CHAPTER XV.
LITTLE LESTER.
THE young people were so full of the overturned basket and its mysterious contents that Randall forgot to tease Hugh as much as usual. And besides, Miss Ashlyn's quiet presence rather awed the little bully, who was not quite sure how she would take it, if he let his sharp tongue loose on his delicate brother.
Indeed, since the episode of the sticky pen, Randall could not forget the sudden glance Gertrude had given towards his little hands, nor the quiet and firm tone in which she had told him to go to nurse to have them washed. Nor did he like Daisy's exclamation as he was leaving the room—
"Why, Miss Ashlyn, how funny that your watch should have been sticky too!"
So he decided to keep quiet for a time and make some plan of mischief which should be more annoying and more difficult of discovery.
Hugh and Daisy soon made their way to the schoolroom, and settled themselves cosily under Gertrude's wing, the little boy conning his lessons with great industry, only occasionally asking for some help in a gentle, entreating little tone, which Gertrude thought she quite understood since their conversation that morning.
At last, the books were put away, and Daisy came over to Gertrude's side and said softly, "Are we friends enough yet?"
Gertrude smiled. "What do you think?" she asked.
"I think we are," said Daisy. "When Hugh and I take to people, we 'take' to them, and we don't change a bit."
"I see; so you consider you have 'taken' to me?"
"You are laughing at us?"
"Only a very little. I am so glad, Daisy, if you have. Come, then, and sit by the fire, and we will have a sort of story—
"About seven years ago my pretty sister Rose was married—"
"Was she like you?" interrupted Daisy with a little smile.
"Oh no! A hundred times prettier," said Gertrude enthusiastically; "oh no! Her husband travels for a large firm in London, and my sister generally has her home at Camptown, near where I come from."
"Yes," nodded Hugh. "I know about Camptown; there are soldiers there."
"Yes. Well, by and by there came a dear little baby boy to my sister's home, and she and her husband doted on him more than I can say. My sister used to take him about with her, if the places that her husband went to were near enough, and they used to have such happy times. Sometimes, however, he went alone.
"Once, when she was staying at a watering-place in the south, she was suddenly called to Scotland to nurse her husband, and left her darling little boy in the landlady's care.
"Whether she was right or wise to do such a thing does not matter now. The landlady seemed a very nice woman, and my sister trusted her completely.
"When she got back again—think of it, Daisy and Hugh—the house was empty, the woman and her husband and little boy were all gone too!—and with them our little darling, the most precious thing in the world to all of us!"
Hugh and Daisy gazed in Gertrude's face, but they seemed as if they could not ask a question.
"Ever since, my dear sister has gone about searching for her lost child, little Lester. And never have we heard one single word of him from that day to this."
Hugh's little hand was put out till it touched Gertrude's softly, and he said—
"Perhaps, some day—"
"Yes," she answered, "we live in hope of that. Hugh, he used to say, 'I've opened my heart to Jesus, and He's come in!'"
"Who taught him that?" asked Daisy gently.
"I think I taught him," said Gertrude. "My dear sister did not know her Saviour herself then, and it was not till little Lester was taken away that she found she needed a Saviour."
Hugh's eyes gave a flash, but he looked down quickly and was silent.
"I believe you love Him too, Hugh," said Gertrude, drawing the boy to her.
"I'm so bad," said Hugh in a low tone. "So afraid—and so nasty sometimes, but yet—" he paused. Then meeting Daisy's eyes, and flushing up to the roots of his hair, he added courageously, "Yes, I do. In spite of not being a bit what I should be, I do. And He loves me!"
Daisy looked well satisfied. She had been almost afraid that Hugh's courage would vanish under the test to which it was being put. But as she had found many times, to her surprise, there was a secret of strength in the frail little boy that surpassed her utmost expectations.
"Now we must go to bed," she said, rising reluctantly. "Thank you ever so much, Miss Ashlyn."
Hugh put up his face for a kiss, and then Gertrude was left alone with her heart full of her sister Rose and of lost little Lester.
And every time she shut her eyes, she seemed to see before them a pair of worn, shabby little kid-lined slippers!
CHAPTER XVI.
