 26 And Bishop Gawain, as he rose, said, Wilton, grieve not for thy woes, disgrace in trouble, for he who honoured best bestows can give thee double, Marmian. Dr. May had written to Portland, in treating that no communication might be made to Leonard Ward before his arrival, and the good physician's affection for the prisoner had been so much observed, that no one would have felt it fair to anticipate him. Indeed, he presented himself at the prison gates only two hours after the arrival of the documents, when no one but the governor was aware of their contents. Leonard was as usual at his business in the schoolmaster's department, and thither a summons was sent for him, while Dr. May and the governor alone awaited his arrival. Tom's visit was still very recent, and Leonard entered with anxious eyes, brow-drawn together, and compressed lips, as though braced to meet another blow, and the unusual room, the presence of the governor instead of the warder, and Dr. May's irrepressible emotion, so confirmed the impression that his face at once assumed a resolute look of painful expectation. "'My boy,' said Dr. May, clasping both his hands in his own, "'you have borne much of ill. Can you bear to hear good news?' "'Am I to be sent out to Australia already?' said Leonard, for a shortening of the eight years before his ticket of leave was the sole hope that had presented itself. "'Send out, yes. Out to go wherever you please, Leonard. The right is come round. The truth is out. You are a free man. Do you know what that is? It is a pardon. You're pardon. All that can be done to right you, my boy, but it is as good as a reversal of a sentence.'" The doctor had spoken this with pauses, going on, as Leonard, instead of answering, stood like one in a dream, and at last said with difficulty, "'Who did it then?' It was as you always believed. As he told,' said Leonard, drawing his brows together with the effort to understand. "'No, Leonard, the vengeance he had brought on himself did not give space for repentance, but the pocketbook, with your receipt, was upon him, and your innocence is established. And let me congratulate you,' added the governor, shaking hands with him, and add, "'that all I have known of you has been as complete an exculpation as any discovery can be.'" Leonard's hand was past him, his cheek had become white, his forehead still knit, "'Axworthy,' he said, still in the trance. "'Yes, heard in a brawl at Paris, he was brought to the Hôtel Dieu, and my son Tom was called to see him. Sam, axworthy,' repeated Leonard, putting his hand over his eyes as if one sensation overpowered everything else, and thus he stood for some seconds to the perplexity of both. They showed him the papers, he gazed, but without comprehension, and then putting the bag, provided by Tom, into his hand they sent him, moving in a sort of mechanical obedience, into the room of one of the officials to change his dress. Dr. May poured out to the governor and chaplain, who by this time had joined them the history of Leonard's generous behavior at that time of the trial, and listened in return to their account of the growing impression he had created, a belief, almost reluctant, that instead of being your prime specimen, he could only be in their hands by mistake. He was too sincere not to have confessed had he been really guilty, and in the long run such behavior as his would have been impossible in one unrepentant. He had been the more believed from the absence of complaint, demonstration, or assertion, and the constant endeavor to avoid notice, coupled with a quiet, thorough execution of whatever is set before him with all his might. This was the theme to occupy the doctor for a long time, but at last he grew eager for Leonard's return, and went to hasten him. He started up, still in the convict garb, the bag untouched. I beg your pardon, he said, when his friend's exclamation had reminded him of what had been desired of him, and in a few minutes he reappeared in the ordinary dress of a gentleman, but the change did not seem to have made him realize his freedom. There was the same submissive manner, the same conventional gesture of respect, and replied to the chaplain's warm congratulations. Come, Leonard, I am always missing the boat, but I don't want to do so now. We must get home tonight. Have you anything to take with you? My Bible and prayer book. They are my own, sir, as he turned to the governor. May I go to myself for them? Again they carried long for him, and became afraid that he had fallen into another reverie, but going to fetch him found that the delay was caused by the farewells of a who had come in his way. The tidings of his sole justification had spread, and each official was eager to wish him good speed, and thank him for the aid of his example and support. The schoolmaster, who had of late treated him as a friend, kept close to him, rejoicing in his liberation, but expecting to miss him sorely, and such of the convicts as were within reach, were not without their share in the general exaltation. He had never galled them by his superiority, and though Brown, the clerk, had been his only friend, he had done many an act of kindness, and when writing letters for the unlearned, had spoken many a wholesome simple word that had gone home to the heart. His hand was as ready for a parting grasp from a fellow prisoner as from a water, and his thought and voice were called to leave messages for men out of reach. His eyes moistened at the kindly felicitations, but when he was past the oft-trodden precincts of the inner court and long galleries, the passiveness returned, and he received the last goodbyes of the governor and superior officers, as if only half alive to their import, and thus, silent, calm, and grave, his composure like that of a man walking in his sleep, did Leonard Ward pass the arch gateways, enter on the outer world, and end his three and a half years of penal servitude. I'm less like an angel than he is like St. Peter, thought Dr. May, as he watched the fixed dreamy gaze, but this is like, yet wished he not that it was true, but thought he saw a vision, when will he realize liberty and enjoy it? I shall do him a greater kindness by leaving him to himself. And in spite of his impatience, Dr. May refrained from disturbing that open-eyed trans all the way down the long hill, trusting to the crowd in esteem for arousing him to proceed that he was no longer among rustic coasts and blue-shirts, but he stood motionless, gazing, or at least his face turned, towards the dorset coast, uttering no word, making no movement, save when summoned by his guide, then obeying as implicitly as though it were his jailer. So they came to the pier, and so they walked the length of the waymen, paced the platform, and took their places in the train. Just as they had shot beyond the town, and come into the little wooded valleys beyond, Leonard turned round, and with the first sparkle in his eye, exclaimed, Trees! Oh, noble trees and hedges! Then turned again to look in enchantment at the passing groups, far from noble, though bright with autumn tints, that alternated with the chalked-downs. Dr. May was pleased at this revival, and entertained at the start and glance of inquiring alarm from an old gentleman in the other corner. Presently, in the darkness of a cutting, again Leonard spoke, Where are you taking me, Dr. May? Home, of course. Whatever the word might imply to the poor lad, he was satisfied, and again became absorbed in the sight of fields, trees, and hedges. While Dr. May watched the tokens of secret dismay in their fellow traveler, who had no doubt understood, home, to mean his private asylum. Indeed, though the steady full dark eyes showed no aberration, there was a strange deep cave between the lid and the eyebrow, which gave a haggard look. The spare, worn, gray features had an expression, not indeed weak, nor wandering, but half bewildered, half absorbed, moreover in spite of Tom's minute selection of apparel. It had been too hasty a toilette for the garments to look perfectly natural, and the cropped head was so suspicious that it was no wonder that at the first station the old gentleman gathered up his umbrella, with intense courtesy squeezed gingerly to the door, carefully avoiding any stumble over Param's toes, and made his escape, entering another carriage, with he no doubt signed cautions against the lunatic and his keeper, since no one again invaded their privacy. Perhaps this incident most fully revealed to the doctor, how unlike other people his charge was, how much changed from the handsome-spirited lad on whom the trouble had fallen, and he looked again and again at the profile turned to the window, as fixed and set as though it had been carved. Ah, patience is an exhausting virtue, said he to himself. Verily it is bearing, bearing up under the full weight, and the long-bent spring is the slower in rebounding and proportion to its inherent strength. Poor lad, what protracted endurance it has been. There is health and force in his face. No line of sin, nor sickness, nor worldly care, such as it makes one's heart ache to see aging young faces. Yet how utterly unlike the face of one in twenty. I had rather see it sadder than so strangely settled and sedate. Shall I speak to him again? Not yet. Those green hillsides, those fields and cattle, must refresh him better than my clavours, after his grim stony mount of purgatory. I wish it were a brighter day to greet him, instead of this gray, damp fog. The said fog prevented any semblance of sunset, but through the gray moonlit haze, Leonard kept his face to the window, pertinaciously clearing openings in the bedewed glass, as though the varying outline of the horizon had a fascination for him. At last, after ten minutes of glaring gas, had a junction, had by contrast rendered the mist impenetrable, and reduced the view to brightened clouds of steam, and to white telegraphic posts erecting themselves every moment. With their wires changing their perspective in incessant monotony, he seized his gaze and set upright in his place, with the same strange rigid, somnambulist air. Doctor may resolve to rouse him. Well, Leonard, he said, this has been a very long fever, but we are well through it at last, with a young doctor from Paris to our aid. Probably Leonard only heard the voice, not the words, for he passed his hand over his face, and looked up to the doctor, saying dreamily, Let me see! Is it all true? And then, with a grave wistful look, it was not I who did that thing, then? My dear, exclaimed the doctor, starting forward, and catching hold of his hand, have they brought you to this? I always meant to ask you if I ever saw you alone again, said Leonard, but you don't mean that you have imagined it? Not constantly, not when anyone was with me, said Leonard, roused by Doctor May's evident dismay, and drawn on by his face of anxious inquiry. At Milbank, I generally thought I remembered it just to say described it in court, and that it was some miserable, ruinous delusion that hindered my confessing, but the odd thing was, that the moment anyone opened my door, I forgot all about it, resolutions and all, and was myself again. Then surely, surely you left that whore with the solitude? Yes, till lately, but when it did come back, I could not be sure what was recollection of fact, and what of my own fancy, and he drew his brows together in painful effort. Did I know who did it, or did I only guess? You came to a right illusion, and would not let me act on it. And I really did write the receipt, and not dream it? That receipt has been in my hand. It was what has brought you here, and not a hearing ears, Dr. May went over the narrative, and Leonard stood up under the little lamp in the roof of the carriage to read the papers. I recollect, I understand, he said, presently, and sat down, grave and meditative, no longer dreamy but going over events, which had at last acquired assurance to his memory from external circumstances. Presently his fingers were clasped together over his face, his head bent, and then he looked up and said, Do they know it, my sister and brother? No, we would not write till you were free. You must date the first letter from Stonegirl. The thought had brought a bitter pain. One half year sooner, and he leaned back in his seat, with fingers tightly pressed together, and trembling with emotion. Nay, Leonard, may not that your child be the first to rejoice in the fulfillment of her own sweet note of comfort? They could not harm the innocent. Not innocent, he said, not innocent of causing all the discord that has ended in their exile and the dear child's death. Then this is what has preyed on you, and changed you so much more of me, said Dr. May. When I knew that I was indeed guilty of her death, said Leonard, in a calm, full conviction of too long standing to be accompanied with agitation, though permanently bowing