Chapter VI: Part II (2)

And thus a long time slipped away. Cuthbert left us in the summer, and winter was well on before Hildred got her first letter from him. That letter, written at sea and sent home by a vessel which met theirs, how much we all thought of it!

We stood round Hildred, waiting for news, as she held the big brown letter in both hands, eager, flushed, and laughing, yet half unwilling to break its great red seal. She unfolded it slowly and read it out, her finger pointing along the lines. It was a beautiful letter--everybody said so--and yet how little it told us about him! It left him well, he wrote, and he liked a soldier's life, but he often remembered home, and thought of his own true love by night and day. And he sent his kind respects to all inquiring friends. That was all.

In time, the letter too became a thing that had come long ago, and the winter dragged on into spring. Hildred grew slowly more accustomed to Cuthbert's absence, and I knew better what a hard task it was that he had left me.

I missed my brother Cuthbert sorely. I had never loved him more than since he took from me unwittingly that which I cared for most in life. With him all the life and cheeriness of our house had gone away--we who remained were so grave and old.

Indeed Granny, the oldest of the three, was the most talkative, perhaps the happiest. The twilight of her life was closing round her, and, looking back over the long way she had come, she could talk cheerfully over what had once troubled her the most, but which now lay dimly remembered in the distance behind her.

Sometimes she reminded me of my mother, by the expressions which she used. And I thought Mistress Dorothy was right when she said that there is a language which the great Master teaches to all his scholars, different as they may be to one another, and that it grows the more easy to them the nearer they are to leaving school and being taken home to their Father's house.

'Stephen will be vexed,' Granny said, 'to think that I should go; but it's quite time, Willie, and I shall be glad;' and she went on, laying her hand on mine, 'To think of me, my dear, poor me, with a golden crown upon my head!'

Dear old Granny, with the white hair under her mob-cap, and her withered, aged face. Ah, well! would not all the lines be smoothed away before the crown of life was laid upon her brow?

It may be that my father saw her failing, and was 'vexed' by it, but he said nothing. Besides, Granny toiled that he should still find a bright fire and tidy room to greet him, and Hildred was always coming in to help her. Granny said the sight of her sweet face made her feel young again. 'Her cheeks are like the red roses that grew over our porch when I was a girl. They used to say I was like one of those roses once, for I was a pretty girl, my dears, though you would not believe it now. I don't think girls are so pretty now-a-days as they used to be when sister Nancy and I were young.'

'I am sure they are not, Granny,' Hildred would say laughing, and putting her red-rose cheek fondly against Granny's wrinkled face. 'Do you want me to do anything more this evening?'

'Bless you, pretty child, no. Run away with Willie. Young folks will ever be courting, and it's right they should--quite right.' And Granny nodded wisely. I felt the blood coming up into my cheeks.

'I think Granny sometimes mixes me up with Cuthbert,' I said.

'Perhaps she does,' Hildred answered. 'Yes, she is growing very old.'

One day my father chanced to be by when Granny was putting away the tea things, a task she never let any one take from her for fear of accidents. 'Young folks are careless at times, poor dears.' But Granny's steadiness of hand was not so great as her good will, or else her eyes failed her, for presently a cup fell down and was smashed to pieces. She looked startled, sorry, and half-frightened, as she found my father close behind her, and she gave up the rest of the cups to him quite meekly.

'Yes, Stephen, I see. You needn't talk about it. I'm not fit to do it any more. The children'll have to do the best they can, and I'll just sit still and wait. Don't you be afraid.'

She went and sat down in the chimney-corner, and twirled her thumbs rapidly one over the other. By-and-by the vexed look went out of her face, and the patience that made it quite beautiful came back.

'Where's Hildred?' my father asked me, after vainly trying to join the pieces of the broken cup together with his big fingers.

I said she had gone home.

'You should ha' married the girl, Will,' he said roughly, 'and have saved all this breaking and wasting. And then there would have been somebody to see to her,' motioning towards his mother.

'You know I couldn't.'

'I don't say as how you could then, but that's not now. Yon lad has forgotten her long since, I'll lay. They soldiers never hold to one thing long together.'

'Cuthbert forgotten Hildred!' I said. 'Not he.'

'Have it your own way,' he answered; 'only we want to get hold of some woman that'll keep things straight, that's clear.'

It was the first time for very long that he had touched on that old string. It was not by very many the last. The notion that I must bring home a wife, to 'keep things straight,' and to take care of Granny, had taken a strong hold upon him. If I was a fool, and would not marry Hildred, I must find just some one else; but he had far rather have her about the place than a stranger: he was used to the lass.

In vain I told him that she cared for Cuthbert, and would not marry me.

'Just you ask her. A bird in hand's worth two in the bush any day. Tell her I'll be a father to her.'

Once it might have been, not now.

I could only try my best to prevent him from missing any of his comforts, and turn my hand to everything. But I was clumsy: the woman's work did not come easily.

And now Cuthbert had been gone for more than two years. A second letter came from him some six months after the first. Since then we had heard nothing.

