"Mary! See! Don"t you think he knows?"
She stood hesitating, with a lovely wavering colour in her cheeks.
"Don"t you remember," he went on, "you gave me a bit of sweetbriar on the evening of the first day we ever met?"
"I remember!" and her voice was very soft and tremulous.
"I have that piece of sweetbriar still," he said; "I shall never part with it. And old David must have known all about it!"
He took up the little sprays set ready for them, and putting one in his own b.u.t.tonhole, fastened the other in her bodice with a loving, lingering touch.
"It"s a good emblem," he said, kissing her--"Sweet Briar--sweet Love!--not without thorns, which are the safety of the rose!"
A slow step sounded on the garden path, and they saw Helmsley approaching, with the tiny "Charlie" running at his heels. Pausing on the threshold of the open door, he looked at them with a questioning smile.
"Well, did you see the sunset?" he asked, "Or only each other?"
Mary ran to him, and impulsively threw her arms about his neck.
"Oh David!" she said. "Dear old David! I am so happy!"
He was silent,--her gentle embrace almost unmanned him. He stretched out a hand to Angus, who grasped it warmly.
"So it"s all right!" he said, in a low voice that trembled a little.
"You"ve settled it together?"
"Yes--we"ve settled it, David!" Angus answered cheerily. "Give us your blessing!"
"You have that--G.o.d knows you have that!"--and as Mary, in her usual kindly way, took his hat and stick from him, keeping her arm through his as he went to his accustomed chair by the fireside, he glanced at her tenderly. "You have it with all my heart and soul, Mr. Reay!--and as for this dear lady who is to be your wife, all I can say is that you have won a treasure--yes, a treasure of goodness and sweetness and patience, and most heavenly kindness----"
His voice failed him, and the quick tears sprang to Mary"s eyes.
"Now, David, please stop!" she said, with a look between affection and remonstrance. "You are a terrible flatterer! You mustn"t spoil me."
"Nothing will spoil you!" he answered, quietly. "Nothing could spoil you! All the joy in the world, all the prosperity in the world, could not change your nature, my dear! Mr. Reay knows that as well as I do,--and I"m sure he thanks G.o.d for it! You are all love and gentleness, as a woman should be,--as all women would be if they were wise!"
He paused a moment, and then, raising himself a little more uprightly in his chair, looked at them both earnestly.
"And now that you have made up your minds to share your lives together,"
he went on, "you must not think that I will be so selfish as to stay on here and be a burden to you both. I should like to see you married, but after that I will go away----"
"You will do nothing of the sort!" said Mary, dropping on her knees beside him and lifting her serene eyes to his face. "You don"t want to make us unhappy, do you? This is your home, as long as it is ours, remember! We would not have you leave us on any account, would we, Angus?"
"Indeed no!" answered Reay, heartily. "David, what are you talking about? Aren"t _you_ the cause of my knowing Mary? Didn"t _you_ bring me to this dear little cottage first of all? Don"t I owe all my happiness to _you_? And you talk about going away! It"s pretty evident you don"t know what"s good for you! Look here! If I"m good for anything at all, I"m good for hard work--and for that matter I may as well go in for the basket-making trade as well as the book-making profession. We"ve got Mary to work for, David!--and we"ll both work for her--together!"
Helmsley turned upon him a face in which the expression was difficult to define.
"You really mean that?" he said.
"Really mean it! Of course I do! Why shouldn"t I mean it?"
There was a moment"s silence, and Helmsley, looking down on Mary as she knelt beside him, laid his hand caressingly on her hair.
"I think," he said gently, "that you are both too kind-hearted and impulsive, and that you are undertaking a task which should not be imposed upon you. You offer me a continued home with you after your marriage--but who am I that I should accept such generosity from you? I am not getting younger. Every day robs me of some strength--and my work--such work as I can do--will be of very little use to you. I may suffer from illness, which will cause you trouble and expense,--death is closer to me than life--and why should I die on your hands? It can only mean trouble for you if I stay on,--and though I am grateful to you with all my heart--more grateful than I can say"--and his voice trembled--"I know I ought to be unselfish,--and that the truest and best way to thank you for all you have done for me is to go away and leave you in peace and happiness----"
"We should not be happy without you, David!" declared Mary. "Can"t you, won"t you understand that we are both fond of you?"
"Fond of me!" And he smiled. "Fond of a useless old wreck who can scarcely earn a day"s wage!"
"That"s rather wide of the mark, David!" said Reay. "Mary"s not the woman--and I"m sure I"m not the man--to care for any one on account of the money he can make. We like you for yourself,--so don"t spoil this happiest day of our lives by suggesting any separation between us. Do you hear?"
"I hear!"--and a sudden brightness flashed up in Helmsley"s sunken eyes, making them look almost young--"And I understand! I understand that though I am poor and old, and a stranger to you,--you are giving me friendship such as rich men often seek for and never find!--and I will try,--yes, I will try, G.o.d helping me,--to be worthy of your trust! If I stay with you----"
"There must be no "if" in the case, David!" said Mary, smiling up at him.
