CHAPTER XII.
Now came the most lovely moment of the year. All the trees were putting forth new leaves, leaves so young, so tiny as yet, that one could see the fowls of the air when they lodged in the branches—no small privilege, for now the orange oriole, and the bluebird, and the primrose-coloured finch, were here, there, and everywhere; and more rarely the scarlet tanager. A few days before and they had not come; a few days more and larger leaves would hide them perfectly. Just at this time, too, along the roadsides, big hawthorn shrubs and wild plum were in blossom, and in the sheltered fields the mossy sod was pied with white and purple violets, whose flowerets so outstripped their half-grown leaves that blue and milky ways were seen in woodland glades.
With the sense of freedom that comes with the thus sudden advent of the young summer, Winifred Rexford strayed out of the house one morning. She did not mean to go, and when she went through the front gate she only meant to go as far as the first wild plum-tree, to see if the white bloom was turning purple yet, as Principal Trenholme had told her it would. When she got to the first plum-tree she went on to the second. Winifred wore a grey cotton dress; it was short, not yet to her ankles, and her broad hat shaded her from the sun. When she reached the second group of plum-trees she saw a scarlet tanager sitting on a telegraph pole—for along the margin of the road, standing among uncut grass and flowers and trees, tall barkless stumps were set, holding the wires on high. Perhaps they were ugly things, but a tree whose surface is uncut is turned on Nature's lathe; at any rate, to the child the poles were merely a part of the Canadian road, and the scarlet tanager showed its plumage to advantage as it sat on the bare wood. There was no turning back then; even Sophia would have neglected her morning task to see a tanager! She crept up under it, and the bird, like a streak of red flame, shot forth from the pole, to a group of young pine trees further on.
So Winifred strayed up the road about a quarter of a mile, till she came to the gate of the Harmon garden. The old house, always half concealed, was quickly being entirely hidden by the massive Curtains the young leaves were so busily weaving. The tanager turned in here, as what bird would not when it spied a tract of ground where Nature was riotously decking a bower with the products of all the roots and seeds of a deserted garden! There was many a gap in the weather-beaten fence where the child might have followed, but she dare not, for she was in great awe of the place, because the preacher who was said to have died and come to life again lived there. She only stood and looked through the fence, and the tanager—having flitted near the house—soared and settled among the feathery boughs of a proud acacia tree; she had to look across half an acre of bushes to see him, and then he was so high and so far that it seemed (as when looking at the stars) she did not see him, but only the ray of scarlet light that travelled from him through an atmosphere of leaflets. It was very trying, for any one knows that it is something to be able to say that you have come to close quarters with a scarlet tanager.
Winifred, stooping and looking through the fence, soon heard the college bell jangle; she knew that it was nine o'clock, and boys and masters were being ingathered for morning work. The college buildings in their bare enclosure stood on the other side of the road. Winifred would have been too shy to pass the playground while the boys were out, but now that every soul connected with the place would be indoors, she thought she might go round the sides of the Harmon garden and see the red bird much nearer from a place she thought of.
This place was nothing but a humble, disused, and untidy burying-ground, that occupied the next lot in the narrow strip of land that here for a mile divided road and river. Winifred ran over the road between the Harmon garden and the college fence, and, climbing the log fence, stood among the quiet gravestones that chronicled the past generations of Chellaston. Here grass and wild flowers grew apace, and close by ran the rippling river reflecting the violet sky above. A cemetery, every one knows, is a place where any one may walk or sit as long as he likes, but Winifred was surprised to find Principal Trenholme's housekeeper there before her; and moreover, this staid, sad woman was in the very place Winifred was going to, for she was looking through the fence that enclosed the Harmon garden.
"Good morning, Mrs. Martha," said Winifred politely, concealing her surprise.
"I've been milking," said the sad woman, glancing slightly at a pail of foaming milk that she had set for greater security between two grave-heaps.
Winifred came and took her place beside the housekeeper, and they both looked through the paling of the Harmon property.
The tanager was still on the acacia, from this nearer point looking like a great scarlet blossom of some cactus, so intense was the colour; but Winifred was distracted from her interest in the bird by seeing the old house more plainly than she had ever seen it before. It stood, a large substantial dwelling, built not without the variety of outline which custom has given to modern villas, but with all its doors and windows on this side fastened by wooden shutters, that, with one or two exceptions, were nailed up with crossbeams and overgrown with cobwebs. Winifred surveyed it with an interested glance.
"Did you come to see him?" whispered the housekeeper.
Winifred's eye reverted to the tanager of which, on the whole, her mind was more full. "Yes"—she whispered the word for fear of startling it.
"I should think yer ma would want you in of a morning, or Miss Sophia would be learning you yer lessons. When I was your age—But"—sadly—"it stands to reason yer ma, having so many, and the servant gone, and the cows comin' in so fast these days one after t'other, that they can't learn you much of anything reg'lar."
Winifred acquiesced politely. She was quite conscious of the shortcomings in the system of home education as it was being applied to her in those days; no critic so keen in these matters as the pupil of fourteen!
"Well now, it's a pity," said the housekeeper, sincerely, "and they do say yer ma does deplorable bad cooking, and yer sisters that's older than you aren't great hands at learning." The housekeeper sat down on a grave near the paling, as if too discouraged at the picture she had drawn to have energy to stand longer.
Winifred looked at the tanager, at the housekeeper, and round her at the happy morning. This sad-eyed, angular woman always seemed to her more like a creature out of a solemn story, or out of a stained-glass window, than an ordinary person whose comments could be offensive. They had talked together before, and each in her own way took a serious interest in the other.
