There & Back

He saw nothing of Barbara all day, or indeed of any of the family except Vixen, who looked in, made a face at him, and went away, leaving the door open. At eight o’clock he had his breakfast, and at nine he was again in the library; so that by lunch-time he had been seven of his eight hours at work, and by half-past two found himself free to go to his grandfather’s and inquire after Alice.

On his way to the road through the park, he met Arthur Lestrange. Richard touched his hat as was his wont, and would have passed, but, with no friendly expression on his countenance, Arthur stopped.

“Where are you going, Tuke?” he said.

“I am going to my grandfather’s, sir,” answered Richard.

“Excuse me, but your day’s work is not over by many hours yet.”

Richard found his temper growing troublesome, but tried hard to keep it in hand.

“If you remember, sir,” he said, “our agreement mentioned no hour for beginning or leaving off work.”

“That is true, but you undertook to give me eight hours of your day!”

“Yes, sir. I was at work by five o’clock this morning, and have given you more than eight hours.”

“Hm!” said Arthur.

“I am quite as anxious,” pursued Richard, “to fulfill my engagement, as you can be to have it fulfilled.”

Arthur said nothing.

“Ask Thomas, who let me in this morning,” resumed Richard, “whether I was not at work in the library by five o’clock.”

It went a good deal against the grain with Richard to appeal to any witness for corroboration: he was proud of being a man of his word; but although not greatly anxious to keep his temporary position, he was anxious the compact should not be broken through anything he did or said.

“Let you in?” exclaimed Arthur; “—let you in before five o’clock in the morning? Then you were out all night!”

“I was.”

“That cannot be permitted.”

“I am surely right in believing that, when my work is over, I am my own master! I had something to do that must be done. My grandfather knows all I was about!”

“Oh, yes, I remember! old Simon Armour, the blacksmith!” returned Arthur. “But,” he went on, plainly softening a little, “you ought not to work for him while you are in my employment.”

“I know that, sir; and if I wanted, my grandfather would not let me. While my work is yours, it is all yours, sir.”

With that he turned, and left Arthur where he stood a little relieved, though now annoyed as well that a man in his employment should not have waited to be dismissed. Hastening to the smithy, he found his grandfather putting off his apron to go home for a cup of tea.

“Oh, there you are!” he said. “I thought we should be catching sight of you before long!”

“How’s Alice, grandfather? You might be sure I should want to know!”

“She’s been asleep all day, the best thing for her!”

“I hope, grandfather,” said Richard, for Simon’s tone troubled him a little, “you are not vexed with me! I assure you I had nothing to do with her coming down here—that I know of. You would not have had me leave her sitting there, out on that stone in the moonlight, all night long, a ghost before her time without a grave to go to? She would have been dead before the morning! She must have been! I am certain you would not have left her there!”

“God forbid, lad! If you thought me out of temper with you, it was a mistake. I confess the thing does bother me, but I’m not blaming you. You acted like a Christian.”

Richard hardly relished the mode of his grandfather’s approbation. A man ought to do the right thing because he was a man, not because he was something else than a man! He had yet to learn that a man and a Christian are precisely and entirely the same thing; that a being who is not a Christian is not a man. I perfectly know how absurd this must seem to many, but such do not see what I see. No one, however strong he may feel his obligations, will ever be man enough to fulfill them except he be a Christian—that is, one who, like Christ, cares first for the will of the Father. One who thinks he can meet his obligations now, can have no idea what is required of him in virtue of his being what he is—no idea of what his own nature requires of him. So much is required that nothing more could be required. Let him ask himself whether he is doing what he requires of himself. If he answer, “I can do it without Christianity anyway,” I reply, “Do it; try to do it, and I know where the honest endeavour will bring you. Don’t try to do it, and you are not man enough to be worth reasoning with.”

Simon and his grandson had not yet turned the corner, when Richard heard a snort he knew: there, sure enough, stood Miss Brown, hitched to the garden-paling, peaceable but impatient.

“Miss Wylder here!” said Richard.

“Yes, lad! She’s been here an hour and more. Jessie came and told me, but I knew it: I heard the mare, and knew the sound of my own shoes on her!—I doubt if she’ll stand it much longer though!” he added, as she pawed the road. “Well, she’s a fine creature!”

“Yes, she’s a good mare!”

“I don’t mean the mare! I mean the mistress!”

“Miss Wylder is just noble!” said Richard. “But I’m afraid she got into trouble last night!”

“It don’t sound much like it!” returned the old man, as Barbara’s musical, bird-like laugh came from the cottage. “She ain’t breaking her heart!—Alice, as you call her, must be doing well, or missie wouldn’t be laughing like that!”

As they entered, Barbara came gliding down the perpendicular stair in front of them, her face yet radiant with the shadow of the laugh they had heard.

“Good morning, Mr. Armour!” she said. “—I did not expect to see you so soon again, Mr. Tuke. Will you put me up!”

Richard released Miss Brown, got her into position, and gave his hand to Barbara’s foot, as he had seen Mr. Lestrange do. But lifting, he nearly threw her over Miss Brown’s back. She burst into her lovely laugh, clutched at a pommel, and held fast.

“I’m not quite ready to go to heaven all at once!” she said.

“I thought you were!” answered Richard. “But indeed I beg your pardon! I might have known how light you must be!”

“I am very heavy for my size!”

“May I walk a little way alongside of you, miss?”

“You have a right; I have offered you my company more than once,” answered Barbara.

They walked a little way in silence.

“Why is there no way to the heaven you believe in, but the terrible gate of death?” asked Richard at length. “If a God of love, as you say your God is, made the world, and could not—for want of room, I suppose—let his creatures live on in it, he would surely have thought of some better way out of it than such a ghastly one!”

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Barbara was her readiness. Very seldom had one to wait for her answer.

“This morning,” she said, “for the first time with me on her back at least, Miss Brown refused a jump—and I grant the place looked ugly! But I gave her a little sharp persuasion, and she took it beautifully, coming away as proud of herself as possible.—If there be a God, he must know as much better than you and I, as I know better than Miss Brown. One who never did anything we couldn’t understand, couldn’t be God. How else could he make things?”

“Yes, if they are made!”

“If I were you, I would be quite sure first, before I said they were not. You won’t assert anything you are not sure of; don’t deny anything either. Good-bye.—Go, Miss Brown!”

She was more peremptory than usual, but he liked it—rather. He felt she had some right to speak to him so: positive as he had hitherto been, he was not really sure of anything!

The fact was, Barbara had been irritated that morning, and had got over the irritation, but not quite over the excitement of it. She thought Miss Brown should never again set hoof within the gates of Mortgrange.