The bountiful hour

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Contents

OEAPIEB FACE

I. SACRIFICIAL - - - I

II. MAMA - - - r 24

Chapter I

A HEAVY cloud hung far away behind the two up-rising poplars at the gate; a light shower had fallen, the early warning of an attack more distant and desperate. The light leaves showed silver against the slowly retiring cloud, all their delicate heads trembhng with the late commotion, like a swarm of white butterflies newly released from the net of some giant marauder. The path before the vicarage shone in a strange, citron-coloured glow which fell in thick shafts of light from beneath the outer edges of that heavy and sombre cloud : the whole building was swathed in this light, giving it a touch of something visionary, almost illusive. It rendered to the short expanse of green lawn — between the garden-arbour at the rear of the house and the parlour windows which looked out upon it — a spaciousness suggesting leagues. The shower had passed but scantily across the garden, leaving the vivid grass-blades greener but scarcely more moist, and the two gentlemen who sat within the arbour had been more observailt of the growing gloom than of the rain itself. They were silent for some little while, as if the darkness were significant and worthy of such a tribute ; and now that the shadow passed and retired away into distance, they too were bathed in the transforming radiance. To the little man, who now came up towards them across the lawn, they showed like persons in a dream, or some kind of motionless vision ; their white and powdered wigs tinged with such a fresh luminousness as was unknown to the customary village barber. Both were of a dignified and imposing aspect, men in whose eyes there appeared something more than the ordinary, every-day habit of mere observation — that same quick fire and inward kindling of the mind. They each wore the clericcil habit, but whilst one looked like a bishop the other bore rather the resemblance of a sailor, ruddied with the exposiu'e to sun and wind : the one shrewd-faced, narrow-lidded, full-lipped ; the other wide of brow and open of glance.

The little man, with his face muffled so that it could scarcely be seen, his feet poised on the wooden pattens which he wore, looked at them contemplatively and shook his head. The light was behind him, throwing his queer, muffled figure darkly forward on the yellow glow. The whole scene resembled an ancient print, where the very white of the paper is mellowed with time, and the black ink melted into the warmer tones of brown. When he spoke the little man's gentle voice was softened also.

" You were meditating," he said, " I am sure you were meditating together ; and now I have done wrong to disturb you." He turned quickly as if to go, his pattens clicking together sharply,

" No, no, sir ! " cried the shrewd-eyed personage promptly, drawing the long pipe from the comer of his pursed mouth. " Brother Newton and I were merely discoursing together on Mr. Toplady and future compensation. Come, come, my dear Mr. Cowper, you are never going to leave me to combat his arguments alone ! "

" We were expecting you, my dear Cowper," said Mr. Newton, springing up with his usual open smile and air of direct geniality ; " you and Brother Bull here are going to renew your acquaintance over a discussion of my own heinous acts. Come, my very dear sir, and take this third chair, which has been awaiting you for the last half-hour in loneliest inoccupation."

He pushed forward the chair in question across the hard earthen floor of the arbour, moving it towards the little man, who now came once more in their direction, though still with an air of uncertainty and hesitation.

" It is perhaps my pipe to which Mr. Cowper objects," said Dr. Bull, his little eyes twinkling under their overhanging brows. " He is, no doubt, more accustomed to the elegant snuff-box than the smoking-bowl of Orinoco."

" No, sir," replied Cowper, slowly advancing, and unwinding the muffler round his throat as he came; " I only need your example to emulate the art of smoking." His voice, gentle and melancholy, sounded almost womanish between the deeper tones of Newton and Bull.

" Off with your pattens ! " cried Newton, " and hear the latest enormity your poor friend has committed, and condone it if you can ! Last night I was dining with Bull at Newport Pagnell, when in the midst of our meal there comes a thundering knock at the door, and in walks Mr. Ryland of Northampton to say that Mr. Toplady is lying at The Swan, and if we would see him we must go quickly. I was not acquainted with Toplady, and knew not his habits of mind, but had often heard of his eminent character, both as preacher and practiser of Christianity. So Bull and I go to The Swan, and find Mr. Toplady sitting by the window of the inn-parlour. I never saw a man to look upon more frail in body or more fortified in spirit. Round he turns on us, whereupon Ryland presents us to him, and after a brief greeting he points his thin hand to the window, bidding us all listen to the noise in the street without. ' Do you hear that noise, Brother Bull ? ' says he. They were baiting a bull in the yard, and you know what manner of racket that makes. He was shaking all over with emotion, his eyes shining out of his white face as if they were on fire. ' Do you know what they are doing ? ' he cried. ' Why, yes ! ' says Brother Bull, looking out of the window and I peering over his shoulder at the sport below. At that Mr. Toplady puts his cold hand on my arm — I can almost feel his touch there now — and says very loud in my ear, and angrily too : ' Who could bear to look upon that sight if there were not to be some future compensation for those poor suffering animals in a future state ? ' 'I certainly hope,' says Bull with that sly look in his eyes which forebodes mischief, ' that all the Bulls will go to heaven. But do you really think that will be the case with the entire animal creation, sir?'"

