Part 9

Miss Webb nodded her head knowingly.

"Wait and see, my dear; wait and see!"

It was a great blow to the children, and as soon as lessons were over the next morning Jack and Jill ran off to the Vicarage as hard as they could go.

Mrs. Errington received them; her husband was out.

"We don't know what to do," Jill said breathlessly. "If Mr. Errington goes away, we can't get on at all. Do beg him not to. Why does he go?"

"My dear child, we are both very loth to leave, but circumstances are against us. I have been told by the doctors that I shall never be better here. If we take this other living offered to us, I may be able to help Mr. Errington instead of being a constant source of anxiety to him."

"It's the bag," Jill said; "it's the bag I am thinking of. I can't bring it to a strange clergyman. I hate strangers! It's too bad of you!"

Jill actually began to cry.

"You see," explained Jack, "some people laugh at us. Now Mr. Errington never did. He understood from the very beginning. Mona used to laugh, but she doesn't now. Miss Webb always does. She told Jill she was a Mrs. Judas, for she kept the bag. Mona scolded her. And Sir Henry Talbot always teases us. He asks if we have taken up any more trespassers. They think themselves very funny, but we don't think them funny, we hate them when they talk so."

"I am sure no clergyman would laugh at you," said Mrs. Errington gently. "We will tell our successor all about you, and he will be only too glad to help you in every way he can."

"But what will you tell him about us?" asked Jill, drying her eyes. "You won't tell him of our scrapes, will you? Say that we always mean to be good, it's just accidents happening when we aren't. And tell him he has just to take the money and use it for God, and ask no questions. Because, when the room is built our money will still be going on. We shall never stop, you know. We're not like Sam's father. He says his cabbages are done, and he can't grow any more in the winter. But I know he has got some turnips, and I'm going to talk to him about them. Oh, I do wish you weren't going away!"

It was the general wish in the village, and there was great concern amongst all Mr. Errington's parishioners. His church was never so full as during the two months before his departure, and as Bumps pathetically remarked--

"There'll be no one like him in church ever again. There never are twos of anybody, except twins, and Mr. Errington isn't a twin."

XIV

"YOU AND YOUR RED BAG ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF IT ALL!"

Mona was looking out of the drawing-room window one fine bright frosty afternoon, when she saw Jill tearing out of the stable-yard with the large carriage-whip in her hand.

Her face was almost as red as her Tam o' Shanter, and Mona exclaimed to Miss Webb--

"I wonder what is the matter! Jill is in one of her tempers. I hope she is not going to wreak vengeance on any human being."

"Oh, let her alone," said Miss Webb. "She must have an explosion now and then, for the way she bottles up her spirits now is marvellous. Miss Falkner seems to have no complaint to find with any of them. It is not natural."

Mona laughed lightly, but putting on a wrap she slipped out of the house and crossed the lawn. Angry voices led her to the pine wood. There before the trespassers' board she found Jill brandishing her whip with fury in her face. Jack was by her side, armed with a stout stick; and Bumps, well in the rear, was picking up fir cones, and throwing them wildly at everybody.

Two workmen were the aggressors; the pile of stones was scattered on the ground, and they seemed to be enjoying the children's wrath.

"Who put those stones up?" Jill was screaming. "_I_ did, and you're thieves to touch them!"

"But they comed from that there wall," argued the younger of the men; "and us have orders to build it up. 'Twasn't business of yours to take them stones from the wall. Back they shall go, or my name isn't Jim Hall!"

"You dare to touch one!" shouted Jack. "Come on and try, we're ready for you!"

"You're trespassers and thieves!" cried Jill. "Come on! I have my whip ready!"

It was at this juncture Mona stepped up. Directly she appeared, Jill dashed forward.

"Look at these men, they've pulled down our stones! They did it on purpose! They saw the board and they laughed at it. They are cheeking us now."

"Hush!" said Mona. Then turning to the men she asked very quietly, "Are you working for me?"

The elder touched his cap.

"Yes, ma'am--leastways for Mr. Courtney."

"What did Mr. Courtney tell you to do?"

"To make good that there stone wall, ma'am."

"Then why are you here?"

"We thought best to take what stones we could from here?"

