Chapter IV: Taking a City

Geoffrey remembered Mr. Hodson's words later in the evening.

He did not turn in at the garden gate with Forbes, but telling him he had some business to do before going in to tea, he gave his presents into his brother's keeping, and ran down the hill on the summit of which their house stood.

At the bottom of the hill, he came upon a tumbled-down cottage, standing quite by itself. Old Rachel, of whom Mrs. Green had told them, lived here.

The thought of Rachel had lain very heavily on Geoffrey's heart the last two or three days. He could not forget that she was a mother, and a mother neglected by her only child, who, when she gave her anything at all, only passed on to her what she couldn't eat herself. He was thinking of Rachel when the apple puffs were passed round at dinner.

Now apple puffs was a favourite dish of Geoffrey's, as I fancy it is of most boys. They looked particularly tempting to-day, and he ate the first with a relish. It was just as he was taking his second, that Mrs. Green's words came across his mind, "and if ever she gives her anything, you may be quite sure it ain't fit to eat, something they can't eat themselves because it's turned."

Geoffrey looked at the puff as it lay so invitingly on his plate. It was three cornered, and a little burnt at the edges, which made it all the nicer in Geoffrey's opinion, and a nice layer of white sugar lay on the top.

How good it looked! For a moment the boy gazed at it undecidedly, then, when no one was looking, he put it into his jacket pocket, and resolved to take it round to old Rachel when they came back from Ipswich.

"For once," thought Geoff, "she shall have something that somebody else wants."

He had had some difficulty in knowing how to stow away his many presents so as not to crush his apple puff, but he had managed somehow, and now as he stood outside the door of Rachel's cottage, he took the puff out and was glad to find it still whole. It certainly looked very tempting, and Geoffrey was hungry after his walk. No one would see if after all he ate it, instead of giving it to old Rachel, and no one would consciously miss it.

For a moment the boy's resolution wavered, then he knocked at the door.

Now an apple puff was not a very great thing to give up for the sake of another, and perhaps some of my little readers may think that it would not have signified very much if Geoffrey had eaten it after all. But we must remember, that life is made up of little things, and the great battle of life, on which so much depends, consists often of little victories and little losses, and this small victory that Geoffrey gained that afternoon helped him in after years to gain a far greater one.

When he grew up to be a man, there was something he wanted very much, which was far more worth having than this apple puff. He wanted it so much that he sometimes felt he would almost give his life to possess it for ever such a short time; but somebody else wanted it too, someone who was weaker than he was, and who perhaps needed it more than he did, and Geoffrey gave it right up for the sake of that other.

I do not think he would have acted so nobly when he was a man, if he had not begun quite early in life to deny himself. If he had lost this little battle and had eaten the apple puff outside old Rachel's door, in all probability he would have lost that greater battle in after life.

"Come in," said a quavering voice as Geoffrey knocked, and on entering, he saw a haggard looking old woman, with a forbidding expression of face, and grey straggling hair, crouching over a small fire.

"You are old Rachel, aren't you?" asked Geoffrey, who had never seen her before.

"Well, what if I be?" she answered in a low gruff voice, "I don't want no one to come interfering with me, leastways a child. What do you want—eh?"

"I've brought you an apple puff," said Geoffrey, standing still by the door.

"Shut the door, can't ye," said Rachel shivering, "the draught's enough to cut one in two. An apple puff is it? That ain't the kind of food I want, I ought to be fed on arrowroot I tell ye, and sweet puddings and the like. But Jane never sends me what I need, it's either somethin' that's turned bad, or else what I can't eat."

"This is quite new and fresh," said Geoffrey, shutting the door and coming a little nearer, while he laid the puff on the table, "perhaps you've never tasted a puff—it's awfully good—I wish you'd try it."

"That's a likely story, if Jane sent it," said Rachel glancing at it, and then looking up suspiciously at Geoffrey.

"No one sent it," interposed Geoffrey. "We had them for dinner to-day, and I thought you'd like one as they were so good. I'm Geoffrey Fortescue, and I heard of you from Mrs. Green."

Rachel looked back again at the fire, muttering to herself, and Geoffrey looked round the room, and thought how bare it was, and how lonely Rachel looked.

"Haven't you any money to get things with?" he asked.

"Money ain't for such as me: the big folk that don't need it, they have the money. This world's comforts ain't for me."

"There's Heaven for you," said Geoffrey.

Rachel darted a quick look at the boy, and as she saw the earnest young face looking at her so pitifully, the expression on her own face softened, and she shook her head.

"I take it Heaven is a long way off," she said sadly.

"It doesn't seem so very far," answered Geoff, "Mother is there, and I sometimes feel she's quite close."

"Heaven ain't meant for such as me," muttered Rachel, cowering closer to the fire.

"I thought God loved everybody, and meant Heaven for the whole world," said Geoff, "and," he added earnestly, "I'm quite sure God must want you there, because you are so lonely."

Rachel wiped away a tear or two with her apron. She had not cried for many a long day. She had harboured too bitter thoughts to allow of tears, but to-day, something in the boy's simple words touched her hard old heart.

