Anxious Audrey Part 18

"I--I am awfully sorry, but mine is spread over Rudolph."

"Never mind, don't take it away from him." Debby's tears flew fast again.

"But I wish I knew where mine was, it's--it's rather awkward."

At that moment, though, the rest of the family came up, and Audrey, who, true to a habit taught her by her grandmother, always carried two, provided the little mourner with the much-needed handkerchief.

But though she provided for her wants Audrey was thoroughly vexed and upset with the little mourner. It seemed to her that the two children really did go out of their way to spoil everyone's enjoyment.

Her eye fell on Tom standing close beside her. "It all comes of your naughtiness in the first place," she said irritably, "if you hadn't brought all these animals up here we might all have had some pleasure, and Rudolph would have been alive and happy. Now you and Debby have the satisfaction of knowing that by your behaviour you have spoilt the day for everyone, and killed a poor little helpless kitten."

Audrey was not observant or she would have noticed her little brother's white face and quivering lips. If she had been sympathetic she would have understood that the sorrow which filled his heart was doubled, trebled, by the knowledge that his act--innocent little joke though it was, was at the bottom of the tragedy--but Audrey understood neither. She was annoyed and she wanted to hurt.

Mr. Carlyle, who, if he had not heard all, had seen more than Audrey was capable of seeing, went over and put his arm around his little son's shoulders protectingly. He knew what the boy was enduring--that he was learning in that hour a lesson which would remain with him all his life.

"If we could all of us foresee the consequences of what we do," he said, "we should be saved from doing many a wrong and foolish thing. If we could look ahead and see the effect of what we say, we would often bite our tongues rather than utter the words trembling on them. When I was a little boy, my mother taught me some verses which I hardly understood at the time, but they have often come back to my mind since, whenever I have felt inclined to blame other people. I will tell them to you, that you may remember too.

"'Happy are they, and only they, Who from His precepts never stray.

Who know what's right, nor only so, But always practice what they know.'

"But always practise what they know," Mr. Carlyle reflected thoughtfully.

"I wonder which of us do that?"

Audrey coloured deeply, and found no words to say. Thoughts came crowding on her mind, remembrance of many things left undone, of many complainings of others, of duties neglected, of selfishness--known to no one but herself--and her heart grew shamed and very humble. How many times since she had come home had she not preached what she did not practise?

"But," went on Mr. Carlyle sadly, "I love better the words of a more kindly singer, one who shows us not only the mountain-top, but helps us up the steep, rough path to it:

"'If you would help to make the wrong things right, Begin at home, there lies a life-time's toil.

Weed your own garden fair for all men's sight, Before you plan to till another's soil.'

"Shall we try to do that, my Audrey, you, and little Tom, and I?

I think we should be happier:

"'If you are sighing for a lofty work, If great ambitions dominate your mind, Just watch yourself, and see you do not s.h.i.+rk The common little ways of being kind.'"

With his other arm around her the trio strolled away across the moor.

"We all need kindness so much, and forbearance. In this world we cannot get on without them. Shall we start fresh from to-day, Audrey?"

Audrey looked at her father through tear-filled eyes, her lips were quivering. "Oh father, father, I want to--but I don't know how."

"There is only one way, dear. By constant striving against our failing, and by constant prayer. We cannot succeed by ourselves, we should only meet with certain failure. But if we place our hand in G.o.d's hand we know that though we may stumble and totter many times, we cannot fail entirely."

A few minutes later she was kneeling beside Debby, where she still lay sobbing heartbrokenly.

"Debby dear, I have picked some heath and some dear little ferns.

If Keith will help me, we will make such a pretty grave for poor little Rudolph, up here on the moor. Would you like that?"

For a moment Debby looked at her in speechless surprise. "Could it be cross Audrey speaking so gently?" Then her arms were flung out and around her eldest sister's neck, "Oh, Audrey," she cried, "oh Audrey, I am so glad you care too. Though he wasn't--_very_ pretty, he was such a darling, and I do, I want everyone to feel sorry that he is dead--but I thought you didn't."

And Audrey returned the embrace. "I do Debby dear, I do. I can't tell you how dreadfully sorry I am."

When, an hour later, the whole party turned their faces homeward, one of Debby's hands was clasped in Audrey's, the other in Keith's. Audrey carried the sleeping Snowdrop and Keith the sleeping n.i.g.g.e.r; while up on the now desolate looking moorland, little Rudolph lay sleeping in the soft brown earth beneath a clump of waving bracken. So short a life his had been, so tragic and swift an end, but the hand-clasp of the sisters showed that his little life had not been lived in vain.

CHAPTER X.

A few days later Mr. Carlyle was upon the moor again, but this time everything was very different. There was no happy party, no picnic, no suns.h.i.+ne nor soft breeze.

Instead, there lay about him one unbroken stretch of desolation, above him a sky almost frightening in its aspect, with its banked-up ma.s.ses of black and copper clouds, over which the lightning ran like streams of liquid fire.