He stroked her bright hair caressingly.
"Well, then, I will put it not "if," but as long as I stay with you," he answered--"as long as I stay with you, I will do all I can to show you how grateful I am to you,--and--and--I will never give you cause"--here he spoke more slowly, and with deliberate emphasis--"I will never give you cause to regret your confidence in me! I want you both to be glad--not sorry--that you spared a lonely old man a little of your affection!"
"We _are_ glad, David!"--and Mary, as he lifted his hand from her head, caught it and kissed it lightly. "And we shall never be sorry! And here is Charlie"--and she picked up the little dog as she spoke and fondled it playfully,--"wondering why he is not included in the family party!
For, after all, it is quite your affair, isn"t it, Charlie? _You_ were the cause of my finding David out on the hills!--and David was the cause of my knowing Angus--so if it hadn"t been for _you_, nothing would have happened at all, Charlie!--and I should have been a lonely old maid all the days of my life! And I can"t do anything to show my grat.i.tude to you, you quaint wee soul, but give you a saucer of cream!"
She laughed, and springing up, began to prepare the tea. While she was moving quickly to and fro on this household business, Helmsley beckoned Reay to come closer to him.
"Speak frankly, Mr. Reay!" he said. "As the master of her heart, you are the master of her home. I can easily slip away--and tramping is not such hard work in summer time. Shall I go?"
"If you go, I shall start out and bring you back again," replied Reay, shaking his head at him determinedly. "You won"t get so far but that I shall be able to catch you up in an hour! Please consider that you belong to us,--and that we have no intention of parting with you!"
Tears rose in Helmsley"s eyes, and for a moment he covered them with his hand. Angus saw that he was deeply moved, and to avoid noticing him, especially as he was somewhat affected himself by the touching gratefulness of this apparently poor and lonely old man, went after Mary with all the pleasant ease and familiarity of an accepted lover, to help her bring in the tea. The tiny "Charlie," meanwhile, sitting on the hearth in a vigilantly erect att.i.tude, with quivering nose pointed in a creamward direction, waited for the approach of the expected afternoon refreshment, trembling from head to tail with nervous excitement. And Helmsley, left alone for those few moments, presently mastered the strong emotion which made him long to tell his true history to the two sincere souls who, out of his whole life"s experience, had alone proved themselves faithful to the spirit of a friendship wherein the claims of cash had no part. Regaining full command of himself, and determining to act out the part he had elected to play to whatever end should most fittingly arrive,--an end he could not as yet foresee,--he sat quietly in his chair as usual, gazing into the fire with the meditative patience and calm of old age, and silently building up in a waking dream the last story of his House of Love,--which now promised to be like that house spoken of in the Divine Parable--"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock." For as he knew,--and as we all must surely know,--the greatest rains and floods and winds of a world of sorrow, are powerless to destroy love, if love be true.
CHAPTER XX
Three days later, when the dawn was scarcely declared and the earliest notes of the waking birds trembled on the soft air with the faint sweetness of a far-off fluty piping, the door of Mary Deane"s cottage opened stealthily, and David Helmsley, dressed ready for a journey, stepped noiselessly out into the little garden. He wore the same ordinary workman"s outfit in which he had originally started on his intended " tramp," including the vest which he had lined with banknotes, and which he had not used once since his stay with Mary Deane. For she had insisted on his wearing the warmer and softer garments which had once belonged to her own father,--and all these he had now taken off and left behind him, carefully folded up on the bed in his room. He had examined his money and had found it just as he had placed it,--even the little "surprise packet" which poor Tom o" the Gleam had collected for his benefit in the "Trusty Man"s" common room, was still in the side-pocket where he had himself put it. Unripping a corner of the vest lining, he took out two five-pound notes, and with these in a rough leather purse for immediate use, and his stout ash stick grasped firmly in his hand, he started out to walk to the top of the coombe where he knew the path brought him to the verge of the highroad leading to Minehead. As he moved almost on tip-toe through Mary"s garden, now all fragrant with golden wall-flowers, lilac, and mayblossom, he paused a moment,--looking up at the picturesque gabled eaves and latticed windows. A sudden sense of loneliness affected him almost to tears. For now he had not even the little dog Charlie with him to console him--that canine friend slept in a cushioned basket in Mary"s room, and was therefore all unaware that his master was leaving him.
"But, please G.o.d, I shall come back in a day or two!" he murmured. "
Please G.o.d, I shall see this dear shrine of peace and love again before I die! Meanwhile--good-bye, Mary! Good-bye, dearest and kindest of women! G.o.d bless you!"
