CHAPTER IV
TOM
ONE day Harebell paid a visit to Miss Triggs. She rode over to the village to post a letter for her aunt, and saw the little dressmaker at her cottage door. It was a very easy matter to tie Chrysoprasus to the gate-post.
"May I come in and see your little house?" Harebell asked.
Miss Triggs led the way proudly into her best parlour. The window was shrouded with flowers and muslin curtains. There were fashion papers on the round table, and an unfinished dress or two hanging up on the wall. Harebell thought it a very pretty room; she admired the dried grasses on the chimneypiece, and the bright-coloured pictures on the walls. Then she looked at an illuminated text over the door.
"'He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.'"
"Is that a text?" she asked.
"Yes, isn't it a nice one for a dressmaker?" said Miss Triggs brightly. "I make clothes for people's bodies, but the Lord makes clothes for our souls."
Harebell looked at her with bright grave eyes.
"You're a very good person," she said reflectively. "Do you know, I don't know whether I'm through the Door or not. I have asked God to take me through, but I don't feel any different. How do you know whether you're through or not?"
"That's where faith comes in," said Miss Triggs, with a beautiful smile on her face.
"If you kneel down and ask Jesus to take you through, He will. And you must believe He has done it. Why, my dear, you've just to hold out your arms to Him. He loves you; He wants to have you in His Kingdom. Of course He does. He opened the Door into the Kingdom when He died upon the Cross. It has been standing wide open ever since for us all to go through. You won't have any difficulty in getting through—but there's a lot of difficulties after."
"Tell me."
"Well, p'r'aps I shouldn't say so, for He makes it easy. 'Tis the life of the Kingdom. We have to live like children of the Kingdom."
"Subjects," corrected Harebell. "A king has subjects in his Kingdom; Mr. Garland said so. I like the word subject much better than a child. It—it sounds more important and grown-up. I'm a subject if I'm through."
"You'll have to obey the laws, and fight and work for your King."
Harebell nodded.
"I know what the laws are—the ten commandments."
Then, with a child's inconsequence, she changed the subject.
"I want to see your brother. Is he here?"
Miss Triggs' bright smile faded.
"No, dear, he isn't. He spends most of his time away from me. Will you come in and see my mother? She dearly loves a visitor."
So Harebell went into a bright shining kitchen at the back of the house. There was a sewing-machine in one corner and a table littered with work. Miss Triggs' mother sat in an armchair by the fire. She was very old, but she looked at Harebell with bright eyes.
Harebell shook hands with her, and began to talk.
Miss Triggs went away for a few minutes, and in her absence Harebell asked eagerly:
"Mrs. Triggs, who do you like best, your wicked son or your good daughter?"
The old lady raised her head.
"I'll have nobody comin' here and abusin' my son, that I won't. He may be foolish, but he be my boy, and he be very good to his old mother."
"Oh!" said Harebell, abashed. "I—I—thought he was a drunkard. I would like to see him."
But Mrs. Triggs muttered angrily to herself, and when Miss Triggs came back, she could not soothe her.
"'Tis you a-callin' your brother such names and tellin' the whole place of his failin'. Take the little maid away. She be like the rest, just abusin' of him, like as you've teached her!"
Harebell retreated to the door, frightened at the old woman shaking her fist in her face.
"Tell her I'm sorry, Miss Triggs."
Miss Triggs led her out of the cottage.
"Yes—yes, dear, 'tis only mother's way. She loves my brother like a mother, you know, and can't bear any one to miscall him."
Harebell mounted her pony and rode thoughtfully away. But a little farther on, she happened to meet Tom Triggs. He was slouching along with his hands in his pocket. For a moment he looked up and eyed her.
Harebell's spirits rose at once.
"Are you Miss Triggs' brother? I hoped I would see you. I've been to see your cottage."
"Seen the old woman? Yes, I be Tom Triggs right enough. A thorough bad un, so they say."
He gave a surly laugh.
"But your old mother is very angry with me," said Harebell looking at him with interest. "Because—you promise not to be angry—I called you her wicked son."
The man's surliness vanished. His eyes twinkled. "You were a bold little un. An' what did her say?"
