Chapter V tailpiece
Chapter V tailpiece
Chapter VI headpiece
Chapter VI headpiece
'Round the world and home again,That's the sailor's way.'—WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
dropcap-c
aptain Maitland did call at the cottage, as he had said, the very day after Godfrey's adventure. Angel and Betty felt a little alarmed, for they never had any visitors except the vicar of the parish of which Oakfield was an outlying hamlet. They sat up rather straight on the company chairs in the parlour, and Penelope, who had kept the visitor waiting at the door while she put on her best cap, brought in a bottle of gooseberry wine and a plate of sweet biscuits, for the cake which Angel had hoped would be ready against the time when the captain called was still in the oven. Perhaps it was the disappointment about the cake that upset Penny's ideas, for she never looked where she was going as she came in with the tray, and the consequence was that she stumbled over the round footstool with two wool-work doves sitting in a wreath of roses. It was a dreadful moment, while Penny came staggering forward with the gooseberry wine slipping off the tray, until she went full tilt into the arms of the captain, who had sprung to his feet, and managed very adroitly to catch the tray in one hand and hold up Penny with the other, while the sweet biscuits hailed upon him like bullets. Poor Penny turned and ran, with her cap over one ear, too much abashed even to see what damage was done, and Betty felt that if only the floor would open under her it would be a comfort. Only for half a moment. Then the captain turned round and said, with a most comical expression:
'I can't drink this whole bottle by myself. May I pour you out a glass?'
Betty could do nothing but burst out laughing, and Angel, in spite of her dismay, joined in, and as to Captain Maitland, he laughed out more heartily than any of them, and from that moment there was no more stiffness between them. The captain, though he seemed quite old to Godfrey, and indeed to his aunts too, was not thirty, for he had attained his promotion rapidly for courage and coolness in an encounter off the French coast. He had the frank cheery manners of a sailor too, so that it was not difficult to feel at home with him; besides, as Betty said afterwards, where was the use of pretending they didn't remember that he had had Penny in his arms, and that he had been on his knees under the table picking up the sweet biscuits?
He would be at home for about a fortnight, he said; he had not been to Oakfield for nearly seven years, not since his mother's death; and Angel thought the bright sunburnt face looked a little wistful, and felt sorry for him having no one to welcome him. But he smiled again directly as he said how glad he was to find the place so little changed; and then he asked if he might see the garden, he remembered being brought there when he was a very little boy; did the clove pinks still grow in the border under the yew hedge? So they all went out together, and the captain had forgotten nothing and greeted Miss Jane as an old friend; there had been a ship in the squadron off the Spanish coast, he said, whose figurehead always reminded him of her. And he remembered the view from the paddock, and missed the big elm that had been blown down two winters ago, and said what a good thing it was the storm had spared Sir Godfrey's tree; it would be a misfortune indeed if anything happened to that, but it seemed all right at present, as stout a heart of oak as the Admiral's flag-ship. And he heard that Cousin Crayshaw was coming down for Christmas, and said he remembered him and should do himself the honour of calling upon him. And then they all walked with him to the end of the lane.
'Do you know,' Betty said as they turned, back, 'I keep on forgetting that he is Kiah's captain, and yet I like to think he is.'
Angel and Godfrey felt much the same. It did seem so impossible that this cheery, simple man, who had laughed over the gooseberry wine, and been so interested in the garden, could be the hero who would perhaps be in the history books of the future. Why, they had been talking the whole time, telling him about the great gale which had blown the elm down, when he knew what a storm at sea was like, with waves mountains high, and mighty ships and brave men swallowed up among them, and he had asked about the bees and the best way of layering pinks as if he really cared to know. Could he have room in his thoughts for such simple things when strife and danger and bloodshed and the life-and-death struggle of nations were familiar to him?
As Betty said, they found it hard to believe, and yet it was very nice to think of, and seemed to mean that being a hero need not take one quite away from everything that other people loved and cared about, just as the good Admiral Collingwood noted on the eve of a great sea-fight that it was his little Sarah's birthday, and remarked while the French were pouring their broadside into his ship that his wife would be just going to church. And gentle Angel said to herself that perhaps after all, when Godfrey was a great man, he might be her Godfrey still if he could manage to copy Captain Maitland. And, meanwhile, she felt very glad and thankful on her boy's account for the captain's coming; for here at last, she said to herself, was what she had wanted so long, some one whom he could look up to and admire and try to copy. What a happy thing it was that he should have learnt from his first hero that lesson that the beginning of victory is the conquest of self.
Cousin Crayshaw was to arrive two days before Christmas, and Godfrey and his aunts had been busy decorating the cottage with holly for the occasion. Cousin Crayshaw was not a particularly interesting visitor certainly, but Betty, from the top of the stepladder, told Godfrey, with all the more emphasis because she didn't quite feel it herself, that they ought to be very thankful they had somebody to welcome.
Martha said that welcoming kept people's hearts warm. The two aunts and the nephew all had their own delightful Christmas secrets, and there was much whispering and great excitement and solemn taking of pennies out of Godfrey's money-box when Pete went to the county town with some hay. It was a very serious matter, for of course he could not consult the aunts, and he felt very important when he ran down to meet Pete, and waited at the end of the lane, jingling the pennies and listening to the sound of approaching cart-wheels. Peter saw the little figure waiting, and jumped down at once.
'Anything I can do in town for you, Master Godfrey?' he asked.
'Yes,' said Godfrey, very seriously, 'I am going to give you some money to spend, Pete, to spend on presents. I want two very beautiful presents for two ladies, and a little one that would suit an old nurse.'
'Certainly, sir,' said Pete gravely.
Godfrey jingled his pennies thoughtfully.
'There's a good deal of money,' he remarked. 'Perhaps there might be some over.'