He turned away with an effort--and, lifting the latch of the garden gate, opened it and closed it softly behind him. Then he began the ascent of the coombe. Not a soul was in sight,--the actual day had not yet begun. The hill torrent flowed along with a subdued purling sound over the rough stones and pebbles,--there had been little rain of late and the water was shallow, though clear and bright enough to gleam like a wavering silver ribbon in the dimness of the early morning,--and as he followed it upward and finally reached a point from whence the open sea was visible he rested a moment, leaning on his stick and looking backward on the way he had come. Strangely beautiful and mystical was the scene his eyes dwelt upon,--or rather perhaps it should be said that he saw it in a somewhat strange and mystical fashion of his own. There, out beyond the furthest edge of land, lay the ocean, shadowed just now by a delicate dark grey mist, which, like a veil, covered its placid bosom,--a mist which presently the rising sun would scatter with its glorious rays of gold;--here at his feet nestled Weircombe,--a cl.u.s.ter of simple cottages, sweetly adorned by nature with her fairest garlanding of springtime flowers,--and behind him, just across a length of barren moor, was the common highroad leading to the wider, busier towns. And he thought as he stood alone,--a frail and solitary figure, gazing dreamily out of himself, as it were, to things altogether beyond himself,--that the dim and shadowy ocean was like the vast Unknown which we call Death,--which we look upon tremblingly,--afraid of its darkness, and unable to realise that the sun of Life will ever rise again to pierce its gloom with glory. And the little world--the only world that can be called a world,--namely, that special corner of the planet which holds the hearts that love us--a world which for him, the multi-millionaire, was just a tiny village with one sweet woman living in it--resembled a garland of flowers flung down from the rocks as though to soften their ruggedness,--a garland broken asunder at the sh.o.r.eline, even as all earthly garlands must break and fade at the touch of the first cold wave of the Infinite. As for the further road in which he was about to turn and go, that, to his fancy, was a nearer similitude of an approach to h.e.l.l than any scene ever portrayed in Dante"s _Divine Comedy_. For it led to the crowded haunts of men--the hives of greedy business,--the smoky, suffocating centres where each human unit seeks to over-reach and outrival the other--where there is no time to be kind--no room to be courteous; where the pa.s.sion for gain and the worship of self are so furious and inexhaustible, that all the old fair virtues which make nations great and lasting, are trampled down in the dust, and jeered at as things contemptible and of no value,--where, if a man is honourable, he is asked "What do you get by it?"--and where, if a woman would remain simple and chaste, she is told she is giving herself "no chance." In this whirl of avarice, egotism, and pushfulness, Helmsley had lived nearly all his life, always conscious of, and longing for, something better--something truer and more productive of peace and lasting good. Almost everything he had touched had turned to money,--while nothing he had ever gained had turned to love. Except now--now when the end was drawing nigh--when he must soon say farewell to the little earth, so replete with natural beauty--farewell to the lovely sky, which whether in storm or calm, ever shows itself as a visible reflex of divine majesty and power--farewell to the sweet birds, which for no thanks at all, charm the ear by their tender songs and graceful winged ways--farewell to the flowers, which, flourishing in the woods and fields without care, lift their cups to the sun, and fill the air with fragrance,--and above all, farewell to the affection which he had found so late!--to the heart whose truth he had tested--to the woman for whose sake, could he in some way have compa.s.sed her surer and greater happiness, he would gladly have lived half his life over again, working with every moment of it to add to her joy. But an instinctive premonition warned him that the sands in Time"s hour-gla.s.s were for him running to an end,--there was no leisure left to him now for any new scheme or plan by which he could improve or strengthen that which he had already accomplished. He realised this fully, with a pa.s.sing pang of regret which soon tempered itself into patient resignation,--and as the first arrowy beam of the rising sun shot upwards from the east, he slowly turned his back on the quiet hamlet where in a few months he had found what he had vainly sought for in many long and weary years, and plodded steadily across the moor to the highroad. Here he sat down on the bank to wait till some conveyance going to Minehead should pa.s.s by--for he knew he had not sufficient strength to walk far. "Tramping it" now was for him impossible,--moreover, his former thirst for adventure was satisfied; he had succeeded in his search for "a friend"
without going so far as Cornwall. There was no longer any cause for him to endure unnecessary fatigue--so he waited patiently, listening to the first wild morning carol of a skylark, which, bounding up from its nest hard by, darted into the air with quivering wings beating against the dispersing vapours of the dawn, and sang aloud in the full rapture of a joy made perfect by innocence. And he thought of the lovely lines of George Herbert:--
"How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are Thy returns! Ev"n as the flowers in Spring, To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring; Grief melts away Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing.
"Who would have thought my shrivell"d heart Could have recover"d greenness? It was gone Quite under ground; as flowers depart To see their mother-root, when they have blown, Where they together All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
"These are Thy wonders, Lord of power, Killing and quick"ning, bringing down to h.e.l.l And up to Heaven in an hour; Making a chiming of a pa.s.sing bell.