"I can't tell you, but she was very angry, and Miss Triggs says she loves you, and that's why it was." Then Harebell said cautiously: "Do you drink all day long? Isn't it rather difficult? Now I like eating better than drinking. I wonder if I was to eat all day long whether it would be wicked? I should have to choose my food, for I certainly couldn't eat porridge or bread-and-butter all that time. I think I could manage a good many jam tarts."
Tom Triggs laughed; he straightened himself up and stroked the nose of her pony. Then Harebell told him his name, and they were deep in talk over ponies' names and their habits and tricks, when the Rector came up. Tom Triggs lowered his head, and slouched off, but not before Harebell had called after him:
"Good-bye; I hope I shall see you another day."
Then, with an explanatory wave of her hand after the retreating figure, she said:
"It's Miss Triggs' brother, and I like him. I think he and me are going to be friends."
"I wish he could be persuaded to do some work," said Mr. Garland rather sadly.
"Has he got any he ought to do?" asked Harebell.
"He's a carpenter by trade. But nobody will employ him, as he won't stick at any job, and lives half his days at the 'Black Swan,' spending his sister's hard-earned money."
"Can't you tell him not to?" said the little girl with knitted brows.
The Rector looked at her with a smile and sigh.
"I am afraid my words are wasted. He and I have had many a talk. When a man makes drink his master, he cannot get away from it."
"I suppose," said Harebell softly, "God could get him away."
"Yes, little one. God alone can help him now."
"If he gets through the Door, he'll be all right. I'll ask him."
The Rector did not quite understand her. Then he asked after her aunt.
"Aunt Diana is always well, I think, like me. She hasn't melted yet."
The Rector shook his head at her.
"Ah! You little know your aunt's troubles," he said, and then with a nod, he passed on, and Harebell rode home very thoughtfully.
She tackled Andy as he was cleaning the silver in the pantry after tea.
"Andy, what are Aunt Diana's troubles? I didn't know she had any."
"Most on us have troubles," said Andy slowly; "and some take 'em softly, and some hardly, but have 'em we must."
"I haven't any just now," said Harebell. "Of course I've had a lot—chiefly in India, you know—mostly deaths I've had. They get killed so quickly in India—'specially puppies. Has Aunt Diana had many deaths belonging to her?"
Andy shook his head mysteriously.
"Ay, death would have been better, I'm thinkin'; 'twas a bad time for her. But there, I reckon she'd rather have it over again than be without the master as she is."
"Who is the master?"
"Why, Colonel Keith, to be sure."
"Is he dead?"
Andy lowered his voice.
"Hush you now, and don't be speakin' of it to a soul. The Colonel is not dead—just away in foreign parts. You see, he were very strong-willed, and so is she, and they are both hot-tempered, and he used to struggle hard—that I know to be a fact—to get the better of it, but her sharp words didn't help, and then one day there were a fine rumpus, and she said she'd rather be chained to a brute beast than to him—I heard her myself; but she were so hot that she didn't know rightly what she were saying, and he says:"
"'All right, I snap your chains, and you are free!'"
"With that he walks right out of the door, and never comes back again, nor sends her one word, and that were six years ago last Christmas. But I knows, he be alive, for he always giv' me a pocket gardener's di'ry every Christmas. Me and him were very good friends; and if you believe me, that pocket di'ry have never missed coming to me every Christmas since he went."
Harebell's face was a study; surprise, excitement, and keen interest flitted across it.
"Oh," she said, "poor Aunt Diana! How she must want to see him!"
"She's turned hard and cold, but her heart inside be right," said Andy. "I seed her take up my di'ry one day when I laid it on my pantry table, and when she put it down, her lips were all of a quiver."
"Could we write to him and ask him to come back?"
"Bless your little heart, nobody knows which quarter of the globe he be in—"
"What relation is he of mine?"
"I s'pose as how he be an uncle, eh?"
"Uncle what?"
"Uncle Herbert; but don't you go for to mention his name, or you'll get old Andy into trouble."
"I'll only mention him to God," said Harebell, rather loftily; "and I'll ask God not to tell anybody, if you like."
Andy turned away his head.
"'Tis something scandalous the way she talks of the Almighty," he informed Goody later on; "and yet 'tis done quite innocent like. 'Tis to be hoped the Almighty understands her, for I'm sure I don't."
