"THAT CAD SAWYER."—PART II.
"Did the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes to the very end."
Christina Rossetti.
Grandmother's voice had faltered a little now and then during the latter part of her reading. The children looked at each other significantly.
"Uncle Carlo died you know," whispered Sylvia again to Ralph and Molly.
"And uncle Jack too," said Ralph.
"Yes, but much longer after. Uncle Carlo was only a boy when he died," said Molly, as if the fact infinitely aggravated the sorrow in his case.
Their whispering did not interrupt their grandmother this time. She had already paused.
"I think, dears," she said, "I had better read the rest to-morrow evening. There is a good deal more of it, and my voice gets tired after a while."
"Couldn't I read it for you, mother dear?" said aunty.
Grandmother smiled a little roguishly. "No, my dear, thank you," she said. "I think I like best to read myself what I have written myself. And you, according to that, will have your turn soon, Laura."
"Mother! how did you find out what I was doing?" exclaimed aunty.
"A little bird told me, of course," said grandmother, smiling. "You know how clever my little birds are."
During this mysterious conversation the children had sat with wide open eyes and puzzled faces. Suddenly a light broke upon Sylvia.
"I know, I know," she cried. "Aunty's writing a story for us too. Oh, you delightful aunty!"
"Oh you beautiful aunty! oh you delicious aunty!" echoed Molly. "Why don't you say something too, Ralph?" she exclaimed, turning reproachfully to her brother. "You like stories just as much as we do—you know you do."
"But you and Sylvia have used up all the adjectives," said Ralph. "What can I call aunty, unless I say she's a very jolly fellow?"
"Reserve your raptures, my dears," said aunty, "'The proof of the pudding's in the eating,' remember. Perhaps you may not care for my story when you hear it. I am quite willing to wait for your thanks till you have heard it."
"But any way, aunty dear, we'll thank you for having tried," said Molly encouragingly. "I daresay it won't be quite as nice as grandmother's. You see you're so much younger, and then I don't think anybody could tell stories like her, could they? But, grandmother dear," she went on, "would you mind telling me one thing? When people write stories how do they know all the things they tell? How do you know what poor Mr. Sawyer said to himself when he was alone in his room that day? Did he ever tell anybody? I know the story's true, because uncle Jack told it you himself, only I can't make out how you got to know all those bits of it, like."
"What a goose you are, Molly!" exclaimed both Ralph and Sylvia. "How could any stories ever be written if people went on about them like that?"
But Molly's honest puzzled face made grandmother smile.
"I know how you mean, dear," she said, "I used to think like that myself. No, I don't know exactly the very words Mr. Sawyer said to himself, but, judging from my knowledge of the whole story, I put myself, as it were, in his place, and picture to myself what I would have said. I told you I had altered it a little. When your uncle wrote it out it was all in the first person, but not having been an eye-witness, as he was, it seemed to me I could better give the spirit of the story by putting it into this form. Do you understand at all better, dear? When you have heard the whole to the end you will do so, I think. All the part about Carlo I had from his own lips."
"Thank you, grandmother dear. I think I understand," said Molly, and she was philosophical enough to take no notice of the repeated whisper which reached her ears alone. "Oh, you are a goose!"
It was not till the next evening that grandmother went on with the second part of her story.
"What do all those stars mean?" asked Molly, peeping over her grandmother's shoulder before she began to read. "Look Sylvia, how funny!" and she pointed to a long row of * * * * at the end of the first part of the manuscript.
"They mean that some length of time had elapsed between the two parts of the story," said grandmother.
"Oh, I see. And each star counts for a year. I suppose. Let me see; one, two, three——"
"Molly, do be quiet, and let grandmother go on," said Ralph and Sylvia, their patience exhausted.
"No, they are not counted like that," said grandmother. "Listen, Molly, and you will hear for yourself."
"The first part of my little story finished in the snow—on a cold December morning in England. The second part begins in a very different scene and many, many miles away from Ryeburn. Three or four years have passed. Some of those we left boys are now men—many changes have taken place. Instead of December, it is August. Instead of England we have a far away country, which till that time, when the interest of the whole world was suddenly concentrated on it, had been but little known and still less thought of by the dwellers in more civilised lands. It is the Crimea, children, and the Crimea on a broiling, stifling August day. At the present time when we speak and think of that dreadful war and the sufferings it entailed, it is above all the winters there that we recall with the greatest horror—those terrible 'Crimean winters.' But those who went through it all have often assured me that the miseries of the summers—of some part of them at least—were in their way quite as great, or worse. What could be much worse? The suffocating heat; the absence, or almost total absence, of shade; the dust and the dirt, and the poisonous flies; the foul water and half-putrid food? Bad for the sound ones, or those as yet so—and oh, how intolerably dreadful for the sick!
