CHAPTER I.

SNOW AND SNOW-MEN.

VERY early in the reign of Queen Victoria there lived near a large town in Devonshire a farmer named Marlowe, a prosperous, well-to-do man, with a thrifty, good-tempered wife and half a dozen children. Mr. Marlowe owned his farm, which was a large one; and in those good old times farmers could live comfortably, and lay by a little money for their children—a state of things which has well-nigh passed away.

In Devonshire, as perhaps most people know, a heavy fall of snow is a most unusual thing. The mild, damp climate forbids the snow to lie long; indeed, it generally melts in the act of falling. But one year, early in the queen's reign, there was a snowstorm in Devon which would have been considered heavy in Scotland or Yorkshire; and with the snow came a hard frost.

Farmer Marlowe's five sons and one daughter were in strange glee. There was a large grammar-school not far off, which the three elder lads attended, and some of the boarders who came from colder regions had often described to them the delights of snow and frost—snow-balling, sliding, and even skating; but never had the young Marlowes partaken of those joys. Now they were determined to make the most of them.

In the school playground a large snow-man was built up by the boys during the play-hours "between schools," and Harry, Hugh, and Frank Marlowe thought themselves very kind and considerate for their sister Lucy and the two little boys at home, in that they refused to remain in the playground in the afternoon to assist in finishing the snow-giant, and perchance in demolishing him, should the popular fancy turn in that direction. As they trudged off, Hugh looked back, saying—

"Oh, boys, I can see his head—the snow-man, I mean. I see it over the wall, and that wall is ten feet high at least. Why, he must be fifteen or sixteen feet high!"

"Not he," said Harry, the eldest; "not more than ten, if so much. You forget that we are going uphill."

"No, we are not," said Hugh, who was somewhat famous for contradicting; "and if we were," he added hastily, "what difference would that make?"

But Harry was not going to be entrapped into an argument with Hugh, whom their father declared was born half a lawyer, so he only answered—

"Well, if you can't see for yourself, Hugh, 'I' can't make you."

"He sees well enough," said Frank; "only he must be talking. I'm half sorry, Harry, that we didn't stay, for if Uncle Jasper is as queer as he was yesterday, ten to one Lucy won't get out at all, and Jim and Polly are no good."

Polly, I must explain, was a pet name for the youngest boy, whose name was Paul.

"Well, that may be," Harry answered; "but it would be hard on the little chaps to get no fun out of the snow. Why, I'm fifteen, and I never saw a snow like this before. Uncle Jasper may have come all right again."

"'I' couldn't see a bit of change in him," said Hugh; "only Lucy and mother made a fuss."

Harry turned sharply, and caught the speaker by the collar of his jacket.

"Say that again," said he.

"No, I shan't," replied Hugh promptly, and the elder's brief anger ended in a laugh.

"Well, you 'are' a funny chap, Hugh. Don't you let me hear you saying anything saucy about mother, mind."

"I shall just turn round and go back to the playground," said Hugh as soon as he was released. "Because you are big and strong, that's no reason why you should be a bully. A bully is a disgusting character. I don't care if Lucy and the two young ones never see snow-balls. What matter about a girl and a couple of babies? I shan't lose all my fun for them. I'm going back."

"All right," said Harry composedly; "off you go;" and he trudged along the beaten track by the side of the road, followed by Frank, who, however, kept looking back as if divided in his mind.

"Why must we go home, Harry? It was such good fun in the playground."

"So 'twas, Frankie, and we had it for a good long time, and shall have more to-morrow. But we must not think of no one but ourselves, you know."

"And Hugh will be sorry by-and-by," said Frank.

"Do you know Hugh no better than that?" Harry asked, with a laugh. "Come, let us run down this hill. No, Frank; take care—it's too steep. We couldn't run. I wonder which will be at home first—Hugh or ourselves?"

They presently turned off the high-road into a lane with high banks on either side, and great ferns growing all the way from the ground to the top. These ferns looked so wonderfully beautiful that even a couple of schoolboys could not pass them without remark. The high banks had partially sheltered them, and they were not smothered in snow—only turned into white ferns, every bit of the brown and yellow of their winter coats being covered.

"Don't they look as if they were cut out in white stone?" said Frank admiringly. "Well, snow is very pretty! Still, I think I like colours best, for always."

Harry had reached the gate which shut in his father's house and garden—a large, formal garden, with one broad walk leading straight from the gate to the house. He stopped, and made a sign to the other boy to come on quietly.

"Look there!" said he. "What did I tell you?"

And there, in the middle of the broad walk, was the humble commencement of a snow-man, and hard at work collecting snow were the two little boys, Jem and Polly, aged respectively six and four, while busy about the formation of a pair of shapeless feet was no less a person than Hugh himself.

"Well, if he isn't a queer fellow!" cried Frank, with his eyes wide open.

They raised the latch of the gate, and at the sound Jem called out, "Here's the other two, Hughie."

