'I don't know; we shall see by-and-bye. I should try and make every one very happy now, if I were you, and learn all I could, so that when you are a man, and can help more people, you may have the power and the wisdom you want.'
'Only think if you were a great scholar,' put in Betty, 'and wrote a book—no, a lot of books, and people had them in their libraries, all bound the same, and with "By Godfrey Wyndham" on the back. Or,' as Godfrey looked only doubtfully pleased, 'if you were a great statesman and made speeches, or suppose you were a soldier and beat the French.'
'Would that be useful?' asked Godfrey of Angel.
'Yes, certainly, very useful if the French were coming to conquer England.'
'Pete is useful, isn't he?' said Godfrey; 'Penny says he's the usefullest man about the place. Perhaps I might be a useful gardener, Auntie Betty; I should like that, and I could plant lots of things then to come up for other people; or couldn't I be a useful miller like Ware? because people must have bread, and I should like a mill.'
'But why can't you be a statesman or a general?' said Betty, rather taken aback.
'I would rather be a gardener like Pete,' persisted Godfrey; 'why can't I? Gardeners are useful.'
'I think,' said Angel, 'because it isn't the state of life into which it has pleased God to call you, Godfrey dear, like the Catechism you were learning. We can't choose always just what we should like to be, we have to do our best just where we are put.'
'It's getting cold,' said Betty, springing up; 'shall we go down to the Place and see if the cow that was ill is any better? There's time before supper.' So the aunts and the nephew strolled down the road together, forgetting, for the present, the subject of Godfrey's future profession. And none of them guessed how much that Sunday afternoon call would do towards deciding it. When they reached the gate of Oakfield Place, Nancy came running to meet them, brimful of news as usual.
'Oh, please, Miss Angelica, oh, please, Miss Elizabeth,' she began—for though Godfrey wouldn't use his aunts' long names himself, Peter always strictly obeyed Betty's wishes and made Nancy do the same—'oh, please, Uncle Kiah's come. He came last night, and the Frenchmen have got his leg and two of his fingers, and the captain is going to get him some money from the King and he's to live here always; and he'd have been at church this morning only he isn't just right used to his new leg, and he was afraid he'd tumble down before all the folks in church and give the parson a start, so he thought he'd wait till next Sunday.'
'Do you mean your sailor uncle, Nancy?' asked Betty eagerly as Nancy paused for breath.
'Yes, miss, Uncle Hezekiah Parker; please come in, miss, he tells such rare stories, miss.'
'But, Nancy, perhaps your mother won't want us to-day, just now when your uncle's come home,' said Angel.
'Oh, yes, miss, she will, please Miss Angel—Miss Angelica—and so will Uncle Kiah too. He's here, miss,' and Nancy ushered her visitors to the back of the house, where the kitchen and store-room windows looked out. There was quite a Sunday air about the place; William Rogers and Pete, in their best clothes, were looking at the cows in the orchard, while Patty was gathering some cabbages to feed them. Martha was moving about in the kitchen and singing a quiet, sleepy psalm tune to herself, and on the sunny bench under the window sat a brisk-looking, white-haired old man with a wooden leg, beating time to the psalm tune with the stick in his hand. When he caught sight of the young ladies he jumped up directly and made quite a grand bow, though Angel almost caught hold of him, she was so afraid he would tumble over.
'How do you do, Hezekiah?' she said; 'we're so glad to see you. We've been so sorry to hear about your—about your—misfortunes.'
'None at all, missy, none at all worth speaking of,' said the old sailor cheerily, balancing himself with his stick; 'the Frenchies have got my old leg, and much good may it do 'em. The old neighbours have been in, making a deal o' fuss over me, but I tells 'em to keep their pity for them that wants it more, and I've one less leg for the rheumaticks to get hold of,' and the old sailor laughed at his own joke like a storm of wind in the rigging.
'And now you've come to settle down at Oakfield?' said Angelica.
'Ay, ay, miss, thanks to the captain, the best officer that ever trod quarter-deck, bless his heart. A hot time he'll be giving the "froggies," I'll warrant him, so he and the oldMermaidbe getting any work to do.'
'I'm afraid you'll find it rather dull here after where you've been,' said Betty.
'Not I, missy,' was the cheery answer; 'places is much as you makes 'em all the world over, and it's fair and right the old hulk should put into port and see the young craft putting out. I'll find enough to keep me from rusting, never you fear.'
'My nephew, Master Godfrey, likes stories better than anything,' said Angel, putting the little boy forward; 'will you tell him about some of the things you have seen, while I talk to Martha?'
