"Very well," he gravely said.
"It is true," she continued, "that I have valuable memoranda of your father's in my charge; but you must trust me when I say that I am not at liberty to tell you more."
"Of course I do. So the mother was really coming, like a good little Red-riding-hood, to bring her son's dinner into the forest, when she met with the wolf! Pray, has he eaten up the two kids at a mouthful?"
"No, Miss Parsons had done that already. They are making the Church so beautiful, and it did not seem possible to spare them, though I hope Armine may get home in time to get his work done for Bobus."
"Is not he worked rather hard between the two? He does not seem to thrive on it."
"Jock, I can say it to you. I don't know what to do. The poor boy's heart is in these Church matters, and he is so bitterly grieved at the failure of all his plans that I cannot bear to check him in doing all he can. It is just what I ought to have been doing all these years; I only saw my duties as they were being taken away from me, and so I deserve the way Miss Parsons treats me."
"What way?"
"You need not bristle up. She is very civil; but when I hint that Armine has study and health to consider, I see that in her eyes I am the worldly obstructive mother who serves as a trial to the hero."
"If she makes Armine think so-"
"Armie is too loyal for that. Yet it may be only too true, and only my worldliness that wishes for a little discretion. Still, I don't think a sensible woman, if she were ever so good and devoted, would encourage his fretting over the disappointment, or lead him to waste his time when so much depends on his diligence. I am sure the focus of her mind must be distorted, and she is twisting his the same way."
"And her brother follows suit?"
"I think they go in parallel grooves, and he lets her alone. It is very unlucky, for they are a constant irritation to Bobus, and he fancies them average specimens of good people. He sneers, and I can't say but that much of what he says is true, but there is the envenomed drop in it which makes his good sense shocking to Armine, and I fear Babie relishes it more than is good for her. So they make one another worse, and so they will as long as we are here. It was a great mistake to stay on, and your uncle must feel it so."
"Could you not go to Dieppe, or some cheap place?"
"I don't feel justified in any more expense. Here the house costs nothing, and our personal expenditure does not go beyond our proper means; but to pay for lodging elsewhere would soon bring me in excess of it, at least as long as Allen keeps up the yacht. Then poor Janet must have something, and I don't know what bills may be in store for me, and there's your outfit, and Bobus's."
"Never mind mine."
"My dear, that's fine talking, but you can't go like Sir Charles Napier, with one shirt and a bit of soap."
"No, but I shall get something for the exchange. Besides, my kit was costly even for the Guards, and will amply cover all that."
"And you have sold your horses?"
"And have been living on them ever since! Come, won't that encourage you to make a little jaunt, just to break the spell?"
"I wish it could, my dear, but it does not seem possible while those bills are such a dreadful uncertainty. I never know what Allen may have been ordering."
"Surely the Evelyns would be glad to have you."
"No, Jock, that can't be. Promise me that you will do nothing to lead to an invitation. You are to meet some of them, are you not?"
"Yes, on Thursday week, at Roland Hampton's wedding. Cecil and I and a whole lot of us go down in the morning to it, and Sydney is to be a bridesmaid. What are you going to do now, mother?"
"I don't quite know. I feel regularly foolish. I shall have a headache if I don't keep quiet, but I can't persuade myself to stay in the house lest that man should come back."
"What! not with me for garrison?"
"O nonsense, my dear. You must go and catch up the sportsmen."
"Not when I can get my Mother Carey all to myself. You go and lie down in the dressing-room, and I'll come as soon as I have taken off my boots and ordered some coffee for you."
He returned with the step of one treading on eggs, expecting to find her half asleep; but her eyes were glittering, and there were red spots on her cheeks, for her nerves were excited, and when he came in she began to talk. She told him, not of present troubles, but of the letters between his father and grandmother, which, in her busy, restless life, she had never before looked at, but which had come before her in her preparations for vacating Belforest. Perhaps it was only now that she had grown into appreciation of the relations between that mother and son, as she read the letters, preserved on each side, and revealing the full beauty and greatness of her husband's nature, his perfect confidence in his mother, and a guiding influence from her, which she herself had never thought of exerting. Does not many an old correspondence thus put the present generation to shame?
