Part 9

Miss Maggie puckered her intellectual forehead in deep consideration of the weighty matter. Apparently she reached no conclusion, for after a minute she said: "I'm thinking, Jeanie, that our best course would be to ask Miss Esperance Bethune. She seems very intimate with Lady Alicia Carruthers, and may know her ways, and I'm quite sure she'll think none the worse of us for asking. She left a card, if you remember."

"You might just put on your bonnet and go now, Maggie. It would set our minds at rest. I wish she had left a card, though; it would have looked fine on the table in the lobby, and you mind the Macdougals are coming out to their tea on Saturday."

Miss Moffat sought Miss Esperance then and there, and that gentle little lady gave it as her opinion that the omission of the card was mere forgetfulness on Lady Alicia's part and by no means intentional. Whereupon Miss Maggie departed much comforted.

Miss Esperance happened to be dining with Lady Alicia that very evening and told her how much soul-searching her visit had occasioned the Misses Moffat.

"Bless me!" good-natured Lady Alicia exclaimed. "The poor bodies! I'd have left a whole card-case of cards if I'd remembered. But they fluttered round me so as I was leaving, and were so civil and obliging and desperately fussy, that I got myself out as quickly as ever I could."

"You'd make them very happy if you'd leave a card even yet, any time you are passing," Miss Esperance suggested. "They are such good, meek creatures."

So it came to pass that next day, when Lady Alicia went out to drive, the carriage stopped at Rowan Lodge, and she, in a voice that could be heard all down the street, instructed her footman to leave cards, explaining that she had forgotten to leave them the day before.

The front door of Rowan Lodge was separated from the footpath by about three feet of gravel, and the Misses Moffat, seated behind the curtains that Lady Alicia had admired, heard her every word.

"One for each of us!" exclaimed Miss Jeanie rapturously, gloating over the little white cards, for them so packed with meaning. "I hope it's not wicked, but I can't help feeling rather glad poor Mr. Carruthers is no more--though it would have been pleasant enough to have him calling, too--for then, if that book is right, we should only have had his card, and he hadn't a title or anything."

"He was an advocate, I'm told," Miss Maggie said solemnly, "but whether they put that on cards I'm not very sure, never having been called upon by anyone connected with the legal profession except yon wee auctioneer, who came about the fittings at the South-side, and I very much doubt if he had a card at all."

"The Macdougals 'll rather open their eyes when they see these," Miss Jeanie chuckled. "I'll put one on each side the Benares bowl in the lobby, lest they shouldn't look inside. I hope it'll be a nice bright day, for it's a wee thing dark there when the door's shut, and if it's left open there's a terrible draught, and they might blow away."

"If it's a mirk day," Miss Maggie said firmly, "I'll stand them up against the parlour clock, just careless-like. You may depend the Macdougal's will spy them out."

*CHAPTER XIII*

*A MEETING*

We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod, Whose lamps are stirred continually With prayer sent up to God; And see our old prayers, granted, melt Each like a little cloud. D. G. ROSSETTI.

When Edmund was five years old Mr. Wycherly expressed his readiness to teach him all he was teaching Montagu. He took infinite pains to do so, but Edmund's presence was found to be so provocative of dispeace in the quiet study upstairs, and so effectually hindered his brother's progress, while his own was of the slowest, that Miss Esperance took the matter into her own hands and sent her younger nephew to be instructed by the Reverend Peter Gloag, who seasoned his instruction with the tawse, and was altogether more fitted to cope with the average boy's vagaries than the gentle, dreamy Mr. Wycherly. Edmund was rather afraid of the minister. His hand was heavy, and he was singularly awake to the devices by means of which small boys seek to evade their scholastic duties. Nevertheless, the child liked him, for he could unbend on occasion and was an excellent hand at marbles. Moreover, he had a sense of humour, and like so many of the Scottish Calvinists of that time, managed to keep his denunciations of abstract sins quite separate from his judgment of the sinner. In the pulpit he was a terror to evil-doers. When tackled upon questions of doctrine, he laid down the law with a vigour and determination that left his opponent with the impression that never was there such a hard and inflexible man: but when it came to deeds, when it was a question of giving another chance to a ne'er-do-weel, or the punishment to be meted out to some young ragamuffin caught stealing apples or breaking windows, the sinner had far rather fall into the hands of the minister than those of many a gentler spoken man.