Godfrey had been watching the sailor with earnest eyes all the time he talked, and now he came up readily and sat down on the bench beside him; Betty, who was devoted to animals, ran down to ask after the cows and coax them with cabbages, and Angelica went to Martha in the kitchen. A woman in the village was ill, and she wanted to consult Martha about what to take to her. It took a good time to talk it over, and when she came out again the twilight was deepening. Hezekiah still sat on the bench outside, and Betty was sitting by him, while Pete, Patty, Nancy, and their father stood silently listening. As for Godfrey he sat as if he had not moved since she left him, and his eyes never left the sailor's face, except to glance at what the old man was drawing on the ground with his stick, the line of the ships in a great sea-fight. Long afterwards Angel remembered it all, as one goes back to scenes which seemed of no importance at the time but were really the beginning of great events—the autumn evening, with the damp heavy scent on the air, the white mist clinging to the low ground, while above the sky cleared for a starry night, the late monthly roses on the house, the old sailor and his little group of listeners.
'Godfrey,' she said softly, 'it is time to go home.'
The little boy started and drew a long breath.
'Bless him, he ain't here,' chuckled old Kiah; 'he's off the Spanish coast, missy, along o' Lord Nelson and our captain. You come again, young master, and I'll tell you the rest.' And then he would hobble himself to the gate to let them out. 'Never tell me,' he said, as Pete hurried to do it instead and Patty to give him her arm, 'I'm not quite useless yet, no more I am; I told the captain he'd find me doing a hand's turn when he came home. I've got one leg and a hand and a half the Frenchies left me, and I'll make something of them if I'm not much mistaken.'
All the way home Betty talked eagerly about the old sailor, where he had been, what he had seen, the great men he had known. Godfrey said not a word and asked no questions, and yet Angel was sure he thought of nothing else all the evening. But he told none of his thoughts until just before he was going to say his prayers. Then he said suddenly:
'Aunt Angel, that man is a very useful man; he must have been the usefullest man that could be when his leg was on.'
Then, leaning on her lap as he did when he was excited, he went on:
'When you want something, you ask God for it, don't you, Aunt Angel?'
'We ask that we may have it if God pleases,' said Angel reverently.
'Yes,' said Godfrey, 'and I am going to ask, if it pleases Him, to call me into the state of being a useful sailor.'
Chapter IV tailpiece
Chapter IV tailpiece
Chapter V headpiece
Chapter V headpiece
'You won't say, what is it I want? but, what is it I've got to do? What have I got to do or to bear, and how can I do it or bear it best? That's the only safe point to make for, my lad; make for it and leave the rest.'—J. H. EWING.
dropcap-f
or the next few days Betty and her nephew spent most of their spare time on Hezekiah's bench under the kitchen window at the Place. Betty talked of nothing but naval battles, but Godfrey still said very little, and after that Sunday night never spoke again of being a sailor. Angel wondered, for it was not like Godfrey, who generally had plenty to say; but she noticed sometimes, when Betty was telling Kiah Parker's stories, that Godfrey's face took that strange resolute set that surprised her so much when he first came. It gave her new ideas about her little nephew, and showed her that, under all his liveliness and fancy, there was a strong will which it would be very hard to alter if once he made up his mind. It frightened her a little, for she did not feel half wise enough to lead him to make up his mind the right way. She did not talk to Betty about it; indeed at present Betty's head seemed too full of ships to hold anything else. Hezekiah had made Godfrey a beautiful little model vessel, carpentering quite wonderfully with his remaining fingers, and had taught him the names of the ropes, which the boy learnt directly. That was all very well, but when it came to his saying them over to Betty when he ought to have been doing his reading lesson, and drawing little ships on the slate when he should have been at his sums, Angel began to be rather alarmed, and ventured to speak gently to her sister about Godfrey's neglecting his lessons. Betty was always ready enough to own herself in the wrong; she was overwhelmed with penitence before Angel had half finished her gentle remonstrance.
'I declare I want looking after twenty times more than Godfrey does,' she exclaimed, with the quick tears in her bright eyes. 'I won't go near Kiah for a week, and no more shall he.'
'Oh no, you mustn't do that!' exclaimed Angelica, in dismay; 'that wouldn't be fair to poor Kiah or Godfrey either. I like you to go there. I think it is a good thing; only I don't think it ought to interfere with other things that have to be done.'
Betty stopped her as usual with a vehement hug.
'You are, next to Martha, the wisest person in the world, Angel. It's Godfrey's history lesson this morning, and I'll take care we both do it properly.'
