CHAPTER III.

THE LAW OF LOVE.

SPRINGCLIFFE is a long straggling village, stretching inland for nearly a mile in length, and consisting of but one principal street, in many parts of which the houses are but very thinly scattered. The lower village, or that portion of it which is near the sea, presents all the well-known peculiarities of a fishing village; whilst in the upper portion, everything wears an agricultural aspect. Springcliffe church is in the upper village; it is a plain stone structure, with a Norman tower, and a sweet peal of bells.

A stream runs through some rich pasture meadows on its way to the sea; and in its course works a large flour-mill, belonging to the proprietor of one of the large farms in the neighbourhood, who thus combines the trade of farmer and miller. In the mill cottage, close to the stream, lived Frank Hardy's parents and their numerous family. On the other side of the stream, steep wooded hills rise almost perpendicularly from the water's edge; and from the summit of the hills the eye wanders far away over a richly-wooded country, a great proportion of which is the property of Squire Forbes, Oak Glen.

John Hardy and his wife had a large family of children, of whom Frank was the eldest. They had lived for many years in the mill cottage; for, although Hardy was by no means a steady man, and did not bear the best of characters in the place, his master kept him on out of kindly feeling towards his wife, who had lived many years as servant at the farm before she married John Hardy. Then she had been an active, bright-looking girl, full of life and spirits; now, she was a poor, sickly, slatternly woman, finding it hard work to get food for herself and her nine children.

Had John Hardy been steady and industrious, he might, long since, have been foreman at the mill; but, more than once, he had seen younger but steadier men promoted to the post, whilst he remained in the same position he had held for years.

There was a roadside public-house, called "The Plough," not far from the mill; and there John Hardy spent a good part of his weekly earning. Whether, in former days, Mrs. Hardy had done her best to make her husband's home comfortable, whether she had at all times remembered that "a soft answer turneth away wrath," is very doubtful; but at the time of which we are writing, John Hardy rarely spent an evening at home, and his wife and children were frequently without food.

It was Mr. Giles, the farmer and miller, who had apprenticed Frank to Mr. King, and who paid for the schooling of the elder children; always upon condition, however, that they should be sent regularly to the Sunday-school and to church. Hardy and his wife were seldom seen in God's house; and it is not to be wondered at if very little of that charity which "suffereth long, and is kind," was to be found in such a godless home.

"Whatever brawls disturb the streets," says good Dr. Watts, "there should be peace at home;" but there was little peace at the mill cottage. Both parents were very passionate, and it was scarcely to be expected that their children would be otherwise. Never taught to control their tempers, the young Hardys were notorious in the village as quarrelsome, disobedient, noisy children. There was one exception, and that was little Grace Hardy, or "blind Gracie," as she was generally called. When only two or three years old, she had been thrown down by her father, who had stumbled against her as he entered his cottage in a fit of intoxication. The child fell against the sharp edge of the fender, and received such severe injury in the eyes that, after much suffering, she became totally blind.

At the time when the accident happened, Mrs. White lived in a small cottage near the Hardys. It was shortly after her husband's death, and she had not yet been set up in her little shop. Always kind-hearted, and clever at nursing, she had assisted Mrs. Hardy in her care of poor Gracie, and the child became much attached both to her and to Walter, who would sit for the hour together, endeavouring to amuse the blind child.

Gracie's affliction had proved a blessing to her. Our greatest trials are often blessings in disguise. In Gracie's case, God had sent His Holy Spirit to soften the little girl's naturally self-willed and passionate nature; and the once peevish, ill-tempered child became gentle and patient under its blessed influence. The greatest pleasure little Grace knew was going to the Sunday-school, where her gentle ways and her loving disposition made her a great favourite with her teacher. She had a sweet voice, and would sit in the summer time, for hours together, by the banks of the stream, at the end of the garden, singing over the hymns she had learned at school, and repeating over to herself what texts of Scripture she could remember. The memory of blind persons is generally more retentive than that of other people; God in His great mercy seeming to make up to them in this way for the loss of sight.

No one could look at Little Gracie and fail to see that her blindness was to her a great mercy. Living in a little world of her own, shut out from seeing the unkind looks, the angry gestures, which so embittered the lives of all the other members of her family, she was the only happy inmate of the mill cottage. Her one real sorrow was the dislike which her father ever seemed to feel towards her since the time of the accident. Whether or not it was that Gracie's sightless eyes seemed a constant reproach to him for his conduct, and that her presence continually reminded him that the fearful lesson had been thrown away upon him, it is certain that he scarcely ever addressed a kindly word to her, and would coldly repel any little affectionate advances on her part. John Hardy little knew the depth of love in his child's heart which he thus wantonly rejected, and dreamed not that the day would come when he would have given worlds to have possessed it; but it was too late.

"If father would only love me!" Gracie would say to her mother.

And then, Mrs. Hardy, who was gentle towards her blind child, though harsh and cold to everybody else, would whisper words of comfort, always ending with, "Some day he will, Gracie."

At one time the child had tried by numberless little endearing ways to win her father's love. She would creep gently up to him as he sat by the fire in the winter having his supper, and once, but only once, she had ventured to put her hand in his. But the little hand had been thrust from him with angry words, and the child had crept sorrowfully to her bed. After that she never went near her father, if she could help it; and the sound of his coming footsteps, or of his voice, was the signal for her to retreat. In summer she would hide herself in the garden; in winter, in the little room where she and her sister slept.

