CHAPTER XII.

HOW THE BAG WAS EMPTIED.

[Illustration]

WHEN Aymer returned from this, the first journey he had ever taken, he made Helen laugh (though she was in no laughing mood, for she missed Clarice unspeakably) by his description of Tom Price's face when he marched into Guy's room and found them at tea.

[Illustration: HE FOUND THEM AT TEA.]

Tom beat a hasty retreat, and reappeared no more. For a long time he was unwearied in trying to borrow money; but Guy had had his lesson and was hard-hearted now, having Clarice to care for; so by degrees Tom dropped his acquaintance.

Clarice's first care was to get needlework from a London shop; this was easy, for she was really a beautiful worker.

Mrs. Browne was soon paid, and saving for the "beloved bag" begun again. Through her kind-hearted little landlady, Clarice became acquainted with Mrs. Ausley, the wife of the rector of the parish, and afterwards with Dr. Ausley, who soon took a great interest in the brother and sister.

This friendship proved the greatest possible benefit to the young Egertons; even to those at home, for everything was fully written to them, and Dr. Ausley even allowed some of his books to be sent for Helen and Aymer to read, and he kept Guy and Clarice fully provided with really good books. Moreover, Clarice contrived to get to church, and that was a most delightful event in her life. Her health did not suffer in the least from the change, and she could not doubt that her presence made Guy perfectly contented.

When nearly two years had passed, they went home for a holiday; and the happiness of that meeting was very great. The only familiar object that was no longer to be seen at Ballintra was the "beloved bag," for the contents had swelled so greatly that Aymer had placed the money in the bank at E— for greater safety.

Aymer said that the time would soon come for him and Guy to go to New Zealand, where they would work hard, get experience, and send home money enough to bring out the rest of the family. But soon after Guy and Clarice had returned to London, a most unlooked-for misfortune occurred—Mr. Egerton fell ill.

It was only a severe cold at first, but he would not allow Helen to take care of him. And before very long, he was so seriously ill that Aymer went to E— for old Dr. Garvey. For many weeks Mr. Egerton knew no one, and it seemed very doubtful that he would ever leave his bed alive. Then the fever left him, and there seemed to be no reason why he should not regain his usual health and strength. But he did not get better. There he lay, with great sad eyes looking out of a shadowy face, but he neither moved nor spoke of his own will.

Dr. Garvey said to Aymer, "Mr. Egerton, your father is an old man for his years, and I greatly fear that this is a general breaking up. It will be slow—it may go on for months. Give him good wine, strong beef-tea, and change of air, if he rallies a little. I will look in sometimes, and you can always send for me; but I don't think there is any use in my coming constantly."

He went away, and Helen wrung her hands in dismay.

"Good wine!" she said. "Two and sixpence or three shillings for every bottle! Beef-tea, with beef at tenpence a pound! Oh, Aymer!"

"The 'beloved bag' must do it, Helen. Don't cry, my dear; you can't turn your tears into beef-tea, afraid. Look you, Nell, it's a plain duty, so it must be done. We have the money; he is our father, and so we must not hold back. Guy and Clarice will say just the same."

So you see Clarice's words and example had not been thrown away. Indeed, when the two go together they are seldom lost—though the words without the example go astray sometimes.

Meantime, Mr. Egerton, silent always, watched and wondered. Had he been the most tender of fathers, he could not have been more carefully nursed. Helen never spared herself. The nourishing food and wine did him good, and he gained a little strength.

Helen was often aware that her father was watching her; at last, one day, he spoke.

"Helen, we cannot afford all this. I suppose we are in debt already?"

"Oh no! Aymer pays for everything."

"Aymer! What, out of that hoard that Clarice once spoke of?"

"Yes; and Guy and Clarice want you to go to them for a change, when you get better."

"I don't think I shall get better. Not your fault, Helen; you are doing all you can."

A day or two later, Aymer, finding the sad eyes fixed wistfully on him, said cheerily,—

"I think you are stronger to-day, sir."

"If I am not, I cannot blame you for it. Will you answer me one question truly."

"If I answer it at all, sir."

"Then tell me why you—all of you—spend your hard-earned money—which you will sorely want—on one to whom you owe nothing, and whom you have never pretended to love?"

Aymer reddened and hesitated. At last he said, bluntly, "We could not help doing so plain a duty as this."

"So you all spend your money, and Helen her time and strength, because it is your duty. I want to know who taught you that?"

"My mother—she began it; and surely she did hers. And then Clarice got us to read the Bible. It's all there, you know, sir."

