Chapter 5

She saw from afar the light of her cottage home, and her heart misgave her. It was not wrath she feared; for had the relentless anger of a parent awaited her, her step would have been braver, and her spirit more defiant. But she knew she was forgiven. The feeble ray emitted from the lamp in the far-off gable was the beacon of her forgiveness--the proof that love's fire still burned brightly. This it was that daunted her: she feared the scorch of its healing flame.

She had travelled far, having crossed the moors from Burnt Gap, climbing the ridge as the heavens began to kiss the earth with the peace of sunset. A lingering glory was then haunting the summits and crests and cairn-crowned hills that shut in the quiet of Rehoboth and forming an almost impassable rampart to those who, from the farther side, sought its shelter ere the close of day. As she then lifted her eyes to these many-coloured fires lighted by His hand who setteth His glory in the heavens, they had seemed to burn in wrath; while the great moors, dark in the foreground, raised themselves like barriers--uplands of desolation, across which no path of hope stretched its trend for returning feet.

As the girl climbed the Scar Foot the western sky was toning down to grays, while beyond, and seen through an oval-shaped rift in their sombre colours, lay a distant streak of amber that, moment by moment, slowly disappeared under the closing lids of evening cloud--the eye of weary day wooed to slumber by the hush of illimitable sweeps of moor. Even so would Amanda fain have closed her eyes and sunk to rest amid the purple clouds of heather that, like a great sky, lay for miles around her feet.

Passing through Nockcliffe plantation, a half-mile of woodland that straggled along the steep sides of a clough, a drop of rain fell between the branches and coursed down her cheek--a cheek fevered from want of tears, and flaming with a sense of shame. Then a low wind blew--a mere sob, but so preludious, so prophetic!--followed by a silence that discovered, as never before, the sense of her own loneliness, and in which she heard the tread of her own light footfall over the moss and herbage of the path she travelled.

Emerging from the plantation, an angry gust, laden with cold drops, dashed itself in her face, and she knew from the weather-lore which she, as a child of the hills, had learned in past years, that a wild night was between her and the house whose shelter she sought in her despair.

Phenomenally rapid was the onrush of the storm. At first the rain fell in short and sudden showers, driven from angry clouds eager for some atmospheric change whereby to be relieved of their pent-up burden. Then the wind, as though in answer to the prayer of the clouds, changed its course and stilled its moaning, and the sky 'wept its watery vapours to the ground.'

When Amanda stood upon the fringe of the great moss that stretched for three miles between the Scars and Rehoboth her spirit sank within her. The season had been dry, and she knew the path by instinct; but the storm and the darkness seemed like twin enemies determined to bar her advance. She felt that Nature was her foe, even as man had been, and as Rehoboth would be when it knew of her return. Why did the rain hiss, and dash its cold and stinging showers in her face? Why did it saturate her thin skirts so that they, in chill folds, wrapped her wasted frame and clung cruelly to her weary limbs to stay her onward travel? And why that strange, weird sound--the sound muttered by miles of herbage when beaten down by rain--the swish and patter and sigh of the long grass and of the bracken, as they bent beneath the continuous fall, and rose in angry protest, to fling off their burden on each other, or shake it to the ground? Then a mute sympathy sprang up in her desolate heart as she grew incorporate into this storm-swept, helpless vegetation, and she felt that she, too, like it, was the helpless prey of angry forces.

The moss traversed, the twinkling lights of Rehoboth broke the darkness. Yes, the old chapel was illuminated, the windows of that rude structure glowing with warmth and life; and as she passed the graveyard a hymn, only too well known to her in the happy days of the past, reached her ears. Once this had been her sanctuary, a shelter, a home, where as a happy girl she had sung that very strain--then a house of prayer, now a temple of judgment. And she grew rebellious as she saw in her mind the hard faces of its worshippers, and realized that nothing unholy or unclean must enter there. The native instinct, however, was too strong; and passing through the gate, and stealthily crossing the sea of graves, she paused to peep through the window, and, unobserved, took in the scene. The old faces--Enoch, and Abraham, and Moses Fletcher, and Malachi o' th' Mount, and Simon o' Long John's. Yes, the old faces as she knew them five years ago--the old faces, all save one. Where was the saintly Mr. Morell? In his place sat a young man whom she knew not.