"A good lot has happened to me to-day, darling Chris," said Harebell softly in the ear of her pony, as she wished him good-night that evening. She was getting quite accustomed to give him her confidences.
"It's a great comfort to tell secrets to some one who can't talk," she said to herself.
"You see, Chris, I've heard about one new man, and I've made friends with another, and it's very exciting to hear about an uncle of mine who I never knew belonged to me. I'm very sorry Uncle Herbert was so cross and ran away, but I dare say he's quite good now, sitting in some corner by himself and thinking about Aunt Diana. It's dreadful not to be able to tell him how unhappy she is without him. If he knew she wanted him, he would come tearing back to-morrow. Of course my best plan will be to ask God if He will be kind enough to make him understand. In a dream, or something like that. But I'll leave Him to do it the way He likes best. Isn't it nice, Chris, to have God knowing about everybody and everything and able to speak all over the world in the same minute? wonder if you understand about Him? He made you, so I expect He speaks to you sometimes."
She was a long time over her prayers that evening. Goody waxed rather impatient.
"It's just chattering, not praying that you're doing," she said a little severely, when at last with a happy sigh, Harebell got up from her knees.
Harebell looked up at her solemnly.
"Why, I've been pouring out, simply pouring," she said. "I had an awful lot to pray about."
Goody shook her head in disapproval, but she had learnt not to argue with Harebell.
Harebell never rested till she had another interview with Tom Triggs; and this time she was perched on the garden wall, when he slouched by.
Mrs. Keith had gone out to tea, and Harebell was left to play alone in the garden. She beamed all over when she saw who it was.
"If I jumped, could you catch me?" she asked.
Tom looked quite alarmed.
"You'd break your legs. Don't ye try it."
"But if there was a fire, and this was a window, you'd have to catch me," said Harebell.
"But there ain't a fire," argued Tom.
She sat swinging her small legs to and fro, looking down upon him with bright interested eyes.
"I wish," she said slowly, "that you would have a sweet little cottage of your own, Tom, with some nice little children, then you could ask me to tea. I should love to come."
Tom laughed. He took out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco from a greasy tin box in his pocket.
"Cottages and children cost money," he said. "I'm stony broke."
"But you could work for money, couldn't you? And give up drinking beer, that costs a lot of money."
"Ah," said Tom, "this 'ere pipe and a mug o' beer be better company than anybody else. The women and children be only a burden."
"I didn't say anything about women," said Harebell; "but I s'pose you'd have to have a wife to mind the children when you went to work."
Tom looked at her with twinkling eyes. Then his mood changed. He clenched one on his fists.
"Little missy, I'd give this 'ere right hand o' mine to be quit o' the drink sometimes. There was a lass once who loved me. She and me had set our hearts on that there cottage top o' village agen the old oak. We was for havin' our banns cried, an' I were so dazed wi' the luck in front o' me, I went and drunk more'n a man ought, and then visited my maid, afore the stuff had worked itself out o' me. She were one o' the Maxworthy stock, and held her head high, an' she sent me off, and would have none o' me. So that sent me to the devil!"
"Oh," interrupted Harebell, "I'm sure you didn't go to him. He doesn't live in this world, you know."
"But he does, right enough, missy. He have a tight hold of me—he and the drink together."
Harebell looked startled, then she smiled reassuring. "I know Somebody Who'll make you all right, and so do you."
Tom shook his head; he was ashamed of himself for giving his confidence to this small maiden; but he was attracted by her earnest trustful eyes, and did not seem able to help himself.
"I'D GET SOME GLUE, I THINK, AND STICK MY LIFE
TOGETHER," SAID HAREBELL.
"Why, of course, God will. He always helps us to be good. I know what I'd do if I were you."
"What?"
"I'd get some glue, I think, and stick my lips together, and put some cotton-wool up my nose, and then I would walk past the public-house six times running, and say a kind of spell. I'll make up one for you and bring it to you to-morrow. Will you promise to meet me outside the cottage you meant to live in? I will go with Chris. I know the old oak—"
"I'll be there—what time?"
"It mustn't be after four. Half-past three, because I ride then—"
Tom nodded, then slouched off; and Harebell watched till he was out of sight.
"What a funny man he is!" she said to herself. Then she settled down on the wall to compose a "spell." From a tiny child on her father's knee she had been accustomed to help him make up rhymes, and after a good deal of frowning and muttering, she evolved the following:—
Beer, beer!
