and she keeps them with the intention of selling them when she has a good offer for them. She hasn't read one of them; she confessed as much to me in an unguarded moment.
"She orders Uncle Ted about as if he were a boy; he is doing all kinds of things for her in her cottage, and he spends his days down there. Of course, I am delighted that he should have the interest and occupation of it; but one day when I was out, she left him down there and marched up to spend the afternoon with dad. She was full of garden questions. When I came back, she was pouring out tea for dad, as if she had known him all her life. Dad was bored to death with her—only he's too polite to say so. He doesn't like her, I can see. Then Uncle Ted came to dinner in the sulkiest of tempers; he had been furious at her leaving him and attaching herself to father. It sounds very silly and foolish, doesn't it? I wish Mrs. de Cressiers were back."
"It sounds as if she were of the adventuress style," said Monica laughing.
"Doesn't it? And yet she isn't; for everything is quite straight and above board, except perhaps about her daughter. Mrs. de Cressiers knows her history. Well, let me continue. Two days ago Austin called on her, and now she has him completely in tow. He is superintending her garden; Uncle Ted is making shelves, and dressers, and tables for her. Isn't she clever? And am I not a backbiter?"
"I should like to see her," said Monica thoughtfully; "but I'm not one to make calls, as you know. I'm not a society person."
"My dear Monnie, if Mrs. Norman wants to know you she'll do it, whether you want it or not. She amuses me awfully. She has such a good opinion of herself that it never enters her head that other people may set a different value on her from what she does herself. There, I'm becoming bitter, and I will not be that, if I can help it. She told us the other day that she had left a 'weeping world' behind her in Norfolk. 'And I know,' she added, 'that new friends are more difficult to make as one grows older. My dear old ones have such a big place in my heart.'"
"That's nice," said Monica shortly. Then she looked out of the window. "And here she is coming up the drive. At least, it is a stranger. Peep and tell me if it is she, Sidney."
"Yes. I'm off. Don't let me meet her."
"But why not? Do stay."
"She'll—you'll get on better without me," said Sidney. "I'll creep out the back way."
But it was too late. Mrs. Norman's voice was heard in the hall, and the next moment she was in the room.
LETTERS
"AH, this is delightful!" were her first words. "Miss Urquhart, you will be my friend, and introduce me? I have really only come up on a little matter of business, Miss Pembroke. It is so kind of you to let me have your dairy produce. I am wanting to start a small poultry yard. Quite a few hens, you know, as I'm rather an ignoramus; but Major Urquhart has been advising me strongly to go in for eggs and chickens. I think he is wise, don't you? And I wondered if you could sell me a few good pullets. I want them to begin laying in the winter. Can you manage that for me? Ah, Miss Urquhart, I see you are laughing at me; but you know what I mean! I don't want to keep fowls all the winter and never get an egg. And I have heard of Miss Pembroke's fame. Everything she puts her hand to prospers, I was told. What a charming old house you have!"
She turned to Monica. Poultry and poultry-keeping was the subject of conversation, but it was one to which Monica always rose with alacrity; and again Sidney marvelled at Mrs. Norman's talent for interesting people at once.
When business was satisfactorily settled, Mrs. Norman turned to Sidney.
"I've left that dear boy, Austin, planting roses round my porch. Doesn't that sound ideal! I told him I would be back to tea, so must not stay. If you have time, Miss Pembroke, do come down and see me. I know you're a busy woman, but I shall be so grateful for any more hints about my poultry."
"I'm afraid I'm a bad hand at visiting," said Monica bluntly.
"Oh, I don't mean a state call," said Mrs. Norman, laughing. "You know I'm renowned for my unconventionality. I would not have dared to come to you this afternoon, unless I had known you were too sensible to mind; and, after all, it was business."
She got up to go; then laid her hand affectionately on Sidney's arm.
"Has Miss Urquhart told you how kind she has been to me, and how hospitable? Why, I feel now as if I am welcome at any meal, and can run in and out with all my troubles. A lone woman is at such a disadvantage when she comes to a fresh place."
Then Sidney spoke:
"I can't help wondering why your daughter did not come with you. She would have been a great help, would she not?"
"Poor Gavine! I would not spoil her good time by the drudgery of a move. When I am really established, and everything is pretty and comfortable, then I shall introduce my little daughter to you. And you will love her, as everyone does who sees her."
She shook hands and left.
Sidney gazed at Monica with a sparkle in her eyes.
"Well? Your verdict?"
"It's too soon to give it. I shouldn't say there was any harm in her."
"No, of course there is none. But she doesn't like me. I know she doesn't!"
"She realises you haven't taken to her."
"I did at first, but she simply overlooks me if there are men in the room, and I honestly hate that style of woman. But, oh, I have to be so careful, Monnie, in guarding my tongue from criticism when Uncle Ted is near. And now Austin is getting nearly as bad. What will his mother say, I wonder, when she comes back? I shall be curious to see how she and Mrs. Norman take to each other. Now I must be off home. I feel I have relieved my mind by my outpouring. I am so thankful we haven't sweet purring things to say to each other when we meet, Monnie."
Monica laughed.
"Ah, well, I should be the better for some of her sweetness, I know. And, after all, Sidney, she is wise to make friends. And it is hard to start in a fresh place alone."
