Chapter IX: "the World Is So Cruel." (1)

"There's a horse-fair at Kilmacredden on Saturday," said Lord Glengall. "I was thinking you might find time to come along with me and see what's to be picked up."

"It isn't time I'd be wanting," said Mr. Graydon, "and you know it isn't inclination."

"Very well, then, you'll come. We'll have to make an early start and give the mare her time over the mountain. Will four o'clock do?"

"For me, yes. Will you get up on Saturday morning and see that there's a cup of tea ready for me by four o'clock?"

This to Sylvia, who was demurely making tea at a side-table.

"You know I will. Next to being up all night I like to get up before daybreak."

Lord Glengall broke into a slow smile as he turned to look at the speaker. He sat astride a small chair, with his chin resting on the back. He still wore the frieze coat which he had on when he entered; and with his clean-shaven, melancholy face and deep-set eyes, he looked like nothing so much as a hard-pressed mountain farmer, just as Sylvia had described him. Yet the smile was one of great sweetness, and the mingled simplicity and shrewdness of the face were far from being unattractive.

"'Tis well for you, Graydon," he said, "to have little girls to do the like for you."

"You must marry, Glengall, and be properly taken care of," said Mr. Graydon.

"I'm past marrying," said Lord Glengall; "I leave that to the girls and boys."

"They'd make foolish marriages," said Sylvia, "if they were left to themselves."

Lord Glengall smiled more broadly.

"'Tis a prudent little woman you're owning, Graydon," he said. "You should turn match-maker, Miss Sylvia."

"For you, Lord Glengall?"

"I'll go bail you'd find no one to have me, Miss Sylvia."

"If I do will you entertain the proposal, Lord Glengall?"

"Provided she's not too old and will marry me for myself."

"I think I can find her for you, Lord Glengall."

"Come, Sylvia, give Glengall his tea, and don't be talking nonsense," said Mr. Graydon, laughing.

"Here it is for you, Lord Glengall, just as you like it--hot, strong and sweet."

"Thank you, Miss Sylvia; it's as good as ever I made for myself in the Bush."

The two men fell to talking of business matters, while Sylvia manipulated the teacups. Now and again she looked towards the door. Mary was finishing her letter to Mick in the chilly room upstairs, and Pamela had taken the dogs for a walk.

"If they don't come soon," muttered Sylvia over her teacup, "this tea won't be fit to drink, and Bridget's in no humour to make more."

A rat-tat at the hall-door knocker interrupted her meditations.

"Some of those young fellows from the barracks, Sylvia," suggested her father.

"It can't be," said Sylvia. "Mr. Baker was here yesterday, and Mr. De Quincy on Tuesday, and Captain Vavasour's coming to-morrow."

"Lady Jane Trevithick," announced Bridget, flinging the door open.

"Oh, dear!" muttered Sylvia; "and it's one of Bridget's bad days when she won't wear an apron. Now, where has the woman dropped from?"

Lady Jane swept across the room magnificent in purple and sables.

"How do you do?" said Mr. Graydon, going to meet her. "This _is_ a pleasure. My daughter, Lady Jane. My friend, Glengall. No, don't sit there. There's a dog in that chair."

For a self-possessed woman Lady Jane looked a little flurried. Without meeting her host's gaze, she took the chair he handed her, and turned it so that she sat with her back to the light. She bowed in answer to his introductions, and, having seated herself, spoke in a voice which she tried hard to keep under control.

"I find myself unexpectedly almost a neighbour of yours, Mr. Graydon, and I did myself the pleasure of calling."

"You are very good, Lady Jane."

He looked at her with kindly scrutiny. Perhaps he was trying to find in the middle-aged face the features of the proud and stately girl who had married his dearest friend years ago. If so, the darkness in which she sat baffled him.

"I am staying with Mr. Verschoyle," she went on; "I suppose you count him a neighbour?"

"Yes, as country neighbours go. I have met him sometimes on the Bench. I was not aware you knew him."

Lady Jane did not say that she had disinterred an old and almost forgotten invitation in order to lead up to this visit.

"I knew him years ago," she said. "But, by the way, have you heard from my boy?"

"Not directly--nothing since your Ladyship's letter."

"That is careless of Anthony! But he is nursing his uncle, you know, and I daresay is finding time for a little mild amusement as well."

"Trevithick is no better?"

"No, I am sorry to say. There is no saying when he will be better, or if he will ever be really better. My son thinks he ought to stay with him, however."

"I am sure he is right," said Mr. Graydon, heartily.

"And this is--Pamela, I suppose?" said Lady Jane, turning her head with forced graciousness to Sylvia, who was bringing her her tea.

"No; Pam will be here presently. This is Sylvia, my youngest girl."

"I am very much indebted to you all, Mr. Graydon, for making my son so happy. He was grieved not to return to you, I know."

Still her eyes never met those of her host.

Seeing that he was practically ignored in the conversation, Lord Glengall got up awkwardly, and with a bow to the visitor, and an affectionate nod to Sylvia, took himself off.

"Ugh!" said Lady Jane to herself; "he smells of the stables! And to think of Archie Graydon coming down to associate with such bucolics!"

Mary came in a little later and was introduced. Then came Pam. The February air had blown a fitful flame into her cheeks, and when she entered the drawing-room, not knowing there was a visitor, Lady Jane's name blew the flame higher, and then extinguished it altogether.