Jock was the first person with whom she had shared these letters, and it was good to watch his face as he read the words of the father whom he remembered chiefly as the best of playfellows. He was of an age and in a mood to enter into them with all his heart, though he uttered little more than an occasional question, or some murmured remark when anything struck him. Both he and his mother were so occupied that they never observed that the sky clouded over and rain began to fall, nor did they think of any other object till Bobus opened the door in search of them.
"Halloo, you deserter!"
"Hush! Mother has a headache."
"Not now, you have cured it."
"Well, you've missed an encounter with the most impudent rascal I ever came across."
"You didn't meet Hermann?"
"Well, perhaps I have found his match; but you shall hear. Grimes said he heard guns, and we came upon the scoundrel in Lewis Acre, two brace on his shoulder."
"The vultures are gathering to the prey," said his mother.
"I'm not arrived at lying still to be devoured!" said Bobus. "I gave him the benefit of a doubt, and sent Grimes to warn him off; but the fellow sent his card-_his_ card forsooth, 'Mr. Gilbert Gould, R.N.,'-and information that he had Miss Menella's permission."
"Not credible," said Jock.
"Mrs. Lisette's more likely," said his mother. "I think he is her brother."
"I sent Grimes back to tell him that Miss Menella had as much power to give leave as my old pointer, and if he did not retire at once, we should gently remove his gun and send out a summons."
"Why did you not do so at once?" cried Jock.
"Because I have brains enough not to complicate matters by a personal row with the Goulds," said Bobus, "though I could wish not to have been there, when the keepers would infallibly have done so. Shall I write to George Gould, or will you, mother?"
"Oh dear," sighed Caroline, "I think Mr. Wakefield is the fittest person, if it signifies enough to have it done at all."
"Signifies!" cried Jock. "To have that rascal loafing about! I wouldn't be trampled upon while the life is in me!"
"I don't like worrying Mr. Gould. It is not his fault, except for having married such a wife, poor man."
"Having been married by her, you mean," said Bobus. "Mark me, she means to get that fellow married to that poor child, as sure as fate."
"Impossible, Bobus! His age!"
"He is a good deal younger than his sister, and a prodigious swell."
"Besides, he is her uncle," said Jock.
"No, no, only her uncle's wife's brother."
"That's just the same."
"I wish it were!" But Jock would not be satisfied without getting a Prayer-book, to look at the table of degrees.
"He is really her third cousin, I believe," said his mother, "and I'm afraid that is not prohibited."
"Is he a ship's steward?" said Jock, looking at the card with infinite disgust.
"A paymaster's assistant, I believe."
"That would be too much. Besides, there's the Scot!"
"I do
n't think much of that," said Jock. "The mother and sister are keen for it, but Clanmacnalty is in no haste to marry, and by all accounts the Elf carries on promiscuously with three or four at once."
"And she has no fine instinct for a gentleman," added Bobus. "It is who will spread the butter thickest!"
"A bad look out for Belforest," said Jock.
"It can't be much worse than it has been with me," said his mother.
"That's what that little ass, Armine, has been presuming to din into your ears," said Bobus; "as if the old women didn't prefer beef and blankets to your coming poking piety at the poor old parties."
"By the bye," cried Caroline, starting, "those children have never come home, and see how it rains!"
Jock volunteered to take the pony carriage and fetch them, but he had not long emerged from the park in the gathering twilight before he overtook two figures under one umbrella, and would have passed them had he not been hailed.
"You demented children! Jump in this instant."
"Don't turn!" called Armine. "We must take this," showing a parcel which he had been sheltering more carefully than himself or his sister. "It is cord and tassels for the banner. They sent wrong ones," said Barbara, "and we had to go and match it. They would not let me go alone."
"Get in, I say," cried Jock, who was making demonstrations with the "national weapon" much as if he would have liked to lay it about their shoulders.
