"Are you not well, dear grandpa?" said the little girl.
Nothing made of flesh and blood ever spoke words of more spirit-like sweetness, ? not the beauty of a fine organ, but such as the sweetness of angel-speech might be; a whisper of love and tenderness that was hushed by its own intensity. He did not answer, or did not notice her first question; she repeated it.
"Don"t you feel well?"
"Not exactly, dear!" he replied.
There was the shadow of somewhat in his tone, that fell upon his little granddaughter"s heart and brow at once. Her voice next time, though not suffered to be anything but clear and cheerful still, had in part the clearness of apprehension.
"What is the matter?"
"Oh ? I don"t know, dear!"
She felt the shadow again, and he seemed to say that time would show her the meaning of it. She put her little hand in one of his which lay outside the coverlets, and stood looking at him; and presently said, but in a very different key from the same speech to Mr. Carleton, ?
"I have had a very nice time, dear grandpa."
Her grandfather made her no answer. He brought the dear little hand to his lips and kissed it twice, so earnestly that it was almost pa.s.sionately; then laid it on the side of the bed again, with his own upon it, and patted it slowly and fondly, and with an inexpressible kind of sadness in the manner.
Fleda"s lip trembled, and her heart was fluttering, but she stood so that he could not see her face in the dusk, and kept still till the rebel features were calm again, and she had schooled the heart to be silent.
Mr. Ringgan had closed his eyes, and perhaps was asleep, and his little granddaughter sat quietly down on a chair by the bedside to watch by him, in that gentle sorrowful patience which women often know, but which hardly belongs to childhood.
Her eye and thoughts, as she sat there in the dusky twilight, fell upon the hand of her grandfather which still fondly held one of her own; and fancy travelled fast and far, from what it was to what it had been. Rough, discoloured, stiff, as it lay there now, she thought how it had once had the hue, and the freshness, and the grace of youth, when it had been, the instrument of uncommon strength, and wielded an authority that none could stand against. Her fancy wandered over the scenes it had known; when it had felled trees in the wild forest; and those fingers, then supple and slight, had played the fife to the struggling men of the Revolution; how its activity had outdone the activity of all other hands in clearing and cultivating those very fields where her feet loved to run; how, in its pride of strength, it had handled the scythe, and the sickle, and the flail, with a grace and efficiency that no other could attain; and how, in happy manhood, that strong hand had fondled, and sheltered, and led, the little children that now had grown up and were gone! ? Strength and activity, ay, and the fruits of them, were pa.s.sed away; ? his children were dead; his race was run; ? the shock of corn was in full season, ready to be gathered. Poor little Fleda! her thought had travelled but a very little way before the sense of these things entirely overcame her, her head bowed on her knees, and she wept tears that all the fine springs of her nature were moving to feed ? many, many, ? but poured forth as quietly as bitterly; she smothered every sound. That beautiful shadowy world with which she had been so busy a little while ago, ?
alas! she had left the fair outlines and the dreamy light, and had been tracking one solitary path through the wilderness, and she saw how the traveller, foot-sore and weather-beaten, comes to the end of his way. And, after all, he comes to _the end_. ""Yes, and I must travel through life, and come to the end, too," thought little Fleda; "life is but a pa.s.sing through the world; my hand must wither and grow old too, if I live long enough; and whether or no, I must come to _the end_.
Oh, there is only one thing that ought to be very much minded in this world!"
That thought, sober though it was, brought sweet consolation.
Fleda"s tears, if they fell as fast, grew brighter, as she remembered, with singular tender joy, that her mother and her father had been ready to see the end of their journey, and were not afraid of it; that her grandfather and her aunt Miriam were happy in the same quiet confidence, and she believed she herself was a lamb of the Good Shepherd"s flock.
"And he will let none of his lambs be lost," she thought. "How happy I am! How happy we all are!"
Her grandfather still lay quiet, as if asleep, and gently drawing her hand from under his, Fleda went and got a candle and sat down by him again to read, carefully shading the light so that it might not awake him.
He presently spoke to her, and more cheerfully.
"Are you reading, dear?"
"Yes, grandpa!" said the little girl, looking up brightly.
"Does the candle disturb you?"
"No, dear! ? What have you got there"?
"I just took up this volume of Newton that has the hymns in it."
