"There"s charity for you, and grat.i.tude!" exclaimed Vibert, who, entering the room while Bruce was speaking, had heard his concluding sentence. "Here is a gentleman who came to our aid when we were in a dilemma, who has shown us courtesy and kindness, and he is to be condemned, unheard, as an impostor, because a pedant, who has never put foot in stirrup or fired a shot in his life, cannot understand a frank, bold, chivalrous nature. Blair thinks that all must be evil that does not just square with his old-fashioned notions. Emmie, you should stand up for your friend," added the youth more playfully, as he threw himself on an arm-chair, and stretched himself, after what he considered to be a long and tiresome walk, "for the colonel not only helped to pull you out of your ditch, but he told me that my sister is the prettiest girl that he has seen on this side of the big fish-pond."
"I hope that you do not encourage such impertinence," observed Bruce sternly.
"Oh, if the colonel dare to hint that my brother is the pleasantest fellow that he has met with, I"ll resent the impertinence, I promise you," laughed Vibert.
Emmie foresaw, with uneasiness, more angry sparring between her two brothers, and, to turn the current of conversation, asked Vibert what he thought of the Blairs.
"Oh, our tutor is a learned professor, who has pored over books, and puzzled over problems, till he has grown into the shape of a note of interrogation," replied Vibert lightly. "As for his wife, she"s a homely body, as clever men"s wives usually are; Mrs. Blair looks like a housekeeper, but has not the merit of being a good one."
Bruce, whom the conversation did not greatly interest, had taken up a book.
"And her family?" inquired Emmie; "I suppose that you have made their acquaintance."
"We were all gathered together at early dinner, if one could call that a dinner at which there was nothing eatable," said the fastidious Vibert.
"There was old Blair at one end of the table, hacking at a shoulder of mutton, and talking, as he did so, to Bruce about Sophocles and Euripides. There was Mrs. Blair at the other end, ladling out the potatoes. Bruce and I sat on one side, and three demure little chaps in pinafores on the other, like degrees of comparison, small, smaller, and smallest; dull, duller, and dullest. The children were so terribly well-behaved, that they never asked for anything (not that there was much to ask for), they never spoke a word, nor lifted their eyes from their plates, but wielded with propriety their forks and spoons; I think that only the eldest of the three was trusted with a knife. The little fellows" looks seemed to say, "It is a matter of business, and not of play, to eat shoulder of mutton and boiled rice pudding, and drink water out of horn mugs." The whole affair had such a nursery look about it, that I half expected to be provided with a pinafore, instead of a dinner napkin."
"You incorrigible boy!" laughed Emmie; "I think that the three degrees of comparison will become merry, merrier, and merriest in your company soon."
"They will have precious little of it, I can tell you that," said Vibert; "one such meal is enough for me. To say nothing of its intolerable dulness, the wine of Blair"s table is insufferably bad, the mere washing out of casks, cheap trash!"--the lad distorted his handsome features into an expression of strong disgust. "Oh, _you_ did not mind it, Bruce," continued Vibert, as his brother glanced up from his book; "you are a water-drinker and no judge on the subject, but _I_ know what is what, and cheap wine of all things I detest. It ruins the const.i.tution. I shall try if I cannot get something eatable and drinkable in the town; I hear that there is a capital _table d"hote_ at the White Hart."
"You are aware that the arrangement for our having luncheon at our tutor"s being concluded, your taking the meal elsewhere must involve double expense," observed Bruce.
"Can"t help that," said the youthful epicurean, shrugging his shoulders; "I can"t work on coa.r.s.e mutton and plain rice pudding, served up on plates of the old willow-pattern; specially as I seem likely to be starved at Myst Court, if we are to have no cook but Hannah. I am certain," continued Vibert, his bright eyes sparkling with fun as he turned to his sister--"I am certain that yesterday"s boiled rabbits were my great-aunt"s cats in disguise, and that the soup--faugh!--was simply the water in which they had been boiled! Why did we not bring our old cook to Myst Court?"
"We did not bring her, because she would not come," replied Emmie.
"I suppose that in an old haunted house, country cooks and country footmen are necessary evils, and must be endured," said Vibert, attempting to look philosophic. "But I hope that you, as mistress of the establishment, have spoken pretty sharply to Hannah. I hope that you have given her a fright."
"Hannah is a good deal more likely to give me one," answered the smiling Emmie. "I think of making over to you, Vibert, the office of scolding the cook."
"I should find that a more formidable task than that of facing all the ghosts of Myst Court," was the merry lad"s playful reply.
CHAPTER XV.
THE FIRST VISIT.
"Bruce is right; whenever a disagreeable duty is to be done, the sooner we get over it the better," said Emmie to herself, as, accompanied by Susan, she started on her walk before luncheon on the following day. A cloud of care was on the youthful face which looked so fair and gentle under the shade of the broad-brimmed garden-hat which the maiden wore.