But Betty had to find out that it is easier to make resolutions for ourselves than to impress them upon other people. Godfrey was by no means inclined for his history lesson that morning. Betty had taken a great deal of trouble to understand about the Norman Conquest herself, and to make it easy for Godfrey, but he would not take any interest to-day in the oppression of the poor Saxons, or the curfew bell, or Domesday Book.
'I want to go back to them coming over,' he persisted. 'What was his flag-ship like—the admiral's I mean?'
'If you mean William the Conqueror's I don't know, and he wasn't an admiral, he was a general. Godfrey, don't look out of the window—what are you thinking about?'
'I'm thinking that if the Channel Fleet had watched the harbours properly those French ships wouldn't ever have got out of port.'
'Godfrey, you must attend to what I am telling you. Now then, what was the curfew?'
'A bird with a long beak that squeals; Kiah says——'
Betty rose up majestically.
'Godfrey, if you think it is funny to pretend that you think I said curlew you are very much mistaken. I have a very great many things to do, more things than a little boy like you can count, and I can't spend all the morning with you. So I am going to write on this slate: "The curfew bell was rung at eight o'clock every night as a sign that people were to put their lights out and go to bed," and you are to go on copying it and copying it till the slate is quite full.'
Godfrey said not a word, only watched while Betty wrote the words in a bold round hand, and ruled double lines with a decided sweep of her slate pencil, and then walked out of the room with her most 'maiden aunt' expression. But when she was gone I am sorry to say that he got on a chair, reached down his wooden ship from its high shelf, climbed out of the window into the garden, and went out through a gate in the fence and across the fields. He was not back when Betty and Angel came in together, to find the blank slate and Godfrey's high chair pushed up to the table, but no one in the room. They called his name about the garden and paddock, and just as Betty was beginning to get into a panic and to declare it was all her fault, he appeared, coming back slowly across the field towards the wicket gate. The two aunts met him, Angel looking grieved and Betty indignant.
'Godfrey, this is very naughty,' began Angel, gravely.
'I don't see that you can have any heart at all,' said Betty, 'because it's quite plain you want to break both ours. Perhaps when we are both in our graves, with stones over us like Miss Jane's—only we couldn't afford near such large ones—you'll feel something pricking you.'
'I know I shall,' said her nephew promptly, 'because then Penny would pin my collar, and she always sticks the point of the pin inside.'
'Godfrey,' said Angel gravely, 'this isn't a thing to laugh at. Where have you been?'
'To Farmer White's pond to have a naval battle,' said Godfrey frankly.
'You must never go to that pond alone; it is deep in the middle and very dangerous, and you have disobeyed Aunt Betty. Next time you do it, I—I shall be obliged to whip you.'
Angel's voice faltered, and she turned a little pale as she spoke. In those days most little boys were whipped for disobedience, and Angel had always had a dreadful feeling that she might have to do it some day. There was no one else whose business it was to punish Godfrey, and so she knew that the duty would have to be done by herself, and the very thought made her feel quite cold and shaky.
Godfrey looked straight into her eyes.
'Yes, Aunt Angel,' he said. Then he suddenly took hold of her hand and stroked it.
'I didn't want to crack your heart, and Aunt Betty's,' he said. 'Please don't get thin; I'm sorry I had the battle. I'll go home now, and write all about the cover-up-candle-bell.'
For the next few days there was no fault to find with the way Godfrey's lessons were learnt, and he watched for every chance of pleasing Angelica, as if he were really afraid of her heart cracking, as Betty had suggested it might. The weather was cold and frosty now, and the two young aunts were much disturbed at the idea of Godfrey's first winter in a northern climate. Angel consulted with Penny and Martha, and stitched away diligently to provide the necessary warm clothes, and he certainly looked much stronger already than when he had first come to Oakfield.
There came a day, a bright, frosty day in December, when both the young ladies were in the kitchen helping Penelope with the mince-meat for Christmas pics, and Godfrey had his sum to do in the parlour by himself. Outside the sun was shining. There had been a little sprinkling of snow the day before and a sharp frost at night, and all the garden was white and sparkling like the ice on a sugared cake, while the bare trees shone like fairy land. Godfrey's eyes would not keep on the grey figures and the black slate. It was his first English winter, you see, and it seemed to him like Aunt Betty's stories of enchantment. And besides, only last night, when they sat together in the window seat and watched the stars coming out keen and clear above the white world, she had told him about Arctic discoverers, and how they sailed away over the grey northern seas till the ice barred their way, and how the bones of many brave men had been left behind in that dread, frozen world. Thinking of those great deeds always made Godfrey's cheeks glow and his heart beat quick, and now he laid down his slate and went and leaned with both elbows on the window ledge and looked out. And looking at what we want and oughtn't to have is a first step which takes us a long way, and the end of it was that Godfrey did as I fear many of us have done before him—left what he ought to do for what he wanted to do; that is to say, he went into the hall, took down his hat and coat, and went out into the frosty garden. He opened the wicket gate into the field, and the first person he saw there was Nancy Rogers, looking like a Christmas card with her red cloak and hood and a basket on her arm, as she came up the steep, snowy path which led across the field to the village.