A LATE VISITOR.
"I MUST go to-night," said the woman in a hoarse voice, rising from the chair into which she had sunk ere she had opened that letter which bore such sad tidings.
"You can't get there," said her husband. "It's ten o'clock now, and every one 'ull be in bed."
"If he's bad—" She tried to finish the sentence, but her dry tongue would not say the words.
"Perhaps he's better by now," said the man, not unkindly. "Mightn't you as well go the first thing to-morrow?"
"I daren't go out in daylight, as you know. No; I shall be away all to-morrow most likely, so you'll stay and mind him," glancing towards the corner.
"I'll see to that," said the man.
The woman put her hand to her head as if dazed.
"Take a drop o' tea, or somethin'," urged the man. "You're about beat. To think that there was a letter after all!"
"I somehow expected it," said his wife wearily. "Ought I to take anything with me? I'd near done those little knickers, but he'll never want them now."
"Oh, don't say so!" exclaimed the man.
She shook her head again. Then, after an instant's hesitation, she went to the bed in the corner and bent over it, and there was a sound in the still room as of a kiss.
The man looked on wondering. But in another moment, with a brief good-bye, the woman had gone noiselessly down the stairs and had let herself out into the darkness.
How she reached Highgate, she could never recall afterwards. Almost blindly she hurried along, helping her steps by an omnibus on which she happened to see Highgate written, and at length arrived at her destination long after the clocks had struck eleven.
Almost breathless she paused at the house she was seeking, and with anxious eyes gazed up at the windows. Darkness reigned, not a sign of light or life appeared in any of them.
She began to breathe more freely, and to chide herself for her frantic fears. All were evidently in bed and asleep.
But almost ere that thought had crossed her heart, came another which seemed to strike her with more terrible fear still. What if all should be over, and her boy should be dead?
She went up the front steps and took hold of the bell, but ere she had rung it, came another thought. She quickly turned from the door, and made her way up a side lane which was close by, and from that position scanned the back of the house.
At the very top, two windows seemed to have a dim light in the room belonging to them.
The woman put her hand to her heart as if with a sudden pang, and almost stumbling along in her eagerness, once more reached the front door, where she gave a low ring.
The sound went through the quiet house, and she heard it outside.
The minutes, though in reality they were very few, seemed very long before a light began to glimmer through the ground glass of the door, coming nearer and nearer.
Then a step was audible, and some one set the light down and undid the fastenings of the door.
The woman, who was grasping the stone balustrade for support, lifted her eyes to meet those of a sweet-looking nurse, who in snowy cap and apron stood holding the door in her hand.
"Are you—" she asked and paused. Then altering the form of her question, said gently, "What may you be wanting, ma'am? Have you come to see any one?"
The woman's lips formed some words, but they were inaudible.
"Perhaps you are my patient's mother?" suggested the nurse. Then seeing that this was the case, she held out her hand and led the woman into the hall, placed her in a chair, and carefully closed the front door.
"Then he is alive," the poor mother at last found voice to say.
"Yes, he is alive," answered the nurse.
"May I go to him?" asked the woman, starting up.
"Not yet. You are not fit to see him yet. Come in here, and I will tell you about him. Perhaps you will be able to quiet him better than I. He has something which is on his mind, I fear."
The woman hung her head, but then with a sudden passion she exclaimed, "It was no fault of his—no fault at all. It was all my doing! Oh! I have suffered for it—My boy! My boy!"
"Hush! If you wish to see him, you will have to be a great deal calmer than this. I will go back to him, and will fetch you in five minutes."
"Oh, let me come now!" besought the woman, rousing herself. "Oh, I will be calm, indeed I will."
"Wait an instant then," said the nurse in her sweet, calm tone.
She left the room and returned in a moment with a glass of milk, which she evidently expected the poor mother to drink, and which she held to her lips authoritatively, not noticing her reluctance. Then with a kind cheering word, in which she heard, "The dear Saviour has been here before you," she led the way up the quiet staircase, to that room where the dim light was burning.
CHAPTER XVII.
BEFORE DAWN.
"INFLAMMATION of the lungs," the nurse had whispered.
