Chapter III: Good News

WITHIN a week from the time of George's engagement by Mr. Day, his father left Northcliffe for London. Having made up his mind to follow Dr. Bertram's advice, it was clear that the sooner he did so the better. There was plenty to do in those few days, and Mrs. Horbrook was but too glad to be so fully employed, as it kept her from thinking too much. The last evening came.

George carried his father's box up to the station, and Mr. Day gave him leave to go with his mother the next morning to see his father off. Edwin was there also. And Janet longed to go, but there would have then been no one to mind baby, so the unselfish child remained quietly at home, and no one but God knew what it had cost her. She watched them all from the cottage window, until a turn in the road hid them from her sight, and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. This was all.

The next moment she was amusing baby. And when baby went to sleep, she got the little ones ready for school, and had scarcely done so when her mother returned from the station, looking so pale and sad that Janet was glad the little ones were out of the way.

"Did father get off all right, mother?" she asked, when Mrs. Horbrook was seated at the little table with a cup of hot tea before her.

"Yes, dear, all right; and he seemed in tolerable spirits too; but it was a sore trial—a sore trial."

Janet had never seen her mother weep so before.

"Don't ye cry, mother," she whispered; and she threw a pair of loving arms round her mother's neck.

"You are a great comfort to me, my little Janet," said her mother, as she returned her caress.

No one but the little girl knew the joy caused by those few words. Often had she envied George his power of helping his parents, but now it seemed as if she also would be of some use.

"I am so glad, mother."

Janet's tears flowed fast, and little by little Mrs. Horbrook drew from her child how she had longed for the day when she too should be big enough to earn money, and how she had feared she was an expense at home.

"Why, what would baby do without Janet, I wonder?" said her mother. "And Polly, and Lucy, and Harry? Why, you are my right hand, dear child."

"Why were you not up at the station to see father off Janet?" asked George when he came home from work.

"There would have been no one to see to baby, George, and Edwin seemed to want to go so much."

"You are a good little thing, Janet."

"I am sure I didn't think Janet cared a bit about going," said Edwin, whose conscience was whispering to him that he had not acted quite unselfishly, "or I would have stayed with baby."

"And how did you get on at work to-day, George?" asked his mother.

"Very well," he replied; "my shoulder pained me far less than yesterday. Matthew Hale says I have got over the worst of it, and that I shall soon feel no pain at all."

George spoke very cheerfully, and his mother little thought that he had something to trouble him, for all he seemed so gay.

Larkins was jealous of him already. He had soon found out that George meant to work, and that he was not going to be "one of them," as Ned expressed it. By "them" he meant the set of idle boys in Northcliffe.

Larkins himself was obliged to work, or he would have starved, for he had a step-father who would never support him in idleness; but every spare minute he could find, he made one of the gang of idlers.

George still went to the Sunday school, and this was one great cause of the unkindness of Larkins, who never let pass an opportunity of doing him an unkind action. One day, George asked his teacher what he ought to do, for at times such unkindness was very hard to bear.

"Your course is very plain, George," she said. "We must bear anything rather than do what we know would be displeasing to God. It is He alone whom you need fear. There was once a very good man who used to say those very words: 'I fear God, and therefore there is none other that I need fear.'"

Nearly a week had elapsed since John Horbrook had left home, when one evening, as George entered the cottage after leaving work, he found his mother sitting by the fire, her face radiant with happiness, and an open letter lying upon her lap.

"Such good news, George," said Mrs. Horbrook, in answer to her son's inquiring look. "He has met with such kindness, and seems so comfortable. How wrong I was to doubt even for a moment! But sit down, and you shall hear all he says." The letter was as follows:

"MY DEAR WIFE,—I dare say you have been longing to hear from me, and perhaps thinking I might have written sooner, but I thought it better to wait till I could tell you what the doctors say of my case, and it was only yesterday that Mr. A., the surgeon, looked at my foot. I have met with the greatest kindness ever since I left home. There was a gentleman in the railway carriage from Portsmouth to London who talked to me a great deal, and saw me into a cab when we got to London.

"Oh, Susie, but London is a mighty place. No chance of meeting with poor Tom, I fear. We went over a bridge across the Thames, and there were more church steeples than I could count, and such a number of ships in the river that their masts looked like Northcliffe Copse in winter. The bridge, although it is much wider than any road in Northcliffe, was so choked up with waggons and carriages that the cab I was in came to a standstill, and there was such a noise that I thought something must be the matter; so I put my head out of the window, and asked the driver what it was. He only laughed, and told me that there was nothing more the matter than what happens every day on London Bridge, owing to the immense number of conveyances passing over it at the same time.

"But if you could but see the hospital, wife! There isn't so fine a building in all Northcliffe; and the wards, as they call them, that is the rooms we are in, are as neat and clean and comfortable as possible. And the nurses are so kind, and the doctors too. And now for the good news which I have left till the last. They say Mr. A. is the first surgeon in London, and he it is who saw my foot yesterday. He says he hopes to be able to make a cure of me, and that in two months' time I shall be able to go home again. He told me it would have been almost impossible for me to have got cured in Northcliffe, for there I could not have the care I have here.

"My leg is now put into a sort of frame, which they call a 'cradle,' so that I cannot move any part of the limb. And then, lest I should grow weary with lying so long upon an ordinary bed, I have a water-bed to lie on, which never gets out of shape. Mr. A. is so good and kind. He said, 'You may rely upon my doing everything in my power for you, Horbrook; but you know I am only an instrument in God's hands. You must pray to Him to bless my efforts.'

"This is the good news, dear wife, and I know it will help to cheer you during my long absence. My love to all our dear children. How thankful I am they have not to live in London, wonderful place as it is! The air is so different from that of Northcliffe, and sometimes a thick yellow fog hangs over the whole place. I did not see one rosy-cheeked child as we drove through London from the station, all the poor little things had such thin white faces.

"Give my duty to Dr. and Mrs. Bertram, and tell them how grateful I
feel for all they have done for us.

"Your loving husband,

"JOHN HORBROOK."