'Very true, sir,' said Pete with much seriousness. Godfrey considered again. Then that happy Christmas feeling which makes our hearts widen to all the world got the best of it:
'If there should be any over, Pete,' he said, 'I should like you to choose another present.'
'I shall be proud to do my best, sir. Would the present be for a lady or a gentleman, sir?'
'For a gentleman, Pete. A gentleman not very young and not at all handsome, that doesn't care much about nice things or pretty things, so it mustn't be an ornament; and that only reads the paper, so it mustn't be a story-book; and that doesn't like any games, so it mustn't be anything to play with. Do you think you could do that, Pete?'
'I'd try, Master Godfrey. It 'd be a useful thing, now, the gentleman would fancy?'
'Yes, certainly useful,' said Godfrey decidedly; 'and rather cheerful too, if you could manage it, for Cousin Cray—I mean the gentleman—isn't a very cheerful gentleman, and I thought perhaps a present might make him a little more cheerful for Christmas.'
'And I'm to spend all this money, Master Godfrey?'
'Yes, all,' said Godfrey generously, pouring his pennies into Pete's hand; 'you're not to bring back one.'
'I do like giving presents,' he went on, as Pete counted the money and put it in his big leathern purse. 'If I had a lot more money I know what I'd do. I'd tell you to choose a present for a gentleman that is one of the very bravest, best people in the world, a gentleman that likes ships and fighting and gardens and flowers, and is always kind to every one except people he ought to kill; but I should think it would take nearly a hundred pounds to buy a present that would be good enough for him. Good-bye, Pete; I shall try and run round to the Place before lessons to-morrow to see what you've got.'
But Godfrey had not to wait till next morning, for just before his bed-time Penny came to the parlour door to say that Peter was in the kitchen and asking for the young master.
'It's business,' said Godfrey with an air of great importance—Betty always called any talk 'business' that Godfrey was not meant to hear. 'Please, Aunt Angel, let Penny stop here while Pete and I are talking in the kitchen.'
Pete was standing by the back door, with a sprinkling of snow on his hat and shoulders, and as Godfrey appeared he brought out from some safe pocket various parcels very tightly tied up, which, when they were undone, displayed a china cup with
'Remember meWhen this you see'
on it in gold letters, two china lambs lying under a tree, and a needle-book with a picture of Queen Charlotte outside. Godfrey was lost in admiration. They were perfect, they were just the very things. The lambs would stand on Aunt Betty's table and the cup would hold Aunt Angel's tea, and the needle-book would suit Penny exactly. 'And was there any more, Pete?' he asked. 'There couldn't have been, surely.'
Pete, for answer, produced another parcel from the depths of his pocket, and exhibited a wooden wafer-box, painted bright red, and with a picture of Mr. Pitt on the lid. Pete watched with the deepest interest while Godfrey opened it.
'You see, Master Godfrey,' he said, 'I was a-thinking the gentleman would be bound to do a deal of writing; and as you said he was partial to newspapers, seemed to me Mr. Pitt would come kind o' natural to him seeing they seem to be mostly about him; and the red colour looks sort o' cheerful and might liven the gentleman up. Hoping it meets your fancy, Master Godfrey.'
'I think it's beautiful,' said Godfrey earnestly; 'you are a very clever person, Pete. Do you mean to say you got it all for that money?'
The smile on Pete's face broadened out, till it reached nearly from ear to ear.
'Well, sir,' he said, 'fact is, for its size and being such a good article, it was wonderful cheap, and there was some money out when I paid for it. And you being so particular about my not bringing a penny home, seemed to me I'd risk bringing this little thing here, in case it might come in handy for what you were talking about.'
So saying, Pete brought out another parcel, and out of the paper came a second box, coloured dark blue this time, and adorned with a picture of a ship in full sail, surrounded by a wreath of convolvulus.
'You see, Master Godfrey,' explained Pete, 'it seemed to me, with you saying the gentleman had a fancy for ships and flowers, and the colour being blue, which stands for sailors, it did seem the sort o' thing you were just a-wishing for.'
'But, Pete,' said Godfrey, as if hardly daring to believe in so grand an idea, 'do you think that sort of gentleman would be likely to be using wafers?'
'Bound to, sir,' said Pete promptly; 'you see, he'd be writing to the Admiral about all the fine things him and his ship was doing, and besides he'd be writing home to folks he was fond of, folks that thought about him, and—and gave him presents and such like.'
'Oh no, Pete, no,' said Godfrey, almost breathless, 'he wouldn't be writing to those sort of people. But really, Pete, I do think the box is very, very beautiful; and do you think—do you think he would be offended if I gave it to him?'
'I'll warrant he'd be as pleased as you like, Master Godfrey,' said Pete heartily; 'he's not the sort to take offence, isn't the captain. Why, bless you, Nancy brought him in a few berries out o' the hedges on Sunday and he made such a work with them as you never saw.' Pete had dropped the little fiction about the gentleman in his interest, and Godfrey did not object.
'I'm very, very much obliged to you, Pete,' he said earnestly; 'I'm as happy as ever I can be. Good-night, dear Pete, and thank you very, very much.'
