Chatterbox, 1906 Part 7

HELENA HEATH.

ETHEL'S GOLDEN OFFERING.

'Granny,' said Ethel Day, one Sunday, 'there was a lady in our seat at church that I never saw before. She was not very grandly dressed, but she must have been as rich--as rich as the king.'

'Why do you think so, Ethel?' asked Granny, smiling at the child's eagerness.

'Because, when the plate was pa.s.sed to her--for the collection, you know--she put in a piece of gold money--real gold, I am sure it was. Oh!

I should like to be rich enough to give as much as that.'

Granny was silent for a minute or two; she seemed to be thinking of something pleasant. 'I know of a golden offering that my little Ethel could make, if she were willing,' she said presently.

'Tell me what it is then, Granny: I shall be sure to be willing,' cried Ethel.

'The money the lady gave,' went on Granny, 'was for the poor sick people in the hospital. Look out of the window, Ethel, and you will see another kind of gold--a kind not counted so precious, perhaps, but really quite as beautiful.'

Ethel looked out: she only saw the flowers in her own garden. Lovely autumn flowers they were, for Ethel's father was a gardener, and he often gave his little daughter choice roots, or cuttings, for her plot of ground. But Ethel was accustomed to the sight of her flowers: dear as they were to her, and yellow as gold though they might be, Granny surely did not mean to compare them with the lady's half-sovereign.

That was Granny's meaning, however. 'There is a sick woman in the village,' she told Ethel, 'who cannot go to the hospital. She is so ill that, although she may live many years, she can never be cured, and so they cannot take her in. Because her illness has lasted so long, people have almost forgotten to be kind to her. I have been thinking, Ethel, that if you could spare a bunch of your flowers for poor Mary Ansell, it would be a real golden offering.'

It was Ethel's turn to be quiet now; her flowers were her most cherished possessions, and to pick a good bunch for Mary Ansell would make her little garden look bare and shabby. Granny knew that; she knew that Ethel's flowers would, in their way, be quite as costly a gift as the lady's golden coin.

But she was not much surprised, on the following morning, to find the best and brightest of the blossoms gone, and when next she went to see Mary Ansell, the poor woman still had the flowers in a jug by her bedside.

'You cannot think how it cheered me up,' said the invalid. 'That dear little girl, with her bright face, and the posy in her hands, was like a sunbeam coming in. She did me as much good as a mint of money.'

'Ah!' thought Granny, who knew how much real self-sacrifice must have been in the gift, 'I felt sure that Ethel too could make a golden offering.'

C. J. BLAKE.

THE GIANT OF THE TREASURE CAVES.

(_Continued from page 11._)

'What will become of us if Thomas has gone away?' asked Estelle. 'Does the sea cover the beach very quickly? Will there be time for him to come back, or can we get away without him?'

'No, no,' cried Georgie, clinging to Marjorie; 'we can't go in the boat without Thomas! We shall all be drowned. Oh, I don't want to be---- '

'Shut up!' exclaimed Alan, impatiently. 'We are not drowned yet, and we are not going to be. You are frightening Estelle with your noise. It is all right, Estelle. Don't you be afraid. I can get the boat back all right with Marjorie's help if Thomas is not here in time. But there is no danger for an hour yet.'

'All the same, we had better find Thomas,' said Marjorie.

Neither she nor Alan had any serious belief in there being much mystery about Thomas's movements. They liked to imagine themselves in romantic positions, and were fond of weaving stories about any little event that attracted them. But the gardener's sudden disappearance, together with what Marjorie had seen in the cave, did seem strange.

'There's only one way of finding him,' remarked Alan, after he and Marjorie had stared at each other in silence for some moments. 'You see, he is nowhere in the cave. Now, what do you think has become of him?'

'Do you mean he has found a way up the cliff?' she asked, slowly, with what Alan called 'the pondering look' in her eyes. 'I wonder if he wanted to go into the woods when you saw him in the Wilderness, and if--if he has managed to get there now?'

'I never thought of that,' exclaimed Alan.

'If he has,' went on Marjorie, while Estelle and Georgie watched Alan anxiously, 'what do you mean by "only one way of finding him?"'

