As for Cephas, he found that parting from his mother was not such a fine thing after all. He watched her through a mist of tears, and waved his handkerchief as long as he could see her; and then after that he was the loneliest little fellow you have ever seen. He refused to eat the extra tea-cake that his mother had put in the pocket of his jacket, and made up his mind to be perfectly miserable until he got back home. But, after all, boys are boys, and the feeling of loneliness and dejection wore away after awhile, and before he had gone many miles, what with making the acquaintance of the driver, who was a private soldier, and getting on friendly terms with Captain Falconer, he soon arrived at the point where he relished his tea-cake, and when this had been devoured, he felt as if travelling was the most delightful thing in the world, especially if a fellow has been intrusted with a tremendous secret that nobody else in the world knew besides Mr. Sanders and himself.
For as soon as Mr. Sanders discovered that the Captain would be willing to have Cephas go along, he had taken the little chap in hand, and thoroughly impressed upon his mind everything he wanted him to say to Gabriel, and he was not satisfied until Cephas had written the message out in the dog-latin of the school-children, and had learned it by heart. Mr. Sanders also impressed on the little lad's mind the probability that the Captain would be curious as to the nature of the message; and he gave Cephas a plausible answer for every question that an inquisitive person could put to him, and made him repeat these answers over and over again. In fact, Cephas was compelled to study as hard as if he had been in school, but he relished the part he was to play, and learned it with a zest that was very pleasing to Mr. Sanders. Only an hour before he was to leave with the Captain, Mr. Sanders went to Cephas's home, and made him repeat over everything he had been taught, and the glibness with which the little lad repeated the answers to the questions was something wonderful in so small a chap.
"Don't git lonesome, Cephas," was the parting injunction of Mr. Sanders. "Don't forgit that I'll be on the train when the whistle blows. I'm gwine to start right off. You may not see me, but I'll not be far off. Keep a stiff upper lip, an' don't git into no panic. The whole thing is gwine through like it was on skids, an' the skids greased."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cephas Has His Troubles
Usually there is a yawning gulf between youth and old age; but in the case of Mrs. Lumsden and Nan Dorrington, it was spanned by the simplicity and tenderness common to both. Whether any of the ancients or moderns have mentioned the fact, it is hardly worth while to inquire, but good-humour is a form of tenderness. Those who are easy to laugh are likewise ready to be sorry, and they have a fund of sympathy to draw on whenever the necessity arises. Simplicity and tenderness connect the highest wisdom with the deepest ignorance, and find the elements of brotherhood where the intellect is unable to discern it. It was simplicity and tenderness that bridged the gulf of years that lay between the old gentlewoman and the young girl. Age can find no comfort for itself unless it can make terms with youth. Where it stands alone, depending upon the respect that should belong to what is venerable, there is something gruesome about it. It quenches the high spirits of children and young people, and chills their enthusiasm. All that it does for them is to give notorious advertisement to the complexion to which they must all come at last. "You see these wrinkled and flabby features, this gray hair, these faded and watery eyes, these shaking limbs and trembling hands: well, this is what you must come to." And, indeed, it is an object lesson well calculated to sober and subdue the giddy.
Now, age had dealt very gently with Gabriel's grandmother; it became her well. Her white hair was even more beautiful now than it had been when she was young, as Meriwether Clopton often declared. Her eyes were bright, and all her sympathies were as keenly alive as they had been fifty years before. She had kept in touch with Gabriel and the young people about her, and none of her faculties had been impaired. She was the gentlest of gentlewomen.
Once Nan had asked her—"Grandmother Lumsden, what is the perfume I smell every time I come here? You have it on your clothes."
"Life Everlasting, my dear." For one brief and fleeting instant, Nan had the odd feeling that she could see millions and millions of years into the future. Life Everlasting! She caught her breath. But the vision or feeling was swept away by the placid voice of Mrs. Lumsden. "I believe you and Gabriel call it rabbit tobacco," she explained.