And so came Christmas, the children's festival, touching home life and child life with its great majesty and beauty. Can any one dare to despise simple things and simple souls when all Christendom comes adoring to a poor cradle and angels stoop to sing carols to shepherd folk? Some such thoughts came into Angelica Wyndham's mind when Nancy ran over on Christmas Eve, very eager and excited, with the captain's compliments, and would Mr. Crayshaw and the young ladies and Master Godfrey dine with him next day; and, please, she did hope they would come, for they were all going to have snap-dragon, and the captain had sent her out with such a lot of money to buy the raisins. And Angel wondered whether after all it was not surprising but right and natural that the captain should care for such things. Wasn't it the Christmas lesson that the great and the simple lie close together, and that the men who are foremost in the midst of death and danger have room in their hearts for children and flowers and home joys and Christmas games as well? And then Cousin Crayshaw had said he would go, and had declared he had a great respect for Captain Maitland. Altogether, it was the happiest Christmas that the sisters had ever spent at Oakfield. And I think there must have been some magic about that cheerful wafer-box with the picture of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Crayshaw found it on his plate on Christmas morning, with an inscription upon it which had been composed by Pete, but written in Godfrey's own firm round hand, and with spelling which was also quite Godfrey's own—'To my deer and respekted cuzon.' And something about the box or the inscription—or was it just a Christmas thought which they put into his head?—made Mr. Crayshaw turn away to the window as if to admire the striking likeness of Mr. Pitt, and then take off his spectacles and rub them and put them on again; and then he did what he had never done before, came round to Godfrey's chair, and put his hands on the little boy's shoulders and kissed his forehead. They walked to church along the ringing frosty road, with the wide white common spreading away on each side like the snow-fields of Godfrey's Arctic stories. And at the churchyard gate they paused, because there were two figures going slowly up the path before them, Captain Maitland, walking erect and steady, with old Kiah Parker on his arm.
'Easy now, easy now, Kiah,' he was saying, 'you'll have me on my nose if you go that pace, man; you and I are more at home on deck than on slippery ground; don't send me sprawling at the very church door, my hearty.'
And as for Kiah, he looked prouder than the Admiral of the Fleet.
After church, however, he hobbled on ahead with Peter and Nancy, while the captain stayed to speak to the party from the cottage. He had had the most beautiful Christmas present, he said, just the very one thing he couldn't have done without any longer. And somebody must have chosen it just to suit him, for it was a real bit of the old blue, and as for the ship, why theMermaidmight have sat for the portrait.
'Just the thing for a present to a sailor from a sailor that is to be,' he said; and Godfrey looked as if he had nothing else in the world to wish for.
'Are you going to let me have the little lad one day, sir?' the captain said to Mr. Crayshaw, when Godfrey had walked on in front between his two aunts.
'You do him very great honour, sir,' said the lawyer. 'I have not thought much at present about the boy's future career. He has been a difficulty, Captain Maitland, something of a difficulty. I was afraid that his unfortunate surroundings during his early childhood had had a very bad effect upon his character; but he is much improved, very much improved indeed. You think something may be made of him?'
'I think he is the sort of stuff that heroes are made of,' said the captain thoughtfully, 'and he has such influence about him now as makes heroes.'
Mr. Crayshaw glanced at the three in front of him and coughed in an embarrassed way.
'Angelica is—is a very good girl,' he said; 'indeed they are both very good girls, very good girls. I had my doubts as to the desirability of leaving Godfrey under their charge, but I feel satisfied now that at present I could hardly do better for him.'
'I think he is having such training as will bless his whole life,' said Captain Maitland gravely, and Mr. Crayshaw did not contradict him. Perhaps a thought came over him that if he had had a gentle Angelica and a bright, loving Betty beside him when he was young, his life might have been a better and a more beautiful thing.
An invitation to dinner was such a rare thing at Oakfield that there was a good deal of excitement about getting ready for it. Penny and Angel and Betty all brushed Godfrey's hair in turn, until he was thankful to escape and leave his aunts to get dressed on their own account. But he very soon came rushing upstairs again two steps at a time, and asked eagerly at their door if he might come in.
'Aunt Angel, Aunt Betty, look!' he exclaimed as he burst into the room, 'presents, from Cousin Crayshaw. Oh, do look!—A seal, a real proper seal that belonged to grandpapa, with words on, that makes a mark when you hold it down on your hand hard. And this box has got things in for you; he said so. He was so funny, and he said it so fast I didn't hear it all; but he said I was to give it to you, Aunt Angel, because it was yours really, and perhaps it would help you to remember some things that were past and to forget some others. What did he mean? Only open it, do open it!'
So Angel opened the box, with Betty looking over her shoulder and peering between her falling curls, and Penny peeping over her. And it was Penny who was the first to exclaim, while she hugged both her young ladies in her delight:
'Oh, bless you, my dears, they're your dear mamma's jewels! Dear, dear! and don't I know 'em if any one does, me that put them on her times enough.'
'Mamma's things! Oh, Angel!' said Betty in hushed tones, touching the trinkets with reverent fingers. Angelica had put her hands before her eyes. A great rush of memory was sweeping over her, for it is the little things that take hold of our minds when we are children, and the sight of them in after years brings the big things in their train. And those pearls used to be twisted among the sunny curls of the head that had bent over her little bed on long ago evenings, and the ruby ring had sparkled on the hand that used to clasp her baby fingers. And that miniature with its gold setting? Did not mamma wear it on a gold chain out of sight? Had not Betty's little restless fingers pulled it out one day, and had not Angel wondered as her mother kissed it with dewy eyes and put it back? Betty was holding it to the light.
'Why, Angel,' she exclaimed wonderingly, 'it's Godfrey.'
And Penny, with her apron to her eyes, explained,
'No, no, my dear, it's his poor dear papa, that's who it is.'
'My papa!' ejaculated Godfrey, with round eyes, 'why, Penny, it's a little boy.'
'And so he was a little boy,' sobbed Penny, 'and the dearest, beautifullest little boy ever I saw or anybody saw, and his dear mamma had his picture done the day he was eight years old, and she wore it till she died, bless her heart.'
Angel bent her head and kissed the laughing face as she had seen her mother kiss it.
'And Cousin Crayshaw sent it to us,' said Betty thoughtfully; 'now I know what he meant about remembering and forgetting.'