"Boy," said Mr. Egerton, half angrily, "no one could do as you are doing merely because it is written in a book!"

"I'm no good at explaining, sir. And if you put yourself out, you'll be bad again."

Next day, Mr. Egerton asked Helen to write and tell Clarice that he wanted to see her.

Clarice was very reluctant to go.

"He used to puzzle Aymer and Helen with questions," she said, "when he found them reading the Bible or the books we send them; and Aymer told me he used to get quite unhappy, for the doubts suggested would keep coming back, until at last, he always went away at once, and would have no talk. And when we went home, I took him a present of that book of which Dr. Ausley thinks so highly, and he would not even open it. He said he had known the author, who was an enthusiast. What could I say to him? I should only do harm."

Still, when her father went on in the same way, not getting any better, and always begging of her to come home, she felt that she ought to go. Guy took her to Dublin, and Aymer met her in E— and accompanied her home.

Her father seemed pleased to see her; but as days passed, and he said nothing particular to her, she began to think that her fears had been unfounded; and before long she almost wished he would speak. He looked so sad; he seemed to be always thinking. At last one evening, when she was sitting at work in the window of his room, he suddenly said,—

"Clarice, come here. I want to ask you a question—you need not look so frightened, child. I suppose Aymer has been telling you how I once puzzled him with questions. Aymer is no genius; yet his simple answers puzzled me more than my questions puzzled him. But, Clarice, all that looks very small when one comes to lie where I lie now. Little discrepancies—little difficulties—what are they in the face of the great realities?"

"What great realities?" whispered Clarice, after waiting silently for some time.

"Death—Conscience—Eternity!" he answered. "In my worst days I never doubted that there is a Hereafter. I simply never thought of it. It was you, Clarice, long ago, set me thinking."

"I, papa?"

"Yes, a few words you said; but, far more, the fact that there is in your life a something—a motive-power, which cannot be a delusion. I am weak now, and I believe I am talking like a fool; but it has come to this, that I would give—oh, what would I not give?—to be able to believe. But I have cherished my vain doubts and questions, and I played with my idle speculations so long that all is mist. I cannot lay hold of anything."

"I am not sure that I understand you, papa."

"I am not sure that I understand myself," he answered, with a sad smile. "Since your namesake, my sister Clarice, died, I have never thought much about religion. I have gone on—dreaming—doing nothing, in fact. If conscience awoke for a moment, I silenced her. I laid the blame of my wasted life on—circumstances, on my father, on anything and any one but myself. From this state I have been awakened—how, I hardly know. I do see my sin—I do repent; but when I would take another step and cry for mercy—then all is mist. I have amused myself by seeing how the Christian religion can be explained away, until now when I turn to it in my bitter need, it eludes my grasp—I can see no certainty—no hope. It is all mist!"

"Papa, I once heard Dr. Ausley preach on the subject of doubts and difficulties of this kind, and I will tell you something of what he said. He began, if I remember rightly, by saying that until the history of our Lord and of His apostles was proved to be a fiction from beginning to end, the credulous people were those who try to account for it on natural grounds. I am not making it plain, papa—I wish I could."

"I understand; go on."

"Then there was St. Paul. He had everything to lose, and nothing to gain. He was wise, well-educated, and had reasoning powers beyond the common. Why did he believe? He said he saw the Lord—he must have known whether that was true or false. Do men throw away everything they value in life for the pleasure of being persecuted for telling a he?"

"Go on, child—go on."

"And those twelve men of a conquered and despised nation, unlearned and ignorant men, too—yet their teaching upset the religion of great Rome, and has gone on spreading ever since. But the thing that struck me most in what Dr. Ausley said, and you said something like it just now, was—'that every Christian life, however weak and faulty, is a miracle greater than any other. Because,' he said, 'here are sinful men, weak women, silly young people, tempted and tried, and yet going on somehow, living a life that is not only not easy, but actually against their very nature.'"

"I have felt that," Mr. Egerton said. "Clarice, I think my time is short. What had I better do?"

"Papa, would you not let Aymer go to E— and ask Mr. Monroe to come to see you?"

"No, no!" he answered. "Not that—not yet. I could not bear it."

The very thought of seeing a stranger agitated him so much that Clarice felt that she could not press it.

"Then let me read the Bible to you, papa."

"The miserable old doubts will come back."

"Oh no! For now you feel the want—you wish to believe it. Oh, dear papa, turn the wish into prayer! You are not vexed with me, papa?"

"No, not at all vexed. Come to-night and read to me. I am clearer at that time, I think, than any other. When Helen has left me, do you come."