Of course no one could expect to hear often from those out-of-the-way parts of the world.

There were always plenty of good reasons to give Hildred, when she wondered, as she often did, why she never got a letter. But after months and months had passed away in silence, a thought of fear we did not like to face, which we tried to stifle and forget, began slowly to creep into our minds.

It seemed as if the clouds grew thicker as the third winter of Cuthbert's absence darkened over us.

My words of hope and reassurance lost the ring of truth: they did not comfort Hildred as they used to do.

'It's no good, Willie,' she would say. 'You can't make yourself believe it all.'

No more I could. Even to my own ears my reasoning sounded hollow and unsatisfying.

We knew that David Moore's wife had got a letter more than once since we had heard, but--it seemed strange, her husband never so much as mentioned Cuthbert's name. Whenever I could spare the time, which was not often, for it was a long and rough journey, I went over to the ferry, in the faint hope that they might have tidings for us. There was a sort of tie between us and this household, where also there was watching and waiting.

They did not watch as we did. They had less uncertainty, and perhaps more patience. Moore's quiet little wife never lost her placid look for long together, even though one of the letters she received was written by a comrade of David's, to tell her that he was wounded and could not write himself. He bade his wife not take on, for he was getting better, and she believed, and obeyed him implicitly. As for the old father and mother, their daily comforts were their first thought. The draught that came from the kitchen window, and the fine crop of potatoes in the garden, occupied them full as much as any fears for David. The pity that Martha Clifford still bestowed on the poor Moores was wasted. As long as they had Elfrida to work for them, they wanted nothing else.

What they would have done without her, no one could guess. Elfrida never told them that she might have left them at any moment, had she so willed it, for a comfortable home of her own. But so it was.

I used to watch her with great interest. The man whom she had saved from drowning did not forget what a debt of gratitude he owed her. He was for ever coming down to the ferry, only, it seemed, for the pleasure of being rowed over the river by Elfrida, and of staring at her all the way across.

Each time he tried to get through a set speech of thanks, that with much trouble he had put together, and each time he forgot it in the middle. It did not signify, for Elfrida took little heed of him. She told him once, that she had done but her duty, and that he had no call to thank her, and after that she wondered why he came so often, and ferried him quietly backwards and forwards all in the way of business.

He was a widower, the tenant of a small but thriving sheep-farm up yonder in the hills, where abode peace and plenty, much live stock, and many children.

Nothing was wanting but a mistress; and after a while he grew to think that Elfrida was one of the right sort, that she would make a kind mother to the children and a comfortable partner for himself.

The good man began to paint glowing pictures of the place he could take her home to, if she had but a mind to come. I don't think Elfrida turned quite a deaf ear. It did sound very pleasant--that well-to-do homestead, with the cows in the shed, and the poultry in the yard, the flocks on the hill-side, the dairy and the pigs. Elfrida felt kindly to the honest farmer in his best red waistcoat, who wanted to make her 'missus' of all these good things. And then how comfortable it would be never to have to cross the ferry on the winter nights that were coming round again, and to be able to put away for ever a certain passing feeling of uneasy wonder that had troubled her once or twice, as to what would become of her when she grew old.

Yes, that was all very well. Still there was Baby. She could never really think of leaving him. What would he do--poor little Davy--if she were gone? What would any of them do indeed? but that first question went nearest to Elfrida's heart.

After she had been listening silently all the way across, to the farmer's description of that place that must surely be very like Paradise, Elfrida lifted up her eyes, and there stood baby on the bank, clapping his hands and shouting at the boat. Baby, with a torn frock and a scratched face, and little bare muddy legs, yet beautiful exceedingly. Elfrida's heart gave a great thump, as it always did when she saw him. 'No, I never could leave Baby.'

'But I've got a baby too, up there at home,' the farmer pleaded.

She looked at him. 'Ah, but he's never like our Baby.'

The farmer scratched his head, and thought of his poor little chap at home, the thin, white-cheeked boy that never would thrive after his mother died and left him. Then he turned to Davy, and saw how his blue eyes shone, and how proudly he tossed back his yellow curls, and laughed his ringing laugh. And how Elfrida looked at him!

No, little Joe was not like that.

'Still, it seems a pity,' he said, 'don't it now, when things are so comfortable, as I've been telling you?'

Elfrida did not even hear him, for Davy, with the air of a king, was allowing her to carry him up the steep bank home to supper.

One day when I was there, the farmer brought down Joe to the ferry, with a kind of hope that the sight of Davy's little motherless rival might touch Elfrida's heart.

The visit did not turn out well. Davy made a bad beginning by knocking his guest down, without the smallest provocation except that he did not like him. Thereafter Joe's shrill cries of fear and anger could by no manner of means be hushed. He stood clasping his big daddy's leg with gasping sobs, a weak, pale-faced, poor-spirited little mortal. 'So-ho, Joe, quiet,' his father kept on saying, patting and smoothing him down, rather as if he had been a cart-horse.

