CHAPTER IV

His Own Way

OLD Widow Evans died, and her small annuity died with her. What was Easter to do, encumbered as she was with a big, restless, daring, bold son, eight years of age? She could not bear to think of leaving him to the care of the neighbours, and going out to service again. Yet it would be hard work for some years to keep herself and him in anything like decent poverty. Her cottage, however, was built on the glebe land, and therefore belonged to the rector, who offered it to her rent-free as long as he should live.

But the rector was growing old and very feeble, being partially exhausted by those habits of self-indulgence which he had not been strong enough to break off. For a long while now his favourite vices had clung about him like a heavy chain, which he could not escape from, however sorrowfully his spirit chafed and fretted against its bondage.

"Easter," he said, "I want to have you near at hand when I'm lying on my deathbed. I cannot alter my habits now; but I long to be gone away from them, and I shall want to have you near me when my last hour comes, I know."

"Why cannot you alter them now?" she asked. "God will help you."

"It's too late; too late," he answered. "If I'd only been wise in time, Easter! But I'm a foolish old man now."

It was winter when these words were spoken, half-sadly, half-angrily, by the rector. And all through the following spring and summer he was ailing often; and Easter was always sent for in haste to nurse him. He could find no rest or peace of mind without her. Chrissie, in consequence, was left to run wilder than ever, his grandmother being dead, and his mother frequently away from home.

When she had to stay all night at the rectory, he went to sleep in some of the cottages near at hand. The cottage folks made much of him, both for Easter's sake and because they had a settled conviction that he must some day or other inherit his grandfather's heaps of money. That all the old fields, and the ancient house, and the wealth gathered together by two or three generations, should go anywhere except to Chrissie, seemed almost incredible. He was looked upon as too young to pay much attention to what elder folks talked about; but he often heard them speaking of the place as belonging in some way to him. In fact, Chrissie began to look upon his dreaded grandfather himself as his special property.

Harvest-time had come: a rich and plentiful harvest, such as opened the hearts of all who possessed golden cornfields. It was splendid weather, too; and there was no stint of good cheer and grand harvest-home suppers in all the farmsteads. Chrissie was in his element, riding triumphantly on the high-piled wagons, or as willingly tugging at the heads of the great horses that drew the heavy loads to the stackyards. He was at every feast except his grandfather's; and even there Christmas, while carving at the head of the table, caught sight of the bright, brown little face peeping wistfully in through the open door. All the village was present, for though Christmas had lost much of his popularity, his old neighbours shrank from offending him by staying away from his harvest-home. Not all, though. It had been the rector's custom to be present at the yearly feast, but this autumn his familiar face and voice were missing, and the mention of his name caused a passing gloom to fall on all faces.

"The poor old gentleman's not long for this world," said one of the farmers; "they say Easter's never left him day or night this last week."

Christmas Williams' face grew hard and dark at this bold mention of his daughter's forbidden name; but he said nothing. The supper went on, but while they were still singing their harvest songs, a messenger came hurriedly from the rectory, to call Christmas to his old clergyman's deathbed.

He obeyed the summons with reluctance. Not because he had no wish to bid his old friend farewell, and grasp his hand once more, but because he dreaded meeting his daughter. It was as he thought. When he entered the chamber of the dying man, there sat Easter beside the bed, pale, and sad, and wan: nothing like the fair young girl she was ten years ago, before he uttered his fatal oath. He would not let his eyes wander towards her, but fastened them earnestly on the rector's shrunken face.

"You see who is at my side?" said the dying old man.

"Yes," he answered.

"Christmas, my man," continued the rector faintly, "I want to do one good deed before I die. Easter has been like a daughter to me. I beg of you, for our old friendship's sake, be reconciled to her before I die."

"I'm a man of my word," answered Christmas sternly, "and everybody knows it. If Easter will give up her foolish, canting ways, and come home to be as she used to be in my house, she may come and bring her boy with her. But this is the last chance I'll give her."

"Christmas," said the dying voice, "Easter's ways are the right ways; her faith is the true faith. Would to God I could believe and feel as she does! If I could only believe as she does, that God has forgiven all my sins, and that I have only to close my eyes and fall asleep under a Father's care! Do you think she will be miserable, as I am, when she comes to die? And when you come to die, what will it avail you that you have said with your lips, Sunday after Sunday, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty,' if they are nothing but words to you? They are only words in your mouth; they are truths to Easter. You are not a man of your word in that, Christmas, my man."

"Father," sobbed Easter, and her voice seemed to pierce him to the heart, though he hardened it against her, "father, forgive me if I have sinned against you! Oh! Forgive me, and be reconciled to me! I will do anything—"

Her voice was broken off by weeping.

"Will you give up the ways I hate?" he asked doggedly and almost fiercely.

"I cannot!" she cried. "I cannot! I must obey God rather than you. I must be true."

"What has it to do with God?" he asked. "It's naught but your own obstinacy. You are a wilful woman, Easter, and you will have your own way. I don't see what God has to do with it."

"Good-bye, old friend," said the rector, as Christmas turned away to leave the room in a rage; "these are my last words to you. Be reconciled to Easter if you desire to be reconciled to God."

Christmas strode back to the bedside, grasped the old man's chilly hand, and faltered out, "Good-bye." But he would not cast another glance at his daughter.

"Easter," said the rector, "I, too, have been a wilful man, and taken my own way, and now God refuses to be reconciled to me. He is set against me as your father is set against you."

"Is He?" she answered softly. "Then don't you see that my father would take me home again as his child, if I could only repent, and give up my way to his! He is only set against me so long as I keep to my own way. It is so with God.

"'If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.'

"And oh! He is always ready to be reconciled to us; He cannot set Himself against any one of us. You have but to repent, and give up your own ways, and He will take you home again."

"But I am taken out of my own ways," he groaned; "I have nothing now to give up."

"Yet God knows if you truly repent of them," she urged. "He sees whether you are willing to give them up. If you can only believe in our Lord's words, even now! God is our Father, Christ tells us; and He is watching for us to go home."

The old man's weary eyelids closed, and his lips moved in a whisper. Easter heard him repeating words to himself, which he had often uttered carelessly in his church; but now he seemed to speak them from his heart:

"'I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.'"

She bent her head down to his failing ear.

"'But when he was yet a great way off,' she said, 'his Father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.'"

"I don't know what will become of you and Chrissie when I'm gone," he said, after a while; "you'll have to leave your cottage. But never give up your trust in God, Easter. Hold fast to that."

"Yes," she answered quietly.

"I ought to have been a better man among my people," he continued; "they have been as sheep having no shepherd. God will forgive my sins; but oh, Easter, it is a bitter thing to die, and be called into His presence as an unprofitable servant, who can never hear Him say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.' I have never done the Lord's work, and I cannot enter into the Lord's joy."

"Blessed is he whose sins are forgiven," said Easter softly.

"Ay! But more blessed still he who has worked for Him," he whispered. "I'm taking a lost and wasted life to lay before Him. Lord, have mercy upon me!"

His voice had grown fainter and weaker; and now it failed him altogether. He lay all night, and till morning broke, in a stupor, while Easter watched beside him. Then he passed away into the unknown life, which he had wilfully forgotten until his last hour was come.