" I hoped to soothe and distract his mind from its excitement," said Bull, puffing the smoke peacefully into the air, and watching it circle with an expression of seriousness. ' "' Yes,' says Mr. Toplady, with the utmost emphasis, ' all, all ! ' Upon which I could not forbear sa37ing : ' What, sir ; do you suppose there will be fleas in heaven ? ' for I've an especial aversion to fleas. Unfortunately there may have been a trifle of sarcasm in my tones, for Mr. Toplady at once turned away his head and addressed me no more. When presently we took our farewell of him, I expressed a wish that we might one day see him here at Olney, should he come this way again. He made me a discourteous reply and turned from me abruptly. I am very loath to have grieved him, seeing he must be so near his end. And indeed, I believe he will soon be verifying how many of the animal creation will ascend to bliss."

" I make no doubt," said Bull soothingly, " that his irritation was more largely due to the painfulness of his disease than the contempt of your doubt, or that disbelief in his most cherished theory."

Cowper had taken the chair, unfastened his pattens, and finally unmuffled himself, but not one word did he say, sitting with his hat pulled down over his ears, his white hands folded between his knees. Bull and Newton exchanged glances, for they were deeply experienced in his mind's infirmity.

" I wonder now," Bull continued in his full, pleasant voice — pleasant, though slightly reminiscent of pulpit oratory even at that moment — " what recompense would best be suited to an animal ? "

" Recompense, recompense ! " cried Cowper, suddenly looking up and casting a curious, suspicious glance on Newton. " What recompense can you suggest for sacrifice ? There is no recompense, there can be none. Even annihilation is denied to us — even after death. Annihilation of the body there may be, but the soul is capable of limitless suffering far and far beyond the grave. You do not guess the long road of suffering that still remains to be trod, altars piled up with sacrifice all along the way, as the tombs stand thick beside the road from Athens to Eleusis. I have seen them," he said, turning his face away from the arbour into the long turgid rays outside, where a myriad atoms seemed whirling in the glowing spaces. " And on each altar they have sacrificed to different gods different sacrifices. Endless they are, for each new sacrifice that is offered up prepares a victim for the next."

" And I am sure," said Bull, puffing comfortably at his pipe, " that the most beautiful and stainless amongst the offerings, and the whitest altar, was that we call self-sacrifice." He looked at Cowper compassionately.

" I heard it so reputed," returned Cowper in the same hurried, agitated tone, " and so I looked for it on every hand ; but though it seemed often as though I were about to find the one stainless altar on whose stone none other victim had been offered save that alone of self-surtender, entailing no frightful legacy from him who had performed the deed, I never found it. There is no such thing as self-sacrifice ; with self there go alwaj^s a thousand things that pertain to self, or something that another has bestowed upon us, and which in our blindness we mistake for our own, maybe. The fiend sees to that, you may be sure ! It sounds so easy. I lay myself under the sacrificial knife, and my friend puts his hand in mine, trusting me to the end. The knife pierces my heart, but it has severed the hand of my friend with the same stroke, and that was not mine to give. Perhaps I never even saw that he had put it there, or perhaps I was so fain of the comforting touch that I was eager to ignore the frightful consequence. I declare to you that there is no self-sacrifice ! No, no. Do not believe in such a thing ; the fiend suggested it."

As habitual with him when preoccupied, Newton weighed his watch in his hand, though without glancing at the dial.

" Dear friend," he said, " surely you forget."

But Cowper interrupted him, again peering curiously at the clergjnnan with wide blue eyes, as though minutely searching his identity.

" I know what you would say," he cried; " but I would tell you that if such a thing exists, did exist, it was a divine attribute that no mortal can possess. We may, perhaps, see the substance of it with our earthly shadow thrown across — the shadow of the material thrown across the spiritual to blacken and obscure. That is the most we can see and the most we can attain. As I sit at my window looking out over the market-place I see the men, the women, the children coming and going, coming and going ; and each time that they speak or move I discern the sacrifice preparing, the victim going on unheeding but marked down — ^marked down as surely as the branded sheep in their pens."