"At last!" said Hugh. "Never thought of taking a short cut through the wood, of course! Lucy will be out in a minute or two. I say, Harry, Uncle Jasper's queerer than ever."

"He's ill, I'm afraid," said Harry. "Here, Frank, give me your books. I'll carry them in. I'll be back directly; but I want to see about Lucy."

He went on to the house—a square brick house, with a very pretty old wooden porch all overgrown with ivy, jasmine, and roses, now looking like delicate tracery cut in fine white marble. This picturesque, many-pointed porch was the only pretty thing about the house. The building was square, with smallish square windows, one on each side of the hall door, and others above them, for the upper rooms. Over the porch there was a third window in the upper row. But there was an air of solid comfort and respectability about the place, and the Marlowes saw no faults in it.

Harry entered, stamping the snow off his feet in the porch. Passing through a rather darker hall, he went into a large, comfortable room on the left side of the hall. Here a fire blazed cheerfully, and here he found his sister Lucy, a pleasant-faced, blue-eyed girl of sixteen. She held up her hand in warning, and whispered—

"Don't wake him, Harry dear."

Harry sat down near the door, and pulled off his heavy shoes; then, coming forward, he looked curiously at an old, old man, who was lying back in a great armchair placed before the fire; fast asleep, he seemed to be.

"What is the matter with him, Lucy?"

"I don't know. It seems to me as if the snow frightens him, only that is absurd, for he is not a bit silly, though he has grown so silent. But I'm sure it has something to do with the snow, and that he is always so when snow comes; for I heard father say, 'I wish the poor old chap could sleep till the thaw.'"

"He looks very weak; don't you think so?—All grey and pinched-up like. Lucy, can't you come out at all?"

"Oh yes; mother has just got through her work in the kitchen, and then she'll sit here, and let me go."

"Very good. Go you and get ready, then; I will sit by Uncle Jasper till mother comes. Put on lots of things, Lucy, for it's stinging cold."

Lucy laid by her needlework and ran lightly off, and for a few moments all was very quiet. But probably the soft buzz of the young voices had broken the old man's slumbers, for he soon moved uneasily, and presently sat up, looking round in a dazed kind of way.

"Where's Harry?" said he.

"Here I am, uncle. Do you mean me or father?"

"Is this Harry? Why—have I been dreaming? Harry was like this once. Oh, I know. I remember now. You're not 'my' Harry; but you are a good boy. Mind you always keep so, Harry. Never wander from the right way; never forget that God sees you always. You don't know what you may come to. We never know what sin we may commit, if once we go into the wrong way. Harry, is the snow gone?"

"No, sir," said Harry, a little surprised both at the long warning and the abrupt question; "no fear of that. We are going to build a snow-man. You can see a bit of him already from the window."

"Ay, ay—the window. That was the window," Jasper added, pointing to one at the end of the room, from which, of course, the broad walk and the snow-man could not be seen.

"No, not that—the front one," said Harry, a good deal puzzled.

"No! Do you think 'I' can forget?" old Jasper said, half-angrily. "It was the end window. That's the same bureau. It stood near the fireplace in those days, and old Rover was lying on the sheepskin rug. Ah me—it's a long, long time ago! When I get to heaven, I may forget, but not here, and the snow wakes it all to life. I know I am forgiven, but I never can forget. Uncle Hugh said just the same—he never could forget—and what was his sin to mine?"

"What is it that you cannot forget—and who was Uncle Hugh?" said Harry.

Old Jasper considered for a moment.

"Katie was his daughter, and she was your grandmother—so he was your great-grandfather. Oh, how long I have lived—they are all gone but me. Uncle Hugh—Harry—young Hugh—all gone. He was not really my uncle, only a cousin, but we called him uncle, Harry and I did."

"Harry—that's my father?" questioned the boy.

But he got no answer, for old Jasper had risen and gone to the front window.

"All white and pure," he said, "but treacherous too. Hiding things sometimes, and then—But the fault was not in the snow, it was all my own. Well, well! I'm forgiven, I know that. 'I have blotted out as a cloud'—eh, what's the rest of that, now? My head's going I doubt—I can't remember even that."

Harry came over to him and repeated the verse,—

"'I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins.'

"But, 'indeed,' Uncle Jasper, I don't think you ever did anything very bad. You've always been so good, as long as I can remember anything."

Jasper took a long look at the dazzling whiteness—made more dazzling just then by a sudden burst of sunshine. He shivered and said in a low voice—

"When the snow melts you will know all about it."

"Oh, he's going crazy!" muttered the boy, sincerely frightened—so frightened that it was a great relief to hear his mother's step in the hall.

"Mother!" he said, running to the door. "Come to Uncle Jasper—I don't think he is quite well."

"Why, Lucy said he was asleep! What is it, Jasper? What's making you shiver? Are you cold?"

"Cold at heart—a coward, Mary, always a coward. When the snow melts—and look at the sun now!—then all the world will know what I am. And I cannot bear it; I always said so. I can't bear it!"

