She had been listening to the talk between Bambo and her brother in somewhat of a puzzle as to their meaning. She had, however, gathered the gist of their remarks, and is that not about all that is worth gathering of most conversations?
"Wait a little," whispered Darby, gently prodding her behind the dwarf's back. "Don't be in such a hurry. We're coming to that."
"'Cause if we isn't," continued Joan the irrepressible, "I's werry, werry glad. I doesn't know nuffin' 'bout the Happy Land—nuffin' much, anyway, 'cept what nurse's hymn says—but I knows Firgrove, and I love Auntie Alice, and the pussies, and baby when he's not cryin'. They's quite 'nuff for me—just now at least," she added as an after-thought. "And I wants to go back to Miss Carolina and the rest of my dear, sweet dollies. Darby wouldn't let me bring none of them wif me. Now I's lonesome for them," she whimpered, "and I won't go to no Happy Land wifout my fings. There!" declared the mutinous little maid, with an emphatic waggle of her sunny head, such as she had seen Perry finish up with when argument waxed warm between her and Molly the cook.
And just as Captain Dene had smiled sympathetically over a similar speech of his small daughter's, so did the dwarf bend an understanding gaze upon the winsome, wilful face, with its dewy eyes and quivering lips. At the same time there came back to his memory a verse of a hymn or poem, Bambo did not know which, that his mother had been very fond of and often repeated:—
"Fair Anwoth by the Solway,
To me thou still art dear;
E'en from the verge of heaven
I drop for thee a tear.
Oh, if one soul from Anwoth
Meet me at God's right hand,
My heaven will be two heavens
In Immanuel's land."
"Should we try to go to the Happy Land some other time, do you think, Mr. Bambo?" asked Darby anxiously, half frightened and wholly distressed by the feeling of satisfaction which filled him at the prospect of going back to the security of Firgrove. It seemed to him as if a return implied an easy entrance at the wide gate upon the broad and pleasant way, and turning their backs on the strait and narrow path, which had proved so tortuous and stony for their tender, stumbling feet.
For an instant the dwarf hesitated, hardly knowing how to answer the boy's question. Then he spoke.
"If I was you, I wouldn't set out again in search of the Happy Land; because them that turns their backs upon the duties which lie close to their hand, and their faces away from the place where God has put them, never find a happy land, neither in this life nor in the next," said the little man solemnly. "It mostly comes to folks, often when they little expect; leastways it did to me," he added softly.
"I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean," said Darby, with a puzzled pucker between his brows. "How could the Happy Land come to one? Can you tell me that, please?"
"Well, if you're looking for a country on this side of time such as the hymn describes, and I think that's the notion that's taken hold of your wise wee head," said the dwarf, laying a gentle hand on the lad's dark hair, "you'll never find it; for there's no such place as that in this world—where the sun's always shining, and night never falls; where folks are never tempted or wicked; where there's no need to struggle, and nobody makes mistakes; where there's neither sickness nor sorrow, parting nor death—nothing but music and pleasure and happiness all the year round. Only in heaven are all these joys to be found—the heaven that awaits us after our work is done, when the blessed Lord Himself sends His messenger to bring us home."