Chapter X (2)

Not that she wanted to be rich so far as she herself was concerned, for she was a contented child enough, and quite satisfied with her lot in life, but she had formed great plans for Moses, and had made up her mind that he must grow up to be a great and clever man, and do some grand work like the leader and lawgiver of old. Of course the little girl was rather misty in her ideas about Mo's future, but she liked to think that her boy was destined for a noble and useful life, and she wished she had plenty of money, so that as he grew older, he might go to good schools, and see the world, and learn a great deal, and fit himself for what might be.

Jael's mind was full of all this as she led the little one home that winter afternoon. They had gone about half the distance, and Jael was just calculating how long it would take for the tide to get up to the foot of the cliff, and whether it would be better to clamber up the sheep-path now, and walk homeward across the downs, or quicken their pace and keep to the shore,—when she saw a man coming towards them.

As he drew nearer, she could see that he was rather tall with very long dark hair and a bushy black beard; but what was visible of his complexion was fair, and his eyes, Jael noticed, were of that bright blue which you sometimes see with golden hair and a very white skin.

As he met the children, he stared at them so hard that Jael wondered. He was quite a stranger to her, and she could not understand why he should look at them so steadfastly. He had hardly gone two steps farther when he came back and overtook them, saying to Jael:

"What is your name, little girl?"

"Jael Jones, sir," replied Jael.

The man did not speak like a common person, and though he was dressed in working-clothes, Jael could not help feeling that he was not in her father's station of life.

"And this little fellow?" questioned the stranger, laying a hand on Mo's head, which was enveloped, cap and all, in a little shawl of Jael's, and showed only a pair of bright eyes and rosy cheeks.

"His name is Moses, sir. We live up there by the river, on the Flats. Father's a fisherman. But, please, sir, we mustn't stand talking, 'cause we've not too much time to get home afore the tide rises, and father will be anxious."

The man looked towards the sea.

"Yes," said he, "it is coming up fast, and I've a long way to go still. Good-by, little people!" And off he strode, taking the way the children had just come, while Jael and Mo hurried on, managing to pass the last point of cliff before the water reached its foot.

After that, they slackened their speed, and Jael carried Mo for some little distance across the Flats, reaching home just as the short winter twilight was deepening into night.

At tea Jael told her father about the finding of the cave, and also how she and Mo had met a stranger, who had stopped to speak to them, and asked them who they were.

"What sort of a looking man?" questioned Peter, with a look of eager interest, which Jael could not understand.

"Why, a tall man, father, with long black hair and a big beard, and such blue eyes; as blue, I do think, as little Mo's."

"'Dark' hair and beard, you say, little daughter? 'Quite dark?' You're sure it wasn't curly light hair?"

Jael laughed.

"'Quite' sure, father," said she.

"Was he a stranger, think you, Jael, or one of our village folk?"

"Oh, a stranger, of course. But strangers 'does' come to Orlmuck sometimes, father."

"Yes, yes, child, of course they does," replied Peter, and there the conversation dropped.

But when the children had gone to bed, Catherine said to her husband, "I say, Peter, what made you so particular about knowing all Jael could tell you of that there man as the chicks met on the sands?"

"Well, the truth is, wife," replied Peter, "they tell me at Orlmuck that the police is on the lookout for a man what is thought to be in hidin' somewhere in this neighbourhood."

"In hidin'? Why, what has he done?"

"They say he is one of two travellers for a London house of business, and that a while ago—I don't rightly know how—they made away with a lot of money as was to have been paid into the bank. One of them went off and got clear to America, but the other only reached some town about ten miles away from Orlmuck. They tracked him as far as this, but there they lost sight of him. Still they think he can't have got much farther, and certainly not by train anywheres, for all the stations has been telegraphed to, and he'd have been stopped afore now."

"But sure you don't think, Peter, that that there man as the children met on the shore was him? Why, bless me! What he mightn't have done to them!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones.

Peter smiled.

