The Guardian Angel Part 9

"A bruise on his head,--not very bad, but the doctor was afraid of erysipelas. Seems to be doing well enough now."

"Is there a young person here, a stranger?"

"There is such a young person here. Do you come with any authority to make inquiries?"

"I do. A young friend of mine is missing, and I thought it possible I might learn something here about it. Can I see this young person?"

The matron came nearer to Byles Gridley, and said: "This person is a young woman disguised as a boy. She was rescued by my nephew at the risk of his life, and she has been delirious ever since she has recovered her consciousness. She was almost too far gone to be resuscitated, but Clement put his mouth to hers and kept her breathing until her own breath returned and she gradually came to."

"Is she violent in her delirium?"

"Not now. No; she is quiet enough, but wandering,--wants to know where she is, and whose the strange faces are,--mine and my husband's,--that 's Dr. Lindsay,--and one of my daughters, who has watched with her."

"If that is so, I think I had better see her. If she is the person I suspect her to be, she will know me; and a familiar face may bring back her recollections and put a stop to her wanderings. If she does not know me, I will not stay talking with her. I think she will, if she is the one I am seeking after. There is no harm in trying."

Mrs. Lindsay took a good long look at the old man. There was no mistaking his grave, honest, st.u.r.dy, wrinkled, scholarly face. His voice was a.s.sured and sincere in its tones. His decent black coat was just what a scholar's should be,--old, not untidy, a little shiny at the elbows with much leaning on his study-table, but neatly bound at the cuffs, where worthy Mrs. Hopkins had detected signs of fatigue and come to the rescue. His very hat looked honest as it lay on the table. It had moulded itself to a broad, n.o.ble head, that held nothing but what was true and fair, with a few harmless crotchets just to fill in with, and it seemed to know it.

The good woman gave him her confidence at once. "Is the person you are seeking a niece or other relative of yours?"

(Why did not she ask if the girl was his daughter? What is that look of paternity and of maternity which observing and experienced mothers and old nurses know so well in men and in women?)

"No, she is not a relative. But I am acting for those who are."

"Wait a moment and I will go and see that the room is all right."

She returned presently. "Follow me softly, if you please. She is asleep,--so beautiful,--so innocent!"

Byles Gridley, Master of Arts, retired professor, more than sixty years old, childless, loveless, stranded in a lonely study strewed with wrecks of the world's thought, his work in life finished, his one literary venture gone down with all it held, with n.o.body to care for him but accidental acquaintances, moved gently to the side of the bed and looked upon the pallid, still features of Myrtle Hazard. He strove hard against a strange feeling that was taking hold of him, that was making his face act rebelliously, and troubling his eyes with sudden films. He made a brief stand against this invasion. "A weakness,--a weakness!" he said to himself. "What does all this mean? Never such a thing for these twenty years! Poor child! poor child!--Excuse me, madam," he said, after a little interval, but for what offence he did not mention. A great deal might be forgiven, even to a man as old as Byles Gridley, looking upon such a face,--so lovely, yet so marked with the traces of recent suffering, and even now showing by its changes that she was struggling in some fearful dream. Her forehead contracted, she started with a slight convulsive movement, and then her lips parted, and the cry escaped from them,--how heart-breaking when there is none to answer it,--"Mother!"

Gone back again through all the weary, chilling years of her girlhood to that hardly remembered morning of her life when the cry she uttered was answered by the light of loving eyes, the kiss of clinging lips, the embrace of caressing arms!

"It is better to wake her," Mrs. Lindsay said; "she is having a troubled dream. Wake up, my child, here is a friend waiting to see you."

She laid her hand very gently on Myrtle's forehead. Myrtle opened her eyes, but they were vacant as yet.

"Are we dead?" she said. "Where am I? This is n't heaven--there are no angels--Oh, no, no, no! don't send me to the other place--fifteen years,--only fifteen years old--no father, no mother--n.o.body loved me. Was it wicked in me to live?" Her whole theological training was condensed in that last brief question.

The old man took her hand and looked her in the face, with a wonderful tenderness in his squared features. "Wicked to live, my dear? No indeed! Here! look at me, my child; don't you know your old friend Byles Gridley?"

She was awake now. The sight of a familiar countenance brought back a natural train of thought. But her recollection pa.s.sed over everything that had happened since Thursday morning.

