Old ✠ Quarry. A novel, etc

Chapter I

'pfljADESTONE had its Esplanade, and the i!s^| Esplanade had its band ; what indeed g^gyf. would an Esplanade be without its band? A brass band the Esplanade had, and every morning it played, and all Bade stone turned out to hear it. How vigorously, how indefatigably did it play to be sure, and always the same airs, always the same dances, valse and polka and opera ; all the gayest, most inspiriting music, as if life were the very merriest, most amusing thing going, and there were no such things as pain or sorrow, or partings, or death ; and if there were, who cared for them ? Valse and polka and opera tune and the merry go-round — of the world turning on its own axle, keeping time to the music. Life the merriest thing going ! Well ! so it may appear to that young lady with the rosy cheeks and loose flowing hair — she has very nice long hair and likes to show it — with the bounding step and bright coquettish eyes — so it may appear to her now; for, as we have said, she is so very young.

Pass vol. in. on, then, Bright Eyes, and laugh and dance and take life as a bright midsummer holiday so long as you can. After the holidays, however bright, come partings and tears, pale cheeks and swollen lids, and heartsickness, as you yourself know well enough, for pardon me for saying it, you still come under the category of Byron's young ladies, who " smell of bread and butter," for all your airs and graces and evident consciousness of being a grown-up young lady. No doubt you think that the drudgery of school life over, tears and partings and heartsickness — those were disagreeable things — are for ever over too. Who cries in the holi days ? and life must henceforth be one long holiday for you. Quite a natural view of life at your age. We thought the same in our teens. So pass on and enjoy your holidays whilst you may !

And Miss Bright Eyes passes on accordingly, right on in front of the band, which is playing valse and polka and opera tune, just the music for her ! And behind her, close behind her, comes a Bath chair, and in it a red, bloated, dis torted form, the victim of paralysis — life in death ! And beside him — her dull eyes on his face, her thin nervous hand on his shoulder — walks a woman — anxious, careworn, sallow-faced, faded oh ! how faded ! — the victim of devotion. People looking after them say— "There goes the paralytic and his daughter" — and saying it they sio-h for him or for her ? Death in life or life in death— which is the sadder of the two ? And still the band plays on, valse and polka and opera, and a great india-rubber ball flung at a venture, goes bounding and rolling in between the legs of the players, and a whole troop of children, with a whoop and shout, go bounding and roding in after it.

" I've got it ! I've got it !" Don't be so sure of that, little one; the bad thrown at a venture is not so easily reclaimed. If it now constitutes your greatest earthly treasure, why cast it from you to get soiled and knocked about by the vulgar crowd ? Why not keep it safe at home, play with it on the nice soft carpet, and then lock it away in the toy cupboard ? Why not ? You could not answer that question, little one, nor can your elders either. How few of us keep the heart's best treasures safe and pure at home, hidden from the gaze of the vulgar ! How many of us play hke thoughtless children with our best, our most sacred feelings, flinging them out upon the world to be soded and knocked about by the vulgar, jeering crowd. " I've got it !" Not a bit of it, youngster ; for the big fellow with the red face and twinkling eye, who's blowing away for his life, and seems to have a turn for mischief, has given it a kick, and away it goes once more, this time between the legs of the promenaders, on and on, till it rolls under the wheels of another Bath chair, not the one we have already mentioned, that is quite out of sight, but of another ; and from amid the cushions piled soft and high, the victim of consumption takes her last look at life : meekly, patiently, resignedly ; it is so easy for the young to die, and she is very young, as young 1-3 perhaps as Miss Bright Eyes there, who is flirting away so desperately with the lanky oflicer in the bright new uniform, and with the incipient mous tache ; and as the two girls meet just opposite the band, the girl in the Bath chair nods and smiles — so faintly, so faintly.

Perhaps they were schoolfellows those two, and laughed and played together. Could the great solemn eyes have ever laughed, or the padid shrunken lips drawn so tightly away from the parched gums ? Could those long wasted fingers, crossed, as if already in the repose of death, ever have been busy or mischievous, or have swung a parasol as coquet tishly as Miss Bright Eyes yonder ? Valse and polka and opera, flying feet and dragging wheels, and yet the latter win the race, and long before the others reach the goal ! . Striding along, at what seemed a leisurely pace enough, but which far out-distanced that of every other promenader, came a tall erect figure, head and shoulders thrown back, nostril slightly dilated, brow heavy and frowning ; and eyes sent straight before him from under their drooping hds ; a careless nod or bow to those who immediately crossed his path ; a superb overlooking of those who did not, and he passed on; looks of aU kinds — curious, indifferent, ad miring, interested — following him as he went.