Sidney walked home through the dusky mist feeling strangely depressed. But when she got in, her father claimed her attention, and she was her bright happy self again.
"There is one heart she can never touch, and that is dad's," she told herself. "His heart is divided between my mother and myself."
And then the next day her thoughts were turned from Mrs. Norman to Randolph Neville, for she got a letter from him.
"DEAR MISS URQUHART,"I have written letters to you by the score, and torn them all up. One does foolish things on board ship to while away the time, but now I am going to write sense, if I can. I wonder if you have given me a thought since I left you? Thanning Dale seems a far-away country to me now, and yet if I shut my eyes I can see it all before me—your garden sloping down to the river, the Admiral reading in his chair under the old trees on the lawn, and you flitting about in your white gown with flecks of sunshine on your hair and a vast wealth of it in your eyes. Please forgive my personal remarks. That is why I have torn up so many of my effusions. I feared that you might consider them impertinent."Well, I got my billet, and I am on the way out, and on the same boat is a brown-faced wiry little doctor who is bound for the same spot. He is returning there after a furlough. I asked him if he was kept busy; but he tells me he has a tremendous round, and only stays there for three months in the year. 'A loathsome hole,' he terms it. There is not a single European woman in the station, and the few men are a motley crew with a great propensity for hard drinking. He looked me up and down this morning, and remarked as he walked away: 'The body and soul of a man goes to pieces there in a twelvemonth, and it's a race between them. I give you an extra six months, for you're extra fit.' This is a cheerful outlook."Do you think I'll fulfil his prediction? I am selfishly telling you this, for I don't want you to snap our chain of friendship. It is a slight one, I own, but if it is only a silken thread and you hold fast, I'll have grit and hope to pull along and fight my environment. It won't be severed at my end, I promise you. Tell me of your doings. Do you still instruct Chuckles on Sunday afternoons in the art of building? I should like to be instructed too. Give me a tip on the subject, if you will. We are all building something, are we not? And my buildings, as I told Chuckles before I left, have collapsed so disastrously that I am the more wary in the beginning of another."Well, what else can I tell you? The gossip of board ship will not interest you. Our outlook is sea and sky at present. The feeling of infinite space on all sides is a depressing one to me—I don't know why. Write to me soon. You promised to answer me; and I look and wait anxiously for the letter that is not yet begun."Yours most sincerely,"RANDOLPH NEVILLE."
Sidney read this in the privacy of her bedroom. She sat for a long while with it on her knee, for the personality of the writer possessed her; and then she wrote a reply:
"DEAR MR. NEVILLE,"Thank you for your letter. I have not forgotten you, and have often wondered how you are getting on. I shall not let my end of the chain slip, I assure you, for friends like yourself are few and far between. You seemed, when amongst us, to find a niche for yourself, and fit into it so comfortably that now the emptiness of that niche is ever before us. My father says no one here understands the political world as you do, and he misses your company."Well, I do congratulate you on your plot of building land; and the tougher the job, and the harder the ground, and the rougher the atmosphere, the more complete and astonishing and praiseworthy will be your success—for you will succeed, I do not doubt that. You have the elements of a superior force and conquering power within you, and a clean upright honest life will do much in degrading surroundings. Don't despise unseen strength from our unseen God. He is the Master Builder; we only work under Him. And in the dark places of the earth, where heathen teaching and devil worship preponderate, you cannot afford to fight single-handed against the principalities and powers of darkness. This is presumption on my part to offer you such advice, but I cannot help doing it."I have not been out in my boat since that disastrous day. It lives in my memory as an experience of contrasts. The utter misery with which I drifted on to the sandbank, the long waiting—learning lessons that I ought to have learnt before—and the steady downpour of rain, and then the sound of splashing oars and your cheerful shout. I could have hugged you from sheer gratitude, only naturally—I didn't! What a different world it was when I walked home by your side, feeling the blessing of a man's protection!"Now my boat has been tucked away in the boathouse for the winter. The sea mists have begun, the leaves are dropping off the trees, and the gulls fly across our lawn, loving its shelter. The wind and waves keep up a duet of bluster and roar. Father piles up the logs on his study fire and says to me: 'Now for a feast of our favourite authors. Bring your work, and we will share them together.' It never strikes a man that a woman does not want to be ceaselessly sewing. He considers that a woman's needlework is the equivalent of his pipe. And perhaps it is, for it always soothes me when I have my knitting in hand; but there are times when I enjoy absolute idleness. My pen is running on. I must close."This will find you at the end of your journey. Do give me some details of your life. I want to see a wild frontier setting, and you the central figure in it. I shall often try to picture you building for the Empire in your lonely station, making a clean sweep of all the evil you can lay your hands upon, and lifting up and encouraging those who have tumbled and who want to rise again."I still teach Chuckles. Last Sunday he wished me to tell him whether it mattered whether a dog was good or wicked. 'Because,' he insisted, 'nothing will ever make it go to Heaven, John Endcott says, so why should it be good? I should be as wicked as I could be if I knew I couldn't go to Heaven.' We had a long talk about the instinct of animals, but I felt helpless in discussing their future state, as I always have a sneaking feeling that I may meet my dead favourites again. What do you think? Now, this is really good-bye."Your very sincere friend,"SIDNEY URQUHART."