"The man who would rob his master may yet not be the man' to hurt a child, especially as he couldn't hope to get anything by it," replied he. "But, Catherine, I don't think it was that man at all. The description of this fellow the police is after is that he's fair, very good looking, and gentlemanly, with golden curly hair, and a fair skin and a smooth face; and the party Jael met has dark hair and a great beard. Now ain't it on the face of it as the two men can't be the same?" And Mrs. Jones was obliged to confess that it certainly was.

The children's holidays were in all three weeks, and more than a fortnight was already past. Jael knew that when the vacation was over she should not be able to gratify her great wish to explore the cave she had found. The days were very short now, and as she should always have lessons to prepare after dinner as soon as her holidays were over, the afternoon would be broken into, and she could not get back before dark, much less allow herself any time there for searching the holes and corners of that dark mysterious place.

Again, she had made up her mind not to take Mo. The child had been frightened on the last occasion, and Jael was quite determined not to try him a second time.

So, directly after the early dinner one forenoon, she sallied out with Mo, and took him to a neighbour's near, where he often went to play with a little boy about his own age.

Then, with a box of matches and a piece of candle in her pocket, and her basket on her arm, intended for the carrying of what treasures she might find, away she went, her young nimble feet going dancing along the shore, swifter than the great sea waves that were ebbing and leaving foamy tracks on the yellow sands. Now that she had not Mo to consider, she could go quickly, and a walk of about an hour and a quarter brought her to the cave. She paused at the entrance and listened for a moment before going in, but she heard not a sound. Then in she stole, eager and curious, but not a bit frightened, conscious only of a pleasant mysterious feeling, as though she were on the eve of a discovery.

She made a few steps forward, the light from the entrance being sufficient for her to see her way for a short distance. Another yard or two, and the darkness became such that she could not see an inch before her.

To take out her matches and light her candle was the work of an instant, and holding it above her head, she looked round and saw that she was in a roomy cave, not very high but broad, and apparently extending farther into the rock. The sand under her feet was quite deep and dry, showing that the tide did not penetrate beyond the mouth of the cavern.

"I will go on till I find the end of this cave," said Jael to herself.

And still holding her light aloft, and treading cautiously, she advanced, step by step, till the walls began to narrow, and at last there was no possibility of advancing, except through a hole in the rock, just large enough to admit a full-grown person.

It was not difficult for Jael to scramble through, and as she did so, and looked about her, she found herself in a spacious, vaulted rock-hall, far larger than the adjoining outer cave.

She was moving on to examine a little more carefully her new surroundings, when suddenly her light was blown out from behind, and she felt herself pinioned by a pair of strong arms, while a voice said, sternly, "What are you about here? Speak quick, or it will be the worse for you!"

"I came to see what the cave was like," replied Jael, trying to speak calmly, but with her heart thumping like a steam-engine.

"How did you know there was a cave here? Who told you?" asked the voice again.

"No one. I found it out myself the other day. I had heard folks say that there was caves along this coast, and I'd always wanted to find one, but I didn't come far last time, 'cause I'd Mo with me, and the tide was risin' beside; so I came by myself to-day to have another try. And please don't hold me so tight, sir, it hurts my arms, and I won't run away if you want to talk to me."

Jael's courage had come back after the momentary shock and surprise. She felt, too, that the grasp on her arm relaxed at once at her request, and now she said, "May I please strike a match and light my candle again? It's very dark here."

"No, I prefer to be in the dark," was the reply.

There was something in the voice that sounded familiar to Jael, and she was trying to remember where she had heard it, when it flashed upon her all of a sudden.

"Please sir," said she, "you're the gent as we met on the beach the other day."

"Am I? Then you're Jael Jones."

"Yes, sir."

"Why do you call me sir?" exclaimed the man, leaving go of Jael's arms and going a few paces off into the darkness. "If you remember me at all, you must recollect that I have the dress of a working man."

"Yes, sir, but you don't talk like us common folk," replied Jael; "thy speech betrayeth thee."