Hastening on, she climbed Pinner Brow, on the summit of which lay her home. As she scaled the height the beacon in her mother's gable told she was not forgotten. Then it was she trembled. A rebuke--a curse--a refusal; these she could face. But forgiveness--welcome--love--_never_! She turned to fly.

* * * * *

'Amanda!'

'Mother!'

The great, good God had ordained that the despairing girl should fly into the arms of the one who had not forgotten, and who felt she had nothing to forgive. Amanda found herself in the stillest and strongest of all havens--the haven of a mother's breast.

In another moment Amanda permitted her mother to lead her as that mother had been wont to lead her when the warm, strong hand of the parent was a guiding touch--a magnet of love amid the dangers of an early life--and when, as now, there was but one shelter of safety--the home.

No sooner did the two women stand in the light and warmth of the kitchen-hearth, than the elder fell on the neck of the younger, and kissed the cold, rain-washed face of her child, with a love grown fierce by years of hopeless hope and unrequited longing. Once again those arms, thin and weak with age, grew strong; and in the resurrection of a mighty passion, all the old womanhood and motherhood of the parent renewed their youth, and filled out the shrunken and decrepit form until she stood majestic in the strength of heaven. To those who had been wont to see Amanda's mother bent and crushed with years and sorrow, the woman that now stood in the firelight would not have been recognised as Mrs. Stott. Once the fairest and most lithesome girl in Rehoboth, the pride of the village, the sought of many suitors, the proud wife of Sam Stott of th' Clowes, and the still prouder mother of Amanda, who matched her alike in beauty and in sprightliness, she had long been a prey to the sling and arrows of outrageous fortune. Years had played sad havoc with her, her money taking wings, her husband dying, and her last hope failing in the hour of need. Now she was herself again under the renewing hand of love.

As soon as Amanda recovered from the shock of her mother's appearance, and felt the warmth of her welcome, she gently, yet determinately, released herself and cried:

'Durnd, mother, durnd! I'm noan come wom' to be kissed nor forgiven. I've nobbud come wom' to dee.'

'What saysto, lass?' exclaimed Mrs. Stott. 'Come wom' to dee? Nay, thaa's bin deead long enugh a'ready; it's time thaa begun to live, and thank God thaa's come back to live at wom'.'

The girl shook her head, a stony stare in her eye, her mouth drawn into a hard and immobile line. And then, in cold tones, she continued:

'Nay, mother; I've hed enugh o' life. I tell thee I've come wom' to dee.'

'Amanda,' sobbed the mother, 'if thaa taks on like that thaa'll kill me. Thaa's welly done for me a'ready, but I con live naa thaa's come back, if thaa'll nobbud live an' o', and live wi' me. Sit thee daan. There's th' owd cheer (chair) waiting for thee. It's thi cheer, Amanda; awlus wor, and awlus will be. Sit thee daan. It looks some onely (lonely) baat thee.'

There stood Amanda's chair, the chair of her girlhood, the chair in which she had sung through the long winter nights, in which her deft fingers had wrought needlework, the envy of Rehoboth. The old arms mutely opened as though to welcome her; the rockers, too, seemed ready to yield that oscillation so seductive to the jaded frame. And the trimmings! and the cushion! the same old pattern, somewhat faded, perhaps, but as warm and cosy as in the days of yore. It was the chair, too, at which she used to kneel, the chair that had so often caught the warm breath from her lips as she had whispered, 'Our Father, which art in heaven.' But had she not forfeited her right to that chair? Of that throne of sanctity she felt she was now no longer queen. And again, as her mother pressed her to take her appointed place, she shook her head, her heart steeled with pride and shame, the hardest of all bonds to break when imprisoning a human soul.

The poor mother stood at bay--at cruel bay. She had used the mightiest weapon upon which she could lay her hand, and it had seemed to shiver in the conflict. But love's armoury is not easily depleted, and love's spirit is quick to return to the charge. There was still left to her the warmth of a bosom in which long years before Amanda had gently stirred, and from which she had drawn her first currents of life; and once more the mother clasped her girl, and pressed her lips on the sin-stained face.

'Durnd kiss me, mother,' cried the affrighted girl, stepping back; 'durnd kiss me. Thaa munnot dirty thy lips wi' touchin' mine. If thaa knew all, thaa'd spurn me more like.'

