David Fleming's Forgiveness Part 25

He put on his dry coat over his wet garments, and no one seemed to notice as he entered the Grove. No rumour of the accident had as yet spread through the crowd, and Davie spoke only to Miss Elizabeth, as he met her on the way home with her father. Happily the father and mother knew nothing of the matter, till by and by the boy, wrapped in one of Mrs Fleming's best blankets, was carried and set with his bundle of wet clothes in the hall. It was his uncle Clifton who took him home, and all that he could tell about the matter was that he had fallen into the Black Pool, and somebody had taken him out.

Dan Green kept his own counsel, running straight home and putting himself to bed. After his first sleep, however, he woke in such a fright that he could keep the tale no longer, but told it to his mother with many sobs and tears. His mother soothed and comforted him, believing that he had been startled out of a troubled dream. But the next day the story was told in Gershom at least a thousand times; and when Davie went into the post-office for his grandfather's weekly paper, he heard, with mingled amazement and disgust, extravagant praises of his courage in saving the boy's life.

"Courage? Nonsense! Risk? Stuff!" He never bathed in Black Pool that he did not dive in at one side and come out at the other. Why, his little brother could do that. There was no more danger for them than for a musk-rat, and Davie hurried away to escape more words about it, and to avoid meeting Mr Maxwell and his friends, who were coming down the street. In his haste he nearly stumbled over Jacob Holt, who held him fast, and that was worse than all the rest. For Jacob could not utter a word, but choked and mumbled and shook his hand a great many times, and when David fairly got away, he vowed that he should not be seen at the post-office again for a while, and he was not, but it was for a better reason than he gave to himself then.

For Davie went about all next day with a heavy weight upon him, and a dull aching at his bones, as new as it was painful. He refused his dinner, and grew sick at the sight of his supper; and tossed, and turned, and muttered all night upon his bed, longing for the day. But the slow-coming light made him wish for the darkness again, for it dazzled his heavy eyes, and put strange shapes on the most familiar objects, and set them all in motion in the oddest way. A queer sort of light it seemed to be, for though he closed his eyes he did not shut it out, and the changes on things and the odd movements seemed to be going on still within the lids.

So in a little he rose and dressed, and roused his brothers to bring the cows into the yard, meaning to help as usual with the milking. But the milking was done and the breakfast over, and wors.h.i.+p, and no one had seen Davie. He was lying tossing and muttering on the hay in the big barn, and there at last, in the course of his morning's work, his grandfather found him. He turned a dull, dazed look upon him as he raised himself up, but he did not speak.

"Are you no' well, Davie? Why did you no' come to your breakfast?"

"I'm coming," said Davie, but he did not move.

His grandfather touched his burning hand and his heart sank.

"Come awa' to your grandmother."

"Yes, we'll go to grannie," said Davie.

Blinded by the sunlight, he staggered on, and his grandfather put his arm about him. Mrs Fleming met them at the door as they drew near.

"What can ail the laddie?" asked his grandfather, with terror in his eyes.

They made him sit down, and Katie brought some cold water. He drank some and put some on his head, and declared himself better.

"It is some trash that he has eaten at that weary picnic," said grannie.

"No, grannie, I hadna a chance to eat."

"And you have eaten little since. Well, never mind. You'll go to your bed, and I'll get your mother to make you some of her herb tea."

"And I'll be better the morn, grannie," said Davie, with an uncertain smile.

He drank his mother's bitter infusion, and tossed and turned and moaned and muttered, all day and all night, and for many days and nights, till weeks had pa.s.sed away, and a time of sore trial it was to them all.