Godfrey and Nancy were great friends, and she came running directly he called to her.
'Would you like to come for a cruise with me and theVictory, Nancy?' he asked.
Nancy knew as well as Godfrey that she had no business to go. Her mother and Patty had their Christmas preparations to make as well, and wanted the eggs she had been to fetch. But, like Godfrey, she put 'want' before 'ought' that afternoon.
'Mother always likes me to do what the young ladies and Master Godfrey want,' she said to herself, and so she turned her face away from home with Godfrey and theVictory.
'Please, where is the cruise, Master Godfrey?' she asked, as she trotted along on the frozen snow.
'We are going to sail theVictoryon Farmer White's pond,' said Godfrey, 'and to watch those white ducks' harbours, for they've got ships building there I know.'
'Oh but, Master Godfrey, please we can't,' exclaimed Nancy; 'the pond's frozen and the ship won't float.'
'Frozen!' exclaimed Godfrey; 'do you mean to say all that water's ice like these puddles?'
Nancy nodded.
'I see it as I come along,' she said. 'Pete says two more nights' frost and we'll be going sliding.'
Godfrey had never been sliding, his thoughts were of Arctic discoverers.
'Very well, Nancy,' he said, 'if we can't watch the harbours we'll find the North-west Passage.'
'Yes, Master Godfrey,' said Nancy readily, and without the least idea what he meant.
'Do you know about the Arctic Circle?' asked Godfrey.
Nancy shook her head doubtfully; at the Oakfield Dame School there was not much taught beyond the 'three R's.'
'Please, is it quite round?' she asked respectfully.
'I don't know about round,' said Godfrey, who didn't quite understand the words himself, 'but I think it is a kind of fairy place. The sea is all ice, they have frost and snow there always.'
'Dear now, how bad for the early potatoes!' remarked Nancy, 'and as for sowing beans, why you might as well leave it alone. I suppose they just keep the cows on turnips year in, year out, poor things!'
'Cows!' said Godfrey scornfully; 'of course there aren't any cows, only Polar bears prowling on the ice. And there are icebergs, great mountains of ice all blue, and they come crashing together and grinding up the ships, like a great giant's teeth, Aunt Betty says. And it's always dark, dark all day for months together.'
'Oh dear!' said Nancy, much awe-struck, 'I shouldn't like to be one of the people that lives there, Master Godfrey.'
'Nobody does live there but the Polar bears, and there's a sort of red light comes in the sky that they can see to prowl by, I suppose, and the stars, I should think they're brighter than even they were last night; weren't they bright last night, Nancy, just about supper time?'
Nancy couldn't say she had noticed; there had been sausages for supper, father had killed a pig.
'But if nobody lives there how do they know about it?' she asked.
'Because brave men have gone there to see,' said Godfrey, with the eager light coming into his eyes. 'Aunt Betty says that country is full of the graves of brave men who have gone up there and died away in the dark and the cold.'
'Poor things!' sighed Nancy. 'I daresay now their friends will have put up nice handsome stones over their graves, won't they?'
'No, there aren't any stones,' said Godfrey; 'Aunt Betty says their deeds are their monuments.'
Nancy looked as if she thought such monuments rather unsatisfactory.
'Father put up a nice stone with a vase a-top of it to his great-uncle,' she remarked, 'and the captain's grandfather he's got two angels crying and a skull at the bottom; it's a nice handsome grave, that is.'
They had reached the pond by this time, a piece of dark water over-hung by willows and covered with black ice, which had been broken at one end for the cattle to drink. Godfrey began at once to invent.
'We'll put theVictoryhere,' he said, launching his boat into the dark hole; 'this is the last piece of open water, Nance, and from here we must just take to the ice, you and I, and leave the crew to take care of the ship till we get back. Take your rifle, I see there are Polar bears prowling over there among the icebergs.'
'Where?' asked Nancy, rather alarmed.
'Why there, things with turned-up tails and what you'd p'r'aps take for yellow bills when first you saw them. I should like their fur for Aunt Angel. Now we are going to start to find the North-west Passage. Beyond that place where the Polar bears are no one has ever been, and no one knows what is there.'
