Nestleton Magna Part 22

Fuller's genuine request, that she should in all things act without restraint. Now that the tide had turned, and Philip's life no longer hung on such a slender thread, she was able to accept the housekeeper's invitation to join her in her private room. Here, seated at the piano, she would sing the songs of Zion in such a fas.h.i.+on that the squire, all unaccustomed to such innovations on his solitude, would pa.s.s and re-pa.s.s, often for this only purpose, and listen to the strains so sweetly winning. It may well be doubted whether the modern idea of "singing the Gospel" was not, under existing circ.u.mstances, the most effective way of bringing him under the influences of those blessed truths which were the joy and comfort of his son.

On one occasion, when thus occupied, she sang a glorious hymn of Charles Wesley's. Her unknown listener heard the words--

"I rest beneath the Almighty's shade, My griefs expire, my troubles cease; Thou, Lord, on whom my soul is stayed, Will keep me still in perfect peace."

He listened till the trustful strain died out in silence, and retired to his library. Opening an accustomed volume by a favourite writer, whose no-faith had chimed in with his own phase of unbelief, he read--"I look upon human life as being bounded by an impenetrable curtain, which defies the gaze of man to pierce its texture, the hand of man to lift its awful folds. Thousands of inquiring minds have brought their torches and sought to unravel the mystery in vain. A thousand voices of those without have loudly called to those within, and asked their questions as to the eternal 'Where?' But they have received no answer, only the hollow echo of their own question, as if they had shouted into an empty vault."

He laid down the book, and sat in thoughtful silence. He thought of the clear, bright hope of the youth upstairs who had been half within the curtain. "I saw the glories of heaven, the gleam of angels' wings, and heard the sound of harpers harping with their harps." How widely differed this from that! The first was a sad, low wail of despair; the second was the waving of Hope's golden wing. Rising to his feet, he opened the door to rejoin his son. Hus.h.!.+ He hears Lucy's voice, sweetly singing--

"While I draw this fleeting breath, When my eyes shall close in death, When I rise to worlds unknown, And behold Thee on Thy throne, Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee!"

He listened till the verse was concluded, then turning to the stairs, he ascended to Philip's room, repeating to himself,--

"Rock of Ages, cleft for me!

Let me hide myself in Thee!"

Stepping softly to the bedside, he found his boy sleeping sweetly, with a smile upon his face that told of perfect peace. His hand was laid upon the open Bible. Led by an impulse of curiosity, as we purblind mortals say, he stooped down and read, where Philip's fingers lay, "There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.... I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou only, O Lord, makest me to dwell in safety."

"In peace," said the squire, and looking at the restful countenance of his son, he read a commentary there that he could neither misunderstand nor dispute. He sat and pondered as the minutes pa.s.sed, the subject of thoughts and emotions new and strange. Nor could he break the spell until Philip, waking refreshed and happy, turned to him with a gleam of glad surprise, and said,--

"My father!"

"What is it, my son?"

"Nay, nothing; nothing but the joy of having you by my side."

The glad old man, melted as his stedfast nature had never been, longed to do something in his great love.

"Can I do anything for you?" said he.

"Yes. Read to me a little," pointing to his Bible. "Read the third chapter in St. John's Gospel."

In this way the sceptical parent was brought into potent contact with the Great Teacher's answer to another doubter, who asked, "How can these things be?" So the days pa.s.sed by, the overhanging cloud caused by the dark deed in Thurston Wood had not density enough to shadow them very greatly. Both father and son believed that G.o.d would bring forth Philip's righteousness as the light, and His judgment as the noonday. Philip silently and continuously prayed that the Spirit would take of the things of G.o.d and show them to his father's mind and heart. Who shall doubt the answer to those pleadings of filial love?

G.o.d's providence and grace are both pledged to the fulfilment of believing prayer. The citadel so long impregnable to the a.s.saults of Gospel truth was trembling under the combined influences at work. Will it yield to these? If not, the Lord hath yet other arrows in His quiver. "He hath bent his bow and made it ready, and ordained his arrows at the heart of" those who resist him. But if those hearts lay down their weapons and submit to Him, though the arrow may be sped, it shall wound to heal, and "dividing asunder between the joints and the marrow," the sword of the Spirit shall open a way for the life-giving balsam of His own precious blood!