"That was quite unnecessary. You had better put together that pile that you have destroyed. I will wait here till you have done it."

But Jill objected.

"They shan't touch one of them with their dirty hands! I will do it myself. Oh, Mona, it's a shame of them! They deserve a good thrashing. If I were a man I would give it to them!"

Mona put her hand on Jill's shoulder.

"Gently, dear! I am sorry about it, but they did not understand. If you don't want them here they can return to their work!"

"I never wish to see them again," was the vehement retort. "I--I--feel like Elijah. I should like to call down fire from heaven to burn them up!"

Jill's passion was great. Mona wisely said nothing till the workmen had disappeared, then she remarked--

"When you have put your pile of stones straight, Jill, you can run and find Sam for me. I will tell him to make a little fence round this, and then you will have no more trespassers."

She walked away, for she judged rightly that work would soon subdue Jill's excitement. The idea of the fence delighted the children, and they set to work with a will.

"Nobody dared to touch Jacob's stones, I know," said Jill; who could not quite get over the act of sacrilege, as she considered it.

"Well," observed Jack, "the Bible mightn't tell about it, you see. He had no fence."

"I know it was always there," persisted Jill, "because Miss Falkner told me that Jacob went back there after, and made a proper altar."

"Yes," said Jack triumphantly; "because the other one had been knocked down. Of course he did."

Jill pondered, as she tried to build up the stones in a tidy form.

"Then," she said, "we must have a proper altar, and I'll get some of the mortar that those horrid men are using for their wall. We'll wait till they have gone to their tea, and then we'll do it."

A resolve once taken by Jill was generally carried out. The three children came in to their school-room tea triumphant.

"We've been building," announced Bumps, "and the thtones are all thtucked together!"

"And Sam is going to make a fence round, and no one will be let in!" added Jack:

"And if the clergyman that's coming isn't nice, I've thought of a lovely plan for our bag; but it's a secret, and I'll tell you, Miss Falkner, to-night when I'm in bed!"

Miss Falkner asked for an explanation of these fragmentary sentences, and her little pupils gradually enlightened her.

When Jill was in bed, she made her governess stoop down, and putting her arms round her neck, whispered--

"I've left a hole amongst the stones at the back, and I can cover it up by fixing in a loose stone. So I thought my red bag would go in beautifully, and then it would really be taken care of by God Himself. It couldn't be in a nicer place, could it? It would be like the ark in the tabernacle--in a holy place. And I'm not going to tell Bumps or Jack. Jack tells Bumps everything, and Bumps tells everybody else!"

Miss Falkner looked rather doubtful over the wisdom of this, but Jill seemed in such delight over the idea that she had not the heart to damp her spirits.

But before leaving her, she said very gently--

"How has your walk been to-day, Jill? A few stumbles, I am afraid."

"Yes," whispered Jill. "I've told God I was sorry, only I was what the Bible calls 'righteously angry.' I would like to have called down fire from heaven upon those men. I told Mona so."

"But Jill, that was not 'righteous' at all. The men made a mistake. You should have spoken gently to them."

"No," said Jill, "they meant to do it, and they laughed at it, and I believe Sam's father is as bad. Since his cabbages are gone, he won't pay up his tenth, and he says we have a heathen altar!"

Jill's cheeks began to get hot and red. Miss Falkner stooped down and kissed her.

"If your Bethel is going to make you get angry--if it makes you trip and stumble on your way to the Golden City, it had better be destroyed at once."

Jill looked up with big eyes.

"Oh, Miss Falkner! How can you?"

"You mustn't make an idol of it, Jill, or you will be the heathen. You grieve Jesus Christ by your hot temper. Perhaps you think more of your 'Bethel' than you do of Him!"

"I'm afraid I did to-day," acknowledged Jill with shame.

Then when her governess had left her, she put down her hot cheek upon the pillow, and murmured, "I'm afraid it wasn't 'righteous' anger after all."

The Christmas holidays came and went. Mona was much more with her little brother and sisters in Miss Falkner's absence. Every morning she came into the school-room, and had the Bible-reading with them. They got into many scrapes in their leisure moments, but on the whole were far better behaved than formerly. In the beginning of the New Year the "Bethel Mission-room" was opened. Perhaps to the inhabitants of Chilton Common it lacked a little of the excitement and gaiety with which it had been painted by Jack and Jill; but it was a very enjoyable day to all, and a sit-down tea was given to young and old, at which, of course, Jill was very much to the fore.

