Chapter VI: Nannie

MONA went that afternoon for her walk, as she had promised, caring little as she went whither her steps might tend. West Point was her first idea, but she had a certain dread of being caught and imprisoned by the returning tide. So she turned aimlessly in the opposite direction, not climbing, but skirting the East Cliff Hill, by the winding path which ran round it at the bottom.

To reach the little shingle cove beyond, took nearly an hour of steady walking, but once set going, Mona kept it up mechanically. She had never suffered from weakness before, and felt some surprise at her own failing strength and aching limbs when the hour was ended, not knowing the exhausting effects of such grief and seclusion as hers during the past month.

The path leading straight up the hill, and along the edge of the cliff, was evidently a much shorter cut homewards than the road by which she had come, and Mona decided to follow it, though doubtful whether the steepness of the ascent might not more than counter-balance its greater directness. She pressed steadily for a while up the stony way, with trailing brambles on her left and right, till she found herself panting to a degree which made a respite necessary. A little grassy niche close to the cliff-edge attracted her, and she sat down to rest.

It was a clear October day, fair and mild, and free alike from boisterous breeze or glaring sunshine. Everything seemed clothed in a neutral tint, and the very blue of the sea had a gray hue about it. There were no waves beyond a lazy heaving to and fro of the water, but Mona could catch the sound of the distant splash, as the tide crept sleepily in, washing round one rock after another.

How long she sat there, with her cheek on her hand, and her eyes fixed dreamily on the line of the horizon, she could not have told. She was scarcely thinking so much as sinking into a tangled maze of doubt and speculation, after her habit of late. Why this? What of that? How possible the other? And this could not be reconciled with that; and that was a belief incompatible with this; and life altogether was one sad confused mystery; and sin and sorrow seemed so to flourish under the permission of the God of holiness and love; and revealed truths were so utterly bewildering in their varied aspects.

And Mona, poor weak child, striving feebly to penetrate mighty mysteries which the very angels may not fathom, setting herself up to question the eternal purposes of the King of kings, before whom the sinless cherubs veil their faces—what wonder if she found herself baffled on every side, and closed in by a darkening threatening cloud of unbelief? As well might she have sought to gauge the depth of the Atlantic Ocean with the little six-inch ruler in her desk at home, as have dreamt of measuring God's mysteries by means of her own puny intellect. Ay, and of the most brilliant powers on earth, ever seen in living man, the same must still be said. The finite can never compass the infinite.

How long Mona would have gone on sitting there but for an interruption, it is hard to say. Down in her heart of hearts she knew she was wrong to give way to these questionings—knew herself to be playing with edged tools of deadly sharpness. But it seemed to herself that she had no power to draw back from the contest, no power even to seek help from above. What was the good of praying, she asked bitterly, when doubts as to the power of prayer thronged round every word she uttered? If once she could settle these terrible questions which so disturbed her peace, she would feel again the peace and joy she had known so short a time before.

If once! Little did she know that she was bearing fast towards a reef of cruel hidden rocks, upon which too many of the brightest human intellects have been wrecked for eternity. Well was it for Mona that not all her reasonings could prevent the child-like instinct of her heart from leading her once and again, through all her doubtings, to cry aloud to her Saviour for help. Well was it for her that her speculations, though feebly resisted, were no pleasure, but keenest pain, and that she was a stranger as yet to the foolish pride so often felt in such questionings, as if, instead of being simply a sign of imperfect faith, they were a proof of superior mental power. But if allowed to hold sway too long, there was no hope that in time the pain would not die, and pride creep stealthily in to supply its place.

An unexpected sound struck on Mona's ear, and roused her suddenly from her musings. She was not sorry to be so roused. Something of a stilled sob in a child's voice, it seemed to her, and she listened intently, but for awhile in vain. Then she heard it again, rather more distinctly, and rising from her sheltered spot among the brambles, she stood in the pathway, waiting.

There it was—an unmistakable sob this time. Mona went straight among the bushes away from the cliff, in the direction whence the sobbing proceeded, and in her haste, almost fell over the figure of a child crouched in the long grass, shivering and moaning under its breath, with an occasional sharper sound, as if of pain too keen to be repressed.

"Why, you poor little creature, what is the matter?" asked Mona compassionately, kneeling down beside her. "What is the matter? Has any one hurt you, or are you ill?"

The child only cowered down more closely, and Mona bent over her.

"Poor little thing! You are quite trembling. Has anything happened to frighten you? Tell me your name, little girl?" said Mona, with gentle authority, finding her questions unanswered.

"Nannie Ackman."

"And where do you live?"

"Up on the hill."

Nannie started and moaned sharply again, and then lifted her tear-stained face. "O please,—I can't help it, it does hurt so," she whispered, with catches in her breath.

Mona noticed how the child crouched forward, all drawn together with pain. She noted too, in a more passing way, the careful mending of the little one's short scarlet petticoat, and the neatness of the long black hair, and the cleanliness of the small face and hands, unaware how much Madge Hardwicke had had to do with the same.

"Nannie, what is it that hurts you so much?" she asked gently. "Tell me what it is, dear."

She sat down on the long grass, and lifted Nannie into her lap, but the movement, though most tenderly performed, caused almost a scream of anguish. "What can be the matter? Nannie, poor child, can't you tell me?" Mona asked, in real distress. "Have you had a fall, or has any one hurt you? Where is the pain?"

She hardly needed to ask the latter question, after the way in which the child's hands were clenched over her chest. "It's here, an' all through an' my back," Nannie gasped incoherently. "O please tell Madge—I did try—and I couldn't be patient."