He was never very ill, they said. He was never many hours together that he did not know those who were about his bed, and young Dr Wainwright, who came every day to see him, never allowed that he was in great danger. But as day after day went on, and he was no better, their hearts grew sick with hope deferred. Grannie alone never gave way to fear. She grew weak and weary, and could only sit beside him, little able to help him; but he never opened his eyes but her cheerful smile greeted him, and her cheerful words encouraged him. His mother waited on him for a while, but she was not strong, and had no spring of hope within her. Katie worked all day and watched all night, and scorned the idea of weariness, but the Ythan water that trickled around her milk-pans in the dairy, carried daily some tears of hers down to the Black Pool.

"It is grandfather I'm thinking about," said she one day when she burst out crying in Miss Betsey's sight. "I am afraid I shall never be able to keep from thinking that G.o.d has been hard on grandfather, if anything should happen to Davie."

"But G.o.d is not hard on your grandfather and there is nothing going to happen to Davie," said Betsey, too honest to reprove the girl for the expression of thoughts which she had not been able to keep out of her own mind. It was the plunge into the Black Pool and the going about afterward in his wet clothes that had brought on this illness, and that it should be G.o.d's will that David Fleming's grandson, his hope and stay, should lose his health, perhaps his life, in saving the son of Jacob Holt, looked to Miss Betsey a terrible mystery. She did not say that G.o.d was hard on him, as poor Katie was afraid of doing; but when, now and then, there came a half hour when it seemed doubtful whether Davie would get through, the thought that G.o.d would not afflict His servant to the uttermost helped her to still hope for the lad. As far as words and deeds went, she showed herself always hopeful for him, and did more than even the doctor himself in helping him to pull through.

In country places like Gershom, where professional nurses were not often to be found, when severe sickness comes into a family necessitating constant attention by night as well as by day, the neighbours, far and near, might be relied upon for help, as far as it could be given by persons coming and going for a night or a day. The Flemings had had severe sickness among them more than once, but they had never called on their neighbours for help, and they could not bring themselves to do so now, even for night-watching. That she should trust Davie to any of the kind young fellows who night after night offered, their services, was to grannie impossible. She did not doubt their good-will, but she doubted their wisdom and their power to keep awake after their long day's work.

"And it is no' our way," said Mrs Fleming, and that ended the discussions, as it had ended them on former occasions.

"But they never can get through it alone this time," said Miss Betsey, "and I don't know but it is my duty to see about it, as much as anybody."

It was just in the hot days in the beginning of August when Betsey was wont to give up b.u.t.ter-making and set to the making of cheese, the very worst time of the year for her to get away from home. But she saw no help for it.

"You must do the best you can, mother, you and Cynthy, and Ben will give what help you need with the lifting. If I should never make another cheese as long as I live, I can't let Mrs Fleming wear herself out, and maybe lose her boy after all."

So Miss Betsey went over one morning "to inquire," she said, and some trifling help being needed for a minute, she took off her bonnet, and "concluded to stay a spell," and that night Ben brought her bag over which she had packed in the morning, and she stayed as long as she was needed, to the help and comfort of them all.

As for the grandfather, it went hard with him these days. He was outwardly silent and grave as usual, giving no voice to the anxiety that devoured him. But at night when his wife slumbered, worn out with the day's watching, or when she seemed to slumber, and in Pine-tree Hollow, which in the time of his former troubles had become to him a refuge and a sanctuary, his cry ascended to G.o.d in an agony of confession and entreaty. He, too, wondered that it should be G.o.d's will that the child of his enemy should be saved, and his child's life made the sacrifice; but he did not consciously rebel against that will. It was G.o.d's doing; Davie had not even known whose child it was whom he tried to save. This was G.o.d's doing from beginning to end.

Far be it from him to rebel against G.o.d, he said to his wife when, fearing for him and all that he might be thinking, she spoke to him about it. It was a terrible trouble, but it did not embitter him as former trouble had done, and his enemy had fewer of his thoughts at this time than might have been supposed.