The man made no answer to this, but presently, after a pause, he said, "It's cold and damp here, I'll light a little fire now. I don't mind your seeing my face since you know me."

So saying, he passed Jael again in the darkness, and then she suddenly saw him down on his knees in a corner, blowing into flame some sparks that were smouldering among a heap of dry seaweed and driftwood, in a hollow of the rock which served him as a fireplace, while the smoke escaped through a little hole overhead. Fresh wood was added, and in a few minutes the whole blazed up bright and warm, shedding a cheerful glow round the dark cave, and shining full upon the singular face, the long black hair and beard of the stranger.

"He does not look at all happy," said Jael to herself, gazing into his blue eyes, which were heavy and dim to-day, looking almost as though they had been shedding tears.

Forgetting the strangeness of her adventure, she found herself pitying this lonely, mysterious creature, who seemed so sad.

"Why are you looking so steadfastly at me, little Jael?" asked he, after a moment or two, during which the spreading glow had illuminated her earnest face and eager, yet tender, pitiful eyes.

"I was just thinking how miserable you looked," replied Jael. "Surely you haven't been living long in such a place as this?"

There was a sound in the man's throat very like a sob. "Yes," said he, "I 'am' miserable, but it is not on account of living here. It is better for me just now to be alone and quiet till what I have to do is done."

"Why?" asked Jael.

"I think I had better not tell you my story, child; you would not understand it, perhaps, or it would shock you, which would be worse. I am not a good man, Jael, and I have much to make me wretched, and there is no hope for me in this world or the next."

"Oh please, sir, beggin' your pardon, but that can't be!" said the little girl. "Father says there ain't no one who mayn't hope for forgiveness and peace, however naughty he's been; and you knows the Bible says so too, 'cause Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance—that means not the folks as thinks themselves righteous, but the poor ones that feel their sin. And Jesus Himself said, 'I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,' and of course, as we're all sinners, He meant us all—at least, so father says, and he never says nothing but the truth. But perhaps you know all this?"

The stranger looked up and said, more to himself than to Jael, "Yes; that's what my Emily used to say, or like it. Ah, if I'd only listened to her years ago!"

"Was Emily your sister?" asked Jael.

"No; my wife."

"Have you a wife?" and Jael put on an expression of wonder and interest.

"I 'had,'" replied the man, "and she was born not far from Orlmuck, as I've often heard her say. We were very happy together at first, but I got into bad company a few years after we were married, and I left her. And I'm afraid I shall never see her nor the little one again, for when I went home to tell her I was sorry, and would never grieve her again, the lodgings were let to other people, and wife and child were gone, no one knew where. A few of the neighbours said that she was quite crazed, and did nothing but talk about getting back to the place where she was born, though the friends there who knew her as a baby were all dead and gone, and she hadn't a relative either. Your little Mo reminded me so of my boy, only my child was very thin and pale, like his mother, though his hair and eyes were like mine."

"Mo's hair isn't a bit like yours," said Jael; "it is golden and curly, and yours is black and straight."

The stranger started, put a hand to his head, then dropped it again and said, "To be sure! To be sure!"

"But won't you please tell me why you're hiding away here?" asked Jael.

"Because I am suspected of being a thief, Jael," replied the man, "and appearances are terribly against me, and I should perhaps be put in prison if I were found, and then I could not look for my lost wife and child."

"But were you a thief really?" questioned Jael, her face showing that she hoped he was not.

"No; I was foolish, and made a bad man my friend, and was led into all sorts of wickedness. But I did not take the money, or help him do it. But when I found I was likely to be arrested, I ran away and hid myself because I had heard that some one like my wife, with a child in her arms, had a few months ago been seen about Orlmuck, or near it, and I wanted to find out more about them. I knew it might be ever so long before I came upon their track if once the police got hold of me. This cave was known to me years ago, and I thought I should be safer here than in lodgings. I buy a little food now and then in the evening at the smallest shops in the village, and I go about from place to place making inquiries, but no one knows me, and you are the first person that has found me here. If I could only learn what has become of poor Emily and my little Cyril I should be content to give myself up to those who are looking for me, and not hide away as though I were guilty. But there, I did not intend to tell you my story, and yet I have done so. But you are only a child, and not cruel and unjust like the world; may I trust you not to betray me?"