him down. And you never spoke of this, not to the chaplain? I never could. It would have implied all the rest that he could not believe, and it would not have changed the fact. The aspect of it may change, Leonard. You know yourself how many immediate causes combine, of which you cannot accuse yourself, your brother's wrongheadedness and all the rest, and, added the doctor, recovering himself. You do see it in other aspects, I know. Think of the spirit set free to be near you, free from the world that has gone so hard with you. I can't keep that thought long, I'm not worthy of it. Again he was silent. But presently said, as with the sudden thought, you would have told me if there were any news of aid. No, there has been no letter since her last enclosure for you, and then Dr. May gave the details from the papers on the doings of Henry's division of the army. Well, Henry let me be with them, said Leonard musingly. They will come home, depend upon it. You must wait till you hear. Leonard thought a little while, then said, Where did you say I was to go, Dr. May? Where, indeed, home, Leonard, home. Ethel is waiting for us, to the high street. Leonard looked up again with his bewildered face, then said, I know what you do with me will be right, but had you rather not, said the doctor, startled. Rather, and the doctor, to his exceeding joy, saw the fingers over his eyes moist with the tears they tried to hide. I only meant, he added, with an effort. You must think and judge. I can't think whether I ought. If you ask me that, said Dr. May earnestly, all I have to say is, that I don't know what palace is worthy of you. There was not much said after that, and the doctor fell asleep, waking only at the halls at stations to ask where he was. At last came Bluer, and as the lights shone on the clock, Leonard said, A quarter past twelve, it is the very train I went by. Is it a dream? Ten minutes more, and stone borough was the cry, hastily springing out, shuffling the tickets into the porter's hand, and grappling Leonard's arm as if he feared an escape, Dr. May hurried him into the empty streets and strode on in silence. The pull at the doorbell was answered instantly by Ethel herself. She held out her hand, and grasped that which Leonard had almost withheld, shrieking as from too sudden a vision, and then she ardently exchanged kisses with her father. Where's Tom? Gone to bed? said Dr. May, stepping into the bright drying room. No, said Ethel, didn't really. He is gone. He has gone to America. The doctor gave a prodigious start, and looked at her again. He went this afternoon, she said. There is some matter about the diseases of climate that he must settle before the book is published, and he thought he could best be spared now. He has left messages that I will give you by and by, but you must both be famished. Her looks indicated that all was right, and both turned to welcome the guest who stood where the first impulse had left him in the hall, not moving forward till he was invited into the fire and the meal already spread. He then obeyed and took the place pointed out. While the doctor nervously expatiated on the cold, damp, and changes of train, and Ethel, in the active bashfulness of hidden agitation, made tea, cut bread, carved chicken, and waited on them with double acidity, as Leonard, though eating as a man who had fasted since early morning, was passive as a little child, merely accepting what was offered to him, and not even passing his cup till she held out her hand for it. She did not even dare to look at him. She could not bear that he should see her do so. It was enough to know that he was free, that he was there, that it was over. She did not want to see how it had changed him. And, half to set him at ease, half to work off her own excitement, she talked to her father, and told him of the little events of his absence till the meal was over. And, at half past one, good night's work exchanged with Leonard, and the doctor saw him to his room, then returned to his daughter on her own threshold. That's a thing to have lived for, he said. Ethel locked her hands together and looked up. And now, how about this other denouement? I might have guessed that the wind sat in that quarter. But you're not to guess it, Papa. It is really and truly about the diseases of climate. Swamp fevers A and egg use. The, if you can help it, was of great comfort now. Ethel could venture on, saying, Of course, that has something to do with it. But he really does make the book his object. And please, please don't give any hint that you suspect anything else. I suppose you are in his confidence, and I must ask no questions. I hated not telling you, and letting you tease him. But he trusted me just enough not to make me dare to see a word, though I never was sure there was a word to say. Now, do just once on, Papa, that Tom is the romantic one, after all, to have done as he did in the height of the trouble. Well, in his place, so should I, said the doctor, with the perversiveness of not satisfying expectations of amazement. You would, said Ethel, but Tom, would you have thought it up, Tom? Tom has more in him than shows through his spectacles, answered Dr. Me. So, that's the key to his restless fit. Poor fellow, how did it go with him? They have not been carrying it on all this time, surely? Oh no, no, Papa. She cut him to the heart, poor boy. Thought he was laughing at her. Told him it had all been irony. He has no notion whether she will ever forgive him. A very good lesson, Master Dr. Thomas, said Dr. Me, with a twinkle in his eye, and turn out as it will, it has done him good. Tied him over a dangerous time of life. Well, you must tell me all about it tomorrow. I'm too sleepy to know what I'm talking of. The sleepiness that always finished off the doctor's senses at the right moment was a great preservative of his freshness and vigor, but Ethel was far from sharing it, and was very glad when the clock sounded a legitimate hour for getting up, and dressing by candlelight, briefly answering Gertrude's even questions on the arrival. It was a pouring wet morning, and she forbade Daisy to go to church. Indeed, it would have been too bad for herself on any morning but this. Any but this, as she repeated, smiling at her own spring of thankfulness, as she fortified herself with a weight of waterproof, and came forth in the darkness of 745 on a grim November day. A few steps before her, pacing on, umbrella-less, was a figure which made her hurry to overtake him. Oh, Leonard, after your journey, and in this rain? He made a gesture of courtesy, but moved as if to follow, not join her. Did he not know whether he were within the pale of humanity? Here is half an umbrella. Won't you hold it for me? She said, and as he followed his instinct of obedience, she put it into his hands, and took his arm, thinking that this familiarity would best restore him to a sense of his regained position, and, moreover, feeling glad and triumphant to be thus leaning, and to have that strong arm to contend with the driving glass that came howling round the corner of Minster Street and fighting for their shelter. They were both out of breath when they paused to recover in the deep forge of the Minster. Is Dr. May come home? Yes, and Ethel signed, and Mr. Wilmot held out at Ernest's hand with, This is well. I am glad to see you. Thank you, sir, said Leonard hardly, and for all. This is your new beginning of life, Leonard. God bless you in it. As Mr. Wilmot passed on, Ethel, for the first time, ventured to look up into the eyes, and saw their hollow setting, their loss of sparkle, but their added steadfastness and resolution. She could not help repeating the long treasured lines, and, Leonard, grieve not for thy woes, disgrace and trouble, for he who honors best the stows shall give thee double. I never ceased to be glad you read Marmian with me, he hastily said, as he turned in the church on hearing a clattering of choristers behind him. Clara might have had such sensations when she bound the spurs on her knight's heels, yet even she could hardly have had so pure, unselfish, and exquisite a joy as Ethel's in receiving the pupil who had been in a far different school from hers. The gray dawn through the gloom, the depths of shadow in the twilight church, softening and renewing all more solemn and mysterious, were more in accordance than bright and beamy sunshine with her subdued grave thankfulness, and there was something suitable in the fewness of the congregation that had gathered in the Lady Chapel, so few that there was no room for shyness, either in or for him who was again taking his place there, with steady composed demeanor, its stillness concealing so much. Ethel had reckoned on the verse that he might hear the mornings of such as our incaptivity and deliver the children appointed unto death, but she had not reckoned on its falling on her ears in a deep, full-tone, melodious bass that came in, giving body to the young notes of the choristers, a voice so altered and mellowed since she last had heard it, that it made her look across in doubt and recognize in the uplifted face that here indeed the freed captive was at home and lifted above himself. When the claws in the litany for all prisoners and captives brought to her the thrill that she had only to look up to see the fulfillment of many and many a prayer for one captive, for once she did not hear the response, only saw the bent head, as though there were thoughts went too deep to find voice. And again, there was the special thanksgiving that Mr. Wilmot could not refrain from introducing, for one to whom a great mercy had been vouchsafed. If Ethel had had to swim home, she would not but have been there. Charles Cheviot addressed them as they came out of church. Good morning! Mr. Ward, I hope to do myself the honor of calling on you. I shall see you again, Ethel. And all he went over the glazy stones to his own house, Ethel knowing that this cordial salutation and intended call were meant to be honorable amends for his suspicions, but Leonard, unconscious of the import, and scarcely knowing indeed that he was addressed, made his mechanical gesture of respect and looked up, down, and round, absorbed in the scene. How exactly the same at all looks, he said, the cluster gate and the swan and the postman in the very same waterproof cape. Do you not feel like being just awake? No, it is more like being a ghost or somebody else. Then the wind drove them on too fast for speech, till, as they crossed the high street, Ethel pointed through the plain trees to two round black eyes and a shining black nose at the dining room window. My Mab, my poor little Mab, you have kept her all this time. I was afraid to ask for her. I could not hope it. I could not get my spoiled child Gertrude to bed without taking Mab that she might see the meeting. Perhaps it served Daisy right that the meeting did not answer her expectations. Mab and her master had both grown older. She smelt round him long before she was sure of him, and then their content in one another was less shown by fervent rapture than by the quiet hand smoothing her silken coat. And, in return, by her wistful eye, nestling gesture, gently waving tail. And Leonard, how was it with him? It was not easy to tell in his absolute passiveness. He seemed to have neither will nor impulse to speak, move, or act, though whatever was desired of him he did with the implicit obedience that no one could bear to see. They put books near him, but he did not voluntarily touch one. They asked if he would write to his sister, and he took the pen in his hand, but did not accomplish a commencement. Ethel asked him if he retired or had a headache. Thank you, no, he said, all right, and made a dip in the ink. I did not need to tease you, she said. The mail is not going just yet, and there is no need for haste. I was only afraid something was wrong. Thank you, he said, submissively. I will, when I can think. But it is all too strange. I have not seen a lady nor a room like this since July three years. After that, Ethel let him alone, satisfied that peace was the best means of recovering the exhaustion of his long suffering. The difficulty was that this was no house for quiet, especially the day after the master's return. The doorbell kept on ringing, and each time he looked startled and nervous, though assured that it was only patience. But at twelve o'clock in Res. Mr. Cheviot's little brother, with a note from Mary, lamenting that it was too wet for herself, but saying that Charles was coming in the afternoon, and that he intended to have a dinner party of old stone rural scholars to welcome Leonard back. Meanwhile, Martin Cheviot, wanting to see and not to stare, and to unite cordiality and unconsciousness, made an awkward mixture of all, and did not know how to get away, and before he had accomplished it, Mr. Edward Anderson was announced. He