"Where is the boat I was in?" she said. "I have just been in the water, and I was dreaming that I was drowned. Oh! Mr. Gridley, is that you? Did you pull me out of the water?"

"No, my dear, but you are out of it, and safe and sound: that is the main point. How do you feel now you are awake?"

She yawned, and stretched her arms and looked round, but did not answer at first. This was all natural, and a sign that she was coming right.

She looked down at her dress. It was not inappropriate to her s.e.x, being a loose gown that belonged to one of the girls in the house.

"I feel pretty well," she answered, "but a little confused. My boat will be gone, if you don't run and stop it now. How did you get me into dry clothes so quick?"

Master Byles Gridley found himself suddenly possessed by a large and luminous idea of the state of things, and made up his mind in a moment as to what he must do. There was no time to be lost. Every day, every hour, of Myrtle's absence was not only a source of anxiety and a cause of useless searching but it gave room for inventive fancies to imagine evil. It was better to run some risk of injury to health, than to have her absence prolonged another day.

"Has this adventure been told about in the village, Mrs. Lindsay?"

"No, we thought it best to wait until she could tell her own story, expecting her return to consciousness every hour, and thinking there might be some reason for her disguise which it would be kinder to keep quiet about."

"You know nothing about her, then?"

"Not a word. It was a great question whether to tell the story and make inquiries; but she was safe, and could hardly bear disturbance, and, my dear sir, it seemed too probable that there was some sad story behind this escape in disguise, and that the poor child might need shelter and retirement. We meant to do as well as we could for her."

"All right, Mrs. Lindsay. You do not know who she is, then?"

"No, sir, and perhaps it is as well that I should not know. Then I shall not have to answer any questions about it."

"Very good, madam,--just as it should be. And your family, are they as discreet as yourself?"

"Not one word of the whole story has been or will be told by any one of us. That was agreed upon among us."

"Now then, madam. My name, as you heard me say, is Byles Gridley. Your husband will know it, perhaps; at any rate I will wait until he comes back. This child is of good family and of good name. I know her well, and mean, with your kind help, to save her from the consequences which her foolish adventure might have brought upon her. Before the bells ring for meeting to-morrow morning this girl must be in her bed at her home, at Oxbow Village, and we must keep her story to ourselves as far as may be. It will all blow over, if we do. The gossips will only know that she was upset in the river and cared for by some good people,--good people and sensible people too, Mrs. Lindsay. And now I want to see the young man that rescued my friend here,--Clement Lindsay, I have heard his name before."

Clement was not a beauty for the moment, but Master Gridley saw well enough that he was a young man of the right kind. He knew them at sight, fellows with lime enough in their bones and iron enough in their blood to begin with,--shapely, large-nerved, firm-fibred and fine-fibred, with well-spread bases to their heads for the ground-floor of the faculties, and well-vaulted arches for the upper range of apprehensions and combinations. "Plenty of bas.e.m.e.nts," he used to say, "without attics and skylights. Plenty of skylights without rooms enough and s.p.a.ce enough below." But here was "a three-story brain," he said to himself as he looked at it, and this was the youth who was to find his complement in our pretty little Susan Posey! His judgment may seem to have been hasty, but he took the measure of young men of twenty at sight from long and sagacious observation, as Nurse Byloe knew the "heft" of a baby the moment she fixed her old eyes on it.

Clement was well acquainted with Byles Gridley, though he had never seen him, for Susan's letters had had a good deal to say about him of late.

It was agreed between them that the story should be kept as quiet as possible, and that the young girl should not know the name of her deliverer,--it might save awkward complications. It was not likely that she would be disposed to talk of her adventure, which had ended so disastrously, and thus the whole story would soon die out.

The effect of the violent shock she had experienced was to change the whole nature of Myrtle for the time. Her mind was unsettled: she could hardly recall anything except the plunge over the fall. She was perfectly docile and plastic,--was ready to go anywhere Mr. Gridley wanted her to go, without any sign of reluctance. And so it was agreed that he should carry her back in his covered wagon that very night. All possible arrangements were made to render her journey comfortable. The fast mare had to trot very gently, and the old master would stop and adjust the pillows from time to time, and administer the restoratives which the physician had got ready, all as naturally and easily as if he had been bred a nurse, vastly to his own surprise, and with not a little gain to his self-appreciation. He was a serviceable kind of body on occasion, after all, was he not, hey, Mr. Byles Gridley? he said to himself.