In spite of the minister's endeavours, however, Edmund was still laboriously writing sentences to the effect that "'Tis education forms the mind" at an age when Montagu had begun to write Latin verses and to read Xenophon.

"I hate sitting on a chair and hearing things," Edmund would say. "I want to be doing them. I want more room than there is in Auntie's house, or the Manse. I _hate_ things over my head 'cept the sky."

One day Miss Esperance drove both boys to Leith, and left them to play on the beach while she went to see an old friend. In a minute Edmund had off his shoes and socks, and in spite of the jagged pebbles, that hurt his unaccustomed feet so cruelly, went down to the water's edge and in up to his knees, then turning to the more timid Montagu, who still stood dubiously upon the brink, cried joyously, "_This_ is what I've always been wanting: there's _plenty_ of room out there."

The same evening he climbed on to Mr. Wycherly's knee demanding, "How can I get to be a sailor like my daddie was?"

"You go into the Navy."

"How do I go? What way? Where's the Navy? Is it a town?"

No, it's an institution, a service----"

"Like the poorhouse?" Edmund interrupted, in less enthusiastic tones.

"Oh, dear, no."

"Tell me all about it," the little boy commanded, whereupon Mr. Wycherly obediently and at considerable length explained the constitution of His Majesty's Navy, and Edmund never once interrupted.

When Mr. Wycherly had finished, the little boy was silent for a minute, then asked earnestly, "How soon can I go?"

"Let me see, you're nearly eight now; it might be managed in about three years. You will need to read well, and write well, and be able to do many kinds of sums, and be very obedient."

"I could do all that," Edmund said decidedly, and in the end, to the surprise of every one concerned, he did.

At first it grieved Mr. Wycherly that any one should teach either of the little boys except himself. He grudged Edmund to the minister, even while he knew that the minister was far more fitted to teach him than he was himself. His only consolation was that, as Edmund disliked lessons so much, there would have been some danger of his extending his dislike to the giver of them, and that Mr. Wycherly could not have borne.

It happened that soon after Edmund first went for lessons to the Manse whooping-cough broke out among the village children. It was a bad kind, and Miss Esperance was very anxious that neither Montagu nor Edmund should take it. Thus it came about that one Sunday, one particularly fine Sunday at the beginning of June, she decided that she would not take them to church with her for fear of infection. The doctor himself had suggested this only the day before, and after a sleepless night, in which she had prayed for guidance, Miss Esperance decided that the doctor was probably right and that she should run no risks for them, whatever she might do for herself. Mr. Wycherly offered to look after them both during her absence, and it was characteristic of Miss Esperance that, although she had her misgivings, she made no suggestions as to how their time should be spent in her absence. That would have been to reflect upon Mr. Wycherly.

The little boys will always remember that Sunday, not only because they did not go to church, and did play in a field near the Manse, but because of something that happened.

When the church bells had stopped and the village street was deserted, Mr. Wycherly, the two little boys and Mause went to play in a field that adjoined the Manse. To get to this field, which was rich in buttercups and hedge parsley, and was bordered by ash trees giving a pleasant shade, you turned down a lane, which was also a short cut to the station, lying a mile or so south of the village. The Manse was at one end of the lane, the main street of the village at the other: the gate leading into the field about half-way down. As the little boys neared it they saw a stranger coming from the opposite direction.

It was unusual to meet anybody in that lane, especially at this time of day on the Sabbath, and the children waited at the gate to see the stranger pass. Mr. Wycherly, whose long-distance sight was failing a little, put up his eye-glasses lest he might know the stranger and pass him by without greeting, as he was rather prone to do. Hardly had he placed the glasses on his nose than they dropped off again, and with an exclamation of surprise he hurried forward, holding out both his hands, which the stranger grasped and warmly shook.