Her father watched her curiously, as she stood looking gravely down into Lady Jane's face. The lady, who could be gracious when she liked, held Pamela's hand a minute, and there was a caress in her voice as she spoke to her.

"I can't feel," she said to Mr. Graydon, "that your girls are strangers to me. I have heard such charming things about them from my son."

"Well, indeed," said Mr. Graydon, to whom belief in the goodwill of all the world came easily, "I should hope that we need not be strangers to a Trevithick. I have never forgotten my love for Gerald, Lady Jane."

"He was devoted to you," said the widow.

No one could have supposed from Lady Jane's manner that the visit was a painful and difficult ordeal to her. Yet, when she was seated in her carriage again, and had driven out of sight of Mr. Graydon, bowing bare-headed on the doorstep, she drew a sigh of actual physical relief.

Mr. Graydon returned to the drawing-room, rubbing his hands together.

"What a charming woman!" he said, coming up to the fire.

"I call her a cat!" said Sylvia, concisely.

"Oh, Sylvia!" cried Mary Graydon and her father simultaneously; but Pamela said nothing. Lady Jane, for all her _empressement_, had not made Pamela believe in her; indeed, Lady Jane was not sufficiently an actress to deceive any but the most simple people. It was new to her to play a part--to pretend fondness and friendship where she felt arrogant dislike; and, to give her her due, she had played it badly.

The day after Mr. Graydon had gone to the horse-fair with Lord Glengall, he came out of the study as Pamela was going languidly upstairs, and called her in. He put her in a comfortable chair by the fire, and then stood leaning on the dusty mantelpiece, and regarding her with a wistful and tender gaze.

"Not well, Pam?" he said at last.

"A little out-of-sorts," she answered, dropping her eyes before his gaze.

"When did it begin, Pam--this being out-of-sorts? Up to Christmas I thought you were blooming like a wild rose."

Pamela made a movement as if to escape.

"One is not always just the same," she said; "and you fancy things, dad."

"Glengall noticed it, too. Don't go, child--we haven't finished our conversation."

"Lord Glengall is as fatherly to us as you are. He is always watching us like a mother-hen over a brood of ducklings."

Pamela spoke with an attempt at her old sparkle, but her face retained the cold dulness which had fallen upon it of late, and which made the father's heart ache to see it.

"Glengall is a good fellow, Pam," he said, wistfully.

"He's a dear," said Pam, in her listless way.

"A girl might do worse than marry Glengall."

"That's what Sylvia says."

"Sylvia's a wise child. And what do you think, Pam?"

"I?--I haven't thought about it."

"Could you think of it, Pam?"

Pamela looked at him incredulously.

"Poor Glengall would like to marry you, Pam. He's troubled about you, poor fellow. He'd like to take you away, and show you all the beautiful world, and lavish his wealth upon you. Could you do it, Pam?"

To his consternation, Pam put down her head on the study-table, and burst into tears.

"There, Pam, there! I didn't mean to distress you, and I know Glengall wouldn't for the world. I only told you because I thought you ought to know. He has no hope at all himself--and would never ask you, I am sure. Only he is so good. I should know a little girl of mine was safe with him."

Pam still sobbed, with her face buried in the dusty papers.

"There, there, child!" said her father, "don't think about it any more. Poor Glengall! Of course, I know he's too old, and you are only a child; and he'd be the first to say the young should marry the young."

"I don't want to marry anyone," sobbed Pam. "Why can't I join a sisterhood and be at peace?"

Mr. Graydon passed his hand fondly over the rumpled curls.

"You'd hate it, Pam, that's what you would. You'd come back again in a week."

"I hate the world!" cried Pam. "The world is so cruel."

"Poor little girl!" said her father wistfully, though he smiled at the same time.

"Pam," he said suddenly, "is there--is there anyone else?"

"There isn't," sobbed Pam, "and if there was, I wouldn't tell you."

"I only asked, Pam, because I thought I might be able to help you."

"No one can help me," cried Pam, "except by letting me alone."

"Very well, then," said her father patiently. "I'll let you alone. Only dry your eyes, and be comforted. I'm afraid you'll have to wash your face, Pam. You've been flooding my old tattered Euripides with your tears, and you've carried off half the dust from him. There, child, be comforted. I won't say another word about Glengall. He's just like myself, poor fellow, only anxious to take care of you. Sure, I know you're a child, and ought to have your freedom for years yet."

"I wish her mother were here now," said Mr. Graydon, as he closed the door behind his daughter.

He looked up at the pure and innocent face of his wife's portrait.

"I wish I had your wisdom, darling," he muttered. "It is so hard for a man to deal with little girls. And, ah! what they lost when you went to heaven!"

He sat before his study-fire deep in thought. Then he got up and paced the room to and fro, with his brows knitted and his hands behind his back.

"I'll do it," he said, half-aloud, at last. "I expect money difficulties would really stand in the way. I know Trevithick died poor, and Lady Jane had little of her own. The lad _must_ love her if she loves him. And it will smooth the way. At worst I shall only suffer a rebuff. I can bear it for the sake of Mary's children. And poor Molly too! Why need she spend her girlhood fretting for her lover when a little money would make things straight?"

He sat down and his face cleared. Again he looked up at the benignant eyes of the portrait.

"I am doing the best I can for them, Mary," he said, speaking aloud as if to a living person.