At half past four o'clock on Sunday morning the shepherd brought the stray lamb into the paved yard at The Poplars, and roused the slumbering household to receive back the wanderer.

It was the Irishwoman, Kitty f.a.gan, huddled together in such amorphous guise, that she looked as if she had been fitted in a tempest of petticoats and a whirlwind of old shawls, who presented herself at the door.

But there was a very warm heart somewhere in that queer-looking bundle of clothes, and it was not one of those that can throb or break in silence. When she saw the long covered wagon, and the grave face of the old master, she thought it was all over with the poor girl she loved, and that this was the undertaker's wagon bringing back only what had once been Myrtle Hazard. She screamed aloud,--so wildly that Myrtle lifted her head from the pillow against which she had rested it, and started forward.

The Irishwoman looked at her for a moment to a.s.sure herself that it was the girl she loved, and not her ghost. Then it all came over her,--she had been stolen by thieves, who had carried her off by night, and been rescued by the brave old man who had brought her back. What crying and kisses and prayers and blessings were poured forth, in a confusion of which her bodily costume was a fitting type, those who know the vocabulary and the enthusiasm of her eloquent race may imagine better than we could describe it.

The welcome of the two other women was far less demonstrative. There were awful questions to be answered before the kind of reception she was to have could be settled. What they were, it is needless to suggest; but while Miss Silence was weeping, first with joy that her "responsibility"

was removed, then with a fair share of pity and kindness, and other lukewarm emotions,--while Miss Badlam waited for an explanation before giving way to her feelings,--Mr. Gridley put the essential facts before them in a few words. She had gone down the river some miles in her boat, which was upset by a rush of the current, and she had come very near being drowned. She was got out, however, by a person living near by, and cared for by some kind women in a house near the river, where he had been fortunate enough to discover her.--Who cut her hair off? Perhaps those good people,--she had been out of her head. She was alive and unharmed, at any rate, wanting only a few days' rest. They might be very thankful to get her back, and leave her to tell the rest of her story when she had got her strength and memory, for she was not quite herself yet, and might not be for some days.

And so there she was at last laid in her own bed, listening again to the ripple of the waters beneath her, Miss Silence sitting on one side looking as sympathetic as her insufficient nature allowed her to look; the Irishwoman uncertain between delight at Myrtle's return and sorrow for her condition; and Miss Cynthia Badlam occupying herself about house-matters, not unwilling to avoid the necessity of displaying her conflicting emotions.

Before he left the house, Mr. Gridley repeated the statement is the most precise manner,--some miles down the river--upset and nearly drowned--rescued almost dead--brought to and cared for by kind women in the house where he, Byles Gridley, found her. These were the facts, and nothing more than this was to be told at present. They had better be made known at once, and the shortest and best way would be to have it announced by the minister at meeting that forenoon. With their permission, he would himself write the note for Mr. Stoker to read, and tell the other ministers that they might announce it to their people.

The bells rang for meeting, but the little household at The Poplars did not add to the congregation that day. In the mean time Kitty f.a.gan had gone down with Mr. Byles Gridley's note, to carry it to the Rev. Mr.

Stoker. But, on her way, she stopped at the house of one Mrs. Finnegan, a particular friend of hers; and the great event of the morning furnishing matter for large discourse, and various social allurements adding to the fascination of having a story to tell, Kitty f.a.gan forgot her note until meeting had begun and the minister had read the text of his sermon. "Bless my soul! and sure I 've forgot ahl about the letter!"

she cried all at once, and away she tramped for the meeting-house. The s.e.xton took the note, which was folded, and said he would hand it up to the pulpit after the sermon,--it would not do to interrupt the preacher.

The Rev. Mr. Stoker had, as was said, a somewhat remarkable gift in prayer,--an endowment by no means confined to profoundly spiritual persons,--in fact, not rarely owing much of its force to a strong animal nature underlying the higher attributes. The sweet singer of Israel would never have written such pet.i.tions and such hymns if his manhood had been less complete; the flavor of remembered frailties could not help giving a character to his most devout exercises, or they would not have come quite home to our common humanity. But there is no gift more dangerous to the humility and sincerity of a minister. While his spirit ought to be on its knees before the throne of grace, it is too apt to be on tiptoe, following with admiring look the flight of its own rhetoric.

The essentially intellectual character of an extemporaneous composition spoken to the Creator with the consciousness that many of his creatures are listening to criticise or to admire, is the great argument for set forms of prayer.