"Read out."
Fleda read Mr. Newton"s long beautiful hymn, "The Lord will provide;" but with her late thoughts fresh in her mind it was hard to get through the last verses; ?
"No strength of our own, Or goodness we claim; But since we have known The Saviour"s great name, In this, our strong tower, For safety we hide; The Lord is our power, The Lord will provide.
"When life sinks apace, And death is in view, This word of his grace Shall comfort us through.
No fearing nor doubting, ?
With Christ on our side, We hope to die shouting, The Lord will provide !"
The little reader"s voice changed, almost broke, but she struggled through, and then was quietly crying behind her hand.
"Read it again," said the old gentleman, after a pause.
There is no "cannot" in the vocabulary of affection. Fleda waited a minute or two to rally her forces, and then went through it again, more steadily than the first time.
"Yes," said Mr. Ringgan, calmly, folding his hands, "that will do! That trust wont fail, for it is founded upon a rock. "He is a rock; and he knoweth them that put their trust in him!" I have been a fool to doubt ever that he would make all things work well ? "The Lord will provide!"
"Grandpa," said Fleda, but in an unsteady voice, and shading her face with her hand still, "I can remember reading this hymn to my mother once when I was so little that "suggestions"
was a hard word to me."
"Ay, ay ? I dare say," said the old gentleman; "your mother knew that Rock, and rested her hope upon it, ? where mine stands now. If ever there was a creature that might have trusted to her own doings, I believe she was one, for I never saw her do anything wrong, as I know. But she knew Christ was all. Will you follow him, as she did, dear?"
Fleda tried in vain to give an answer.
"Do you know what her last prayer for you was, Fleda?"
"No, grandpa."
"It was that you might be kept "unspotted from the world." I heard her make that prayer myself." And stretching out his hand, the old gentleman laid it tenderly upon Fleda"s bowed head, saying with strong earnestness and affection, even his voice somewhat shaken, "G.o.d grant that prayer! ? whatever else he do with her, keep my child from the evil! ? and bring her to join her father and mother in heaven! ? and me!"
He said no more; but Fleda"s sobs said a great deal. And when the sobs were hushed, she still sat shedding quiet tears, sorrowed and disturbed by her grandfather"s manner. She had never known it so grave, so solemn; but there was that shadow of something else in it besides, and she would have feared if she had known what to fear. He told her at last that she had better go to bed, and to say to Cynthy that he wanted to see her. She was going, and had near reached the door, when he said,
"Elfleda!"
She hastened back to the bedside.
"Kiss me."
He let her do so twice, without moving, and then holding her to his breast he pressed one long earnest pa.s.sionate kiss upon her lips, and released her.
Fleda told Cynthy that her grandfather wished her to come to him, and then mounted the stairs, to her little bedroom. She went to the window, and opening it, looked out at the soft moonlit sky; the weather was mild again, and a little hazy, and the landscape was beautiful. But little Fleda was tasting realities, and she could not go off upon dream-journeys to seek the light food of fancy through the air. She did not think to-night about the people the moon was shining on; she only thought of one little sad anxious heart, ? and of another down stairs, more sad and anxious still, she feared; what could it be about? Now that Mr. Jolly had settled all that troublesome business with McGowan?
As she stood there at the window, gazing out aimlessly into the still night, ? it was very quiet, ? she heard Cynthy at the back of the house, calling out, but as if she were afraid of making too much noise, "Watkins! Watkins!"
The sound had business, if not anxiety, in it. Fleda instinctively held her breath to listen. Presently she heard Watkins reply; but they were round the corner, she could not easily make out what they said. It was only by straining her ears that she caught the words.
"Watkins, Mr. Ringgan wants you to go right up on the hill to Mis" Plumfield"s, and tell her he wants her to come right down ? he thinks" ? the voice of the speaker fell, and Fleda could only make out the last words ? "Dr. James." More was said, but so thick and low that she could understand nothing.
She had heard enough. She shut the window, trembling, and fastened again the parts of her dress she had loosened; and softly and hastily went down the stairs into the kitchen.
"Cynthy! ? what is the matter with grandpa!"
"Why aint you in bed, Flidda?" said Cynthy, with some sharpness. "That"s what you had ought to be. I am sure your grandpa wants you to be abed."