hardly shook hands with Leonard, eagerly welcomed him, and talked volubly, and his last communication was, if it clears, you will see Matilda this afternoon. I did not know she was here. Yes, she and Harviar come to Mrs. Ledwich's to stay over Sunday, and there was a laugh in the corner of his eye that convinced Ethel that the torrents of rain would be no protection. Papa, said she, darting out to meet her father in the hall, you must take Leonard out in your room this afternoon, if you don't want him driven distracted. If he is in the house, ropes don't hold Mrs. Harvi Anderson from him. So Dr. May invited his guest to share his drive, and the excitement began to seem unreal when the doctor returned alone. I dropped him at Coxmore, he said. It was Richard's notion that he would be quieter there, able to get out and go to church without being stared at. Did he like it? Asked Richard, disappointed. If one told him to chop off his finger, he would do it, and never show whether he liked it. Richard asked him, and he said, Thank you. I never could get an opening to show him that we did not want to suppress him. I never saw spirit so quenched. Charles Shebio thought it was a mistake to do what gave the appearance of suppression. He said that it was due to Leonard to welcome him as hardly as possible, and not to encourage false shame, where there was no disgrace. So he sent his wife to fill up her cards for his dinner party, and included in it Mr. and Mrs. Harvi Anderson for the sake of their warm interest in the liberated prisoner. However, Leonard was out of the scrape, as the doctor expressed it, for he had one of his severe sore throats, and was laid up at Coxmore. Richard was dismayed by his passive obedience, a novelty to the gentle eldest, who had all his life been submitting, and now was puzzled by his guess unfailing acquiescence without a token of preference or independence, and comically mazed at the implicit fulfillment of his recommendation to keep the throat in bed. A wise suggestion, but one that the whole house of May, in their own persons, would have scouted. Nothing short of the highest authority ever kept them there. The semblance of illness was perhaps a good starting point for return to the ways of the world, and on the day week of his going to Coxmore Ethel found him by the fire, beginning his letters to his brother and sister, and looking brighter and more cheery, but so devoid of voice that speech could not be expected of him. She had just looked in again after some parish visiting, when a quick soldierly step was heard, and then walked Aubrey. No, I'm not come to you Ethel, I'm only come to this fellow, and he ardently grasped his hand. I've got leave till Monday, and I shall stay here and see nobody else. What, a sore throat? Couldn't you get wrapped up enough between the two doctors? Leonard's eyes lighted as he muttered his horse. Thank you. And Ethel lingered for a little desultory talk to her brother, contrasting the changes that the three years had made in the two friends. Aubrey, drunk out of his home scholarly dreaminess by military and practical discipline, had exchanged his native langer for prompt upright alertness of bearing and speech. His eye had grown more steady, his mouth had lost its vague pensive expression, and was rendered sterner by the dark moustache. Definite thought, purpose, and action had molded his whole countenance in person into hopeful manhood, instead of visionary boyhood. The other face, naturally the most full of fire and resolution, looked strangely different in its serious unspawning gravity, the deeply worn stamp of patient endurance and utter isolation. There was much of rest and calm, and even of content, but with all a quenched look, as if the luster of youth and hope had been extinguished, and the soul had been so driven in upon itself that there was no opening to receive external sympathy, a settled expression, all the stranger on a face with the clear smoothness of early youth. One thing at least was unchanged, the firm friendship and affection that kept the two constantly casting glances over one another, to assure themselves of the presence before them. Ethel left them together, and her father, who made out that he should save time by going to Coxmore Church on Sunday morning, reported that the boys seemed very happy together in their own way, but that Richard reported himself to have been at the sole expense of conversation in the evening, the only time such an event could ever have occurred. Aubrey returned home late on the Sunday evening, and Leonard set off to walk part of the way with him in the desk, but ended by coming the whole distance, for the twilight opened their lips in this renewal of old habits. It is all right to be walking together again, said Aubrey warmly, though it is not like those spring days. I've thought of them every Sunday. And what are you going to do now, old fellow? I don't know. I hear Bramsha is going to offer you to come into his office. Now don't do that, Leonard, whatever you do. I don't know. You are to have all your property back, you know, and you could do much better for yourself than that. I can't tell till I have heard from my brother. But Leonard, promise me now, you'll not go out and make a Yankee yourself. I can't tell. I shall do what he wishes. Aubrey presently found that Leonard seemed to have no capacity to think or speak of the future or the past. He set Aubrey off on his own concerns, and listened with interest, asking questions that showed him perfectly alive to what regarded his friend, but the passive inaction of will and spirit still continued and made him almost a disappointment. On Monday morning there was a squabble between the young engineer and the daisy, who was a profound believer in the scientific object of Tom's journey, and greatly resented the far too obvious construction thereof. You must read lots of bad novels, add shape to them, Aubrey. It is like the fag end of the most trumpery of them all. You haven't gone far enough in your mathematics, you see, daisy. You think one in one make two, so I say. I've gone into the higher branches. I didn't think you were so simple and commonplace. It would be so stupid to think he must, just because he could not help making this discovery. All for one of the higher branches of mathematics. One plus one equals one. One minus common sense, plus folly, plus romance, minus anything to do. Your equation is worthy of Mrs. Harvey Anderson. I gave her a good dose of the diseases of climate. Aubrey was looking at all the time Gertrude was triumphant. And finally he said, I have no absolute faith in disinterest of philanthropy to a younger brother, whatever I had before I went to Tirol. What has that to do with it? Ask Gertrude. Everybody was cut up and wanted to change, and you more than all. I do believe the possibility of a love affair absolutely drives people mad, and now they must need satellite upon poor Tom. Just the one of the family who is not so stupid, but has plenty of other things to think about. So you think it a stupid pastime? Of course it is. Why, just look. Hasn't everybody in the family turned stupid and of no use? As soon as they went and fell in love? Only good old Ethel here has too much sense, and that's what makes her such a dear old girl girl. And Harry, he is twice the fun after he comes home before he gets his fit of love. And all the storybooks that begin pleasantly, the instant that love gets in, they are just alike. So stupid! And now, if you haven't done it yourself, you want to look poor innocent Tom in for it. When your Tom comes, may I be there to see? He retreated from her evident designs of clapperclimbing him, and she turned around to Ethel with, Now, isn't it stupid Ethel? Very stupid to think all the zest of life resides in one particular feeling, said Ethel, but more stupid to talk of what you know nothing about. I'll be put in his head for a hurried farewell and telegraph to me when Mrs. Thomas May comes home. If Mrs. Thomas May comes home, I'll give her that chair cover, said Ethel, and her idle needle woman, having been eight months working one corner of it, went off into fits of laughter, regarding its completion as an equally monstrous feat with an active cannibalism on the impossible Mrs. Thomas May. How different were these young things with the rudimentaid and exuberant animation in spirits, from him in whom all the sparkle and aspiration of life seem extinguished? End of Chapter 26 Recording by Nancy Cochran-Gergen Gilbert, Arizona Chapter 27 of the Trial This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the puppy domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nancy Cochran-Gergen Gilbert, Arizona The Trial by Charlotte Mary Young Chapter 27 A cup was at my lips. It passed as passes the wild desert last. I woke, around me was a gloom in silence of the tomb. But in that awful solitude that little spirit by me stood. But oh, how changed thoughts in past years. Under Richard's kind, let alone system, Leonard was slowly recovering tone. First he took the ruling lines in the Coxmore account books. Then he helped in their audit. And with occupation came the sense of the power of voluntary exertion. He went and came freely and began to take long rambles in the loneliest parts of the heaths and plantations. While Richard left him scrupulously to his own devices and rejoiced to see them more defined and vigorous every day, the next stop was to assist in the night school where Richard had hitherto toiled, single-handed among very rough subjects. The technical training and experience derived from Leonard's work under the schoolmaster at Portland were invaluable. And though taking the lead was the last thing he would have thought of, he no sooner entered the school than attention and authority were there. And Richard found that what had to him been a vain and patient struggle was becoming both effective and agreeable. Interest in his work was making Leonard cheerful and alert, though still grave, in shrinking from notice, avoiding the town by daylight, and only coming to Dr. May's in the dark evenings. On the last Sunday in Advent Richard was engaged to preach at his original curacy and that the days before and after it should likewise be spent away from home was insisted on after the men of the friends of hard-working clergy. He had the less disliked going that he could leave his schoolwork to Leonard, who was to be housed at his father's, and there was soon perceived to have become a much more ordinary member of society than on his first arrival. One evening there was a loud peel at the doorbell and the maid, one of Ethel's experiments of training, came in. Please, sir, a gentleman has brought a cockatoo and a letter and a little boy from the Archdeacon. Archdeacon, cried Dr. May, catching sight of the handwriting on the letter and starting up. Archdeacon Norman, one of Norman's stray missionaries and a Maui newly caught. Oh, what fun, cried Daisy in ecstasy. At that moment, through the still open door, walking as if he had lived there all his life, there entered the prettiest little boy that ever was seen. A little knickerbocker boy, with floating rich dark ringlets, like a miniature cavalier coming forth from a picture with a white cockatoo on his wrist. Not in the least confused, he went straight towards Dr. May and said, Good morning, Grandpa Pa. Ha, and who may you be, my Elfin Prince? said the doctor. I'm Dickie, Richard Rivers May. I'm not an Elfin Prince, said the boy, with a moment's hurt feeling. Papa sent me. By that time, the boy was fastened as grandfather's embrace and was only enough release to give him space to answer the evil question. Papa, Papa here? Oh no, I came with Mr. Seaford. The doctor hastily turned Dickie over to the two aunts and hastened forth to the stranger, whose name he will knew as the colonist's son, a favorite and devoted clerical pupil of Normans. Aunt Ethel, said little Richard, with instant recognition. Mama said you would be like her, but I don't think you will. Nor I, Dickie, but we'll try. And who's that? Yes, what am I to be like? asked Gertrude. You're not Aunt Daisy. Aunt Daisy is the little girl. Gertrude made him the lowest of curtsies, for not to be taken for a little girl was a compliment she esteemed above all others. Dickie's next speech was, and is that Uncle Aubrey? No, that's Leonard. Dickie shook hands with him very prettily, but then returning upon Ethel observed, I thought it was Uncle Aubrey because soldiers always cut their hair so close. The other guest was so thoroughly a colonist and had so little idea of anything but primitive hospitality that he had had no notion of writing beforehand to announce his coming. An accident had delayed the letters by which Norman and Nada had announced their decision of sending home their eldest boy under his care. Papa had no time to teach me alone, said