The Old Helmet Volume II Part 56

"No, but now. I wish you would, so as to make me realize that you are the same person."

"I am not the same person at all!" he said.

"Why are you not?" said Eleanor opening her eyes at him.

"In those days I was your pastor and friend simply. The difference is, that I have acquired the right to love you--take care of you--and scold you."

"It seems to me that last was a privilege you exercised occasionally in those times," said Eleanor archly.

"Not at all! In those days I was a poor fellow that did not dare say a word to you."

Eleanor's recollections were of sundry exceptions to this rule, so marked and prominent in her memory that she could not help laughing.

"O Mr. Rhys, don't you remember--"

"What?" said he with the utmost gravity.

But Eleanor had stopped, and coloured now brilliantly.

"It seems that your recollections are of a questionable character," he said. Eleanor did not deny it.

"What is it you wish me _not_ to remember?"

"It was a time when you said I was very wrong," said Eleanor meekly, "so do not call it back."

He bent forward to kiss her, which did not steady Eleanor's thoughts at all.

"Do you want preaching?" he said.

"Yes indeed! It will do me good."

"I will give you some words to think of, that I lived in all yesterday.

'Beloved of G.o.d.' They are wonderful words, that Paul says belong to all the saints; and they were about me yesterday like a halo of glory, from morning to night."

Now Eleanor was all right; now she recognized Mr. Rhys and herself, and listened to every word with her old delight in them. Now she could use her eyes and look at him, though she well saw that he was considering her with that full, moved tenderness that she had felt in him all day; even when he was talking and thinking of other things he did not cease to remember _her_.

"Eleanor, what do you know about the meaning of those words?"

"Little!" she said. "And yet, a little."

"You know that _we_ were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols--or after others in our own hearts--as helplessly as the poor heathen around us. But we have got the benefit of that word,--'I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.'"

"Yes!"

"Then look at our privileges--'The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between is shoulders.'--Heavenly security; unearthly joy; a hiding-place where the troubles of earth cannot reach us."

Mr. Rhys left his position before Eleanor at this, and with a brow all alight with its thoughts began to pace up and down in front of her; just as he had done at Pla.s.sy, she remembered. She ventured not a word.

Her heart was very full.

"Then look how we are bidden to increase our rejoicing and to delight ourselves in the store laid up for us; we are not only safe and happy, but fed with dainties. All things are ready; Christ says he will sup with us; and we are bidden--'Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved.' 'He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.'

"And then, Eleanor, if we are the elect of G.o.d, holy and beloved, what bowels of mercies should be in us; how precious all other beloved of him should be to us; how we should be constrained by his love. Are you?

I am. I am willing to spend and be spent for these people among whom we are. I am sure there are many, many children of G.o.d among them, come and coming. I seek no better than to labour for them. It is the delight of my soul! Eleanor, how is it with you?"

He had stood still before her during these last words, and now sat down again, taking her hands and looking with his undeceivable gaze into her face.

"I desire the same thing. I dare not say, I desire it as strongly as you do,--but it is my very wish."

"Is it for the love of Christ--or for love of these poor creatures? or for any other reason?"

"I can hardly separate the first two," said Eleanor, looking a little wistfully. "The love of Christ is at the bottom of it all."

"There is no other motive," he said; "no other that will do the work; nothing else that will work true love to them. But when I think of my Master--I am willing to do or be anything, I think, in his service!"

He quitted her hands and began slowly walking up and down again.

"Mr. Rhys," said Eleanor, "what can I do?"

"Are you ready to encounter disagreeablenesses, and hardships, and privations, in the work?"

"Yes; and discouragements."

"There are no such things. There ought to be no such things. I never feel nor have felt discouraged. That is want of faith. Do you remember, Eleanor, 'The clouds are the dust of his feet?' Think--our eyes are blinded by the dust, we look at nothing else, and we do not see the glory of the steps that are taken."

"That is true. O Mr. Rhys, that is glorious!"

"Then you are not afraid? I forewarn you, little annoyances are sometimes harder to bear than great ones. It is one of the most trying things that I have to meet," said Mr. Rhys standing still with a funny face,--"to have Ra Mbombo's beard sweep my plate when I am at dinner."

"What does he do that for?"

"He is so fond of me."

"That is being too fond, certainly."

"It is an excess of affectionate attention,--he gets so close to me that we have a community of things. And you will have, Eleanor, some days, a perpetual levee of visitors. But what is all that, for Christ?"

"I am not afraid," said Eleanor with a most unruffled smile.

"I wrote to frighten you."

"But I was not frightened. Are things no better in the islands than when you wrote?"

"Changing--changing every day; from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to G.o.d. Literally. There are heathen temples here, in which a few years ago if a woman or a child had dared cross the threshold they would have been done to death immediately. Now those very temples are used as our schools. On our way to the chapel we shall pa.s.s almost over a place where there used to be one of the ovens for cooking human bodies; now the gra.s.s and wild tomatoes are growing over it. I can take you to house after house, where men and women used to be eaten, where now if you stand to listen you may hear hymns of praise to Jesus and prayer going up in his name. Praise the Lord! It is grand to be permitted to live in Fiji now!"--

Eleanor was hushed and silent a few minutes, while Mr. Rhys walked slowly up and down. Then she spoke with her eyes full of sympathetic tears.

"Mr. Rhys, what can I do?"

"What you have to do at present," he said with a change of tone, "is to take care of me and learn the language,--both languages, I should say!