Call me not here!
I shall drink no more,
For it makes me poor.
Beer, beer!
Though you're so near,
I can say good-bye
Without a cry.
So never no more
Will I cross the door
Where beer is sold
Till I'm dead and cold.
Beer, beer, you've spoilt my life,
And now I'll go and get a wife.
She was very pleased with this composition, and climbing down from the wall, she ran indoors, and copied it out in her best handwriting, on the largest sheet of paper she could find. It was shown to Andy, who was awestruck at such a production, as Harebell hoped he would be.
"It's a piece of po'try, Andy. You didn't know I could write po'try, did you? I shall write book upon book when I grow up. It's a kind of spell, you know. To say to yourself when you're passing public-houses and want to have a glass of beer."
"But what on earth do you know about beer?" questioned Andy.
"I have friends," said Harebell in a remote tone.
Andy shook his head slowly backwards and forwards.
"You'll never grow up," he muttered. "Your head be too big for your body."
CHAPTER V
AN ACCIDENT
HAREBELL arrived first at the little cottage the next day. It was a picture, with its thatched roof, and beehives against the wall, and spring bulbs pushing themselves out of the ground. An old bed-ridden woman lived there, with a niece who looked after her.
The oak was magnificent, and spread its branches in all directions. Tom appeared, still smoking his pipe. He looked heavy-eyed and rather surly, but could not keep away from Harebell, and when she presented her rhyme to him, he read it slowly through, weighing every word.
She drew up her pony on the secluded side of the oak-tree. Tom leant against the old trunk, and scratched his head as he slowly read the verses.
"Hum!" he remarked, "I don't understand this here!"
"So never no more
Will I cross the door
Where beer is sold
Till I'm dead and cold."
"Will I be doin' it after I'm dead, d'you mean?"
"Oh no," said Harebell earnestly. "I hope you'll be in heaven then. You see 'cold' goes with 'sold'; if people are dead they're quite cold—my ayah told me they were. It means you'll never go into a public-house for all your life."
"That do seem hard," said Tom thoughtfully; then he read the last two lines and brightened up.
"Aye, that be it, missy. 'I'll go and get a wife.' First-rate poet you be!"
He chuckled and repeated several times:
"Beer, beer, you've spoilt my life,
And now I'll go and get a wife."
"Then you'll have a dear little cottage and some work," said Harebell. "Will you promise me you'll say this over, while you walk outside the 'Black Swan' to-day? It's a spell—it will work, I know it will."
Tom rubbed his head again.
Harebell continued:
"You must get the wife you meant to get. She will forgive you. Where is she?"
"Bless yer heart, she married five years ago and is in Canada now, I hear tell, wi' a long fam'ly!"
Harebell's face dropped.
"Well, we must find another. Which shall we find first, Tom? The cottage, or the wife, or the work? Isn't it a pity, people are living here. Oh, look! There's a woman coming out!"
The cottage door had opened, and a young woman came down the path; she had a pleasant smiling face, and carried a basket on her arm. When she reached the gate, she paused. It was in a rotten condition, and one of the hinges was off. She had to untie a piece of rope. Tom looked on with interest.
"Afternoon, Mr. Triggs," the young woman said brightly.
"Arternoon!" was the gruff response. "Seems as if a bit o' carpentering were wanted there."
"I wish you'd come and do it for us. My aunt would be so glad to have it mended."
Tom said nothing.
She waited for a moment, smiled at Harebell, then walked away towards the village. Harebell bent over from her pony and touched Tom's shoulder.
"You've got your work, Tom; you must mend that gate, and give up beer, and next week marry that woman, and then come and live in this cottage! Oh, it's turning out lovely!"
She clapped her hands gaily. Chris started at once for home, but Harebell pulled him in.
"Tom, promise me you will!" she cried. "Promise!"
Tom shook his head. He bent his eyes upon her paper.
"Beer and I can't do without each other!" he muttered.
Then Harebell grew serious.
"Do you know the old woman who lives there? Let's go and see her."
"No, no, I bain't acquainted, I couldn't make so free of her door!"
Harebell was silent; then suddenly her eyes glowed.