''Manda,' replied the woman, in the desperation of her love, 'I'll kiss thee if thaa kills me for't. I connot help it; thaa'rt mine.'

'I wor once, I wor once, but nod now.'

'Yi! lass, but thaa art. Thaa wor mine afore th' devil geet howd on thee, and thaa's bin mine all th' time he's bed thee, and now he's done wi' thee, I mean to keep thee all to mysel.'

And afresh the mother bathed the still beautiful face of Amanda with her tears.

But Amanda was firm. Old as her mother was, she knew that mother's innocence, and shrank from the thought that one so pure, so womanly, should hang on those lips so sorely blistered by the breath of sin; and, once more stretching out her arm, she said:

'Durnd touch me, mother--durnd!'

''Manda,' cried the mother, defiantly and grandly, all the passion of maternity rising in her heart, ''Manda, thaa cornd unmother me. I carried thee and suckled thee and taught thee thi prayers in that cheer, and doesn'd ta think as Him we co'd "Aar Faither" is aar Faither still?'

'Happen He's yours, mother; but He's noan o' mine.'

'Well, 'Manda, if thaa'rt noan His child, thaa'rt mine, and naught shall come 'tween me and thee.'

'And dun yo' mean to say that yo' love me as mich naa, mother, as when aw wor a little un?' asked the girl, her steely eyes moistening, and the firm line of her drawn mouth tremulous with rising emotion.

'Yi, lass, and a thaasand times more. Thaa wants more luv' naa nor then--doesn't ta? And hoo's a poor mother as connot give more when more's wanted. I'm like th' owd well up th' hill yonder--th' bigger th' druft (drought) th' stronger th' flow. Thi mother's heart's noan dry, lass, tho' thi thirst's gone; and I'll luv' thee though thaa splashes mi luv' back in mi face, and spills it on th' graand.'

And a third time the woman fell on the girl's neck, and kissed her flesh into flame with the passion of her caress.

'Durnd, mother! durnd!' said Amanda. 'Blame me, if yo' like; curse me, if yo' like. But luv' I connot ston'; it drives me mad.'

'Nay, lass; luv' noan drives folk mad. It's sin as does that. As Mr. Penrose towd 'em at Rehoboth t'other Sunday, it were luv' as saved th' world, and not wrath; and they say they are baan to bring him up at th' deacons' meeting abaat it. But he's reet. It's luv' as saves. It's saved thee to me; it's kept mi heart warm, and it's kept that lamp leeted every neet for five year.' And then, seeing tears slowly stealing down her daughter's face, the old woman said: 'I think we mud as weel put th' leet aat naa thaa's comed wom', 'Manda?' and as the girl gave no more evidence of resistance, the mother went to the window, turned down the lamp, and drew the blind, saying, 'He's answered mi prayers.'

At the going out of that light there went out in Amanda's heart the false fires of lust and pride and defiance, and in their place was kindled the light of repentance--of forgiveness and of love. For five years that faithfully-trimmed lamp told the whole countryside that Widow Stott was not forgetful of her own; and when once or twice rebuked by some of the Rehoboth deacons at the premium which she seemed to put on sin by thus inviting a wanderer's return, she always replied:

'Blame Him as mak's a woman so as hoo cornd forget her child.'

Now that the lamp was out a flutter of excitement was passing through the village, Milly Lord being the first to discover it. She, poor girl! was sitting at her little window listening to the beat of the rain, and the swish of the grasses that grew in her garden below--sitting and wondering how it was there were no 'angel een' looking down at the earth, and keeping her eye fixed on the gable light of Mrs. Stott's lone homestead. Suddenly this light disappeared. If the sun had gone out at noonday Milly would not have been more startled. Night after night she had watched that light, and night after night she had heard her mother tell the oft-repeated story of Amanda's fall. Once, indeed, Milly startled her mother in its repetition by saying:

'Happen, if I hadn't lost mi leg, mother, I should ha' sinned as Amanda did.'

And then Milly's mother drew the girl close to her heart, and thanked God for a lamb safe in the fold. No wonder when Milly saw the light go out that she cried:

'Mother! mother! Amanda Stott's come wom'!'

'Whatever will hoo say next?' gasped Mrs. Lord.

'I tell yo' Amanda's come wom'. Th' leet's aat--thaa con see for thisel!' and the girl was beside herself with excitement.