That evening he announced his intention of taking a run to London during the following week. Such an unusual thing in their quiet life provoked an outcry of surprise from his daughters.

"I may be an old fossil," he said, "but I'm not a limpet attached to a rock. Perhaps I'm tired of you all. Perhaps I'm starved for a walk down Piccadilly, or a visit to a good concert hall. Perhaps--perhaps."

But he gave them no explanation after all of his reason for going.

One event crowded upon another. The next morning, at breakfast, Mr. Graydon drew out a large, boldly addressed envelope from the post-bag.

"Now, who can this be from?" he said, putting it down and looking at it curiously. "'London, W.' Now, who'd be writing to me?"

"Better open it and see," said Sylvia, daintily chipping the top off her egg.

Mr. Graydon broke the seal and read it.

"It's from Lady Jane Trevithick," he said soberly; "a very civil letter. She's sorry she wasn't able to call again; and--and--she wants to know if one of you girls--she mentions Pam, I see--will go over and stay with her. It is very kind of Lady Jane."

He pushed the letter towards Pam, who took it unsteadily, and held it before her face as she read.

"I'd rather not go," said Pam, putting down the letter. "I can't go--I've no frocks."

"I should like you to go, Pam," said her father, wistfully. "The invitation is kindly meant, and Lady Jane moves in very good society, and is influential. Why should my girls be buried here? As for the frocks--I can spare ten pounds--I really can manage that. How much can be done with ten pounds, Mary?"

"A good deal. Oh! I hope Nancy Cullen is still at home! We'll go round after breakfast and see."

"Must I go?" said Pamela.

"I think you ought to go, Pam," said her father; "and we will travel together. I shall wait for you till you can be ready."

In his heart Mr. Graydon thought that the invitation was a sort of guarantee for his daughter's happiness. If Lady Jane had not known or suspected that her son was in love with Pamela, and had not been prepared to accept her, why should she have asked her on this visit?

"I used to think her a proud and cold girl in the old days," he said to himself; "but, of course, the girl of my dreams was so different! After all, I daresay Gerald made no such mistake as I used to fear."

"You will go then, Pam?" he said aloud. "The change will do you good; and you will enjoy yourself."

"Very well," said Pamela, listlessly; "I would rather be here, but if you wish I will go."

END OF CHAPTER NINE.

Knowledge Of The Future.

_A NEW YEAR ADDRESS._

By the Lord Bishop of Ripon.

"Do not interpretations belong to God?"--GENESIS xl. 8.

The words were spoken by one of those men who have moulded the history of the world. When he spoke them he was a prisoner, forgotten in his misfortune and blameless of offence. He was passing through a time of trial. Later he was destined to emerge into a position of much power and usefulness.

Joseph had shown from the first a character and qualities which distinguished him from his brethren. They were men with little or no thought beyond their daily work. In the open fields, watching their flocks and enjoying, after their day's task, physical repose, they found enough to satisfy them. He possessed a soul which went out beyond such a level of life; he reached out to something higher. Like the great French preacher, he could not leave his soul amid mere earthly things. In his brethren's eyes he was a dreamer. They were practical, and they had no sympathy with his dreams. He, meanwhile, was full of a wistful wonder, longing to find out the meaning of the strange visions which filled his soul. Life to him must be something more than eating, drinking, and tending sheep. No doubt a touch of egotism and personal ambition mingled with his dreams; this belonged to his youth; this, in time, would pass away. Life, with its stern and remorseless reality, would come to test him and his visions, proving what manner of man he was. Meanwhile, he was better with his dreams of the larger purpose and scope of life than his brethren, who were content with somewhat material gratification.

Time showed that he was no mere dreamer. The day came when the Prince of his people let him go free. The opportunity of large and noble service came to him; and he showed force, readiness of resource, sagacity, and practical vigour. His genius it was which mitigated misfortune and averted disaster. He foresaw and provided for the days of scarceness; he piloted Egypt through the bitter seven years of famine. His dreams were not the idle dreams of an empty mind; they were the visions of an energetic and finely tempered spirit. His gifts stood the strain of practical duty.

They had previously endured the harder test of adversity, neglect, and inaction. There are powers which lose their bloom under the pressure of prosaic duties; there are powers which wither under the shadow of misfortune and obscurity. The trial which comes from neglect is, perhaps, the severer, since it is hard for men to believe in themselves when there is seemingly none else to believe in them. But in the darkness of those neglected days the genius of Joseph remained bright. His insight, his power of vision, was not dimmed in the prison. He entered into the sorrows of other men; he showed a sympathy with their difficulties; he strove to read for them and with them the meaning of their lives.

And the sustaining source of his powers breaks out into view in the words of our text: "Do not interpretations belong to God?"

We can realise the pathos of the question and the tried, yet unbroken, faith which it reveals. Joseph is trying to read the meaning of the dreams of his fellow-prisoners. Life, and the experiences of life, he assures them, are not meaningless. He will not forego his faith in the significance of life. We may not be able to explain all; but there is, nevertheless, a meaning in all. It is as though he said, "I too have known my visions--beautiful visions of life's triumphs and life's joys. They faded with my growing years; and instead of the achievements which I saw in my dreams, there came false accusation, imprisonment, and neglect; but though the golden light of those visions is gone, they were not meaningless. I wait still for the unfolding of their significance. Still I rely upon Him who will make all things plain--for do not interpretations belong unto Him?"

