Chapter XII: Many Means

Eager spread his nets very wide for the capture for higher things of these two callow souls cast so carelessly into his hands. Carelessly, that is, on the part of Sir Denzil. For his own part he believed devoutly in the Higher Hand in the great game of life, and never for a moment doubted that here was a work specially designed for him by Providence.

He put his whole heart into the matter, as he did into all matters. He felt himself very much in the position of a missionary breaking up new ground, except, indeed, that here were no old beliefs to get rid of. It was absolutely virgin soil, and he felt and rejoiced in the responsibility.

Perfect little savages they were in many respects, and their training had to begin at the very beginning. Manners they lacked entirely, and their customs were simply such as they had evolved for themselves in their free-and-easy life on the flats, Their beliefs were summed up in a wholesome fear of Sir Denzil and his representative Mr. Kennet. These two were to them as the gods of the heathen; powers of evil, to be avoided if possible, and if not, then to be propitiated by the assumption of graces--such as unobtrusiveness, and if observed, then of meekness and conformability--which were no more than instantly assumed little masks concealing the true natures within, which true natures found their full vent and expression in the wilds of the sand-hills and the untrammelled freedom of the shore.

Old Mrs. Lee was a power of another kind, on the whole benevolent; provident, at all events, and not given to such incomprehensible outbreaks of anger and punishment as were the others at times.

They had known no coddling, had run wild with as little on as possible--and in their own haunts with nothing on at all--since the day they could crawl out of the courtyard down to the ribbed sand below. They were hard as nails, and feared nothing, except Sir Denzil and Mr. Kennet.

Eager's first and most difficult work was to break them off their evil habits--their natural lust for slaughter and destruction, the perpetual resort to fisticuffs for the settlement of the most trifling dispute, the use of language which conveyed no meaning beyond that of emphasis to their own minds, but which to other ears was terribly revolting.

Just as, if he had had a couple of wild colts to take to stable, he would have found it better to lead them than to drive, so he strove to win these two from the miry ways and pitfalls among which a shameful lack of oversight had left them to stray. He forced no bits into their mouths, laid no halters on their touchy heads. He just won their confidence and liking, till they looked up to him, trusted him, finally worshipped him, and followed, unquestioning, where he chose to lead them.

And--Providence or no Providence--they could not have fallen into better hands.

Charles Eager was one of the newer school, a muscular Christian if ever there was one, rejoicing greatly in his muscularity, and as wise as he was thorough in his Master's work. He had pulled stroke in his boat at Cambridge, and when he went there had looked forward to the sword as his oyster-opener. And so he had given much time to fitting himself adequately for an army career. He would have backed himself to ride, or box, or fence with any man of his time; and he had so unmistakable a bent for mechanics, and was so skilful a hand with lathe and tools, that there could not be a moment's doubt as to which branch nature designed him for.

And then, when he had perfected himself for the way he had chosen, a better way opened suddenly before him. Without a sign of the cost, he renounced all he had been looking forward to all his life, and dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the greater work.

All that he had acquired, however, with so different an end in view, remained with him, and helped to make him the man he was; and it was into such hands that, by the grace of God, these two wild Carron colts had fallen.

A missionary, when he sets out to turn his unruly flock from their old savageries, must, if he understands human nature and his work, provide other and less harmful outlets for the energies resulting from generations of tumult and slaughter. Eager taught his young savages boxing on the most scientific principles, and made the gloves himself. He taught them fencing with basket-hilted sticks, constructed under his own eyes by the old basket-weaver in the village. Prompt appeal to arms was still permitted in settlement of their endless disputes; but the business was regularised, and tended, all unconsciously on the part of the combatants, to education.

For their inexhaustible energies he found new and much-appreciated vent in games on the sands. And if these were crude enough performances, compared with their later developments familiar to ourselves, they still had in them those elements of saving grace which all such games teach in the playing--self-control, fair-play, honour And these be mighty things to learn.

In the summer they played cricket. The bat and ball Eager provided; the stumps he made himself.

