Come to the ark! the waters rise,
The seas their billows rear:
While darkness gathers o'er the skies
Behold a refuge near.
Come to the ark! all—all that weep
Beneath the sense of sin;
Without, deep calleth unto deep,
But all is peace within.
Come to the ark! ere yet the flood
Your lingering steps oppose!
Come, for the door which open stood,
Is now about to close.
Most of the hymns were in the old London Hymn Book we used at Tawborough, so I could join in the singing from the very first. It pained me to hear the thin peevish rendering the Torribridge Exclusives gave of He sitteth o'er the water-floods, or their pale piping of Brother Briggs' stentorian favourite I hear the Accuser Roar. Aunt Martha and I squeaked feebly, Brother Atonement Gelder sniffled in tune, and Uncle Simeon whispered the words to himself with his eye in godly thankfulness turned heavenward. We stood up for the hymns; it is the only Meeting—but one—at which I have known this done. We worshipped in a dark stuffy little room behind a baker's shop. Aunt Martha scarcely spoke to the other Saints or they to her.
My one idea was to get back to Bear Lawn. Aunt Jael said I was to live here for at least one year, and for three if it proved satisfactory—satisfactory to her. I was to have one holiday in Tawborough each year; but not till the first year was out. Grandmother had said she would come over sometimes; I knew that Uncle Simeon was not eager to have her and would find excuses for delaying her visits. Could I abide it for a year? Fear and ill-usage and hunger were worrying me into a state of all-the-time nervousness and wretchedness beyond what I had ever experienced. How could I tell Grandmother this, and how much I wanted to come back to her? He read all my letters, and I knew she would disapprove if I tried to write without his knowing. What should I do? Counting the days and crossing them off each night on the wall-almanac in my bedroom might help to make them pass more quickly.
After all Aunt Jael was no magnet drawing me back to Tawborough. If life was worse here with him, it was bad enough there with her. Life was a wretched business altogether. Still, Uncle Simeon was worse than Aunt Jael, and if the walks and fresh air I got here compensated for the better food at Bear Lawn, my Grandmother weighed down the balance overwhelmingly in favour of the latter. I must get back. But how? I was ignorant and inexperienced beyond belief. I first thought of just leaving the house one day, and running back to Tawborough. I could manage the nine miles from one door to the other,—but the doors! I already felt Uncle Simeon's claws dragging me in as I sought to cross his threshold, and Aunt Jael's heavy hand on my shoulder at the other end if ever I should reach it. If I dared to run away, even if not sent back to worse days here, I could see a bad time of punishment and wrath ahead at Bear Lawn. It would be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire, bandying myself between the thorned stick and the ribbed cane, escaping from unhappiness to unhappiness. It was hell here, and near it there—hell everywhere. If my face was as disagreeable as my heart was bitter and wretched, I must have looked a dismal little fright. Albert assured me that I did.
CHAPTER XIV: I BECOME CURIOUS
Uncle Simeon did not improve on closer acquaintance; nor on closer reflection did my chance of foregoing that acquaintance improve. Just as he abandoned all pretence of being kind and affable, so I began to abandon all hope of getting back to Tawborough for the present. How could I escape him? gave place to: How could I harm him?