As we listen to the words, we feel how aptly they fit into our own lives.

We, like Joseph, have had our visions. We dreamed of the bright things, the noble achievements, the splendid triumphs which life would bring; but as life unfolded her stern sequences of reality, the golden lines of our dreams vanished, the splendid tints of the morning melted into the light of common day.

Or perhaps our dreams have not gathered round ourselves, but round others--Love, which sets her objects in such golden lights, that she sees visions for them brighter than ambitions can dream for itself.

It may be only the little child, whose prattle half-pleases, half-worries you; but you are delighted to be so worried to win such pleasure. The dear innocence of its winsome ways, its simpleness and quaint airs of sagacity, are perpetual fascinations. In their lives we live; and for them we see visions and dream dreams.

"Thou wert a vision of delight
To bless us given;
Beauty embodied to our sight,
A glimpse of heaven."

But the vision of delight fades. The promise which the vision gave seems to be denied its fulfilment.

It may be the young man, standing on the threshold of life, bearing himself with quietness of manner, but full of a happy gentleness and thoughtfulness towards others, and gifted with a sweet and rare conscientiousness in little things.

Or, again, it may be the man of maturer years, full of high and chivalrous impulses, ready like a knight of old to gird on his sword, and yearning to fill his life with worthy deeds, and yet blending, with all noble martial ardour, tender and generous thoughts for those who are dear, dearer than life, to his heart.

At this season--teeming with tender and sorrowful memories--visions such as these rush back upon our thoughts. The deep pathos and the sad tragedy of life speak to us out of such memories; for what golden dreams gathered round the heads of those who were so dear; and what sorrow is ours, when with the revolutions of the sun, the visions melt away; and all the hope, the promise, the expectation of achievement are exchanged for sorrow and solitude of heart. Then we too, like Joseph, find that our dreams can fade; we too encounter the gloomy days which succeed the bright morning of our hopes. We are imprisoned with sorrow; the iron enters into our soul; the bars of stern adversity shut out the cheerful sunlight of other days.

In such hours, when life, which seemed at one time so full of glorious meanings, droops into darkness and seems to grow cold and insignificant, our stay must be that of Joseph. Our trust must be in the living God. The vision seems to have lost its meaning. Life has become, to our sorrow-stricken hearts, flat, stale profitless, and meaningless; but it is not so. There is One who can fulfil our best dreams and give back to us their lost meanings. "Do not interpretations belong to God?"

Our trust must be in Him, and in none else. True, there is often to be met with in life the easy chatterer who will take upon himself to explain everything for us. All things are easy to the man who has never faced mental anguish or heart-sorrow. He will not hesitate to interpret our dreams for us, but his pretensions are vain. The dream and the meaning of the dream are for us alone. Men may soothe us in our grief. Their kindness and their attempted sympathy may be welcome to us, as the faded bunch of flowers from a child's hot hand may be sweet and acceptable; but to read the meaning of the vision, and to explain it aright, to disclose its fulfilment, showing to us that nothing is vain and no vision wholly meaningless--to do all this belongs to God; for do not interpretations belong to Him? He alone can sustain our trust in the trials of life. He alone can give us back the visions which so soon vanished from our sight.

The power to realise this constitutes the difference between the secular and the spiritual disposition. In the view of one poet, man is but a compound of dust and tears. Life is but sorrow mingled with earthliness; but better and higher than Swinburne's thought is Wordsworth's teaching. The older poet has the nobler view. He will not let life sink down to a mere secular meaning; it is more than grief and earth. There is that in us which transcends the earth and can triumph over tears:

"Oh! joy that in our embers
Is something that doth live."

Into the world we came, but not as mere dust, to be mingled with tears. There was a breath of the Almighty which breathed upon us:

"With trailing clouds of glory did we come
From God, who is our home!"

The divine spark is ours. It kindles a light and a fire. It calls forth visions past all imagining. Our young men, by a Divine Spirit's help, may see visions, and our old men dream dreams. And these visions are not mere idle fancies, creations of our folly or of our ambition. True, there are foolish visions and empty dreams; but all visions are not foolish, nor are all dreams empty. Far more empty is the soul that has no visions, to whom no bright and noble outlook upon life's possibilities can ever come. This is what Shakespeare recognises. Theseus is the man of action. He has dealt with the hard prosaic work-a-day world. To him the visions of the poet or dramatist are alike empty imaginings. The grandest and the most foolish are alike only beautiful bubbles which will vanish with all their rich colourings into empty air. The work of the poor players, who labour in their foolish fashion to give him pleasure, is no worse and no better than that of the most finished actors. To him all ideas or visions are unpractical and unreal. He is a man of action, loving deeds and despising dreams.

There is a sort of virtue in this; but how secular it all is, how low and insignificant life becomes, if no noble ideas and no heavenly visions environ it! How vain its achievements, if there be no promised land and no divine fire to give light in the night season! And so Shakespeare lets us see that, while idle dreams are vain enough, yet that for a man to be wholly without them, and to be destitute of ideas and visions, is to be poor indeed.

The true idea of life lifts us above the secular plane and places us where the heavenly vision is possible, and where the Shekinah light of God's presence is ever visible--though seen now as cloud, and now as flame.

But for the full meaning of all the visions and experiences of life, we must wait. The vision is from God; the experience is from God; from Him will come the explanation. "Do not interpretations belong to God?" The vision was given us yesterday--we must wait for its interpretation; the meaning comes to-morrow.

