"It is very late. He may not come back."
"He is sure to come," said Mattie; "pray sit down again, and Ann shall make us tea. Harriet, that man is my father."
"Do you really think so?"
"It was all a truth that that horrible woman told me on the day the house was robbed; he has been in search of me; he has found me at last--I shall not be alone in the world ever again!"
"You are glad then, Mattie?"
"Why should I not be?" asked our heroine; "I think that he is a good man--I think that he must have cared for me a little, to have taken so much trouble in his search for me--he will come back soon, and then we shall know all."
"He comes back to your gain and my loss," Harriet was on the point of saying, but checked herself; Mattie was excited enough without the cares of her friend to be added to her own.
It was a silent, thoughtful meal; Ann Packet, absorbed in gloomy reverie, took her tea with stony apathy. She could see that changes were coming towards her also, and the shape that they might a.s.sume was hard to guess at. She should lose Mattie perhaps, and that was sufficient to disturb _her_.
Tea was over, and Mattie had returned to her easy-chair, when a faint rapping was heard at the outer-door. Ann Packet went to the door, and found the preacher there, as she had antic.i.p.ated.
"Is she prepared--has she guessed?"
"Yes."
"Can I come in?"
"It isn"t for the likes of me to say you can"t;" and with this evasive reply, Ann Packet opened wide the door and admitted him.
He came in on tiptoe, in a manner strangely at variance with his former brusque entrance; he turned to Harriet Wesden first, and spoke in a low whisper to her.
"Mr. Hinchford bade me say, Miss Wesden, that he was waiting for you, down-stairs."
"Thank you--is he----?"
Harriet did not know how to finish her sentence, and left it in its embryo condition. Her face was pale, and her heart was beating violently as she stooped and kissed Mattie.
"Good-bye, dear--I must go now--Sidney is waiting."
"Good-bye--are you not well?" asked Mattie, suddenly.
She was as quick an observer as of yore, and the new expression on Harriet"s face suggested the new fear.
"Yes--yes--a little upset by what has happened to-day, that"s all.
Good-bye." And Harriet Wesden departed hastily.
The preacher put his hat on the floor, silently drew a chair towards Mattie, and then sat down close to her side. Ann Packet, from the distance watched them both--saw in an instant the likeness between them, as they sat thus. Both had sharp black eyes, dark hair, thin noses; the general expression of features was the same, harsher and more prominent in the man; and, therefore, rendering him far from a being whose good looks were apparent.
"Your name is Mattie?--you were at Mr. Wesden"s for some years?--he adopted you--he took you from the streets?--previous to his kindness, you were living, off and on, at a Mrs. Watts" of Kent Street, Southwark, where your mother died?"
"Yes," answered Mattie.
"The woman who died in Kent Street, Southwark, was my wife. She and I started in life together happily enough, till she took to drink--oh! the drink! the drink!--and then home became a misery, and we quarrelled very much, and I took to drink myself. I lost my place through drink, and laid the fault to her--we quarrelled worse than ever, as we became poorer and more wretched; I struck her, fought with her, acted the brute until she ran away from me, taking you with her, then but a year old. I did not seek to find her out--I let her go to ruin, and went my own way to ruin myself, until rescued by a miracle--by a good man, whom G.o.d sent in my way to amend my life, and teach me all the truths which I had neglected. He found me work again; he raised me from the brute into the man; he altered me body and soul, and when he died, it struck me that I might follow in his steps, and do good unto others, after his example. I was not an unlearned man in all respects; I fancied that I might do good by an effort--there is no doing good without one--and I made the attempt. When I was rewarded by my first convert, Mattie, that was my encouragement," he said, rising with the earnestness of his topic, sitting down again, and flinging his arms wildly about; "that was my incentive to go on, to save fresh souls from the danger, to struggle in the by-ways of life, for the light which the evil one would for ever shut from us. And I was rewarded for the effort; I have done good; I have spent the last sixteen years of my life in the good cause!"
"You are a minister."
"A local preacher--wandering from place to place, as my employers dictate--occasionally proceeding on my own route; for ever astir, and letting not the sun go down upon my idleness. And all this, while I have been in search of you--tracking your mother at last to Kent Street, and following on your track, until I am rewarded thus!"
He held forth his hand, and Mattie placed hers within it.
"I think that you are my father," she said; "I am glad to find some one to care for me at last."
"And you will care for _me_?--for I have been a lonely man in the world for many years, and would make atonement for the evil act which cast you to the streets! But Mattie, look at me!"
Mattie regarded him long and steadfastly. It was a strange, hard-featured face, on which was impressed firmness, or obduracy, and little else; but she felt that he was to be trusted and believed.
"You see a very stubborn man, one who has made few friends in life, and who has met with much tribulation in his journey," said he; "you see a man who will do his duty by you, but will not be a gentle father--a man who will never win a daughter"s love, and will not let the daughter take the first place in his heart, lest she should wean him too much from the pursuit of sin, and slacken his zeal in the good cause. A man who is poor--who cannot offer you a home much better than this--a man disagreeable, irritable, and obstinate--is he worth calling father?"
"Yes."
"Thank G.o.d you say so; it is very horrible to feel alone in the world."
The disagreeable, irritable, and obstinate man, shook Mattie by both hands, kissed her suddenly on the forehead, drew forth a cotton handkerchief, and wiped his eyes and blew his nose vigorously; finished by producing a shabby leather purse, and taking some silver therefrom, which he placed on the mantel-piece.
"My child!--at my expense all future housekeeping. Young woman," to Ann Packet, "you"ll draw from that small amount for the future."
"I"m sure I shan"t!"
"Eh!--what?"
"I"ve taken care of her, and been a mother to her for the last four weeks, and you"re not a-coming in here all at once, and stealing every bit of comfort away from me!"
"Who is this?" he asked of Mattie.
"A faithful friend, without whom I might have died."
"Then she must be a friend of mine--young woman, you hear that?"
"Ah! I hear," said the stolid Ann.
"And who knows but that you, Mattie, in the better days in store for you and me, may become a worker in the vineyard also?"
"She"s not going to work in any yard yet awhile, if I know it!" said Ann.
Mr. Gray rose and picked up his hat again, without paying heed to this allusion.
"I have work to do at home," he said; "I am a mechanic by trade, and have to labour to get my own living; when you are well enough, you must come to my home and make it a different place. I have much to ask you when you are better--I have been troubled about stories that have been told me of you--I am unhappy until I know the truth. You will keep nothing from me?"
Mattie did not reply; that was a matter for future consideration.
"I never allow anything to be kept from me," he said sharply; "I shall be a hard father, rely upon it. I allow nothing for prevarication, and I spare no sin or weakness, however plausible may be the excuse which the sinner offers. I--how dreadfully askew everything is on this mantel-piece!" he added suddenly, putting the few ornaments thereon at regular distances from each other; "I shall not be a kind father--I know I shan"t! The mountains are not harder to move than I am--you"re not frightened at me, Mattie?"
"No."