The Measure of a Man Part 25

The dead and the living both will block your way. We Hattons have been honest men in all our generations. Sons of the soil, taking our living from the land on which we lived in some way or other--never before from dirty cards in dirty hands and shuffled about in roguery, treachery, and robbery. I feel defiled by breathing the same air with such a crowd of card-sharpers and scoundrels."

"I say they were good honest gentlemen. Sir Thomas Leland was there, and----"

"I don't care if they were all princes. They were a bad lot, and theft and cards and brandy were written large on every sickly, wicked, white face of them. O Harry, how dared you disgrace your family by keeping such company?"

"No one but a Methodist preacher is respectable in your eyes, John.

Everyone in Hatton knew the Naylors, yet you gave them the same bad names."

"And they deserved all and more than they got. They gambled with horses instead of cards. They ran n.o.bler animals than themselves to death for money--and money for which neither labor nor its equivalent is given is dishonest money and the man who puts it in his pocket is a thief and puts h.e.l.l in his pocket with it."

"John, if I were you I would use more gentlemanly language."

"O Harry! Harry! My dear, dear brother! I am speaking now not only for myself but for mother and Lucy and your lovely children. Who or what is driving you down this road of destruction? I have left home at a hard time to help you. Come to me, Harry! Come and sit down beside me as you always have done. Tell me what is wrong, my brother!"

Harry was walking angrily about the room, but at these words his eyes filled with tears. He stood still and looked at John and when John stretched out his arms, he could not resist the invitation. The next moment his head was on John's breast and John's arm was across Harry's shoulders and John was saying such words as the wounded heart loves to hear. Then Harry told all his trouble and all his temptation and John freely forgave him. With little persuasion, indeed almost voluntarily, he gave John a sacred promise never to touch a card again. And then there were some moments of that satisfying silence which occurs when a great danger has been averted or a great wrong been put right.

But Harry looked white and wretched. He had been driven, as it were, out of the road of destruction, but he felt like a man in a pathless desert who saw no road of any kind. The fear of a lost child was in his heart.

"What is it, Harry?" asked John, for he saw that his brother was faint and exhausted.

"Well, John, I have eaten nothing since morning--and my heart sinks. I have been doing wrong. I am sorry. I ought to have come to you."

"To be sure. Now you shall have food, and then I have something to tell you that will make you happy." So while Harry ate, John told him of the renting of Yoden and laid before him all that it promised. And as John talked the young man's countenance grew radiant and he clasped his brother's hand and entered with almost boyish enthusiasm into every detail of the Yoden plan. He was particularly delighted at the prospect of turning the fine old house into an unique and beautiful modern home.

He laughed joyously as he saw in imagination the blending of the old carved oak furniture with his own pretty maple and rosewood. His artistic sense saw at once how the high dark chimney-pieces would glow and color with his bric-a-brac, and how his historical paintings would make the halls and stairways alive with old romance; and his copies of Turner and other landscapes would adorn the sitting-and sleeping-rooms.

John entered fully into his delight and added, "Why, Ramsby told me that there were some fine old carpets yet on the floors and Genoese velvet window-curtains lined with rose-colored satin which were not yet past use."

"Oh, delightful!" cried Harry. "We will blend Lucy's white lace ones with them. John, I am coming into the dream of my life."

"I know it, Harry. The farm is small but it will be enough. You will soon have it like a garden. Harry, you were born to live on the land and by the land, and when you get to Yoden your feverish dream of cities and their fame and fortune will pa.s.s, even from your memory. Lucy and you are going to be so busy and happy, happier than you ever were before!"

It was however several days before the change could be properly entered upon. There were points of law to settle and the packing and removal to arrange for, and though John was anxious and unhappy he could not leave Harry and Lucy until they thoroughly understood what was to be done. But how they enjoyed the old place in antic.i.p.ation! John smiled to see Harry from morning to night in deshabille as workmanlike as possible, with a foot rule or hammer constantly in his hand.

Yes, the London house was all in confusion, but Oh, what a happy confusion! Lucy was so busy, she hardly knew what to do first, but her comfortable good-temper suffused the homeliest duties of life with the sacred glow of unselfish love, and John, watching her sunny cheerfulness, said to himself,

"Surely G.o.d smiled upon her soul before it came to this earth."

In a short time Lucy had got right under the situation. She knew exactly what ought to be done and did it, being quite satisfied that Harry should spend his time in measuring accurately and packing with extremest care his pictures and curios and all the small things so large and important to himself. And it was not to Harry but to Lucy that John gave all important instructions, for he soon perceived that it was Harry's way to rush into the middle of things but never to overtake himself.

At length after ten days of unwearying superintendence, John felt that Lucy and Harry could be left to manage their own affairs. Now, we like the people we help and bless, and John during his care for his brother's family had become much attached to every member of it, for even little Agnes could now hold out her arms to him and lisp his name. So his last duty in London was to visit Harry's house and bid them all a short farewell. He found Harry measuring with his foot rule a box for one of his finest paintings. It had to be precisely of the size Harry had decided on and he was as bent on this result as if it was a matter of great importance.

"You see, John," he said, "it is a very hard thing to make the box fit the picture. It is really a difficult thing to do."

John smiled and then asked, "Why should you do it, Harry? It would be so easy _not_ to do it, or to have a man who makes a business of the work do it for you." And Harry shook his head and began the measurement of box and picture over again.

"The little chappies are asleep, John, I wouldn't disturb them. Lucy is in the nursery. You had better tell her anything that ought to be done.