Elfrida, on her side, was holding back Davy, trying to scold him, and make him beg Joe's pardon; but there he stood, nothing daunted, like a prince, Elfrida said, his head thrown back, his eyes sparkling, and one small fist doubled, ready as soon as he was released for another hit at poor terror-stricken Joe.

It did not do. Joe was taken home to the hills, without having greatly aided his father's cause, and the farmer was fain to fall back again upon patience as his best helper after all.

And indeed so were we. I had to go back to Wyncliffe that evening with the old answer, 'No, Hildred, no news yet.'

'I am so tired, so tired of waiting,' she said wearily.

She was standing on the hearth-stone, in the red light of the fire. The rest of the room was dark, for the early dusk of winter had gathered outside. Only the glow from the burning embers fell on her bent face and clasped hands.

Her words sounded all the more dreary that they were spoken in a lowered tone, for Granny, who of late had ceased to take much notice of anything, sat as usual, half asleep, in the chimney-corner.

But she must have heard in part, for she roused up suddenly, and asked, 'Who is tired? What is she talking of?'

We did not answer for a minute, and then I said, 'Only of Cuthbert, Granny.'

'Ay, Cuthbert. Is the lad here?'

'Oh Granny, no,' said Hildred, 'we wish--we wish he were.'

'He will come,' said Granny, raising herself up and speaking in a strange, clear tone. You will see him, never fear. It may be a long time first--' She looked through the firelight into the darkness beyond, as if her eyes were fixed on something that we could not see; 'a long time, but wait patiently, pretty child; wait, Willie. You will see him again.'

Hildred came close to me, and, half-frightened, laid her hand on my arm. We both stood looking wonderingly at Granny, from whose eyes the unaccustomed light was already fading away. The voice and look had given me an odd sort of thrill, and Hildred whispered, 'Willie, do you think she saw anything?'

'No--no--I don't think so. Granny.'

I spoke to her, and Hildred bent down and touched her, but she had sunk back again into the half slumber from which she had roused herself for those few minutes.

'Don't let us disturb her now,' Hildred said. 'We must do as she told us--wait. We will ask her again to-morrow.'

But when to-morrow came, our question remained unasked and unremembered. We only thought how her own long waiting was over, her hopeful patience changed into perfect joy. For Granny had gone from us. In the morning we found her lying with the winter light streaming across her face. We thought she was asleep. So she was. She had fallen into the quiet sleep of death.

One could scarcely call this a sudden sorrow, or a bitter sorrow. We had long known that it must come, and to her it was very welcome. Only we missed her. The chimney-corner looked empty, and we went in and out without the kindly, cheerful word that for so many years had been used to greet us. Granny had been very good to us.

Neither Hildred nor I could forget the words that she had spoken about Cuthbert on the last evening of her life. We looked upon them as a kind of prophecy. Without saying anything to one another, I believe we both began at that time to have a vague feeling that he was near to us--that he was coming home.

I know I never heard the bell ring at the Castle gate, without a quick thought that it might perhaps be him. I have seen Hildred stand by the half-hour together gazing at the bit of road by the bridge, where people coming from the village up to the Castle could first be seen. She got into a way of looking over her shoulder, and from side to side as she walked, as if she half expected that some one would appear from behind an angle of the broken walls, or from under the shadow of a tower. For the first time in her life she did not like to cross the ruins alone after nightfall.

'The girl seems as though she was living in a maze,' Martha Clifford said one day. 'I don't know what she would be at.' And she went behind Hildred unawares, and put her hand on her shoulder. Hildred gave a great start and turned round with the colour rushing into her cheeks.

'Why, child, what ails you?' her sister-in-law asked, not unkindly, 'that you stand there staring at nothing, and shake like a leaf if one does but touch you?'

'I don't know,' said Hildred, looking down again at the bridge, across which two people were moving slowly, and sighing as she saw them turn away along the river side.

The sun was setting in a frosty sky over the trees, and its red light shone through the bare branches and was reflected in the stream. It was Christmas Eve.

'Watching will bring no one back the quicker,' said Martha, 'and it's Christmas time. You'd better be merry with the rest, child.'

Hildred looked after her as she walked away with wistful eyes. 'Oh Willie,' she said, turning round to me, 'I should so like a merry Christmas. Everybody seems to be having one, all but us. And I thought maybe he would be let come home because it is Christmas, and then we should be merry too.'

'You must wait a little longer, Hildred.'

'That's what you always say; but I'm tired of waiting, and I want so much to be happy.'

It had seemed as if people were very merry in the village down yonder, to-day. The one shop-window was turned into a bower of holly and evergreens, stuck all about with oranges and rosy apples. To almost every house some one had come home to spend Christmas among their own folk. The village-green was full of pleased faces, and shouting children, and laughter, and glad greetings. Couple after couple of happy lovers had met Hildred, and wished her a merry Christmas as they passed; and though she gave the wish back heartily, yet each time the great longing to be happy like the rest swelled higher in her heart.

