Chapter II The village
“Now, charming as I find this mossy seat, and the waving boughs, and the lights and shadows, and the beautiful view before me, and, above all, the lovely companion beside me, it strikes my unpoetical mind,” said Ada, “that if we sit longer here, we may find rheumatism added to other country delights.”
Flora sprang up at once from her seat. “I quite forgot that you were not a country lass like myself,” she said; “as it must be almost tea-time now, perhaps we had better return home.”
“Dinner at one, tea at six—how deliciously old-fashioned and rural!”
“Would you object to return by the village? I wished to inquire for poor old Mrs. Arkwright?”
“Object! I am only too much delighted to go where there is anything stirring, be it only a baker’s cart!”
“I think that some day, Ada, I must introduce you to some of my favourite poor people.”
“I must get up a little appropriate small-talk first,” laughed her cousin. “I should feel almost as much out of my element in a cottage as one of your plough-boys would do in a ball-room. I could neither speak of amusements, nor fashions, nor pictures, nor parties; I cannot imagine what one would say after the first ‘Good morning’ and the usual observations on the weather.”
“Oh! how diverting it would be,” cried Flora, with sudden animation, “to set you to teach a class at the school!”
“I’d make it a dancing-class at once, and substitute graceful courtesies for the little short bob which always reminds me of Jack in the box; and the little boys should learn to make elegant bows, instead of pulling down their own heads by tugging at the fore-locks!”
“You would not be so hard upon the simple salutations of our little rustics, Ada, had you seen our village in the old time, when a bob or a bow was an unheard-of piece of politeness.”
“It is a very pretty village,” said Ada, as the picturesque row of white cottages opened on their view; the latticed windows glowing bright in the sun’s setting rays, the small neat gardens gay with many a flower; while in the foreground the church, of simple but graceful architecture, raised its glittering spire towards heaven.
“It was a very different place twelve years ago,” said Flora, “when my dear parents first came to reside here. There was not a church then within four miles, and the people here lived in a state of almost heathen darkness. The cottages were miserable hovels, I have heard, and seemed purposely contrived to keep out sun and air, and admit the snow and the rain. Half of the children had never been baptized, and ran about bare-foot and bare-headed, as dirty and as ignorant as the very pigs with which they associated! The only thriving establishments were the ale-houses, and the character of the place was altogether so bad that it was really dangerous to be out after dark.”
“And what worked such a wonderful change?”
“Oh, everything was gradually done, by patience and untiring zeal and benevolence. My dear father expended much money, and more time, in improving the dwellings of the poor, combating prejudices, inviting the lazy to exertion, raising a spirit of order. My mother exerted herself amongst the women. They regarded her with suspicion at first, and were very jealous of interference. They seemed to consider it as their privilege to be ragged and dirty. But nothing could withstand the power of her gentleness and kindness. The first great step was gathering some of the children to a little class in our own house.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Ada, “and could your mother really endure to have a set of ragged, bare-footed little wretches, with unwashed faces and uncombed hair, in her house?”
“She not only endured them, but she loved them; and soon, very soon, they were neither ragged nor untidy. A smile and a word from mamma accomplished more than a long lecture from another would have done. As the children learned to read, they carried Bibles and little religious publications into their parents’ miserable homes: gradually a taste for reading was produced, and my father took care that it should be gratified by useful and improving works. All this time my parents were making every effort to collect subscriptions for building and endowing a church—regular schools followed, until at length our poor village became the dear, peaceful, happy little place that you behold it now.”
“Well,” cried Ada, “it must have given your parents a great deal of pleasure to see all the good that they had done.”
“You do admit then,” said Flora, archly, “that even the country may have its pleasures?”
“Yes; but only think at what a price the pleasure was purchased! Only think of the misery of being imprisoned in a place quite out of the world, with no society at all; your only occupation—picking your way into dirty hovels through rivers of mud, tumbling over ragged urchins, lecturing poachers and sheep-stealers, coaxing and coddling sick old women, and then returning home to write begging-letters for subscriptions to friends who are sure to have ‘so many calls’ that they wish you at Nova Zembla for adding another!”
Ada interrupted herself as a sweet golden-haired little boy lifted the latch of the gate of a tiny garden, and timidly, as if abashed by the presence of a stranger, offered a bunch of violets to Flora. She received them as graciously as though they had been a chaplet of pearls, and her words of thanks made the face of the child radiant with joy.
“Quite a chivalrous attention,” said Ada, as they moved on.