But when the woman entered that darkened room, she was hardly prepared for the little figure she found propped up in the narrow bed, nor for the sunken cheeks and staring eyes of her once healthy boy.
Her promise of calmness and her fear of not being allowed to see him kept the woman from the first wild impulse to throw herself at his feet and devour him with kisses.
As she crossed the room to his side, she felt like some untamed animal being robbed of its offspring. But all she did was to bend over him and say with a strangled sob—
"Oh, Johnnie, are you very ill, my dear?"
After trying vainly to speak, he nodded slightly, but looked appealingly towards his nurse, and laid his head back on his high pillow.
"He will be better presently, ma'am," said the nurse, putting a chair near. "He wants to tell you something, but he has not much breath at times. He will speak when he feels able. Is not that right, dear?"
Johnnie was watching his mother's face with those pathetic eyes, in which some urgent request lay hidden. As the nurse bent over him with some medicine, he whispered—
"Shall I have time?"
"I think you will," she answered. "But if not, Johnnie, I can tell her what you have told me."
"Ah, but—"
No telling of hers, he felt, would have the weight of his own dying request. But he could not as yet gather strength to speak.
"He has been light-headed a good bit," explained the nurse, "but he is better of that now."
The woman had taken her child's hand, but he drew it away as if more than he could bear, and in a short breathless way gasped—
"I'll speak presently."
Just at this moment the door opened noiselessly, and the master of the school came in.
"We feared you would be too late," he said gravely, in a low tone, to Johnnie's mother. "Did you not receive my letter?"
"No," answered the woman briefly; "not till to-night."
Then, as if impelled by something she could not resist, she asked in an almost inaudible tone—
"Is there no hope, then?"
"I fear not."
The master turned to the bed, spoke a few kind words to the boy, and noiselessly left the room.
Still Johnnie lay with that distressed look on his face. And the nurse stood by watching him, but without saying a word to break the silence, lest in doing so she might hinder rather than help her poor little invalid.
The mother, sitting there in that unbroken silence, felt as if she could not bear the agony of it much longer.
She was just turning towards Johnnie with an appealing look, when he said in that same short, gasping way—
"I want you to take him back, mother."
The woman shrank, and the child felt it.
"I never knew how wicked it was—till now," he went on, gazing still at her averted eyes.
"You did not know," whispered his mother.
"No—no, mother—not that! But taking him away! It was awful of me to do what I did—I never knew the harm—but you will take him back now, mother."
"I don't see how I can," she said at last.
"Mother!" he urged. "'He's' got a mother."
There was a breathless pause. The nurse, standing by, feared that her little patient's life would ebb away in the agony of that ungranted request.
"I'm going to Jesus," whispered Johnnie again, in a broken voice. "He's forgiven me that, and all my other sins—every sin. He has washed me clean and white. But, mother, you must give him back, indeed you must."
"She will," interposed the nurse soothingly, "when she has had time to think of it! Just tell him that you will, if you can, ma'am!"
With a warning glance she went to the fire for some broth, while the woman, urged by her look and by the beseeching, dying agony of her child's eyes, said slowly—
"I will—Johnnie—I will."
Then realizing what she had done, she buried her face in her hands, and trembled from head to foot.
Johnnie's hand, which had lain listlessly on the counterpane, sought his mother's now, and pressed it with what little strength he had, and he drew her towards him.
"Kiss me, mother," he said.
After that, though he took what the nurse gave him, he did not seem able to speak. His eyes never closed, but were generally fixed on his mother's face with an expression the nurse did not understand.
The hours crept on; sometimes his mother said a word of tender endearment, sometimes only her suppressed weeping broke the stillness.
The daylight was beginning to creep in when he spoke once more.
"Mother, you will come to Jesus too?"
"Oh, Johnnie, I'll do what you ask me about the other. But don't make me promise what I can't do, my dear!"
"Ah, but you can," he panted. "Nurse told me the words—they make it so plain—'Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out!' Can't you come after that, mother?"
CHAPTER XVIII.
SUNRISE.
BUT the poor mother was too bewildered and heart-broken to take any comfort yet.