All day she had been working with the other boys and girls at dressing the little old grey church for Christmas Day. They had twined green wreaths round the thick short pillars and over the low arches, and a bunch of holly was stuck in each corner of the square pews. Under the east window, woven in shining holly leaves and scarlet berries, the words gleamed out, 'Behold we bring you glad tidings of great joy.'

They were the last thing that met Hildred's eyes as she turned under the porch, and looked back into the church. And her heart went out to meet them. Will it not be forgiven her, that in her sore longing for 'glad tidings,' she passed over their grand meaning, the mighty message of joy unto all people, and took them to herself as an omen that some good news was coming to her at last?

Christmas certainly is not always a merry time. Nay, often it is sadder than all the rest of the year; and yet I believe that people must be beginning to grow old before they quite give up an unreasonable half-formed idea that they have in some sort a right to be happier than usual at Christmas. Old custom has linked the words 'merry' and 'Christmas' together, and it is hard to put them asunder in our thoughts, though in action it is easily done.

There is a great deal that makes Christmas look and sound cheerful;--roaring fires in farm-house kitchens; holidays from school and work; larders well stocked with Christmas cheer; the church bells, that ring their merriest peals, chiming and pealing, and clashing out every change that the ringers can put together.

And the dear old carols; their quaint rhymes set to music full of odd flourishes, familiar since the childish days when we lay wide awake on Christmas night, listening breathlessly to the voices in the distance, and doubting whether the 'angelick host' of which they sang could have made more melodious music.

We were great at Christmas carols in Wyncliffe. Everybody that could sing--and some that only thought they could--went down to the schoolhouse, for the few weeks before Christmas, on the nights that the singers practised.

Cuthbert and I had been 'waits' ever since we were little schoolboys, with small shrill voices that were always being left behind when the tune swept up suddenly to a high note far above our reach, or rolled down into a manly grumble somewhere in the very heart of the bass. Standing close together and singing with might and main, we could not hear our own voices, but could only see each other's mouths wide open. Our childish piping was buried out of hearing beneath the rude deep men's voices, and the clear notes of the women, the scraping flourishes of the fiddles, and the tones of the flute that whistled and stopped, and lost its way, and found it again, when nobody was expecting it, like a gust of wandering wind.

Things improved for us as time passed on. I played the violin myself in these latter days, and for several years Cuthbert's voice made the fortune, and was the great boast, of the waits. It was a story often told, how a stranger, hearing us sing one Christmas night, turned out to be the organist of Morechester Minster, and wanted Cuthbert afterwards to join the choir of the great church. We did not wonder. It was but natural. What musician would not have wished for that sweet rich voice of his, that seemed to blend all the others together and bring them into harmony?

Ah, well, that was the Christmas before Cuthbert went away. We had learnt to do without him now. Nevertheless, the carols, like many other things, were no longer quite what they used to be.

Hildred and Matt Clifford and I had been round with the waits this year for several nights.

It chanced that I was late in joining them on the evening of Christmas Day, and as I crossed the village green my father met and stopped me.

'I say, lad, you haven't heard the news.'

There was light enough for me to see the strange, awed look on his face, and to feel that whatever the news was, it had shocked him, and made him half-unwilling, and yet eager, to tell it. Besides, he had just a shade of that triumph which people's faces wear when they have foretold that something has come to pass.

'That boy Cuthbert has got killed in the wars.'

I stood still and stared at him.

'Yes, he has got killed, poor lad,' my father repeated. 'Esther Reynolds brought the news. Young Moore, over at the ferry, has come home, and she had it from him.'

Had Hildred heard it? That must be thought of first of all. Would there be time to stop them from telling her suddenly?--Hildred, who sometimes fancied that he was coming home, that he was near to her.

Old Esther Reynolds knew it--the greatest gossip in the village, to whom the telling of a bit of news was as the breath of life. No thought for Hildred would keep her silent, if she had the chance of spreading such a story as this. There was not a moment to be lost.

It was a clear frosty night, and the stars were shining. Every distant noise sounded distinct and close at hand. My own footsteps rang on the frozen road.

Very soon I heard them singing, the well-known carol waxing louder every minute as I got near to them, sounding so strangely discordant to my ears, which were still tingling with the death news.

Voices were singing, and church-bells chimed, the stars gleamed and sparkled like silver fire over the living, busy, holiday-keeping world, and Cuthbert was dead.

For a minute I stood still and gathered breath. How was it possible to tell Hildred, whose voice I fancied I could hear already rising clear above the rest--how would it be possible to go on and tell her that her lover lay dead, killed, buried in a far distant grave? What would she say? How could she bear it, when the mere thought of the words that must be spoken were making my heart beat too heavily for speech? Need I say anything yet? Surely nobody would tell her to-night. I would keep near her, and when this singing, that was such a mockery, was over, perhaps some words would be given me, some words, if such there were, that would make the blow fall less cruelly.

But the next moment I started forward again. There was a confused murmur, a movement in the group; some of the people stopped singing, and then came a sudden, sharp, half-choked cry, and the music ceased altogether.