It is in the spirit of this principle that our Lord spoke, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." So at another time He spoke: "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons." There is a sweet interpreting "afterwards" of life's bitter experience. "No chastening seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Our faith carries us forward to that interpreting hereafter, when once we realise that interpretations belong to God.

Herein we are not different from Christ our Master. He had the vision of the world conquered, but the vision faded; and in its place came Gethsemane and Calvary, the loneliness and the cross. And yet afterwards came the interpretation. The vision, though it faded for a time, did not die out unfulfilled. The kingdoms of the world are becoming the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ.

So it is the order of life that first should come the glory of the vision; then the fading of its colours, the grey day and the postponed realisation; and then afterwards the glorious interpretation. Not _now_ is the interpretation. Now is the sadness, now the sense of disappointment, now the temptation to think that all brightness is gone, and all hope lost; but hereafter the love which gave the vision and the love which took it away will make all plain--no whit of the beauty and the beatitude which the vision promised will be lost. The vision is for an appointed time. Till then, rest in the Lord; wait patiently for Him. The gem hidden in the earth will yet sparkle in heaven's light. The meaning of all will be made plain, hereafter, in God's own light and in God's own way; for interpretations belong to God.

(_From the Drawing by Herbert Railton._)]

CIRCUMVENTED.

A Complete Story. By the Author of "Lady Jane's Companion."

" I tell you he does not _dream_ of Dolly. How can you imagine anything so absurd?"

That was how the family tyrant addressed her mother, and poor Mrs. Rhodes was, as ever, annihilated. It was a vain thing to try and brave Georgiana. There she stood in the window, majestic, the eldest daughter, her straight hair stiffly ridged with hot irons, her face pale, and her lips determined, altogether handsome, but very hard. Behind her one had a glimpse of a forlorn little figure wandering in the grass. The sight of that lonely figure, and a dim idea of its unhappiness, made the poor lady pluck up spirit to murmur still--

"I--I--I thought that Freddy----"

"Impossible!" said Georgiana; her voice vibrated with a little more than disdain. "Why, what could he see in a stupid little goose like that? It would be cheaper to buy a sixpenny doll and set it up in his house; then at least he could always change it. But if he wants a wife----"

* * * * *

In the garden Dolly was walking rather sadly among the trees, and her white skirts brushed against the grass like a sigh. She was a little slip of a thing with Irish eyes, great and grey, always brimming with either a laugh or tears; and she had the dearest eager face in the world. It was a troubled face now, for she could not understand why life had been made bitter to her just lately. Perhaps it was because of some unwitting sin, perhaps because the family tyrant felt, like her, the approaching parting with their old playfellow. Georgiana had a peculiar way of showing when she was vexed.

The Rev. Frederick Cockburn had not always been six feet high and a parson. And for the greater part of their lives they had only been parted by a garden wall. Even when he was at college he was continually running down, and they had never made a plan without him; he belonged to the girls like a brother. Later he had had to admonish them as a curate, but he had been their old comrade still. Of course, he was lucky to get a living offered to him so young, and it was only right that he should accept it, but still it was a blow.

Freddy had run in so often to talk it over (the girls knew all about his house and his parish, down to the woman who played the harmonium and dragged the chants) that they had forgotten it was so far away. Now they had suddenly to remember.

Dolly was under the weeping ash, where she and Freddy had hidden when they were little. Georgiana had had the biggest bite of the apple, and then she had deserted and said, "I'll tell!" How she would miss him! Always he had been her champion, defending her when Georgiana was angry and pulled her hair. And although these days were past she wanted him more than ever. It had hurt her lately that he should have been monopolised by Georgiana and that she had been thrust back and made a third. He was a young housekeeper, and the eldest daughter could talk of carpets and curtains and butcher's bills. To Dolly life was a weary nightmare of Freddy serious in a chair, and Georgiana giving him good advice. Vainly she tried to keep her lip steady, leaning her head in among the leaves.

Half a mile away a black object was sitting on a fence whistling impatiently, inwardly furious with Georgiana.

"If she would only come out of the gate!" he said, hitting wildly at all the buttercups in his reach. "If she'd only give me a chance. But she's just pinned to Dolly, and I never can get a minute."

His whistle grew more lugubrious.

"And I'm off to-morrow!"

Never in the ancient days, when he used to stand in front of his younger playmate and defy Georgiana, had he felt her to be such a tyrant. He longed to stand up to her and shake his fist at her as of old. An instant he stood on the highest rail of the fence to reconnoitre beyond the trees, and then sat down again in despair.

"I know she thinks I'm not good enough for Dolly," he said; "we always were enemies, but she might let me ask her. It's Dolly's business."

Then he jumped down in a hurry that would have been undignified in any vicar less young and eager. Among the trees he had caught sight of the unaccompanied white flutter of Dolly's dress.

At the familiar whistle she started, reddening and glancing fearfully towards the house.

The tyrant's ears were sharp, but for once it appeared that she had not heard it, and Dolly rushed down the tree-hidden path to the gate. Her head was just under the green branches and they caught at her hair as she hurried, the prettiest picture in all the garden, with a quaint little forward stagger.

"Oh, Freddy!" she said.