CHAPTER XXVII.

HANNAH OLLIVER'S "YOUNG MAN."

"The branch is stooping to the hand, And pleasant to behold; Yet gather not, although its fruit Be streaked with hues of gold.

For bitter ashes lurk concealed Beneath that golden skin; And though the coat be smooth, there lies But rottenness within."

_Smedley._

Adam Olliver, as our readers may remember, had a daughter, Hannah by name, who was a servantmaid at Waverdale Hall. She was a bright, good-looking la.s.s, with no graver faults than those which often attach to an unrestrained vivacity and a considerable weakness for "ribbins, frills, an' fal-de-rals," as her plain-spoken father called them, which, though purchased by her own money, were scarcely in keeping with her position. Even if they had been, they were sorely at enmity with good taste. Greens and violets, blues and buffs, orange and red, and other hues equally self-a.s.sertive, were worn in combinations which would have alarmed a _modiste_ and driven an artist into hysterics. Hannah was a dressy girl, and being remarkably chatty, not to say loquacious, she was not the unlikeliest girl in the world to pick up a sweetheart--_a_ sweetheart, did we say? It would be venturesome to fix on any number of briefly happy swains on whom she had conferred that honour, and had then peremptorily dismissed. Hannah was evidently a coquette. At the time when Philip Fuller was hovering between life and death, and soon after Lucy Blyth had been installed by his bedside, Hannah Olliver's evanescent and volatile affections were placed for the nonce on a fine Adonis-looking young fellow, with whom she had become acquainted through her intimacy with a housemaid at Cowley Priory. His name was Aubrey Bevan, and his somewhat aristocratic cognomen did not seem to Hannah's admiring eyes to be at all inappropriate to the dark curly locks, neatly-trimmed moustache, semi-Bond-street attire, and jauntily-set hat of her favoured lover.

Aubrey Bevan had been a kind of valet--a sort of gentleman's gentleman to Sir Harry Elliott's eldest son, a fast young gent of horsey tastes and gaming proclivities, who cut a considerable dash amongst the young bloods, who, during the season, mustered in great force at Almack's, Tattersall's, and Rotten-row. With him, however, we have scant business, but from his quondam valet, discharged for some occult reason, we cannot at present part company. The discipline as regarded servants and their followers was somewhat strict at Waverdale Hall, and so Hannah's interviews with her "intended" had to take place either when she was off the premises, or in stealthy meetings in the park or gardens under cover of the night.

Mr. Bevan, at the outset of his wooing, was exceedingly a.s.siduous and demonstrative, but as all this only served to develop his young lady's ingrained propensity to coquetry, he changed his tactics, and with a cleverness which brought its own reward, he feigned indifference, as though his loveflame was considerably dwindling down. This had the desired effect, and may afford a hint to ardent swains whose chosen ones are given to fluctuations and indecision. Latterly Hannah had shown a steady loyalty to her lover, as though at last she had found her fate. One evening, as she and the courtly Bevan were holding a stolen interview beneath a spreading beech-tree in the park, some evil spirit entered into Hannah, and led her to throw out vague hints and insinuations that he was not so certainly the "man in possession" as he seemed to think. She intimated that there was another "Richmond in the field," and, true to Sir Walter Scott's description of woman, who is,

"In our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,"

she succeeded in annoying and perhaps alarming her lover with the idea that his mittimus was looming in the distance. Aubrey Bevan brought out his final weapon for repelling the attack, and coolly informed her that he was about to leave for London, the elysium of valets, the paradise of love and beauty. This startling information was more than Hannah bargained for. There was a perceptible change in her voice, speedily noted by Mr. Bevan, as she said,--

"You are not really going, are you, Aubrey?" which only brought the unrelenting answer,--

"Yes, my prairie flower. I am really going. 'My bark is on the sea, and the wind blows fair.'" Rather an awkward position, surely, if he was an intending voyager; but Mr. Bevan was nothing if not poetic.

"Oh dear, Aubrey! How can you?"

"Does my impending departure flutter the heart of my little gazelle?"

said the poet, with a tremulous intonation which would have melted a colder heart than Hannah's.