"Oh, Tom! Of course there's a better way for you. The door reminds me—you must get through the Door of the Kingdom, and then you'll belong to God, and He will help you. God can do anything, you know."
Tom looked at her in a puzzled sort of way.
Then Harebell began her explanation:
"It's like this," she said, "there's a Door we can't see, but it's wide open and it leads into God's Kingdom. We've all got to go through it. Your sister knows about it, for she told me—and I think I'm through. If you're through you're a subjec'—a King's subjec'—and no King's subjec' could ever get drunk—it would be so disgraceful, wouldn't it? You just walk through, Tom—now at once, where you are—it doesn't take any time."
"I don't know what you be driving at!" said Tom. "What door?"
Harebell bent her head and whispered:
"I must say it very soft to be respeck'ful. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, Tom. I learnt the text, 'I am the Door,' He said, 'by Me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved.' You've got to shut your eyes and hold your arms out, and say very soft: 'Take me through, Jesus, I come to You, and I ask You to take me through!' I did it in bed a few nights ago. I stood right up in bed and did it. And I feel—I feel I'm through!"
Tom gazed at her in silence.
"You get through to-night, Tom. I'm sure Jesus will let you through; He says 'any man,' you see, and I wasn't a man at all, and yet I feel I'm through. You're the proper sort he wants."
Tom turned round.
"Good arternoon, missy—I'll read your po'try, I promise you!"
Harebell looked after his retreating figure wistfully.
"I've muddled it all up, Chris—and I'm sure God can help him better than my spell."
She did not know that her words, "You're the proper sort he wants," rang in poor Tom's ears all that day and night.
"Harebell," said her aunt that same evening, when she was sitting by her side hemming a towel, "I hear you have been seen talking to a man called Tom Triggs, a rough bad man. I shall not be able to let you ride about alone, if you pick up undesirable acquaintances. What possessed you to speak to such a man at all?"
"Oh, Aunt Diana, I'm getting so fond of him! He is so nice to me—and we talk about such interesting things—cottages, and wives, and work, and beer—and even the Kingdom's Door!"
Mrs. Keith looked with cold hard eyes at the little girl.
"Explain yourself more clearly and don't talk so fast. When did you first meet him?"
"He belongs to Miss Triggs. He's her brother, and Mrs. Triggs was angry when I called him wicked. I don't think he's really wicked, Aunt Diana; he wants to give up drinking beer, but he can't. You see, he was going to have a wife once, but she wouldn't marry him, and then he—he went to the devil!"
Harebell's voice sank to an awed whisper.
"I don't know quite what that means but he won't be with the devil any longer if he gets through the Door. I told him about it, and then he went away from me—and I gave him a spell to say about beer—I made it up myself. Would you like to hear it?"
"I cannot have you talking to such men. You must have nothing more to do with him."
"Oh, please let me, Aunt Diana—I'm so very very interested in him! Please don't say I'm not to speak to him. Why, we've thought of a cottage, and a wife, and some work—and if he never touches beer again you'll let me have him for a friend—"
Mrs. Keith's lips compressed themselves together very tightly.
"I never argue. You are never to speak to him again."
Harebell had up to this moment been such a quiet sedate little girl in her aunt's presence that Mrs. Keith hardly realized how deeply things touched her.
Her cheeks crimsoned now and her eyes flashed. She brought down one of her feet on the floor with an angry stamp.
"I shall speak to him! I shall run away from you! I don't like you at all. You aren't a bit kind to me, like Tom Triggs, and I like him ever so much better than I do you!"
Then she dashed down her work and fled from the room, banging the door passionately behind her.
Mrs. Keith sat quite still for a few minutes, then she rang the bell.
Andy appeared with a scared face.
"Send Goodheart to me—"
So Goody was summoned.
"Find Miss Harebell and put her straight to bed. She has been very naughty."
Then Mrs. Keith took up a library book and tried to dismiss her small niece from her mind.
Harebell meanwhile was in the stable, sobbing passionately, with her arms round her pony's neck.
Andy found her and brought her back to the house. She sobbed on till she reached her bedroom, and then flung herself down on the soft woolly rug before the fire, refusing to speak to Goody or to be comforted.
"Whatever have you been doing? You're to go to bed at once," said Goody, looking quite worried, as she drew Harebell towards her and begun brushing out her hair.