"'What could be much worse?' thought Jack Berkeley to himself, as after a long killing spell in the trenches he at last got back to his tent for a few hours' rest.
"'My own mother wouldn't know me,' he said to himself, as out of a sort of half melancholy mischief he glanced at his face in the little bit of cracked looking-glass which was all he had to adorn himself by. He was feeling utterly worn out and depressed—so many of his friends and companions were dead or dying—knocked down at that time quite as much by disease as by Russian bullets—in many cases the more terrible death of the two. And things in general were looking black. It was an anxious and weariful time.
"Jack threw himself on the bed. He was too tired to undress. All he longed for was coolness and sleep—the first the less attainable of the two, for the thin sides of his tent were as powerless to keep out the scorching heat as the biting cold, and it was not till many more months of both heat and cold had passed that any better shelter was provided for him or his fellows.
"But heat and flies notwithstanding Jack fell asleep, and had slept soundly for an hour or two when he was suddenly awakened by a voice calling him by name.
"'Berkeley,' it said, 'you are Berkeley of the 300th, aren't you? I am sorry to awaken you if you're not, but I couldn't see your servant about anywhere to ask. There's a poor fellow dying, down at Kadikoi, asking for Berkeley—Jack Berkeley of the 300th.'
"'Yes, that's me,' said Jack, rubbing his eyes with his smoke-begrimed hands, which he had neither had energy nor water to wash before he fell asleep. 'That's me, sure enough. Who is it? What does he want?'
"'I don't know who he is,' replied the other. 'I didn't hear his name. He's not one of us. He's a poor devil who's out here as a correspondent to some paper—I forget which—he's only been out a short time. He's dying of dysentery—quite alone, near our quarters. I'm Montagu of the 25th Hussars—Captain Montagu, and our doctor, who's looking after him, sent in for me, knowing I'd been at Ryeburn, as the poor fellow said something about it. But it must have been after my time. I left in '48.'
"'I don't think I remember you,' said Jack meditatively. 'But you may have been among the upper boys when I was one of the small ones.'
"'Sure to have been,' said Captain Montagu. 'But about this poor fellow. He was so disappointed when he found I was a stranger to him that I said I'd try to find some other Ryeburn boy who might remember him. And some one or other mentioned you, so I came over to look you up.'
"'Very good of you,' said Jack, who was still, however, feeling so sleepy that he could almost have wished Captain Montagu had not been so good. 'Shall I go back with you to Kadikoi? Very likely it's some one I did not know either, still one can but try.'
"'You're very tired,' said Montagu, sympathisingly. 'I am sorry to give you such a long walk. But the doctor said he couldn't last long, and the poor fellow seemed so eager when he heard your name.'
"'Oh, he does know me then?' said Jack, his interest reviving. 'I didn't understand.'
"'Oh yes. I mentioned your name when I heard it, and he said at once if it was Jack Berkeley he would extremely like to see him. It was stupid of me not to ask his name.'
"'I'll be ready to go with you in a moment,' said Jack, after frantic efforts discovering in a bucket a very small reserve of water with which he managed to wash his face clear of some part of its grimy covering. 'My servant's gone to Balaclava to see what he could get in the way of food for a change from these dreadful salt rations. He brought me a bottle of porter the other day; it cost three shillings, but I never enjoyed anything so much in my life.'
"'I can quite believe it,' said Captain Montagu feelingly. 'Your servant must be worth his weight in gold.'
"In another minute they were on their way. The sun was beginning to sink, fortunately; it was not quite so hot as a few hours previously. But it was quite as dusty, and the walking along a recently and roughly made track, not worthy the name of road, was very tiring. It was fully five miles to Kadikoi—five miles across a bare, dried-up country, from which all traces of the scanty cultivation it had ever received were fast disappearing under the present state of things. There was not a tree, hardly a stunted shrub, to be seen, and the ground—at best but a few inches of poor soil above the sterile rock, felt hard and unyielding as well as rough. It was a relief of its kind at last to quit the level ground for the slope leading down to Balaclava, where, though they were too small to afford anything in the shape of shade, the sight of some few, starved-looking bushes and some remains of what might once have been grass, refreshed the eye, at once wearied and dazzled by the glare and monotony of the sun-dried plain.
"The tent to which Captain Montagu led the way stood by itself on some rising ground, a little behind the row of nondescript hovels or mud huts representing what had been the little hamlet of Kadikoi. It looked wretched enough as the two young men made their way in, but everywhere looked wretched, only the bareness and comfortlessness impressed one doubly when viewed in connection with physical suffering that would have been hard to endure even with all the alleviations and tenderness of friends and home about one.
"The doctor was just leaving the tent—his time was all too precious to give much of it where it was evident that his skill could be of no avail—but before going he had done what he could for the sick man's comfort, and he lay now, pale, worn, and wan, but no longer in pain, and by the bedside—a low narrow camp stretcher—sat a young soldier, holding from time to time a cup of water to the dry lips of the dying man. Clumsy he might be, but there was no lack of tenderness in his manner or expression.
