CHAPTER VI

A True Man

CHRISTMAS WILLIAMS, after locking the strong, heavy door on his little grandson, had gone back to his house, having no longer the desire to spend a quiet, loitering hour in his garden. The smouldering passion, which had burst into so sudden a flame, was not yet subsiding. He had held his grandson in his hand, between his arms, had had his little face close beside his own; yet he had neither embraced nor kissed him. In the depths of his nature he was longing secretly to do so, and to claim the bold, brave little rascal for his own. When the lad turned to him and said, "Don't let mother know; it would break her heart," his pride had well-nigh given way.

But he had held out so long that it was like tearing up the roots of an old tree to yield now. What would the world say, if he went back from his word? How he would be jeered at if Easter was seen going from his door to those canting meetings!

He had some vague idea of an ancient magistrate who had doomed his own son to death, because he had sworn so to punish the offenders against the laws. He had heard read in church how Saul had pronounced the same fatal sentence upon his eldest son, Jonathan:

"God do so and more also: for thou shalt surely die, Jonathan," said Saul.

These were men true to their word. How could he look his neighbours in the face if he meted out one measure of punishment to one thief and another to his grandson?

But for one of his own blood to go to jail! Christmas Williams' grandson a jailbird! He wished earnestly he had not been so hard on the young rascals who had robbed his orchard before, so that he might have had a decent pretext for letting off Chrissie. He did not doubt that it would break Easter's heart, and he had merely wished to break her will. They said lads never got over the shameful fact of having been sent to jail; that it clung to them for life. His own experience taught him pretty much the same lesson; he had never known such a lad recover from the disgrace and become a thoroughly respectable man. He could count half a dozen instances. The shadow of the jail stretched itself all across their after lives. If he had only given the last young thief a few stripes, and sent him about his business, he might have done the same for Chrissie.

As the evening passed away, these troublous thoughts grew more clamorous. He was sitting on the hearth where his forefathers had spent their quiet evenings before him good, honest men; and possibly he might live to hear of his grandson, their child as well as his, being convicted of some great crime, and sentenced to transportation or penal servitude for life. It would have been himself that had given the child the first push down the long and awful flight of steps leading to the terrible gulf. That would be the shameful end of his upright, thrifty, truth-loving race. Had he, then, any right to doom his family, and its own honoured name, to such a close? Could he not yet turn back only a half-step, and take another road? He had not gone too far on this perilous path. Not a soul knew that Chrissie was locked up in the old crib. He would see if he could make the boy promise faithfully not to tell if he released him. He had the old blood in his veins, and, perhaps, young as he was, he could keep a promise.

The clock had struck eleven before Christmas came to this conclusion, a halting, half-false conclusion, of which he was inwardly ashamed. He did not like taking a middle course, so he rose up slowly, and leisurely opened the house-door, still hesitating about this compromise with his resolution to treat Easter and her boy as if they were utter strangers. He crossed the lane and paced along the churchyard with very slow footsteps. All was silent in the village; the only sounds to be heard were the brawling of the river and the hooting of the white owl in his barnyard. There was but one light to be seen, excepting the glimmer through the window of that room where the dead was lying, and that light was up in one of the rectory attics, shining brightly into the darkness of the night. Very likely it was Easter's candle, thought her father; she loved to keep the window open on summer nights.

Christmas was a man who knew nothing of fear, superstitious fear above all. He paced to and fro in the dark churchyard, thinking of how he should deal with the boy, and in what manner he should dispose of him for the rest of the night. Certainly he would upbraid and threaten him; call him a thief and a disgrace, young and little as he was. He must frighten him well. But where was he to take his grandson? All the cottagers were gone to bed; and it would never do to call them up to take in Chrissie, and so learn the very weakness he wished to hide.

It never occurred to him that the young child was already frightened almost to death. He had seen him only as bold and daring, and he could not understand a nature that was full of vague fancies and imaginations, and superstitions fed on the village traditions. He fitted the key into the padlock before he had quite settled what he was about to do; and at that instant Chrissie's wild and agonized shriek rang through the air. The sound almost paralyzed him. How he managed to turn the key, he could not tell. He rushed into the utter darkness of the cell, where he could see nothing and hear nothing.