'So it is,' said Mrs. Lord. 'Bud it's noan Amanda; it's happen her mother as is takken bad. Awl put o' mi things, and run up and see.'

Hurrying up the Pinner Brow, it was not long before Mrs. Lord reached the home of Amanda, and raising the latch, with the permission which rural friendship grants, she saw the daughter and mother together on the so long lonely hearth. Taken aback, and scarcely knowing how to remove the restraint which the sudden interruption was imposing, she fell upon the instinct of her heart, and said:

'Well, I never! if our Milly isn't reet! Hoo said as how hoo know'd Amanda bed come back. Hoo seed th' leet go aat and co'd aat at th' top o' her voice, "Amanda's come back." Hoo remembers thee, Amanda, an' hoo's never stop't talkin' abaat thee. Tha'rt eight year owder nor hoo is--poor lass! hoo's lost her leg sin' thaa seed her. It wor a bad do, aw con tell thee; but hoo's as lively as a cricket, bless her! and often talks abaat thee, and wonders where thaa'd getten to. Let's see, lass, it's five years sin thaa left us, isn't it?' And then, remembering the whole story of Amanda, which in her excitement she had forgotten, and the great trouble and the great joy which that night fought for supremacy in the little moorland home, she stopped, and with a tear-streamed face rushed up to Amanda, and said: 'What am I talkin' abaat, lass? I'd clean forgetten,' and then she, too, imprinted on Amanda's lips a caress of welcome.

It was late that night when Milly asked her father to go up Pinner Brow and fetch her mother home. When he reached the house he found the two women and the girl upon their knees, for Milly's mother was a good woman, and to her goodness was added a mother's heart. Her own sorrow had taught her to weep with those who weep, and a great trial through which she had passed in her girlhood days, and through which she had passed scathless, led her to look on Amanda with pitying love. Abraham paused upon the threshold as he heard the sound of his wife's voice in prayer, and when, half an hour afterwards, they together descended the brow towards their home, he said:

'Thaa sees, lass, Milly's angel een wor on th' watch a'ter all.'

'Yi,' said his wife, 'and they see'd a returnin' sinner. But hoo's safe naa; hoo's getten back to her mother, and hoo's getten back to God.'

'Where hes hoo bin, missus, thinksto?'

'Nay, lad, I never ax'd her. I know where hoo's getten to, and that's enugh. I'm noan one for sperrin (asking questions) baat th' past.'

'But they'll be wantin' to know up at th' chapel where hoo's bin.'

'They'll happen do more good by doin' by Amanda as th' Almeety does.'

'Doesto mean i' His judgments?'

'Nowe! theer's summat more wonderful nor them.'

'What doesto mean?'

'I mean His FORGEETFULNESS.'

II.

LIGHT AT EVENTIDE.

While Amanda's return aroused the curiosity of Rehoboth, it drew few callers to the cottage on Pinner's Brow. Not that the villagers were all wanting in kindliness, but Amanda's mother, being a woman of strong reserve, had fenced herself off from much friendly approach; while the nature of the trouble through which she was now passing was felt by the rude moorlanders to impose silence, and deter them from all open signs of sympathy.

Apart from Mrs. Lord and a girl friend or two of Amanda's, the joy of return was pent up in the heart of the mother--a joy which she, poor thing, would fain have sought to share with others had not delicacy of instinct and sense of shame forbade. She felt it to be indeed hard that she could not go among her neighbours and friends and say, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my child which was lost.'

But the mother's joy was also mixed with the alloy of Amanda's despair. On the day after the return, the girl had taken to her bed; and despite a mother's love and Mrs. Lord's kind counsel and cheery words, Amanda went down into the valley of the shadow. Seldom speaking, save to reiterate the statement that she had come home to die, and that all was dark, she lay anticipating the hour when, as she said, 'the great God would punish her according to her sins.' This idea had taken fast hold of her mind: she was going to hell to burn for ever and for ever, and she would only get her deserts; she had sinned--she must suffer.

With the strain of constant watching, and the long hours of solitude, and the nightmare of her girl's damnation hanging over her yearning heart, the poor mother's condition verged on madness, until at last she summoned courage to ask Mr. Penrose to call and drop some crumbs of his Gospel of comfort and love at the bedside of her child; for, as she said to Mrs. Lord, 'even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the master's table.' The truth was that hitherto Mr. Penrose had not cared to risk the scandal which he knew would be created in the village by a visit on his part to Amanda Stott. When, however, he received his summons from the mother, and a sharp reprimand from Dr. Hale, who told him that a minister was as free to visit without risk to his character as a doctor, he resolved to throw aside proprieties and obey the call.