He also instructed them in the mysteries of hare-and-hounds, which chimed mightily with their humour, especially when he supplemented it with a course of Fenimore Cooper. They became mighty hunters and notable trackers, their natural instincts and previous training standing them in excellent stead.

In the winter the flats rang to their shouts at football and hockey, crudely played, but mightily relished.

And always, in and alongside their play and in between, but so deftly administered that it seemed to them but a natural part of the whole, their education proceeded by leaps and bounds. They drank in knowledge unawares, and learned intuitively things that mere teaching is powerless to teach.

When he found them they were simply self-centred and selfish little savages--each for himself, and heedless of anything outside his own skin; and their manners and customs were such as naturally fitted their state.

As their minds opened to the larger things outside, and they began to be drawn away from themselves, their natural proclivities came into play. Like hardy wild-flowers, their rough outer sheaths began to open to the sun, revealing glimpses of the better things within.

And, all unconsciously to herself or to them, little Grace Eager was the sun to whom, in the beginning, their expansion was due.

Eager, watching them all with keenest interest, used to say to himself that she was doing as much for them as he, if not more.

She was so novel to them, so altogether sweet and charming. She supplied something that had hitherto been a-wanting in their lives, and of whose lack they had not even been aware, until she came into them, and made them conscious of the want by filling it.

Now and again at first, and presently almost as a matter of course, the tiger-cubs were invited up to Mrs. Jex's cottage for a homely meal, after some hotly contested game on the sands or some long chase after the tricky two legged hare or astute and elusive Redskin.

And, in the beginning, Indian brave who knew no fear, but knew almost everything else that was to be known in his own special line, and cunning hare and vociferous hound, and tireless champion of the bat and hockey-stick, and valiant fighters on all possible occasions, would sit mumchance and awkward, watching the Little Lady, with wide, observant eyes, as she dispensed her simple hospitalities with a grace and sweetness that set her above and apart from anything they had ever known.

And then she was so extraordinarily different indoors from what she was on the sands. There, at cricket or hockey, or football, she danced and shrieked with excitement, and was never still for a moment. Here, at the table, she suddenly became many years older, knew just what to do, and did it charmingly,--ordering even the Rev. Charles about, and beaming condescendingly on them all, from the lofty heights of her experience and knowledge of the world as learned from her aunts in London.

Painfully aware of deficiency, they began to strive to fit themselves for such occasions, repressed themselves into still greater awkwardness and silence, fought one another afterwards on account of too obvious lapses from what they considered proper behaviour and unkind brotherly comment thereupon, but all the time unconsciously absorbed the new atmosphere and by degrees became able to enjoy it without discomfort.

"Jim, my dear boy," she would say, on occasion, "are you comfortable on that chair?"

A quick nod from the conscious and obviously uncomfortable Jim.

"You shouldn't just nod your head, my dear. You should say, 'Yes, thank you,' or 'Not entirely,'--as the case may be. It's rude just to nod."

"Not entirely, then," blurted Jim, with a very red face, and many times less comfortable than before.

"I'm sorry, but they're all the same, and if you sit on the sofa you can't reach the table. And if you sit on the floor I can't see you."

"I can do, thank you."

"Who lives in that cottage we passed to-day, down along the shore by the Mere?" asked Eager, by way of diversion.

"Old Seth," from both boys at once, much relieved at being put into a position to answer a question that had nothing to do with themselves.

"Old Seth? I've not come across him yet. Old Seth what?"

"Old Seth Rimmer. He's a Methody," said Jack.

"It's a lonely place to live, away out there. Has he a wife,--any children?"

"Mrs. Rimmer's always in bed."

"An invalid. I must call and see her, Methody or no Methody."

"And there's young Seth and Kattie."

"I saw the girl peeping out after you'd passed. She's a nice-looking girl. I shall call and get to know her," said the Little Lady decisively.

"We'll go and make their acquaintance to-morrow," said her brother. "What does Mr. Rimmer do? Fishing?"