Her only child was being snatched from her under circumstances so pitiful that to her mind no ray of hope or consolation could enter.
She would have given everything she possessed at that moment to pacify her dying child, and yet the promise he wanted of her was one she thought she could not give.
Johnnie still held her hand, and all she could do was to bend down and kiss his little one softly, stilling her passionate longing to clasp him in her arms by an effort which seemed to her to be almost killing her.
As her eyes were fixed on his wan little face, she saw his lips move, and at the same moment the nurse came quickly to his side with her gentle, untiring, "What is it, dear?"
"You'll be glad by and by—" said Johnnie, tenderly, to his mother.
"Glad? Oh, Johnnie, you do not know—"
"Glad that I am gone to Jesus. Mother—if you will not promise me—still you'll try?"
"I'll do what I can, Johnnie," she answered at last.
He glanced towards the nurse as if struggling to remember something.
She sat down on the edge of his bed and put her arm under his head.
"Say it again," he whispered.
So she said, slowly and distinctly—
"'Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.'"
"Yes; that's it!" he answered, with a sigh of content.
Just then a ray of sunshine broke from a dark cloud in which the sun had been hidden, and crept along Johnnie's bed, covering his thin little hands, and shining right up into his wide-open eyes.
"What's that?" he asked with a sudden smile, the only one his mother had seen on his face, an eager, tender smile which astonished her.
"It's the blessed sunrise," said the nurse soothingly.
But his eyes were still gazing upward, the smile growing and growing till it became radiant.
"It's—it's 'Jesus!'" he murmured.
The eyes continued to look while the gasping breath grew fainter and fainter. And then, with one more weary, yet rested sigh, he went away to the glory which his Saviour has prepared for those who love Him.
Twelve terrible, hopeless hours of heart-rending grief must elapse before the woman could venture to retrace her steps to her home, or tell her husband of the blow which had fallen upon them.
The kind nurse did everything in her power to try to comfort the desolate mother.
But to all her gentle words, the woman only answered, "You do not know—no one can ever know—it is no use to talk to me. Oh, my Johnnie! My Johnnie!"
Once during that long day which she spent in the housekeeper's room, she had asked permission to visit the place where lay all that remained of her boy. But thither no earthly eye followed her, and her grief, with its secret sting, was seen only by Him who can unlock the chambers of every heart, and knows what each one needs to bring it to feel its need of Himself.
At length the weary day was over, and darkness began to gather. Directly the woman saw this, she took her bonnet and shawl, and with a few words of broken thanks to the nurse, she left the house and turned towards home.
An hour after dark, the woman climbed up those stairs at home, and was let in to that top room, which looked so like, and so unlike too, the room she had left less than twenty-four hours ago.
As she threw aside her veil, her husband saw all at a glance.
"Yes—" she said, and then sank down in the chair and laid her head on her arms on the table.
The man broke into bitter reproaches, walking up and down the room pouring forth thick words of anguish, in which he laid the blame on his wife, as if she were not heart-broken enough already.
Presently the woman raised her head, and throwing off her shawl and bonnet, she went to the corner and lifted from the bed a little child, wrapping it in a blanket and sitting down by the fire with it on her lap.
"How's he been?" she asked briefly.
The man, who had been watching her movements and gradually ceasing to rage, now mumbled something about "very poorly," and without any more words went down-stairs, and shut himself into the room they occupied there.
The woman proceeded to feed and wash the little invalid in unbroken silence. But as she did so, the first tears she had shed since Johnnie died fell down her cheeks, and dropped on to the soft golden curls of the little boy.
"Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie!" she whispered at last. "How could I have promised you what I did? I shall never, never be able to keep it!"
And still, as she tended the little one, her tears dropped down on his golden hair as she remembered Johnnie's beseeching words—
"'He's' got a mother too!"
CHAPTER XIX.
ROSE GUESSES SOMETHING.
"HERE is a letter from Gertrude," said Otto, walking into his sister-in-law's pleasant sitting-room one evening.
"That is always welcome. And so are you," answered Rose, looking up from her work.
Otto smiled slightly. He looked worn, and after the first flush caused by his brisk walk into Camptown had subsided, he seemed to become paler than his observant sister had ever seen him.