"I mustn't stop," said Geoffrey, looking out of the window at the darkness, "or Nurse won't like it. But I'll ask Mr. Hodson to come and see you, and I'll leave the apple puff, for it's ever so good, if you'll only try it."

Rachel nodded her assent to the last sentence, but added:

"But don't you bring no parsons to see me. I don't want no parsons here, unless," she added with a sob, and beginning to rock herself backwards and forwards, "unless he can tell me the way straight and plain to Heaven. I'd like to know that."

Closing the door softly after him, Geoffrey ran as fast as he could to Mr. Hodson. Although he ran the risk of a scolding from Nurse for being late, he felt that Rachel must not be left in her misery.

He arrived at the house nearly breathless, and told his friend what had happened.

Mr. Hodson, who had together with the Vicar for many a year tried in vain to overcome Rachel's objection to see a clergyman, was glad enough of the news Geoffrey brought him, and prepared at once to go and see her.

"Mr. Hodson," said Geoffrey anxiously, "God loves her, doesn't He? And He won't turn her away from Heaven, if she asks to be let in."

"If Rachel really wants to find God, He certainly will not turn her away," answered Mr. Hodson. "The Lord Jesus Christ has made a way there for us all, and old Rachel's way is the same as yours and mine. Do you remember the story Geoff," he added, as he put On his coat to start off at once, "of the man who saved his children by making a bridge of his own body from the window of his burning house to that of the opposite one? The houses were very near together, and he could reach from one window to another."

"His children one by one crossed over his body into safety, and just as the last child was saved, the house fell in, and the man was killed. When the Blessed Lord Jesus died on the Cross, He made a bridge for Rachel, and for you and for me to Heaven. You see, I have good news for your old friend, Geoff my boy, so you run home as fast as you can or you'll get a scolding."

And Geoff did get a scolding. Nurse met him at the door.

"Master Geoff," she cried, "I'm downright ashamed of you for setting the children such an example. There I've been worrying after you for the last twenty minutes, and thought you'd come to some accident or other. I'm downright ashamed of you."

"I had some business to do," said Geoffrey, trying to pass her. But Nurse placed her portly figure in his way.

"Business! A chit like you talking of business! What'll you come to next, I wonder. You're a naughty boy and ought to be ashamed of yourself. What business have you had to do, I should like to know, except to be a good obedient boy. That's the business you ought to be doing I take it."

Geoffrey flushed angrily. His mother never scolded him in this way, and he had often run messages for her as late as this by himself.

"Let me pass, Nurse," he said angrily, trying to push past her, "I've not been doing anything wrong."

"Nothing wrong!" exclaimed Nurse, catching hold of his arm. "Nothing wrong to make me that anxious about you that I didn't know what to do—nothing wrong that you've kept us all waiting for tea, and have set a bad example to all the children. I'm ashamed of you Master Geoff. Now I should like to know what you've been about, and I mean to know too."

Now Geoff did not wish to tell Nurse about the apple puff, and felt exceedingly angry at being treated like a little boy, and held by the arm in this way. So raising his hand he struck nurse's arm as hard as he could, and then pale with anger, he rushed into his bedroom and locked the door.

"Well I never!" ejaculated nurse. "If that isn't a wicked temper, I don't know what is."

When she went back into the nursery a few minutes afterwards, she informed the children that Geoff had been a naughty boy, and was to have no tea that evening, but that Forbes might put a glass of water and some bread outside his door, but was not to speak a word to him.

Forbes, in utter astonishment at his elder brother being punished in this way, obeyed wonderingly.

Now it was a great pity that Geoffrey had not at once explained to nurse the cause of his absence. She might have given him a slight scolding, for not asking her leave before going, but her kind heart would have sympathized with him, in his wish to do a kindness.

But Geoffrey's pride had stood in the way. He could not endure being treated like a little boy, and scolded like a naughty child, and as he paced up and down his room, his indignation rose, and reached its climax when he heard Forbes' footstep outside, and the sound of him quietly laying down his tea, as he supposed, by his door without a word. Was he to be treated then like a mere baby? And to be held in disgrace like Jack or Dodie would have been, if they had been naughty?

He opened his door impatiently to call after Forbes to take away his tea, but at the sight of the bread and water, he lost his temper completely, and taking up the glass, he threw it on to the ground, smashing it to pieces. Then locked his door again, and would not open it, though nurse shook it violently.

Then it was that Mr. Hodson's words about Alexander came into his mind, and Geoffrey stood quite still in his walk.

"'He that ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city,'" thought Geoff.

Half an hour afterwards, to Forbes' intense astonishment, Geoffrey appeared in the nursery and apologized to nurse.

Nurse said nothing, but going to the cupboard, she mixed some gregory powder in a wineglass, saying, "anyone who shows temper like that, I take it, must be ill. There my dear," she added kindly, "you drink that, there's a good boy—and you'll feel better to-morrow."

And Geoff drank it to the dregs, and in so doing was greater than Alexander the Great.