He might overlook nine-tenths of the world from his enviable height, but it was not hkely that a man standing six feet in his shoes, with that soldierly bearing and eagle glance, could pass unnoticed in his turn. Along the Esplanade he strode, out of sight of its promenaders, out of sound of its band, along the cliff, till a small white cottage was reached. In that cottage lodged the little London workwoman whom he had not seen for some days, but knowing her under Miss Graves's care, his mind had been tolerably at ease concerning her. She welcomed him with the brightening look that bads a friend. Not attempting to answer his questions, she overwhelmed him with her own. She was so much better — could she not soon be going back to the drunken father and idiot brother — to the stitching and want and starva tion that had reduced her to what she was ?

Stephen politely assured her she could do nothing of the kind ; but for the poor idiot brother and rascally (the adjective aside, reader) father, she need be under no anxiety. The former had been got into an idiot asylum by her friend the physician, and for the latter work had been found which would keep him going famously, if only he on his side would keep steady — and more shame for him if he didn't ! (this another aside). Stephen was very glad to have good news for the patient in whom, as Jane had said, he was so interested, but he gave it her in a cool busi ness-like way, finding it quite a simple thing, not worth whde making a fuss about, that she should be helped a httle when she had done so much to help herself and others. The girl was very happy — very grateful. Poor Tommy ! it was what she had always so much wished for him.

How happy he would be — he had always been so fond of company he had, and he was so good, so gentle that he'd soon make him self at home ; and everybody would get to like him, they couldn't help it — bless him ! And father too — no fear of his not keeping steady just at first, he always did. "And then you know, sir," she added, with a faint flush of pride, " he's such a first-rate workman, can turn his hand to anything when not in drink." Stephen respected the filial devotion that could still see an object of pride in the drunken wretch who had caused her so much shame ; but not caring to listen to his praises he turned the con versation. " A young lady has been to see you ?" The sharp wan face lighted up wonderfully as she answered — " Oh yes, sir, and thank you kindly for send ing her. She told me that it was you, sir, who had made her come — she's been every day since, and yesterday she was here more than two hours."

" Well done, Jane Graves !" was Stephen's mental exclamation ; " I thought I could trust you." " And she brought me those flowers," pointing to some that stood on a table beside her ; " she gathered them herself down in the dell, she said, and she told me such wonderful things about them, and all that she sees down there that it's just like reading a book, only not so fatiguing." Stephen's eyebrows were going up. Jane elo quent upon the subject of flowers ! He certainly was surprised. " She's such a sweet young lady, sir, and she speaks so beautifully of ad sorts of things I never heard of before, and that makes me feel so — so — I don't know how — but when she's gone I think it all over, and theu I don't feel so dull ; and I dream of it o'nights, and yesterday she told me a story. But there she is, sir !" and with outstretched hand and eager look she bent forward.

" Mildred herself — by Jove !" Stephen ex claimed, and he fell back a step or two, scarce crediting the testimony of his own eyes. Yes, -Mildred herself it was, in all her fresh bright childish prettiness, coming along joyously, eveu eagerly, running; yes, actually running to get there sooner — panting, breathless, with glowing cheek and flying hair. And Stephen ciuslifd his strong right hand down upon the back of the invalid's chair, as he looked at her, and wished, perhaps, that she had never crossed his path, or that she could feel something of what he felt at that moment. Could he but have seen her subdued and pensive he would have blessed her, and now he could almost have cursed — no, not her, poor pretty innocent child; but the bounding step, the rosy cheek, and eager looks, that told so plainly that nothing lay behind.

Arrived at the corner Mildredstopped short, and resting the handkerchief she held tied up in her hand, upon the low garden wall, undid an end to make sure that the something it contained was still quite safe — smiled down at it with a well pleased httle nod, then closed it again and turned in at the gate. " For sure she's brought me something to look at," the sick girl observed, with a glad smile ; " I never saw such things in London, and they're so strange and beautiful ; and the young lady seems to know all about them, which is no wonder, living among them, as she told me, ad her life." A low soft tap at the door. " Good-day, Miss Mildred." Was the look Stephen MacCullan bent upon the girl's face a triumphant one ? I am almost tempted to think it was. She paused on the threshold ; not at once advancing into the room, not looking at him or his patient, or anything but the cambric handkerchief, which, as she held it gathered close to her bosom, came just within the range of her downcast eyes.