"Don't go, Aubrey; you mustn't go. I cannot spare you."

"Fair syren of my soul! I thank thee for that word! 'Had I a heart for falsehood framed.'" There were those who had the honour of Mr. Bevan's acquaintance who would have said, in answer, "Yes, most decidedly!"

"My charming angel! 'Where duty calls I must away. Hark! hark! the drum.'"

A little more of this gay troubadour line of business, and Hannah was fairly subdued.

"Cheer up! my sunflower!" said the gallant Bevan. "My visit to the great metropolis will be but temporary. A few weeks, and on the wings of the wind I shall again 'fly to the Bower by Bendemeer's stream,'

and 'talk of love and Hannah.' But I cannot leave without another look, a sweet adieu. I'll come again to-morrow night. I will be at the garden-gate by twelve o'clock; I cannot come earlier; and as your orderly household will then be in the arms of Morpheus, you can come down to the door leading out to the stable-yard, and then I shall carry with me in my exile the sweet memory of that last good-bye!"

In vain the foolish girl objected, and referred to difficulties as to time and place. Mr. Bevan showed her, with a marvellous knowledge, gained unwittingly from her own chatty tongue, of all the topographical peculiarities of the place, how it could be done; and having extorted a definite consent, he swore eternal fealty to his fair companion, and turning away, was speedily lost in the darkness of the night.

O foolish Hannah Olliver! Did no qualms of conscience follow that ill-advised consent? Did no good angel whisper in your ear to disobey the voice of the charmer? Go to your chamber, unsuspecting simpleton, and dream of the dreadful plot, to the train of which your own unconscious hand will lay the spark!

Mr. Aubrey Bevan had special business on hand that night. After having kept one a.s.signation, he made all haste to keep another. The second one, however, was of an altogether different nature, and if Hannah Olliver could have seen with whom he whispered and consorted during the hours of that night, it would have broken the spell which he had cast around her far more effectively than the discovery of some rival recipient of his gay blandishments and poetic flights.

While these events were transpiring at the Hall, joy and gladness reigned in the cottage of Adam Olliver, for at length the long-expected letter, with a pleasing monetary inclosure, had been received from Pete, who had been long struggling with adverse fortunes in the Western States of North America. At length his circ.u.mstances had taken a definite and effective turn for the better, and now his hope was that in a little while, having obtained a competency, he should be able to retrace his steps to dear Old England, and be able to supply his failing parents with the comforts which they needed in their old age. When Nathan Blyth called at their little cottage, he found old Adam, sitting in his arm-chair, with spectacles on nose and the precious letter in his hand, slowly spelling out his son's somewhat difficult caligraphy, while dear old Judith sat on the opposite side of the fire, listening, and smiling through her tears.

The old hedger had every now and again to wrestle with his feelings, and to gulp down a choking in the throat as Pete's warm, loving sentences unfolded themselves to his delighted gaze.

"Judy, my la.s.s," he said, when the whole epistle had been deciphered.

"Thoo sees the Lord is as good as His wod. Thoo an' me's been prayin'

fo' wer lad an' commendin' 'im te G.o.d. We begun te think 'at t' answer was a lang while o' c.u.min'. It tarried, bud we wayted fo' 't, an' noo it's c.u.m, an' booath thoo an' me's livin' an' hearty te hear it. The Lord keeps us waytin' at tahmes, bud He nivver c.u.ms ower leeat. His hand's allus riddy for a deead lift, an' noo I hae faith te beleeave 'at we sall see wer lad feeace te feeace."

"The Lord's varry good tiv us," said Judith, looking lovingly at her dear old husband, through her tears of joy. "Ah've done wi' dootin', an' if He'll only let me see my bairn ah sall go te my grave in peace."

"Natty!" said Adam. "You've just c.u.m i' tahme te hear t' good news, an' ah's seear you'll be glad te join us i' givin' thenks at t' Throne o' Grace."

Then the old Christian poured out his soul to G.o.d in fervent prayer.

The little room was radiant with the presence of the Abiding Friend, and when they rose from their knees, Adam shook Blithe Natty by the hand, and said, with a smile,--