Dickie, who seemed to have been taken into the family councils. And Mama is always busy, and I wasn't getting any good with some of the boys that come to school to Papa. Indeed, Mr. Dickie, said the doctor, full of suppressed laughter. It is quite true, said Mr. Seaford. There are some boys that the Archdeacon feels bound to educate, but who are not desirable companions for his son. It is a great sacrifice, remarked the young gentleman. Oh, Dickie, Dickie, cried Gertrude in fists. Don't be a prig. Mama said it, to finally answer Dickie. Only a parrot, said Ethel, behind her handkerchief. But Dickie, who heard whatever he was not meant to hear, answered. It is not a parrot. It is a white cockatoo that the chief of something unutterable brought down on his wrist like a hawk to the mission ship, and that Mama sent as a present to Uncle George. I prefer the parrot that has fallen to my share, observed the doctor. It was, by this time, perched beside him, looking perfectly at ease and thoroughly at home. There was something very amusing in the aspect of the little man. He so completely recalled his mother's hummingbird title by the perfect look of finished porcelain perfection, that even a journey from the antipodes with only gentleman nursemaids had not destroyed. The ring-lidded, rich brown hair shone like glossy silk. The cheeks were like painting. The trim, well-made legs, and small hands and feet looked dainty and fairy-like, yet not at all effeminate. Hands and face were a healthy brown, and contrasted with the little white collar the set of which made Ethel exclaim, Just look, Daisy! That's what I always told you about made-as-doings. Only I can't understand it. Dicky, have the fairies kept you in repair ever since Mama dressed you last? We haven't any fairies in New Zealand, he replied, and Mama never dressed me since I was a baby. And what do you now? said the doctor. I am eight years old, said this piece of independence perfectly well-mannered, and au fay in all the customs of the tea table. And when the meal was over, he confidentially said to his aunt, Shall I come and help you wash up? I never break anything. Ethel declined his kind offer, but he hung on her hand and asked if he might go and see the school room where Papa and Uncle Harry used to blow soap bubbles. She lighted a candle, and the little gentleman showed himself minutely acquainted with the whole geography of the house, knew all the rooms in the pictures, and where everything had happened, even to adventures that Ethel had forgotten. It is of no use to say there are no fairies in New Zealand, said Dr May, taking him on his knee, and looking into the blue depths of Norman's eyes. You have been headway to Queen Mab, and perpetually here when she made you put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Papa read that to the boys, and they said it was stupid and no use, said Dicky, but Papa said that the electric telegraph would do it. The little cavalier appeared not to know what it was to be at a loss for an answer, and the joint letter from his parents explained that his precocious quickness was one of their causes for sending him home. He was so deft and useful as to be important in the household, and necessarily always living with his father and mother, he took constant part in their conversation, and was far more learned in things than in books. In the place where they were settled, trustworthy boy society was unattainable, and they had felt their little son in danger of being spoiled and made forward from his very goodness and brightness, wrote Metta. If you find him a forward imp, recollected as my fault for having depended so much on him. His escort was a specimen of the work Norman had done, not actual mission work, but preparation and inspiriting of those who went forth on the actual task. He was a simple-minded, single-hearted man, one of the first pupils in Norman's College, and the one who had most fully imbibed his spirit. He had been for some years a clergyman, and latterly had each winter joined the mission voyage among Melanesian Isles, returning to their homes the lads brought for the summer for education, to the Mission College in New Zealand, and spending some time at a station upon one or other of the islands. He had come back from the last voyage much out of health, and had been for weeks nursed by Metta, until a long rest having been declared necessary. He had been sent to England as the only place where he would not be tempted to work, and was to visit his only remaining relation, a sister who had married an officer and was in Ireland. He was burned to go back again, and eagerly explained, sagely corroborated by the testimony of the tiny Archdeacon, that his illness was to be laid to the blame of his own imprudence, not to the climate, and he dwelt upon the delights of the yearly voyage among the lovely islands, beautiful beyond imagination, fenced in by coral breakwaters, within which the limpid water displayed exquisite sea flowers, shells, and fishes of magical gorgeousness of hue, of the brilliant white beach fringing the glorious vegetation, coconut, breadfruit, banana, and banyan growing on the sloping sides of volcanic rocks, of mysterious red glowing volcano lights seen far out at sea at night, of glades opening to show high-roofed huts covered with mats, of canoes decorated with the shining white shells resembling a poached egg, of natives clustering round, eager and excited, seldom otherwise than friendly, though in hitherto unvisited places, or in those where the one-mount rages of sandalwood traders had excited distrust, caution was necessary, and there was peril enough to give the voyage a full character of heroism and adventure. Bows and poison arrows were sometimes brought down, and Dicky insisted that they had been used, but in general the mission was recognized, and an eager welcome given, presence of fish hooks, or of braid and handkerchiefs, established a friendly feeling, and readiness in which the hand of the maker must be recognized, was manifested to entrust lads to the mission for the summer's training at the college in New Zealand. Wild lads, innocent of all clothing, except marvelous adornments of their woolly locks, wigged out sometimes into huge cauliflower whitened with coral lime, or arranged quarterly red and white, and their noses decorated with rings, which were their nearest approach to a pocket, as they served for the suspension of fish hooks, or any small article. A radiate arrangement of skewers from the nose, an unwitting imitation of a cat's whiskers, had even been known. A few days taught dressing and eating in a civilized fashion, and time, example, and the wonderful influence of the head of the mission, trained these naturally intelligent boys into much that was hopeful. Dicky, who had been often at the college, had much to tell of familiarity with the light canoes that some cut out and launched. Of the teaching them English games, of their orderly ways in school and in hall, of the prayers in their many tongues, and of the baptism of some, after full probation, and at least one winter's return to their own aisles, as a test of their sincerity and constancy. Much as the Mae family had already heard of this wonderful work, it came all the closer and nearer now. The Isle of Alan Ernst Cliff's burial place had now many Christians in it. Harry's friend, the young chief David, was dead, but his people were some of them already teachers and examples, and the whole region was full to overflowing of the harvest, calling out for laborers to gather it in. Silent as usual, Leonard nevertheless was listening with all his heart, and with parted lips and kindling eyes that gave back somewhat of his formal countenance. Suddenly his face struck Mr. Seaford, and turning on him with a smile, he said, You should be with us yourself. You look cut out for mission work. Leonard murmured something, blushed up to his ears and subsided, but the simple, single hearted Mr. Seaford, his soul all on one object, his experience only in one groove. By no means they decide the thought, and the moment he was out of Leonard's presence, eagerly asked who that young man was. Leonard wore, he is the son of an old friend, replied Dr. Mae, a little perplexed to explain his connection. What is he doing? I never saw anyone looking more suited for our work. Tell him so again, said Dr. Mae. I know no one that would be fitter. They were all taken up with a small grandson the next day. He was ready in his very paged triminess to go to the early service at the Minster, but he was full of the colonial nil admirari principle, and was quite above being struck by the grand old building, or allowing its superiority, either to Papa's own church or Auckland Cathedral. They took him to present to Mary on their way back from church, when he was the occasion of a great commotion by carrying the precious Master Charlie all across the hall to his mama, and quietly observing in resentment at the outcry, that of course he always carried little Ethel about when mama and nurse were busy. After breakfast, when he had finished his investigations of all Dr. Mae's domains, and much entertained Gertrude by his knowledge of them, Ethel set him down to write a letter to his father, and her own Tomato being engrossing, she did not look much more after him till Dr. Mae came in, and said, I want you to sketch off a portrait of a dickey bird for Mata, and he put before her a natural history with the figure of that tiny hummingbird which is endowed with swans-down knickerbockers. By the by, where is the sprite? He was not to be found, and when dinner time, and much calling and searching, failed to produce him, his grandfather declared that he was gone back to Elfland. But Leonard recollected a certain particular inquiries about the situation of the Grange no Coxmoor, and it was concluded that he had anticipated the doctor's intentions of taking him and Mr. Seaford there in the afternoon. The notion was confirmed by the cockatoo having likewise disappeared, but there was no great anxiety, since the little New Zealander appeared as capable of taking care of himself as any gentleman in Her Majesty's dominions, and a note had already been sent to his aunt informing her of his arrival. Still, a summons to the doctor in an opposite direction was an opportune. The more so as the guest was to remain at Stoneborough only this one day, and had letters and messages from Mr. and Mrs. Rivers, while it was also desirable to see whether the boy had gone to Coxmoor. Leonard proposed to become Mr. Seaford's guide to the Grange, learn whether Dickey was there, and meet the two ladies at Coxmoor with the tidings, leaving Mr. Seaford and the boy to be picked up by the doctor on his return. It was his first voluntary offer to go anywhere, though he had more than once been vainly invited to the Grange with Richard. Much conversation on the mission took place during the walk, and resulted in Mr. Seaford's asking Leonard if his profession were settled. No, he said, and not at all aware that his companion did not know what every other person around him knew, he added. I have been thrown out of everything. I am waiting to hear from my brother. Then you are not at university? Oh no, I was a clerk. Then if nothing is decided, is it impossible that you should turn your eyes to our work? Stay, said Leonard, standing still. I must ask whether you know all about me. Would it be possible to admit to such work as yours one who, by a terrible mistake, has been under sentence of death and in confinement for three years? I must think. Let us talk of this another time. Is that the Grange? hastily exclaimed the missionary, rather breathlessly. Leonard, with perfect composure, replied that it was, pointed out the different matters of interest, and, though a little more silent, showed norther change of manner. He was asking the servant at the door if Master May were there. When Mr. Rivers came out and conducted both into the drying room, where little Dickie was, sure enough, it appeared that, cockatoo unrest, he had put his pretty face up to the glass of Mrs. Rivers' morning room, and had asked her, is this mama's room Aunt Flora, or is Margaret? Uncle and cousin had all been captivated by him, and he was at present looking at the display of all Margaret's treasures, keenly appreciating and useful and ingenious, but condemning the merely ornamental as only fit for his baby sister. Margaret was wonderfully gracious and childlike, but perhaps she rather oppressed him, for when Leonard explained that he must go on to meet Miss Bay at Coxmore, the little fellow sprang up, declaring that he wanted to go thither, and, though tall that his grandfather was coming for him, and that the walk was long, he insisted that he was not tired, and Mr. Seaford, finding him not to be dissuaded, broke off his conversation in the midst, and insisted on