He had looked so sternly at her the last time they had met, that it was no wonder she now avoided meeting his gaze, nor was it any wonder that feeling that gaze fixed upon her she blushed deeper and deeper as she felt that it was not withdrawn. It was not the flush of answering passion he had once looked for, that he knew well enough, but the soft, pure, childish blush, half-surprise, half embarrassment, a little perhaps something else. How long he might have stood there by the window looking at her, and she on the threshold blushing beneath his look, who shall say ? But at that moment an interruption occurred in the shape of a shock-headed damsel, who came bolt ing in, exclaiming in the shrillest of voices — " Mrs. Pumt's baby, sir, it's a dying — quite black in the face." Mrs. Puffit lodged in the same house.

" I'll call in again on my way down," Stephen said, and he followed the girl upstairs. Mrs. Puffit's baby was black in the face, and no mistake; and Mrs. Puffit herself, a weak, nervous, miserable-looking woman, whose life, for the last six years at least, had consisted in a succession of babies, not one of whom had been allowed by fate to cut its first tooth ; which, as Mrs. Puffit often pathetically observed, would have been a great comfort, anyhow — was doing her utmost by loud cries and lamentations to make matters worse. The child had been wrongly treated by the village apothecary, and was as near death as he well could be — ill-fated little victim ! Dr. MacCullan knew the danger, and the cure too, if only there were time for it. One moment he paused, calculating the chances. "Twenty minutes more to live, five minutes to get home, straight across the fields.

I can do it. Five minutes to get the instruments — five minutes to return — we've five minutes left for the operation. I'll do it yet ! If only Jane were there instead of But she must help me, she must !" The young dressmaker and her lady visitor were bending low over the cambric handkerchief, about the precious contents of which so many wonderful things had to be said ; the poor shorn head, and that other bright one, with its wealth of red gold hair, drawn very close together, for the visitor was perched upon the arm of the in valid's chair, and held the handkerchief spread out on her lap ; when the door opened once more, and Stephen MacCullan burst in, almost as pre cipitately as the shock-headed damsel had done, and with the same prefatory exclamation. " Mrs. Puffit's baby ! please not to go till I return, I shall want you !" and the door closed.

Mildred did not go, of course not, but stayed on according to his command, and talked to the London dressmaker of ad the strange beautiful things of which she could know nothing ; living, as she had always done, in that dark dull city room, with its one little tiny window looking out upon the range of smoke blackened chimney pots, and nothing beyond ; nothing, too, in her life beyond, but work — work — work. She had not known better then, it could never again be the same thing, no, not if she had to go back to the dingy room, to the stitching and starvation ; hfe could never be the hard, cruel thing it had been, but something quite different. Ah, Mildred, Mildred ! what have you been about ? What, have your soft whispered talks of beautiful and wonderful things taught the poor little London dressmaker to dream ?

Alas, yes. And what would Stephen — stern, practical Stephen — say to this, think you ? In ten minutes Dr. MacCullan was back. " Please come ; I want you very much." Very meekly she followed him upstairs. Mrs. Puffit was still trembling and howling, more hopelessly nervous than ever ; and Mrs. Puffit's baby was still very black in the face — gasping, choking, apparently dying. " I shall do it yet, please God !" Stephen said triumphantly, and taking the child from the shock-headed damsel's arms he held it out to Mildred. " Please hold it, the mother's not fit to be trusted ; I know her of old." She looked up shuddering. " I couldn't — it's dying — I couldn't ! I never held a baby, never !" She stood under the full fire of his stern, im perious glance, so white, so piteous, ad the brightness faded out of her face.

" You would not like the poor baby to die ?" Was it the utter piteousness of the little white face that made his voice so soft, or the thought that, that — no matter, his voice was very soft indeed. " Take it, Mildred." And the arms were outstretched, trembling still, but eager to receive whatever he might choose to place within them, those soft white arms that had never as yet been of any use except to cling about papa's neck. " It wont last a moment, but you must keep quiet." It may seem strange perhaps that he should have trusted her to do so, but he did. " And, if you like, you can shut your eyes." So pleased was he with her ready obedience that he was actually indulging in a joke. But it was no joke to her, poor little thing, and breathing a low soft " Thank you," she did shut her eyes accordingly.