"Sit down," she said, putting aside her work, and stirring the fire into a blaze; "have you come to tea?"
"If you will have me."
"Willingly indeed. Have you read Gertrude's letter, or is it private and particular?"
"It is not private, but all her letters are particular—"
"Yes. So, Otto, we will have her letter together before I ring for the tea; then we shall not be interrupted."
She settled herself in her chair near the lamp, and opened the sheets, proceeding to read out what Otto had already heard: all Gertrude's account of the overturned basket, with its mysterious little pair of shoes.
Rose drew her breath as she reached that part of it, and when she had put down the letter, she looked into the fire with an absorbed gaze, while she seemed to forget Otto's presence altogether.
"Strange!" she murmured. "Otto, did it give you a queer feeling when you read that?"
"We are apt to fancy every little trifle may bear upon little Lester," he said softly, "but this seems too unlikely. Do not build upon it, dear Rose."
"I know I am too ready to do so," she answered sadly, "but—"
Still she looked into the fire in deep thought.
"Otto," she exclaimed, "I must go and call at that house!"
"They would not admit you."
"Do you think so? At any rate, I should like try. Oh, if I could have seen those little slippers! I should have known them anywhere."
She rose from her seat, and began pacing to and fro in the little room, her sweet, calm face looking worried and anxious.
"If—supposing, Otto, that man were afraid of what his basket had revealed, and were to move away as they did from Blank—"
"But, dear Rose, this may have nothing to do with them at all!"
"But then it may—"
She sat down again, looking troubled, her hands lying listlessly in her lap, her brow full of lines.
"'God is our Refuge and Strength, a very present help in trouble,'" said Otto. "Perhaps, Rose, He is leading us along, though we cannot see the way."
"But it is so hard to trust in the dark—"
"His road will lead to the light," said Otto; "there are no 'blind thoroughfares' with our Father, Rose!"
She looked up quickly. "'No' blind thoroughfares, Otto!" she answered, significantly, throwing off her own care as she so often did, in order to comfort another. "You must remember that, as well as I."
He flushed a deep red, but his eyes looked frankly into hers nevertheless.
"I do not forget it," he said quietly, "but I have had a long spell in the dark."
"You have," she answered.
After that there was silence, till, suddenly bethinking herself, she rang the bell, and began to busy herself in preparation for tea, taking some cake from the sideboard, and putting the caddy on the table.
When the maid had left the room, and they sat down to their meal, just those two, Rose began—
"Then you do not advise my going off to see Gertrude?"
"I cannot advise anything," said Otto, "but if you think it likely, it might be worth trying."
"I feel as if I must, Otto."
Again there was silence. She was planning when she could go, and what might be the consequences. He was wishing with a great longing that he could go too, and in his thoughts was almost forgetting little Lester altogether.
At last, their eyes met, and something in her brother-in-law's made Rose say gently—
"Otto, I hope it will all come right some day."
She was referring to his thoughts, not to her own.
Again, he coloured vividly, rising to go.
"So soon?" she asked, surprised.
"Yes, I only came over to bring you that letter." Then, as he stood in the doorway, he added abruptly: "Rose, I see you have guessed my secret. I never knew till she was gone that I could feel so much—and with my poverty and all, it is so hopeless."
"Nothing is hopeless when we look above," she said.
And when he was gone, she sat down again and took the lesson home to her own heart. And her thoughts shaped themselves into these words—
"'With God nothing shall be impossible.'"
CHAPTER XX.
UP THE CHIMNEY.
"LET me look at it!" exclaimed Randall, pushing Hugh aside, and standing on tiptoe to reach the mantel-piece.
"You mustn't. I ought not to have touched it," said Hugh eagerly. "Let it alone, I tell you; mother would not like us to touch her letters."
"It isn't a letter, it's a bank-note, and I mean to look at it, whatever you say—"
Hugh put his hand upon the object of their dispute, to protect it from further molestation, while Randall, with a sudden movement, caught it from under his brother's hand, and then in his eagerness dropped it.