accompanying him, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Rivers rather amazed at Colonial Breedy. The first time Mr. Seaford could accomplish being alone with Dr. May, he mysteriously shut the door and began. I am afraid Mrs. Rivers sought me very rude, but though no doubt he is quite harmless, I could not let the child or the ladies be alone with him. With whom? With your patient. What patient and mind have you been seeing today, as Dr. May much puzzled? Oh, then you consider him as convalescent, and certainly he does seem rational on every other point, but is this one altogether an hallucination? I have not made out either the hallucination or the convalescent. I beg your pardon, said the courteous doctor, but I cannot understand whom you have seen. Then is not that young Ward a patient of yours? He gave me to understand today that he has been under confinement for three years. My poor Leonard, exclaimed the doctor, I wish his hair would grow. This is the second time. And did you really never hear of the bluer murder and of Leonard Ward? Mr. Seaford had some compound edifice of various murders in his mind, and required full enlightenment. Having heard the whole, he was ardent to repair his mistake, both for Leonard's own sake and that of his cause. The young man was indeed looking ill and haggard, but there was something in the steady eyes, although they still were, and in the determined cast of features, that strangely impressed the missionary with a sense of his being molded for the work, and on the first opportunity a simple, straightforward explanation of the error was laid before Leonard, with an entreaty that if he had no duties to bind him at home, he would consider the need of laborers in the great harvest of the southern seas. Leonard made no answer save, thank you, and that he would thank. The graveset features did not light up as they had done unconsciously when listening without personal thought. He only looked considering and accepted Mr. Seaford's address in Ireland, promising to write after hearing from his brother. Next morning, Dr. May gave notice that an old patient was coming to see him, and must be asked to luncheon. Leonard soon after told Ethel that he should not be at home till the evening, and she thought he was going to Coxmore by way of avoiding the stranger. In the twilight, however, Dr. May, going up to the station to see his patient off, was astonished to see Leonard emerge from a second-class carriage. You here? The last person I expected. I have only been to W about my teeth. What? Have you been having toothache? At times, but I have had two out, so I hope there is an end to it. And you never mentioned it, you stoic. It was only at night. And how long has this been? Since I had that cold, but it was no matter. No matter except that it kept you looking like Count Agolino and me always wondering what was the matter with you. And, detaining him for a moment under the lights of the station, this extraction must have been a pretty business to judge by your looks. What did the dentist do to you? It is not so much that, said Leonard, though and sadly, but I began to have a hope, and I see it won't do. What do you mean, my dear boy? What have you been doing? I have been into my old cell again, said he, under his breath, and Dr. May, leaning on his arm, felt his nervous tremor. Prisoner of the Bastille, A. Leonard? I had long been thinking that I ought to go and call on Mr. Reeve and thank him. But he does not receive calls there. No, said Leonard, as if the old impulse to confidence had returned. But I have never been so happy since, as I was in that cell, and I wanted to see it again. Not only for that reason, he added, but something that Mr. Seaford said, brought back a remembrance of what Mr. Romuck told me when my life was granted. Something about the whole being preparation for future work, something that made me feel ready for anything. It had all gone for me, all but the remembrance of the sense of a blessed presence and support in that condemned cell, and I thought perhaps ten minutes in the same place would bring it back to me. And did they? No, indeed. As soon as the door was locked, it all went back to July 1860 and worse. Things that were mercifully kept from me then, mere abject terror of death, and of that kind of death, the disgrace, the crowds, all came on me, and with them, the misery all in one of those nine months. The loathing of those eternal narrow-wave white walls, the sense of their closing in, the sickening of their sameness, the longing for voice, the other horror of thinking myself guilty. The warder said it was ten minutes. I thought it hours. I was quite done for, and could hardly get downstairs. I knew the spirit was being crushed out of me by the solitary period, and it is plain that I must think of nothing that needs nerve or presence of mine. He added, in a tone of quiet dejection. You are hardly in a state to judge of your nerve, after sleepless nights and the loss of your teeth. Besides, there is a difference between the real and imaginary as you have found. You who, in the terrible time of real anticipation, were marvel in that very point of physical resolution. I could keep thoughts out, then, he said, I was master of myself. You mean that the solitude unhinged you? Yet I always found you brave and cheerful. The sight of you made me so. Nay, the very sight or sound of any human being made a difference, and now you all treat me as if I had borne it well, but I did not. It was all that was left me to do, but indeed I did not. What do you mean by bearing it well? said the doctor, in the tone in which you would have questioned a patient. Living as I thought I should when I made up my mind to life instead of death, said Leonard, but all that went away. I let it slip, and instead came everything possible of cowardice and hatred and bitterness. I lost my hold of certainty what I had done or what I had not, and the horror, the malice, the rebellion that used to come on me in that frightful light-white silent place were unutterable. I wish you would not have me among you all, when I know there can hardly be a wicked thought that did not surge over me. To be conquered. To conquer me, he said, in utter lassitude. Stay. Did they ever make you offend willfully? There was nothing I could offend in. Your tasks of work, for instance. I often had a savage frantic abhorrence of it, but I always brought myself to do it, and it did me good. It would have done more if it had been less mechanical, but it often was only the instinct of not degrading myself like the lowest prisoners. Well, there was your conduct to the officials. Oh, one could not help being amenable to them. They were so kind. Besides, these demons never came over me except when I was alone. And one thing more, Leonard. Did these demons, as you well call them, invade your devotions? Never, he answered readily, then recalling himself. Not at the set times, I mean, though they often made me think the comfort I had there near hypocrisy and delusion, and be nearly ready to give over what depended on myself. Chapel was always joy. It brought change in the presence of others, if nothing else, and that would in itself have been enough to banish the hauntings. And they did not interfere with your own readings, said the doctor, referring this to the word that he meant. I could not let them, said Leonard. There was always refreshment. It was only before and after that I would see mockery, profanation, or worse still, delusion and superstition, as if my very condition proved that there was none to hear. The hobgoblin had all but struck the book out of Christian's hand, said Dr. May, pressing his grasp on Leonard's shattering arm. You are only telling me that you have been in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. You have not told me that you lost the rod and staff. No, I must have been held, or I should not have my senses now. And perhaps it was the repressed tremor of voice and frame, rather than the actual words, that induced the doctor to reply. That is the very point, Leonard. It is the temptation to us doctors to ascribe too much to the physical, and too little to the moral. And perhaps you would be more convinced by Mr. Wilmot, by me. But I do verily believe that all the anguish you describe could and would have been insanity, if grace had not been given you, to conquer it. It was a tottering of the mind upon its balance. And, humanly speaking, it was the self-control that enabled you to forge yourself to your duties, and find relief in them, which saved you. I should just as soon call David conquered because the deep waters had come in over his soul. You can never know how true those verses are, said Leonard, with another shiver. At least I know to what kind of verses they all lead, said the doctor. And I am sure they led you, and that you had more and brighter hours than you now remember. Yes, it was not all darkness. I believe there were more spaces than I can think of now, when I was very fairly happy, even at Penville, and at Portland all did well with me, till last spring, and then the news from Massa Saga brought back all the sense of blood guiltiness, and it was worse than ever. And that sense was just as morbid as your other horrible doubt, about what you asked me when we were coming home. I see it was now, but that was the worst time of all. The monotony of school, and the sense of hypocrisy and delusion in teaching, the craving to confess, if only for the sake of the excitement, and the absolute inability to certify myself whether there was any crime to confess. I can't talk about it, and even chapel was not the same refreshment, when one was always teaching class in it, as coming in fresh only for the service. Even that was failing me, or I thought it was. No, I do not know how I could have borne it much longer. No, Leonard, you could not. How might I both saw that in your looks, and quite expected to hear of your being ill? But, you see, we are never tried above what we can bear. No, said Leonard, very low, as if he had been much struck. And then he added, after an interval. It is over now, and there's no need to recollect it except in the way of thanks. The question is what it has left me fit for. You know Dr. May, and his voice trembled. My first and best design in the happy time of Krum, the very crown of my life, was this very thing, to be admissionary. But for myself I might be in training now. If I had only conquered my temper, and accepted that kind offer of Mr. Cheviot's, all this would never have been, and I should have had my youth, my strength, and spirit, my best to devote. I turned aside because of my obstinacy, against warning, and now how can I offer? One who has stood at the bar, lived among felons, thoughts such thoughts, the released convict with a disgraced name. It would just be an insult to the ministry. No, I know how prisoners feel. I can deal with them. Let me go back to what I am trained for. My nerve and spirit have been crushed out. I am fit for nothing else. The worst thing that has remained with me is this nervousness. Caritas is this right name, starting at the sound of a door or at a fresh face, a pretty notion that I should land among savages. Dr. May had begun an answer about the remains of the terrible ordeal, that might in itself have been part of Leonard's training when they reached the house door. These nerves, or whatever they were, did indeed seem disposed to have no mercy on their owner. For no sooner had he sat down in the warm drawing room, than such severe pain attacked his face as surpassed even his powers of concealment. Dr. May declared it was all retribution for his unfriendliness in never seeking sympathy or advice, which might have proved the evil to be neuralgia and save the teeth, instead of aggravating the evil by their extraction. I suspect he has been living on nothing, said Dr. May. Then, in a lull of the pain, Leonard had gone to bed. Papa, explained Gertrude, Don't you know what Richard's housekeeping is? Don't you recollect his taking that widow for a cook because she was such a good woman? I don't think it was greatly Richard's fault, said Ethel. I can hardly get Leonard to make a sparrow's meal here, and most likely his mouth has been too uncomfortable. I, that never seeking sympathy, used to be one of the saddest parts of all. He has been so long shut within himself, that he can hardly feel that anyone cares for him. He does so more than at first, said Ethel. Much more, I have heard things from him tonight that are a revelation to me. Well, he has come through, and I believe he is recovering it, but the three threads of our being have all had a terrible wrench, and if body and mind come out unscathed, it is the soundness of the spirit that has brought them through. A sleepless night in mourning a violent pain ensued, but at least thus much had been gained, that there