CHAPTER XII
IN THE RECTORY GARDEN
'A good man's life is like a fairest flower:
It casts a fragrant breath on all around.'
Though Miss Forster's pet flower-beds were a subject for modest congratulation to their owner, they were not to be compared to those at the Rectory, which were indeed a feast of scent and colour. The Rector was worthily proud of his garden. It represented a considerable amount of skill and artistic taste on the part of himself and his handy-man, for the rare plants and exquisite groupings of contrasting blossoms would have done credit to a more imposing establishment, and he had as choice a collection of shrubs as could be grown anywhere in the county.
It was almost sunset when Peggy, having seen the last of Archie's contrivances, and bidden good-bye to kind Miss Forster, passed by the Rectory hedge, and hearing the brisk sound of the mowing-machine, pushed open the little gate and went in, knowing she was always sure of a welcome.
Peggy loved to get Mr. Howell sometimes quite to herself. Perhaps it was because he was one of those rare characters in whose presence we can feel certain of perfect sympathy, or perhaps it grew from a more subtle and silent bond, felt keenly by the child, though never spoken of, for Peggy could remember a time when the Rector's hair was raven black, and there had been a little Raymond Howell playing about on the smooth lawns of the old garden. Folks had said that the Rector, like many a man who marries late in life, had made an idol of his motherless boy, and they had said, again, that the father's heart was broken and the print of death was on his face as he stood by his child's open grave. But they judged wrong, for he had wrestled with his sorrow, like Jacob with the angel of old, and came forth from the struggle with hair indeed as white as snow, but a face so full of the glory of his conquest that those who looked felt as if he, too, had died, and they saw his immortality.
'Ah, he's a changed man!' said Ellen, the nurse, to Susan, the cook, as they talked in whispers over the night-nursery fire when the children were in bed. 'If he was a saint before, it's an angel he is now, and nothing less. They say he takes no thought for himself at all. His heart's been left in the grave with the poor boy, it's true, but, mark my words, if there's a soul in trouble in all the parish it's no kinder friend they'll find than Mr. Howell.'
Little five-year-old Peggy, lying wide awake, straining her ears to overhear the whispered conversation, sat up in bed with burning cheeks.
'Oh, nurse!' she cried. 'Poor Mr. Howell! Have they lost his heart in the churchyard, and can't anybody find it for him?'
'Go to sleep at once, you naughty girl, or I'll call your aunt,' said Ellen, putting out the candle to avoid further complications, for she knew she ought not to have been talking within hearing of her charges, and hoped Peggy would forget the matter by morning.