Newton laid down his watch upon the table and made as if to reply.

" I see what you mean, Newton," continued Cowper, " you think it is time I put an end to a discourse which can only pain you with every word that is uttered. No, no ! I am not to be deceived. You opened your watch and laid it with the dial open upon the table as if it should point its hands to me and the door. You are right, Newton ; for both you and Dr. Bull here were better engaged until I came." He stooped to buckle on his pattens, despite the eager protestations of the two divines, uttered with all the sincerity and vehemence of their kindly natures.

" My dear Cowper," cried Newton, " you have been with us exactly five minutes — a most meagre portion of your society to such an old friend as myselfj and to such a new acquaintance as our good brother Bull."

" Five minutes ! " repeated Cowper. " Did you then count each one as it passed ? My dear Newton, I know your kindness, but all the less, or rather all the more, would I refrain from sacrificing you on your own friendship's altar. Five minutes ! And how many sacrifices besides your own do you not think have been prepared in that brief space of time ? "

" I should hope," said Newton, taking his outstretched hand, " that they have all been as painless as mine, if sacrifice indeed it were. I confess it was very skilfully disguised as a pleasure."

Cowper paused for a moment, his hand in his muffler, as if upon the reconsideration of his departure. A door within the house banged sharply ; the sound seemed all the more portentous and strange coming from a place of such apparent impalpability, and made all three men turn their heads in the direction from whence it came. The door into the garden opened hurriedly before their eyes, admitting what at first seemed an endless stream of people, indiscriminately composed of all ages and sizes.

" You have visitors," cried Cowper reproachfully, for he knew that Newton was well aware of his aversion to strangers, " and those people from

SACRIFICIAL II across the market-place besides ! Sacrifice, sacrificial, my good Newton ! " he whispered emphatically behind his hand, and slipped away down the grass plot, vanishing through the wicket in the wall behind the arbour which led into his own adjoining garden.

Newton and Bull had scarcely time or observation to spare for his exit, the whole of their attention being enthralled by the new-comers. There were but four of them in all, now that they had completed their strange and straggling entrance upon the lawn, locked together in a fashion at once bizarre and perplexing, as though they were enacting some comic scene upon the stage, or like marionettes propped one against the other for fear of falling when they are released from the guiding strings. Bull began to smile, for the pomp and solemnity with which the first of the group carried himself only added to the humorousness of their appearance. He was a short man clad in a snuff-coloured suit, with snuff-coloured waist-coat, breeches and stockings to match, with the addition (for adornment it could scarcely be called) of a meagre display of linen about the neck and wrists, and that of no great cleanliness. From a distance you saw a man of some sixty years, holding himself with an air of pride that seemed unsuited to his height ; on nearer view some five or six years were added to his age, and something dominating in the arched nose and tight-closed mouth, something aggressive in the unbending glance of his keen eyes. He took no notice whatever of Mr. Newton except for a momentary scornful glance, but bore straight down on Bull as if he were about to strike him with his clenched right hand. On his other arm there clung a youngish woman, whose pale fluttering garments trailed out behind her with the rapid pace at which they were proceeding ; the curls of her hair fluttered tremulously under the lace cap she wore, and her fingers fluttered also in very evident agitation about the ribbons at her breast. Behind her, and clinging to her silken skirts, trailed a small child with so round and babjHish a face that she could scarcely be above the age of six years, her little tottering body dressed in imitation of her mother, but her cap — instead of being on her head — dragged ignominiously by its strings through the grass, leaving free the sparkling abundance of briUiantly yellow curls beneath. And in front of this trio, compelled by the motion of those behind, frightened, evidently, more than reluctant, sped the minuter figure of a boy in tight green suit and brass buttons. The volcanic gentleman had obviously occasioned some family upheaval of no small dimensions.

Still he bore down on Dr. Bull with lowering brows until there was only room for the small boy between the minister's ample form and the other's propelling knees. There he stopped suddenly, as suddenly plucked the dingy tricorn hat from his head, and spoke. Bull was aware of a sudden shock within himself as though the man had actually struck him on the chest.