'I don't,' said Godfrey, 'but I want Aunt Angel to hang papa's picture round her neck.'
'Yes, yes, Angel, you must,' said Betty eagerly, clasping the chain about her sister's throat; 'you talked to him—you remember—and I don't really, though I'm sure I feel a kind of something as if I should know him.'
'Then you must wear mamma's pearls, Betty dear, you must indeed.'
'No, indeed, I mustn't, because you are going to. Yes, you are, Angel, don't say a word—you are going to wear them in your hair like she used to. Penny, please put up Angel's hair like mamma's picture. I am going to have this dear, dear brooch, with all the twisted bits of gold and the little tiny diamonds; fancy me in diamonds! You ought to have them really, but I know you like the others best.'
And so, a few minutes later, when Angel met Cousin Crayshaw on the stairs, he quite started at the sight of her, with the gold chain round her neck and the pearls among her dark curls.
'You have given us the most beautiful Christmas present in the world, Cousin Crayshaw,' she said, holding out her hands to him. And Mr. Crayshaw, with a sudden impulse, kissed her forehead as he had kissed Godfrey's.
'They were yours already, not mine, my dear,' he said, and then he added:
'You are very like your mother, Angelica, very like indeed.'
I don't think there could have been a merrier party than that Christmas dinner party at Oakfield Place.
Captain Maitland held the same opinion as a wise man who once said that 'it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas time, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.' And the captain had the power of not only being quite childishly happy himself, but of making those about him feel the same. The room was all bright with holly, and when pretty Patty had brought in the Christmas goose, and the captain had handed Angelica with courtly politeness to her place on his right hand, he set himself to keep the whole party laughing, and succeeded very well. For he told stories about Christmases at sea, and days when he was a boy at Oakfield Place, and got into scrapes and out again like other boys who had not grown up into heroes. And then he positively asked Mr. Crayshaw if he hadn't some stories of scrapes to tell, now that they were all making confessions. And before Betty's eyes had got back to their natural size, after her amazement at the idea of Cousin Crayshaw in a scrape, that gentleman was answering, with a sort of little cackle which really was almost a laugh, that he did remember once being out after time on a half-holiday, and finding the school-gate shut and climbing over it, and that his coat caught on the top and he hung there till it tore. And at the thought of Cousin Crayshaw hanging on a nail, Betty at any rate hid her face and laughed till she cried, and I believe Angel wasn't far behind her, and, most wonderful of all, Cousin Crayshaw didn't mind a bit. And when dinner was over, and they had drunk to 'Present Company' and 'Absent Friends,' and Mr. Crayshaw had proposed 'The Navy' in quite a fine speech, and Captain Maitland had proposed 'The Law' in a still finer one, then Patty came in with a twinkle in her eyes and moved away the table and pushed the chairs against the walls. And then the captain remarked that it was a cold night, and wouldn't it be a good thing if they were to warm their feet a little? And the next minute there was the sound of Kiah's wooden leg in the passage, and there he was with his fiddle, and the Rogers, all in their Sunday clothes, just behind him. And Patty ran to put down a line of mats, because wooden legs were not good for polished floors. And the captain made Angel such a bow, as if she had been Queen Charlotte herself, and hoped she would put up with an awkward old sailor for a partner, and he was sure Pete would show them the way with Miss Betty. And Godfrey did his very best to copy the captain as he gave his hand to Nancy. And then happened the most wonderful thing that ever had happened in Oakfield, for as Kiah struck up 'Off she goes!' Mr. Crayshaw suddenly went up to fair-haired Patty, who hardly knew where to look, and told her he had not danced for twenty years, but Christmas seemed the time for a frolic, and he would ask her to help him.
Then, when even Nancy and Godfrey were breathless, there came in one of Martha's best cakes and a big plate full of oranges. And the captain called upon Kiah for a song, which Kiah sang readily enough, and played for himself, too, on the fiddle, with the music a good way behind the words. And then they all joined in the chorus of 'Hearts of Oak,' and after that Angel's sweet voice started 'God rest you, merry gentlemen.' And then out with the lights and in with the blazing dish of snap-dragon! How valiant Godfrey was in pulling out plums for every one; how very, very nearly Betty set her lace ruffles on fire; what queer shadows the flickering light threw on the wall, and how strange the eager faces looked when the captain threw a handful of salt on the fire and the flame burnt blue, while Nancy got half frightened and hid behind Patty's skirts! But at last all the raisins had been pulled out and the fire was dying, and positively there was the clock striking ten! What a time of night for Godfrey and Nancy to be out of bed! But, as the captain said, who looks at the clock at Christmas time? So Martha and her daughters curtsied themselves out of the room, and Mr. Crayshaw stood at the door talking quite cheerily with old Kiah, while Betty kept Pete back a minute to ask about her linnet, which was ill—Pete knew so much about birds.
Godfrey had climbed into the window seat, and was peeping between the curtains to see if it looked like another frost.
'Look at the stars, Aunt Angel dear, aren't they bright? Is the Wise Men's Star there still, do you suppose? That's the Plough, isn't it? If one was up in the Plough could one see Oakfield, do you think?'
'I used to like to think one could,' said the captain, who had come up behind them. 'Many's the time, when I was a little bit of a middy, I used to watch the stars and feel quite friendly to them because they could see home. And the Plough, when I could see it, was a real old friend, I knew the look of it so well from this window.'
'I shall do that when I'm a middy,' said Godfrey gravely, 'and I shall think of them seeing my aunts and Oakfield, and they'll think of them seeing me.'
'So you've quite made up your mind to be a middy?' said the captain, with a hand on Godfrey's shoulder.