He was a tall young man, with very large bright eyes and an abundance of curly black hair, worn rather longer than was usual at that time.

He seized Mr. Wycherly by the arm and bore him up the lane again, talking eagerly the while.

"I must see her," the little boys heard him say. "I must see her somehow, and I daren't go into the house, for he has forbidden me. Could you tell her? Could you fetch her? I'll stay with the youngsters. Oh, dear old friend, for God's sake don't frighten her, but bring her to me somehow. She isn't in church, I know, for I watched every one go in from behind the hedge in the churchyard. I was coming to you in any case...."

Mr. Wycherly and the young man had passed out of earshot. Montagu and Edmund looked at one another with large, round eyes, and Mause looked after Mr. Wycherly and sniffed the air inquiringly.

"Do you think he's a relation?" Edmund asked. "Do you think he's come to stay with us?"

"He can't stay with us," Montagu answered decidedly; "there isn't any room. I wish he could, though," he added; "he looks rather nice."

A sound of quick footsteps in the lane, and the stranger was back again, but without Mr. Wycherly.

"Now," he said, "what shall we play at?"

He said it in a business-like way, and Edmund did the stranger the honour to take him at his word.

"Can you be a tiger?" he demanded excitedly, "and we'll hunt you. You must crawl in the grass, and crouch in the ditch--it's quite dry--and bounce out at us and growl, not too loud, because it's the Sabbath."

Never was such a tiger; so fierce, so elusive, so dashing, so unexpected. This man threw himself into his part at once and required no tedious explanations. The intrepid hunters had a quarter of an hour's blissful excitement, and the tiger had rolled over dead for the fifth time when he suddenly rose to his feet, went to the gate, and looked up the lane toward the Manse.

Mr. Wycherly was coming slowly down the lane, and a lady leant upon his arm. The quondam tiger brushed some grass from off his clothes and turned to the little boys, who were following him eagerly. "Boys," he said, "we've had a good play, we'll have another some day, but now I must go and speak--to my mother----"

He went down the lane very quickly toward Mr. Wycherly and the lady.

"Come," said Montagu, catching Edmund by the hand, "let's come away," and the two little boys trotted off up the lane in the opposite direction; and they never looked back.

Mrs. Gloag, tremulous and very pale, leant heavily on Mr. Wycherly's arm as the tall young man came out of the field toward her. Then she steadied herself. "Dear friend," she said very softly, "I am quite strong. Will you leave me to wait for my boy? I would like to be with him alone--once more, together--he and I." She drew her hand from Mr. Wycherly's arm, and he raised his hat and left her. He passed the stranger and hurried after the little boys. They heard him coming and slackened their pace: but they never looked round.

They had turned the corner when Mr. Wycherly joined them, and separated that he might walk between them as was his custom. He laid a hand on each soft little shoulder and stopped. "Boys," he said, and his voice sounded husky and broken. "You are gentlemen--and good fellows--and I'm proud of you."

The little boys were silent. This that had happened, coming so close upon the heels of the uproarious tiger game, was very puzzling.

Presently, as though following some train of thought, Edmund said: "She knew him, I suppose. Will our mothers know us, do you think, when we get up there? Because, you see, we shall look rather different from when they saw us last. Now you, Guardie, dear, you hadn't white hair when you saw your mother last, had you? You were quite a little boy."

"I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "in fact, I may say I am sure, that our mothers will know us, even if we all three should have white hair."

"I expect," Montagu said thoughtfully, "that they're waiting just like we waited for you round the corner; they've just gone on first."

"Just gone on," Edmund echoed. "I wonder if it seems long to them till we come?"

After morning service when the minister turned down the lane, which was a short cut to the Manse, he found Mr. Wycherly waiting for him outside his own gate.

As a rule Mr. Wycherly was rather shy and nervous in the presence of the minister, but there was no sign of this usual mental perturbation as he stopped him with a courteous gesture. "Mr. Gloag," said Mr. Wycherly, and he looked the minister straight in the eyes, "I have done something which you will probably disapprove and condemn. Curly has been here, and I went to the Manse and told Mrs. Gloag that he was here."