"I won't betray you," said Jael; "but mayn't I tell father?"

"No, not father, nor any one else," was the reply. "If you cannot keep my secret, I shall feel sorry I told you, and you will oblige me to leave this cave and seek a hiding-place elsewhere, and perhaps I shall be put in prison, and all through you."

"I've never had a secret in my life afore," pleaded poor Jael; "and from father, too! Oh! It'll be too dreadful!"

"I can't help it," replied the stranger, his voice growing hard and harsh. "It was not my fault that you found me out in my hiding-place, and now I will not let you go until you promise me never to breathe a word about me to any one."

As Jael still hesitated, the man's face lowered; his blue eyes looked sternly at her.

"I always do as I say," he added. "Choose between staying here till the next low tide and promising to keep my secret."

But just at that moment there was a strange confusion of noises in the outer cave—talking, shouting, and rapping of sticks against the rocky walls. The stranger started as a bright light gleamed through the narrow entrance to the second chamber.

"Good God!" he exclaimed. "They must have tracked me here after all! Ah, well! It must have come sooner or later."

He drew himself up and walked a step or two as though to meet the new-comers as they came on, seeing the flicker of the fire, the smoke of which rising through the cliff above the cave, had confirmed previous suspicions and revealed the hiding-place.

A constable advanced from the company and approached the stranger.

"Why! This is not our man," exclaimed he, staring at the dark-haired, bearded man before him, and then turning in dismay towards his companions; "this isn't golden curly hair, smooth face, gentlemanly dress and bearing. What mare's-nest have we come upon now?"

But even while the constable spoke, another man advanced from the company. He was a detective police-officer, but in plain clothes.

"We are not mistaken," said he, quietly. "Bid him pull off that hair and beard."

"Nay, if that's all, I'll save him the trouble," replied the constable, and striding up he made a sudden snatch at the dark beard and mass of hair.

To Jael's surprise and horror she saw it come off bodily, and leave, before her astonished eyes, another man behind it. There stood a very handsome but rather youthful-looking fellow, with crisp, short golden curls all over his well-shaped head, and his face fresh-coloured and smooth as a girl's.

The next minute the child sank down on the floor of the cave and buried her face in her hands. She forgot the policeman, she forgot the stranger, she forgot where she was. In that one moment a terrible truth had come upon her like a lightning flash. Child though she was, we have seen that her perceptions were keen, and now she knew—knew as well as though an angel had declared it in her hearing—that her little Mo, the child whom she had found, whom she so loved and cherished, and had prized as God's gift to her, was this man's lost boy. There could be no mistake about it. Even her young eyes could not but see the striking likeness between father and son. The same clear, white skin, the same brilliant blue eyes, the same crisp rings of golden hair.

Jael heard not the talk that passed between the prisoner and his captors. She had been in a dark corner, too, and had been unobserved, and thus unnoticed, and herself seeing nothing, she knew not when the party left the cave, nor heard the noise of their voices and footsteps gradually dying away.

She was fairly crushed, poor child, with the one absorbing thought that her Mo was hers no longer, and would have to be given up to his father.

She sobbed and cried as she considered what it would be to live without him. Never to kiss that dear, sunny little face, never to arrange those silky golden curls, or feel those soft arms round her neck, or hear the little plaintive voice, "Jai, Jai, tum to Mo." Oh, "must" she give him up? Could even his father love him as she did?