A nod from Jim. "Keeps his boat up in the river, two miles further on."

"And the Mere? Any fish there?"

"Ducks in winter. We got one once."

"Had to lie in the rushes all day," said Jack, with a reminiscent shiver.

"It was a good duck," said Jim.

And the next afternoon the Rev. Charles set out for the cottage, with Grace skipping about him in search of treasure-trove of beach and sand-hill.

It was a stoutly-built little wooden house, standing back in a hollow of the sand-hummocks, and its solitariness was enhanced by reason of the vast and lonely expanse of Wyn Mere, which lay just behind it. The shore of the Mere was thick with reeds and rushes. The long unbroken stretch of water silently mirroring the blue sky, with its margin of rustling reeds, possessed a beauty all its own, but something of sadness and solemnity too.

Grace, standing on top of a sand-hill, with a high tide dancing merrily up the flats on the one side and the long silent Mere on the other, put it into words.

"How unhappy it looks, Charlie! I like the sea best. It laughs."

"It laughs just now, my dear, but sometimes it roars and thunders."

"All the same, I like it best. This other looks as if it drowned people."

"I don't suppose it ever drowned as many people as the sea, Gracie."

"Then it seems as if it thought more of those it has drowned. I wouldn't live here for anything. I'd cut a hole through the sand-hills and let the sea wash it all away."

"Better see what Mr. Rimmer thinks of it before you do that." And he laid a restraining hand on her arm as the door of the wooden house opened quietly, and a man came out backwards and stood for a moment with his head bent towards the door as if he were listening. His hair was long and of scanty grizzled gray. He wore a blue jersey and high sea-boots, and carried his sou'wester in his hand. Then he straightened up, clapped on his hat, and strode away round the house towards the Mere. Eager jumped down the sand-hill and ran after him, and caught him before he reached a flat-bottomed skiff drawn up on to the sedgy shore.

"Is this Mr. Rimmer?" he asked.

"Seth Rimmer, at yore service, sir." And there turned on them a fine old gray face, laced and seamed with weather-lines that told of bitter black nights on the sea, when the spume flew and the salt bit deep. The blue eyes, very deep under the bushy gray brows, were shrewd and kindly; the mouth, half hidden in gray moustache and beard, was set very firmly.

"He looked good but hard. But I liked him," was Gracie's comment afterwards.

"Yo' be the new curate," he said at once, taking in Eager in a large comprehensive gaze.

"Charles Eager, the new curate, Mr. Rimmer. How is your wife to-day? I understand----"

"Ay, hoo's bed-rid. We're Wesleyans, but hoo'll be glad to see yo' and th' little lady." And he turned back to the house.

"An' what's yore name?"--to Gracie.

"Grace Eager."

"Yore sister?"

"All I have left. There have been many between, but we are the last, and so we're very good friends."

"An' so ye should. A fine name yon, Grace Eager. An' what are yore graces, an' what are yo' eager for, missie?"

"She's full of all graces and eager for all good, like her big brother. Isn't that it, Gracie?" laughed Charles, to cover her confusion at so pointed a questioning.

She nodded and squeezed his hand and skipped by his side, and so they came back to the house.

"Someun to see yo', Kattrin," he said, as he opened the door and ushered them in.

It was but a small room and the furnishings were of the simplest, but everything was spick-and-span in its ordered brightness. There was a small fire with a kettle on the hob, and in one corner was a bed with a sweet-faced woman in it, propped up with pillows so that she could look out of the window.

"Yo're welcome, whoever yo' are," she said.

"It's new curate, Mr. Eager, an' 's li'll sister."

"Ech, a'm glad to see yo', sir, though we don't trouble church much here. Nivver set eyes on last curate, nivver once."

"I apologise for him, Mrs. Rimmer; perhaps he found the long walk through the sand too much for him."

"Ay; he wasn't much of a man," said Rimmer quietly. "Yo're a different breed, I'm thinking. Yo're tackling them Carron lads, an' that's a good job. I seen yo' about the sands with 'em."

