Out in the Forty-Five Part 28

"We will get them done first, if you please."

"I beg your pardon, Aunt," said I. "Only I did want to know so much."

My Aunt Kezia gave a little laugh. "My dear, curiosity is Eve's legacy to her daughters. You might reasonably feel it in this instance. I should almost have thought you unfeeling if you had not. However, that business is all over; and well over, to my mind. I am thankful it is no worse. Now for what I want to say to you. I have been turning over in my mind how I might say to you what would be likely to do you good, in such a way that you could easily bear it in mind. And I have settled to give you a few plain rules, which you will find of service if you follow them. Now don't you go saying to yourselves that Aunt Kezia is an old country woman who knows nothing of grand town folks. As I was beginning to say when you interrupted me, Cary--there, don't look abashed, child; I am not angry with you--manners change, but natures don't. Dress men and women how you will, and let them talk what language you please, and have what outside ways you like, they are men and women still. Wherever you go, you will find human nature is unchanged; and the Devil that tempts men is unchanged; and the G.o.d that saves them is unchanged.

There are more senses than one, la.s.sies, in which the things that are seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal."

My Aunt Kezia began to feel in her bag--that great print bag with the red poppies and blue cornflowers, and the big bra.s.s top, by which I should know my Aunt Kezia was near if I saw it in the American plantations, or in the moon, for that matter--and out came three little books, bound in red sheepskin. Such pretty little books! scarcely the size of my hand, and with gilded leaves.

"Now, girls," she said, "I brought you these for keepsakes. They are only blank paper, as you see, and you can put down in them what you spend, or what you see, or any good sayings you meet with, or the like-- just what you please: but you will find my rules written on the first leaf, so you can't say you had not a chance to bear them in mind. Miss Annas, my dear, I hope I don't make too free, but you see I did not like to leave you out in the cold, as it were. Will you accept one of them?

They are good rules for any young maid, though I say it."

"How kind of you, Mrs Kezia!" said Annas. "Indeed I will, and value it very much."

I turned at once--indeed, I think we all did--to my Aunt Kezia's rules.

They were written, as she said, on the first page, in her neat, clear handwriting, which one could read almost in the dark. This is what she had written.

"Put the Lord first in everything.

"Let the approval of those who love you best come second.

"Judge none by the outside, till you have seen what is within.

"Never take compliment for earnest.

"Never put off doing a right or kind thing.

"If you doubt a thing being right, it is safe not to do it.

"If you know a thing to be right, go on with it, though the world stand in your way.

"'If sinners entice thee, consent thou not.'

"'If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father.' Never wait to confess sin and be forgiven.

"In all that is not wrong, put the comfort of others before your own.

"Think it possible you may be mistaken.

"Test everything by the Word of G.o.d.

"Remember that the world pa.s.seth away."

Flora was the first of us to speak.

"Thank you, indeed, Aunt Kezia for taking so much trouble for us. If we govern ourselves by your rules, we can hardly go far wrong."

I tried to say something of the same sort, but I am afraid I bungled it.

"I cannot tell when we shall meet again, my la.s.sies," saith my Aunt Kezia. "Only it seems likely to be some time first. Of course, if things fall out ill, and Mrs Desborough counts it best to remove from London, or to send you elsewhere, you must be ruled by her, as you cannot refer to your father. Remember, Cary--your grandmother and uncle will stand to you in place of father and mother while you are with them.

Your father sends you to them, and puts his authority into their hands.

Don't go to think you know better--girls so often do. A little humility and obedience won't hurt you, and you need not be afraid there will ever be too much of them in this world."

"But, Aunt!" said I, in some alarm, "suppose Grandmamma tells me to do something which I know you would not allow?"

"Follow your rule, Cary: set the Lord always before you. If it is anything which He would not allow, then you are justified in standing out. Not otherwise."

"But how am I to know, Aunt?" It was a foolish question of mine, for I might have known what my Aunt Kezia would say.

"What do you think the Bible was made for, Cary?"

"But, Aunt, I can't go and read through the Bible every time Grandmamma gives me an order."

"You must do that first, my dear. The Bible won't jump down your throat, that is certain. You must be ready beforehand. You will learn experience, children, as the time goes on--ay, whether you choose or no.

But there are two sorts of experience--sweet and bitter: and 'they that will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock.' Be ruled by the rudder, la.s.sies. It is the wisest plan."

My Aunt Kezia said more, but it does not come back to me as that does.

And the next morning we said good-bye, and went out into the wide world.

I cannot profess to tell the whole of our journey. We slept the first night at Kendal--and a cold bleak journey it was, by Shap Fells--the second at Bolton, the third at Bakewell, the fourth at Leicester, the fifth at Bedford, and on the Sat.u.r.day evening we reached London.

I believe Annas was very much diverted at some of my speeches during the journey. When I cried, after we had pa.s.sed Bolton, and were going over a moor, that I did not know there was heather in the South, she said, "You have been a very short time in coming to the South, Cary."

"What do you mean, Annas?" said I.

"Only that a Midland man would think we were still in the North," said she.

"What, is this not the South?" said I. "I thought everything was South after we pa.s.sed Lancaster."

"England is a little longer than that," said Annas, laughing. "No, Cary: we do not get into the Midlands on this side of Derby, nor into the South on this side of Bedford."

So I had to wait until Friday before I saw the South. When I did, I thought it very flat and very woody. I could scarcely see anything for trees; only [Note 2.] there were no hills to see. And how strange the talk sounded! They seemed to speak all their u's as if they were e's, and their a's the same. Annas laughed when I said that "take up the mat" sounded in the South like "teek ep the met." It really did, to me.

"I suppose," said Flora, "our words sound just as queer to these people."

"O Flora, they can't!" I cried.

Because we say the words right; and how can that sound queer?

It was nearly six o'clock when the chaise drew up before the door of my Uncle Charles's house in Bloomsbury Square. These poor Southerners think, I hear, that Bloomsbury Square is one of the wonders of the world. The world must be very short of wonders, and so I said.

"O Cary, you are a bundle of prejudices!" laughed Annas.

Flora--who never can bear a word of disagreement--turned the discourse by saying that Mr Cameron had told her Bloomsbury came from Blumond's bury, the town of some man called Blumond.

And just then the door opened, and I felt almost terrified of the big, grand-looking man who stood behind it. However, as it was I who was the particularly invited guest, I had to jump down from the chaise, after a boy had let down the steps, and to tell the big man who I was and whence I came: when he said, in that mincing way they have in the South, as if they must cut their words small before they could get them into their mouths, that Madam expected me, and I was to walk up-stairs. My heart went pit-a-pat, but up I marched, Annas and Flora following; and if the big man did not call out my name to another big man, just the copy of him, who stood at the top of the stairs, so loud that I should think it must have been heard over half the house. I felt quite ashamed, but I walked straight on, into a grand room all over looking-gla.s.ses and crimson, where a circle of ladies and gentlemen were sitting round the fire. We have not begun fires in the North. I do think they are a nesh [Note 3.] lot of folks who live in the South.

Grandmamma was at one end of the circle, and my Aunt Dorothea at the other. I went straight up to Grandmamma.

"How do you, Grandmamma?" said I. "This is my cousin, Flora Drummond, and this is our friend, Annas Keith. Fa--Papa, I mean, and Aunt Kezia, sent their respectful compliments, and begged that you would kindly allow them to tarry here for a night on their way to the Isle of Wight."