'Quite,' said the little boy earnestly; 'Aunt Angel says everybody must be useful, like you and Kiah, and she's teaching me to be. I'm like her's and Aunt Betty's little oak-tree, and they hope I shall grow up a very brave sailor. But she's really braver than me, for she says it will be very hard for her not to mind when the Frenchies shoot my leg off, and I don't think I shall mind much.'
Angel's cheeks were crimson at hearing her own words repeated. She looked so very sweet and womanly as she sat there in the window.
They had not lighted the candles again, and only the flickering fire-light played about her, touching her white dress and the curly locks, knotted up high behind her head, with the gleaming pearls among them.
The captain stroked Godfrey's hair.
'Ay, little man,' he said, 'the bravest hearts are the ones we leave at home; and more shame to us that we're not finer fellows when they take so much thought for us.'
Just then Betty called Godfrey, and he ran to bid Pete good-night. The captain stood looking after him.
'His Majesty's navy will be the richer for that lad one day, Miss Angelica,' he said.
Angel flushed with pleasure.
'I do hope so,' she said simply; 'Betty and I are almost afraid sometimes when we think what we want him to be, and that there is only us to teach him and fit him for it.'
'I don't think you need be afraid,' said Captain Maitland quietly; 'the navy is a rough school, Miss Angelica, but so is the world all over, I fancy, and I've known plenty of men who've lived and died on board as pure and simple as if they'd never left home. And they were mostly men who'd such a home life as your little lad to stick by them and keep them straight. Never mind about special training, just give him something to steer by, and trust me he won't go far wrong.'
Chapter VI tailpiece
Chapter VI tailpiece
Chapter VII headpiece
Chapter VII headpiece
'For though she meant to be brave and good,When he played a hero's part,Yet often the thought of the leg of woodHung heavy on her heart.'—A.
dropcap-w
ell, Christmas time, like all good things, had to come to an end, and so did the captain's stay at Oakfield. The village seemed very dull for a while after he went. Nancy cried bitterly when she said good-bye to him, and indeed so did Patty, and I fancy Betty shed a few tears in Miss Jane's arbour, she ran away there in such a hurry after watching the captain start, and came back with such red rings round her eyes. Good-bye is a hard word at any time, and harder still in war time, when it is overshadowed by that unspoken dread lest no future greeting should come in which the parting may be forgotten. As for Godfrey, when the captain was gone he went over to the Place and sat down in the kitchen by the side of Kiah. Kiah would miss the captain more than any one, but the worst part of the going to him was that he was not going too.
'You and me, young master,' he said to Godfrey, as the child sat on a low stool looking up at him, 'our orders is to bide in port. Only you're fitting for a cruise, you see, sir, and I'm just a hulk that'll never be seaworthy again. It don't become us to be asking questions about our orders, we'd better just get to work and do what we can, so I'll be off and chop a bit of firewood for Martha.'
'And I'll go home and learn my spelling,' said Godfrey.
And, indeed, he was back in the parlour and at work before Betty came to look for him, on which she gave herself one of her indignant scoldings, telling herself that Godfrey was ten times more fit to be her bachelor uncle than she was to be his maiden aunt.
And so the little household at the cottage went back to the quiet life in which Christmas had made such a pleasant break. Angel and Betty read French and history together, and helped Penny in the kitchen, and taught Godfrey, and walked with him, and mended for him and built castles in the air for him when he was in bed and asleep; and Godfrey learnt his lessons and played with Nancy, and spent all the time he could with Kiah, and in the twilight sat crushed up between his aunts in the great arm-chair and talked about what he would do when he was big and a sailor. Cousin Crayshaw came down every other Saturday and stayed till Monday, and Betty asked herself, as she watched him reading his paper in the evening, whether he could be indeed the same Cousin Crayshaw who had climbed over the school gate, and had danced 'hands across and back again' with Patty for his partner. But, though Cousin Crayshaw did not tell school stories or indulge in country dances at the cottage, still the remembrance of that evening was a link between himself and his young cousins which none of them could forget. The girls did not seem to respect him less because they were less afraid of him and because they ventured to talk about their own pleasures and interests in his presence, and indeed now and then he would ask questions himself, would even call Godfrey to him and want to know about his lessons and how he managed to amuse himself. And as the days got longer the three would coax him into the garden to look at their flowers coming up, and one day Betty boldly offered him an auricula for his button-hole. And though he seemed a little doubtful at first as to whether such an ornament would become a grave and sober person like himself, yet he let her put it in for him, and after that there was never a Sunday that some flower did not appear on his plate at breakfast, placed there by each of the three in turn. One evening, while he was reading the paper, he looked up to see Angel standing by his chair.
'Please, Cousin Crayshaw,' she said, with the colour coming into her cheeks, 'might I read to you for a little while, if you think I could read well enough?'
'It wouldn't interest you, Angelica,' said her cousin in surprise.
'Oh yes, it would,' pleaded Angel, 'especially if—if you would explain about it to us a little. We think, Betty and Godfrey and I, that we know so dreadfully little about the affairs of the country, and every one ought to care about their country, oughtn't they? and we want to understand about the war, because, you see, we must care about our soldiers and sailors, and Captain Maitland is there, you know.'
And so Mr. Crayshaw, with a half-amused smile, let her try, and positively found Betty's eager questions very interesting, and really enjoyed explaining difficulties with Angelica's earnest eyes looking up at him, so that the little household at the cottage became quite politicians, and followed the army and the fleet on the map with the deepest interest. And Pete's prediction was fulfilled, for Captain Maitland actually found time to write Godfrey a most interesting letter, which lived in Godfrey's pocket and slept under his pillow at night, till it tore to pieces in the folds, after which Angel mended it with paste, and it was locked into a box upstairs of which Godfrey kept the key, lest thieves should get into the house and steal it. They were stirring times, those first years of our nineteenth century, when the news from abroad was of fierce struggles by land and sea, when the talk by the fireside and in the village streets was of an invasion that might be, when Englishmen would have to stand shoulder to shoulder, and fight on their own thresholds for country and home. All these things, the battles and the sieges, the plans and counter-plans, the great names of men who helped to change the fate of Europe, we read in our history books.