"Then we must drive onto the Parsonage," stipulated Armine.
"Not a bit of it, you drenched and foolish morsel of humanity. You are going straight home to bed. Hand us the parcel. What will you give me not to tie this cord round the Reverend Petronella's neck?"
"Thank you, Jock, I'm so glad," said Babie, referring probably to the earlier part of his speech. "We would have come home for the pony carriage, but we thought it would be out."
"Take care of the drip," was Armine's parting cry, as Babie turned the pony's head, and Jock strode down the lane. He meant merely to have given in the parcel at the door, but Miss Parsons darted out, and not distinguishing him in the dark began, "Thank you, dear Armine; I'm so sorry, but it is in the good cause and you won't regret it. Where's your sister? Gone home? But you'll come and have a cup of tea and stay to evensong?"
"My brother and sister are gone home, thank you," said Jock, with impressive formality, and a manly voice that made her start.
"Oh, indeed. Thank you, Mr. Brownlow. I was so sorry to let them go; but it had not begun to rain, and it is such a joy to dear Armine to be employed in the service."
"Yes, he is mad enough to run any risk," said Jock.
"Oh, Mr. Brownlow, if I could only persuade you to enter into the joy of self-devotion, you would see that I could not forbid him! Won't you come in and have a cup of tea?"
"Thank you, no. Good night." And Miss Parsons was left rejoicing at having said a few words of reproof to that cynical Mr. Robert Brownlow, while Jock tramped away, grinning a sardonic smile at the lady's notions of the joys of self-sacrifice.
He came home only just in time for dinner, and found Armine enduring, with a touching resignation learnt in Miss Parsons's school, the sarcasm of Bobus for having omitted to prepare his studies. The boy could neither eat nor entirely conceal the chills that were running over him; and though he tried to silence his brother's objurgations by bringing out his books afterwards, his cheeks burnt, he emitted little grunting coughs, and at last his head went down on the lexicon, and his breath came quick and short.
The Harvest Festival day was perforce kept by him in bed, blistered and watched from hour to hour to arrest the autumn cold, which was the one thing dreaded as imperilling him in the English winter which he must face for the first time for four years.
And Miss Parsons, when impressively told, evidently thought it was the family fashion to make a great fuss about him.
Alas! why are people so one-sided and absorbed in their own concerns as never to guess what stumbling-blocks they raise in other people's paths, nor how they make their good be evil spoken of?
Babie confided her feelings to Jock when he escorted her to Church in the evening, and had detected a melancholy sound in her voice which made him ask if she thought Armine's attack of the worst sort.
"Not particularly, except that he talks so beautifully."
Jock gave a small sympathetic whistle at this dreadful symptom, and wondered to hear that he had been able to talk.
"I didn't mean only to-day, but this is only what he had made up his mind to. He never expects to leave Belforest, and he thinks-oh, Jock!-he thinks it is meant to do Bobus good."
"He doesn't go the way to edify Bobus."
"No, but don't you see? That is what is so dreadful. He only just reads with Bobus because mother ordered him; and he hates it because he thinks it is of no use, for he will never be well enough to go to college. Why, he had this cold coming yesterday, and I believe he is glad, for it would be like a book for him to be very bad indeed, bad enough to be able to speak out to Bobus without being laughed at."
"Does he always go on in this way?"
"Not to mother; but to hear him and Miss Parsons is enough to drive one wild. They went on such a dreadful way yesterday that I was furious, and so glad to get away to Kenminster; only after I had set off, he came running after me, and I knew what that would be."
"What does she do? Does she blarney him?"
"Yes, I suppose so. She means it, I believe; but she does natter him so that it would make me sick, if it didn't make me so wretched! You see he likes it, because he fancies her goodness itself; and so I suppose she is, only there is such a lot of clerical shop"-then, as Jock made a sound as if he did not like the slang in her mouth-"Ay, it sounds like Bobus; but if this goes on much longer, I shall turn to Bobus's way. He has all the sense on his side!"