'Oh yes, please, Master Godfrey, I do,' exclaimed Nancy, ready as usual with information; 'the pig-sty.'
'Nobody knows that comes with me on theVictory', persisted Godfrey firmly, 'or if they do they've got to think they don't know as soon as possible. Now, say good-bye to the crew and come along.'
Nancy did not find it so easy as Godfrey seemed to do to imagine the empty decks of the littleVictoryfully manned, so her good-byes did not take long. But when she found that her captain's intention was to cross the pond on the ice, she hung back.
'It won't bear, Master Godfrey; Pete said it wasn't going to bear to-day.'
'What's bear?' asked Godfrey, with a foot on the ice.
'You can't walk on it, it'll break,' urged Nancy.
'What'll happen if it does?' asked Godfrey, with interest. That dark smooth surface, the first ice he had ever trodden on, had a strange attraction for him.
'You'll be drowned,' said Nancy solemnly; 'Pete knew a man whose brother was drowned through the ice. He'd had a drop too much beer and he got off the path.'
'There isn't any path here and I don't drink beer,' said Godfrey loftily. 'Are you coming?'
'Oh, if you please, Master Godfrey, I think I'd sooner stop with the crew!' faltered Nancy.
'Very well,' said Godfrey calmly; 'if I leave my bones in the Arctic Circle, go home in theVictoryand take the news to my countrymen in England.'
'Oh, Master Godfrey, do come back!' screamed Nancy, for the ice was really swaying; 'it won't be only your bones, it will be all of you if it breaks.'
'I can't hear you,' said Godfrey, with his back to her; 'you and the crew are miles away, I'm beyond where the foot of anything ever trod except Polar bears. Why, what's that?' and he doubled up his hand and looked through it for a telescope.
'It's the tub they used to use for the pig-wash,' exclaimed Nancy; 'it's frozen into the ice. Oh, Master Godfrey, do come back!'
'Some other discoverer has been here before me,' said Godfrey gravely, without noticing her. 'I see the hulk of a vessel locked in the ice, and unless I am mistaken she flies English colours. I must board her and see whether——'
A shriek from Nancy and a dreadful rumbling crack cut short his speech, and the next moment Godfrey knew what was meant by ice not bearing. The smooth surface gave way under him, the cold water was round his feet, and in an instant he would have been underneath it altogether but for the tub, to which he clung with all his might. There was a dreadful moment while Nancy screamed at the top of her voice and Godfrey's knees and feet battered the tub in the cold black water, then with the triumphant exclamation, 'I've boarded her,' he tumbled over into it.
Luckily the tub, though old, was fairly water-tight, and bobbed up and down with Godfrey inside it in the big hole which he had made, and though a wide space of cracked ice and dark water lay between him and the shore, he seemed to be safe for the present. As for Nancy, she did the wisest thing she could and rushed down the lane calling for help. She did not have to run far. Almost directly she heard steps on the frosty road, quickened at the sound of her screams, and a gentleman came round the bend of the lane, sending his voice before him as he shouted: 'What's the matter?'
His own eyes told him quicker than Nancy's breathless explanation.
'All right,' he exclaimed, 'he's safe while he keeps still. Don't cry, little woman, and I'll tow him ashore.'
The next minute he had dragged a rail from a broken fence close by and held it out to Godfrey.
'Hold tight,' he said; 'stand in the middle so that you balance your craft. Now then, a long pull and a strong pull,' and in another minute he had dragged the tub through the drifting ice to the bank and was lifting Godfrey out.
'There, young man,' he said as he set him on his feet, 'lucky for you you're safe ashore, for this pond's deep enough to cover half-a-dozen giants of your height. How came you cruising among the ice in a leaky craft, I should like to know?'
'I boarded her because the ice broke,' said Godfrey frankly; 'I didn't know it was going to break.'
'No, I don't suppose you did. Lucky for you that you had her to board, young gentleman. Now then, right about face, and put your best foot foremost, and home as fast as you can before you get cold. Where do you live?'
'At Oakfield,' said Godfrey, picking up theVictory.
'At Oakfield, do you? Then we shall have the pleasure of each other's company, for I am going that way. Let's see how fast you can walk.'
Godfrey and Nancy trotted beside him as he strode along the frosty road.
'Now what put it into your head to come and look for frozen-up craft in the pond here?' he asked.
'I didn't,' said Godfrey. 'I came to watch the French ports, and then I found it had turned into the Arctic Circle, so I went after the North-west Passage instead. I wanted to be like one of those brave men.'
'Did you, though? And what particular heroes do you want to imitate?'