The operation was soon over. Au incision was made in the child's throat, and into it was placed a tube through which the breath, that could no longer force a passage through the inflamed windpipe, passed with a loud rushing sound. " Bravo !" Stephen said to himself, shaking back the hair from his flushed face, for it had been a case of life and death, aud he knew it. " That was a tidy little operation, one minute more and it would have been too late — bravo !" That Mrs. Puffif s baby should have to carry for some hours, nay, perhaps days, a horrid, murderous looking tube in its tender throat, mattered very little to him ; indeed, he was thinking far less of the infant, poor wee thing, than of his own medical skill. When baby was taken from Mildred's arms they dropped heavily to her side as if in weariness, then a long shiver ran through her frame, and though free to go, she stood as if rooted to the spot, white and stdl, with bated breath and closed eyes, until Stephen assured her that there was no mortal reason for their remaining so, when they were very slowly aud reluctantly opened; then still more slowly and reluctantly they were raised, but as they lighted upon nothing more formidable than Stephen's laughing down-bent look, she took courage, and asked faintly if she might go.

" Certainly, and if you allow me I wdl ac company you home." Without awaiting her answer he took up his hat, and promising to call again in the evening left the room, followed closely by Mildred, who seemed half afraid of being left behind. " Well, wasn't I right in saying that you woidd make an ideal little sister of mercy ?" " Oh, but I only did it because you told me." " A very good reason too," he said, half mock ingly. " And are you sorry that I told you — are you sorry that I asked you to help me ?" " Oh no !" very decidedly. " And what if I were always to ask your help — if I were to take you everywhere, to scenes of pain and sickness and sorrow ?" " I should keep very close to you, and only do as you bid me ; and when anything looked very dreadful I should shut my eyes, and not open them again till you told me to."

" And do you thiuk it would be impossible — quite impossible for you to be courageous and act independently, for the good of others ?" " I don't know." " I do, I know that you'd find it just the easiest and most natural thing in the world if you were once put to the test. Suppose, for instance, that the person you best loved in the world were wounded, or had his arm broken, or were hurt, terribly hurt, in any other way you may choose " " Oh no, please don't suppose that — I couldn't bear it." " But I must suppose just that, and what is more, you must bear the thought, that the person you best love is cruelly hurt, and you see him aU covered with blood " " And looking dreadful — as dreadful as the man whose head you put into my lap ?" " Just so, only not quite so grimy, and with rather less hair about his face, but bleeding and pale and senseless with no one near to help him but you ?"

" Wed ?" asked Mildred, breathlessly, finding that he had come to a standstill, and terribly anxious foi the fate of the imaginary sufferer. " Well, what would you do then ?" " To see some one whom I loved pale and bleeding with no one near to help him, oh, how dreadful ! I should die, I'm sure I should." " Not a bit of it ! You'd run to him. I'm supposing your poor friend to be a man, you see, to make the connexion between him and the sooty-faced engine-driver, whose head, as you sav, I put into your lap, all the closer. Wed, you'd run to him, kneel down beside him, and very gently, very tenderly look for the wounded place. That found, and my ideal sister possessed of wonderful presence of mind, you'd dive down into his coat pocket and extract therefrom his handkerchief, bandage up the wound, then run off to look for water, and having found it you'd dip into it the dainty square of cambric hitherto consecrated to shells and flowers, and lifting the poor pale head on to your lap, you'd moisten with it his lips and brow, and so wait quite quiet and contented tdl further help came, or tid the man you loved opened his eyes."

" Yes," answered the girl, softly, " if it were papa I would do ad that — I feel I would." " Of course," growled Stephen, in a queer tone of chagrin, and feeling no wish to pursue the subject. " And if it were you I would do it too ;" and she smiled up at him, nestling closer. The brightening up of the clouded face proved clearly enough that it was of himself he had been thinking all the time, egotistical fellow that he was ! And I am not at all sure that he would not at that moment gladly have submitted to a broken arm, or some such harmless little fracture, that would have put her devotion to the test. To lie quite passive with all those horrid doubts — those wild jealous longings hushed to rest, upon her bosom — to have the soft white arm beneath his head, the smad, soft hand fluttering tenderly about him — to feel through the dim haze of semi consciousness that she was bending down to look into bis face, bending so low that her breath played about his lips, drawing him back insen sibly to life.