He had been to visit a paris.h.i.+oner in a cottage at the farthest corner of his parish, and while there the storm, which had been threatening all day, had broken with a violence such as he had never known before. For nearly two hours he had remained a prisoner in the little lonely house, which had seemed merely a fragile toy, to be their only shelter from the floods of rain, the deafening thunder, the flaming, darting lightning. Again and again it had seemed as though the roof and walls must crack and fall about them, or the rain come through and wash them from their shelter.

But those who had built the st.u.r.dy little house had built well, if roughly, and the stone walls stood as though they were one solid block of stone, the rain beat on the roof, but streamed off it, not a drop came through. The little deep-set windows stared at the flas.h.i.+ng lightning as though with a patient unconcern, until at last the storm seemed to grow tired of its sport, and swept away to find other victims.

In spite of the fact that the ground was like a sponge, that the little cart-track, which was the only approach to the house, was filled up with water, and that rain still fell, Mr. Carlyle made his way to the highest point of the moor to look about him. It was not often he could see so fine a sight, such a storm-swept sky, such curious lights and shadows.

Before the gusty wind the black clouds were rolling heavily away to the west, where Abbot's Field lay. Mr. Carlyle's face grew anxious as he looked at the dense ma.s.s of fiery blackness, and the heavy mist, which seemed to envelop the place as with something evil. Every now and again the black clouds appeared to open and show something of the glory and radiance behind them, a radiance which human eye would not look upon.

Then close on the flashes came the crackling and booming thunder again, only more distant now.

"I hope the Vivians are not nervous," he murmured. "I am afraid King's Abbot is having it even more severely than Moor End."

Moor End stood at the edge of the extreme end of King's Moor.

Abbot's Field, the larger village, lay two or three miles further along the edge, while behind both the great moor rolled away and away to the south, desolate, barren, until it reached the sea and the little villages scattered along the coast.

Mr. Carlyle turned and looked at the rolling stretches of grey-green land all round him. Besides himself, and that one tiny dwelling, there was not a sign of human life to be seen. Overhead the storm still threatened and grumbled; below, the man and the house stood powerless, but undaunted.

Far away to the south the sun shone out brightly through a rift in the clouds. "Always G.o.d's promise somewhere. G.o.d's sign to us that He cares."

Suddenly, out of the inky murkiness to the west a horse came galloping swiftly. In such a scene of desolate solitude, the sight of any living creature came as a surprise, and held one's gaze. Mr. Carlyle watched the creature fascinatedly. "Frightened, I suppose, poor beast," he muttered sympathetically. "Whomever it belongs to should have taken it in; they must have seen the storm coming. Oh!" his words broke off suddenly, for, as the horse drew near, he could see that it had on a bridle and a saddle--a lady's saddle too!

"It must have thrown its rider," he cried anxiously, and pondered helplessly what he could do. How was he to catch the frightened creature without frightening it more, and where, in all that expanse, was he to begin to look for the fallen rider? Then suddenly it came to him that there was something familiar about the horse.

"Peter!" he called, "Peter! Peter! Peter!" He tried to imitate the note and voice Peter's master had used on the day of the picnic. "Peter, good boy, come here." The horse's ears twitched. He had heard him, and his pace slackened. He was really a friendly, tame creature, but a specially violent clap of thunder, followed by a flash of lightning which had shot across his eyes, had, for the moment, given him such a shock that he had lost his usually sober senses, and flown panic-stricken from the neighbourhood of such horrors. He was not accustomed either to a side-saddle, nor to so gentle a hand upon his mouth.

Already, though, his fears were vanis.h.i.+ng, and he was longing for the sound of a human voice and the grip of a hand on his bridle.

"Peter! Peter!" Mr. Carlyle called again. Peter turned swiftly in answer to the call, caught his hoof in the dangling bridle, and fell heavily on the soft, wet turf.

This gave the Vicar his chance. Peter was soon on his feet again, but his bridle was gripped firmly enough now.

"Peter, you ought to be ashamed of yourself." Peter was. He stood beside his captor shamed, shaken, genuinely distressed. "I wish you could show me where you dropped your rider, Peter." Peter only flapped his ears, and threw up his head.

Mr. Carlyle got on his back, in order to get a wider view. "I suppose he has come from his home; perhaps I had better go in that direction."

Peter seemed to agree with this decision, and, with apparently recovered spirits, walked on willingly. The Vicar's spirits, though, did not recover so lightly. His eyes swept the moor anxiously, but in vain, and his fears increased, for a rider who had been not much hurt would surely appear soon, coming in search of her horse. If she did not appear it might forebode the very worst of disasters. For more than half an hour they searched, but vainly, then suddenly, far ahead of him, almost out of the ground it seemed, a small white fluttering something appeared, and he quickened Peter's pace to a gallop.

It was Irene who had been Peter's rider, Irene who, recovering from the shock and blow of the fall, had struggled up, and waved her handkerchief in the desperate hope of attracting someone.