'I want to be a brave sailor,' said Godfrey promptly, 'like Lord Nelson, and Admiral Collingwood, and most of all Kiah Parker's Captain Maitland.'
'And why "most of all"? I hope you'll be a braver man and a finer fellow than that, young man.'
Godfrey's head only reached about as high as the gentleman's elbow, but he looked at him with as much scorn as if he had been a head taller.
'You don't understand a bit about it,' he said; 'nobody could be a finer fellow than the captain if he tried all his life long. P'r'aps you don't know about him carrying the little cabin-boy below with the French bullets flying all round; you'd better get Kiah to tell you, and then you'll be sorry you've been so stupid.'
'Oh well, we won't quarrel about such an unimportant person. What house in Oakfield do you live in?'
'At Oakfield Cottage,' said Godfrey, still a little distrustful of a man who called Captain Maitland an unimportant person.
'Oh, I remember going to Oakfield Cottage when I was a little boy. And whom do you live with?'
'With my two maiden aunts,' said Godfrey.
'They're so good!' put in Nancy, who liked to have her word in the conversation.
'I've no doubt they are. Now I haven't got any aunts at all that I know of, married or single. We'd better not tell these good ladies how nearly their nephew was at the bottom of the pond or we shall frighten them out of their wits, I'm afraid.'
'Oh, but I must,' said Godfrey, gravely, 'because they told me not to come, and I did, and Aunt Angel's going to whip me.'
'Ah, well, of course we must tell the truth then, and perhaps if I beg for you I might get her to let you off the whipping.'
Godfrey shook his head.
'Aunt Angel always does what she says,' he remarked.
'Well, she's quite right there,' said his new friend, though to himself he thought,
'Poor little chap, he's small for flogging. I wonder if the old lady's hand is heavy.'
Then he asked aloud,
'What made you come Arctic exploring if you knew the whipping was to follow?'
'I didn't like my sum,' confessed Godfrey, 'and I did want to be like those brave men.'
'Ah,' said the stranger thoughtfully, 'do you know, little chap, you've begun at the wrong end? What do you think makes a brave man?'
'Killing lots of Frenchmen,' said Godfrey promptly.
'Not a bit of it. Now, little maid, what do you say?'
'I think, please sir, that brave men don't mind when Frenchmen kill them, and shoot their legs and their fingers off like Uncle Kiah's.'
'That's nearer the mark, but that's not all. The bravest men are the ones that do what they don't like because it's right, and leave what they do like because it's wrong.'
Godfrey's grave eyes looked up at the gentleman's face as they were used to looking at his Aunt Angel. After a minute he said, slowly,
'Should I have been more like the captain if I'd stayed and done the sum instead of going to be an Arctic discoverer?'
'You'd have been more like a hero, my lad, and you will be another time, I know. This is the way to Oakfield Cottage, isn't it? Do you live there too, little lass?'
'Oh no, sir,' said Nancy; 'we live at the Place, sir, and take care of it for the captain.'
'Do you, though! And is it hard work?'
Nancy looked as important as if the welfare of the whole house depended on her efforts.
'Of course one can't help thinking a deal about what he'll say when he comes home,' she said. 'Patty says he'll as like as not be very particular in his ways. Sailors get to be that neat, she says. She always says it if I racket about or if I spill anything or break things.'
'Well, I wouldn't frighten myself before he comes, if I were you,' said the stranger good-naturedly. 'I shouldn't be surprised if he's not so very alarming. These people who look so big from a distance are often small enough when you get them close. Ah, there's the Cottage, I remember it, and somebody coming to the gate to look for you. These are your sisters, I suppose; you didn't tell me you had any sisters.'
'No,' said Godfrey, 'these are my aunts.'
Then he ran straight forward and had hold of Angelica's dress in a moment, looking up straight into her face.
'Aunt Angel,' he began, when Betty stopped him by a scream.
'Godfrey, you're wet! Wherever have you been?'
'I've been in the pond,' said Godfrey's clear voice; 'I mean my legs have. Before that I was on the ice, but it broke, and then there was only water for me to be on. If there hadn't been a tub I should have been at the bottom. Aunt Angel, Aunt Angel dear, don't look like that; your cheeks are quite white—oh, is your heart cracking? I've come for you to whip me; please whip me quick. I wanted to be brave, and I've begun at the wrong end.'
'Oh, Godfrey, how could you, how could you?' faltered Betty.
'It wasn't at all difficult, Aunt Betty,' said Godfrey earnestly; 'p'r'aps that was why it wasn't brave.'