" Sir," said the man, " good-afternoon." But Bull felt none the less that there was no civility behind the words. At the moment he thought he had never seen eyes of so vivid, so electric a blue. He was given no time for reply, even if he had contemplated one. " You see here," the man continued, " a boy, sir, a boy who needs schooling," and he rumpled the child's curls roughly with his hand as though he were rudely shuffling the leaves of a ledger. " I heard of your excellent academy, sir, and I intend my son should go there for a course of yom: tuition. I beg that you will take him." He paused a moment, or rather his lips shut one on the other with an alarming suddenness and tightness of compression. And as to the matter of begging anything of Dr. Bull, a highwayman with loaded pistols was as much a beggar as this snuff-coloured gentleman. " I saw your grey mare at the gate, sir, and I trust you will take the child home with you to Newport. His clothes will be forwarded to-morrow per carrier. I dislike delays, sir, I detest delays," he snapped, hurling the small boy at the minister's lower waist-coat buttons as though he were discharging some missile on an enemy. " He is not a bad child on the whole, but pampered and ignorant."

" He looks very young, sir," returned Bull, gradually recovering from the shock of impact, and holding up the child's face by the rosy, dimpled chin.

It was evident the boy had been crjdng bitterly, for his pretty face was all blurred and flushed, his eyes scorched and swollen.

"Oh yes, sir, indeed," gasped the fluttering lady, half advancing beyond her husband's restraining arm, and then retiring again with the rapid jerk of his elbow ; " he is barely five years old," she managed to articulate before she was submerged imder her partner's renewed onslaught. " Old enough to learn, sir ! " he cried, the pallor of his sharp features suddenly changing to an unbecoming flush ; " and I hope you will allow no negligence or inattention in his work. You are known to me, sir, as a man of character and intelligence. Character is what I require this young man to learn : it is better than an ass's head of learning, sir, with your classics and geometries, and tricks or antics of one sort and another. Dr. Bull."

" You have the advantage of me in your knowledge of my name, sir," rejoined Bull, interrupting with a degree of sternness incident on his surprise and reluctance to take so young and unexpected a charge into his care.

" My name is Hume," replied the snuff-coloured gentleman, " Archibald Hume, merchant in the city of London, of the ancient family of Hume in Stirlingshire. This is young Archibald, and merchant after me, I trust. I will make no bargain with you, sir, as to your fees for instruction ; I am no niggard with those who choose to serve me well. Teach him character, and you will find I am not slow in paying."

" This is very well, sir, and I am sure the little boy is a good boy and intelligent enough," said Bull, patting the child on the shoulder with his fat, benevolent hands ; " but, frankly, it is not usual with me to take such young pupils, and so I fear that I must decline to accept your most flattering trust."

"It is not to be thought of, sir," returned Hume, making as though he wotdd advance still nearer upon the minister, even over his very feet, if need be, with the culminating action of trampling upon him. " I am thoroughly determined that the boy shall begin his training from this very day ; he has had enough of the nursery " — here he shot an angry and contemptuous glance upon the lady—" and there is no other man to whom I would entrust him. He is not too young, sir, contradict you if I must. Why, when I was his age I sat under the minister of our kirk for instruction, and when I was but twice as old as that boy I set up in life for myself, sir, made my first start in business with eight pounds in my pocket, and I have wanted for nothing ever since. And what was it that I learned from the minister, sir ? Was it French, think ye ? or tags o' Latin and Greek ? No, sir, it was character, and nought beside ; for he had nothing else to teach whatever, except a peck of writing, reading, and casting of figures. And how do ye think he taught us, sir ? Why, with the rod ; and a good method it is, as Solomon himself will tell you. For I suppose you know your Bible by heart, or so you ought, for they tell me that you know your business well enough for a parson. And it's that I like about ye, sir. I know mine, and so I'll be bidding you good-day."

" Stop, stop, my dear sir ! " cried Bull, detaining him by the rather worn cuff of his coat. " Even if I do take the little boy I do not see how I can carry him home in this hasty fashion, seeing I have not a pillion to my nag ; besides, being a man of no small circumference, my weight alone is quite sufficient for the grey mare, poor beast, without adding your son to her burdenfeather-weight though he be ! "

" Yes, yes, Archibald," said the mother, fluttering her ribbons and laces continually Hke some blonde and fluffy hen ruffling her feathers. She turned her gaze disconcertingly on Bull, staring bewildered on him with wide eyes — eyes that were dim and tear-brimmed, vacant and appeaUng as the child's before her. " Archie will need his clothes for the night, and if both went to-morrow by the carrier it would not cost more. And then there are his socks to darn and get ready, because you have been so sudden with me that I had no time."

