"I fear you have had too much occasion to practise it."
"It could not be too much!" said Violet. "But often I do not know what would have become of me, if I had not been obliged, as a duty, to put aside fretting thoughts, and been allowed to cast the shadow of the cross on my vexations."
His eye fell on a few bright links of gold peeping out round her neck--"You have THAT still. May I see it?"
She took off the chain and placed it in his hand. "Thanks for it, more than ever!" she said. "My friend and preacher in time of need it has often been, and Johnnie"s too."
"Johnnie?"
"Yes, you know the poor little man has had a great deal of illness. This is the first spring he has been free from croup; and you would hardly believe what a comfort that cross has been to him. He always feels for the chain, that he may squeeze Aunt Helen"s cross. At one time I was almost afraid that it was a superst.i.tion, he was such a very little fellow; but when I talked to him, he said, "I like it because of our Blessed Saviour. It makes me not mind the pain so much, because you said that was like Him, and would help to make me good if I was patient."
Then I remembered what I little understood, when you told me that the cross was his baptismal gift to sweeten his heritage of pain."
John was much affected. "Helen"s cross has indeed borne abundant fruit!"
said he.
"I told you how even I forgot it at first in the fire, and how it was saved by Johnnie"s habit of grasping it in his troubles."
"I am glad it was he!"
"Theodora said that he alone was worthy. But I am afraid to hear such things said of him; I am too ready without them to think too much of my boy."
"It would be difficult," began John; then smiling, "perhaps I ought to take to myself the same caution; the thought of Johnnie has been so much to me, and now I see him he is so unlike my expectations, and yet so far beyond them. I feel as if I wanted a larger share of him than you and his father can afford me."
"I don"t think we shall be jealous," was the happy answer. "Arthur is very proud of your admiration of Master Johnnie. You know we have always felt as if you had a right in him."
Percy and Theodora here returned from the park, rejoicing to find others as tardy in going in as themselves; Arthur, awakened by the voices, came out, and as the others hurried in, asked John what they had been talking about.
"Of many things," said John; "much of my G.o.dson."
"Ay!" said Arthur; "did you not wonder how anything so good can belong to me?"
John smiled, and said, "His goodness belongs to nothing here."
"Nay, it is no time to say that after talking to his mother," said Arthur; "though I know what you mean, and she would not let me say so.
Well, I am glad you are come, for talks with you are the greatest treat to her. She seemed to be gathering them up again at Ventnor, and was always telling me of them. She declares they taught her everything good; though that, of course, I don"t believe, you know," he added, smiling.
"No; there was much in which she needed no teaching, and a few hints here and there do not deserve what she ascribes to them."
"John," said Arthur, coming nearer to him, and speaking low, "she and her boy are more perfect creatures than you can guess, without knowing the worst of me. You warned me that I must make her happy, and you saw how it was the first year. It has been worse since that. I have neglected them, let them deny themselves, ruined them, been positively harsh to that angel of a boy; and how they could love me, and be patient with me throughout, is what I cannot understand, though--though I can feel it."
"Truly," thought John, as Arthur hastily quitted him, ashamed of his emotion, "if Violet be my scholar, she has far surpa.s.sed her teacher!
Strange that so much should have arisen apparently from my attempt to help and cheer the poor dispirited girl, in that one visit to Ventnor, which I deemed so rash a venture of my own comfort--useless, self-indulgent wretch that I was. She has done the very deeds that I had neglected. My brother and sister, even my mother and Helen"s brother, all have come under her power of firm meekness--all, with one voice, are ready to "rise up and call her blessed!" Nay, are not these what Helen would have most wished to effect, and is it not her memorials that have been the instruments of infusing that spirit into Violet? These are among the works that follow her, or, as they sung this evening--
"For seeds are sown of glorious light, A future harvest for the just, And gladness for the heart that"s right To recompense its pious trust.""
And in gladness did he stand before the house that had been destined as the scene of his married life, and look forth on the churchyard where Helen slept. He was no longer solitary, since he had begun to bear the burdens of others; for no sooner did he begin to work, than he felt that he worked with her.
CHAPTER 18
That we, whose work commenced in tears, May see our labours thrive, Till finished with success, to make Our drooping hearts revive.
Though he despond that sows his grain, Yet, doubtless, he shall come To bind his full-ear"d sheaves, and bring The joyful harvest home.
--Psalm 126. New Version
Business cares soon began. Arthur consented to allow his brother to lay his embarra.s.sments before his father. "Do as you please," he said; "but make him understand that I am not asking him to help me out of the sc.r.a.pe. He does all he can for me, and cannot afford more; or, if he could, Theodora ought to be thought of first. All I wish is, that something should be secured to Violet and the children, and that, if I don"t get clear in my lifetime, these debts may not be left for Johnnie.
"That you may rely on," said John. "I wish I could help you; but there were many things at Barbuda that seemed so like fancies of my own, that I could not ask my father to pay for them, and I have not much at my disposal just now."
"It is a good one to hear you apologizing to me!" said Arthur, laughing, but rather sadly, as John carried off the ominous pocket-book to the study, hoping to effect great things for his brother; and, as the best introduction, he began by producing the letter written at Christmas.
Lord Martindale was touched by the commencement, but was presently lost in surprise on discovering Percy"s advance.
"Why could he not have written to me? Did he think I was not ready to help my own son?"
"It was necessary to act without loss of time."
"If it were necessary to pay down the sum, why not tell me of it, instead of letting poor Arthur give him a bond that is worth nothing?"
"I fancy, if he had any notion of regaining Theodora, he was unwilling you or she should know the extent of the obligation."
"It is well I do know it. I thought it unsatisfactory to hear of no profit, after all the talk there has been about his books. I feared it was an empty trade: but this is something like. Five thousand! He is a clever fellow after all!"
"I hope he may soon double it," said John, amused at this way of estimating Percy"s powers.
"Well, it was a friendly act," continued Lord Martindale. "A little misjudged in the manner, perhaps; but if you had seen the state Arthur was in--"
"I should have forgiven Percy?" said John, with a slightly ironical smile, that made his father laugh.
"Not that I am blaming him," he said; "but it shall be paid him at once if it comes to selling Wyelands. You know one cannot be under an obligation of this sort to a lad whom one has seen grow up in the village."
"Perhaps he wishes it to be considered as all in the family."
"So it is. That is the worst of it. It is so much out of what he would have had with Theodora, and little enough there is for her. A dead loss!
Could not Arthur have had more sense, at his age, and with all those children! What"s all this?" reading on in dismay. "Seven thousand more at least! I"ll have nothing to do with it!"
An hour after, John came out into the verandah, where Percy was reading, and asked if he knew where Arthur was.
"He got into a ferment of anxiety, and Violet persuaded him to walk it off. He is gone out with Johnnie and Helen. Well, how has he fared?"
"Not as well as I could wish. My father will not do more towards the debts than paying you."
"Ho! I hope he does not think I acted very impertinently towards him?"
John laughed, and Percy continued,
"Seriously, I believe it is the impertinence hardest to forgive, and I shall be glad when the subject is done with. That will be so much off Arthur"s mind."