'Well,' returned Alan, hesitating as if his mind were not quite made up, 'we know of no path up, so there is nothing for it except to climb the cliff. I am sure I can do it, and who knows what I may find out?'

This proposal did not meet with favour from anybody. Marjorie declared it was impossible, and too dangerous to try--the cliff was far too steep. Alan and she could manage the boat quite well on a calm day. It would be less of a risk.

Estelle suggested they should go as far into the cave as possible--for Alan had told her that the end of it was above high-water mark--and remain there till the tide went down. It would certainly be very horrid, but it was better than going alone in the boat, or Alan trying to climb those terrible cliffs.

All her cousins laughed.

'It will be hours and hours before the tide is low again,' said Alan.

'Everybody would think we had come to grief, and there would be a pretty to-do. Aunt Betty would be wild, fancying you were lost. No, that will not do. It must be the cliff, and nothing but the cliff.'

Without waiting for further discussion, he went slowly along the beach, examining the great wall of rock. The other children followed, frightened into silence by his determined face and the dangers of the attempt. To Estelle there appeared to be no foothold possible in all that broad, dark surface; but Alan's keen eyes were not long in discovering a part which he might attack with some hope of success.

Pulling off his coat and tightening his belt, he took firm hold of the only projecting piece of rock he could find, and drew himself up to the first narrow ledge. There he paused to look back triumphantly, but such a row of anxious faces were staring up at him that he called out, impatiently, 'Now, do go and play. I am all right, and it is a jolly good thing to have a place to stand upon. Don't look at me all the time.

You will make me nervous, and there will be an accident.'

But it was impossible for the other children to turn their eyes away as he crept up and up, hoisting himself by strength of arm in one place, seeking a foothold in another. Sometimes it appeared as if he were hanging literally by his fingers, and the lookers-on shuddered in terror lest he should fall. At other places he seemed to move along with more ease, and then they feared he would become careless.

It was well for Alan that his head was so steady, and that he did not attempt to glance down from the height he had already reached. Not for a moment would he dwell on the dangers of the ascent. Rather, he took a delight in matching himself against the stern rocks. With all his courage, however, it sometimes seemed to him as if his difficulties would never end. Three times he nearly as possible fell. The strength and fitness he had acquired in athletic sports and gymnasium at school stood him in good stead now.

Fortunately for him the ascent became far easier as soon as he got above high-water mark. The face of the precipice grew more and more uneven, offering greater support to his hands and feet, and by-and-by he was able to a.s.sist himself by the tufts of gra.s.s.

'He has reached the bushes!' cried Estelle, at last, with a cry of relief. 'He will be all right now, won't he?'

'Yes,' replied Marjorie, her voice still tremulous.

'And how's he coming down again?' asked Georgie, his fears by no means gone. 'And what are we to do if he doesn't come?'

Georgie and Estelle were gazing at Marjorie as if her words and her calm alone prevented them from breaking down. If she gave way to fear, what effect might it not have upon them? It was her duty to encourage and raise the spirits of the younger ones, and put aside her own misgivings.

With an effort she forced herself to speak in cheerful tones.

'It is useless to think about it,' she said, 'and the best thing we can do is to amuse ourselves till it is time to go. Look, the boat ought to be pulled up higher. Let us see if we can manage it between us.'

Meantime Alan had reached the coastguard path which ran along the edge of the cliff. No one being in sight, he determined to take the narrow track which lay through a wooded hollow. It was part of the Moat House property, and he desired to see whether he and Marjorie had been correct in their guess that it was to this wood that Thomas had wished to come when he was seen in the Wilderness.

Scrambling over the queer stone stile, he descended the rugged pathway, where the thick brushwood and high trees shut out sky and sunlight. As he advanced the track became narrower and more mossy, while here and there the ground was broken by rocks. Now and again high mounds of earth, mossy and green, rose on either side, and the wood grew denser.

He was uneasy, and half wished he had kept to the edge of the cliff, where the way was clear, for he seemed to have left the world behind him. There was something uncanny in the dead silence, and he quite startled when a rabbit jumped across his path into a hole. But the next moment, boy-like, he wished he had had the dogs with him that he might give chase.