"That's one of our men that the doctor sent in,' whispered Montagu; 'the poor fellow there had been lying alone for two or three days, and no one knew. His Greek servant—scoundrels those fellows are—had deserted him.'
"Jack cautiously approached the bed.
"'This is Mr. Berkeley—Jack Berkeley of the 300th, whom you said you would like to see,' said Captain Montagu gently, stepping in front of Jack.
"The sick man's eyes lightened up, and a faint flush rose in his cheeks. He was very fair, and lying there looked very young, younger somehow than Jack had expected. Had he ever seen him before? There was nothing remarkable about the face except its peculiarly gentle and placid expression—yet it was a face of considerable resolution as well, and there were lines about the mouth which told of endurance and fortitude, almost contradicting the wistfulness of the boyish-looking blue eyes. Jack grew more and more puzzled. Something seemed familiar to him, yet——
"'How good, how very good of you to come. Do you remember me, Berkeley?' said the invalid, feebly stretching out a thin hand, which Jack instinctively took and held gently in his own strong grasp.
"Jack hesitated. A look of disappointment overspread the pale face.
"'I am afraid you don't know me. Perhaps you would not have come if you had understood who it was.'
"'I did not hear your name,' said Jack, very gently, 'but, of course, hearing you wished to see me——' he hesitated. 'Were we at Ryeburn together?'
"'Yes,' said the dying man. 'My—my name is Sawyer—Philip Sawyer—but you only knew my surname, of course.'
"Jack understood it all. Even before the name was mentioned, the slight nervous stammer, the faint peculiarity of accent, had recalled to his memory the poor young junior master, whose short, apparently unsuccessful, Ryeburn career had left its mark on the lives of others besides his own.
"Jack understood—not so the sick man. He was surprised and almost bewildered by the eagerness with which his visitor received his announcement.
"'Sawyer, Mr. Sawyer!' he exclaimed. 'You cannot imagine how glad I am to see you again. I don't mean—I am terribly sorry to see you like this—but I have so often wished to find you, and I could never succeed in doing so.'
"He turned as he spoke to Captain Montagu.
"'I'll stay with him for an hour or two—as long as I can,' he said. 'I think,——' he added, glancing at the extempore sick-nurse, and hesitating a little. Captain Montagu understood the glance.
"'Come, Watson,' he said to the young soldier, 'Mr. Berkeley will sit with—with Mr.——'
"'Sawyer,' said Jack.
—"'With Mr. Sawyer for a while. Shall he return in an hour, Berkeley?'
"'Thank you, yes,' said Jack, and then he found himself alone with his old master.
"'You said you tried to trace me after I left Ryeburn,' said Sawyer. 'Will you tell me why? There was no special reason for it, was there? I know I was disliked, but the sort of enmity I incurred must soon have died out. I was too insignificant for it to last. And the one great endeavour I made was to injure no one. That was why I left hurriedly—before I should be forced to make any complaints.'
"He stopped—exhausted already by what he had said. 'And I have so much to say to him,' he whispered regretfully to himself.
"'I know,' said Jack sadly. 'I understood it all before you had left many months.'
"Mr. Sawyer looked pleased but surprised.
"'It is very kind of you to speak so,' he said. 'I remember that dear little brother of yours when he came to see me off that last morning—I remember his saying, 'I'm sure Jack would have come if he had thought of it.' You don't know what a comfort the remembrance of that boy has been to me sometimes. You must tell him so. Dear me—he must be nearly grown up. Is he too in the army?'
"'No, oh no,' said Jack. 'He—he died the year after you knew him.'
"Sawyer's eyes looked up wistfully in Jack's face. 'Dead?' he said. 'That dear boy?'
"'Yes,' Jack went on. 'It was of scarlet fever. It was very bad at Ryeburn that half. We both had it, but I was soon well again. It was not till Carlo was ill that he told me of having run over to wish you good-bye that morning—he had been afraid I would laugh at him for being soft-hearted—what a young brute I was—forgive my speaking so, Sawyer, but I can't look back to that time without shame. What a life we led you, and how you bore it! You were too good for us.'
"Sawyer smiled. 'No,' he said. 'I cannot see it that way. I had not the knack of it—I was not fit for the position. The boys were very good boys, as boys go. It would have been inexcusable of me to have made them suffer for what, after all, was an unfortunate circumstance only. I had attempted what I could not manage. And Carlo—he is dead—somehow, perhaps because I am so near death myself, it does not shock or startle me. Dear little fellow that he was!'