They had got a lantern; some one held it up, and the light fell on the face of Esther Reynolds standing there among them. I was too late.

Someone called out my name, and then Hildred, ghastly white in the cold star-light, turned and met me, with her hands stretched out before her.

'It isn't true! Willie, tell me it isn't true.'

'My poor Hildred!'

I took the hands so pitifully held out, but she snatched them away, throwing them wildly up into the air, and then with a long sobbing moan she fell down upon her knees.

The women gathered round her compassionately, and raised her up from the hard road, weeping with her, and trying to quiet her by kindly pitying words, of which she took no heed.

Esther Reynolds was wringing her hands, and saying over and over again, 'Oh poor lamb! I would not have told if I'd known she'd have taken on like this. What can I do for her, poor lamb?'

What could she do? What could any one do, but stand by helplessly, watching the poor child struggle through the first bitterness of her sorrow? No one could bear the blow instead of her, or ease her pain.

I daresay her brother Matt did what was the best for her. He laid his hand on her shoulder and bade her quietly come home. He had looked on in perplexed silence for the last few minutes, while he unscrewed his flute slowly, and put it away in his pocket. He did not try now to say anything comforting, but held his sister up in his strong grasp, for she was trembling too much to stand alone, and he led her away, her face hidden in her cloak.

There were no more carols sung that year at Wyncliffe. A blank silence fell upon those who were left. Presently some one said, 'Poor Hildred!'

They asked who brought the news, and Esther dried her eyes and began eagerly to tell all she knew. I stood listening with the rest. It was not much to hear, though told in many words. David Moore had come back wounded from India, to his home at the ferry-house. He was in Cuthbert's regiment, and he brought word that Cuthbert had been killed.

'Poor Cuthbert!' said many sorrowful voices. They all loved him. Not one here but thought of him kindly, and had been friends with him in the days that were gone. And I. Oh Cuthbert, God knows I loved you, God knows I mourned for you, bitterly, bitterly.

It was ended then, the long hope, the fear we would not name, the watching for him who was never to come back. It was all over, and he was dead.

Dead! that was a hard thing to believe. For there was no farewell to remember, no day to look back upon as the last day of his life; no single parting word; only a great blank and silence in our thoughts. He had been, and he was not. That was all. We should never know for certain the day nor the hour when we lost him. Only on some day, long ago now, when thinking nothing, we were busy about our common work, he had been dying a soldier's painful death, with perhaps a farewell word for us in his brave heart, that would never reach us.

It had always seemed as if we feared so much, but we knew now how far stronger than our fears our hope had been. The blow could scarcely have fallen more heavily months ago, before we began to have the vague dread of evil that had darkened into utter night.

I thought it all over as I went slowly homewards, with a dull quietness that it was very strange to feel. I remembered him as a boy, and could recall his great love to me, without more than a numb heartache, and a feeling of wonder that I was not more unhappy.

I thought of a future in which I should be always lonely, and Hildred for ever broken-hearted, with a sort of pity for us both, as if I were but a looker-on at our lives.

And yet I envied Hildred; for when I went late at night to ask after her, they told me that she had sobbed herself to sleep. For the moment she had escaped from trouble, and her stormy sorrow all left behind, she had gone away into the land of dreams, where tears are not.

For me there were neither dreams nor sleep. All night I sat in my father's elbow-chair beside the fire, not caring to go to bed. At first the flames kept me company as they rose and fell and flickered, lighting the room fitfully. The stars shone in, glittering through the window. Then the fire died down to a dull glow. It grew black, with only a red spark here and there. It went quite out, and the room grew very cold. The night waned. A mist rose up and covered the stars. It became darker and darker. Then I suppose I fell asleep, for when I looked again, the grey chill of a winter's dawn was in the room. It was no longer to-day, but yesterday, that we heard of Cuthbert's death.

I dreaded seeing Hildred in her sorrow. It made me feel strange to her, as if I should not know how to greet her, and that instead of her familiar self, she would be to me as a mourner upon whom a great grief had newly fallen! Poor little Hildred. The strangeness all went away, and was forgotten directly we met, and she ran to me and held my hands, crying, 'Oh Willie, I wanted you. He belonged to you and me.'

'But I can't feel as if it could be true,' she said presently. 'I keep thinking all the time--of course it's foolish--that perhaps old Esther Reynolds made a mistake after all, and that David Moore meant some one else. Eh, Willie?'

I shook my head. 'But I can go to see him, and ask him about it,' I said, after thinking a little.

'Oh, will you? And ask him to tell us,'--her voice failed, and she shuddered,--'ask him whether it was great pain, and if it was soon over. I cannot bear to think he suffered long.'

Ah, Hildred! so you too had thought of those dreary questions that had been haunting me all night.

'I will go to-day,' I said. And that evening I was at the Ferry House.

It was generally a bleak place enough; but this afternoon winter sunshine was giving it a cheerful look, and a holly tree, brilliant with berries, made a bright spot of colour near the door.

They say trouble makes people selfish. I scarcely remembered until now that what brought us sorrow had filled this house with rejoicing.

