Their early departure was satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Walton drew a long breath of immeasurable relief, and then called briskly to Jeff, who was coming up from the garden, "Harness Dolly to my buggy."
"Why, father, where are you going?" exclaimed Annie.
"To Woodville."
"Now, father--" began Annie, laying hold of his arm.
"Not a word, my dear; I must go."
"But it will be late in the night before you can get back. The day is cold and raw, and it looks as if it would rain."
"I can"t help it. It"s something I can"t put off. Hurry, Jeff, and get ready to go with me."
"O dear!" cried Annie; "this is the worst of all. Let me go for you--please do."
"I"m not a child," said the old gentleman, irritably. "Since I could not go this morning, I must go now. Please don"t worry me. It"s public business that I have no right to delay, and I promised that it should be attended to today;" and with a hasty "good-by" he took his overcoat and started.
Annie was almost beside herself with vexation and self-reproach, and her feelings must find vent somewhere. Gregory prudently retired to his room.
"There"s Zibbie," she thought; "I"ll teach her one lesson;" and she went to the kitchen and discharged the old servant on the spot.
Zibbie was in such a reckless state of pa.s.sion that she didn"t care if the world came to an end. The only comfort Annie got in this direction was a volley of impudence.
"I hod discharged mesel" afore ye spoke," said the irate dame. "An" ye think I"m gang to broil an ould hen for a spring chicken in peace and quietness, ye"re a" wrong. An" then to send that dour nagur a speerin"
roun" among my fowl that I"ve raised from babies--I"ll na ston it. I"ll gang, I"ll gang, but ye"ll greet after the ould "ooman for a" o" that."
Annie then retreated to the sitting-room, where Miss Eulie was placidly mending Susie"s torn ap.r.o.n, and poured into her ears the story of her troubles.
"To be sure--to be sure," Aunt Eulie would answer, soothingly; "but then, Annie dear, it all won"t make any difference a hundred years from now."
This only irritated Annie more, and at the same time impressed her with her own folly in being so disturbed by comparative trifles.
Gregory found his room chill and comfortless, therefore he put on his overcoat, and started for a walk, full of surprise and painful musings.
As he was descending the stairs, Johnny came running in, crying in a tone of real distress, "Oh, Aunt Annie, Aunt Annie, I"m so sorry, so very sorry--"
Annie came running out of the sitting-room, exclaiming sharply, "What on earth is the matter now? Hasn"t there been trouble enough for one day?"
"I"m so sorry," sobbed the little boy, "but I got a letter at the post-office, and I--I--lost it coming across the lots, and I--I--can"t find it."
This was too much. This was the ardently-looked-for letter that had glimmered like a star of hope and promise of better things throughout this miserable day, and Annie lost all control of herself. Rushing upon the child, she cried, "You naughty, careless boy! I"ll give you one lesson"; and she shook him so violently that Gregory"s indignation got the better of him, and he said, in a low, deep tone, "Miss Walton, the child says he is "very, very sorry." He has not meant to do wrong."
Annie started back as if she were committing sacrilege, and covered her face with her hands. Her back was toward Gregory, but he could see the hot blood mantling her very neck. She stood there for a moment, trembling like a leaf, and he, repenting of his hasty words, was about to apologize, when she suddenly caught the boy in her arms, and sped past him up the stairs to her own room.
To his dying day he would never forget the expression of her face.
It cannot be described. It was the look of a n.o.ble spirit, deeply wounded, profoundly penitent. Her intense feeling touched him, and the rough October winds brushed a tear from his own eyes more than once before he returned.
CHAPTER XXII
NOT A HEROINE, BUT A WOMAN
The cold, cynical man of the world was in a maze. He was deeply and painfully surprised at Miss Walton, and scarcely less so at himself.
How could he account for the tumult at his heart? When he first saw that outburst of pa.s.sion against a trembling, pleading child, he felt that he wished to leave the house then and forever. The next moment, when he saw Annie"s face as she convulsively clasped the boy to her breast, and with supernatural strength fled to the refuge of her room, he was not only instantly disarmed of anger, but touched and melted as he had never been before.
Feeling is sometimes so intense that it is like the lightning, and burns its way instantly to the consciousness of others. Words of condemnation would have died on the lips of the sternest judge had he seen Annie"s face. It would have shown him that the harshest things that he could utter were already antic.i.p.ated in unmeasured self-upbraidings.
From anger and disgust Gregory pa.s.sed to the profoundest pity. The children"s unbounded affection for Annie proved that she was usually kind and patient toward them. A little thought convinced him that the act he saw was a sudden outburst of pa.s.sion for which the exasperating events of the day had been a preparation. Her face showed as no language could how sincere and deep would be her repentance. He had not gone very far into the early twilight of a grove before he was conscious of a strong and secret exultation.