"Oh, Aunt Diana is so cruel! She's just breaking my heart, and Tom will never be made good—never, never! Me and him were going to plan it all out, and she says I'm never to speak to him again. I shall! I shall!"
"If it's Tom Triggs you're speaking of, your aunt is quite right. He's not fit to be with a little girl like you!"
"But he's going to be different."
"It's high time he was, but he'll never alter, never!"
Harebell sobbed on miserably.
When Goody told her to say her prayers, she shook her head.
"I don't want to. I feel so wicked, and I won't be good yet. I—I hate Aunt Diana! I wish I had never known her!"
"You're a very naughty little girl," said Goody severely. She did not leave her till she was in bed; then Harebell lay quite still in the dark, and from being very angry, she now began to feel very lonely and frightened.
"God has turned His back on me; I know He has. I believe he has put me outside the Door of His Kingdom. He won't come near me to-night, and He'll take His angels away, and then the devil will come and get hold of me. Oh, what shall I do! I must say my prayers, but I expect I shan't be listened to, as I've been so naughty."
"Say you're sorry and ask to be forgiven," whispered Harebell's conscience.
But she was not ready yet to say that she was sorry.
She began to pity herself.
"Aunt Diana was very provoking, she made me angry; she's unkind; she likes to tell me not to do what I want to do; and me and Tom were going to try to be good, together. She doesn't want Tom to be good, she wants him to be wicked, and she makes me wicked too!"
"She is your aunt and is grown-up; and you're only a little girl, and must do what she tells you," said conscience.
"I won't!" said Harebell, and she said it out loud.
Then the door creaked and slowly opened, and in a panic of fright Harebell hid her head under the clothes.
She heard a slow steady footstep across the room, and then a hand touched the bed. Harebell was beside herself with terror.
"Go away, devil!" she screamed. "I'm going to be good! Oh, God! God, come to me! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I will be good! Take the devil away!"
The bedclothes were firmly taken away from her head, and Harebell saw through half-shut eyes, her aunt standing with a candle in her hand.
The trembling child put out her hand.
"Oh, please forgive me, Aunt Diana! I'm sorry I was naughty. I'm so glad you're not the devil. I thought it was him!"
Mrs. Keith put her hand on Harebell's forehead; it was moist with perspiration, and the child's face was a deathly white. Her terror had been very real. She clung hold of her aunt's hand.
"Just stay with me. I'm so frightened. I have been so wicked, and I wouldn't say my prayers, and then of course God went away and left me. Do ask him to come back."
"I'm glad to hear you say you are sorry," said Mrs. Keith in a low even tone, "for you quite shocked me by your passion."
"Do forgive me."
"I will let it pass. We will say no more about it."
"Will God forgive me?"
"Ask Him."
"Don't go away just yet. I won't be long."
Mrs. Keith sat down, and Harebell began to whisper in a shaky voice. Then she got out of bed and knelt down, and said her evening prayer.
When she was back in bed again, her aunt stooped down and kissed her.
"Good-night, Harebell. Go to sleep."
Harebell took hold of her hand.
"Do you think God is taking care of me again?"
"Yes."
"Oh, I'm so glad."
Her curly head dropped back on her pillow. Exhausted by her grief and fright, she fell asleep.
The next day found her bright and happy again. She went to her lessons as usual, but just as she was leaving the Rectory, Mr. Garland called her.
"I think you're interested in Tom Triggs, aren't you?" he said. "He has met with an accident, and would like to see you. Would your aunt let you come with me to see him this afternoon? He has been taken to the Cottage Hospital!"
"Oh, poor Tom! What's the matter with him?"
"Well, it seems that he was quite sober. In fact, he had been mending a gate for old Mrs. Crake, and had told her niece he had knocked off the drink altogether. On his way back, a motor swung round the corner and nearly killed a child. He saved the child, but got knocked over himself, and has a leg badly broken."
Tears came into Harebell's eyes.
"Aunt Diana won't let me speak to him ever again. Poor Tom! Is he going to die?"
"I hope not. Shall I come round this afternoon and ask your aunt to let you come with me to see him? I quite understand her not wishing you to be making friends with him, as for some time he has not borne the best of characters. But he is ill now. It makes a difference."
"Please come. I should love to see him!"
"Very well. I shall call about three o'clock."