It fluttered down, down, down; both boys made a dash at it, but the draught from the blazing fire was too strong—it eluded their grasp, and quietly floated into the midst of the flames, where it caught fire, and went crackling up the chimney.
There was a moment's silence, while both children stood spell-bound.
At length Randall found his voice, though it was choking with anger and dismay, and he exclaimed—"You did it! It was your fault!"
"Oh, Randall!" said Hugh, turning white.
"You did! I shall tell mother so! It was all your doing—"
He ran from the room, and Hugh could hear his voice explaining and protesting, and his mother's tone of vexation as she realized her loss. Then he heard steps approaching, and they both came in.
"I was in the arm-chair," said Randall, "and he was holding it there, on the hearth-rug, and then he dropped it, and it blew into the fire—"
"Oh, Randall!" began Hugh, in a despairing tone. "It wasn't a bit so, mother! I was telling Randall not to touch it, and he would try to, and he snatched it from me, and then—I don't know how—it got burned."
Mrs. Shaddock looked from one to the other.
"'Which' did it?" she asked angrily.
"It was Hugh," said Randall; "I was quite away from him, and I saw it in his hand."
"Randall let it fall in the fire," said Hugh steadily, his face white even to his lips, and his hands clenched together till they ached.
"I don't believe it," said Mrs. Shaddock. "Don't you hear your brother was sitting in the arm-chair, so it could not have been his fault. Here is a whole five pounds gone, and you shall have no Christmas presents at all, Hugh for being so careless, and then trying to put it on your brother. Do not let me have another word on the subject. I do not know what your father will say."
Mrs. Shaddock left the room in great displeasure, and the two boys stood looking at each other.
"Now, cry-baby, go and tell it all to nurse," said Randall, shaking his yellow mane defiantly. "I know it was your fault, so I don't care."
Hugh slowly left the room, his heart stinging with the pain of his little brother's taunts.
Soon his father would be back from town, and then he pictured the fresh investigation of the whole matter, and the fresh disgrace, and perhaps punishment, which would fall upon him. It was not the first time that Randall's selfishness and want of truth had got him into dire trouble, and he was too sensitive, and too little respected, to fight for himself.
He laid himself down on the nursery hearth-rug to think it all over, and remained like that till the gong sounded for tea, and he must go down.
Mr. Shaddock had come in, and Gertrude and his sisters had returned from a lecture they had been attending. Everybody was present, as Hugh, pale and dark-eyed, walked into the room.
"You need not come here," said his father, looking up. "Tell nurse to give you your tea up-stairs, and put you to bed. Five-pound notes are not to be burned with impunity."
Hugh said nothing. He went slowly up to the nursery, and sat down dejectedly on a chair. Nurse had heard the account from Randall, and knew all about it, or at any rate, so much as could be gathered from one side.
"I expect I shall be caned," said Hugh at length, "and it was Randall who did it from beginning to end."
"Then never mind, dear," said nurse gently.
If there was one thing that nurse found hard in her comfortable place, it was that Hugh was often severely punished, while Randall got off free.
But Hugh would not be comforted. He ate no tea, and crept into bed, utterly crushed.
As he lay there in the darkness, above the fear of punishment, above the threat of no Christmas presents, above the misery of being wronged, came over him a greater misery still. For while he knew that every word Randall had said was false, and that the burning of the note was entirely Randall's doing, yet in his inmost heart he felt he had been the one to touch it first, and this fault he had not acknowledged.
He could not do it! That was his first and strongest feeling. Nothing on earth could make him volunteer that which would partly justify all their displeasure. He had "not" burned the note, there it must rest. That was his ultimatum.
But to those who are Christ's, a still small voice comes; the Shepherd's hand is stretched out to restore the soul, and lead it in the paths of righteousness.
A sudden thought came to poor little Hugh, and he looked up above the misery and despair which had seized him. "Oh, help me to do right, by Thy mighty power," he whispered. "I can't do it by myself—do help me, Lord Jesus."
CHAPTER XXI.
BY THE NURSERY FIRE.
STRENGTHENED with a new strength, Hugh sat up in bed, and considered what he ought to do.
Truth and falsehood were strangely mixed up in his mind. But of one thing he was certain, he had not told any one the whole truth.