"Run away, Harry; Lucy is ready now. Now, Jasper, dear heart, listen to me. Don't be gazing out at the snow, but turn this way and look at me, and put your mind to what I'm going to say."

She took his hand, and whenever his eyes began to wander from her face she pressed his poor old withered hand gently, and recalled him to attention.

"Jasper," she said, "whatever misery comes back to you with the snow, there is no one living who knows aught about it. My good-man himself only knows that you are always ill and unhappy whenever snow comes; I'm thankful that it does not often happen here. I suppose something was done when there was snow long ago; but all that knew it have passed away: and when this snow melts we shall know no more than we do now, unless you tell us yourself."

"I am always afraid I shall tell when there is snow," he said.

"And, in my opinion, you would be happier if you did tell," Mary Marlowe answered. "I don't mean, tell me, or tell every one; but my husband is a good, wise man, and, if you have a burden on your mind, he'd give you help and comfort."

Old Jasper was attentive enough now. His face was quite changed; all the look of vacant, anxious unrest had left it, and he looked many years younger and more like his former self.

"Tell the whole story!" he cried. "Why, Mary, Heaven forgive me! I remember feeling a little bit of comfort when those I truly loved were taken from us, because I could not help saying, 'Now no one living knows of my sin.'"

"Well, and has it made you happy, Jasper? Sure, I know it hasn't."

"But," he answered anxiously, "I've repented, Mary, long ago—bitterly repented! I am forgiven! Oh, surely, Mary, you think I am forgiven—and when I meet them again there will be no cloud between us."

"And what was the cloud, Jasper? I know enough of the Marlowes—open-hearted, kindly souls—to know that if they forgave, they did it heartily. So what was the cloud between you?"

"Shame," he answered.

Mary shook her head.

"Well," he went on, "if it was not that, what was it?"

"If you ask my opinion, Jasper, I'd say it was pride. When we've done wrong, and been forgiven, it is my mind that we should just make no concealments and keepings back, but stand fair out in the sight of man as we stand in the sight of God. I am sure of this—a concealed sin does our own lives more injury than any shame or any sorrow. Being hidden, it lives and gnaws at us; drag it out into the light of day, and you will kill it. All your life, ever since I came home to Marlowe Hay, you've been a gentle, loving-hearted, good man, a good friend to my children, as you were to their father before them, and to his father, as I have often been told. And yet you are not a happy man; though I know you are a true Christian, yet you are never happy. I have wanted to say this to you ever since a talk we had last summer—that there 'must' be some reason for this in yourself, for well you know there is no religious reason. He forgives freely, and puts the sin away; but you keep it to think about and grieve over—while all the time you care more that no one should know it than for anything else."

"Oh, Mary, you are hard upon me!"

"I don't mean to be hard, indeed; but I am all for being above-board and true. And don't I know that half your misery is, 'If they knew what I once did, they would never love me'? And I am very sure that that is a mistake. You are a real self-tormentor, Jasper, and always were."

"Why, that's what Harry—'my' Harry, as I call him—said to me when he was dying. He said,—

"'We never told the little lad, Jasper; and when I am gone there will be no one but poor Katie who knows a word about it, and you know she will keep your secret. This was your wish, and we have done so; but you'd be a better and a happier man if you could make up your mind to have no concealments. You will only torment yourself all your life, as you have done these many years; and though I cannot bear to vex you, I must say, once for all, that I think God means us to bear the shame of our deeds.'

"But I never had the courage to do it."

"And what a deal of sorrow and fretting you've made for yourself by it," Mary said gently.

"He added, 'And God will bring you to see it before you die,'" the old man went on thoughtfully.

He spoke no more, and Mary led him over to his chair, and made him comfortable in it. Then she took out her needlework, and a long time passed in silence, during which her mind had gone off to other matters, when suddenly the old man spoke again.

"This is 1840, is it not? Then am I ninety-five years old. And my Harry died at fifty, and his son died young, and there's no one living now that I knew when I was young. Why am I left, I wonder? Maybe, I am spared so long just to give me another chance to do what I ought. 'Tis pride. I thought it was shame and humility, but I see now 'tis just pride. And to think of such as I being proud! Well, I will give it up; I will tell it all. They'll shrink from me—the lads that I love, because they are so like my Harry. And Lucy, when she laughs, she minds me so much of Katie. She'll hardly bear the sight of me again. But I deserve it all. And when it's done, maybe God will take me home. Maybe, this is the last thing I have to do in this world. I'll do it, Lord. This very evening, if I live to see it, I will do it."

He got up slowly, took up a crutch-handle stick that lay near him, and left the room. Mary heard him cross the hall and enter his own room. She looked after him pityingly; he had a deformed foot, and walked very feebly.

"Poor old man!" she said. "I wonder will he remember? He'll be twice as easy in his mind if he keeps to his resolution; and I dare say 'twas nothing so very dreadful, after all."

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