Mr. Errington left very soon afterwards, and for two months his successor was not known.

Then one afternoon, when the children were roasting chestnuts over the school-room fire, and Miss Falkner was writing a letter to her mother, Mona appeared at the door.

"I want to introduce our new vicar," she said very quietly.

The children jumped up from the hearth-rug in the greatest state of excitement.

"Why!" exclaimed Jill, as a tall broad-shouldered figure followed their sister into the room, "it's the trespasser!"

"Yes, I am afraid it is," said Mr. Arnold in his deep and hearty voice. "But we parted friends, did we not?"

"I should think we did just! Why we would rather have you as our clergyman than any one else in the whole world!"

"Come! That's satisfactory. I did not think I would have so warm a welcome!"

"Do you like chestnuts?" asked Jack, holding out a charred one between two grubby fingers.

"Don't I?"

In a moment Mr. Arnold was down on the rug like a school-boy, and the children's tongues went fast. Mona looked on smiling; then she said to Miss Falkner--

"What is the fascination of roasting chestnuts, I wonder. Why do all children love it so? You burn your fingers and the chestnuts, eat more ashes than anything else, and scorch your face to pieces!"

"I think it is the love of cooking them," said Miss Falkner.

"It is the danger and difficulty surrounding the undertaking," said Mr. Arnold, rescuing two chestnuts that had rolled over into the fire. "Difficulties stimulate children, they do not deter them."

"I wish," said Mona thoughtfully, "they always stimulated me."

Mr. Arnold looked at her, but Jill broke in impetuously.

"Do you know about the Bethel Mission-room, Mr. Arnold? Will you go there on Sunday and preach to the people?"

He nodded.

"Yes, I have heard all about it from Mr. Errington, also about a certain red bag."

"Ah!" exclaimed Jack; "Jill has hidden that bag away somewhere since Mr. Errington went. I say it isn't fair, and Bumps and I aren't going to give her any more money till she tells us where it is."

"Yeth," echoed Bumps, "and we've looked everywhere, and Jill says, she won't give it to another clergyman unleth he is nith!"

"Am I nice?" asked Mr. Arnold, with one of his sudden smiles.

Jill looked at him gravely.

"I will bring it to you every Saturday," she said, "even if there's only a few half-pennies. But Sam gives us two shillings, and Annie threepence, and Norah and Rose give us some when we see them, so sometimes we have quite a lot. Only you'll tell us what you're going to do with it, won't you?"

"Indeed, I will. We will have a long talk about it."

"And how are all your boys and girls?" asked Jill.

Mr. Arnold's face shadowed instantly. He was looking ill and careworn; it was only in talking to the children that his face lightened up.

"Ah," he said; "my poor people! Don't remind me of them. Nothing but the doctor's orders would have made me leave them."

Then speaking to Miss Falkner, he said--

"I have been ill, otherwise you would not have seen me here. As it is, I fear I shall not find sufficient scope for my energies!"

"You have over a thousand in your parish," said Mona, "and Chilton Common and other outlying districts in addition. I should think there was scope enough for one man's energies, especially as that man has already had a serious breakdown. Now come and have some tea. Miss Webb will wonder what we are doing."

Mona carried him off, and the children did not see him again for some time.

"Miss Falkner," asked Jill one day, "why doesn't Miss Webb like Mr. Arnold? She doesn't, you know."

"Nonsense, Jill, you mustn't have such fancies."

"But it isn't fancy. I was looking at _Punch_ in the drawing-room window seat yesterday, and Miss Webb said to Mona, 'Well, all I can say is, that I wish Cecil Arnold had rather gone to Timbuctoo than come here.' And Mona said, 'Nonsense!' like you said just now, and Miss Webb said, 'I see the end. I shouldn't have been afraid a year ago.' And then she said she was sorry for poor Sir Henry Talbot. Now what did she mean, Miss Falkner? What is the end going to be?"

"You shouldn't listen to grown-up people's talk, Jill."

"But I couldn't help hearing."

"Then you should never repeat what you hear."