And then a temptation, a very real and terrible one for the little girl, presented itself before her. Did any one know of this besides herself? The stranger, when she and Mo had met him upon the sands, had failed to recognise his own child. Need she speak the whole truth? Need she say the words that would separate her from her treasure, perhaps for ever? It lay in her own power, in her own hands, whether to keep or lose him; and after all, she would have to tell no lies. She would only need to keep back the truth—in short, to keep a secret. And yet how could she hide it from her father?—her upright, truthful, God-fearing father, from whom, as she had told the stranger, she had never had a secret in her life? Still, except for her own feelings, it would not be so very difficult. She was not obliged to say where she had been that day, or even if she spoke of the cave, she need not tell Peter whom she had met there, and what had happened in her presence.

The little boy, she reflected, would be no better off if given up to his father, and no one need ever know that the child was his. It was all plain enough; she had nothing to do but keep quiet and let things be as they were.

But Jael's was not a hardened conscience, and though the temptation came before her in glowing colours, like a fair, bright picture, there came also the warning voice which the Great Father puts into every heart to tell of danger at hand and rouse the soul to watchfulness and resistance.

Little Jael knew she was wrong. She felt the force of the temptation, and felt, too, how weak she was, and she did the best thing that she or any other Christian could have done at such a time, for she knelt down and prayed earnestly that God would show her very plainly what was right, and help her to do it. And when the prayer was ended, Jael had resolved what she would do, for she felt that whatever happened, she could not bear to carry about with her a secret such as this, or to keep the truth from that loving, tender father of hers.

Jael's mind was full of strange thoughts as she walked homeward along the beach. She felt as if she were making a great sacrifice for the sake of right. She thought of Abraham, and of his wonderful obedience and faith, and she tried to think that if she imitated his example God would, perhaps, in some way she could not see now, give her back her little Mo.

Jael did not reach home until half-past five, and her father and mother and Mo were seated at tea.

The little fellow held out his arms with a cry of delight as the girl entered, and the sight of his bright, sweet face was too much for poor Jael after all she had gone through. Clasping the child in her arms, as he sat at table in his high chair, she burst out sobbing,—

"How can I let you go, darlin', O darlin'? O my little Mo, my little Mo! God can't be so unkind as to take you away from me."

"Goodness gracious! The child's gone clean out of her mind!" exclaimed Catherine. Then in a sharper, louder voice, "What ails you, ye silly girl? Was there ever a mother bothered with such a only daughter as mine!"

"Hush, wife," said Peter, gently; "there's more in this than we can see yet. Don't let us be the ones to break the bruised reed or quench smoking flax. The child's in trouble. Come to father, Jael, and tell him all about it."

Then Jael, throwing herself into her father's arms, told him the whole story, keeping back nothing, though she was often obliged to stop in the recital, for her tears would flow in spite of her efforts to control them.

But it was some comfort when she finished at last to have her father caress her fondly, and to hear him say, "Bless you, my dear brave little daughter! Even a child is known by his doings, whether they be pure and whether they be right; and God's children need not fear to take all that He sends them, if but they try to know His will and to do it. Seek ye 'first' the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

"And will He add unto me my little Mo?" questioned Jael, lifting her tearful eyes to Peter's face.

"I don't know, child; but this I 'do' know, that we may safely trust Him to give what is best for you and for us all. The love that withheld not His only begotten and well-beloved Son from death for our sake will surely not keep back any lesser gift that's good for us. Trust Him, Jael! Only trust Him!"

And Jael trusted.

Time went on. The story of Edwin Garston's arrest had been on every one's lips. During his trial, his sad story, too, had come out in the account of why he had hidden himself. Then people put two and two together, and concluded that the dead body found months ago must have been that of poor Emily Garston, who, deserted by her husband as she thought for ever, had lost her senses and destroyed herself.

Of course, the fact of there having been a child lost, too, made every one pretty sure that the little one picked up by Jael and adopted by Bible Jones the fisherman must be the little Cyril, though at the time that the body of the woman was found, there had been no clue to her name, nor anything to make a connecting link between her and the baby.

