There & Back Part 32

"But how will you get home after?"

"As I came, of course. Don't trouble yourself about me; I can look after myself."

"But if they should have fastened the library-window?"

"Then I will take refuge with mother Night. There will be room enough in the park. Perhaps I may go to roost in that beech-tree. Don't you think about me. I shall come to no harm. Go at once and fetch the pony-cart."

Richard set off running, and came to his grandfather's while it was yet unreviving night; but he had little difficulty in rousing the old man.

He told him all he knew about Alice, as well as the plight in which he had found her. Simon looked grave when he heard how his daughter had come between Richard and his friends. He hurried on his clothes, put the pony to, and got into the cart: he would himself fetch the girl! In another moment they were spinning along the gray road.

When they reached the hut, there was Barbara standing sentry near the door. She went and talked to Simon. Richard got down and went in. He found Alice wide awake, staring into the fire, with a look that brought a great rush of pity into his heart afresh. Remembering how the girl had shrunk from him before, he feared himself unfit to help, and knew himself unable to comfort her. For the first time he vaguely felt that there might be troubles needing a hand which neither man nor woman could hold out. Their kind hostess had crept into bed beside her husband, and was snoring as loud as he. Without a word he wrapped Alice in the blanket he had brought, and taking her once more in his arms, carried her to the cart. Leaning down from his perch, the st.u.r.dy old man received her in his, placed her comfortably beside him, put his arm round her, and with a nod to Barbara, and never a word to his grandson, drove away. Richard knew his rugged goodness too well to mind how he treated him, and was confident in him for Alice, as one to do not less but more than he promised. He was thus free to walk home with Barbara, glad at heart to know Alice in harbour, but a little anxious until Miss Wylder should be safe shut in her chamber.

CHAPTER XXVIII. _BARBARA AND LADY ANN._

As they went, neither said much. Both seemed to avoid the subject of their conversation as they came. They talked of poetry and fiction, and did not differ. Though Barbara there also had precious insights, happily she had no opinions.

When they reached a certain point, Richard drew back, and, from a coign of vantage, saw Barbara try the study-window and fail. He then followed her as she went round to the door, and, still covertly, saw her ring the bell. The door was opened with what seemed to him a portentous celerity, and she disappeared. He turned away into the park, and wandered about, revolving many things, till by slow gradations the sky's gray idea unfolded to a brilliant conviction, and, lo, there was the morning, not to be controverted! But he took care to let the house not only come awake, but come to its senses, before he sought admission. When it seemed well astir, he rang the bell; and when the door, after some delay, was opened, he went straight to the library, and was fairly at work by five o'clock.

He saw nothing of Barbara all day, or indeed of any of the family except Vixen, who looked in, made a face at him, and went away, leaving the door open. At eight o'clock he had his breakfast, and at nine he was again in the library; so that by lunch-time he had been seven of his eight hours at work, and by half-past two found himself free to go to his grandfather's and inquire after Alice.

On his way to the road through the park, he met Arthur Lestrange.

Richard touched his hat as was his wont, and would have pa.s.sed, but, with no friendly expression on his countenance, Arthur stopped.

"Where are you going, Tuke?" he said.

"I am going to my grandfather's, sir," answered Richard.

"Excuse me, but your day's work is not over by many hours yet."

Richard found his temper growing troublesome, but tried hard to keep it in hand.

"If you remember, sir," he said, "our agreement mentioned no hour for beginning or leaving off work."

"That is true, but you undertook to give me eight hours of your day!"

"Yes, sir. I was at work by five o'clock this morning, and have given you more than eight hours."

"Hm!" said Arthur.

"I am quite as anxious," pursued Richard, "to fulfill my engagement, as you can be to have it fulfilled."

Arthur said nothing.

"Ask Thomas, who let me in this morning," resumed Richard, "whether I was not at work in the library by five o'clock."

