Jill's Red Bag Part 33

"Yeth," echoed b.u.mps, "and we've looked everywhere, and Jill says, she won't give it to another clergyman unleth he is nith!"

"Am I nice?" asked Mr. Arnold, with one of his sudden smiles.

Jill looked at him gravely.

"I will bring it to you every Sat.u.r.day," she said, "even if there's only a few half-pennies. But Sam gives us two s.h.i.+llings, and Annie threepence, and Norah and Rose give us some when we see them, so sometimes we have quite a lot. Only you'll tell us what you're going to do with it, won't you?"

"Indeed, I will. We will have a long talk about it."

"And how are all your boys and girls?" asked Jill.

Mr. Arnold's face shadowed instantly. He was looking ill and careworn; it was only in talking to the children that his face lightened up.

"Ah," he said; "my poor people! Don't remind me of them. Nothing but the doctor's orders would have made me leave them."

Then speaking to Miss Falkner, he said--

"I have been ill, otherwise you would not have seen me here. As it is, I fear I shall not find sufficient scope for my energies!"

"You have over a thousand in your parish," said Mona, "and Chilton Common and other outlying districts in addition. I should think there was scope enough for one man's energies, especially as that man has already had a serious breakdown. Now come and have some tea. Miss Webb will wonder what we are doing."

Mona carried him off, and the children did not see him again for some time.

"Miss Falkner," asked Jill one day, "why doesn't Miss Webb like Mr. Arnold? She doesn't, you know."

"Nonsense, Jill, you mustn't have such fancies."

"But it isn't fancy. I was looking at _Punch_ in the drawing-room window seat yesterday, and Miss Webb said to Mona, 'Well, all I can say is, that I wish Cecil Arnold had rather gone to Timbuctoo than come here.' And Mona said, 'Nonsense!' like you said just now, and Miss Webb said, 'I see the end. I shouldn't have been afraid a year ago.' And then she said she was sorry for poor Sir Henry Talbot. Now what did she mean, Miss Falkner?

What is the end going to be?"

"You shouldn't listen to grown-up people's talk, Jill."

"But I couldn't help hearing."

"Then you should never repeat what you hear."

Jill subsided.

Mr. Arnold delighted Jill's heart a few Sundays after his arrival by taking for his text the words: "Then the people rejoiced, for that they offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord.

"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort, for all things come of Thee and of Thine own have we given Thee."

He spoke of the different things people received from G.o.d, and how very few of them they offered back, and then in plain and simple words he touched upon the system of tenth-giving.

"There is not a little boy or girl in this church, however poor; there is not a landed proprietor, however rich, who cannot side by side give this small portion of what they receive to the service of G.o.d. The poorest labourer can spare a tenth; he will be blessed in giving it, and joy will be his portion."

And then he astonished his congregation by saying he would be in his vestry every Sat.u.r.day evening from six to eight, to accept the tenths of any of his paris.h.i.+oners who liked to bring them to him.

There was great discussion amongst his congregation afterwards.

"I have no patience with these new-fangled notions," said Miss Webb.

"Cecil always did ride a hobby, and this money question is utterly ridiculous. We are not Jews, thank goodness!"

"I think he is right," said Mona quietly.

"Oh, of course you do, my dear. He will be able to twist you round his little finger now."

Mona was silent. Jill burst in opportunely--

"I shall take my red bag every Sat.u.r.day to him, Mona. I wonder if anybody else will be there."

"You and your red bag are at the bottom of it all I do believe, Jill!" said Miss Webb laughing. "This wonderful Bethel of yours is turning every one crazy!"

Jill did not like to be laughed at. She walked on with dignity, and did not mention the subject again.

XV

"WORN OUT IN A GOOD SERVICE"

Lessons and play were the daily routine now. The children kept out of sc.r.a.pes wonderfully. Perhaps it was Miss Falkner's quick interference before real harm was done, or perhaps it was as she liked to hope, her pupils were getting more considerate of other people's feelings.

"It is their lively imagination, and their pa.s.sion for acting out what they hear or read, that works such mischief," Miss Falkner said to Mona one day when they were talking over the children. "They are reckless of consequences. Future results are never taken into consideration."

She said this when she had just stopped Jack from lighting a fire in the loft.

He was a prisoner in hiding, he informed her, and he was going to cook himself a meal. b.u.mps had been foraging for him, and had brought him a raw piece of bacon.

"I was going to be most careful," he informed her. "Of course I wouldn't light the hay. I pushed it all away, and had got quite an empty corner!"

But one day the children's energies were turned in another direction. They were all devoted to Mr. Arnold, and as he lived alone with an old housekeeper who was really fond of children, they very often found their way over to the vicarage. Sometimes he invited them to tea with him, and it was when they returned one evening from this dissipation that they announced in the drawing-room--

"We are going to get Mr. Arnold a wife!"

Miss Webb exploded with laughter. She was reading the newspaper over the fire. Mona was consulting with Miss Falkner at a table near about a certain girls' club in the village that she wished to start. She turned with a look of horror at the speaker, who of course was Jill; Miss Falkner was too accustomed to her pupils' speeches to be surprised.

"Yes," put in Jack. "There ought to be a Mrs. Arnold, like Mrs. Errington; we told him so!"

"To make his tea," said b.u.mps breathlessly, "and knit his thocks!"

"And have a pretty drawing-room and flowers," said Jill. "He doesn't sit in the drawing-room like Mr. Errington did. He sits in his study, and there ought to be a Mrs. Arnold to help him in the village."

"And what are your vicar's opinions on this important subject?" asked Miss Webb.

"We've told him we'll get him one. We know more people than he does, and we know just the sort he wants. She must be just like Mrs. Errington, only not an invalid."