"No, Babie," said Jock very gravely. "That's a much worse sort of folly!"
"And he will be gone before long," said Barbara, much struck by a tone entirely unwonted from her brother. "O Jock, I thought reverses would be rather nice and help one to be heroic, and perhaps they would, if they would only come faster, and Armine could be out of Miss Parsons's way; but I don't believe he will ever be better while he is here. I think!-I think!" and she began to sob, "that Miss Parsons will really be the death of him if she is not hindered!"
"Can't he go on board the Petrel with Allen?"
"Mother did think of that," said Babie, "but Allen said he wasn't in spirits for the charge, and that cabin No. 2 wasn't comfortable enough."
Jock was not the least surprised at this selfishness, but he said-
"We _will_ get him away somehow, Infanta, never fear! And when you have left this place, you'll be all right. You'll have the Friar, and he is a host in himself."
"Yes," said Babie, ruefully, "but he is not a brother after all. Oh, Jock! mother says it is very wrong in me, but I can't help it."
"What is wrong, little one?"
"To feel it so dreadful that you and Bobus are going! I know it is honour and glory, and promotion, and chivalry, and Victoria crosses, and all that Sydney and I used to care for; but, oh! we never thought of those that stayed at home."
"You were a famous Spartan till the time came," said Jock, in an odd husky voice.
"I wouldn't mind so much but for mother," said poor Barbara, in an apologetic tone; "nor if there were any stuff in Allen; nor if dear Armie were well and like himself; but, oh dear! I feel as if all the manhood and comfort of the family would be gone to the other end of the world."
"What did you say about mother?"
"I beg your pardon, Jock, I didn't mean to worry you. I know it is a grand thing for you. But mother was so merry and happy when we thought we should all be snug with you in the old house, and she made such nice plans. But now she is so fagged and worn, and she can't sleep. She began to read as soon as it was light all those long summer mornings to keep from thinking; and she is teasing herself over her accounts. There were shoals of great horrid
bills of things Allen ordered coming in at Midsummer, just as she thought she saw her way! Do you know, she thinks she may have to let our own house and go into lodgings."
"Is that you, Barbara?" said a voice at the Parsonage wicket. "How is our dear patient?"
"Rather better to-night, we think."
"Tell him I hope to come and see him to-morrow. And say the vases are come. I thought your mother would wish us to have the large ones, so I put them in the Church. They are £3."
Babie thought Jock's face was dazed when he came among the lights in Church, and that he moved and responded like an automaton, and she could hardly get a word out of him all the way home. There, they were sent for to Armine, who was sufficiently better to want to hear all about the services, the procession, the wheat-sheaf, the hymns, and the sermons. Jock stood the examination well till it came to evensong, when, as his sister had conjectured, he knew nothing, except one sentence, which he said had come over and over again in the sermon, and he wanted to know whence it came. It was, "Seekest thou great things for thyself."
Even Armine only knew that it was in a note in the "Christian Year," and Babie looked out the reference, and found that it was Jeremiah's rebuke to Baruch for self-seeking amid the general ruin.
"I liked Baruch," she said. "I am sorry he was selfish."
"Noble selfishness, perhaps," said Armine. "He may have aimed at saving his country and coming out a glorious hero, like Gideon or Jephthah."
"And would that have been self-seeking too, as well as the commoner thing?" said Babie.
"It is like a bit of New Testament in the midst of the Old," said Armine. "They that are great are called Benefactors-a good sort of greatness, but still not the true Christian greatness."
"And that?" said Babie.
"To be content to be faithful servant as well as faithful soldier," said Armine, thoughtfully. "But what had it to do with the harvest?"
He got no satisfaction, Babie could remember nothing but Jock's face, and Jock had taken the Bible, and was looking at the passages referred to He sat for a long time resting his head on his hand, and when at last he was roused to bid Armine goodnight, he bent over him, kissed him, and said, "In spite of all, you're the wise one of us, Armie boy. Thank you."
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