The trial was over at last, and the prisoner acquitted. Ere this, however, Peter had written to him, and had given him some particulars relative to the finding of the child, and of the prevailing feeling at Orlmuck that the drowned woman was the little fellow's mother.

The first visit that Edwin Garston paid after his release was to the cottage of the fisherman, and one look at father and son together would have convinced anybody of the relationship between them, for little Mo was just the image of the stranger who had been so rudely robbed of his disguise before Jael's astonished eyes in the cave that day. His visit was a sore trial to Jael, for the poor child was in fear and trembling, and could hardly help bursting into tears when the newly-found father took the little fellow in his arms, and called him his own Cyril, all he had left in the world now.

"I'd like to have a few minutes' chat with you, please sir," said Peter, when Edwin Garston had somewhat recovered from the excitement natural to such an occasion as the present. "If you wouldn't mind going outside with me, there's something as would be the better of being settled soon."

Jael never knew just what passed between her father and his visitor, but when they came in again, Peter called her and said, "Jael, my girl, this gentleman wants to begin life again over in America, and it wouldn't be well for him to take the boy so far, and he's been good enough to say as he'll trust him with us for the present till he can make some different arrangements."

We need hardly say that Jael was radiant with delight, and even Catherine was much pleased when she heard that little Mo was to remain at the cottage. Her advice to her husband that evening when Jael came home and told of her adventure in the cave had been to keep it all quiet and say nothing about it, but now she was fain to acknowledge that the straightforward, honest way was the best, and that her husband's study of God's Word had taught him wisdom as well as uprightness.

Before Edwin Garston sailed for America, he called at the cottage one day and asked Jael if she "remembered their talk in the cave?"

"Yes, sir," replied Jael, "I remember it very well indeed."

"Then you may recollect saying that there was no one who might not hope for forgiveness, because Christ came to call sinners to repentance."

"Yes, sir, I remember; it's all quite true, sir."

"Your words have never left me. My heart was very despairing and dark, and what you said gave me the first ray of hope and light, and since then I have been reading and praying for myself. Dear little girl, if I become a Christian, it will be by God's mercy in directing you to me, and in so filling your heart with the truths of His Word that you were enabled to impart them to one in such need of help and cheering. I feel very happy in leaving my little son with you, Jael, for, child though you are, you may be taught of God, and in your turn can teach Cyril. May the Great Father, whom I am just learning to know and love, have you both in His holy keeping!"

This was Edwin Garston's farewell visit, and he sailed the day after. It is not our intention to follow him into his new life; let us rather look forward a few years, and tell our readers that when he came back, a prosperous man, it was to find Jael grown into a blooming girl of fourteen, and little Cyril—or Mo, as he preferred to be called—a fine boy of seven, who was getting on splendidly at school, and was still the pride and delight of Jael's heart. Peter and Catherine looked somewhat older, of course, and the latter was a little infirm, but she had improved in character, and the little home was more peaceful and pleasant than ever.

Peter had suffered a good deal of late from rheumatism, and now Edwin insisted upon his giving up his hard work of fisherman—or, as he called it, retiring from business.

"God has prospered me, dear old friend," said the young man when Peter tried to object, "and now you must let me be like a son to you. Whatever I may be permitted to do, I could never repay a tenth of what you have done for me and my boy."

So it was settled that all should live together, and Edwin Garston took a house at some distance from Orlmuck, and near a large town, where there were good schools, and to these he sent both Jael and Cyril. And in the evenings, could you but have looked in at the windows, you might have seen Edwin Garston helping his son with his lessons for next day, and Jael, too, with her earnest face bent over her books.

Old Peter sits in the chimney corner, with his big Bible open on his knee, and Catherine opposite him with her knitting.

Let us lean over old Peter's shoulder and see upon what his eyes are dwelling so intently. Ah! There are the words:

"The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of
the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

"The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

"The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether."

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R. K. BURT AND CO., PRINTERS, WINE OFFICE COURT, E.C.