Chapter V: Old Roger

Directly Bryda was inside the old man's cottage she was able to collect her scattered wits, and look round at her kind friend and at his dwelling.

The little room into which she had come served as the old man's sitting-room and kitchen both; the door into what would naturally have been his little parlor was open, and she could see tools hanging up on neat wooden racks, half-finished chairs and boxes lying about, and in the center of the room a carpenter's bench and turning-lathe. The carpenter himself wore a very old-fashioned dress, long blue knitted stockings, strong low shoes with buckles, a scarf wound round and round his throat, so that two little points of very white collar came just under his chin, and a funny old brown coat with peculiar-looking buttons.

He drew a chair for Bryda near the hearth on which burned a small wood fire, and above which were a great many memorial cards in frames--wonderful works of art, with very black backgrounds and very white tombs, over which leaned in exhausted attitudes drooping female figures, supposed to be lamenting the departed in the tombs, while usually a large weeping willow languished in one corner of the picture.

The carpenter himself sat down, where he had evidently been sitting before, at a small table, on which was a very large Bible with pictures in it.

As he did so his eyes rested on the opposite wall, on which was a quaint old woodcut, representing the Christ in Joseph's workshop at Nazareth, with a glory round His heady busily making a table. Bryda saw, it too, and could not help noticing the look of pleasure that came into the old man's face, as if he had suddenly seen a very dear friend.

"You're a carpenter, Mr. Roger?" said Bryda, trying not to feel shy.

"Ay, ay," answered the old man, turning his spectacled eyes slowly from the picture to her face. "I make chairs and tables, and all else that I've strength for, just as He did," pointing to the picture. "He made them for over twenty years, but I've made them now for twice that, and more. Nigh on to seventy years I've done the same work as He did; and whenever I do a real neat job, missy, I say to myself, "That's right, Roger; do 'em better and better still, and some day you'll do one that He needn't a-been ashamed of."

"Do you think the Lord made the best chairs and tables?" asked Bryda, wondering. She had been so much more used to think of our Redeemer as He taught, and worked miracles, and went about doing good, than as the carpenter who worked quietly in a little out-of-the-way village.

"I dunno about the best, missy; maybe He never had the best teaching leastways, not to make grand folks' furniture. But I know every nail He drove was put in true and straight, and never a bit of bad wood used, or a place people wouldn't see left unfinished. All the work He did was the best He knew to do--that I know right well, missy."

Bryda sighed. She had come out to try and do some of the Lord's own work--to help the poor. And she had failed so horribly, with the best intentions! The old carpenter heard her sigh.

"Tell old Roger how you got into trouble, missy," he said; "and maybe a cup of tea would freshen you after all's done."

It was only half-past three, but the old man got up and bustled about, laying tea on the clean deal table, with a cloth still cleaner, for Bryda and himself, a big loaf, and a little bit of country butter. Then he put the kettle on to boil, and sat down opposite Bryda to watch it, while she told all the story of her adventure to her new friend, beginning with the scrape of yesterday, and Cousin Salome's story, and ending by saying sadly that it seemed as if there was no use for her in the world.

"Don't fret, my dear; don't fret," said the kind old man; "the Lord has a use for everything and everybody, if they'll ask Him to show the way. Why, the dear Lord had need of a donkey once, and He sent to ask for it. Didst ask Him what to do, little miss, before thou went?"

Bryda hung her head. That she had not done.

"That's where the fault was," said Roger thoughtfully. "What dost think 'ud happen if I tried to do squire's work, or parson's? They wouldn't thrive with me, for sure."

At this moment the cottage door opened, and the object of Bryda's terror, the shock-headed girl, entered. In one hand she held Bryda's locket and chain, in the other her basket, both of which she thumped down upon the table, so that all the tea-things rattled, merely saying, "There, take yer things, and don't come near us no more!" She bounced out again, and banged the door behind her.

"So it was Moll Dawson as freckened ye!" said Roger, when she was gone; "she's a real bad 'un, that girl. I'm thinking she's one of those lambs that run further off because they hear the Shepherd calling."

"I shall never dare to go near her house again," said Bryda; "but I am glad she did not steal my locket and chain. And I wish I could help somebody who is sick or very poor," she added, returning to her first idea.

The old carpenter leaned his elbows on his knees, and looked at Bryda very earnestly.

"When I were a young 'un," he said, "and lived in a part of the country far away from here, there was a cold, clear spring as bubbled up by the roadside, with the best water in all the country round, that never dried up. And they called it 'The Child's Well,' and told a pretty story about it."

"Oh, do tell me!" said Bryda eagerly, roused at once by the idea of a story, like a dog at the scent of game.

"Well," continued the old man, "they say that once, long years ago, there was a little lassie troubled in mind like you, missy, and wanting to do a bit o' work for the dear Lord. So every day, when she left her little white bed, she knelt down and prayed summat like this: 'Dear Lord,' says she, 'give me a little bit of Thy great work to do.' And all day long she was kind and gentle, and always doin' a hand's turn for some one, if it was only mindin' a babby while the mother went out.

"But she didn't understand, ye see, missy, that such bits o' things could belong to the Lord's work. Till one day, as the story goes, when it was a holiday, all the chicks went out, and were going some way off to play. Just as they got a little way out of the village, on the dusty, hot road, they met an old man, very foot-sore, and old and tired-lookin'. So he says, 'For dear pity's sake, little 'uns, give me a little water.' But the well was some way back, and the childer in a hurry to go and play, so they one and all told him to go on furder, and he'd find what he wanted. All but this little maid: she stayed looking wistfully at the old man, though the others called to her to come on. 'Sit down,' she says, 'till I fetch you some water,' and off she runs back to the village, fills a cup, and brings it back steady, not spillin' a drop. But when she came where she left the old man sitting, there was a beautiful figure, all in a white dress with, gold about it, and such a face as she had never seen before. And He took the cup and put it to His lips, and then with a voice like the sound of many waters--so she told the people after--He told her, 'Even a cup of cold water, given to the very least, shall have its reward.' And He poured out the rest of the water, and where it fell this spring rose up. And while the little maid looked at it, all on a sudden He was gone."

"Was it an angel that she saw?" asked Bryda, in an awe-struck tone.

"Some say it was an angel, some say it was the dear Lord Himself," said the old carpenter, bowing his head reverently. "But I don't rightly know, missy; I don't rightly know."

Here the kettle made a distraction by boiling over, and old Roger took it off and made tea.

Then his little visitor, who had now quite recovered her spirits, suggested that it would be "awfully nice" if they had some buttered toast, and in two minutes he and Bryda were on two stools by the fire, each with slice of bread at the end of a fork, the old man and little girl as happy as it was possible to be.

They were just going to turn their pieces and toast the other sides, when suddenly the door opened, and Bryda's nurse entered like a whirl wind, and stood horror-struck on the threshold.

"Oh, Miss Bryda, you naughty, naughty girl! Whatever do you think your poor dear mother would say, seeing you sitting there, for all the world like a vulgar child, and every one up at the house running about distracted, because you're lost? Come away this minute!"

Bryda had nothing to say for herself. She meant to do good; but it was very naughty to slip away "unbeknown," as nurse would say, and frighten every one.

The old carpenter had tea alone after all, and Bryda went sorrowfully home with her scolding nurse.