"Did he dare to enter my house?" asked the minister, and he glowered at Mr. Wycherly from under his heavy brows.

"I think," that gentleman replied, and he met the minister's keen glance with one that was quite equally combative, "that he would have dared anything to see his mother. As it happened she came to him. And I want to spare her the exertion of telling you that she did so."

"Since when," asked the minister, looking as though he would greatly like to annihilate Mr. Wycherly; "since when has my wife needed a go-between to spare her the necessity of telling me anything?"

"Good heavens, sir!" Mr. Wycherly exclaimed, "can't you see that what I want you to realise is that Mrs. Gloag is very ill--that whatever you may feel on the subject of Curly's coming, it would have been inhuman to prevent her seeing her son--once more, whatever he had done."

Even as Mr. Wycherly spoke the eyes of the two men that a moment before had been bright with mutual antagonism changed. The minister's to a dumb agony, Mr. Wycherly's to an awe-struck pity. He turned and walked hastily away.

Blindly the minister opened the gate and went through the garden into his own house.

His wife met him in the hall, and her face, he thought, was as the face of an angel, full of a soft radiance not of earth.

"Peter," she said in her soft "Englishey" voice, "God has been good to me. I have seen Curly, and he is not changed. I know it; we may not like what he has done, but he is not changed. He is good, Peter; he is our own dear good boy all the same. He didn't come in because he thought you wouldn't like it, but I had a long, beautiful talk with him in the lane. I felt somehow that I should see him--once more."

Again the ominous phrase, "Once more."

"Felicity," said the minister, "you have stood much longer than is good for you," and he picked her up in his arms and carried her to the sofa in the parlour.

She caught him round the neck and rubbed her soft cheek against his hair. "Why are you not surprised--and angry?" she asked with a little nervous laugh, and he felt how her whole body was trembling in his arms.

"Because I knew already," said the minister; and not one other word did he say on the subject that day, but he noticed that her pretty eyes had lost their look of strained expectancy and watchfulness, and in its place there was an expression of beautiful serenity and almost joyous content.

Although Edmund went to the Manse for his lessons, he was faithful always to the matutinal service of biscuits in Mr. Wycherly's room. He wouldn't have missed it on any account. Two mornings after their encounter with the "tiger-man," as they always called him, they sought Mr. Wycherly after breakfast to find him looking very grave and sad. He gave them their biscuits as usual, and turning to Edmund said: "You must not go to the Manse this morning, my dear boy. There is great trouble there. We have all lost a very dear friend--Mrs. Gloag." Mr. Wycherly paused, for he could not speak. The little boys looked very solemn, then Edmund said softly, "I suppose she has gone on."

*CHAPTER XIV*

*A PARTING*

O Royal and radiant soul, Thou dost return, thine influences return Upon thy children as in life, and death Turns stingless! W. E. HENLEY.

Whooping-cough was still bad in the village on the Sabbath following their famous tiger-game, and again Miss Esperance did not take her great-nephews to church.

Again, moreover, the Sunday was memorable, not so much because they did not attend church, as because Mr. Wycherly did.

The little boys knew there had been a funeral the day before. Mr. Wycherly had gone to it, and their aunt had sewn a black band upon the sleeve of each little white blouse. They felt solemn and important; and for once they would even have been glad to go to church in order to show this unusual adornment. When they discovered that not only were they to be left at home, but left at home without Mr. Wycherly, such immunity was shorn of all its more pleasing attributes.

They were sorry about Mrs. Gloag, with the curious, impersonal sorrow that children experience in considering the troubles of others. She was a kind lady, and they liked her. She knew many rhymes and funny stories, and was almost as good a playmate as that unequalled tiger-man. But they had not seen her often lately, and at present their chief concern was with the unusual and uncomfortable sense of depression that seemed in some subtle, indefinable fashion to separate them from their aunt and Mr. Wycherly.

And now, having gone to a funeral on Saturday, Mr. Wycherly was going to church on Sunday. Why was Mr. Wycherly going to church?

