CHAPTER VIII.

HOME, SWEET HOME.

FROM the hospital, Davie was sent to a Children's Convalescent Home, a few miles distant from London. Never before had he been in such a place, and he was very happy there. It seemed quite like a palace to him, with its large rooms and many appliances for the comfort and health of its inmates. Then, how bright it was with flowers! For it was spring time now, and the earth was beginning to bring forth her loveliest and fairest blossoms. They made the large garden sweet with fragrance, and beautiful beyond description.

One corner of it was an especial favourite with Davie. It was a corner where the lily of the valley grew in rich profusion. Of all the flowers, he thought this was the loveliest, and he never wearied of looking at the tiny nodding bells and dark green leaves, a charming contrast both in size and colour to the dainty, spotless blossoms that leant against them for support.

From this corner, too, Davie was the witness of another of God's marvellous works—and it afforded him even more pleasure than the lilies—the soaring lark, which in its upward flight towards the blue sky overhead, warbled forth such melody that the boy listened in wonder and delight, yet always with a feeling that the bird was but giving utterance to its joy that the earth was so fair and beautiful, and to its praise to God for the creation of the world and itself. And many deeper lessons yet did Davie learn from the lark. Doubtless they came home with all the more power because they were given in a language that was full of meaning to him—the wonderful language of music.

Many pleasant events served to mark that happy time at the Convalescent Home, but perhaps the proudest and happiest day of all to Davie was that on which he received a letter from his dear friend—for as such, though with the deepest respect, he always thought of Mr. Kilmarnock.

It was a beautiful letter, full of wise counsel and affectionate encouragement, and ended with the promise of another at no very distant date.

After a month's visit—but even that was all too short for Davie—came his last day at the Home. Although it was long ere the benefit had made itself apparent, the strengthening food, the care, and the attention he had received ever since his accident, brought about a good result in the end, and he now looked a very different boy from the pale, half-starved little crossing-sweeper of three months ago, or even from the feeble invalid who had been sent from the hospital to gain strength and vigour in the pure country air.

His mother came to fetch him, and quite a crowd collected to wish him good-bye, for Davie had made many friends among his young companions of the past month, and it is difficult to say whether they were the more sorry to lose him, or he to go. The name he had won for himself in the hospital had followed him to the Home. And now they all called out in chorus, "Good-bye, King Davie, good-bye, good-bye."

He was very silent during the journey, and his mother, thinking he was tired, drew him up close to her side and made him lean upon her. Her shoulder made a comfortable resting-place for his head, and as he sat with closed eyes and perfectly still, Mrs. Willis quite believed he was asleep.

But Davie was not asleep. He was thinking of what he had to do—of the future that lay before him. It was by no means a bright picture. It meant hard and disagreeable work, and for 'home,' the bare room at the top of a high house in a dirty street in Westminster, where he and his mother, and the "little 'uns" "had" lived, and "would" live till the end of the chapter, as Davie supposed. True, it had not been so very dreary and uncomfortable once. He remembered that on those days when they could afford to have a fire, it had seemed to him cheerful and cosy enough. But lately he had enjoyed far pleasanter quarters, and he shrank from the bareness of the room, with its two or three dingy pieces of furniture.

But that was wrong, as Davie knew right well, as Mr. Kilmarnock would have told him had he been there. Then he recalled certain passages of the clergyman's letter, for it had been read to him so often that he now almost knew it by heart.

"Remember," Mr. Kilmarnock had said, "that you have resolved henceforth to serve God. You must never go back from that; and don't be afraid of what lies before you. You must expect troubles, but God will help you through them all. Recollect for your comfort, that though He sometimes sends 'as much' as we can bear, yet He never sends 'more' than that. Just go steadily on doing your duty; live for 'others,' not for 'yourself,' and it will make you happy both in this world and the next."

Such thoughts as these did good, and though his heart was still heavy, it was with quite a bright face that Davie stepped out of the train at Westminster. Some marks of the accident yet remained, a slight limp was one of them, and his mother was anxious that they should take a cab from the station to their home. She had more than one reason for her proposal, but that Davie should not be over-fatigued was the chief. He would not hear of it, however, declaring stoutly that he was quite equal to the walk.

"But, mother, this isn't the right way," he said, as she took a turning that was certainly not in the direction of what for a long time had been "home" to him.

"We don't live in Brock Street now, Davie," was her reply. "I've taken a couple of rooms in Ringdon Road."

"In Ringdon Road! But that's quite a nice street. The rent's ever so much higher there, isn't it?"

"Yes, but you see I'm better off now than I have been for years. Lady Cloudesley, she's been that kind that I declare I've often felt quite queer about taking all the things she's sent me. Then better than that, she's given me plenty of needlework, and recommended me to other ladies, and Dr. Scott, he's done the same. I get well paid for it, too. How much do you think I earned last week, Davie?"

"I don't know, mother."

"Thirteen shillings. What do you say to that?"

She was delighted with the look of incredulity with which this piece of information was received. "Ah! Home isn't the same place as it used to be, I can tell you," she went on cheerfully. "That's 'one' reason why I wanted a cab; I thought, perhaps, as how you wouldn't notice the way we went then, and so you wouldn't know anything about the change till we got to Ringdon Road.