Emmie had "screwed up her courage to the sticking-point," and had resolved not to return home without having performed her self-allotted task of, at least, entering two of the cottages inhabited by her father"s tenants. The young lady had a couple of fly-leaves in her hand, with their attractive pictures outermost,--these were what Bruce had called her ammunition; but the timid recruit had a reserve, on which she counted more, in the form of a half-crown slipped into her left glove, ready to be produced in a moment. There are many district visitors who may remember the time when they started on their first campaign as reluctantly and as timidly as did the inexperienced Emmie.
It may have been observed that the maiden undertook her work simply as a hard duty. She was urged onwards by a brother"s counsels, and p.r.i.c.ked by the goad of conscience. There was in Miss Trevor none of the hopeful, earnest spirit which hears the Master"s call, and answers it with the cry, "Here am I; send me!" Emmie had indeed prayed for help in entering on her new sphere, but her prayer was not the prayer of faith. She did not realize that G.o.d could indeed make her a channel through which His stream of blessing might flow on a parched and thirsty land. She did not believe that her dumb lips might be so opened that her mouth might show forth His praise. Emmie had a profound mistrust of her own powers. Such mistrust is safe and may be salutary; but she confounded that innocent diffidence with what was really mistrust of G.o.d. The girl knew her own weakness; so far, all was well; but there was unbelief in not resting on the almighty strength of her G.o.d. Emmie would have been startled and shocked had the truth been clothed in words, but she was really regarding the Most High as a Master who commands that bricks should be made without giving the needful straw, as a Leader who sends forth feeble recruits to the fight all unprovided with armour. The maiden"s courage was not sustained by the thought, _I will go in the strength of the Lord G.o.d_; nor did she rest on His promise, _My grace is sufficient for thee, for My strength is made perfect in weakness._ It was not the love of G.o.d, but the dread of incurring His displeasure, which made the poor, hesitating, unwilling girl combat the fear of man.
And if Emmie was not impelled forwards by a loving desire to please a loving Master, still less was she influenced by tender concern for the souls of those whom she felt that she ought to visit. The child of luxury, in her pleasant home, had scarcely regarded the poor as being of the same cla.s.s of beings as herself. They were creatures to be pitied, to be helped, to be taught by those trained for the work; but as beings to be objects of sympathy and love, as children of the one Great Father, Emmie could not regard them. Charity was thus to her but a cold dry duty, like the timber which may be shaped into a thousand useful purposes; but not like the living tree whose branches are bright with blossoms or rich in fruit, because through it flows the life-giving sap.
Such Christian charity belongs not to fallen nature; it is a special gift of G.o.d, and comes through close union, by faith, with Him whose nature is love. Emmie"s faith was so weak, that it is no marvel that her prayers for guidance were little more than forms, and that her compa.s.sion for her poor fellow-sinners was cold. The young Christian had _not_ conquered mistrust.
"Susan, have you not told me that the ladies with whom you once lived used to visit the poor?" said Emmie to her attendant as the two proceeded along the drive.
"Yes, constantly, miss," was the answer.
"I wish that I knew how they made their way with the cottagers. Did they not find it very difficult at first?" asked Emmie.
"I do not know how they found it at first," replied Susan; "for when I entered the service of the vicar"s lady, even her little ones were accustomed to go to the homes of the poor whom they knew, to make some good old creature happy with a jug of warm broth, or a bit of flannel, or, perhaps, a text in large letters, painted by themselves, to be hung up in a sick person"s room."
"But there is just the difficult point," observed Emmie,--"how did the family come to know the poor so well? If one were once acquainted with the "good old creature," there might be some pleasure in taking the broth or the flannel."
"My young ladies used to go on their regular rounds, miss, and exchange the books which they lent to the poor. I have often gone with the ladies to carry the books," said Susan. "The visitors were always asked to sit down in the cottages, the people were so much pleased to see them."
"And when the ladies sat down, what happened next?" asked Emmie, who felt herself to be ignorant of the very alphabet of district visiting, and who was not too proud to learn from her maid. "What did your ladies say? Did they begin directly to teach and to preach?"
"Oh dear, no, miss!" cried Susan, a little surprised at the question; "I think that my ladies talked to the poor much as they would have talked to other people. They spoke to the cottagers about their health and the weather, and to the mothers about their children, and they gave any little bit of news, perhaps out of a missionary paper, that they thought would amuse the poor folk. The talking came all quite natural-like."
"It would never come natural-like with me," observed Emmie; "nor, to own the truth, do I see that much good is gained by that kind of talk. One does not make the effort of going into the dirty homes of the poor just to gossip with them, as one might do with a friend, but to teach them their duty and make them better."