The picture of home gladness that met my eyes as I went in, came upon me in sharp contrast with Hildred's tear-stained cheeks and heavy eyes.

Some one had stuck holly-branches all over the room, usually so bare. The fire blazed cheerily. On one side sat David Moore's little wife, quiet still, but with a smile of great contentment on her face, looking down at her husband, who sat on a wooden stool at her feet, with his arms resting on her lap and his eyes fixed on her.

There was a handkerchief bound round his head, and when he turned round I saw that he would have looked very ill if it had not been for the radiant happiness that shone from his pale face. His mother, sitting close by, put out her hand every now and then, and touched his red coat to make sure it was really him. Even old Moore had roused up. And in the back-ground little Davy stood on the dresser with one arm round Elfrida's neck, a bunch of holly in his hand, and a scarlet handkerchief, in imitation of his father, twisted in his curly hair.

David Moore did not look like the bearer of evil tidings. The question I came to ask seemed sadly out of place among these happy people.

But there was a pause after they had greeted me, and then I had to ask it.

'You were with Cuthbert Franklyn in India?'

'Yes, I was.' He stopped a moment and then said more slowly, 'I suppose you know he's dead.'

It was true, then--quite true. I stood silent. Little Davy laughed merrily, and Elfrida stopped him with a grave 'hush.'

Presently Moore said--

'We lost ever so many fellows in our regiment, and I never looked to come home myself.'

His wife put her hand softly on to his head as he sat at her feet, and he looked up smiling, and forgot everything else.

'Where was it Cuthbert Franklyn died?' I asked at last.

'Killed at the battle of Conjeveram, fighting against Tippoo Saib, same day as I got this wound in the head.'

'You are sure? Did you see him after he was killed?'

'No, I got my wound early in the day. I was left for dead. They never thought I should have lived. I was a long time in hospital. When I saw some of our fellows again, after I was invalided home, they told me that Franklyn was among the missing.'

He could tell me no more than this. And I stood there, thinking sorrowfully over it. I felt that I brought a dreary silence over that happy party. David Moore and his wife spoke to each other in low voices. The old father fell asleep, and Elfrida carried little Davy out of the room.

I turned to go away; Moore followed me to the door, wished he had brought me better news, and said he would have come over to see his cousin Martha Clifford, but that his furlough was so short. Only three days to be with wife and child after this long time! So we shook hands, and he went back to his bright fireside.

It was too late to go home that night. The short winter's day was over before I left the ferry, and it was afternoon again, a dark, cold, Sunday afternoon, before I got to Wyncliffe next day.

The church-bells were still ringing for evening service when I came into the village. Hildred was to meet me at church, for the Vicar never liked the musicians to be away if they could help it, and I played the fiddle up in the gallery every Sunday.

Nearly everybody had gone in when I reached the steps leading up to the churchyard. Only Hildred was standing under the lych gate, and watching for me in the failing light.

If it had been good news I was bringing her, I should have quickened my steps when I saw her.

Now I did not look up, but walked slower, wishing that something would come to prevent my having to destroy the last hope she had.

I think she understood. She came two steps down towards me. The church-bells stopped ringing.

'Willie,' she said in a whisper.

I shook my head.

'Was it true, then?'

'All true.'

She drew back, covering her face with her hands, but she was very quiet. A blow in all its heaviness cannot fall twice.

We stood together for some minutes. She was shivering so, that I told her to go home, but she shook her head, and passed slowly, without speaking, under the church porch.

I went up into the gallery. It was the Sunday after Christmas, and the day had been so short that the light was already waning before the service began. This afternoon, too, a snow-storm was coming, and the heavy clouds made it duskier than usual. There were two faint lights glimmering over the reading-desk. When the last heavy footstep had sounded along the aisle, and there was silence through the church, it was almost out of darkness that the vicar's voice came, reading in a quiet even tone the opening words of the service: 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.'

Broken hearts! It was good that God did not despise them, since there must be so many in the world.

* * * * *

My father was anxious to be told all that David Moore had said. He asked me many questions, and listened to every word I could remember with an interest that would have puzzled me, but that my thoughts were so full of Cuthbert, that it seemed natural every one should be as much taken up about him as we were.

'Then Moore didn't say whether he was killed directly, or how long he lived after he got his wound?'

'No, Moore was hurt himself; he did not hear until long after.'

'How long?'

'Two or three months, I think, he said, when he got back to his regiment.'

'Well.'

'They told him that poor Cuthbert was among the missing.'

'Only missing,' said my father, leaning forward; 'not killed.'

I paused a moment. It had not struck me before.

'But then it's the same thing, for sure,' my father went on eagerly, 'quite the same thing. It's just the way they put it. I didn't mean to throw a doubt on his being killed, mind, Willie.'

'Moore did say missing.'

'Ay, missing or killed. 'Tis the same thing. Now don't you go and fash yourself for a word. The poor lad's killed, sure enough. There's no manner of doubt about that.'