It went a good deal against the grain with Richard to appeal to any witness for corroboration: he was proud of being a man of his word; but although not greatly anxious to keep his temporary position, he was anxious the compact should not be broken through anything he did or said.

"Let you in?" exclaimed Arthur; "--let you in before five o'clock in the morning? Then you were out all night!"

"I was."

"That cannot be permitted."

"I am surely right in believing that, when my work is over, I am my own master! I had something to do that must be done. My grandfather knows all I was about!"

"Oh, yes, I remember! old Simon Armour, the blacksmith!" returned Arthur. "But," he went on, plainly softening a little, "you ought not to work for him while you are in my employment."

"I know that, sir; and if I wanted, my grandfather would not let me.

While my work is yours, it is all yours, sir."

With that he turned, and left Arthur where he stood a little relieved, though now annoyed as well that a man in his employment should not have waited to be dismissed. Hastening to the smithy, he found his grandfather putting off his ap.r.o.n to go home for a cup of tea.

"Oh, there you are!" he said. "I thought we should be catching sight of you before long!"

"How's Alice, grandfather? You might be sure I should want to know!"

"She's been asleep all day, the best thing for her!"

"I hope, grandfather," said Richard, for Simon's tone troubled him a little, "you are not vexed with me! I a.s.sure you I had nothing to do with her coming down here--that I know of. You would not have had me leave her sitting there, out on that stone in the moonlight, all night long, a ghost before her time without a grave to go to? She would have been dead before the morning! She must have been! I am certain _you_ would not have left her there!"

"G.o.d forbid, lad! If you thought me out of temper with you, it was a mistake. I confess the thing does bother me, but I'm not blaming _you_.

You acted like a Christian."

Richard hardly relished the mode of his grandfather's approbation. A man ought to do the right thing because he was a man, not because he was something else than a man! He had yet to learn that a man and a Christian are precisely and entirely the same thing; that a being who is not a Christian is not a man. I perfectly know how absurd this must seem to many, but such do not see what I see. No one, however strong he may feel his obligations, will ever be man enough to fulfill them except he be a Christian--that is, one who, like Christ, cares first for the will of the Father. One who thinks he can meet his obligations now, can have no idea what is required of him in virtue of his being what he is--no idea of what his own nature requires of him. So much is required that nothing more could be required. Let him ask himself whether he is doing what he requires of himself. If he answer, "I can do it without Christianity anyway," I reply, "Do it; try to do it, and I know where the honest endeavour will bring you. Don't try to do it, and you are not man enough to be worth reasoning with."

Simon and his grandson had not yet turned the corner, when Richard heard a snort he knew: there, sure enough, stood Miss Brown, hitched to the garden-paling, peaceable but impatient.

"Miss Wylder here!" said Richard.

"Yes, lad! She's been here an hour and more. Jessie came and told me, but I knew it: I heard the mare, and knew the sound of my own shoes on her!--I doubt if she'll stand it much longer though!" he added, as she pawed the road. "Well, she's a fine creature!"

"Yes, she's a good mare!"

"I don't mean the mare! I mean the mistress!"

"Miss Wylder is just n.o.ble!" said Richard. "But I'm afraid she got into trouble last night!"

"It don't sound much like it!" returned the old man, as Barbara's musical, bird-like laugh came from the cottage. "She ain't breaking her heart!--Alice, as you call her, must be doing well, or missie wouldn't be laughing like that!"

As they entered, Barbara came gliding down the perpendicular stair in front of them, her face yet radiant with the shadow of the laugh they had heard.

"Good morning, Mr. Armour!" she said. "--I did not expect to see you so soon again, Mr. Tuke. Will you put me up!"

Richard released Miss Brown, got her into position, and gave his hand to Barbara's foot, as he had seen Mr. Lestrange do. But lifting, he nearly threw her over Miss Brown's back. She burst into her lovely laugh, clutched at a pommel, and held fast.

"I'm not quite ready to go to heaven all at once!" she said.