The Miller Of Old Church Part 31

"'Twas on yo' business, Molly, an' it eased my mind considerable about what's to become of you when I'm dead an' gone. It seems old Mr.

Jonathan arranged it all befo' he died, an' they've only been waitin'

till you came of age to let you into the secret. He left enough money in the lawyer's hands to make you a rich woman if you follow his wishes."

"Did they tell you his wishes?" she asked, turning from Reuben to Spot as the blind dog fawned toward her.

"He wants you to live with Miss Kesiah and Mr. Jonathan when I'm taken away from you, honey, an' you're to lose all but a few hundred if you ever marry and leave 'em. Old Mr. Jonathan had sharp eyes, an' he saw I had begun to fail fast befo' he died. It's an amazin' thing to think that even after all the morality is wrung out of human natur thar'll still be a few drops of goodness left sometimes at the bottom of it."

"And if I don't do as he wished? What will come of it, then, grandfather?"

"Then the bulk goes to help some po' heathens over yonder in China to the Gospel. He was a strange man, was old Mr. Jonathan. Thar warn't never any seein' through him, livin' or dead."

"Why did he ever come here in the beginning? He wasn't one of our people."

"The wind blew him this way, pretty, an' he was never one to keep goin'

against the wind. When the last Jordan died childless an' the place was put up to be sold, Mr. Jonathan read about it somewhar, an' it looked to him as if all he had to do was to come down here an' bury himself alive to git rid of temptation. But the only way to win against temptation is to stand square an' grapple with it in the spot whar it finds you, an'

he came to know this, po' sinner, befo' he was done with it."

"He was a good soldier, wasn't he?" asked Molly.

"So good a soldier that he could fight as well on one side as on t'other, an' 'twas only an accident that sent him into the army with me instead of against me. I remember his telling me once when I met him after a battle that 'twas the smell of blood, not the cause, that made him a fighter. Thar's many a man like that on both sides in every war, I reckon."

"I wonder how you can be so patient when you think of him!" she said pa.s.sionately as he stopped.

"You'll understand better when you're past seventy," he answered gently.

"Thar's a softness like a sort of green gra.s.s that springs up an' covers you when you begin to git old an' worn out. I've got it an' Spot's got it--you can tell by the way he won't trouble to git mad with the chickens that come peckin' around him. As soon as it's safely spread over you, you begin to see that the last thing to jedge anybody by is what you've known of the outside of 'em."

"I can't feel about him as you do, but I don't mind takin' his money as long as you share it," returned the girl in a softer voice.

"It's a pile of money such as you've never heard of, Molly. Mr.

Chamberlayne says thar'll be an income of goin' on ten thousand dollars a year by the time you're a little older."

"Ten thousand dollars a year just for you an' me!" she exclaimed, startled.

"Thar warn't so much when 'twas left, but it's been doublin' on itself all the while you were waitin'."

"We could go everywhere an' see everything, grandfather."

"It ain't for me, pretty. Mr. Jonathan knew you wouldn't come into it till I was well on my way to the end of things."

Kneeling at his side, she caught his hands and clung to him sobbing.

"Don't talk of dying! I can't bear to think of your leaving me!"

His trembling and knotted hands gathered her to him. "The young an' the old see two different sides of death, darlin'. When you're young an'

full of spirit, it looks powerful dark an' lonely to yo' eyes, but when you're gittin' along an' yo' bones ain't quite so steady as they once were, an' thar seem to be mo' faces you're acquainted with on the other side than on this one--then what you've been so terrible afeared of don't look much harder to you than settlin' down to a comfortable rest.

I've liked life well enough, but I reckon I'll like death even better as soon as I've gotten used to the feel of it. The Lord always appears a heap nearer to the dead, somehow, than He does to the livin', and I shouldn't be amazed to find it less lonely than life after I'm once safely settled."

"You've seen so many die that you've grown used to it," said Molly through her tears.

For a moment he gazed wistfully at the apple boughs, while his face darkened, as if he were watching a procession of shadows. In his seventy years he had gained a spiritual insight which penetrated the visible body of things in search of the truth beneath the ever-changing appearance. There are a few blameless yet suffering beings on whom nature has conferred a simple wisdom of the heart which contains a profounder understanding of life than the wisdom of the mind can grasp--and Reuben was one of these. Sorrow had sweetened in his soul until it had turned at last into sympathy.

"I've seen 'em come an' go like the flakes of light out yonder in the orchard," he answered almost in a whisper. "Young an' old, glad an'

sorry, I've seen 'em go--an' never one among 'em but showed in thar face when 'twas over that 'twas the best thing had ever happened. It's hard for me now to separate the livin' from the dead, unless it be that the dead are gittin' closer all the time an' the livin' further away."