was no refusal of sympathy, but a grateful acceptance of kindness, so that it almost seemed a recurrence to the coon days. And as the pain lessened, the enjoyment of Ethel's attendance seemed to grow upon Leonard in the gentle languor of relief, and when, as she was going out for the afternoon, she came back to see if he was comfortable in his easy chair by the drawing-room fire, and put a screen before his face, he looked up and thanked her with a smile, the first she had seen. When she returned the winter twilight had closed in, and he was leaning back in the same attitude that started up, so that she asked if he had been asleep. I don't know, I have seen her again. Seen whom? Mina, my dear little Mina, dreamt of her? I cannot tell, he said. I only know she was there, and then rising and standing beside Ethel, he continued, Miss May, you remember the night of her death? Easter Eve? Well, continued he. That night I saw her. I remember, said Ethel, that Mr. Wilmont told us you knew at once what he was come to tell you. It was soon after I was in bed, the lights were out, and I do not think I was asleep when she was by me, not the plump rosy thing she used to be, but tall and white, her hair short and waving back, her eyes, oh, so sad and wistful, but glad too, and her hands held out, and she said, turn you to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope, oh Leonard, dear, it does not hurt. It was the last thing she did say. Yes, Soif's letter said, and observe, one o'clock in Indiana is half past nine with us, then her hair. I wrote to ask, for you know it used to be in long curls, but it had been cut short, like what I saw. Surely, surely it was the dear loving spirit allowed to show itself to me before going quite a way to her home. And you have seen her again? Just now, his voice was even lower than before. Since it grew dark, as I sat there, I had left off reading, and had been thinking, when there she was, all white, but not wistful now. Leonard, dear, she said, it has not hurt. And then he brought me forth. He brought me forth even to a place of liberty, because he had a favor unto me. Oh, Leonard, it must have made you very happy. I am very thankful for it, he said. Then after a pause, you will not speak of it. You will not tell me to think of the action of my own mind upon itself. I can only believe in a great blessing come to comfort you and cheer you, said Ethel, cheer you as with the robin known, as Papa called it, that sun all through the worst of times. Leonard, I am afraid you will think it unkind of me to have withheld it so long, but Papa told me you could not yet bear to hear of Mina. I have her last present for you in charge. The slipper she was working on for that 18th birthday of yours. She would go on, and we never knew whether she fully understood your danger. It was always, they could not hurt you. And at last, when they were finished, and I had to make her understand that you could not have them, she only looked up to me and said, please keep them and give them to him when he comes home. She never doubted, first or last. Ethel, who had daily been watching for the moment, took out the parcel from the drawer, with the address in the childish writing, the date in her own. Large tears came dropping from Leonard's eyes, as he undid the paper and looked at the work, then said, Last time I saw that pattern, my mother was working it, dear child. Yes, Miss May, I am glad you did not give it under me before. I always felt as if my blow had glanced aside and followed on Mina, but somehow I feel more fully how happy she is. She was the messenger of comfort throughout to Ave and to Ella, said Ethel, and well she may be to you still. I have dreaded to ask, said Leonard, that there was a line in the letter I was shown that may be believed that climate was not the whole cause. No, said Ethel, at least the force to resist it had been lost, as far as we can see. It was a grievous error of your brothers to thank her a child who could forget. She pined to hear of you and that one constant effort of faith and love was too much, and wasted away the little tender body. But, oh, Leonard, how truly she can say that her captivity is over and that it has not hurt! It has not hurt, musely repeated Leonard. No, she is beyond the reach of distracting temptations and sorrows. It has only made her brighter to have suffered what it breaks one's heart to think of. It has not hurt. Nothing from without does hurt, said Ethel, unless one lets it. Hurt what? he asked. The soul returned, Ethel. Mind and body may be hurt, and it is not possible to know one's mind from one's soul while one is alive, but as long as the will and faith are right to think the soul can be hurt seems to me like doubting our protector. But if the will have been astray, then while we repent we must not doubt our Redeemer. Dickey ran in at the moment, calling Frant Ethel. She had dropped her muff. Leonard picked it up, and as she took it he wrung her hand with an earnestness that showed his gratitude. End of Chapter 27, Recording by Nancy Cochran-Gergen, Gilbert, Arizona Chapter 28 of the Trial This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Nancy Cochran-Gergen, Gilbert, Arizona The Trial by Charlotte Mary Young, Chapter 28 Pender as woman, manliness and meekness, in him were so allied that those who judged him by his strength or weakness knew but a single side, J. Whittier It promised to be a brilliant Christmas at Stoneboro, though little Dickey regarded the feast coming in winter as a perverse English innovation and was grand on the superiority of Supplejack above Holly. Decretions had been gradually making their way into the minster and had advanced from being just tolerated to being absolutely delighted in. But Dr. Spencer, with his knack of doing everything, was sorely missed as a head, and Mr. Wilmot insisted that the May forces should come down and work the minster on the 23rd, leaving the eve for the adornment of Coxmore after the return of his incumbent. Mary, always highly efficient in that line, joined them, and Leonard's handiness and dexterity in the arts relating to carpentry were as quietly useful as little Dickey's bright readiness in always handing whatever was wanting. The work was pretty well over when Aubrey, who had just arrived with Lee for a week, came down and made it to Sultry. Dickey, whose imagination had been a good deal occupied by a soldier uncle, wanted to study him and Gertrude was never steady when Aubrey was near. Presently it was discovered that the door to the tower stair was open. The ascent of the tower was a feat performed two or three times in the lifetime at Stoneboro. Perry had once beguiled Ethel and Mary up, but Gertrude had never gone, and was crazy to go, as was likewise Dickey. Moreover, Aubrey and Gertrude insisted that it was only proper that Ethel should pay her respects to a prototype of Gergoyle. They wanted to compare her with him, and ordered her up. In fact their spirits were too high for them to be at ease within the church, and Ethel, mogre her thirty years, partook of the exhilaration enough to delight in an extraordinary enterprise, and as nothing remained but a little sweeping up, they left this to the superintendents of Mary and Mr. Wilmot, and embarked upon the narrow crumbling steps of the spiral stair, that led up within an unnatural thickening of one of the great peers that supported the tower at the interspection of nave and transeps, after a long period of dust and darkness, and the monotony of always going with the same light foremost, came a narrow door leading to the ringer's region with all the ropes hanging down. Ethel was thankful when she got her youngsters passed without an essay on them. She doubted if she should have succeeded, but for Leonard's being an element of soberness. Other little doors ensued, leading out to the various elevations of roof, which were all sorts of different heights, the chancel lower than the nave, and one transept than the other. Besides that, the nave had both triforium and clear story. It was a sort of labyrinth, and they wondered whether anyone, except perhaps the plumber's foreman, knew his way among all the doors. Then there was one leading inwards to the eight bells, from whose fascinations Ethel thought Dickie never would be taken away, and still more charming to the clock, which clang the tremendous three as they were in the act of looking at it, causing Leonard to make a great start, and then color painfully. It was hard to believe, as Daisy said, that the old tower, that looked so short and squat below, could be so very high when you came to go up it, but the glimpses of the country, through the little loophole windows, were most inviting. At last, Aubrey, who was foremost, pushed up the trap door and emerged. But, as Dickie followed him, exclaimed, Here we are, but you ladies and crinolines will never follow. You'll stick fast forever, and Leonard can't pass, so there y'all all have to stay. And Daisy will sail away like a balloon at a Dickie, roguishly, looking back at her, and holding on his cap. But Gertrude vigorously compressed her hoop, and squeezed through, followed by Ethel and Leonard. There was a considerable space, square, leaded and protected by the battle bent parapet, with a deep molding round, and a gutter resulting in the pipe smoke by Ethel's likeness, the Gergoyle. Of course, the first thing Dickie and Aubrey did was to look for the letters that commemorated the ascent of H-M-E-M-M-M in 1852, and it was equally needful that R-R-M, if nobody else, should likewise leave a record on the leads. There was an R-M of 1820 that made it impossible to gainsay him. The view was not grand in itself, but there was a considerable charm in looking down on the roops in their leafless trees, highing over their old nests, and in seeing the roosts of the town, far away, too, the gray-welsh hills and between, the country lying like a map, with rivers traced in light instead of black. Leonard stood still, his face turned towards the greenest of the meadows, and the river where it dashed over the wheel of a mill. Have you seen it again? asked Ethel, as she stood by him and watched his eye. No, I am rather glad to see it first from so far off, he answered. I mean to walk over someday. Ethel, called Gertrude, is this your girl girl? His profile, as seen from above, isn't fluttering. Oh, Daisy, don't lean over so far. Quite safe, but at that instant Augusta went and caught her hat. She grasped at it, but only saved it from whirling away, and made it fall short. There, Ethel, your image has put on my hat, and henceforth will appear to the wandering city in a black hat and feather. I'll get it, exclaimed the ever-ready Dickie, and in another moment he had mounted the parapet and was reaching for it. Whether it were Gertrude's shriek or the natural recoil away from the grasping hand, or that his hold on the side of the adjourning pinnacle was insecure, he lost his balance, and with a sudden cry vanished from their eyes. The frightful consternation of that moment none of those four could ever bear to recall. The next, they remembered that he could only fall as far as the roof, but it was Ethel and Leonard alone who Gertrude's pressed to the parapet, and at the same moment a cry came up. Oh, come! I'm holding on, but it cuts! Oh, come! Ethel saw, some five and twenty feet below, the little boy upon the transcept roof, a smooth slope of lead only broken by a skylight, a bit of Church Warden's architecture still remaining. The child had gone crashing against the window, and now lay back clinging to its iron frame. Behind him was the entire height within the Church floor, before him a rapid slope, ended by a course of stone, wide enough indeed to walk on, but too narrow to check the impetus from slipping down the inclination above. Ethel's brain swam. She just perceived that both Aubrey and Leonard had disappeared, and then had barely power to support Gertrude, who reeled against her, giddy with horror. Oh, look! Look, Ethel! She cried. I can't! Where is he? There! Yes, hold on, Dicky! They're coming! Look up! Not down! Hold on! A door opened, and outdashed Aubrey. Alas! It was on the nave Claire Story. He might as well have been a hundred miles off. Another door, and Leonard appeared, and on the right level, but with a giddy unguarded ridge on which to pass around the angle of the tower. She saw his head pass safely round, but, even then, the horror was not over. Could he steady himself sufficiently to reach the child, or might not Dicky lose hold too soon? It was too close below for sight. The molding and gurgle oil impeded her agonized view, but she saw the child's look of joyful relief. She heard the steady voice, Wait! Don't let go yet! There! And after a few more sounds came up a shout. All right! Infinitely relieved, she had to give her whole attention to poor Gertrude, who, overset