'I beg your pardon,' said the stranger, who had been standing by unnoticed, 'but, if I might suggest, I would get this young gentleman's wet things off, and I'm sure he'll be none the worse, and will be wiser another time.'
Angel pulled herself together and made a grave curtsey.
'Thank you, sir, for your kindness in bringing our nephew home. He shall come indoors and get dry at once. Godfrey, come with me,' and she curtsied again and led Godfrey into the house. Betty was following when Nancy rushed up to her and whispered eagerly:
'Please Miss Bet—Miss Elizabeth, the gentleman got Master Godfrey safe out of the tub. I don't know what we should ha' done if it hadn't ha' been for him.'
'I'll run and thank him again,' said Betty impulsively; 'what's his name, Nance?'
'I don't know, miss; I never saw him before.'
think p'r'aps I ought to ask him in,' said Betty,and she followed the stranger down the lane. He turned at the sound of her steps and took off his hat.
'I'm afraid you think us very rude, sir,' she said, with a pretty blush, 'but we were—we were thinking very much about our nephew, you see; he has no one but us to think for him. We are very much obliged indeed to you, my sister and I. Will you—will you come in and have a glass of elder wine, if you have far to go in the cold?'
'Thank you very much,' said the stranger heartily. 'I shall hope to avail myself of your kind hospitality another day, for I am staying a short time in Oakfield, and shall hope to see more of your nephew, who seems to me a very fine little fellow. I must ask my friend here to show me the shortest cut to Oakfield Place,' and he looked at the astonished Nancy with a sly smile. 'My name is Maitland, Captain Maitland of theMermaid. Come along, little woman, and make a clean breast of the Arctic expedition,' and he took off his hat again, gave his hand to Nancy, who could do nothing but stare at him with her mouth and eyes wide open, and went off down the road. It must be confessed that Betty, though she was thirteen years old and an aunt, stared very hard after him too, and stood by the garden gate in the darkening winter afternoon looking with all her eyes down the lane, as if one of the heroes of her history books had suddenly come to life. Then she turned round and rushed back to the house and half-way up the stairs, burning to tell her news. But there she stopped short suddenly, and after a minute sat down on the stairs and dropped her chin in her hands. There she sat without moving until the door of Godfrey's room opened and Angelica came out. The two sisters sprang to meet each other.
'Oh, Angel!' burst out Betty.
'Oh, Betty, I've done it!' and Angel sank down on the stairs, and hid her face on her sister's shoulder.
'Have you whipped him?' asked Betty.
'Yes, I said I would, and I had to; you know what Martha said—he must be able to depend on what we said. I whipped him and put him to bed.'
'Poor Angel, poor dear, how your hands are shaking. You couldn't have hit him very hard.'
'I don't know; it seemed to me as if I did, and he is so little.'
'Did he cry?' asked Betty.
'Oh no, but he's so brave he wouldn't, not even if I really hurt him dreadfully.'
The idea of slender, gentle Angelica doing bodily violence to any one would have been amusing if the sisters had not been too serious to see it.
'Penny met us on the stairs,' Angel went on, 'and she wanted to pet him, and I wouldn't let her. I think she thought me very cruel, and if she knew I'd whipped him——'
'Well, we ar'n't bringing up Godfrey to please Penny,' said Betty decidedly, 'and really and truly, Angel dear, I expect you hurt yourself more than you did him. Come down into the parlour, your fingers are as cold as ice. I've got something to tell you, too.'
She put her arm round her sister's waist, and drew her downstairs, telling the remarkable news about the strange gentleman as they went. Angel could not but be interested.
'Captain Maitland,' she said, 'was it really? Do you know I hardly saw him, I only had a sort of idea that there was a gentleman there. I hope I was not very rude. I ought to have said something more to him.'
'But I did, Angel, so it doesn't matter. I offered him elder wine—that was all right, wasn't it? But I was so glad when he said no, for you know that little last piece of cake is getting stale, and we don't bake till to-morrow, and Penny might have been cross about getting the wine hot with all the mince-meat about.'
'Perhaps it was as well,' said Angelica rather abstractedly. 'How odd it should have been Captain Maitland, Godfrey's hero, that brought him home! Did Godfrey know who he was?'
'I don't think so; I'm sure Nancy didn't. I'm not sure whether he's quite like what I expected, Angel.'
Angel scarcely answered, there was not much room for any one except Godfrey in her thoughts at that moment. Penelope came in presently with a log for the fire, and an air of severe disapproval about her, and asked stiffly whether the poor dear young gentleman upstairs were to have any supper or not. Angel ordered bread-and-milk very quietly, but in such a way that Penny went out of the room with no more than a half-suppressed snort.