But he had not forgiven him. He knew in his heart that he had not forgiven him. When Jacob came with his wife, grateful and sorry, and eager to do something to express it, he kept quiet in a corner of Davie's room, into which they were not permitted to enter. Mrs Fleming said all that was needful on the occasion, and when Jacob broke down and could not speak of his boy who had been given back to them almost from the dead, she laid her hand gently upon his arm and said, "Let G.o.d's goodness make a better man of you," and even Mrs Jacob did not feel like resenting the words. But there was no one who could help them in their present trouble, she repeated, as they went sorrowfully away.

No one except Miss Betsey, grannie felt gratefully, as she turned into the house again--Miss Betsey, who seemed made of iron, and never owned to being tired. She slept one night in three, when Katie and her mother kept the watching, and at other times she took "catnaps" in the rocking-chair, or on Mrs Fleming's bed, when grannie was at her brightest and could care for Davie in the early part of the day.

And poor Davie tossed and muttered through many days and nights, never so delirious as to have forgotten the summer's work, but never quite clear in his mind, and always struggling with some unknown power that, against his will, kept him back from doing his part in it. Till one day he looked into his grandfather's face with comprehending eyes, and said weakly, but clearly:

"It must be time for the cutting of the wheat, grandfather; I have been sick a good while, surely?"

"Ay, have you; a good while. But you are better now, the doctor says.

But never heed about the cutting of the wheat. Mark Varney has done all that, and more. We have had a good harvest, Davie."

"Have we, grandfather?" said Davie, looking with surprise and dismay at the tears on his grandfather's face.

"G.o.d has been good to us, laddie," said Mr Fleming, trying to speak calmly, and then he rose and went out.

"So we've had a good harvest, have we? And Mark Varney! I wonder where he turned up. Oh, well! it's all right I daresay--and--I'm tired already." And he turned his head on the pillow and fell asleep.

Yes, Mark Varney had taken Davie's work into his own hand. He came over with Mr Maxwell as soon as he heard the lad was ill. He made no formal offer of help, but just set himself to do what was to be done. He had all his own way about it, for Mr Fleming was too anxious to take much heed of the work, since some one else had taken it in hand; and no one knew better how work should be done than Mark. He had all the help he needed, for the neighbours were glad to offer help, and give it, too, in this time of need. The harvest was got through and the grain housed as successfully as the hay had been before Davie, lank and stooping, crept out over the fields of Ythan.

It was Sunday afternoon again when Katie and he went slowly down the brae toward the cherry-trees. Their grandfather and grandmother looked after them with loving eyes.

"The Lord is ay kind," said Mrs Fleming, and then she read the 103rd Psalm in the old Scottish version, which she "whiles" liked to do. She paused now and then because her voice trembled, and on some of the verses she lingered, reading them twice over, seeking from her husband audible a.s.sent to the comfort they gave:

"'The Lord our G.o.d is merciful, And He is gracious, Long-suffering, and slow to wrath, In mercy plenteous.'

"Ay is He! as we ken well this day. And again:--

"'Such pity as a father hath Unto his children dear, Like pity shows the Lord to such As wors.h.i.+p Him in fear.'

"'Such pity as a father hath.' We ken well what that means, Dawvid; a father's pity; such pity and love as we felt for our Davie, when he lay tossing in his bed, poor laddie. And--as we felt for--him that's gone--"

She could say no more at the moment, even if it would have been wise to do so. But by and by she rose and came toward him, and standing half behind him, laying her soft, wrinkled old hand on his grey head, she said softly:

"If I could but hear you say that you forgive--Jacob Holt!"

Then there was a long silence in which she did not move.

"Because--I have been thinking that the Lord let our laddie do that-- good turn for His--to put us in mind--" Again she paused. "And I would fain hear you say it, for His sake who has loved us, and forgiven so much to us."

"I wish him no ill. I wouldna hurt a hair of his head. I leave him in G.o.d's hands."

He spoke huskily, with long pauses between the sentences. Whether he would have said more or not she could not tell. There was no time for more, for the bairns came in with their mother from the Sunday-school, and quiet was at an end for the moment.