Probable Sons Part 3

"Uncle Edward," she said, when their steps at length turned homewards, "do you know, I heard all the sermon, and understood it pretty well except the long words. Wasn't it nice to hear about the probable son?"

"'Prodigal,' you mean. Cannot you p.r.o.nounce your words properly?"

Sir Edward's tone was irritable. He had not been feeling very comfortable under the good vicar's words.

"I can't say that; I always forget it. Nurse says one long word is as good as another sometimes. Uncle, what did the clergyman mean by people running away from G.o.d? No one does, do they?"

"A great many do," was the dry response.

"But how can they? Because G.o.d is everywhere. No one can't get away from G.o.d, and why do they want to? Because G.o.d loves them so."

"Why did the prodigal want to get away?"

Milly considered.

"I s'pose he wanted to have some a--aventures, don't you call them? I play at that, you know. All sorts of things happen to me before I sit down at the beech tree, but--but it's so different with G.o.d. Why, I should be fearful unhappy if I got away from Him. I couldn't, could I, uncle? Who would take care of me and love me when I'm asleep? And who would listen to my prayers? Why, Uncle Edward, I think I should die of fright if I got away from G.o.d. Do tell me I couldn't."

Milly had stopped short, and grasped hold of Sir Edward's coat in her growing excitement. He glanced at her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

"You foolish child, there is no fear of your getting away from G.o.d.

Don't be so excitable. We will change the subject. I want to see Maxwell, so we will go through the wood."

Maxwell was Sir Edward's head game-keeper, and a little later found them at his pretty cottage at the edge of the wood. It was Milly's first visit, and Mrs. Maxwell, a motherly-looking body, greeted her with such a suns.h.i.+ny smile that the child drew near to her instinctively.

"What a lovely room," she exclaimed, looking round the homely little kitchen with a child's admiring eyes, "and what a beautiful cat! May I stroke her?"

a.s.sent being given, Milly was soon seated in a large cus.h.i.+oned chair, a fat tabby cat on her lap, and while Sir Edward was occupied with his keeper she was making fast friends with the wife.

"Uncle Edward," she said, when they had taken their leave and were walking homewards, "Mrs. Maxwell has asked me to go to tea with her to-morrow. May I--all by myself?"

"Ask your nurse; I have no objection."

"I should love to live in her house," continued the child eagerly; "it is all among the trees, and I love trees. And this wood is so lovely.

Why, I might get lost in it, mightn't I? I have never been here before.

In my story-books, children always get lost in a wood. Uncle Edward, do you think the trees talk to one another? I always think they do. Look at them now. They are just shaking their heads together and whispering, aren't they? Whispering very gently to-day, because it is Sunday.

Sometimes they get angry with one another and scream, but I like to hear them hum and sing best. Nurse says it's the wind that makes them do it.

Don't you like to hear them? When I lie in bed I listen to them around the house, and I always want to sing with them. Nurse doesn't like it.

She says it's the wind moaning. I think it's the trees singing to G.o.d, and I love them when they do it. Which do you think it is?"

And so Milly chatted on, and Sir Edward listened, and put in a word or two occasionally, and on the whole did not find his small niece bad company. He told her when they entered the house that she could go to church every Sunday morning in future with him, and that sent Milly to the nursery with a radiant face, there to confide to nurse that she had had a "lovely time," and was going to tea as often as she might with "Mrs. Maxwell in the wood."

CHAPTER IV.

MRS. MAXWELL'S SORROW.

Milly spent a very happy afternoon at the keeper's cottage the next day, and came down to dessert in the evening so full of her visit that she could talk of nothing else.

"They were so kind to me, uncle. Mrs. Maxwell made a hot currant cake on purpose for me, and the cat had a red ribbon for company, and we sat by the fire and talked when Maxwell was out, and she told me such lovely stories, and I saw a beautiful picture of the probable son in the best parlor, and Mrs. Maxwell took it down and let me have a good look at it.