"Madge Hardwicke, do you mean?" asked Mona, trying to support Nannie in the easiest possible position.

"Yes, and I did try," sobbed Nannie, breaking down, "but it does hurt so dreadful, I couldn't keep in no longer."

"Have you had this pain before to-day, Nannie?"

"O no, 'cause father never hit me there before, nor so hard."

"Your father! You don't mean to say he has done this!"

"O I didn't mean to tell, I didn't," cried Nannie, roused to the sense of what she had said, by the indignation in Mona's tone. "O please—nobody mustn't know—'cause—"

She had tried to raise herself in her excitement, and another scream cut short the words. "Hush, Nannie, hush; you must lie down and keep still," said Mona gravely. "What made your father treat you in such a way? Tell me his name, and where you live."

"He's Amos Ackman, and we live right up on the hill, next door to Madge Hardwicke," said Nannie, gasping painfully between her sobs. "And nobody mustn't ever know, please,—please,—"

"Nannie, does your father often strike you?"

"He's never done it so bad before, and he didn't think to make me fall over this time, he didn't. Poor father! Madge says it's all along 'cause he's so cross with the rheumatiz, and so it is. He don't know no better."

The words, in their eager forgiveness, brought a rush of tears to Mona's eyes. "Knows no better?" she repeated mechanically.

"No, 'cause he don't love God," whispered Nannie, under her breath. "And Madge and I've settled I'd better bear, and not grumble at nothing; 'cause, if I do, father 'll mayhap be longer learning to love Him. And if he's too long, maybe he won't be in time for the Resurrection-day."

The tears overflowed, and came dropping down on Nannie's brow so fast, that Nannie looked up in wonder to see what made the strange young lady cry. "Nannie, where is your father?" asked Mona, unheeding her surprise.

"Down yonder, picking of blackberries. He don't know I'm here," whispered Nannie, shrinking. "He's a deal angered, 'cause you know I couldn't go to sell blackberries on Sunday. And he said he'd make me to-morrow; and I said it 'ud be wrong, and then—he didn't mean to more than push me neither. He don't know it's so bad."

"If he does not know, he 'ought' to know," Mona thought. And in one of those bursts of burning indignation, to which the gentlest natures are sometimes prone, she did that which she would have been incapable of even attempting in her cooler moments. Without saying a word to Nannie, and without even being clearly aware of her own intentions, she took the child in her arms, and walked straight down the hill, in the direction pointed out by Nannie.

Whether or no Nannie guessed her intentions, she offered no objection. Perhaps she saw a resolution in Mona's flushed cheeks and firmly-set lips, which would not be easily overcome. Perhaps the motion caused by Mona's walk caused suffering too acute to admit of any thought beyond that of self-control. At all events, neither of the two spoke, till they came suddenly upon the ragged uncouth figure, whose identity was made plain to Mona, alike by his half-filled blackberry basket and by Nannie's shiver of fear.

"Is your name Amos Ackman?" Mona inquired, presenting herself abruptly before him, and dashing in fearless fashion straight to the point.

"Be!" said Amos surlily, the former part of the sentence being merely an inarticulate growl.

"And is this your little girl?"

"That's Nan," said Amos. "Idle little hussy she be, wastin' of her time, an' doin' nought but play."

"Play!" repeated Mona indignantly. "She is in no state for play, or work either. Do you know that you might be severely punished for your cruelty?"

"Eh?" said Amos.

The tone was sullenly non-comprehensive. "Look here," said Mona. "See what you have done to her."

Amos stared stolidly, and repeated, "Eh?"

"Do you know you have hurt her so terribly that she cannot stand or walk? If you go on in this way, you will end by becoming a murderer!" said Mona, in her warmth. "You, a father, to behave so to your poor little child!"

"Can't walk, eh? She's all a humbuggin'," growled Amos. "Get down, will yer, Nan?"

Mona held the little helpless figure more closely. "You are heartless,—wicked," she said, hardly able to find words for her passionate indignation and pity, while Nannie burst into tears, and sobbed out,—

"O father, I didn't mean to tell! I'm sorry."

"Dare say yer didn't, too," said Amos, with an unmistakable scowl this time. "Sorry, are yer? I'll make yer sorry, an' no mistake, afore yer a day older."

"You shall not dare. You would kill her," cried Mona. "You shall not lay a finger on her again. I will take her home with me."

"Take her away, will yer? Yer 'd just better!"

Mona quailed before the ferocity of those shaggy eyebrows.

"I don't want to go, father," said Nannie, more calmly than she had yet spoken. "I'd a deal rather stay with you."

"I shall tell my uncle, Mr. Chetwynd, about it all, and see what he will say," Mona answered. "I can't think how you could dare to treat a poor little helpless girl in such a cowardly brutal way. I wonder you could dare."

"Nan's not a-going to go away from home," was the only response.

"I shall take her up to Madge Hardwicke. My uncle will settle the matter by-and-by."

Mona could not trust herself to say more. She turned hastily away, and walked again up the hill.

Glancing back once, she saw Amos Ackman shuffling down the path in the opposite direction. Not till he was out of sight, did she find how unfitted was her own strength for the task she had undertaken. At any time, unless under the strongest excitement, her slender arms were unequal to the bearing of such a burden, and now the reaction from her interview was a fit of nervous trembling from head to foot. She struggled on a few more paces, and then sank down on the grass, so completely spent that there was nothing for it but to await a renewal of strength, or the help of a passer-by. Not many people, however, went up and down the path on this side of the hill.