One of Walter White's first efforts at carpentering on his own account had been to erect a little rustic seat for Gracie, under an old elm tree which grew near the bunks of the stream at the bottom of her father's garden.

There, in the summer time, the blind child would pass hours together, listening to the song of the birds, the hum of the insects, the rustling of the leaves stirred by the passing breeze, and the pleasant rushing sound of the mill-stream. At such times the child's thoughts would wander far away into the distant future—to that blessed day when, as her Bible told her, "the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." (Isa. xxxv. 5-6, 10).

Gracie knew every word of the chapter whence these verses are taken; she had learned it at the Sunday-school, and was never tired of repeating it to herself.

"It sends away all my troubles," she would say to Walter, who was the only one to whom she ever talked on the subject; none of her own family would have understood her.

Even her mother, kind though she was to the blind child, could not enter into her feelings on religious subjects. Gracie's "precious Bible" was not yet "precious" to her mother. It is only through God's grace that the Bible can ever be to any one what it was to little blind Gracie,—

"Mine to comfort in distress, If the Holy Spirit bless,"

as says the poet. What need, then, for us to pray that God would, of His tender mercy, make His Word to be indeed a lamp unto our feet, shining through the darkest earthly day, and guiding our steps towards that heavenly country where there will be no more need of sun or candle, "for the Lord God giveth them light?"

Gracie's brothers and sisters had each Bibles of their own, given them by Farmer Giles; but they never opened them, except at school; and whenever Gracie asked either of them to read a little to her in the evening, they would burst into an unfeeling laugh, and say they were not going to read unless they were obliged.

So the blind girl had to content herself with such passages as she could remember, and would look forward to the visit which Walter generally managed to pay her every Sunday afternoon, when he always read chapter to her, in spite of the ridicule with which Frank and the other Hardy boys never failed to assail him. Walter heeded them not. He knew that he was doing a kind action, and that there was nothing "unmanly," as they called it, in reading God's Holy Word to a blind child.

"What are they all laughing at so?" asked Gracie, when Walter joined her at the seat under the elm tree. They always sat there when the weather was fine. "Were they laughing at you?" continued the child, as Walter returned no answer to her question.

"I think they were, Gracie, but I don't mind."

"But please, Walter, I mind, and I don't like that you should be laughed at for my sake."

Walter laughed at Gracie's serious tone. "Being laughed at breaks no bones, as mother says, Gracie, and, somehow, it always makes me feel stronger; that is, when my conscience tells me I am only doing what is right. That's the true test, Gracie; doing wrong is the only thing one need really feel ashamed of."

"You are very brave, Walter," said the child, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she spoke. "I am not so; Frank laughed at me the other day for singing a hymn, and I could not bear his laughing, and so I left off singing. Was it very wicked, Walter?"

"Little girls are not as strong as—" men, Walter was going to say, but he checked himself. "I mean, you can't expect to be as strong as I am, Gracie; but still you ought to try and not be ashamed of doing what is right. Our Saviour says we are not to be ashamed of confessing Him before men; and when you let your brother's laughter make you stop singing your hymn, it would seem to him as if you were really ashamed of showing that you loved your Saviour."

"I didn't mean that; indeed I didn't, Walter," cried Grace, in distress.

"I don't think you did, Gracie; but there is a verse in the Bible which says we are to keep 'from all appearance of evil'. (1 Thess. v. 22). I was reading the chapter to mother last night, and she explained it to me as meaning that it is not enough for us to feel in our hearts that we do not mean wrong,—we must so act that there can be no mistake about our motives. We must boldly do what we know to be right, regardless of consequences. You may have made Frank think that, after all, you do not really care about God and Jesus Christ, or you would never allow yourself to be laughed out of your singing your hymn. Perhaps, too, he did it for the very purpose of trying you."

"I will pray to God to make me braver next time, Walter." And then she added, with a sigh, "How I wish my mother would talk to me as yours does to you!"

"My mother is one of my great blessings, Gracie; I often think of those lines:

"'Not more than others I deserve, Yet God has given me more.'

"But where is Frank, Gracie? He was not in the kitchen when I passed through. There was only Joe and Ned there. I made sure he would have been at home this afternoon, and I wanted to speak a word to him."

"I heard him and Tom Haines unfastening the boat about half an hour since," said Gracie, "and I think they went across into the wood, for I heard the rustle under their feet."

"Is Tom Haines often here?"

"Almost every night; sometimes quite late. I hear them coming across in the boat after I have been in bed a long, long time. He says it is such a near way for him to come, now that he works near Oak Glen."

Walter was on the point of saying that Tom could not be coming home from work so late at night; but he refrained himself, and merely said,—

"I don't think Tom a good companion for Frank, Gracie. I wish he would not go with him."

"I don't like him, because he has such a loud, rough voice," said the blind child; "and once when I was sitting in the boat, he said in a loud whisper to Frank, he wondered what business I had there, and that I should do something. I could not catch what he said, but Frank answered I was safe enough, for I was blind. What do you think they meant, Walter?"

Walter guessed what they meant full well, but he did not wish to alarm Gracie; so he told her to keep as much out of their way as possible.

"Frank said I was never to sit in the boat again," said Gracie, "and I don't much care about it; so now I always sit here, and then mother says they cannot see me when they come down to the boat, because the laurel hedge hides me from them."