Finally, she settled upon a little worn volume bound in calf, with the t.i.tle, "A Sigh of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, breathed by an Earthly Vessel known among Men by the Name of Samuel Fish."
"I"m sure Aunt Helen would think this all right to read to him," she said to herself, as she drew a chair to the other side of the fire.
It was not very easy reading, for the print had faded till it was almost the colour of the yellow leaves, and the "s"s" were all long, so that Peggy found herself continually reading "fins" instead of "sins"; but she did her best, conscientiously, and the old man nodded in his chair, sitting up briskly, however, when he felt her reproachful eyes upon him.
Peggy stopped, quite hot and weary, at the end of the first chapter.
"Do you like it, Ephraim?" she inquired anxiously.
"Ay, Miss Peggy, it be foine, it be, surely," said the old man.
"What does it all mean?" said the child. "It is so hard to read, I can scarcely understand it."
"Why, as to that, miss," answered Ephraim, "it seems to me as long as it"s pious words, there beant no call to understand "em, let alone I"m that deaf to-day, it seems naught but a buzzin" like when you read."
Peggy closed the book hurriedly.
"I think I had better be going now," she announced. "I hope your headache will be well soon. Can"t I put the kettle on for you?"
"Ay, miss, if you be so bountiful. My rheumatics be cruel bad when I stir me."
Peggy filled the kettle from the pump in the back garden, and hung it on its hook over the fire. She found the old man"s cup and saucer, and set out his tea on the little round table by his side, and finally took her departure, feeling she had at least attended to his temporal wants, and might leave the rest to older and wiser heads than hers.
"I"ll call and see Mrs. Davis; there"ll be plenty of time before tea,"
she said to herself, as she came back up the village street, swinging her empty basket.
Mrs. Davis was a dear old Welshwoman, and a particular friend of Peggy"s. She was one of Nature"s gentlewomen, for her kind heart prompted those little gracious, courteous acts which in a higher cla.s.s we call good breeding. She made quite a picture in her short linsey-woolsey petticoat, with the check ap.r.o.n, her plaid shawl crossed over her cotton bodice, and the frilled white cap framing the kind old face, with its apple cheeks and soft white hair. She was sitting among her bees this Sunday afternoon, beating with an iron spoon upon an old tin kettle.
"They be swarming, indeed, Miss Peggy," she said. "And here I"ve had to sit the whole of the day, beating this old tin--and Sunday, too! But we can"t expect the poor creatures to understand that, can we?"
"I suppose not," said Peggy, settling herself on a low wooden seat, at a safe distance from the agitated hives, and letting her glance wander round the little garden, where the tall yellow lilies reared their stately heads over a ma.s.s of sweet cottage flowers, pinks and forget-me-nots, poppies and double daisies, sweet-williams--loved of the bees--pansies, lupins, and snap-dragons; over the cottage, where the white roses climbed up the thatch to the very chimneys, and where through the open doorway could be seen the neat kitchen, with its red-brick floor, the settle placed by the fireside, the tall grandfather"s clock ticking away in the corner, and the oak dresser, with its rows of blue willow-pattern plates; and back again at last to where Mrs. Davis sat with her grandchild by her knee, a small round-eyed boy, whose thumb was stuck perpetually, like a stopper, in his mouth, and who stood watching the bees with stolid indifference.
"Won"t he get stung?" asked Peggy, who thought he looked far too near to the swarming hives for safety.
"No, dearie. I think they know me and Willie now, though they"d attack a stranger as soon as not."
"I was dreadfully stung once," confided Peggy. "I lifted off the little box on the top of one of the Rectory hives, just to see how the bees were getting on, and they all came rushing out and settled on me. Mr.
Howell seized me, and put my head under the pump, and Father was ever so cross, for he said I shouldn"t have meddled with them."
"The bees don"t like to be interfered with," said Mrs. Davis. "You should never touch them in the daytime. Always take the honey at night."
"Joe says you must tell them if there"s a death in the house, and tie a piece of c.r.a.pe on the hive, or they"ll all fly away."
"Well, I don"t quite hold with all folks say about them, but they are strange creatures, with queer ways of their own. They seem quiet just now, so I think I might leave them for a few minutes. I have a pot of honey I should like to send to your aunt, miss, if you would kindly take it to her. I"ll go inside and fetch it. No, Willie, my pretty, you can"t come. Granny"s going up the ladder into the loft."
"I"ll take care of him. Come with me, Willie dear--come and see the pretty flowers."
And Peggy seized the stolid infant by his disengaged hand.