Harebell returned home partly comforted.
She told her aunt of the accident at dinner-time.
"I hope it may do him good," said Mrs. Keith unsympathetically; "at all events, it will stop his drinking for a time. That poor little sister of his has had a dreadful life of it!"
"He's not going to drink any more," said Harebell with an assured little nod. "Me and him settled he wouldn't."
"You are too small to have anything to say about such things," said Mrs. Keith in her cold lifeless tone.
Harebell was silent. She did not mention the Rector's proposed call, but she ran out to the stable and told Chris the whole story.
"I wish, Chris, that I was grown-up! It must be so lovely to do whatever you like without asking any one! If Aunt Diana doesn't let me go and see him, I shall cry buckets. I feel it coming already!"
The Rector came at three o'clock, and after an interview with Mrs. Keith, Harebell was summoned to the drawing-room.
"You may go to the Cottage Hospital with the Rector," her aunt said. "I do not mind this in the least, but you are not to go again without permission."
So Harebell eagerly promised she would not, and ran off joyfully to get her hat and coat. She chattered incessantly to the Rector the whole way to the hospital, and told him all the conversation she had had with Tom. She even repeated her "spell," as she called it, and Mr. Garland found her very entertaining company.
When they were ushered into the small ward, Harebell's spirits subsided. There were four white beds in a row, and four heads were raised simultaneously to gaze at the visitors. Tom Triggs' bed was farthest off against the wall. He looked quite a different Tom Triggs to Harebell's old friend. This man had a very clean face and tidy hair; but his eyes, as they rested on the little girl's face, had the old familiar twinkle in them.
"Eh, but you're a good little lady to come and see my smash up!" he said.
"Now, Tom," said the Rector pleasantly, "I'm going to read to old Mrs. Green in the next ward; I will leave Miss Harebell to talk to you."
He went away. A sudden fit of shyness seized Harebell. She sat down on a chair by the bedside, and for a moment there was silence.
"Does it hurt very much?" she asked at length.
"Pretty bad just now," was Tom's reply, "but 'tisn't the hurt, 'tis bein' tied by the leg—and having slops to drink, does for me! Now if only you could hand me a tankard o' frothy ale, I'd be spry enough!"
Harebell looked at him gravely.
"But you aren't going to drink any more, Tom?"
"Must drink something—an' tea be just p'ison to my system!"
"You're not going to take any more beer, Tom; we settled you wouldn't!"
"Ay! Don't you call the name to me, for my mouth be fair clamouring for it."
"I expect God made you break your leg!" said Harebell thoughtfully. "He did it to keep you from going to the 'Black Swan'!"
"The cruellest thing that ever happened to me," said Tom, a little surlily.
"Oh no," Harebell said cheerfully; "you'll soon be better, won't you? And then it won't take very long to find a cottage and a wife. I can be doing that while you're in bed. It will be so nice to think about, Tom. What shall you wear for the wedding?"
Tom began to smile.
"White waistcoat!" he said. "And white gloves!"
"And a blue tie," said Harebell. "Sky blue, you know, and a rose in your buttonhole."
"I shall be a reg'lar toff!" said Tom.
Harebell beamed with delight.
"And your wife must be in white, of course. People are always married in white; only I should like a wreath of pink roses round her waist, like a sash, you know. Wouldn't they look pretty?"
"That they would."
"And now, who shall she be?" went on Harebell, a serious gleam coming into her eyes.
"Ah!" said Tom with a little groan. "No lass 'ud have me. That be all past wi' me. Beer be my best and only friend."
He seemed to be in the depths of despair now.
"You mustn't talk like that," remonstrated Harebell. "You're never going to touch beer again."
"I shall die if I don't!"
"Oh, Tom, that's really wicked! Have you got through the Door yet?"
"No, nor never shall!" groaned Tom.
Harebell looked down upon him in silence.
Then she said:
"I'm not to speak to you ever again Aunt Diana says, when you get well; it will be dreadful. She doesn't mind to-day when you're ill. What shall we do, Tom?"
"Why ain't you to speak to me?"
"Because you drink beer, I s'pose."
"But if I ain't going to touch of it agen?"
"If you had a wife and a cottage," said Harebell craftily, "I'm sure I could come and see you then. You will let me find them for you, Tom, won't you?"