The shadow of the war, the anxiety about the present and fear about the future, must have hung like a cloud over our country in those years, and yet, notwithstanding, life went on quietly in the homes which the great danger was threatening, and people worked and played and laughed, and cared more on the whole about their own small affairs than about the big affairs of Europe. And so, though those years when England's enemies were watching her across the narrow seas, and wise men were planning and brave men fighting for her liberties, are so interesting in the history books, there is not very much to tell about the good folks at Oakfield. In those days, when no one had begun to think about railways, country people left home very little, and the changes of the seasons, sowing and reaping, hay-time and harvest, made the chief events of their lives; and though it seemed very important to Oakfield, it wouldn't be very interesting to any one else to hear of the wonderful apple crop in the orchard at the Place, or of how the miller's pony strayed away on the common and was lost for two days, or of how Godfrey and Nancy missed their way when out blackberrying, and came home after dark to find the aunts half distracted and Rogers and Pete searching, all over the country.
'The slow, sweet hours that bring us all things good.'
Those words always seem to me to describe the quiet years when nothing particular happens, when we are growing and learning almost without knowing it, getting, as Captain Maitland had said, something to steer by in harder, busier days to come. Godfrey, when he looked back afterwards, couldn't remember any very big events in his Oakfield life—just daily lessons and daily games, stories from Betty, twilight talks with Angel, hours spent by old Kiah's bench at the Place—and yet those 'slow sweet hours,' more than the stirring days afterwards, were to influence his whole life and make a man of him.
How surprised his young aunts would have been if any one had told them on the day when their nephew first came to Oakfield that it would be Angel who would suggest to Cousin Crayshaw that it was time for him to leave them. Mr. Crayshaw found her standing by his chair one Sunday evening when he awoke from a little doze in which he had been indulging after supper.
'Cousin Crayshaw,' she began hesitatingly, 'have you thought lately what a big boy Godfrey is getting?'
'Big? Yes, yes, of course, very big,' said Mr. Crayshaw in surprise. 'What's the matter, Angelica? Why shouldn't he grow? He looks strong enough, I'm sure.'
'Oh, he's as strong as a little pony,' said Angel proudly; 'but, Cousin Crayshaw, don't you think he's getting rather big for us to teach?'
'Is he troublesome?' asked Mr. Crayshaw doubtfully.
'Oh no, no! Only Betty and I think he is getting old enough to be taught by a man.'
'Humph! That means school, I suppose,' said Mr. Crayshaw, 'or could we find him a tutor?'
'I think—at least, don't you think it ought to be school?' said Angel hesitatingly. 'I mean, if he is going to sea, oughtn't he to knock about with other boys a little first?'
Her cousin looked up thoughtfully at her.
'You'll miss him a good deal, won't you, my dear?' he said.
'Oh, it doesn't do to think about that,' said Angelica cheerfully.
'And you know, Cousin Crayshaw,' said Betty from her corner, 'you said when first we had him that we weren't to spoil him.'
'No, no, of course not, of course not,' said Cousin Crayshaw heartily; 'I'll inquire about a school.'
There was a little mischievous twinkle in Betty's eyes as she bent over her book, and when she and Angel were alone that night she threw her arms round her sister and burst out laughing. 'Oh, Angel, Angel, isn't it funny,' she cried, 'to think of you having to make Cousin Crayshaw send Godfrey to school?'
'I believe he is almost as loth to lose him as we are,' said Angel; 'don't you love him for it?'
'Yes, that I do; and do you remember how you wouldn't let me make Godfrey hate him? Angel dear, I'm just wondering how soon I and Godfrey and Penny and this house altogether would go to rack and ruin without you.'
And so Godfrey went to school.
It certainly was hard work letting him go, and Penny wore the same face all day as she had done when Angel had whipped him for disobedience, and evidently thought everybody very hard-hearted. And the house did seem fearfully empty and silent, especially in the first twilight hour, when Angel and Betty sat together in the big chair where there had always been room for a third.
Cousin Crayshaw arrived quite unexpectedly in the middle of the week, and gave no explanation whatever of his coming, except that he had brought Angelica a new book of poems; and how did he come to know Angel liked poetry, for he never read it himself? And better than the unexpected visit, almost better than the book, which Betty read till a dreadful hour that night, was Mr. Crayshaw's sudden exclamation,
'Dear me, how one does miss that boy!'
He was nearly strangled the next moment by Betty's arms thrown round his neck, and though he said,
'Elizabeth! Dear, dear, don't throttle me,' he did not seem angry.
Godfrey was just the sort of boy to get on well at school, and he was soon popular both with boys and masters. In after years there was a packet, put away among Angelica's more cherished possessions, and ticketed, 'Letters written from school by my nephew Godfrey,' and I think even the famous letter from the captain was not more read and re-read. There was one in particular which, I believe, had some tears dropped over it, though it was never shown to Martha and Penny as some of the others were.
'My dear Aunt Angel,' it ran, 'I have had a fight. The boy I fought was bigger than me. He gave me a black eye, but I gave him two. He said something about you and aunt Betty, but he never will again. Jones, who is the head of the school, says I am a good plucked one. He put some raw meat on my eye for me. I thought you might find it useful to know about it; it is the very best thing when anyone's knocked you about, only be sure you put it on at once. I send a kiss to Aunt Betty and one to Penny, and my love to Martha and Pete and Nancy and Kiah and Cousin Crayshaw.