He was leaning over the gate, which was fastened with a complicated arrangement of twisted string, meant to hold it together and keep it shut. There was something earnest and business-like in his manner; he hardly smiled at her greeting, and it hurt her. His face was so desperately solemn.

"Do you want Georgiana?" she said, bravely, "to--to talk about--furniture?"

He looked at her reproachfully across the gate.

"Dolly," he said, "how can you be so unkind? I've been haunting the place for hours, watching to catch you alone. I've no chance if I go to the house, and--and I can't _stand_ housekeeping and chairs and tables----"

At the emphatic climax they had to laugh. He was struggling mechanically with the string, and Dolly was making believe to help him.

"You used always to jump it," she said. Their hands touched as they fumbled at it, and she felt a new and disturbing thrill. "Hadn't you better do that, if you have not become too grand?"

"Don't," said Freddy. Ah, their fingers had been too near; he caught hers and held them tight. "They are all chaffing me about being a Vicar and having a house and all that. Asking if I've got anybody to put into it. But what's the good if you can't get the girl you want?"

"Oh!" said Dolly, looking startled and shrinking as far as the imprisoned hand would allow. He held it fast.

"Dolly," he said, "we've always been chums, you and I. Let me tell you, and then you must tell me honestly if you think--if I've got any chance----"

He was interrupted.

"Is that you, Freddy? What a blessing! I wanted to tell you what you must do about the study."

It was with a kind of terror that he saw Georgiana charging down upon them remorselessly through the trees. Dolly had wrung her hand away and vanished with a little sound like a gasp, and he, on the wrong side of the gate, was almost speechless with wrath and temper.

"If a man can't furnish his own study as he likes----" he stammered darkly, turning on his heel. Georgiana was like a fate.

"What was Freddy saying?"

A rather sad little face was visible among the leaves of the weeping ash.

"I--I don't know, Georgiana. He was just beginning--I think he has fallen in love again."

The elder girl glanced at her young sister with a gleam of suspicion, but Dolly had spoken in all good faith. And, indeed, in the dim past Freddy had once or twice been smitten and had confided his troubles to the kind ears of Dolly. They had been slight affairs and, although unhappy, always less tragic than laughable.

"He did not say who it was?"

"No," answered Dolly, "because you interrupted. I--I--I'm trying to guess."

Georgiana turned her back on the wistful grey Irish eyes.

"Can't you?" she said, and walked away, utterly hard-hearted.

* * * * *

That evening there was a formidable leave-taking. To Freddy Cockburn it was a nightmare.

As he sat in the drawing-room being talked to by Georgiana and Mrs. Rhodes (Dolly was very silent) he grew desperate. The last precious minutes were ticking loudly, now and then marked by a warning whirr, as the grandfather's clock reproached him.

He listened to them, but all the while he was wandering backwards hand in hand with Dolly--Dolly who now sat so distantly in the window.

With a start his mind came back impatiently to the present.

"Good-bye, my dear boy. We shall hear how you get on. Your mother will write and tell us----"

"You must let me know how you manage about the stairs," said Georgiana.

They accompanied him to the door, lingering affectionately to watch him go, and behind them the great brown clock was ticking the last, last minutes reproachfully. He shook hands and waited, desperately bold.

"Will you come to the gate with me, Dolly?"

There was a slight pause at that abrupt invitation. He saw Dolly involuntarily start forward and then hesitate, with a faint red wonderment in her cheek. He waited, gazing back eagerly at his fate in the balance.

"Yes, Dolly--come along!" said Georgiana.

II.

The Vicar of Little Easter was in his study. He had not been writing sermons, but pens were lying about the table, and there were other signs of an intellectual struggle.

"I can't do it," he said at last, crumpling up many fragments of blotted paper, each the unlucky beginning of a letter. Then he thrust his hands through his hair, giving it a despairing rumple.

"It's no good," he said. "I can't put it in a letter, and it does look a cowardly way of--asking. Like chalking up a thing and running round the corner. If I were a girl and a fellow wrote to me instead of coming and standing to his guns, I should call it--cheek."

"Dear Dolly----"

He tore the last attempt furiously across.

"She would think it was a joke and show it all round the family for them to laugh at it too," he lamented; "if Georgiana did not kidnap it first. I don't think she would stick at that, and I'm afraid she regularly hates me. Queer!"

He stared forlornly at the heap of papers, and then all at once an idea struck him and he jumped up.

"Hurrah!"

With sudden energy he flung out of his study and crossed the hall. His mother was sitting in her room--the only place that was quite in order--stitching rings on curtains. She was going to stay and put him to rights before returning home and leaving him in his glory.

"What is the matter, Freddy?" she said.

"I was thinking," said the Vicar soberly, "that you've a lot to do. Couldn't you ask one of the girls over while you are here to help?"

"If you think the place is ready for visitors," said Mrs. Cockburn, smiling. The girls were, of course, Freddy's old companions.

"Well, you might ask Dolly; I'm sure she wouldn't mind."

The old lady looked up keenly, but his manner was very careless.

"Why not Georgiana?" she inquired. "Eldest first."

"I don't think she could be spared just now," said the Vicar, hiding his alarm, "and--and I'd like the place to be tidy before she came."

So Mrs. Cockburn wrote and invited Dolly.

The answer came very quickly: Dolly could not leave home just now.

While his mother was reading out the many sufficient reasons, Freddy stared hopelessly across at the fatal letter. His face expressed utter dejection until about halfway through. At the last clause it lighted up with an inspiration. He leaned over the table.