"She is not made of different clay from others," he said. "She cannot condemn me so utterly now; and, in view of what I have seen, she cannot loftily deny the kinship of human weakness.
"What a nature she has, with its subterranean fires! She is none of your cool, calculating creatures, who cipher out from day to day what is policy to do. She will act rightly till there is an irrepressible irruption, and then, beware. And yet these ebullitions enrich her life as the lava flow does the sides of Vesuvius. I shall be greatly disappointed if she is not ten times more kind, sympathetic, and self-forgetful than she was before; and as for that boy, she will keep him in the tallest clover for weeks to come, to make up for this.
"How piquant she is! I do not fear her quick, flame-like spirit when it is combined with so much conscience and principle. Indeed, I like her pa.s.sion. It warms my cold, heavy heart. I wish she had shaken me, who deserved it, instead of the child, and if any makings-up like that in yonder room could follow, I would like to be shaken every day in the week. It would make a new man of me."
In the excitement of his feelings, he had gone further than he had intended, and the dusk was deepening fast when he reached the house on his return. He felt not a little uneasy as to his reception after the rebuke he had given, but counted much on Annie"s just and generous disposition. He entered quietly at a side door and pa.s.sed through the dining-room into the hall. The lamp in the parlor was unlighted, but the bright wood fire shed a soft, uncertain radiance throughout the room. A few notes of prelude were struck on the piano, and he knew that Miss Walton was there. Stepping silently forward opposite the open door, he stood in the dark hall watching her as she sung the following words:
"My Father, once again Thy wayward child In sorrow, shame, and weakness comes to Thee, Confessing all my sin, my pa.s.sion wild, My selfishness and petty vanity.
"O Jesus, gentle Saviour, at Thy feet I fall, where often I have knelt before; Thou wilt not spurn, nor charge me with deceit, Because old faults have mastered me once more.
"Thou knowest that I would be kind and true, And that I hate the sins that pierced Thy side; Thou seest that I often sadly view The wrong that in my heart will still abide.
"But Thou didst come such erring ones to save, And weakness wins Thy strong and tender love; So not in vain I now forgiveness crave, And cling to hopes long stored with Thee above.
"And yet I plead that Thou would"st surely keep My weak and human heart in coming days; Though now in penitence I justly weep, O fill my future life with grateful praise."
As in tremulous, melting tones she sung this simple prayer with tears glistening in her eyes, Gregory was again conscious of the strong, answering emotion which the presence of deep feeling in those bound to us by some close tie of sympathy often excites. But far more than mere feeling moved him now. Her words and manner vivified an old truth familiar from infancy, but never realized or intelligently believed--the power of prayer to secure practical help from G.o.d.
How often men have lived and died poor just above mines of untold wealth! Gaunt famine has been the inmate of households while there were buried treasures under the hearthstone. So mult.i.tudes in their spiritual life are weak, despairing, perishing, when by the simple divinely appointed means of prayer they might fill their lives with strength and fulness. How long men suffered and died with diseases that seemed incurable, before they discovered in some common object a potent remedy that relieved pain and restored health!
As is the case with many brought up in Christian homes, with no one thing was Gregory more familiar than prayer. For many years he had said prayers daily, and yet he had seldom in all his life prayed, and of late years had come to be a practical infidel in regard to this subject. People who only say prayers, and expect slight, or no results from them, or are content year after year to see no results--who lack simple, honest, practical faith in G.o.d"s word, such as they have in that of their physician or banker--who only feel that they ought to pray, and that in some vague, mystical manner it may do them good, are very apt to end as sceptics in regard to its efficacy and value. Or they may become superst.i.tious, and continue to say prayers as the poor Indian mutters his incantation to keep off the witches. G.o.d hears prayer when His children cry to Him--when His faithful friends speak to Him straight and true from their hearts; and such know well that they are answered.
As Gregory looked at and listened to Annie Walton, he could no more believe that she was expressing a little aimless religious emotion, just as she would sing a sentimental ballad, than he could think that she was only showing purposeless filial affection if she were hanging on her father"s arm and pleading for something vital to her happiness.
The thought flashed across him, "Here may be the secret of her power to do right--the help she gets from a source above and beyond herself.
Here may be the key to both her strength and weakness. Here glimmers light even for me."
Annie was about to sing again, but the interest which she had awakened was so strong that he could not endure delay. Anxiety as to his personal reception was forgotten, and he stepped forward and interrupted her with a question.
"Miss Walton, do you honestly believe that?"
"Believe what?" said she, hastily, quite startled.
"What I gathered from the hymn you sung--that your prayer is really heard and answered?"