by the accident, giddy with the attempt to look over, horrified by the danger, confused and distressed by the hair that came wildly flapping about her head and face, and by the puffs of wind at her hoop, had sunk down in the center of the little leaden square, clinging with all her might to the staff of the weathercock, and feeling as if the whole tower were rocking with her, absolutely seeing the battlements dance. How was she ever to be safely got down the rickety ladder leading to the crumbling stone stair? Ethel knelt by her, twisted up the fluttering hair, made her shut her eyes and compose her thoughts, and then called over the battlements to Aubrey, who, confused by the shock, continued to emerge at wrong doors and lose himself on the ropes, and was like one in a bad dream, nearly as much dissied as his sister, to whose help he came the more readily, as the way up was the only one plain before him. The detention would have been more dreadful to Ethel had she known all that was passing below, and that when the little boy, at Leonard's sign, lured himself towards the outreaching arms of the young man, who was stepping himself against the wall of the tower, it was with a look of great pain and leaving a trail of blood behind him. When, atlain, he stood at the ankle, Leonard calmly said, Now go before me, round that corner, in at the door. Hold by the wall, I'll hold your shoulder. The boy implicitly obeyed. The notion of giddiness never seemed to occur to him, and both safely came to the little door, on the threshold of which Leonard sat down, and lifting him on his knee, asked where he was hurt. My leg, said Diggy, the glass was running in all the time, and I could not move, but it does not hurt so much now. Perhaps not, but a large piece of glass had broken into this slender little calf, and Leonard steadied himself to with drive, as, happily, the fragment was large enough to give a hold for his hand. The sensible little fellow, without a word, held up the limb across Leonard's knee, and threw an arm around his neck to hold himself still, just saying, Thank you, when it was over. Did it hurt much, Diggy? Not very much, he answered, But how it bleeds! Where's that ethyl? On the tower, she will come at a moment, said Leonard, startled by the exceeding flow of blood, and binding the gash round with his handkerchief. Now I'll carry you down. The boy did not speak all the worry winding way down the dark stairs. The Leonard heard gasps of oppression, and felt the head lean on his shoulder. Moreover, a touch convinced him that the handkerchief was soaking, nay dripping, and when he issued at length into the free air of the church, the face was deadly white. No one was near, and Leonard laid him on a bench. He was still conscious, and looked up with languid eyes. May I go home, he said, faintly, and ethyl. Let me try to stop this bleeding first, said Leonard. My dear little Ben, if you will only be quiet, I think I can. Leonard took the handkerchief from his throat, and wound it to its tightest just above the hurt, Diggy remonstrating for a moment with, That's not the place, it is too tight. It will cough the blood from coming, said Leonard, and in the same understanding way the child submitted, feebly asking, Shall I bleed to death? Mama will be so sorry. I trust, I hope not, said Leonard. He durst uttered no encouragement, for the lifeblood continued to pour forth unchecked, and the next murmur was, I'm so sick, I can't say my prayers. Papa, Mama! Already, however, Leonard had torn down a hollybow, and twisted off, He would grew worlds for a knife, a short stout stick, which he thrust into one of the folds of the ligature, and pulled it much tighter, so that his answer was, Thank God, Diggy, that will do. The bleeding has stopped. You must not mind if it hurts for a little while. An ejaculation of, Poor little dear, here made him aware of the presence of the sexton's wife, but it applied to her offer to carry him into Mrs. Cheviot's. Diggy faintly answered, Please, let me go home. And Leonard, Yes, I will take him home. Tell Ms. May it is a cut from the class. I am taking him to have it dressed, and will bring him home. Now, my dear little patient fellow, can you put your arms around my neck? Sensible, according to both meanings of the word, Diggy clasped his friend's neck, and laid his head on his shoulder, not speaking again till he found Leonard was not turning towards the high street, when he said, That is not the way home. No, Diggy, but we must get your leg bound up directly, and the hospital is the only place where we can be sure of finding anyone to do it. I will take you home directly afterwards. Thank you, said the courteous little gentleman. And in a few minutes more, Leonard had rung the bell, and beg the house surgeon would come at once to Dr. May's grandson. A few drops of stimulant much revived Diggy, and he showed perfect trust and composure, only holding Leonard's hand, and now and then begging to know what they were doing, while he was turned over on his face for the dressing of the wound, bearing all without a sound, except an occasional sobbing gasp, accompanied by a squeeze of Leonard's finger. Just as this business had been completed, the surgeon exclaimed, There is Dr. May's step, and Diggy at once set up, as his grandfather heard in, nearly as pale as the boy himself. Oh, Grandpa Pa, never mind, it is almost well now. And has Aunt Daisy got her hat? What is it, my dear? What have you been doing? said the doctor, looking in amazement from the boy to Leonard, who was covered with blood. They told me you had fallen off Mr. Tower. Yes, I did, said Diggy. I reached after Aunt Daisy's hat, but I fell on the roof, and I was sliding, sliding down to the wall, but there was a window, and the glass broke and cut me, but I got my feet against the bottom of it, and held on by the iron bar till Leonard came and took me down, and he lay back on the pillow, quiet and exhausted, but bright-eyed and attentive as ever, listening to Leonard's equally brief version of the adventure. Didn't he save my life, Grandpa Pa? said the boy at the close. Twice over, you may say, added the surgeon, and his words as to the nature of the injury manifested that all had depended on the immediate stoppage of the hemorrhage. With so young a child, delay from indecision or want of resource would probably have been fatal. There would have been no doing anything if this little man had not been so good and sensible, said Leonard, leaning over him. And I did not cry. You will tell Papa I did not cry, said Dickie eagerly, but only half-graphied by such girlish treatment as that agitated kiss of his grandfather after being a little bit of a hero. But then Dickie's wondering eyes really beheld such another kiss bestowed over his head upon Leonard, and quite thought there were tears on Grandpa Pa's cheeks. Perhaps all gentlemen could do what was childish in little boys. Dickie was to be transported home. He wished to be carried by Leonard, but the brawl was at the door, and he had to contend himself with being laid on the seat with his friend to watch over him, the doctor pointing out that Leonard was a savage spectacle for the eyes of Stoneborough and hurring home by the shortcut. Ethel met him in extreme alarm. Gertrude's half-restored senses had been totally scattered by the sight of the crimson traces on the spot of Leonard's operations, and she had been left to Mary's care. While Ethel and Aubrey had hastened home and not finding anyone there, the latter had dashed off to Bankside, whilst Ethel waited arranging the little fellow's bed, and trying to trust to Leonard's message, and not let her mind go back to that fearful day of life-waiting sixteen years ago, nor onto what she might have to write to Norman and Meta of the charge they had sent her. Her father's cheerful face at first was a pang, and then came the rebound of gladness at the words, He is coming. No fear for him, gallant little man. Thanks for God's mercy, and to that noble fellow, Leonard. At the same moment, Aubrey burst in, No one at rights. Won't be in no one knows how long. What is to become of us? And he sank down on the chair. I, what would become of any of us if no one had a better fate than yours, sir, said Dr. May. You have one single perfection, and you had better make the most of it. That of knowing how to choose your friends. There's the carriage. After a moment's delay, the cushion was lifted out with the little wounded cavalier. Still like a picture. Four, true to his hummingbird nature. A few scarcely conscious movements of his hands had done away with looks of disarray. The rich glossy curls were scarcely disordered, and no stains of blood had adhered to the upper part of the small person, whereas Leonard was a ghastly spectacle from head to foot. So, Master Dicky burned, said Dr. May, as they rested him a moment on the hall table. Give me that claw of yours. Yes, you'll do very well. Only you must go to bed now. And, mind, whatever you did when you were in Fairyland, we don't fly here in Stoneborough, and it does not answer. I am not to go to bed for being naughty, am I, said Dicky, his brave white lip for the first time quivering. Indeed, I did not know it was wrong. The poor little man's spirits were so exhausted that the reassurance on his head absolutely brought the much-dreaded tears into his eyes, and he could only be carried up gently to his bed and left to be undressed by his aunt, so great an aggravation to the troubles of this small fragment of independence that it had almost overset his courtesy and self-demand. There was no content in him till he had had all traces of the disaster wash from face and hands and the other foot, and then, over his tea, though his little clean shirt was weak, he must needs give a lucid description of Leonard's bench-june, in the midst of which came and knocked at the door, and a gasping voice, I'll be quite quiet, indeed I will, only just let me come in and kiss him and see that he is safe. Oh, Auntie Daisy, have you got your hat? One, tear-stained, disheveled, Gertrude bit her lip to save her outburst, gave the stipulated kiss, and retreated to Mary, who stood in the doorway like a dragon. Auntie Daisy has been crying, said Dicky, turning his eyes back to Ethel. Please tell her I shall be well very soon, and then I'll go up again and try to get her hat, if I may have a hook in line. I'll tell you how. My dear Dicky, you had better lie down and settle it as you go to sleep, said Ethel, for flesh creeping at the notion of his going up again. But if I go to sleep now, I shall not know when to say my prayers. Had you not better do so now, Dicky? Next came a child's scruple about not kneeling. But at last he was satisfied if an Ethel would give him his little book out of the drawer. That little delicately illuminated book with appointed writing and a twisted cipher made his hand in every touch. Presently he looked up and said, Aunt Ethel, isn't there a verse somewhere about giving the angels charge? I want you to find it for me, for I think they helped me to hold on and help Leonard upon the narrow place. You know they are sure to be flying about the church. Ethel read the ninety-first Psalm to him. He listened all through and thanked her, but in a few minutes more he was fast asleep. As she left the room she met Leonard coming down and held out her hands to him with a mute intensity of thanks, telling him, in a low voice, what Dicky had said of the angels' care. I am sure it was true, said Leonard, what else could have saved a brave child from dizziness? Downstairs Leonard's reception from Dr. May was, pretty well for a nervous man. Anybody can do what comes to hand. I beg your pardon, somebody's lose their wits, like your friend Aubrey, who tells me, if he had stood still, he would have fainted away. As long as nerves can do what comes to hand, they need not be blamed, even if they play troublesome tricks at other times, as I suspect they are doing now. Yes, my face is aching a little. Not to say a great deal, said the doctor. Well, I'm not going to pity you, for I think you can feel today that most of us would be glad to be in your place. I am very glad, said Leonard. You remember that child's parents? No, you have grown so old that I am always forgiving what a boy you ought to be, but if you had ever seen the tenderness of his father and that sunbeam of a manna, you would know all the more how we bless you for what you have spared them. Leonard, if anything had been needed to do so, you have won to yourself such a brother Norman as you have an Aubrey. Meantime Ethel was soothed and Gertrude, to whom the shock had been in proportion to the triumphal heights of her careless gait. Charles Cheviot had come in while his wife was restoring her, and he had plainly said what no one else would have intimated to the spoiled darling, that the whole accident