He bent over and touched my arm, to enforce his words. I could see he was vexed with himself for having asked the question, and wanted to make me forget it.

'I suppose they would have known,' I said, after thinking over it, and the hope that had glimmered for an instant went out again--not quite, though. The certainty was shaken since it had been questioned; and yet David Moore had seemed to have no doubt. 'He's dead, you know;' I remembered his words well.

'To be sure they knew,' said my father, watching me, as I saw, 'I've thought myself how it would be this long time past. I never looked to see him come home again.'

My father seldom troubled himself to speak so much. It was almost too much for the object he wanted to gain, of lulling my doubts to rest. By-and-by, he said rather hesitatingly, 'I say, lad, you wouldn't go and tell Hildred what we've been talking of. It'll just unsettle her again for nothing.'

The more he tried to undo the impression he had made on me, the less I was able to forget it. It was a small seed of doubt that, sown unawares, was to live and come up after many days. Try as I would in after times I could not root it out. There it was, too shadowy to be met and fought with outright, too real to be disregarded.

I can scarcely tell what feeling prompted me to tell Hildred. It seemed right to do so. But she scarcely took it in.

'Killed or missing, it's about the same,' my father told her, and Hildred's eyes, raised with a look of eagerness, sank again listlessly. 'I suppose it is,' she said sighing.

I said no more then. It was better for her that the wearing suspense should be at an end. And after all, was there any real ground of hope? I believed, though I could not feel, that Cuthbert was dead.

'If only I had seen him, to say good-bye,' Hildred said, 'I think I could bear it better. I wish he were buried in the churchyard, where we could go and see his grave.'

Ah! I wished so too. That silent darkening down of fear had been very dreadful, but the fitful glimmer that was most likely false, but that would gleam out now and again, from among the ashes of our dead hopes, was to my mind more dreadful still.

* * * * *

These were the thoughts of many months.

I find that it is not easy to tell one's story. You may mean to tell it all, yet you find that the greater part you have left out altogether.

For so many things go to the making up of a man's life. It is not all sweet nor all bitter. There is in it much brightness, and more shadow, and a great deal besides that is neither cloud nor sunshine, neither bitterness nor sweetness, which fills up the measure of each passing day. One wave does not make a river--rather many; some dance and sparkle, touched by the sunlight from above, while all the time the under-current is flowing sorrowfully on.

And we were busy about many things apart from Cuthbert, were glad and sorry, anxious and hopeful, had plans and thoughts, cares and pleasures, that had nothing to do with him. Still the thought of him lay beneath it all.

It was a busy year for me at Furzy Nook; for as Farmer Foster grew older I had of course more and more on my hands. Time passed wonderfully quick--Sunday after Sunday marking off a week that ended before I had thought of it as much more than begun. We could let the weeks go as they would now, without counting every one as a fresh link in a chain of waiting. There was nothing to wait for, or to hope for any longer. So they all said.

It was better for Hildred that it should be so.

After that dark winter was past, she began to brighten with the spring. She was no longer the merry careless child she used to be. All that was over. But the flower that the rain had beaten down, lifted its head again slowly.

It was not that she had any thought of seeing Cuthbert again. Her last hope died on that Sunday after Christmas Day. No one was of the same mind as I was. Everybody called him 'poor Cuthbert,' and spoke of him as dead--everybody, odd to say, excepting good old Farmer Foster. Directly he heard my doubts he went far beyond me, into a perfect certainty of hopefulness. 'We shall have him home upon us, never fear, before we know where we are,' he used to say; and as I walked beside his pony over the Furzy Nook fields, he told me again and again the same half-forgotten story, the end of which he never could remember, about some prisoners who escaped out of a French prison when he was a lad. I repeated the story, such as it was, to Hildred, but it did not cheer her. I thought she looked rather more grave than usual afterwards. 'Catching at straws still, Willie,' she said, shaking her head.

I suppose it was another straw I caught at later in the summer. One market-day at Morechester, as I stood near the Cross, I heard the ill-omened sounds of fifes and drums, and presently a recruiting party marched down on us from the High Street. It carried me back in a moment to that evening three years ago. I almost seemed to see the purple sky above the village street, and the lights shining through the inn-windows, and then the ribands in Cuthbert's hat, as the loud voice of the recruiting sergeant sounded in my ears.

No wonder that I recalled it so vividly, for as they drew near, I saw that this was the same man who had enlisted Cuthbert. I knew his upright figure and broad good-humoured face directly. The people round were laughing at the very same jokes that I remembered hearing in the street of Wyncliffe.

I made my way up to him in the crowd. He had seen Cuthbert after we had, and might somehow know what had become of him. There were two lads near him staring up in open-mouthed admiration of his scarlet coat and soldierly stride.

He turned away from them to me. 'No, I don't want to enlist,' I said, in answer to the accustomed speech. 'I am come to ask you a question. Do you mind one Cuthbert Franklyn, that you enlisted here three years ago?'

He shook his head with a loud laugh. 'If I'd got to remember half their names, my fine fellow, I'd need to have a good memory. Move on, will you?'