Jill subsided.

Mr. Arnold delighted Jill's heart a few Sundays after his arrival by taking for his text the words: "Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord.

"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort, for all things come of Thee and of Thine own have we given Thee."

He spoke of the different things people received from God, and how very few of them they offered back, and then in plain and simple words he touched upon the system of tenth-giving.

"There is not a little boy or girl in this church, however poor; there is not a landed proprietor, however rich, who cannot side by side give this small portion of what they receive to the service of God. The poorest labourer can spare a tenth; he will be blessed in giving it, and joy will be his portion."

And then he astonished his congregation by saying he would be in his vestry every Saturday evening from six to eight, to accept the tenths of any of his parishioners who liked to bring them to him.

There was great discussion amongst his congregation afterwards.

"I have no patience with these new-fangled notions," said Miss Webb. "Cecil always did ride a hobby, and this money question is utterly ridiculous. We are not Jews, thank goodness!"

"I think he is right," said Mona quietly.

"Oh, of course you do, my dear. He will be able to twist you round his little finger now."

Mona was silent. Jill burst in opportunely--

"I shall take my red bag every Saturday to him, Mona. I wonder if anybody else will be there."

"You and your red bag are at the bottom of it all I do believe, Jill!" said Miss Webb laughing. "This wonderful Bethel of yours is turning every one crazy!"

Jill did not like to be laughed at. She walked on with dignity, and did not mention the subject again.

XV

"WORN OUT IN A GOOD SERVICE"

Lessons and play were the daily routine now. The children kept out of scrapes wonderfully. Perhaps it was Miss Falkner's quick interference before real harm was done, or perhaps it was as she liked to hope, her pupils were getting more considerate of other people's feelings.

"It is their lively imagination, and their passion for acting out what they hear or read, that works such mischief," Miss Falkner said to Mona one day when they were talking over the children. "They are reckless of consequences. Future results are never taken into consideration."

She said this when she had just stopped Jack from lighting a fire in the loft.

He was a prisoner in hiding, he informed her, and he was going to cook himself a meal. Bumps had been foraging for him, and had brought him a raw piece of bacon.

"I was going to be most careful," he informed her. "Of course I wouldn't light the hay. I pushed it all away, and had got quite an empty corner!"

But one day the children's energies were turned in another direction. They were all devoted to Mr. Arnold, and as he lived alone with an old housekeeper who was really fond of children, they very often found their way over to the vicarage. Sometimes he invited them to tea with him, and it was when they returned one evening from this dissipation that they announced in the drawing-room--

"We are going to get Mr. Arnold a wife!"

Miss Webb exploded with laughter. She was reading the newspaper over the fire. Mona was consulting with Miss Falkner at a table near about a certain girls' club in the village that she wished to start. She turned with a look of horror at the speaker, who of course was Jill; Miss Falkner was too accustomed to her pupils' speeches to be surprised.

"Yes," put in Jack. "There ought to be a Mrs. Arnold, like Mrs. Errington; we told him so!"

"To make his tea," said Bumps breathlessly, "and knit his thocks!"

"And have a pretty drawing-room and flowers," said Jill. "He doesn't sit in the drawing-room like Mr. Errington did. He sits in his study, and there ought to be a Mrs. Arnold to help him in the village."

"And what are your vicar's opinions on this important subject?" asked Miss Webb.

"We've told him we'll get him one. We know more people than he does, and we know just the sort he wants. She must be just like Mrs. Errington, only not an invalid."

"And we aren't going to tell," said Jack wisely, "but we've picked out somebody."

"Yeth, and we're going to thend her to Mr. Arnold to-morrow!" burst forth Bumps excitedly.

Miss Webb threw up her hands in mock astonishment.

"Really! You don't mean it! And when is the wedding going to be?"

Mona here interposed.

"Jill, you are old enough to know better. You must not go to the vicarage at all, if you talk such nonsense."

"It isn't nonsense!" Jill said indignantly. "Mr. Arnold wants a wife, he said he did; and we're going to find one for him."

She rushed out of the room like a small whirlwind.

"Who is the happy lady, Jack?" asked Miss Webb inquisitively.

Jack was silent.

"Miss Falkner, you will have to assert your authority and stop this," said Mona, half laughing, yet half vexed.