"'And while he was ill he was constantly talking about you. It seemed the only thing on his conscience, poor little chap, that he had joined at all in our treatment of you. And he begged me—I would have promised him anything, but by that time I saw it plainly enough for myself—to try to find you and ask you to forgive us both. But I little thought it would have been like this—I had fancied sometimes——' Jack hesitated, and the colour deepened in his sunburnt cheeks.
"'What?' said Mr. Sawyer. 'Do not be afraid of my misunderstanding anything you say.'
"'I had hoped perhaps that if I found you again I might be able to be of some use to you. And now it is too late. For you see we owe you some reparation for indirectly forcing you to leave Ryeburn—you might have risen there—who knows? I can see now what a capital teacher you were.'
"Mr. Sawyer shook his head.
"'I know I could teach,' he said, 'but that was all. I did not understand boys' ways. I never was a boy myself. But put all this out of your mind, Berkeley, for ever. In spite of all the disappointment, I was very happy at Ryeburn. The living among so many healthy-minded happy human beings was a new and pleasant experience to me. Short as it was, no part of my life has left a pleasanter remembrance. You say you would like to do something for me. Will you write to my mother after I am gone, and tell her? Tell her how little I suffered, and how good every one was to me, a perfect stranger. Will you do this?'
"Jack bent his head. 'Willingly,' he said.
"'You will find her address in this book,' he went on, handing a thick leather pocket-book to Jack. 'Also a sort of will—roughly drawn up, but correctly—leaving her all I have, and the amount of that, and the Bank it is in—all is noted. I have knocked about so—since I was at Ryeburn I have tried so many things and been in so many places, I have learnt to face all eventualities. I was so pleased to get the chance of coming out here——'
"He stopped again.
"'You must not tire yourself so,' said Jack.
"'What does it matter? I can die so much more easily if I leave things clear—for, trifling as they are, my poor mother's comfort depends on them. And I am so glad too for you to understand about me, Berkeley. That day—it went to my heart to have to refuse you about the subscription for the fireworks.'
"'Don't speak of it. I know you had some good motive,' said Jack.
"'Necessity—sheer, hard necessity,' said poor Sawyer. 'The money I had got that morning was only just in time to save my younger brother from life-long disgrace, perhaps imprisonment.'
"Then painfully—in short and broken sentences—he related to Jack the history of his hard, sad, but heroic life. He did not think it heroic—it seemed to him, in his single-minded conscientiousness, that he had done no more than his duty, and that but imperfectly. He had given his life for others, and, hardest of all, for others who had little appreciated his devotion.
"'My father died when I was only about twelve,' he said. 'He had been a clergyman, but his health failed, and he had to leave England and take a small charge in Switzerland. There he met my mother—a Swiss, and there I was partly brought up. When he died he told me I must take his place as head of the family. I was not so attractive as my brother and sister; I was shy and reserved. Naturally my mother cared most for them. I fear she was too indulgent. My sister married badly, and I had to try to help her. My poor brother, he was always in trouble and yet he meant well——'
"And so he told Jack the whole melancholy history, entering into details which I have forgotten, and which, even if I remembered them, it would be only painful to relate. His brother was now in America—doing well he hoped, thanks of course to him; his sister's circumstances too had improved. For the first time in his life Sawyer had begun to feel his burdens lessening, when he was brought face to face with the knowledge that all in this world was over for him. Uncomplainingly he had, through all these long years, borne the heat and burden of the day; rest for him was to be elsewhere, not here. But as he had met life, so he now met death—calmly and unrepiningly, certain that hard as it had been hard as it seemed now, it must yet be for the best—the solving of the riddle he left to God.
"And his last thought was for others—for the mother who had so little appreciated him, who required to lose him, perhaps, to bring home to her his whole value.
"'I have always foreseen the possibility of this,' he said, 'and prepared for it as best I could. Besides the money I have confided to you, I insured my life, most fortunately, last year. She will have enough to get on pretty comfortably—and tell her,' he hesitated, 'I don't think she will miss me very much. I have never had the knack of drawing much affection to myself. But tell her I was quite satisfied that it is all for the best, and Louis may yet return to cheer her old age.'
"Jack stayed till he could stay no longer. Then, with a grasp of the hand which meant more than many words, he left his new, yet old friend, promising to be down again at Kadikoi first thing in the morning. 'But take the papers with you, Berkeley, the papers and the pocket-book, in case, you know——' were Sawyer's last words to him.
"Jack was even earlier the next day than he had expected. But when he got to the tent the canvas door was drawn to.
"'Asleep?' he said to the doctor of the 25th Hussars, who came up at that moment, recognizing him.
"'Yes,' said the doctor, bending his head reverently, as he said the word.
"He unfastened the door, and signed to Jack to follow him. Jack understood—yes, asleep indeed. There he lay—all the pain and anxiety over, and as the two men gazed at the peaceful face, there came into Jack's mind the same words which his mother had whispered over the dead face of his little brother,
"'Of such is the kingdom of Heaven'."