I am going to save up my money and buy one just like it for my nursery, and do you know, uncle--"

She stopped short, but not for want of breath. Putting her curly head on one side, she surveyed her uncle for a minute meditatively, then asked, a little doubtfully:

"Can you keep a secret, Uncle Edward? Because I would like to tell you, only, you see, Mrs. Maxwell doesn't talk about it, and I told her I wouldn't--at least, not to the servants, you know."

"I think you can trust me," Sir Edward said gravely.

"This is it, then, and I think it's so wonderful. They have got a real live probable son."

Sir Edward raised his eyebrows. His little niece continued:

"Yes, they really have. It was when I was talking about the picture Mrs.

Maxwell took the corner of her ap.r.o.n and wiped her eyes, and said she had a dear son who had run away from home, and she hadn't seen him for nine years. Just fancy! Where was I nine years ago?"

"Not born."

"But I must have been somewhere," and Milly's active little brain now started another train of thought, until she got fairly bewildered.

"I expect I was fast asleep in G.o.d's arms," she said at length, with knitted brows; "only, of course, I don't remember," and having settled that point to her satisfaction, she continued her story:

"Mrs. Maxwell's 'probable son' is called Tommy. He ran away when he was seventeen because he didn't like the blacksmith's shop. Mrs. Maxwell and I cried about him. He had such curly hair, and stood six feet in his stockings, and he was a _beautiful_ baby when he was little, and had croup and--and confusions, and didn't come to for four hours; but he would run away, though he laid the fire and put sticks on it and drew the water for Mrs. Maxwell before he went. And Mrs. Maxwell says he may be a soldier or a sailor now for all she knows, and he may be drownded dead, or run over, or have both his legs shot to pieces, or he may be in India with the blacks; but I told her he was very likely taking care of some pigs somewhere, and she got happy a little bit then, and we dried our tears, and she gave me some peppermint to suck. Isn't it a wonderful story, uncle?"

"Very wonderful," was the response.

"Well, we were in the middle of talking when Maxwell came in, so we hushed, because Mrs. Maxwell said, 'It makes my man so sad'; but, do you know, when Maxwell was bringing me home through the wood he asked me what we had been talking about, and he said he knew it was about the boy because he could see it in Mrs. Maxwell's eye. And then I asked him if he would run and kiss Tommy when he came back, and if he would make a feast; and he said he would do anything to get him home again."

Milly paused, then said wistfully,--

"I wish I had a father, Uncle Edward. You see, nurse does for a mother, but fathers are so fond of their children, aren't they?"

"It does not always follow that they are," Sir Edward replied.

"The probable son's father loved him, and Maxwell loves Tommy, and then there was David, you know, who really had a wicked son, with long hair--I forget his name--and he cried dreadful when he was dead. I sometimes tell G.o.d about it when I'm in bed, and then He--He just seems to put His arms round me and send me off to sleep; at least, I think He does. Nurse says G.o.d likes me to call Him my Father, but of course that isn't quite the same as having a father I can see. Maxwell is a very nice father, I think. I told him I would pray for Tommy every night when I go to bed, and then I told him that G.o.d had lots of probable sons, too--the clergyman said so on Sunday, didn't he?--people who have run away from Him. I've been asking G.o.d to make them come back. I hope He will let me know when they do. Do you know any one who has run away from G.o.d, uncle?"

"You are chattering too much, child," said Sir Edward irritably; "sit still and be quiet."

Milly instantly obeyed, and after some moments of silence her uncle said,--

"I don't mind your going to Maxwell's cottage, but you must never take Fritz with you. He is not allowed in that wood at all. Do you quite understand?"

"Yes, but I'm very sorry, for Fritz doesn't like being left behind; the tears were in his eyes when nurse told him he wasn't to go with me. You see, no one talks to him like I do. He likes me to tell him stories, and I told him when I came back about my visit, so he wants to go. But I won't take him with me if you say no."

When she was leaving him that night for bed, she paused a moment as she wished him good-night.

"Uncle Edward, when you say your prayers to-night, will you ask G.o.d to make Tommy come back home? His mother does want him so badly."