The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain Part 74

'No,' said Ethel; 'at least the force to resist it had been lost, as far as we can see. It was a grievous error of your brother's to think her a child who could forget. She pined to hear of you, and that one constant effort of faith and love was too much, and wasted away the little tender body. But oh, Leonard, how truly she can say that her captivity is over, and that it has not hurt!'

'It has not hurt,' musingly repeated Leonard. 'No, she is beyond the reach of distracting temptations and sorrows; it has only made her brighter to have suffered what it breaks one's heart to think of. It has not hurt.'

'Nothing from without does hurt!' said Ethel, 'unless one lets it.'

'Hurt what?' he asked.

'The soul,' returned Ethel. 'Mind and body may be hurt, and it is not possible to know one's mind from one's soul while one is alive, but as long as the will and faith are right, to think the soul can be hurt seems to me like doubting our Protector.'

'But if the will have been astray?'

'Then while we repent, we must not doubt our Redeemer.'

d.i.c.kie ran in at the moment, calling for Aunt Ethel. She had dropped her m.u.f.f. Leonard picked it up, and as she took it, he wrung her hand with an earnestness that showed his grat.i.tude.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Tender as woman; manliness and meekness In him were so allied, That those who judged him by his strength or weakness, Knew but a single side.--J. WHITTIER

It promised to be a brilliant Christmas at Stoneborough, though little d.i.c.kie regarded the feast coming in winter as a perverse English innovation, and was grand on the superiority of supple jack above holly. Decorations had been gradually making their way into the Minster, and had advanced from being just tolerated to being absolutely delighted in; but Dr. Spencer, with his knack of doing everything, was sorely missed as a head, and Mr. Wilmot insisted that the May forces should come down and work the Minster, on the 23rd, leaving the Eve for the adornment of c.o.c.ksmoor, after the return of its inc.u.mbent. Mary, always highly efficient in that line, joined them; and Leonard's handiness and dexterity in the arts relating to carpentry were as quietly useful as little d.i.c.kie's bright readiness in always handing whatever was wanting.

The work was pretty well over, when Aubrey, who had just arrived with leave for a week, came down, and made it desultory. d.i.c.kie, whose imagination had been a good deal occupied by his soldier uncle, wanted to study him, and Gertrude was never steady when Aubrey was near.

Presently it was discovered that the door to the tower stair was open.

The ascent of the tower was a feat performed two or three times in a lifetime at Stoneborough. Harry had once beguiled Ethel and Mary up, but Gertrude had never gone, and was crazy to go, as was likewise d.i.c.kie. Moreover, Aubrey and Gertrude insisted that it was only proper that Ethel should pay her respects to her prototype the gurgoyle, they wanted to compare her with him, and ordered her up; in fact their spirits were too high for them to be at ease within the church, and Ethel, maugre her thirty years, partook of the exhilaration enough to delight in an extraordinary enterprise, and as nothing remained but a little sweeping up, they left this to the superintendence of Mary and Mr. Wilmot, and embarked upon the narrow crumbling steps of the spiral stair, that led up within an unnatural thickening of one of the great piers that supported the tower, at the intersection of nave and transepts. After a long period of dust and darkness, and the monotony of always going with the same leg foremost, came a narrow door, leading to the ringers' region, with all their ropes hanging down. Ethel was thankful when she had got her youngsters past without an essay on them; she doubted if she should have succeeded, but for Leonard's being an element of soberness. Other little doors ensued, leading out to the various elevations of roof, which were at all sorts of different heights, the chancel lower than the nave, and one transept than the other; besides that the nave had both triforium and clerestory. It was a sort of labyrinth, and they wondered whether any one, except perhaps the plumber's foreman knew his way among all the doors. Then there was one leading inwards to the eight bells--from whose fascinations Ethel thought d.i.c.kie never would be taken away--and still more charming, to the clock, which clanged a tremendous three, as they were in the act of looking at it, causing Leonard to make a great start, and then colour painfully. It was hard to believe, as Daisy said, that the old tower, that looked so short and squat below, could be so very high when you came to go up it; but the glimpses of the country, through the little loop-hole windows, were most inviting. At last, Aubrey, who was foremost, pushed up the trap-door, and emerged; but, as d.i.c.kie followed him, exclaimed, 'Here we are; but you ladies in crinolines will never follow! You'll stick fast for ever, and Leonard can't pa.s.s, so there you'll all have to stay.'

'Aunt Daisy will sail away like a balloon,' added d.i.c.kie, roguishly, looking back at her, and holding on his cap.

But Gertrude vigorously compressed her hoop, and squeezed through, followed by Ethel and Leonard. There was a considerable s.p.a.ce, square, leaded and protected by the battlemented parapet, with a deep moulding round, and a gutter resulting in the pipe smoked by Ethel's likeness, the gurgoyle. Of course the first thing d.i.c.kie and Aubrey did was to look for the letters that commemorated the ascent of H. M., E. M., M.