“Oh, my children love me, and often bring me their little offerings. On my birth-day our myrtle was quite covered with their garlands of early spring flowers.”
She now stopped at the door of a cottage and knocked. A feeble “Come in” sounded from the interior, and she entered, followed by Ada, who gathered together the folds of her silk dress, afraid to let them come in contact with the walls of the lowly dwelling. But her own luxurious home could not have presented a picture of more perfect cleanliness and neatness than that humble abode; there was nothing to shock even the refined taste of a lady of fashion.
An aged woman, in a snowy cap, was seated in an arm-chair beside a small fire; while a woman who had been engaged in ironing, paused in her occupation to drop a humble courtesy to Flora.
“How are you feeling to-day?” said Flora, in a tone of gentlest sympathy, approaching the invalid, and laying her soft fingers on the thin wrinkled hand that feebly grasped the arm of the chair.
“All the better for a sight of your sweet face—blessings on it! But I’m going—going fast! I shall soon be in my home. God be praised for His mercies!”
Ada sat down on the wooden three-legged stool which the washerwoman, after wiping it with her apron, placed for her accommodation, and listened silently and wonderingly to the dialogue between the aged woman and her visitor. There was no forced conversation, no difficulty in finding themes for discourse. Their subjects were the highest, the most solemn, the most interesting which can occupy the minds of immortals. Mrs. Arkwright was near the grave, and she knew it. She was calmly standing on the brink of the Jordan awaiting the signal from the Lord whom she had loved, and leaning upon the staff of His promise, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.”
Ada had ever connected the idea of death with terror and gloom. The struggle, the darkness, the parting from everything once prized, the hatchment, the hearse with its black nodding plumes, the cold desolation of the grave,—such were the images brought to her mind by the word; and she had turned from them with repugnance and horror. But here she beheld death in a totally different aspect, as a freedom from sorrow, a commencement of bliss, a reunion with all most beloved, a summons to the presence of an adored Redeemer, a welcome to the home of a Father!
Ada had imagined that those of her own class only entered the cottages of the poor to convey help to the needy, or instruction to the ignorant; but she beheld here that the rich in visiting the poor may receive as well as impart, that she whose mind is cultivated and refined may well sit as a learner beside the lowly saint whose only knowledge is the knowledge of the Saviour. Flora listened more than she spoke. For some time the feeble voice of the dying woman alone broke the stillness of the place, till, at her earnest request that the young lady would let her hear once more—for the last time—her favourite hymn for the departing, in accents which trembled with emotion Flora sang the following verses:—
HYMN FOR THE DYING.
The day of life is closing,
Its last faint beams have fled;
Yet faith, on Christ reposing,
Can death’s cold waters tread!
The dark sea spreads before me,
Upon the brink I stand,
Oh, guide me, Lord of glory!
To heaven’s blissful strand!
To Thee, Lord, I flee;
My trust is in Thee.
O death! where is thy sting? O grave! thy victory?
No longer here detain me;
I hear my Saviour’s voice,
I feel His arm sustain me,
I triumph and rejoice!
The Lord will bless for ever
Those who His love have known
Nor life nor death can sever
The Saviour from His own!
Victorious and free
His people shall be.
O death! where is thy sting? O grave! thy victory?
After receiving the solemn, fervent blessing of the sufferer, Flora quitted the cottage, followed by her companion. Ada felt that she had been standing on holy ground; she was awed for the moment, sobered by the scene of which she had been a witness. Did she envy her cousin that dying blessing?
At the gate of Mrs. Arkwright’s little garden they were met by the silver-haired clergyman, evidently on his way to visit the suffering member of his flock.
“Just where I should have expected to meet our Flora,” he said, with a beaming expression on his benevolent face.
He courteously greeted Ada, to whom he had before been introduced, and expressed his hope that her visit to the country would be a prolonged one.
“Oh no! I leave Laurel Bank at the end of next week; and I wish,” Ada added, laying her hand on her cousin’s arm, “to carry away Flora with me.”
“Carry away our Flora,” cried the old clergyman, shaking his head; “would you rob our poor village of its sunshine?”
Flora and Ada walked on some way in silence. “I wonder,” thought the latter, “who would miss me were I to go to New Zealand to-morrow! Would there be one smile the less amid my gay companions? would I leave a blank in the brilliant assemblies which I have frequented so long? should I be more regretted than one of the flowers which deck the ball-room for a night, to be thrown aside withered and faded in the morning? After all, I am not certain whether Flora’s life is not happier than mine; at least I suspect that it will be pleasanter to look back upon when youth and all its follies are past!”