"Then, mother, of course, you'll ask Georgiana?"

His mother glanced at him oddly.

"Do you want her?"

"Want her?" cried the Vicar. "Rather!"

There was no mistaking the eagerness in his voice. It betrayed itself in the very stammer with which he proceeded.

"I didn't know she would come, but if Dolly's to manage the school treat this year, and if Dolly's to take the club, they won't want Georgiana. Tell her we can't possibly get the house put to rights without her. Say whatever you think will bring her. Only make her come."

He got up and fetched his writing things from the study. Mrs. Cockburn had to write the invitation then and there, almost to his dictation.

"Tell her she _must_ come!" he cried impetuously, rushing away to look for a stamp, and then riding in with the letter himself to catch the early post. Mrs. Cockburn looked after him amused, but just a little bit disappointed.

"It's Georgiana then, after all," she said.

* * * * *

Three days later Georgiana was installed at Little Easter.

She arrived with rather too many clothes for a person who was to help in getting a house in order, but that did not prevent her from buckling to. Mrs. Cockburn, a kind old lady with a twinkle of humour to comfort her in her trials, was taken aback by her visitor's authoritative grasp at the reins; but Freddy, having suffered more nearly from her tyrannical ways, thought he had never known her so gracious. In fact, he repented himself of the hard things he had been thinking--of all but a certain determination.

"I don't believe she hates me really," he thought. "It was only that she didn't want me to marry Dolly."

He made that reflection whilst shaving with care the morning after her arrival. On coming down to breakfast he found her at her post. She had already whisked away half the litter that was hampering the breakfast-room, and was making the tea. As he came in she nodded.

"Good morning, Freddy. Your mother is breakfasting in her room. What a wilderness your house is at present! The first thing after breakfast will be to have a man in and put down the carpets."

"But they _are_ down," stammered the Vicar, who had laboured hard all the past week.

"All crooked," said Georgiana.

She poured out his tea and sat down opposite, with an air of calm superiority and possession (which the Vicar was too agitated to remark). Having long since made up her mind as to what she wanted, she was not unduly elated at the present turn of affairs. Freddy was always fickle, and it had taken very little pains to keep him apart from Dolly while that fancy lasted. It was not her part to consider Dolly--Dolly, years younger, and pretty, and always liked.

Something like exultation glittered in Georgiana's eyes. She had a glimpse of Dolly at home and smiled; her triumph was pitiless.

"Oh, by-the-bye," she said. "Your idea of furnishing the drawing-room is too ridiculous. It ought to be smart and shiny--a company room. You don't want old pictures and comfortable chairs!"

"Don't I?" said the Vicar with a half-smile, thinking whose whims he had tried to suit in the furnishing.

"No," said Georgiana. Her tone was lordly. "I'll tell you what I will do. You shall drive me into the town, and I will help you to choose what you really want."

"Do----," began the Vicar, and then stopped hastily, reddening. She looked at him witheringly, unaware that the word suppressed had been simply "Dolly."

"In the meantime----" she vouchsafed after a crushing pause. He looked up suddenly from his letters.

"I'm afraid you'll be dull, Georgiana," he said, rising. "It's awfully good of you to come, and perhaps you can find some amusement. You can do what you like, you know--so long as you don't touch my study, or trick it up like a heathen place in Japan. The fact is, I find I must leave you and mother for a day or two. Is that the dogcart? My train is at half-past ten."

Georgiana looked out of the window. There was the dogcart, and a beast of a brown horse pawing and snorting, to take him away to the country station. She turned round angrily, like a person who had been cheated.

"Why?" she asked.

Freddy had left the breakfast table, and was stacking his letters behind the clock. He answered her with a kind of chuckle--

"Important business."

Three minutes later, he was running down the stairs, got up for a journey. Mrs. Cockburn was just saying good-morning to the rather blank-looking visitor, and he kissed her hurriedly.

"I must go off at once," he said. "Georgiana will explain. And I say, mother"--in a tone of anxious hospitality--"don't let her go home, or anything, till I come back. I must catch the early train."

III.

Dolly was all alone.

There was no dragon guarding her, and she might wander unwatched about the garden, unvexed by the family tyrant's whim. However, she sat forlornly under the willow tree.

She was disappointed at not being allowed to go and visit Mrs. Cockburn, but, queerly enough, it had hurt her more to find her refusal met by that urgent invitation to Georgiana. It was a much warmer letter. Mrs. Cockburn had been told in inviting Georgiana to say whatever would bring her, and she had according written--"Freddy says she _must_ come," twice.

They were ringing in Dolly's ears, these impetuously written words; but she had not any right to be angry--and hardly any right to be sad. Only, if that message had been in _her_ letters, she would have defied them all.

The sun burnt down over all the garden, except under the sad green shade of the willow tree. Afterwards, it sank lower and lower behind the beeches until it was almost dusk. It was then that Dolly heard a familiar whistle.

She started up from the grass, and her wistful face was scarlet. It must be imagination.

Almost before she knew it she was hurrying up the path.

"Oh!" she gasped, finding herself at the gate, and ready to turn and fly as the strange whistler came in sight. Her heart beat too fast for her to hear any step. As if it could be him!

"Dolly!" he cried, in a voice of triumph.

"How did you get here?" she panted.