Susan knew her proper place too well to reply to this observation of her young mistress; the maid thought, however, to herself that her former ladies had found real friends and dear friends too amongst the poor, and that to form a tie of sympathy between the higher and lower cla.s.ses _did do good_, even if there were no direct religious teaching. Susan remembered also that she had heard the most pious of her young ladies observe that she had herself learned more from the poor than she had ever been able to teach them. The district visitor should recognize the possibility of mutual benefit when she goes on her charity rounds.
"Did your ladies never talk to the people about their souls?" inquired Emmie. "Was nothing said about religion in these visits which they paid to the poor?"
"Oh yes, miss," answered Susan, "but it came so natural-like. A blind woman would like to be read to; then the visitor read from the Bible, and afterwards the two talked over what had been read. Or a mother, may be, had lost a baby; and then the lady would speak of Him who carries the lambs in His arms. The poor liked to open their hearts to the ladies and tell them their troubles, because, you see, miss, they felt that the ladies cared. I"m sure when little Amy Fisher died, Miss Mary cried for her as much as her own mother did. Mrs. Fisher had been a hard sort of woman,--I think she was given to drink,--but after her little one"s death Miss Mary got her quite round. But all that came quite natural-like," added Susan, again using her favourite phrase, by which Emmie understood that there had been no forced talk on religious subjects, no hard dogmatical teaching.
"I wish that I could acquire this art of comforting and helping and sympathizing," thought Emmie; "but I feel sure that I never shall do so."
Emmie and her maid had now reached the entrance gate. The young lady was relieved not to see at it the figure of Harper, whom she regarded with almost a superst.i.tious dread. She pa.s.sed his hovel, a mere tenement of mud, with a thatched roof, green with moss and stained with yellow lichen. The door was shut, and no smoke rose from the single chimney of the dilapidated dwelling.
Picking her way along the muddy road, Emmie, with a beating heart, proceeded towards the next cottage, which, though it was far from being neat and clean in its appearance, had at least gla.s.s in its windows, and was able to stand upright. Her conversation with Susan had been rather encouraging on the whole to the inexperienced lady visitor. A faint hope sprang up in the breast of Emmie that after a while district work might come "natural-like" to her as it had done to other ladies. The fair girl could not but be conscious that she possessed a more than common power of pleasing, such a power as might smooth down some of her difficulties in winning her way to the hearts of the poor.
Emmie went up to the door of the cottage, hesitated a moment, murmured to herself, "Now for an effort!" and gently tapped with the end of her parasol. No brief silent prayer was darted up from her heart,--that prayer which is as the child"s upward glance at the parent who holds his hand to support and guide him. When first entering on what she regarded as work for G.o.d, Emmie"s thoughts were not rising to G.o.d.
There was a slight stir audible within the cottage after the lady had knocked, followed by the click of the latch, and a woman threw open the door. A scent of bacon, greens, and porter pervaded the cottage, and Emmie saw that the family were seated at dinner. A burly-looking man in shirt-sleeves, whose back had been towards the door, turned round his unshaven, unwashed face to see who had tapped for admittance. Several dirty, untidy children stared open-mouthed at the unexpected appearance of a well-dressed lady. Emmie shrank back, for with intuitive delicacy she felt that to enter a cottage at meal-time was an intrusion.
"Won"t you step in, miss?" said the woman who had opened the door, with that civility which is generally met with in the cottage homes of England.
"Oh--not now--I did not know--I never meant--" stammered forth poor Emmie, as nervously polite as if she had by mistake intruded herself at the repast of a d.u.c.h.ess. The gruff looks of the man, who did not rise from his chair, took from the timid girl all self-possession. Emmie expected him to growl out, "What brings you here?" And as the only apology which occurred to her mind for calling at all, she nervously thrust her half-crown into the hand of the astonished woman, and with a muttered "I thought you might want it," made her retreat from the door.
Emmie in her confusion dropped her papers; they were picked up and returned to her by Susan.
"You might have left them by the door," observed Emmie.
Susan thought, though too respectful to say what she thought, that her young ladies had never _dropped_ tracts in the mud for the poor to stoop to pick up; the vicar"s daughters had always given such papers with the pleasant smile which had insured for them a welcome. In distributing religious literature, as in most other matters, success greatly depends on the manner in which a thing is done.
Emmie was not satisfied with this her first essay in cottage-visiting.
"I never thought of finding workmen at home," she observed to Susan.
"I think, miss, that twelve is a common dinner-hour," said Susan, "and that then some of the men come home from their work."
"Then a.s.suredly twelve is a bad visiting hour," cried Emmie; "we had better return home directly." The young lady walked back to Myst Court at a much quicker pace than had been hers when she had started on her little expedition. She was glad to find herself within the gate and in the shrubbery again.