"Chrissie!" he cried. "Chrissie, my little man! I'm here; thy grandfather, my lad. I'm not angry with thee any longer. Speak to me! I've come to take thee home; and thou shalt have as many apples as thee pleases. Oh, Chrissie! Whereabouts art thou? Rouse up and speak to me."

There was neither voice nor sob to answer him or to guide him. Groping about in the darkness, he found the little unconscious body of the child lying in a heap on the stone floor. He lifted it up tenderly, and pressed it again and again to his heart. He felt no longer any kind of doubt as to what he would say or do. If he could only hear the boy's voice, he would throw to the winds all his cherished anger and resolution, and take his grandson and his daughter home again.

He carried Chrissie into the churchyard, speaking to him imploringly to wake up and give him some sign of life. As he looked up to the attic window where the light was burning, he saw Easter's head leaning out. The cry that had frightened him had startled her also; and she was listening for it again.

Christmas called to her.

"Easter, come down," he cried, in a lamentable voice; "your boy is dead, perhaps; and it's your father killed him. Oh, Chrissie! My little grandson, rouse thee, and speak only one word!"

In another minute Easter was down and beside them, chafing the cold hands of her boy, and stroking his face, and calling him with her tenderest voice. But still he lay like one dead on his grandfather's breast.

"Easter," said her father, with a deep-drawn breath, "I found the child stealing apples in my garden, and I dealt with him as I've dealt with others. I locked him up in the crib, and left him alone there. I was about to let him free again when I heard that terrible shriek, and I found him like this. Easter, can you forgive me?"

"Father," she answered, in a mournful, solemn voice, "I forgive you with all my heart."

"What! If the child dies?" asked Christmas, trembling and faltering as he uttered the words.

"Yes," she said; "I know you did not mean to do it. But oh! He will not die. My little Chrissie! My only little child! Pray God he may not die!"

"Kiss me, Easter," said her father.

With a strange sense of solemnity and sorrow, Easter kissed her father's face, with the lifeless body of her child lying between them.

"Come home, Easter, come home!" he said, sobbing.

Almost in silence, Christmas and his daughter trod the familiar churchyard paths once again together, trodden so many hundreds of times by them both; but never as now. He bore his beloved burden, groaning heavily from time to time. If he lost this disowned grandson, he felt as though his heart must break.

They laid Chrissie in his grandfather's own bed, and both of them watched beside him all night. The doctor, who had to be brought from his home five miles off, and who could not reach them till the day was breaking, told them that Chrissie was suffering from the effects of a severe shock, but that there was no reason to dread any abiding and serious results, if he was treated with common care.

Common care! It was no common care that was lavished upon the boy by Christmas. All the pent-up tenderness of these long years overflowed upon Chrissie and upon his daughter, now she was at home again. To his great amazement, he discovered that the world, so far from jeering at the reconciliation, applauded it far more cordially than it had ever done his stern resentment. He was congratulated on every hand for having taken home his daughter and her son; and old friends flocked about him again as they had not done for years. The whole village seemed to rejoice over the event. And when Christmas sent for the lad who had been Chrissie's predecessor in the old crib, and took him his word to into his own service, pledging his word to make a man of him if possible, his popularity had never stood so high.

It was then, after giving up his own self-righteousness, and pulling down the wall he had built up to shut out the light of heaven, that Christmas Williams became able to learn how man can believe in God and in Jesus Christ who died for our sins. The creed he had uttered so often with his lips became the true expression of his heart. As he stood in the churchwarden's pew, reverently saying, "I believe in God the Father Almighty," and in "the forgiveness of sins," he would often glance towards Easter, who had taught him the meaning of those words; and there was nothing he loved better than to hear Chrissie's voice repeating them with him.

It is probable that Christmas Williams would have been the first to have helped, churchwarden as he was, in building a chapel, where the simple Gospel of Christ could have been preached to the villagers; but there was no longer any need for it. The clergyman who soon came to occupy the place of the old rector was an earnest, true, and enlightened servant of Christ, who knew his Master's will, and was intent upon doing it.

"A man can't be true," says Christmas, "until he is true towards God. I prided myself upon being a man of my word, and meaning all I said, though I spoke a lie every time I said, 'I believe.' I didn't believe in God, nor in Jesus Christ our Lord, nor in having any sins to be forgiven. A man must be made true in the darkest corners of his heart before he can be a man of his word."

THE END

——————————————————— Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.