'She hates me,' sighed Angel sorrowfully; 'I wonder if Godfrey does.'
'He isn't such a stupid,' said Betty stoutly; and they sat together silent in the twilight, missing the little figure that always squeezed up between them during that idle half-hour—''twixt the gloaming and the mirk.' At last Angel stood up and said, almost appealingly:
'Betty, don't you think I might go to him now?'
'Angel dear, I've been biting my tongue for ever so long to keep from saying it. I'm quite sure you might.'
Angel waited for no more. She was upstairs directly and pausing at Godfrey's door. How would he meet her? Would he be sulky? Would he refuse to speak to her? She hesitated with her fingers on the handle. Then she heard Godfrey's voice inside. He seemed to be saying his lessons.
'England is an island; an island is a piece of land, and I'm not going to say what it is surrounded by, but I know. France is a country, and the capital of it is Paris, and I'm not going to say what there is between France and England, nor what there are sailing about there, but I know.'
'Godfrey,' said Angelica softly in the doorway.
'Aunt Angel!' and a pair of arms were stretched out in the dusk, and Angel's head drawn down until her face was close to Godfrey's own.
'Aunt Angel, Aunt Angel dear, I can't see you in the dark, but I'm feeling your cheeks to see if they are thin. Do you feel at all as if your heart was cracking? Promise me you and Aunt Betty won't be like that Aunt Jane.'
'We shall both be very happy, Godfrey, if you are sorry for being naughty, not only for vexing us,' said Angel with a deep breath of relief.
'I am,' said Godfrey eagerly; 'I won't again. I've begun directly beginning at the right end. Did you hear me beginning at the right end, Aunt Angel?'
'The right end of what, dear?'
'Of being a brave man. That gentleman said it was doing what you didn't like because it was right, and leaving the nice things because they were wrong. So I'm saying my geography, and leaving out all the parts about ships. Do you think he knows, Aunt Angel? I think he is a good man, only rather stupid.'
'What makes you think he's stupid, Godfrey?'
'Because he didn't seem to think that Kiah's captain was a very, very great man. But I daresay he was only ignorant, and Aunt Betty says we should never be hard on ignorance.'
Angel smiled in the dark.
'I can tell you why he said that, Godfrey,' she said. 'Do you know, that gentleman is Captain Maitland himself?'
Godfrey sat upright, and Angel could feel rather than see his wide eyes fixed upon her.
'Him! That man that got me out of the tub! he whispered, in an almost awe-struck voice; 'is that Kiah's captain? And I never knew.'
'You'll see him again,' Angel said, tucking him up fondly; 'he is coming to see us, he told Aunt Betty so.'
Godfrey was silent for fully a minute. Then he said, doubtfully:
'But why did he say that? Because he must know how brave he is.'
'I don't think that really brave, good people ever think much of themselves,' said Angel thoughtfully.
'Why don't they?'
'I think,' said Angelica, turning over the thought in her slow deliberate way, 'I think, Godfrey, it is because they expect more of themselves. It is like going up a mountain, the higher you get the further you see, and you see heights above you and don't feel as if you had got very far. When people begin to be a little brave and good they see better what real courage and goodness mean, and they aren't satisfied with themselves.'
Godfrey had drawn her face down on to the pillow beside him.
'I suppose he knows a great deal about being brave,' he said. 'Do you think he does what he doesn't like when it's right?'
'Yes, Godfrey dear, I expect he does.'
'So do you, don't you? I know you didn't like whipping me; I know what your face is like when things hurt you. Dear little Aunt Angel, you sha'n't make that face any more for me; you're beginning at the right end of being brave, I suppose. I didn't know before you could be brave, but I thought it was all killing Frenchmen. Tell me something: do women have to do that, what you said about leaving the world better?'
'Oh yes, Godfrey,' whispered Angel. It was easy to talk, she felt, here in the dusk, with the soft cheek pressed against hers. 'Even if they can't do any great work themselves, perhaps they can help those who do.'
'Like you and Aunt Betty and me. I'm your little oak-tree, like godpapa Godfrey's, and you planted me and you look after me. And you'd like me to come up brave and be a great captain and win a battle one day. Would you mind if the Frenchies shot my leg off, like Kiah's?'
'I should have to try to be proud, Godfrey; it would be very hard.'
'Then you'd be brave again, wouldn't you—braver than me, because I don't know that I should mind if I was as nice as Kiah? And p'r'aps the King would want me to have a medal, and I should say, "No, please, not for me, your Majesty"; and he'd say, "Who for, then?" and I should say, "For my maiden aunts."'