had been owing to her recklessness, and that he had always expected some fatal consequence to give her a lesson. Gertrude had been fairly cowed by such unwanted treatment, and when he would only take her home on condition of composure and self-command, her trembling limbs obliged her to accept his arm, and he subdued her into meek silence and repression of all agitation, till she was safe in her room when she took a little bit of revenge upon Mary by crying her heart out and declaring it was very cruel of Charles when she did not mean it. And Mary, on her side, varied between assurances that Charles did not mean it, and that he was quite right, the sister now predominating in her and now the wife. Mean what? said Ethel, sitting down among them before they were aware, that it was all my fault, burst out Gertrude. If it was, I don't see what concern it is of his. But, Daisy, dear, he is your brother. I've got plenty of brothers of my own. I don't count those people in law. She's passed reason with Mary, said Ethel. Leave her to me. She will come to her senses by and by. But indeed, Ethel, you'll be hard on her. I'm sure dear Charles never thought what he said would have been taken in this way. Why did he say it then? cried Gertrude, firing up. My dear Mary, do please go down before we get into the pitiable last word condition. That condition was reached already, but in Ethel's own bedroom, Mary's implicit obedience revived, and away she went, carrying off with her most of what was naughtiness in Gertrude. Ethel, Ethel, dear, cried she at once. I know you're coming down on me. I deserve it all, only Charles had no business to say it, and wasn't it very cruel and unkind when he saw the state I was in? I suppose Charles thought it was the only chance of giving the lesson, and therefore true kindness. Come, Daisy, is this terrible fit of pride a proper return for such a mercy as we have had today? If I didn't say so to myself a dozen times on the way home, only Mary came and made me so intolerably angry by expecting me to take it as if it had come from you or Papa. Daisy, that is the evil. If I had done my duty by you all, this would not have been. Now, Ethel, when you want to be worse and more cutting than anything, you go and tell me my faults are yours. For piti's sake, don't come to that. But I must, Daisy, for it is true. Oh, if you had only been a naughty little girl. What? And had it out then, said Daisy, who was lying across the bed, and put her golden head caressingly on Ethel's knee. If I had plagued you then, you would have broken me in out of self-defense. Something like it, said Ethel. But, you know, Daisy, the little last treasure that Mama left did always seem something we could not make enough of, and it didn't make you fractious or tiresome, at least not to us, till we thought you could not be spoiled. And then I didn't see the little fault so soon as I ought, and I'm only an elder sister, after all, without any authority. No, you're not to say that, Ethel. I'm mind your authority, and always will. You are never a bother. Ah, that's it, Daisy. If I had only been a bother, you might never have got ahead of yourself. Then you really think, like Charles Cheviot, that it was my doing, Ethel? What do you think, yourself? Great tears gathered in the corners of the blue eyes. Was it weak and Ethel not to bear the sight? My poor Daisy, she said, yours is not all the burden. I ought not to have taken up such a giddy company, or else I should have kept the boy under my hand. But he is so discreet and independent that it is more like having a gentleman staying in the house than a child under one's charge. And one forgets how little he is, and I was as much off my balance with spirits as you. It was a flightiness of us all, and we have only to be thankful and to be sobered for another time. I am afraid the pride about being reproved is really the worst fault. And what do you want me to do? To go and tell Papa all about it? I mean to do that, of course. It is the only way to get comforted. Of course it is, but you horrid creature, Ethel. I'll never say you aren't a bother again. You really do want me to go and tell Charles Cheviot that he was quite right, and marry that I'm ready to be trampled on by all my brothers-in-law in a row. Well, there won't be any more. You'll never give me one. That's one comfort, said Gertrude, wriggling herself up and flinging an arm around Ethel's neck. As long as you don't do that, I'll do anything for you. Not for me. Well, you know that, you old thing. Only you might take it as a personal compliment. I really will do it. Four, of course. One could not keep one's Christmas otherwise. It was rather too businesslike, but elders are often surprised to find what was a hard achievement in their time a matter of course to their pupils, almost lightly passed over. Dickie slept till morning, when he was found very pale, but lively and good-humored as ever. Mr. Wright, coming up to see him, found the hurt going on well, and told Ethel that if she could keep him in bed and undisturbed for the day, it would be better and safer. But that if he became restless and fretful, there would be no great risk in taking him to a sofa. Restless and fretful. Mr. Wright little knew the discretion or the happy power of accommodation and circumstances that had descended to Meta's firstborn. He was quite resigned as soon as the explanation had been made. Perhaps, indeed, there was an instinctive sense that to be dressed and moved would be fatiguing, but he had plenty of smiles and animation for his visitors, and, when propped up in bed, was full of devices for occupation. Moreover, he acquired a slave. He made a regular appropriation of Leonard, whom he quickly perceived to be the most likely person to assist in his great design of constructing a model of the clock in the Minster Tower for the edification of his little brother Harry. Leonard worked away at the table by the bedside with interest nearly equal to the child's, and when wiring cardboard were wanting, he put aside all his dislike to facing the stone borer's streets and tradesmen in open day, and, at Dickie's request, salate forth in quest of the materials. And when the bookseller made inquiries about the boy, Leonard, in the fullness of his heart, replied freely and in detail, nay, he was so happy in the little man's well-doing that he was by no means disconcerted even by a full encounter of Mrs. Harvey Anderson in the street, but answered all her inquiries in entire oblivion of all but the general rejoicing in little Dickie's wonderful escape. Well, said Aubrey to his sisters after a visit to his nephew's room, Dickie has the best right to him, certainly, today. It is an absolute appropriation. They were talking away with all their might when I came up, but came to a stop when I went in, and Master Dick sent me to the right about. The truth was that Dickie, who, with eyes and ears all alive, had gathered up some fragments of Leonard's history, had taken this opportunity of catechizing him upon it in a manner that it was impossible to elude, and which the child's pretty tact carried off, as it did many things which would not have been tolerated if done rudely and abruptly. Step by step, in the way of question and remark, he led Leonard to tell him all that had happened, and when once fairly embarked in the reminiscence, there was in it a kind of peace and pleasure. The fresh, loving, wandering sympathy of the little boy was unspeakably comforting, and besides, the bringing the facts in their simple form to the grasp of the childish mind restored their proportion, which their terrible consequences had a good deal disturbed. They seemed to pass from the present to the historical, and to assume the balance that they took in the child's mind, coming newly upon them. It was like bathing in a clear, limpid stream that washed away the remains of morbid oppression. I wish Mama was here, said the little friend, at last. Do you want her? Are you missing her, my dear? I miss her always, said Dickie, but it was not that. Only Mama always makes everybody so happy, and she would be so fond of you, because you have had so much trouble. But, Dickie, don't you think I am happy to be with your grandfather and aunt, and hoping to see my own sisters very soon? Your aunt, who taught me what bore me through it all? Aunt Ethel? cried Dickie, considering. I like Aunt Ethel very much, but then she is not like Mama. There could be no doubt that Leonard was much better and happier after this adventure. Reluctantly, Dickie let him go back to Coxmore, where his services in church decking and in singing had been too much dependent on to be dispensed with, but he wished to come back with Richard for the family assembly on Christmas evening. Moreover, Gertrude, who was quite herself again, having made her peace with the Chevyos, and endured the reception of her apologies, seized on him to lay plots for a Christmas tree for the delectation of Dickie on his sofa, and likewise of Margaret Rivers, and of the lead of the Coxmore schools. He gave in to it hardly, and on the appointed day worked with great spirit at the arrangements in the dining room, where Gertrude, favored by the captive state of the little boy, conducted her preparations, relegating the family meals to the schoolroom. This tree was made the occasion for furnishing Leonard with all the little appliances of personal property that had been swept away from him. And, after all, he was the most delighted of the party. The small Charlie Chevyo had to be carried off shrieking. Margaret Rivers was critical. Even Coxmore was experienced in Christmas trees, and Dickie, when placed in the best situation, and asked if such trees grew in New Zealand, made answer that he helped Mama to make one every year for the Maori children. It was very kind in Aunt Daisy, he added, with unfailing courtesy. But he was too zealous for his colony to be dazzled, too utilitarian to be much gratified by any of his gifts, accepting a knife of perilous excellence, which Aubrey, in contempt of stoneball productions, had sacrificed from his own pocket at the last moment. Leonard and Dickie together were in a state of great delight at the little packets handed to the former. Studs, purse, pencil case, writing materials. From Hector Ernst Cliff, a watch, with the entreaty that his gifts might be regarded as unlucky. From Ethel, a photographic book, with the carts of his own family, whose old negatives had been hunted up for the purpose. Also a recent one of Dr. May, with his grandson on his knee, the duplicate of which was gone to New Zealand, with the doctor's inscription, the modern Sarapedia, astigious confounded. There was Richard, very good, young, and pretty. There was Ethel, exactly like the doctor. Only more so. There was Gertrude, like nobody, not even herself, and her brothers much in the same predicament. There was the latest of Mr. Rivers' many likenesses, with the cockatoo on his wrist, and there was the least truculent and witch-like of the numerous attempts on Flora. There was Mrs. Shevio, broad-faced and smiling over her son, and Mr. and Mrs. Ernst Cliff, pinioning the limbs of their offspring, as in preparation for a family holocaust. There was Dickie's mama, unspoilable in her loveliness, even by photography, and his papa grown very bald and archedioconal. There was Ethel's great achievement of influence, Dr. Spencer, beautiful in his white hair. There were the vicar and the late and present headmasters. The pleasure excited by all these gifts far exceeded the anticipations of their donors. It seemed as if they had fallen on the very moment when they would convey a sense of home, welcome, and restoration. He did not say much, but looked up with liquid lustrous eyes, and Ernest, thank yous, and crescently handled and examined the treasures over and over again. As they lay round him on Dickie's couch, I suppose, said the child to him, it is like Job, when all his friends came to see him, and everyone gave him a piece of money. He could hardly have ensured it more, murmured Leonard, feeling the restful capacity of happiness in the new possession of the child's ardent love, and of the kind looks of all around, above all of the one presence that still gave him his juice sense of sunshine, the boyish and romantic touch of passion had, as Ethel had long seen, been burnt and sued away, and yet there was something left, something that, as on this evening she felt, made his voice softer, his eyes more differential to her than anyone else. Perhaps she had once been his guiding star, and if, in the wild tempests of the night, he had lurked instead to direct his course by the brightest and best of the suns of the morning, still the star would be prized and distinguished as the first and most honored among inferior constellations. End of Chapter 28, Recording by Nancy Cochran-Gergen, Gilbert, Arizona