Great as was his fear of punishment, his fear of offending his God and King was greater. What therefore ought he to do?
Just at this moment his father's step was heard crossing the nursery.
"I am going to put a stop to this deception," he said to the nurse. "If he had said boldly that he had done it and was sorry, I would have excused him, but to make it worse by a lie—"
"Oh, sir!" interrupted the nurse earnestly. "Do ask him to explain it—indeed there may be some mistake. Master Hugh is so good and straight and little Master Randall—you know, sir, in the heat of things children do not always see quite how it is. Please, sir, do wait till we can find out more about it!"
Little shivering Hugh could hear his father turn towards the fire-place, and for a moment, he breathed more freely. But, even then, after what his father had said, punishment must follow, no matter what he might confess. Though he had, indeed, not been the one who had burned the note, his father had in his estimation described him accurately when he had accused him of a lie. If he had not told one, he had acted one.
Then he heard—"Well, nurse, I do not mind waiting, of course, for I respect your opinion very much, as you have been with the children so long. But if it turns out to be as I think it is, nothing shall come between Hugh and his punishment. I cannot make my children all I would, but untruth shall not pass unreproved."
Nurse murmured some words of thanks and he seemed to be turning away.
Hugh sprang out of bed, and without waiting for his courage to ebb, he rushed into the nursery.
"Father!" he said.
"Well?" said Mr. Shaddock, turning round, rather coldly.
"Father—will you hear all about it—will you hear about it before you punish me?"
Mr. Shaddock came back to the fire-place and sat down. Something in the boy's face touched him more than he had ever felt touched before.
"It was not my fault about the note—but—"
"I did not come back to hear you say that—" said Mr. Shaddock.
"No, but I was going to tell you all about it. It was my fault, because I touched the note first, and said to Randall that it was such a dirty old thing to be worth so much. But it was quite safe on the mantel-shelf again, and Randall would touch it. And I tried to prevent him by putting down my hand on it, and then he snatched it and it fell into the fire."
Whether the child's eyes convinced his father, or whether the story bore the impress of truth, Mr. Shaddock felt that he knew the whole.
There was a silence while he thought it all over.
"Why did you not tell this to your mother?" he asked, at length.
"I did try to, but—she did not understand."
There was another pause.
"Did you tell her all this?" asked his father, opening his arm to invite the little boy within it.
Hugh thought of Randall's overbearing clamour and was silent.
"Did you?" persisted Mr. Shaddock.
"I tried to—" Hugh's eyes looked appealingly in his father's face, but he said no more.
"I see. Now, my boy, go back to your bed. I am glad that you have told me."
But Hugh hesitated. Never before had he stood like that within his father's arm; it was hard to go out from it, and yet he must.
"Father," he said, gently and bravely, "are you not going to punish me? I would rather get it over, and then, perhaps, you will forgive me?"
Mr. Shaddock looked down upon him wonderingly. "Forgiveness does not depend upon punishment," he said, slowly, "but upon—other things."
"But I deserve what you said," answered Hugh, "because I 'did' not tell all the truth."
In that five minutes Mr. Shaddock had learned a great lesson. He had never thought of "forgiving" his little son. He had considered it his duty to punish him, and there the matter would end. Now he was asked for forgiveness!
What had he to do with forgiveness?
Hugh's eyes were still fixed upon him inquiringly his colour going and coming.
"I freely forgive you, my boy," he answered then; "God bless you."
Hugh flung his arms round his father's neck, and was inclosed in an embrace such as he had never had before.
Mr. Shaddock rose then, and leading his child back to his bed, kissed him, and went slowly down-stairs.
"I doubt if I could have done such a thing myself," was his mental comment. And all the evening afterwards, those words which he had heard so often in church, but had never heeded before, seemed to sound in his ears—
"'Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is
covered.'"
CHAPTER XXII.
NO THOROUGHFARE.
"THERE is a lady down-stairs waiting to see you, Miss Ashlyn," said Mollie, putting her head in at the door of the schoolroom one morning, and then withdrawing it without waiting to receive any answer.
"For me?" exclaimed Gertrude, colouring with surprise. "I do not know anybody here."