M., in 1852; and it was equally needful that R. R. M., if n.o.body else, should likewise leave a record on the leads. There was an R. M. of 1820, that made it impossible to gainsay him. The view was not grand in itself, but there was a considerable charm in looking down on the rooks in their leafless trees, cawing over their old nests, and in seeing the roofs of the town; far away, too, the gray Welsh hills, and between, the country lying like a map, with rivers traced in light instead of black. Leonard stood still, his face turned towards the greenest of the meadows, and the river where it dashed over the wheel of a mill.

'Have you seen it again?' asked Ethel, as she stood by him, and watched his eye.

'No. I am rather glad to see it first from so far off,' he answered, 'I mean to walk over some day.'

'Ethel,' called Gertrude, 'is this your gurgoyle? His profile, as seen from above, isn't flattering.'

'O, Daisy, don't lean over so far.'

'Quite safe;' but at that instant a gust of wind caught her hat, she grasped at it, but only saved it from whirling away, and made it fall short. 'There, Ethel, your image has put on my hat; and henceforth will appear to the wondering city in a black hat and feather!'

'I'll get it,' exclaimed the ever ready d.i.c.kie; and in another moment he had mounted the parapet and was reaching for it. Whether it were Gertrude's shriek, or the natural recoil away from the grasping hand, or that his hold on the side of the adjoining pinnacle was insecure, he lost his balance, and with a sudden cry, vanished from their eyes.

The frightful consternation of that moment none of those four could ever bear to recall; the next, they remembered that he could only fall as far as the roof, but it was Ethel and Leonard alone who durst press to the parapet, and at the same moment a cry came up--

'Oh, come! I'm holding on, but it cuts! Oh, come!'

Ethel saw, some five-and-twenty feet below, the little boy upon the transept roof, a smooth slope of lead, only broken by a skylight, a bit of churchwarden's architecture still remaining. The child had gone crashing against the window, and now lay back clinging to its iron frame. Behind him was the entire height within to the church floor, before him a rapid slope, ended by a course of stone, wide enough indeed to walk on, but too narrow to check the impetus from slipping down the inclination above. Ethel's brain swam; she just perceived that both Aubrey and Leonard had disappeared, and then had barely power to support Gertrude, who reeled against her, giddy with horror. 'Oh look, look, Ethel,' she cried; 'I can't. Where is he?'

'There! Yes, hold on, d.i.c.kie, they are coming. Look up--not down--hold on!'

A door opened, and out dashed Aubrey! Alas! it was on the nave clerestory; he might as well have been a hundred, miles off. Another door, and Leonard appeared, and on the right level, but with a giddy unguarded ridge on which to pa.s.s round the angle of the tower. She saw his head pa.s.s safely round, but, even then, the horror was not over.

Could he steady himself sufficiently to reach the child, or might not d.i.c.kie lose hold too soon? It was too close below for sight, the moulding and gurgoyle impeded her agonized view, but she saw the child's look of joyful relief, she heard the steady voice, 'Wait, don't let go yet. There,' and after a few more sounds, came up a shout, 'all right!' Infinitely relieved, she had to give her whole attention to poor Gertrude, who, overset by the accident, giddy with the attempt to look over, horrified by the danger, confused and distressed by the hair that came wildly flapping about her head and face, and by the puffs of wind at her hoop, had sunk down in the centre of the little leaden square, clinging with all her might to the staff of the weatherc.o.c.k, and feeling as if the whole tower were rocking with her, absolutely seeing the battlements dance. How was she ever to be safely got down the rickety ladder leading to the crumbling stone stair? Ethel knelt by her, twisted up the fluttering hair, bade her shut her eyes and compose her thoughts, and then called over the battlements to Aubrey, who, confused by the shock, continued to emerge at wrong doors and lose himself on the roofs, and was like one in a bad dream, nearly as much dizzied as his sister, to whose help he came the more readily, as the way up was the only one plain before him.

The detention would have been more dreadful to Ethel had she known all that was pa.s.sing below, and that when the little boy, at Leonard's sign, lowered himself towards the out-reaching arms of the young man, who was steadying himself against the wall of the tower, it was with a look of great pain, and leaving a trail of blood behind him. When, at length, he stood at the angle, Leonard calmly said, 'Now go before me, round that corner, in at the door. Hold by the wall, I'll hold your shoulder.' The boy implicitly obeyed, the notion of giddiness never seemed to occur to him, and both safely came to the little door, on the threshold of which Leonard sat down, and lifting him on his knee, asked where he was hurt? 'My leg,' said d.i.c.kie, 'the gla.s.s was running in all the time, and I could not move; but it does not hurt so much now.'