He vaulted the gate this time, and was immediately by her side.

"By train," he said coolly. "As soon as I'd got Georgiana safe I bolted."

Dolly paled slightly. Had he come to make an announcement?

"Will you come in to mother?" she said faintly; but Freddy barred the way.

"No," he said. "I won't."

She was almost frightened. He was so white and eager, and so emphatic.

"Dolly," he said, "I've got my chance at last. Georgiana thinks I'm not half good enough for you, and I'm sure it's true, but I don't care, she'd no right to fight as she did for her lofty plans. It's your business. And Dolly--Dolly--I love you so!"

* * * * *

"I like the house," said Georgiana.

She spoke in a slightly patronising tone, and poor Mrs. Cockburn sighed.

"It is rather big," she said. "But if Freddy should marry and settle down----"

"It will not be too big," declared Georgiana. "I have been drawing up my ideas about the rooms. And I have toiled all the morning in the study." Mrs. Cockburn looked alarmed. Even in a possible daughter-in-law this was rather drastic.

"He will not like you to touch his study."

"I know. He charged me to let it alone," said Georgiana calmly; "but it is no good giving in to a man's absurd notions, and he had crammed it with such extraordinary things. I have made it look like another place."

Again Freddy's mother sighed. It was the familiar tone of the family tyrant. She sighed for Freddy.

The sigh was interrupted by his return. Unexpectedly as he had disappeared yesterday, he came back. They heard him cross the hall with a long, quick, eager step, and then he burst in upon them, a boy again.

"Well, where have you been?" asked his mother, smiling. He was so tired and dusty, and so excited.

The Vicar looked at her like a school-boy, half-proud, half-shy.

"I've been to the old place," he said, "to ask Dolly if she would have me. And she says 'Yes.'"

R. RAMSAY.

THE END OF THE SONG

BY F. E. WEATHERLY.

I read to you one golden morn among the leaves of June,
The flowers were sweet around our feet, the river sang its tune,
I know not what the story was that stole upon your ears,
I only saw your listening eyes were full of tender tears.

I sang to you when twilight fell, and all the world had flown,
A song that rose from out my heart and was for you alone,
I cannot tell what words I sang,--of gladness or of pain,
I only knew I felt your heart give back the sweet refrain.

And when the night in silence rose, and all the song was o'er,
The world was full of happiness I ne'er had known before,
I know not what I told you then or what you said to me,
I only knew your heart was mine for all the years to be.

SOME REMARKABLE SERVICES

_IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE COUNTRY._

SUNDAY AT KIRK BRADDAN.]

Up and down the country there are several religious services held which are remarkable, not so much on account of the character of the service as in consequence of the strange places in which they take place. Of course, there are strange services--a few of which are detailed later--but, nevertheless, the majority obtain their notoriety by reason of their unusual place of assembly.

For instance, who has not heard of the famous open-air service at Kirk Braddan churchyard in the Isle of Man?--a service which on an August Bank Holiday Sunday has attracted a congregation of twelve thousand people. Indeed, so great has been the crush on occasions that it has been impossible for the collection plate to reach all those gathered within sound of the preacher's voice--a truly lamentable fact from the churchwardens' point of view.

If the weather is fine, these open-air services begin, as a rule, on Whit Sunday and continue to the end of September, or, virtually during the whole of the holiday season. They were instituted in a somewhat remarkable way by a former vicar, "Parson Drury," as he was familiarly called, when it was decided to build Kirk Braddan New Church in consequence of the old church falling out of repair and being altogether inadequate as far as size was concerned for the worshippers who attended. Accordingly, while the new church was in process of erection, Mr. Drury conceived the happy idea of using the spacious churchyard, and so popular was the innovation that it has been kept up in the summer ever since.

Now the services are conducted by the present vicar--the Rev. Canon Moore--and, fittingly enough, his pulpit is the immense limestone slab erected to the memory of the founder of the churchyard services, "Parson Drury." It was felt, when the good man died, that no better memorial could be raised than a stone which might be utilised as a pulpit in the "Nature's church" where he had delivered so many powerful sermons.

The hymn-papers are distributed as the people pour into the churchyard on Sunday morning. The hymns are most heartily sung by the congregation. They are well known, and the tunes are also such as all can join in, and the effect of eight or ten thousand voices singing the simple strains is wonderful.

(_Showing the eggs presented for the Egg Service._)]

During the summer the aggregate number of worshippers amounts to sixty or seventy thousand, from all parts of the United Kingdom, but principally Lancashire and Yorkshire. Many people join in the service which is going on at the same time in Braddan new church close at hand, but the great majority prefer the open air under the shadow of the old trees and the venerable church.

It is rather remarkable that the Isle of Man should also possess what is believed by many to be the largest open-air service in the world. There are some folk who think that the Sunday service in Hyde Park answers to this description, though it is certain, in point of size, there is not a great deal of difference between that and the one held on Douglas Head.

There is, in reality, apart from the size, nothing very special to say about this service on Douglas Head. It is an ordinary service of an exceedingly simple character. Every attempt, however, is made to get a first-rate preacher, and two or three bishops have taken the service. Archdeacon Sinclair, who is a frequent visitor to Manxland, has officiated on several occasions. As at Kirk Braddan, the congregational singing is the great feature of the service. The Bishop of Sodor and Man is naturally the most popular of all the prelates who figure prominently at these services.