Take care, Stephen, take care ! You said, truly enough, that you could not do things by halves — not even love-making. Visions are dangerous things, Stephen, and so are evening strolls, dangerous but pleasant, all the more so, perhaps, for the risk run. Stephen MacCullan was perfectly aware of a cut across the fields that would bring them to the Terrace in no time. He also knew of a path through the wood, quiet and shadowy, that would consider ably lengthen the way, and this path he took. " And what do you think of my httle dressmaker ?" he said, when they had got fairly under the shadow of the trees. " Are you not glad to have made her acquaintance?" " I don't know." This was a very favourite answer with Mildred Graves. She never seemed quite sure of any thing, perhaps because she had always felt so much more than she had reasoned.

" You don't know !" in an aggravated tone ; " why, I thought you were already fast friends." " I am so sorry for her. She always lived in a high, dark, London room, she says, and hadn't even a little bird or plant to look pretty and bright; and I tried to imagine how it would be to live there, and then I felt so sorry ; and I tell her of the good and beautiful things I've seen that when she goes back she may not feel so dull. Yesterday I told her of the busy little ants I used to sit and watch in the garden at home, passing backwards and for wards along the road they had themselves made across the path, and one day I saw how a colony arrived at a new hill with all their luggage and treasures, and each one carried an egg much bigger than itself, and one handed it down into a hole, another coming up to the mouth to receive it."

" And she spoke of a story you told her." " Yes, I know ; the story of the echo." " The echo ?" " Yes, she had never heard one, and I told her about it, and that reminded me of a story I had " " Read ?" " Yes, but not in a book ; it was found in some papers of mamma's, and Jane gave it to me. At least I don't know if it's quite the same, for I seem to have dreamt it all over again since then." " Ted it to me." She took it as a command, it almost sounded hke one. " It is the story of some one who had no father or mother, or home of her own, but who was young and free and happy — so bappy, until one day, when she sat quite alone and the sun was weaving its golden beams into her hair, a whisper stole into her heart, which from that hour grew heavy and sad, and ad its peace was gone, because of the whisper and the answer that did not come.

She never spoke of it to any one, for she knew that there was no one who would understand her. She had no father nor mother, no one who really loved her, and only those who love can understand you. So she spoke of it to no one. But one day, when she sat poring over a great, great Book that men call the Book of Nature, she read there how every one has just such a whisper at his heart, which the echo alone can answer. Some get their answer very soon, and are happy ; some have to wait for it a long, long while, tid the whisper has grown faint and tuneless, and the echo that comes iu answer to it is faint and tuneless too ; and some never find it at all, but live and die alone, waiting and longing for it. Then the girl, having read this, closed the Book, and wandered away to find the VOL. III. echo that would make her happy.

In her wan derings she saw many strange and beautiful things — she saw in far-off lands, where the sun never sets, and the flowers never fade, but bloom on in wild luxuriance all the year round ; where the traveller, intoxicated by their faint, sweet breath, lies down to sleep and never wakes again ; where fever and death fall on the earth with each glittering drop of dew; where the snake, with its jewelled coils, lurks beneath the long grass, and all is beautiful and bright and deadly. Then she went where the storm breaks over snow-crowned mountain peaks, while peace and sunlight lie in the valley below. And she saw in far-off Arctic regions the great northern light ; and she saw, too, where an ice-bound vessel was lost upon an ice-bound sea, with the gleaming sails and the gleaming ice, and the faces of the dead crew gleaming upwards.

All this she saw, and much, much more, but she did not find the echo; and the whisper at her heart grew louder day by day, and listening and longing and waiting she grew faint and weary. But stdl she wandered on, and heard many sounds that were pleasant to her ear and made her glad. She heard the song of the nightingale, and the cooing of the dove, and the lone cry of the widowed lovebird. She heard the whisper of the breeze in the pine forests, and the chime of Sabbath bells, and the angel songs of the white-robed choristers, and the voice of kind ness, which was the pleasantest sound of all ; but the echo that was to make her happy she listened for in vain. " One day, when for very weariness her ear had grown dull, and could but faintly catch the heart's faiut whisper, when she was so tired, so tired of waiting for what never came, some one took her by the hand, and led her gently along a new and pleasant way.