Frederica and her Guardians Part 8

"To heaven!"

"Ay, I am sure of it, as far as a body can be sure of such a thing. She was a good woman. She had some curious notions about things, but she was a good woman."

"She was very religious," said Frederica.

"Yes, she was religious. She was a good woman."

"But then there are so many kinds of religion," said Frederica.

"But there is but one right kind I doubt," said Mistress Campbell gravely.

"And Miss Baines' was the right kind? It made her patient and gentle with us girls, even when we were naughty. And after her fall, when she suffered so much, it made her patient to bear her pain. And once she told me that she was not afraid to die. I wish I had asked her more about it. I don't know, but I am almost sure mama would be afraid to die."

Eppie gave her a startled glance; but Frederica did not look as though she had said anything to excite surprise.

"But your mama is a good woman. I have always heard you say that."

"Yes. She is very good and dear. But then we have no religion in our house--except Mrs Ascot; and I am afraid hers is not the right kind.

It is _not_ at all like Miss Baines', at any rate. But then how is one to know?"

"But I hope there are good people among all kinds," said Eppie, not knowing very well what to say.

"Yes. Mr St. Cyr is good, though Mrs Ascot is not. That is true.

And it does not matter so much, so that we have a religion of some kind.

Though, of course, one would wish to have the best."

"You are wrong there, missy. It matters much. And you should be thankful that you were sent here to the school, where the Bible is read, and where you may learn your duty to G.o.d and man. That is the best religion."

"But I have not learned it very well," I fear.

"Maybe that is your own fault. I have heard you say that you are not very fond of going to the kirk and reading your Bible."

"That is quite true. And that is the right way, is it? Were you fond of going to the kirk when you were young? We go to the church, you know."

"I would be very thankful to be able to go to the kirk," said Eppie evasively:

"And is your religion just like Miss Baines'? Hers must have been right, because it made her happy when she was in great trouble, and it made her not afraid to die. Is yours the same, Mistress Campbell?"

Eppie looked at her, wondering a little at her persistency, and then she said, "Ay is it--the very same. The same in kind, though not in degree.

Miss Baines was a good woman, a far better woman than the like of me."

"Tell me about it," said Frederica.

Mistress Campbell looked sadly at a loss.

"How did they teach you to be religious when you were young?"

"We were taught to read our Bibles and to say the catechism, and to go to the kirk. And my father had worship morning and evening, and we were bidden do our duty, and be content with our lot."

Eppie hesitated, by no means satisfied with her attempt to make the matter clear, and then she said,--

"To be religious is to be good, and to do our duty to G.o.d and our fellow-creatures. Don't you mind what the Bible says? 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy G.o.d with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.' And in another place it says, 'Pure religion and undefiled is this, to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction.' That is religion,"

said Eppie, with a pleased sense of having got well out of a difficulty.

Frederica nodded.

"Yes, I have read that. That is the way is it? Do good people all do that? But then they must begin at the very beginning of their lives."

Eppie shook her head.

"We are poor imperfect creatures at the best," said she. "But G.o.d's ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts our thoughts. We are unprofitable servants. If we got what we deserve, it would go ill with us. But He is merciful and gracious, and full of compa.s.sion, and of tender mercy."

Frederica considered gravely for a little while.

"And is that all? I think I could manage to do all that, except perhaps to love my neighbour as myself," said she, thinking of p.r.i.c.kly Polly.

"But you would need to do that too, I doubt," said Eppie, not wishing to make religion seem a thing too easy. "And you would need to say your prayers, for the best of us need to be forgiven, and the strongest and wisest need to be helped and guided, and the Lord is good."

"And if I don't know very well at first. He will help me. But, Eppie dear, I think Miss Baines must have had something more than this. I wish I had asked her about it," said Frederica, regarding the old woman with wistful eyes.

"Dear me, la.s.sie," said Eppie, at a loss what to say to her; "what has putten such like thoughts into your head? you are not an ill bairn, and you will learn as you grow older. You have no call to vex yourself with such thoughts more than usual."

"But, Eppie, it is for mama. She is ill, and suffers a great deal, and she has only Selina with her; and if I only knew what made Miss Baines so happy, I could tell mama. But mama could not begin at the beginning, and go to church, and visit poor and sick people. There must be some other away for her. For, Eppie, I am almost sure that mama would be afraid to die."

There were no tears in the great wistful eyes turned towards her, but there was something which the old woman found it quite as hard to meet.

"Poor body," murmured she; "the Lord help her!"

"And, Eppie, Miss Baines said something about the Lord Jesus caring for her. And He died, you know. It is in the service, 'Crucified, dead, and buried,' and in the Bible there is something about it."

"Surely," said Eppie, eagerly, "that is just it. We are sinners, both by Adam's fall and by actual transgression. And G.o.d sent His Son to die in our room and stead. And we must lippen to Him. He will save us."

"And it would not make any difference because mama is a Jewess, would it?"

"Preserve us a'! What will the la.s.sie say next?" muttered the bewildered Eppie. "No difference but what would be in her favour, I would think. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, the Word says, and the apostles were bidden begin at Jerusalem," said she, the long-forgotten words coming back to her in the exigency of the moment.

"And they are all to be gathered in, Paul says. I mind weel my father and our minister ay used to pray for the ingathering of the Jews. No, I'm sure it would be in her favour rather than the contrary," repeated Eppie confidently, growing more a.s.sured as she went on. "They were a grand people, the Jews--G.o.d's own chosen people. They did ill things.

They killed our Lord, and I canna just reconcile it all, but I'm sure the Lord loves them yet."

Frederica did not reply, but sat gazing in among the dying embers in the grate. As she sat watching her abashed but anxious face, a great longing to help and counsel her came over the poor old woman's kind heart, but there came also sharply a sense of her utter inability to do so, a vague but painful doubt whether she had ever seen clearly the way of safety herself.

"I'm but a poor ignorant sinfu' woman, my dear bairn," said she humbly; "I havna lived up to the little light I have, and it's no for me to teach you. But one thing I can tell you: read your Bible, and ask the Lord Himself to teach you, and you'll need no other teaching, or if you do He'll provide it. But see, the fire's near out, and it's more than time you were down the stair, and I must go to my bed. So good night to you, and mind your prayers."

"Good night," said Frederica, and she went downstairs pondering many things.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

Attached to the large old-fashioned house in which Mrs Glencairn lived were a garden and orchard of very large old apple trees, which now in the spring time were full of wonderful possibilities for enjoyment and amus.e.m.e.nt to children who had for the most part been obliged to find amus.e.m.e.nt within doors during the long winter. And so no wonder that Frederica, without whom no game was complete, should forget her serious thoughts, and her troubles, and even her mother's doubtful state, unless something particularly recalled them to her mind. She was such a little creature, that, though she led the elder girls in their lessons, and was indeed far before them, she did not seem to be at all out of place when she led the plays and games of the little girls too.

Even in her visits to the garret, with her "Animated Nature" in her hand, she and Eppie kept to the safe subject of beasts and birds and creeping things, in the discussions into which they fell. She had taken up botany, too, in a less elementary form than had been given her before, and her interest was greatly quickened, and her attention happily given to it. And strange to say, Eppie, the recluse of the garret, who had not set her foot on a green thing growing beyond the orchard for many a year and day, even she gave eager interest and stimulus to the girl's pursuit, and with spectacles on nose peered into tritic.u.ms and anemones brought from the mountain, and into apple blossoms, and even into dandelions and b.u.t.tercups gathered in the orchard, for want of rarer flowers.