As Mr. Penrose was walking up Pinner Brow, towards the house of Mrs. Stott, he unexpectedly met Amos Entwistle, the senior superintendent of the Sunday-school, and known to the children as 'Owd Catechism,' because of his persistent enforcement of the Church tenets on their young minds.

'Good a'ternoon, Mr. Penrose. And what may bring yo' in this direction?'

'I'm looking after some of my sheep, Amos.'

'Not th' black uns, I hope.'

'No! I am looking after the hundredth--the one that went astray.'

'Better leave her alone, Mr. Penrose. There's an owd sayin' i' these parts that yo' cornd go into th' mill baat gettin' dusted. That means in yur talk that yo' cornd touch pitch baat gettin' blacked. If thaa goes to Mrs. Stott's they'll say thaart goan for naught good. If thaa wur a married mon, naa, and bed childer, it 'ud happen be different; but bein' single, thaa sees, th' aatside o' yon threshold is th' reight side for such as thee and me.'

(Amos, be it known, was an old bachelor of over seventy years of age.)

'Nonsense, Amos; you are reversing the teaching of the Master. He went after the sinner, did He not?'

'Yi, He did; and He lost His repetation o'er it. They co'd Him a winebibber, and a friend o' all maks o' bad uns. I couldn't like 'em to say th' same abaat thee. Rehoboth 'ud noan ston' it, thaa knows.'

Mr. Penrose did not know whether to laugh or to be serious. Seeing, however, that Amos was in no laughing mood, he turned somewhat sharply on the old man, and said:

'The Stotts are in trouble, and they ask for my presence, Good-afternoon; I'm going.'

'Howd on a bit,' said Amos, still holding the minister by the lapel of his coat. 'Naa listen to me. If I were yo' I wouldn't go. Th' lass hes made her bed; let her lie on't. Durnd yo' risk yor repetation by makkin' it yasier, or by takkin' ony o' th' thorns aat o' her pillow. Rehoboth Church is praad o' her sheep; and it keeps th' black uns aatside th' fold, and yo'll nobbud ged blacked yorsel if yo' meddle wi' 'em. But young colts 'll goa their own gait, so pleeas yorsel.'

At first Mr. Penrose was inclined to think twice over the old Pharisee's advice; but, looking round, he saw Mrs. Stott's sad face in her cottage doorway, and her look determined his advance. In a moment reputation and propriety were forgotten in what he felt were the claims of a mother's heart and the sufferings of an erring soul.

'Ay, Mr. Penrose, I'm some fain to see yo',' cried the poor woman, as the minister walked up the garden-path. 'Amanda's baan fast, and hoo sez 'at it's all dark.' And then, seizing Mr. Penrose's hand, she cried: 'Yo' durnd think hoo's damned, dun yo'?'

For years the sound of that mother's voice as she uttered those words haunted Mr. Penrose. He heard it in the stillness of the night, and in the quiet of his study; it came floating on the winds as he walked the fields and moors; and would sound in mockery as he, from time to time, declared a Father's love from the old pulpit at Rehoboth. What cruel creed was this, prompting a mother to believe that God would damn the child whom she herself was forced, out of the fulness of her undying love, to take back into her house and into her heart?

As the minister and Mrs. Stott sat down in the kitchen, the poor woman, in the depths of her despair, again raised her eager face and asked:

'But yo' durnd think Amanda's damned, dun yo'?'

'No, I do not, Mrs. Stott.'

This was too much for the mother; and now that the highest passions in her soul received the affirmative of one whom she looked up to as the prophet of God, she felt her girl was safe. The fire of despair died out of her eyes, quenched in the tears of joy, and she realized, as never before, that she could now love God because God had spared to her, and to Himself, her only child.

'But, Mr. Penrose, Amanda says _it's all dark_. Dun yo' think yo' could lift th' claads a bit?'

'Well, we'll do our best; but to the One who loves her the darkness and the light are both alike.'

And with these words on his lips, he followed the mother to where the sick girl lay.