"Go down and see," said Randall. "I dare say it's some old fogey! Our last governess had some of those sort to see her."
If Gertrude had not blushed before, she blushed now. Suppose it should be her mother whom Randall had called by such a name?
"You are very rude," she said coldly, turning to him ere she left the room. "Do not move till I come back. I will at any rate not be long."
She ran down-stairs, her heart beating. Could it be her mother? But she would never have come unless something had been the matter!
She had not long to be in doubt. As she opened the door, a white-haired lady indeed sat near the window. But the beautiful complexion and soft, dark eyes belonged to no one else than her sister Rose!
In a moment they were clasped in each other's arms, and then Rose in rather an agitated way began to explain about the basket, and the old man, and the Strange House, and the little slippers.
At mention of these, Gertrude turned pale.
"Rose!" she exclaimed. "That is what has been haunting me ever since. I could not make it out!"
"That makes it more necessary than ever for me to do my utmost to find out if my child is really—"
Rose broke off. She could not get through those words. The imagined nearness of her child, if as she fondly believed, he were in the next house, made her altogether frantic. She could hardly control herself.
"Dearest Rose," said Gertrude persuasively, "sit down quietly now, while I go and tell Mrs. Shaddock you are here, and speak to my children up-stairs. I am sure they will be interested in it all, and Mrs. Shaddock will perhaps advise us as to what is best to be done."
Rose sat down obediently, though she glanced out of the window at every passer-by with such anxiety, that Gertrude feared she would not even allow her time to make her explanations, before she would want to be out of the door, and knocking at that Strange House which she thought contained her darling.
However, Gertrude hastened to the schoolroom to beg Daisy and Randall to amuse themselves with a book till her return, and then she sought Mrs. Shaddock, who was busy with Mollie in the dining-room writing invitations for an "At Home" the next week.
The explanations were soon made, and Mrs. Shaddock went into the other room to make acquaintance with Mrs. Leigh, and in her hospitable way to beg her to use her house as if it were her own.
Rose's tearful eyes were a grateful answer enough.
"I am going to the house to see if I can find out anything," said Rose, rising. "You cannot wonder that I dare not delay after my sad experiences!"
They let her go, and Gertrude went back to the schoolroom to tell Daisy about it, and to wait her sister's return. Rose had begged them not to accompany her or be seen outside.
Meanwhile with trembling steps, growing more firm as she went along, Rose tried to remember Otto's words of there being no "blind streets" in God's paths, and so gathered courage as she leaned on Him who is mighty.
But her repeated knocks at the door brought no answer, and after she had stood there a whole quarter of an hour, she began to despair at last.
She ceased knocking and ringing, and then could bear the strokes of a spade in the back garden.
She went to the side gate and shook it, and after some time an elderly man came shuffling up the path and approached the green lattice-work fence.
"Does Mrs. Swift live here?" said Rose as boldly as she could, her heart beating.
"My name's Brown," said the man surlily.
"Could I speak to your wife?" asked Rose, looking earnestly in his face.
"I'm alone," answered the man with increased surliness. "What's the good of asking me to see my wife? She went away from me a long time ago,—and, as I tell you, I'm all alone."
He began to turn towards his garden again.
"Oh, please!" implored Rose. "Would you tell me if you ever lived at Blank—?"
A startled look, despite an evident effort, overspread the man's face.
"No, I never did!" he answered heartily enough. "You never heard of a Mrs. Swift there, a lodging-house keeper, with one little boy?"
Did Rose fancy a spasm passed across the haggard face before her? It was only for an instant.
"Didn't I tell you," he asked roughly, "that I was never at the place? How is it likely I should know any one there? Why do you come here hindering me at my work?"
He left her abruptly, and Rose stood baffled.
"Oh, please!" she called in her soft, musical voice, which must have reached him well enough. "Please do come and talk to me a little while!"
But the man crunched over the gravel unheedingly, and took up his spade within sight of her, and so dug and dug persistently till, tired out, and fearing she was ridiculous, Rose turned back to the Shaddocks' house, feeling that indeed this had been "No thoroughfare" in good earnest.