"Oh, I'll give you leave to look for 'em!" Tom's eyes were twinkling again. He added:
"My little sister come to see me this morning!"
"Oh, did she? I quite forgot about her, and what does your mother think of your accident?"
"She's proper upset. Hessie be too good for her'n me. Mother says she'd like to get away from her times, and that's what I feels, too!"
"I love Miss Triggs! I think she's sweet!"
Harebell was very loyal to her friends. Then, with a child's pertinacity, she came back to the subject that never left her thoughts.
"You must get through that Door, Tom; you can get through, as you lie in bed."
Tom's eyes looked wistful, but his lips smiled.
"That there Door you talk of so much is locked agen me!"
"Oh no, I'm sure it isn't! It's wide open and you'll never want to drink beer, if you're through," said Harebell.
"Now don't you want to be bad at times?" said Tom.
The colour rose in Harebell's cheeks.
"Yes, and I am bad, too. It's dreadful of me, but I'm usually sorry after, and you know God does forgive people."
"If I went right into heaven to-day," said Tom solemnly, "I should want my beer."
"You're disgustin'!" said Harebell, with emphatic scorn.
Tom looked ashamed of himself.
Their talk was over, for the Rector came in; he had a word or two with Tom, and then brought Harebell away. She was very downhearted.
"Tom will never be good. He doesn't want to be—"
"He's like a crooked tree," said the Rector. "He has been crooked so long that no one can make him straight."
"Nobody but God."
"No one but God, little one. You are right. You must pray for him."
Harebell nodded and did not speak much till she reached home.
CHAPTER VI
AN ADVENTUROUS DAY
"HAREBELL, I am going away for a short time. I have arranged that you shall go to the Rectory and sleep there. Mrs. Garland has been kind enough to say that she will have you."
Mrs. Keith said this at breakfast-time. She had been reading a letter, and her face was flushed and eyes very bright. Harebell stared at her for a moment, then said slowly:
"I hope I shall like it."
"It does not matter if you don't," her aunt said quickly. "It is exceedingly kind of Mrs. Garland to be troubled with you; and you must be sure to be as good as possible."
"Where are you going, Aunt Diana?"
"Little girls must not ask inquisitive questions."
Harebell was unabashed. She cocked her head on one side, and regarded her aunt with great interest.
"You look," she said, "as if you're all breaking up and melting inside!"
"Have you finished your breakfast? If so, run and get ready for your lessons."
Harebell left the dining-room rather reluctantly. She found Goody upstairs packing her box, and in a great flutter.
"What's the matter, Goody? Where's Aunt Diana going? She won't tell me."
"Then you mustn't ask me," said Goody sternly. "Eh, dear! I'm all in a tremble! To think that just a letter arriving by post, should shake our quiet household to the very foundations!"
"Aunt Diana is shaken all up wonderful, isn't she!" said Harebell quickly. "If you ask me, Goody, I should say the ice was heaving and cracking and breaking inside her. She has red spots on her cheeks, and she's like you, all of the tremble! But she's still ice to me. She won't tell me nothing. It's—horrid of her!"
"Hush now! Be quiet. You'll be late for your lessons. You're to stay to dinner at the Rectory, and your box will be sent over the first thing this afternoon."
"Am I going for good now? Then I must say good-bye to everybody, and what about Chris? Is he coming with me?"
"Of course not. Run down now and say good-bye to your aunt pretty. I shall never get done in time, and my best bonnet is being cleaned. 'Tis most vexin'."
"But are you going away, Goody, too?"
"I should think I was! Do you think I'd let your aunt go without me? I've maided her for over twenty years, and it may be a bit of nursing I shall have to do. But I'm ready for anything! I always was. And if good is coming to my dear mistress, and the smiles be coming back to her face—well, I'd be willing to work myself to the bone."
"Oh, do tell me, darling Goody, what it's all about." Harebell was frantic with curiosity. She put her small arms round Goody's substantial waist and held her tight. "Is it anything about—about—a gentleman?"
She sank her voice to a whisper. Andy's words came back to her. "Don't you go for to mention his name, or you'll get old Andy into trouble."
Goody broke away from her impatiently.
"Go off to your lessons this minute, and mind you behave yourself at the Rectory, and have pretty manners like a little lady!"