Perhaps not; but a large piece of gla.s.s had broken into the slender little calf, and Leonard steadied himself to withdraw it, as, happily, the fragment was large enough to give a hold for his hand. The sensible little fellow, without a word, held up the limb across Leonard's knee, and threw an arm round his neck, to hold himself still, just saying, 'Thank you,' when it was over.

'Did it hurt much, d.i.c.kie?'

'Not very much,' he answered; 'but how it bleeds! Where's Aunt Ethel?'

'On the tower. She will come in a moment,' said Leonard, startled by the exceeding flow of blood, and binding the gash round with his handkerchief. 'Now, I'll carry you down.'

The boy did not speak all the weary winding way down the dark stairs; but Leonard heard gasps of oppression, and felt the head lean on his shoulder; moreover, a touch convinced him that the handkerchief was soaking, nay dripping, and when he issued at length into the free air of the church, the face was deadly white. No one was near, and Leonard laid him on a bench. He was still conscious, and looked up with languid eyes. 'Mayn't I go home?' he said, faintly; 'Aunt Ethel!'

'Let me try to stop this bleeding first,' said Leonard. 'My dear little man, if you will only be quiet, I think I can.'

Leonard took the handkerchief from his throat, and wound it to its tightest just above the hurt, d.i.c.kie remonstrating for a moment with, 'That's not the place. It is too tight.'

'It will cut off the blood from coming,' said Leonard; and in the same understanding way, the child submitted, feebly asking, 'Shall I bleed to death? Mamma will be so sorry!'

'I trust--I hope not,' said Leonard; he durst utter no encouragement, for the life-blood continued to pour forth unchecked, and the next murmur was, 'I'm so sick. I can't say my prayers. Papa! Mamma!'

Already, however, Leonard had torn down a holly bough, and twisted off (he would have given worlds for a knife) a short stout stick, which he thrust into one of the folds of the ligature, and pulled it much tighter, so that his answer was, 'Thank G.o.d, d.i.c.kie, that will do! the bleeding has stopped. You must not mind if it hurts for a little while.'

An e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of 'Poor little dear,' here made him aware of the presence of the s.e.xton's wife; but in reply to her offer to carry him in to Mrs. Cheviot's, d.i.c.kie faintly answered, 'Please let me go home;'

and Leonard, 'Yes, I will take him home. Tell Miss May it is a cut from the gla.s.s, I am taking him to have it dressed, and will bring him home. Now, my dear little patient fellow, can you put your arms round my neck?'

Sensible, according to both meanings of the word, d.i.c.kie clasped his friend's neck, and laid his head on his shoulder, not speaking again till he found Leonard was not turning towards the High Street, when he said, 'That is not the way home.'

'No, d.i.c.kie, but we must get your leg bound up directly, and the hospital is the only place where we can be sure of finding any one to do it. I will take you home directly afterwards.'

'Thank you,' said the courteous little gentleman; and in a few minutes more Leonard had rung the bell, and begged the house surgeon would come at once to Dr. May's grandson. A few drops of stimulant much revived d.i.c.kie, and he showed perfect trust and composure, only holding Leonard's hands, and now and then begging to know what they were doing, while he was turned over on his face for the dressing of the wound, bearing all without a sound, except an occasional sobbing gasp, accompanied by a squeeze of Leonard's finger. Just as this business had been completed, the surgeon exclaimed, 'There's Dr. May's step,'

and d.i.c.kie at once sat up, as his grandfather hurried in, nearly as pale as the boy himself. 'O, grandpapa, never mind, it is almost well now; and has Aunt Daisy got her hat?'

'What is it, my dear? what have you been doing?' said the Doctor, looking in amazement from the boy to Leonard, who was covered with blood. 'They told me you had fallen off the Minster tower!'

'Yes I did,' said d.i.c.kie; 'I reached after Aunt Daisy's hat, but I fell on the roof, and I was sliding, sliding down to the wall, but there was a window, and the gla.s.s broke and cut me, but I got my feet against the bottom of it, and held on by the iron bar, till Leonard came and took me down;' and he lay back on the pillow, quiet and exhausted, but bright-eyed and attentive as ever, listening to Leonard's equally brief version of the adventure.

'Didn't he save my life, grandpapa?' said the boy, at the close.

'Twice over, you may say,' added the surgeon, and his words as to the nature of the injury manifested that all had depended on the immediate stoppage of the haemorrhage. With so young a child, delay from indecision or want of resource would probably have been fatal.

'There would have been no doing anything, if this little man had not been so good and sensible,' said Leonard, leaning over him.

'And I did not cry. You will tell papa I did not cry,' said d.i.c.kie, eagerly, but only half gratified by such girlish treatment as that agitated kiss of his grandfather, after being a little bit of a hero; but then d.i.c.kie's wondering eyes really beheld such another kiss bestowed over his head upon Leonard, and quite thought there were tears on grandpapa's cheeks. Perhaps old gentlemen could do what was childish in little boys.