"Let's tell, Jack," said Bumps, who loved giving information.

But Jack shook his head.

"We didn't even tell Mr. Arnold; we said we would send him some one to-morrow."

"And have you told her her fate?" asked Miss Webb.

"Jill is going to see Miss Grant in the morning," said Jack with dignity, and not perceiving he had let the cat out of the bag.

Miss Webb began to laugh afresh, and even Mona smiled. Miss Grant was a lady between fifty and sixty who was an indefatigable parish worker, but whose strong will and love of interference had always been a sore trial to her vicar.

"You think she'll make him a good wife?" Miss Webb said, trying to draw the children out.

"She's just the sort to make tea," said Jack, "and she'll be much more help to him than Mrs. Errington would be, or any one else."

"I think you will have to keep certain small people hard at lessons to-morrow, Miss Falkner. This proposed visit must be nipped in the bud."

Miss Falkner took her charges off to the school-room and presently Jill appeared.

She seemed to have forgotten the subject under discussion, for she was full of a plan she had talked over with Mr. Arnold of supporting a children's cot in the local hospital.

"And my bag will begin it, like it did the Bethel Room. Don't you think it lovely?"

Just before the children went to bed, Miss Falkner picked up an old copy-book an the floor of Jill's bedroom. She did not often look at her scribblings, but the first words startled her:

"DEAR MISS GRANT,"--

She read on, with an anxious face, yet with a keen sense of humour--

"We've been having tea with Mr. Arnold. We think you had better be his wife. He has not anybody to do things like Mrs. Errington did, and we told him we would find a wife for him. We said we would send her to-morrow. He wants a wife, and so he will expect you. Please tell him you came from us. And have your wedding-day very soon, because we shall all come and see you married. Mr. Arnold told us we could do this, so it is not wrong.

"Your affectionate friend, "JILL BARON.

"P.S.--Jack and Bumps and I chose you, and we know Mr. Arnold will be pleased."

"Jill," said Miss Falkner sharply, "what is this?"

"Oh," said Jill unconcernedly, "it's a copy of a letter I sent Miss Grant. I wanted to do it neatly, so I wrote it in there first."

"But you have never sent it?"

"Yes, I did. Annie was going out, and she took it to the post."

"But Jill, that was very naughty."

"Why?"

"You know why. Your sister was very vexed at your talking about such things. I don't know what she will say now. You must come and tell her what you have done."

"Oh, I can't; please don't make me--Miss Webb will laugh. It isn't naughty. We simply _love_ Mr. Arnold. And why shouldn't he have a wife as well as Mr. Errington? He didn't mind us doing it."

"He never told you to write to Miss Grant."

"No, because it was only afterwards that we thought of her."

Miss Falkner, in spite of her entreaties, took her straight to Mona, who was in her bedroom dressing for dinner.

"I have brought Jill to tell you what she has done, as I think you ought to know."

And then Miss Falkner left the little delinquent, who stood copy-book in hand with hanging head before her eldest sister.

"It's--it's a letter I've sent to Miss Grant," said Jill.

Mona took the copy-book from her.

"Oh, Jill!" she exclaimed in real distress. "This is really very naughty of you. You may make a great deal of mischief, and annoy Miss Grant extremely. I don't know how we can put it straight."

"I don't see what I've done wrong," said Jill stubbornly.

"Little girls have no business to interfere with grown-up people. I don't know what Miss Grant will think; I must see Miss Falkner. Ask her to come here, and you had better go straight to bed."

"It's always the way," Jill confided to Bumps when they were both in bed that evening; "everything I do turns out wrong. Children can't be kind to grown-up people. It's no good to try. They won't let them. And Mr. Arnold will never have a wife, if he doesn't have Miss Grant. There's no one else like her."

"But you sent her a letter," said Bumps comfortingly.

"Yes, but Mona is going to do something dreadful to-morrow. I know she is."

As a matter of fact Mona did nothing. She felt powerless to act. Miss Webb counselled silence. She seemed to be enjoying the whole thing; Miss Falkner spent nearly an hour in bringing Jill to reason, but she repented of some of her words when they happened to meet Mr. Arnold in their morning walk. Jill flew to him at once.