Walking on beside him I managed to tell him hurriedly, what we had heard of Cuthbert. 'Was there a chance of his ever coming back?'

'Why not?' he answered, in his careless, jolly voice. 'I don't know why he shouldn't. We're not all killed, you see, that go for soldiers. Ah! it's a fine life, my lads,'--this to the two boys who were still following him. 'No life like it,' and so on.

Those lightly-spoken words of his, the only ones of encouragement I had ever heard, fell upon me like a blow, and struck me speechless.

'Then you think that he may be living yet,' I asked again, presently.

'You there still!' He looked back good-humouredly. 'Well, there's no knowing. I can't say.'

'He was reported missing.'

'Ah! reported missing, that sounds bad. Still, I've known stranger things come round. Where was he killed, say you?'

'At the battle of Conjeveram, I think they called the place.'

'Conjeveram--seems to me I've heard a talk of prisoners taken there, but the outlandish Indian names are all alike. It's a chance, I tell you. Now, then.'

He had no more time for me. I went home with a beating heart, to tell Hildred. She was sitting in the honeysuckle-shaded porch of Clifford's house, spinning. The bees hummed in the sunshine, the waterfall splashed, Clifford's children were shouting at the river's edge, and Hildred was singing a low murmur of song that blended with the whirr of her wheel and the buzzing of the bees.

'Hildred,' I said, going up to her, 'I have seen Cuthbert's recruiting sergeant, and he thinks he may be alive.'

Hildred started, her hand fell, and the thread broke.

'He does not see why he should not come home some day,' I went on.

She got up, very pale.

'Cuthbert alive!' she said, dreamily. 'Where is he?'

'Oh Hildred, I don't know; I only said he might be living still.'

'Didn't you say he was coming?'

'No, no, it might be just possible.'

Hildred burst out crying.

'What's all this?' said Martha Clifford, coming up with a pail of water on her head. 'What's Hildred crying for?'

'I gave her a fright,' I answered repentantly, and I told Martha what I had heard and said.

'Dear me, Willie, leave the girl alone, do,' said Martha roughly. 'Don't begin all that over again. We had enough of it before we knew he was killed; watching and worrying, worrying and watching, from morning till night. Let bygones be bygones.'

'But I can't forget----'

'Well, others can if you can't. Let the dead rest, Willie Lisle.'

'If we could be quite sure----'

'And so you ought to be. It's all a whimsey you've got into your head. Cuthbert's dead enough, poor lad, but it's my belief you wouldn't be satisfied if you had seen him buried down yonder with your own eyes.'

'Don't, Martha,' said Hildred, brushing away her tears and coming to my side.

'It's enough to vex a saint,' Martha went on, 'let alone me, just when the girl was beginning to leave off fretting, and to take hold a little. I won't have it done, and so I tell you, Willie.'

'I wouldn't harm Hildred,' I said sorrowfully, 'but she and I can't forget; after what grandmother said before she died, and all. You mind that, Martha.'

Martha gave a sort of moan.

'It's only that he's more faithful than any of us,' said Hildred.

'Well, let him be faithful by himself. I won't have him coming upsetting everything, and you breaking your thread, Hildred, and going on like that. I'm ashamed of you.'

Hildred did look so pale for a time after this, that I saw Martha was right in part, and that I ought not to have spoken when there was nothing real to tell. She was rough-spoken, was poor Martha, but she was a just woman. No one ever could have a better neighbour, as we proved that next winter.

It was a hard winter. The snow came early, and lay long; the river, for the first time in many years, was frozen over. I suppose I noticed the cold more for my father's sake. All the autumn he had been ailing, but he would not give in as long as he could keep about. When Christmas came he was lying between life and death in a rheumatic fever.

We never thought he would see another spring, but somehow he struggled through it, and by March he was downstairs again, changed, and aged, and bent, but still a wonder, even to the doctor himself.

Martha Clifford and Hildred nursed him as if they had been daughters of his own, and he was 'ill to nurse,' as the old women say. Martha never got a word of thanks from him for all her goodness, but sometimes he laid his hand kindly on Hildred's head, and smiled at her.

It was pretty to see her trying to cheer him as he sat, hour after hour, with his eyes fixed gloomily on the fire, beating his stick slowly on the floor and saying nothing. It was a hard thing for him to believe, what his stiff aching limbs yet told him too plainly, that he would never be fit for any work again. Hildred did not lose patience, even with his darkest moods. Perhaps she guessed that they were darker still whenever she was away from him.

One wet blowy evening in that same month of March, I chanced to be kept much later than usual at Furzy Nook. Long before I got home it had grown dark, though I made as much haste as I could, thinking that my father's fire would have gone out, and that he would be tired of being by himself.

But when I lifted the latch, the firelight was shining cheerfully through the room, and Hildred sat on the wooden stool at my father's feet. I remember standing still for a moment to watch them. My father's head was bent down, and he was talking to her. Hildred sat looking up at him, her chin on her hand, and the fire lighted both their faces.