That was the question that grievously exercised the little boys, and perhaps Mr. Wycherly himself would have been hard put to it to explain his reasons.

There was the protective instinct, the feeling that he could not let Miss Esperance go alone, so small and sad and solitary: the desire to do something comforting: an equally strong desire to show his affectionate respect for Mrs. Gloag, and the hope that perhaps by this means he might to some small extent show his sympathy with the minister. And at the back of all these mixed motives and through every one of them there sounded the voices of habit and tradition; voices which every day of late had called more and more imperatively to Mr. Wycherly. In the old days it had been a matter of course that he should take part in any public ceremony; now, in spite of his long aloofness from any part or lot in the lives of his neighbours, he felt it incumbent upon him to make some open and public demonstration of his share in this common sorrow.

When he first came to live with Miss Esperance, Mrs. Gloag had always been kind and friendly, stopped him in the road when he would fain have passed her by, and yet always left him unconsciously cheered by her greeting. Few others had been kind and friendly then, and Mr. Wycherly did not forget.

It was surprising how many people remembered such things of her now. It seemed that every man, woman, and child in the village could and did tell of something kind Mrs. Gloag had done, of something merry and heartening she had said. People forgot now that she had sometimes laughed when it would have been more fitting to look grave. They only remembered that she had cheered the despondent, strengthened the weak-hearted, made peace where there were quarrels, and brought gaiety and good humour into homes where before there were gloom and discontent.

Not for years had the church been so full as on that Sabbath morning, that sunny Sabbath morning when Mr. Wycherly went to church with Miss Esperance.

The minister looked much as usual. His face was stern and set, though his eyes under the bushy, overhanging gray eyebrows were the eyes of a man who had slept but little. Yet his voice was strong and full, and he prayed and read the Bible with his customary earnestness and vigour.

The congregation were a little fluttered to notice that in the Manse pew there were three tall young men, and that the white-haired, Oxfordy gentleman who lived with Miss Esperance was in her seat, but otherwise the service was much as usual.

It was not until the time came for the sermon that there was throughout the congregation that little thrill of excited expectation which proclaims deep interest.

"What would be the minister's text?"

To most people it was a surprise: it was not even a whole text. The minister preached upon the four words, "Be pitiful, be courteous." His sermon was the shortest he had ever given in that church, lasting only half an hour.

Mr. Wycherly sat with his elbow on the desk in front of him, his white, slender hand shading his eyes.

Miss Esperance was visibly affected; and of the three young men in the Manse seat, one laid his head down on his crossed arms, but he assuredly was not sleeping.

When the service was over and Mr. Wycherly and Miss Esperance were walking home, she said timidly: "It was a beautiful discourse, don't you think?"

"I think," said Mr. Wycherly, "that he preached that sermon for his wife; and that it will be remembered when all his other sermons are forgotten. I am glad to have been there."

That afternoon the little boys took their Sunday picture-books into the garden and sat on the grass under the alder tree; Mr. Wycherly, too, sat in a garden chair reading a sober-looking calf-bound book.

Miss Esperance had returned from afternoon church, but she was so tired and upset that Elsa persuaded her for once to go and lie down in her room, and the children were warned not to disturb their aunt.

Edmund's book was a large Bible Alphabet with gaily-coloured pictures, which Miss Maggie Moffat had given him at the New Year. Montagu had brought out "Peep of Day," a work he detested, but choice on the Sabbath was limited in the house of Miss Esperance, so he looked at the "Child's Bible Alphabet" with Edmund, and so often had they pored over the volume that they were familiar with all the characters from Abraham to Zacchaeus.

Presently Edmund shut the book with a bang. "I shall know all these folks when I meet 'em, anyway," he said decidedly. "I've looked at 'em and looked: I've had enough of seeing them, Isaac and Noah and Jacob and Mrs. Potiphar and that dancing woman, Miriam--none of them very handsome, either," Edmund continued discontentedly. "Oh, I do wish the Sabbath was over, it's such a long, long day."