" Time be hanged, ma'am ! " cried the elder Archibald, his voice growing in depth and emphasis with each word, whilst at the same time a thickening and intensifying of certain hitherto undefined peculiarities of speech now showed his northern origin. ' ' I said the boy should go to-day, despite all your whimsies and vapours. Why, sir," said he, turning again on Bull, and lifting a hand surprisingly white and fine in protest, " the child is, as you supposed, but the merest feather-weight. Set him up behind you, and I warrant he Avill cUng fast enough to your coat-tails for fear of falling off. That is -common sense, I believe. Will you not hold on to this gentleman's coat-tails, sir ? " he asked the child sternly, turning the little downy head towards him with

his hard white hands.

c

" Oh yes, indeed, sir," the boy stsimmered in a lisping voice, making a hasty clutch at the minister's black skirts as if he were afraid to be found slow in his obedience. He stumbled as he did so, and caught at Bull's knee for support. The weight and warmth of the httle round body, the uncertain touch of the child's soft and clinging hands, brought a smile to the minister's pursed lips.

" I am sure you would be good to him, sir," the fluttering figure made another effort for speech, apparently encouraged by the kindly look in his face, but was once more quenched into silence by the quick tones of her husband, short and crackling, though deep.

" He knows how to ride, sir ; you need have no fear on that score — I saw to it myself. Why, when I was only twice that child's age I rode all the way alone from Stirling, sir, to Carlisle, and sold my horse at the journey's end for twelve pounds — ^twelve pounds in good gold pieces too. My guardian had ill-treated me, sir, so I ran away from him ; I had too much character to stand it — ^the minister it was who taught me that."

" Character," said Dr. Bull, " is not altogether in my power to impart. I imagine that it comes from above, sir, if it be of a certain quality— from below if otherwise."

" I never learnt theology," returned Hume stiffly, snapping his mouth upon the words, " nor do I require my son to learn it either. But I am much obHged to you for the trouble that you are about to take with him, and again, sir, I wish you a very good-day."

" I really think," cried Bull, " that you must consent to send your little boy either next week or the one after, for now I come to think upon the matter, I remember that every one of our beds at home is occupied."

" Oh, pray, pray, sir ! " exclaimed the fluttering lady, appealing with hands and eyes, " do take the little boy with you, for I'm sure you are kind, and your wife will be kind too ; and I would rather he went with you than anyone beside, and he shall have his clothes by carrier as soon as may be, and ..." She was continuing in a hurried, tremulous fashion that feared even while it found utterance.

" Gad, ma'am ! " cried Mr. Hxune, " do you not see everjlhing is settled with this gentleman already ? But if you too are at length satisfied with my choice I vow I'm delighted. You was all for home comforts not ten minutes since. But no doubt Dr. Bull will understand a mother's heart if he fails to reckon with a woman's wit!"

The small boy already hung to Bull's coat-tails as if his very life depended on them, looking desperately up at his mother all the time, and unable to brush away two fat tears that had stolen over his cheeks and were now trickling into the corners of his quivering mouth.

" Kiss him, ma'am ! " commanded Hume, feeling the fluttering creature straining away from the support or control of his arm towards her son. In an instant she was on her knees among the grasses, her delicate tangled hair falling all about his face like a mesh of moonbeams, covering his eyes and blotting out the tears. " And now," continued Mr. Hmne, " we will not delay Dr. Bull any longer with our presence and the outpouring of farewells."

But in thus so long ignoring the presence of the third member of his family he had reckoned without her personal protests, who, though young in years, seemed capable of comprehending the more salient features of this interview, if regardless of their detail. She seemed capable, also, of expressing her opinion in sufficiently forcible fashion, for with a wild leap, almost incredible from a young creature so heavily encumbered with feminine apparel, she sprang at the minister, catching him tightly above the buckle of his knee-breeches.

" You wicked, wicked man ! " she screamed, her face puckered into a burning mass of furious wrinkles, her two tiny hands clenched about the ill-fated lace cap with which she now chose to belabour the astonished minister. " How dare you take away my brother ! how dare you, how dare you, how dare you ! " and each time her baby voice rose into a higher and hoarser shriek that filled the whole place strangely for all it issued from so small a mouth, until it broke altogether and was silent.

Bull caught her two little fighting hands in one of his, gazing into the passionate face so far below him with a look of astonished pity. Unlike her father as she might be, the immature features were just as full of purpose, fire, and life ; and though her eyes were different both in shape and colour — ^being of a vivid brown — they gave that same impression as of a blow given that was strange and unmistakable in so young and helpless a creature.

"My dear," said Bull, striving to convey by voice and look the soothing influence she needed, " you must often come and see your brother."