I shall be sure to forget with these measurements to carry in my head."

"Put them on paper, Harry."

"The paper might get lost."

And John smiled and answered, "So it might."

So John went to the nursery and first of all to the boys' bed. Very quietly they slipped their little hands into his and told him in whispers, "Mamma is singing Agnes to sleep, and we must not make any noise." So very quiet good-bye kisses full of sweet promises were given and John turned towards Lucy. She sat in her low nursing-chair slowly rocking to-and-fro the baby in her arms. Her face was bent and smiling above it and she was singing sweet and singing low a strain from a pretty lullaby,

"O rock the sweet carnation red, And rock the silver lining, And rock my baby softly, too, With skein of silk entwining.

Come, O Sleep, from Chio's Isle!

And take my little one awhile!"

She had lost all her anxious expression. She was rosy and smiling, and looked as if she liked the nursery rhyme as well as Agnes did and that Agnes liked it was shown by the little starts with which she roused herself if she felt the song slipping away from her.

"Let me kiss the little one," said John, "and then I must bid you good-bye. We shall soon meet again, Lucy, and I am glad to leave you looking so much better."

Lucy not only looked much better, she was exceedingly beautiful. For her nature reached down to the perennial, and she had kept a child's capacity to be happy in small, everyday pleasures. It was always such an easy thing to please her and so difficult for little frets to annoy her.

Harry's inconsequent, thoughtless ways would have worried and tried some women to the uttermost, for he was frequently less thoughtful and less helpful than he should have been. But Lucy was slow to notice or to believe any wrong of her husband and even if it was made evident to her she was ready to forgive it, ready to throw over his little tempers, his hasty rudenesses, and his never-absent selfishness, the cloak of her merciful manifest love.

"What a loving little woman she is!" thought John, but really what affected him most was her constant cheerfulness. No fear could make her doubt and she welcomed the first gleam of hope with smiles that filled the house with the sunshine of her sure and fortunate expectations. How did she do it? Then there flashed across John's mind the words of the prophet Isaiah, "Thou meetest him _that rejoiceth_, and worketh righteousness." G.o.d does not go to meet the complaining and the doubting and the inefficient. He goes to meet the cheerful, the courageous and the good worker; that is, G.o.d helps those who help themselves. And G.o.d's help is not a peradventure; it is potential and mighty to save; "for our Redeemer is strong. He shall thoroughly plead our cause," in every emergency of Life.

Very early next morning John turned a happy face homeward. The hero of today has generally the ball of skepticism attached to his foot, but between John Hatton and the G.o.d he loved there was not one shadow of doubt. John knew and was sure that everything, no matter how evil it looked, would work together for good.

It was a day of misty radiance until the sun rose high and paved the clouds with fire. Then the earth was glad. The birds were singing as if they never would grow old, and, Oh, the miles and miles of green, green meadows, far, far greener than the youngest leaves on the trees! There were no secrets and no nests in the trees yet, but John knew they were coming. He could have told what kind of trees his favorite birds would choose and how they would build their nests among the branches.

Towards noon he caught the electric atmosphere pouring down the northern mountains. He saw the old pines clambering up their bulwarks, and the streams glancing and dancing down their rocky sides and over the brown plowed fields below great flocks of crows flying heavily. Then he knew that he was coming nigh to Hatton-in-Elmete and at last he saw the great elm-trees that still distinguished his native locality. Then his heart beat with a warmer, quicker tide. They blended inextricably with his thoughts of mother and wife, child and home, and he felt strongly that mystical communion between Man and Nature given to those

Whose ears have heard The Ancient Word, Who walked among the silent trees.

Not that Nature in any form or any measure had supplanted his thoughts of Jane. She had been the dominant note in every reflection during all the journey. Mountain and stream, birds and trees and shifting clouds had only served as the beautiful background against which he set her in unfading beauty and tenderness. For he was sure that she loved him and he believed that Love would yet redeem the past.

During his absence she had written him the most affectionate and charming letters and when the train reached Hatton-in-Elmete, she was waiting to receive him. He had a very pardonable pride in her appearance and the attention she attracted pleased him. In his heart he was far prouder of being Jane's husband than of being master of Hatton. She had driven down to the train in her victoria, and he took his seat proudly at her side and let his heart fully enjoy the happy ride home in the sunshine of her love.

A delightful lunch followed and John was glad that the presence of servants prevented the discussion of any subject having power to disturb this heavenly interlude. He talked of the approaching war, but as yet there was no tone of fear in his speculations about its effects. He told her of his visits to her uncle, and of the evenings they had spent together at Lord Harlow's club; or he spoke in a casual way of Harry's coming to Yoden and of little external matters connected with the change.

But as soon as they were alone Jane showed her disapproval of this movement. "Whatever is bringing your brother back to the North?" she asked. "I thought he objected both to the people and the climate."

"I advised him to take Ramsby's offer for Yoden. The children needed the country and Harry was not as I like to see him. I think they will be very happy at Yoden. Harry always liked living on the land. He was made to live on it."

"I thought he was made to fiddle and sing," said Jane with a little scornful laugh.

"He does both to perfection, but a man's likes and dislikes change, as the years go by."

"Yes, plenty of women find that out."

Her tone and manner was doubtful and unpleasant, the atmosphere of the room was chilled, and John said in a tentative manner, "I will now ride to Hatton Hall. Mother is expecting me, I know. Come with me, Jane, and I will order the victoria. It is a lovely afternoon for a drive."

"I would rather you went alone, John."

"Why, my dear?"