'Your affectionate nephew,'GODFREY WYNDHAM.'
'It's like the champions in the days of chivalry,' said Betty, with shining eyes, 'only instead of a beautiful ladye-love, the darling's been fighting and getting wounded just for his two maiden aunts. Angel, I believe that Jones is a dear boy. I should like to send a little cake for him when we send Godfrey one. Angel, do you—do you think it's our duty to scold Godfrey for fighting?'
'I'm not sure,' said Angel slowly; and then she added, for once as decidedly as her sister, 'but I'm sure I'm not going to.'
I expect a diary of the lives of Angelica and Betty for the next year or two would have run something in this way:
'Godfrey came home. Heard from Godfrey. Godfrey writes that the cricket season has begun. Godfrey brought home a prize. Godfrey went back to school' (this last with a very black mark against it). But such a diary, though it was deeply interesting to the two young aunts themselves, wouldn't make much of a story to those who didn't mark time by Godfrey's holidays, and so we must just take a leap over several of these uneventful years and come suddenly to the day which all the time had stood in Angel's mind as a sort of background to everything else that happened, the day which she had taught herself to think about, and which she prayed every day of her quiet life that she might be strong and brave to meet.
It was an autumn day, misty and still, like that on which Godfrey had first come to Oakfield, and Cousin Crayshaw came down in the middle of the week. It was late afternoon, and Angel was catching the last light from the window on her sewing; and when she raised her head at the sound of wheels, and saw her cousin get out of his chaise, she knew in one moment that the day she had been preparing for had come. She put her work down with very trembling hands, and went down the path to meet Mr. Crayshaw, knowing quite well what he had to say to her while he made little nervous remarks about the weather, until at last he took a paper out of his pocket and gave it her to read, watching her anxiously all the while. The writing seem to grow dim and uncertain before Angel's eyes, but she knew what it was—the order for Mr. Godfrey Wyndham to join the frigateMermaid, Captain Maitland, ordered to the Channel, there to do the service of a midshipman. Angel's voice sounded to herself rather strange and far-away as she asked:
'When does theMermaidsail?'
'In four days. Captain Maitland is in London; he'll be here to-morrow. I have sent for Godfrey. But dear me, dear me, Angelica, he seems very young, very young!'
And Angel said, in the same quiet tones, that Godfrey was nearly fourteen, and how fortunate it was for him to have the chance of being under Captain Maitland; they would be so happy to think of him on board theMermaid. And when she went to find Betty, Mr. Crayshaw took off his spectacles and wiped them and remarked, as he had done on that past Christmas Day:
'Angelica is a good girl, a very good girl!'
After that there was no time at all for thinking. Angel said afterwards that her head seemed to be quite full of nothing but Godfrey's shirts, and a very good thing it was for all of them. Only while she stitched and sorted and packed, she had all the time a feeling that she ought to be saying something to Godfrey now, before he went out into the great terrible world of which she knew so little, something that would help him and strengthen him in the days to come. But there never came a minute for saying it until the very last evening, when Godfrey's box was packed, and his last visits paid in the village, where the old women cried over him in his uniform. The captain had gone for a walk with Mr. Crayshaw, Penny was getting supper ready, and Angel and Betty and Godfrey found themselves together in the garden, really with nothing more to do.
It was the twilight hour, which the two young aunts had always given up to Godfrey. Betty used to look grave about it in the old days, and say she was afraid it was very idle; but she always gave in, and joined Angel and Godfrey when they paced up and down the garden walk, or sat in Miss Jane's arbour, or watched the stars come out from the parlour window, or squeezed into the big arm-chair before the fire. They were in the garden this evening, for it was mild and still, with autumn scents in the air and stars coming out behind a misty haze. And now surely was the time for the last words, the tender advice and warnings that were to go with Godfrey out into the world. But somehow Angel and Betty never spoke them after all. Instead they talked about the past; of Godfrey's first coming to Oakfield—'horrid little wretch that I was,' said the nephew—with the curly head, which had only reached Angel's elbow then, rubbing fondly against her shoulder; of Kiah's coming home, and the captain's first visit, and that Christmas party at the Place.
'And do you remember,' Godfrey said, 'that first day I settled to be a sailor?'
'The Sunday afternoon when we saw Kiah? Yes, of course I do, Godfrey. I never dreamed when we went up to the Place that day what it would put into your head.'
'It wasn't only going to the Place,' said Godfrey thoughtfully; 'I don't know whether I should have settled like that if you hadn't said that to me before.'
'Said what, Godfrey? I don't remember.'
'Don't you, Aunt Angel? I do, every word; about being useful and making the world a bit better. I knew then I'd got to do it, and it was only to settle how; and when I heard about Kiah and the captain, I thought it seemed the nicest way, and I knew it would please you. And it does, doesn't it? That's the best part of going, knowing you're glad for me to go.'
Angelica's hand met Betty's in the dusk and held it tight, and for once it was she who answered for them both:
'Yes, Godfrey dear, very glad and very proud.'
'I told the captain so yesterday,' Godfrey went on; 'and he said I'd better make up my mind directly to be a hero, for I came of an heroic family. That was what he said, and I sha'n't forget. There's the captain and Cousin Crayshaw.'
'Yes, go and meet them,' Angel said, for Betty's hand was trembling in her own and she could hear the catch in her breath that meant she was strangling her tears. She slipped her hand out of Godfrey's arm and let him go forward, while she and Betty drew back through the gap in the yew hedge to Miss Jane's arbour, just where Betty had flung herself down in despair on that first day of Godfrey's coming to Oakfield. They were almost the same words that she gasped out now on Angel's shoulder, as they sat down on the bench side by side; for Betty, though she was nineteen now and wore her hair in a knot at the top of her head, and considered herself a rather elderly person, was much the same vehement little lady as the Betty we knew at thirteen.