"However, I may as well go on and tell you all about it now. We've got a good big room, furnished quite pretty with some things that Lady Cloudesley sent me. It's got a bed in it for the twins and me, but you wouldn't know it in the day-time, for there's a curtain to draw right across, and then you'd take it for a regular sitting room. Then just opposite, so that if you were bad and called out in the night, I could hear you in a minute, there's a nice little room that you're to have for your very own, Davie. It ain't very big, of course, but it holds a bed, and a chair, and a bit of a table. And, as if that wasn't enough, Lady Cloudesley sends a beautiful picture—leastways, 'tisn't a picture exactly, it's a text done in gold and coloured letters, and framed,—

"'He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.'

"Those are the words. Lady Cloudesley said as how she thought they'd be just the sort that you'd like. And there are the twins! They're grown so that I expect you'll hardly know them."

Mrs. Willis stopped for sheer want of breath.

Davie waited till she had recovered it.

"I am sure I shall be able to go to work to-morrow," he said bravely, though his heart sank still lower at the near and by no means enchanting prospect of a day's sweeping in the streets. "I am quite well now, you know, and I can stand for a good long time without feeling tired."

"There, Davie, don't go saying nothing about that," rejoined Mrs. Willis hastily. "You aren't going to work at anything just yet, I can tell you, and then I hope it won't be at the sweeping business. Perhaps you won't mind seeing to the twins a bit, but that's as much as you'll do at present. Time was—" and now from being husky, Mrs. Willis broke down completely, and went on in a voice choked with sobs—"time was when I couldn't help myself, but was obliged to let you go on slaving and starving for me. That's all altered now, I hope. If it's months and months before you get to work again, you needn't fret. Never fear, but I shall be able to earn enough for all."

There was no time for any reply from Davie, for they had now arrived at the house where Mrs. Willis lodged. And there, on the door-step, standing hand-in-hand and anxiously awaiting their arrival, were the twins.

As their mother had said, they were very much grown. They were wonderfully improved too, in looks, being quite fat and rosy now. And then they could walk quite quickly, whereas when Davie saw them last, Polly could only stand with the help of a chair, while Tom went from place to place on all fours.

But when Davie, led by the twins, entered the room of which his mother had been telling him, he could scarcely believe his eyes. It more than answered the description. It had two windows, and was most comfortably furnished, even to a square of carpet in the middle of the floor beneath the little centre table. This same little table was just now groaning beneath the weight of a feast that was tempting to behold, as was evidently the opinion of the twins, for no sooner had they reached the door than they left their long absent and sorely-missed brother, and rushing towards the more fascinating goodies, clambered on their chairs with simultaneous shouts of—

"Can din now, moder, can din now Dadie's tome."

They were good children, however, for when they found that their patience was to suffer a yet further trial, they submitted quietly, and sat sucking their thumbs with a relish that doubtless owed much to the anticipated richness of the plum-cake, the centre of attraction to their longing eyes and watering mouths.

"Now, Davie, just you look here."

He followed his mother across the passage and into another room—a very tiny one this time.

"Why, it's 'beautiful!' You don't mean to say it's for 'me' to sleep in!"

"Yes, Davie, it's your very own. You're going to have it all to yourself, dear, and if you feel bad from the children's noise, you can just come in here and be quiet a bit. You don't know what a pleasure it's been, to get it all nice and comfortable for you, against you come back."

Davie tried to speak but he couldn't, and his mother, seeing how matters were, and knowing his thoughts, perhaps, almost as well as he did himself, put her arms around him, and folded him in a close and warm embrace. At that, the tears that he had been struggling to keep back, burst forth, and for a few minutes he sobbed upon his mother's breast as though his heart would break.

"Oh! Mother, I've had such bad thoughts. I didn't want to come home, and now it's all so nice and so comfortable. I don't deserve it—I don't deserve it."

She soothed and comforted him, calling him her "own Davie," her "best of boys," and many other loving names.

Then, his tears having ceased, they went back to the other room. It was quite a merry tea-drinking. The twins were brimming over with happiness—as they were with plum-cake, before the meal came to an end—and said such queer things that Davie had no sooner finished laughing at one than he went off into a fresh peal at another. Smiles and tears kept close company with him that night, but after all, there were more of the former than of the latter, and Davie felt strangely happy when his mother came to tuck him up in his little bed in his tiny room.

Left alone, his thoughts turned into a more serious channel. How good, how "very" good, God had been to him! He would never be fearful again; he would trust Him for the future. And had he not cause? Out of what had seemed at first nothing but a terrible misfortune had come the greatest blessings both to him and his mother. How could he "prove" his gratitude and love? He knew well enough, though passively by faith yet actively by "service."

Looking up at that moment, he saw the illuminated text on the wall at the foot of his bed; a moonbeam fell upon it, and by its light he was able to read the words:

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much."

They seemed wonderfully applicable to his case, and somehow they reminded him of the "other" text he loved so dearly. With the words of that upon his lips, Davie fell asleep.

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