Willie did not look enthusiastic about the attractions of the flowers, but he allowed himself to be led away, staring at his new guardian with round eyes of solemn distrust, and solacing himself with his thumb.
"We"ll build a little house," said Peggy, anxious to prevent the suspicious twitching of her charge"s mouth from developing into a roar, and taking up some bricks and loose stones which lay under the wall.
"See, we"ll make a kitchen and parlour, and put down leaves for a carpet. Here"s a little round stone for a table, and the pansy-flowers will do for dollies. They"ve such funny little faces. We"ll make them skirts out of laurel leaves, and put them to bed in the corner."
Peggy"s well-meant efforts at entertainment were suddenly interrupted by a loud sniff from the other side of the wall, and, looking up, she saw the round, reproachful face of Polly Smith, a girl of about her own age, who sometimes came up to the Abbey to help Nancy at busy times.
"Why, it"s you, miss, I do declare!" exclaimed Polly. "And making play-houses in Mrs. Davis"s garden on Sunday, too! I _am_ surprised!
_I"ve_ been to Sunday-school!"
Peggy felt rather caught, but she carried it off as well as she could.
"I was only amusing Willie," she said. "He was going to cry because Granny Davis went indoors and left him."
"Ay, she"s been sittin" swarmin" her bees all day. I see her when I was goin" to chapel, and I see her again when I come back, and when I goes to Sunday-school she were still there. My dada says he don"t hold with folks as can"t keep the Sabbath holy."
And Polly turned up her small nose in a distinctly aggravating manner.
"How did you get on at Sunday-school?" asked Peggy, who did not like insinuations against the moral worth of her dear Mrs. Davis.
"Splendid, miss. I always does. Teacher gave me a prize for sayin"
hymns--such a nice book. Wouldn"t you like to look at it?"
"Are you sure it"s a Sunday book?" inquired Peggy, who could not forbear her revenge.
"Oh yes, for I looked at the end chapter, and she dies beautiful, and they plant snowdrops on her grave; and her big brother, what"s so unkind to her, gets drowned through goin" boatin" on Sunday," replied Polly, regarding Peggy as if she thought her courses might lead her to a similar watery fate.
"Here"s Granny!" cried Willie, abandoning his thumb to seek the protection of the friendly linsey-woolsey petticoat.
"Ay, so it be. _My_ granny sits in the parlour on Sunday afternoons, with her blinds drawn down, and reads her Bible. She"s a G.o.dly old woman, she is!"
And Polly took her departure with a conscious sniff, as if deploring the depravity of her neighbours.
Peggy was very much upset.
"Is it really wrong to look after the bees and amuse babies on Sunday?"
she asked Father afterwards.
"No, dear, certainly not. The Pharisees came to our Lord with just such a question, and you know He answered them that it was right to do well on the Sabbath. G.o.d did not mean it to be a day of misery, but a specially joyful and happy day, in which we were to think a good deal about Him. Sometimes we can show our love for Him quite as well by helping others as by reading our Bibles or going to church, though we should not neglect that either. As for shutting ourselves up on Sundays, and thinking it is wrong to look at the beautiful things around us, that is mere ignorance, for Nature is like a wonderful book, written by G.o.d"s hand, and the birds and the bees and the flowers are all pages out of it for those who have eyes to read them rightly."
Peggy thought of this as she sat among the ruins watching the sunset that night. The sky, flaming in bands of crimson, violet and orange, looked like the very gate of heaven, a golden city which you had only to cross the hills to reach--surely another page in that book of which Father had spoken.
"It"s like one of the pictures in the Interpreter"s house in the "Pilgrim"s Progress,"" she said to herself; "or Christian and Hopeful on the Delectable Mountains, when they looked through the gla.s.s, and thought they saw "something like the gate, and also some of the glory of the place.""
She stayed a long, long time among the crumbling old walls, watching the gold fade gradually out of the sky. It was very still and peaceful in there, and she liked to sit and think how the Abbey must have looked in those strange, bygone days when the little steps had led to a dormitory, and the broken pillars had held up the roof of a church, whose tinkling bell had rung out at sunset, calling to prayer those old monks who slept so quietly in their forgotten graves.
An owl began to hoot in the woods beyond the river, a great stag-beetle came droning by, and the bats flew over her head with their shrill little cry, flitting here and there like night swallows.
Peggy got up and brushed the dew from her dress, and walked slowly back to the house in the gathering twilight. In the Rose Parlour Aunt Helen sat turning out her little writing-desk, and wiping suspicious drops from her eyes.