'I can't do it,' she sobbed, 'I can't, it's no use; I'm not the right person to be—to be a hero's aunt. I don't want him to go, I shall die if he gets killed; I sha'n't be proud, I shall only be miserable; what am I to do?'
Angel's arms tightened their clasp, she bent her head low over Betty's fair hair and tried to speak once or twice in vain. Then she said at last:
'Dear, we must just say what we said the first day he came. We want to love him, not our own pleasure in him; we haven't loved him and prayed about him and tried to teach him just for ourselves.'
'Oh, I don't know,' faltered Betty; 'I'm afraid I'm selfish, I'm not brave like you. I thought I should feel like the Spartan mothers, but I don't. I can't think of the country. I can only think of Godfrey.'
'Oh, Betty dear, I'm not brave—I never was. I don't feel a bit like a Spartan mother; but it seems to me we needn't mind about what we feel like. We've only got to try and look brave and help poor Cousin Crayshaw, for he is dreadfully sad, and make it easy for Godfrey to go, and not let him think we're fretting.'
'But if we can't?' sighed Betty.
'Do you remember what Martha said the first day?—"We never have a job given us that's too hard for us to do." What do you think, Betty dear, ought we to go in now?'
As they came through the gap in the hedge they nearly ran into the captain in the dusk. He half hesitated, as if unwilling to speak, and then wished them good-night.
'Oh, but you're coming to supper, Captain Maitland,' said Betty. 'Cousin Crayshaw and all of us expected you.'
'I think I must say good-night, Miss Betty,' the captain said a little hesitatingly; 'I—I shall have a good deal to do this evening.'
'Oh, but I know your packing doesn't take long,' said Betty eagerly; 'please do come.'
They both guessed that he was going home to a lonely evening because he would not intrude upon their last night with Godfrey, and they couldn't let him do that.
'I know Cousin Crayshaw expects you,' urged Angel, 'and Godfrey will be so pleased too.'
And Betty, growing bold in the darkness, added earnestly: 'And if you are thinking about Angel and me, it makes it easier for us to pretend to be brave, though we aren't in the least, when you are there.'
The captain did not answer for a minute, and when he did his voice had a strange tremor in it.
'You know,' he said, 'that anything that I can do for you or for Godfrey, anything that is in my power, it will be my greatest happiness to do. I have wanted to say this before Godfrey and I sailed together, and I know you will understand, and not overrate my power to help him and care for him.'
The next minute he had a hand of each of the girls.
'We know you love him almost as much as we do,' said Betty's eager voice.
'And it is our greatest comfort in the world just now to think that he will be with you,' added Angel's gentle tones.'
'And you'll come to supper and help us, won't you?' urged Betty. And so the captain came, and what a help he was! How he seemed to know just when to be silent, and when it would help them all most for him to talk! And though he didn't often talk about his own doings, he told them this evening a good deal about his last cruise, when he had been to the West Indies, where Godfrey was born. And he tried to find out how much Godfrey remembered of the country, and spoke of how English people always draw together in a foreign land, and are kind and friendly to every stranger who speaks their own tongue. There was one man in particular, he said, an Englishman, a successful planter, who had come forward to help him when he was ordered off in a hurry, and was in trouble about one of his midshipmen who was down with the fever.
'He came and took him off my hands,' the captain said, 'and had him into his own house; a man I never set eyes on before, and I don't even so much as know his name. He asked it as a favour, saying he'd no child of his own, nor any kith and kin who cared enough for him to want his help.'
'Poor man! I daresay he was glad enough,' said Angel; while Betty echoed:
'Poor man, fancy having no one belonging to him!'
For it would be better, she thought, to break one's heart over such a parting as was to come next day, than to have no one in the world from whom parting would be pain. And really the thought of that lonely Englishman in the far-away island helped her a little over letting Godfrey go.
It was strange that when he really was gone the most restless person in Oakfield was Kiah, who all those years had been so busy and contented at the Place. He took to hobbling up and down the garden path instead of sitting on his bench or by the fire, leaning over the gate and scanning the country, as if he were watching for the French to come, and presenting himself daily at the cottage to know if they had any news of the young master.
And at last, about a month after theMermaidhad sailed, he came one day in his best clothes and with a bundle in his hand, looking more cheery than he had done since Godfrey left.
'Yes, young ladies,' he said, as Angel and Betty asked wonderingly where he was going, 'I'm off down South for a bit of a visit. I bean't tired of Oakfield, nor I don't look for no home but here among my folks, but it's come over me as I must have a blow o' the sea and a sight of a ship again, and Timothy Blake, that was an old messmate o' mine, I give him my word I'd see him one o' these days, and I've a many friends beside him on the Devon coast. And then you see, young ladies, I might be getting a sight o' theMermaid.'
'O Kiah!' gasped Betty, as if she longed to ask him to take her too.
'But are you going alone, Kiah?' asked Angel.
'Trust an old salt to take care of himself, Miss Angel. Ay, and if Boney ever gets ashore down there, which ain't likely, but just might be, I'd like to be near about, so I would, for I haven't forgotten how to fire a gun; a hand and a half's good enough for that.'
'And what does Martha say?' asked Betty.
Kiah chuckled.
'She's a wise one, is our Martha. She says she always knew I was a bit of a rolling stone, and my chair'll just be waiting against I come in again.'
And so the little Oakfield world had a fresh, interest in the great world's doings, and Nancy, at any rate, felt that they might all laugh at the notion of a French invasion, with the captain and Mr. Godfrey in the Channel, and Uncle Kiah keeping guard on shore.