"Yes; they're worth tackling, aren't they?"

"Surely; and yo're the man for the job! Now I mun get along or I'll miss tide. Yo'll excuse me, an' if yo'll talk a while with the missus she'll be glad. She dunnot get too many visitors. Good-bye, wife!" And he went out quietly and tramped sturdily away to his work.

"He's a right good mon," said his wife fervently. "And he aye bids me good-bye in case he nivver comes back, and he aye says a prayer for me outside the door. It's a bad, bad coast this," she said, with a sigh. "It took his feyther, an' his grandfeyther, and it's aye on his mind that sometime it'll take him too. An' it may be onytime."

"He's in better hands than his own, Mrs. Rimmer," said Eager.

"Aye, I. know, and so was they, an' it's no good thinking o' death and drownin's till you see 'em. But I seen so many it's not easy to get away from 'em, lying here all alone."

"Where's your little girl?" asked Gracie suddenly.

"Kattie? She should be in by this. She stops chattin' wi' th' neebors now an' then. It's lonesome here for childer, yo' see. I sometimes wish we was nearer folk, but we've lived here all our lives an' I wouldna like to move now."

"And who are your nearest neighbours, Mrs. Rimmer?" asked Eager.

"Oh, there's plenty across Mere--Bill o' Jack's, an' Tom o' Bob's o' Jim's, an'----" She stopped and lay listening. "That's her now." And presently a girl's voice lilting a song drew near from the direction of the Mere.

The door opened and she came in carrying a pail of milk.

"'Ello!" she jerked in her astonishment, and then lapsed into silence.

"Where's your manners, Kattie?" from her mother, as she stood staring at the strangers, especially at Gracie.

"How are you, Kattie?" said Eager. "I'm the new curate. This is my sister, Gracie. She saw you the other day and wanted to see you again."

Kattie put out the tip of a red tongue and smiled in rich confusion.

She was a remarkably pretty child, with large, dark-blue eyes, a mane of brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, and the healthy red-brown skin of the dwellers on the flats.

Like the boys of Carne, she obviously wore only what she had to wear of necessity. In her shy grace she was like a startled fawn, looking her first on man, and ready to bound away at smallest sign of advance.

"Where's yore manners, lass?" said her mother again; and Kattie drew in the tip of her tongue and twisted her little red mouth and stared at Gracie harder than ever.

"Suppose you two run away out and make one another's acquaintance," said Eager to Gracie, "and I'll have a chat with Mrs. Rimmer." And the girls slipped out contentedly.

"Ech, but you do wear a lot o' clothes!" jerked Kattie, the moment they got outside.

"It must be jolly to wear so few," said Gracie enviously. "When I've lived here a bit perhaps I can too. You see I've always been used to wearing a lot."

"They're gey pratty, but I'd liever not carry 'em."

"Is that your boat? Do you row it all by yourself?"

"O' course! I'll show you." And she sped down to the long-prowed shallop from which she had just landed, shoved it off, tumbled in, regardless of wet feet and display of bare leg, and sent the little craft bounding over the smooth dark mirror, her vivid little face sparkling with delight at this opportunity for the display of superior accomplishment.

Grade meanwhile danced with desire on the sedgy shore.

"Me too, Kattie! Come back and take me too! What a love of a little boat! And you row like a man."

"I can scull too," cried Kattie vauntingly, and drew in one oar and slipped the other over the stern and came wobbling back with a manly swing that seemed to Gracie to court disaster.

"I like the rowing best," she gasped, as she crawled cautiously in over the projecting prow. "Let me try one."

And thereafter they were friends.

"I like Kattie," said Grade exuberantly, as she danced along home holding Charlie's hand.

"She's a pretty little thing, but she seems very shy."

"She's not a bit shy when you know her. And she can row and swim, and once she shot a duck on the Mere. And she knows where they lay their eggs, and . . ."

And so, for better or worse, Kattie Rimmer came into the story.