"And you're never afraid, grandfather?"

"Well, when it comes to that, honey, I reckon if I can trust the Lord in the light, I can trust him in the darkness. I ain't as good a Christian as my ma was--she could beat Sarah Revercomb when it came to sayin' the Bible backwards--but I've yet to see the spot of natur, either human or clay, whar we couldn't find the Lord at work if we was to dig deep enough."

He stopped at sight of a small figure running under the apple trees, and a minute later Patsey, the Gay's maid, reached the flagged walk and panted out a request that Miss Molly should come to the house for a birthday present which awaited her there.

"Won't you go with me, grandfather?" asked the girl, turning to Reuben.

"I ain't at home thar, Molly," answered the old man. "It's well enough to preach equality an' what not when you're walking on the opposite side of the road, as Abel would say, but it don't ring true while yo' feet are slippin' an' slidin' over a parlour floor."

"Then I shan't go without you. Where you aren't welcome is a place I can stay away from."

"Thar, thar, honey, don't be runnin' arter Abel's notions till you find out whar they're leadin' you. Things are better as they are or the Lord wouldn't have made 'em so, an' He ain't goin' to step a bit faster or slower on o' count of our ragin'. Some folks were meant to be on top an'

some at bottom, for t'otherwise G.o.d Almighty wouldn't have put 'em thar.

Abel is like Sarah, only his generation is different."

"Do you really think he's like his mother?" asked Molly a little wistfully.

"As haw is like haw. They're both bent on doin' the Lord's job over again an' doin' it better, an' thar manner of goin' to work would be to melt up human natur an' pour it all into the same pattern. It ain't never entered Sarah's head that you can't fit the same religion to every man any mo' than you can the same pair of breeches. The big man takes the big breeches an' the little man takes the small ones, an' it's jest the same with religion. It may be cut after one pattern, but it's mighty apt to get its shape from the wearer inside. Why, thar ain't any text so peaceable that it ain't drawn blood from somebody."

"All the same I shan't go a step without you," persisted the girl.

"Then find my stick an' straighten my collar. Or had I better put on my Sunday black?"

"No, I like you as you are--only let me smooth your hair a little. Run ahead, Patsey, and say we're both coming."

Slipping her arm in his, she led him through the orchard, where the bluebirds were fluting blissfully in the apple-trees. To the heart of each spring was calling--but to Molly it meant promise and to Reuben remembrance. Though the bluebirds sang only one song, they brought to the old man and to the girl a different music.

"I've sometimes thought Mr. Mullen better suited to you than Abel, Molly," said Reuben presently, uttering an idea that had come to him more than once. "If you'd been inclined to fancy him, I don't believe either Mrs. Gay or Miss Kesiah could have found any fault with him."

"But you know I couldn't care for him, grandfather," protested Molly impatiently. "He is like one of Mrs. Bottom's air plants that grow without any roots."

"Well, he's young yet an' his soul struts a trifle, but wait till he's turned fifty an' he'll begin to be as good a Christian as he is a parson. It's a good mould, but he congealed a bit too stiff when he was poured into it."

They reached the grape arbour as he finished, and a minute later Abednego lead them into the library, where Kesiah placed Reuben in a comfortable chair and hastened to bring him a gla.s.s of wine from the sideboard. At Molly's entrance, Gay and Mr. Chamberlayne came forward to shake hands with her, while Mrs. Gay looked up from her invalid's couch and murmured her name in a gentle, reproachful voice. The pale blue circles around the little lady's eyes and faintly smiling mouth were the only signs of the blighting experience through which she had pa.s.sed. As she turned her angelic gaze on old Jonathan's daughter there was not an instant's doubt in the minds of those about her that she would accept the blow with the suffering sweetness that enhanced her beauty.

"We wanted to give you a little reminder of us on your birthday, Molly,"

she said, taking up an amethyst cross on a slender chain from the table beside her, "and Jonathan thought you would like a trinket to wear with your white dresses."

"I was right, wasn't I, cousin?" asked Gay, with his genial smile.

Mrs. Gay flushed slightly at the word, while Reuben cast a grateful glance at him over the untasted gla.s.s of wine in his hand.

Without drawing a step nearer, Molly stood there in the centre of the room, nervously twisting her handkerchief in and out of her fingers.

She was physically cramped by her surroundings, and the reproachful gentleness in Mrs. Gay's face embarra.s.sed her only less than did the intimate pleasantry of Jonathan's tone. Every detail of the library--the richness and heaviness of the furniture, the insipid fixed smiles in the family portrait, the costly fragility of the china ornaments--all these seemed to unite in some occult power which overthrew her self-possession and paralyzed her emotions.