"Sister Sophia has learned to cook very nicely," said the child, but not cheerfully. It never seemed to her quite polite to be cheerful when she was talking to Mrs. Martha.
"Yes, child; but she can't do everything"—with a sigh—"she's put upon dreadful as it is." Then in a minute, "What made you think of coming here after him?"
"I think it's so wonderful." The child's eyes enlarged as she peered through the fence again at the scarlet bird.
"Lolly, child! I'm glad to hear you say that," said Mrs. Martha, strongly. "He's far above and beyond—he's a very holy man."
Winifred perceived now that she was talking of old Cameron, and she thought it more polite not to explain that she had misunderstood. Indeed, all other interests in her mind became submerged in wonder concerning the old man as thus presented.
"He's mad, isn't he?"
"No, he isn't."
"I knew he was very good, but couldn't he be good and mad too?"
"No," said Mrs. Martha; and the serious assertion had all the more effect because it stood alone, unpropped by a single reason.
"When I've milked the Principal's special cow I often come here of a morning, and sometimes I see the saint walking under the trees. I don't mind telling you, child, for you've a head older than yer years, but you mustn't speak of it again. I'd not like folks to know."
"I won't tell," whispered Winifred, eagerly. She felt inexpressibly honoured by the confidence. "Do you think he'll come out now?" Awe and excited interest, not unmingled with fear, were taking possession of her. She crouched down beside the solemn woman, and looked through at the house and all its closed windows. The hedge was alive with birds that hopped and piped unnoticed, even the scarlet bird was forgotten.
"Mrs. Martha," she whispered, "I heard papa say Cameron believed that our Saviour was soon coming back again, and only those people would go with Him who were watching and waiting. Mr. Trenholme said every one was mad who thought that."
"There's a sight of people will tell you you're mad if you're only fervent."
The child did not know precisely what "fervent" meant, but she began to doubt Trenholme's positive knowledge on the subject. "Do you believe the end of the world's coming so soon?"
"Lor, child! what do I know but the world might go on a good bit after that? I can't tell from my Bible whether the Lord will take us who are looking for Him up to His glory for a while, or whether He'll appoint us a time of further trial while He's conquering the earth; but I do know it wouldn't matter much which, after we'd heard Him speak to each of us by name and seen His face." The sad woman looked positively happy while she spoke.
"Oh, Mrs. Martha, are you watching like that? But how can you all the time—you must sleep and work, you know?"
"Yes, child; but the heart can watch; and He knows we must sleep and work; and for that reason I'm not so sure but, if we're faithful, He might in mercy give us a word beforehand to let us know when to be expecting more particularly. I don't know, you know, child; I'm only saying what might be."
"But what makes you think so, Mrs. Martha?"
Winifred was quick-witted enough to perceive something withheld.
"There's things that it's not right for any one to know but those as will reverence them."
"Oh, I will, I will," said Winifred, clasping her hands.
"As I understand it, Mr. Cameron's had no assurance yet."
Winifred did not ask what this meant. She felt that she was listening to words that, if mysterious, were to be pondered in silence.
"You know the poor thing whose husband is always tipsy—drunken Job they call him—that you've seen listening to Mr. Cameron?—and that weakly Mr. McNider, with the little boy?"
"Yes," assented Winifred.
"He told them," whispered the housekeeper, "that when he was agonising in prayer it came into his mind to wait until August this year. He hasn't any assurance what it may have meant; but that may come later, and p'r'aps the days may be told him; and he's awaiting, and we're awaiting too. There, that's all I have to tell, child, and I must be going."
She gathered her lean figure up from the hillock, and took up her pail.
As for the girl Winifred, a terrible feeling of fear had come over her. All the bright world of sun and flowers seemed suddenly overshadowed by the lowering cloud of an awful possibility. She would no more have allowed herself to be left alone in that sunny corner of the glad spring morning than she would have remained alone where visible danger beset her. Her face bathed in the sudden tears that came so easily to her girlish eyes, she sprang like a fawn after her companion and grasped her skirt as she followed.
"How you take on!" sighed the woman, turning. "Do you mean to say you ain't, glad?"
"I'm frightened," gasped the girl.
"And you been confirmed this spring! What did it mean to you if you ain't glad there's ever such a little chance of perhaps seeing Him before the year's out."
They both climbed the fence, handing over the milk-pail between them.
When they had got on to the road and must part, the housekeeper spoke.
"I tell you what it is, Winifred Rexford; we've not one of us much to bring Him in the way of service. If there's one thing more than another I'm fond of it's to have my kitchen places to myself, but I've often thought I ought to ask yer ma to send one of you over every day to learn from me how a house ought to be kept and dinner cooked. Ye'd learn more watching me in a month, you know, than ye'd learn with yer ma a fussin' round in six years. Don't tell yer ma it's a trial to me, but just ask her if she'll send you over for an hour or two every morning."
"Thank you," said Winifred, reluctantly. "Do you think I ought to come?"
"Well, I'd want to be a bit more use to my ma if I was you."
"It's very kind of you," acknowledged Winifred; "but—but—Mrs. Martha, if it was true about this—this August, you know—what would be the use of learning?"
"Child," said the woman, and if her voice was sad it was also vehement, "them as are mad in religion are them as thinks doing the duty of each day for His sake ain't enough without seeing where's the use of doing what He puts to our hand."
"Mrs. Martha," besought Winifred, timidly, "I—don't like cooking; but do you think if I did this I should perhaps get to be glad to think—be glad to think our Saviour might be coming again so soon?"
"To love Him is of His grace, and you must get it direct from Him; but it's wonderful how doing the best we can puts heart into our prayers."
The scarlet tanager rose and flew from tree to tree like a darting flame, but Winifred had forgotten him.