"Very great."?Hazel did not want to enlarge upon that part of the subject. And here Reo entered.
"Ha, Reo! are you made up for your journey already?" said Rollo.
"You can report to Mrs. Byw.a.n.k that Miss Wych was too much fatigued to take the drive home; and bring the carriage over in the morning."
Wych Hazel looked up, but her courage failed her for a protest.
She was obliged to let the order stand.
The fire was bright, the coffee was excellent, the little party so oddly thrown together were happy in mutual confidence and sympathy. Such hours are not too common, and a certain kindly recognition of this one sat upon every face. Gyda was busy preparing a room for Miss Kennedy and had not joined them.
"How does the work of the world look to you, Arthur, from this corner?" said Dane, when they had subsided a little from supper to the consideration of each other.
"Every spot of true Christian work is a centre," said his friend. "The "corners" are for darkness?not light. Work is the most enticing thing in the world to me, Dane!"
"Gyda"s fireside was the corner I meant,?it"s not dark just now!?
and I was thinking, that from this nook of quiet the work looks easy. So it is! It is a hand to hand and foot to foot battle; but it is easy to follow the captain that one loves."
"I don"t know that it is always easy," said Dr. Arthur; "but it can be done. Once in a while, you know, we are sent to carry a redoubt with only his orders before us. The Lord himself seems to be in quite another part of the field."
"That is, to those who do not know."
"Of course. I speak only of the seeming. But I like the fight, and I like the struggle. I like to measure battlements and prepare my scaling ladders, and lead a forlorn hope. It suits me, I believe."
"Battlements?" Hazel repeated. "Do you mean heights of difficulty?"
?"Guarded by depths of sin," said Dr. Arthur.
Hazel looked from one to the other. Yes, she could like that too, if she were a man. How much could she do, being a woman?
"And that is all seeming too, Arthur," his friend went on. "_Really_, the fighter need never be out of that "feste Burg." I was thinking just now, not only that work looks easy, but that it looks small.
Individual effort, I mean; the utmost that any one man can do. It is a mere speck. The living waters that shall be "a river to swim in,"
are very shallow yet; and where the fishers are to stand and cast their nets, it is a waste of barrenness. You have never been on the sh.o.r.es of the Dead Sea, Arthur; you do not know how a little thread of green on the mountain side shews where a spring of sweet water runs down through the waste."
"What then, Mr. Rollo?" said Wych Hazel.
"It is such a tiny thread of life upon the universal brown death."
"Is that what the world looks like to you?" said Hazel, wondering.
"And the work is even far smaller than that, if you look at it in its minute details. Did you ever read the life of Agnes Jones, Arthur?"
"Yes."
"Prim lent me the book; and I found a good word in it the other day. The writer says, I cannot give you the exact words,?"If we do every little thing that comes to us, G.o.d may out of our many littles make a great whole." Therein lies the very truth of our work.
It is so in Morton Hollow. Not building schoolhouses or making villages; anybody can do that; it is the word of interest to one, the word of sympathy to another; the holding a broken arm; giving help and refreshment in individual cases. Love, in short, like the sun, working softly and everywhere. As those threads of green on the mountain side are made up of mult.i.tudinous tiny leaves and mosses, nourished by countless invisible drops of spray."
"Working in all sorts of ways"?said the Doctor; while Hazel sat thinking of the green that was beginning to line the banks of Morton Hollow. "You may notice that a real spring goes literally wherever it can. Men may wall it in with stone channels, or force it into the air; but let it alone, it follows every possible opening. The deep main stream, and the little side rills, and the single drops that go each to a single leaf."
Rollo looked up and smiled. "There is Gyda coming to fetch you, Hazel."
"Well," said Hazel. "And you will go on talking all sorts of things that I ought to hear."
She rose up and stood looking down into the fire. The other two rose also and stood looking at her. It was a pretty picture. Gyda, a little apart, watched them all with her little bright eyes.
"But," Hazel began again,?"to do that,?for every little drop to do that?there must be a head of water. It is not the mere trickling down of something which happens to be at the top!"?Whereupon the little fingers took an extra knot.
"Each drop may do the ministry of one, may it not?" said Rollo.
"You need not count the drops. The only thing is that they be living water."
"Yes, the living water comes with a will. I remember,?in Mme.
Lasalle"s brook,?how busy the drops were. Not in a hurry, but in such sweet haste."
"True!" said Dr. Arthur. "Each with a clear bright purpose, if not a plan."
"Perhaps, best not the plan," said Rollo.
She stood gravely thinking for a moment, then looked up and shook hands with Dr. Arthur, wishing him good night. But no words came when she gave her hand to Mr. Rollo; only?perhaps in default of words?a beautiful, vivid blush.
The room to which the old Norsewoman conducted her was a very plain little place, with whitewashed walls and the simplest of furniture. Gyda manifested some concern lest her guest should suffer for want of a fire. "But the gentlemen had to have the other room," she said.
"O the fire is no matter," said Hazel. "But where do you sleep?with such a houseful?"
"I have my little nest just by, my lady. I"d be glad to keep it! And yet this is a strange place for my lad to have his home; and it"s been his home now for a year, nearly. How much longer will I keep him, my lady?"
Gyda asked the most tremendous questions with a sort of privileged simplicity; she looked now for her answer.
"Keep him?"?Hazel repeated the words in a maze.
"Yes, my lady. I know I must lose my lad from _this_ home; but when is it to be?"
"A great while?I don"t know,?n.o.body knows," said Hazel very much disturbed. "n.o.body thinks anything about it yet. So you need not even recollect it, Mrs. Boerresen."
Gyda looked at her with a tender, incredulous, pleased smile upon her face. "Do you think he will wait a great while, my lady?" she said. And then she came up and kissed Wych Hazel"s hand, and went away.
CHAPTER XIII.
UNDER THE CHESTNUT TREES.
Mr. Falkirk did not go out to breakfast that Sunday morning; and no one at Chickaree but the two old retainers knew how Miss Wych had tired herself, nor where she had rested overnight.
Monday came and went in uneventful rain, and Tuesday was the day of the party in the woods.
A simple enough affair,?just chestnuts and lunch; but rarely had the young lady of the domain been so hard to please in the matter of her dress. For words do leave their footsteps, drive them out as we will; and this Prim"s words had done. Not quite according to Prim"s intent, however; for the one clear idea in Wych Hazel"s mind, was that Mr. Rollo was (or would be when he noticed it at all) dissatisfied with her dress. And that was precisely the line in which she had never before met criticism. Hazel took off one colour after another, until Phoebe was in despair and Mrs. Byw.a.n.k turned away and smiled out of the window.
"And dear me, ma"am," cried Phoebe at last, "there comes a carriage!"?
Hazel looked towards the window, caught the old housekeeper"s eye, and suddenly embellishing her proceedings with a pair of scarlet cheeks, she opened another press, seized the first white dress that came to hand, and put it on without more ado. A dainty white pique, all on the wing with delicate embroideries and lace, and broad sash ends of the colour of red gold.
"But Miss Wych!" Mrs. Byw.a.n.k remonstrated. "The wind is very fresh."