"I will—gladly."

"And leave me now, child."

She had nearly reached the door when he called her back.

"Clarice, you tell me to pray. How can I pray when I cannot believe? It would be a mockery."

Clarice came back with her slow and painful step, and looking down tenderly at him she said,—

"I have read in a book I like so much, that there is a lesson to be learned from one of our Lord's miracles, which one does not see just at first. It is the healing of the withered hand. The man's hand was quite useless, perhaps he had not been able to move it for years. Our Lord said, 'Stretch forth thine hand.' Suppose the man had answered, 'I cannot—there is no power in it?' But he just obeyed, and the power was there. Whether the intention to obey brought the power, or the power came with the intention, no one can say."

She went away then, and this time he did not call her back.

After this Clarice read the Bible diligently to her father. At first she chose the portions she thought most likely to be useful, but after a few days he began to ask for this or that part, which he wished to hear. But he only listened in silence—he spoke to her no more. Every day he became more gentle and patient; more grateful to them all for the kindness and tenderness which he felt was so undeserved. But his natural reserve and his long habit of silence were not to be overcome now. Therefore it was a great happiness to Clarice, indeed to all of them, when he asked Aymer to invite the Rector of E— to visit him, which that gentleman did regularly from that time.

Time slipped by. Mr. Egerton made no rally. The hard-earned savings were melting away, in spite of Helen's economy. The "beloved bag" would soon be quite empty. Yet not even Aymer complained, though he often wondered sadly what he was to do when he should be left penniless with two young children to support, and Helen, homeless.

One day Mr. Egerton said to Clarice, "I want you to write a letter for me, my dear, and tell Aymer to come here, that he may hear what I say."

Clarice obeyed, and was soon ready to write.

Mr. Egerton's weak voice began:

"'My dear father.'

"Have you written that, Clarice?"

"Yes, papa."

"And, Aymer, you are attending? Go on now, my dear.

"'You may not care to read this letter; yet, as it comes from a dying man, from one who may be dead before you open it, do not refuse to do so. You loved me once, and I was ungrateful and disobedient. For all these long years I have never asked your pardon; but I do so now. I am slowly but surely passing away from this world—I trust, through the marvellous mercy of God in Christ, to a better. If I have any injury to forgive, I do it freely. Forgive me, dear father, and forget my long hardness against you.

"'I will not say more, lest you should think that I write only to ask you to befriend my children. No man ever had more reason than I have to thank God for good children; no man ever deserved them less.

"'And now, father, I say farewell, and God bless you!'

"I will try to sign it, Clarice."

"You are very weak to-day," she said, startled to see how difficult he found it to hold the pen.

"I am," he said; "I think I am much weaker. Aymer, is there anything in that to which you object?"

"Nothing, father; I think you have done quite right."

"I have not said anything about your future," Mr. Egerton said, in a low voice.

"And I hope you won't, sir. From your father I would not accept sixpence to keep us all out of the poorhouse!"

"You would not ask for it; and I cannot blame you, Aymer. Yet, I beseech you—little as I have deserved of you, don't deny me my only request—if they offer to help you, don't refuse it. I know what you were saving for, and I know how your money is being spent. I cannot help it—I cannot even wish you not to do what you feel to be right; but don't fancy that I don't feel it. All for me! And I never worked nor cared for one of you. And once for all, children," (Helen had come in with some soup for him), "once for all, let me speak. You four—you poor, neglected, overworked children—have been living proofs to me that religion is not all imagination, which have outweighed the belief, or unbelief, of a lifetime. Children, I cannot think that my blessing will avail much, yet I must bless you, and ask you all to forgive me. I have no excuse to offer, Aymer," he added, turning a wistful look upon his eldest son. "You must forgive me freely, if you can forgive at all."

"Father," said Aymer, with a sob, "I do—I do, indeed! And you'll forgive me. I was very disrespectful."

"I have nothing to forgive. Never man had such children. I dare to believe that these is forgiveness for me with God, as you can forgive. You and—your mother: she forgave me, too. My poor Elise—my poor Elise!"

He never spoke again; he passed away in quiet sleep, utterly worn out. Aymer posted the letter the next day, merely writing beneath his father's trembling signature, "My father died a few hours after dictating this letter."

No answer was received, but the letter was not sent bank torn in two.

Between the scanty remains of the "beloved bag" and what was realised by the sale of furniture and stock, enough money was raised to take Aymer out, alone, to New Zealand.

Guy undertook the care of the others, assisted, of course, by what Helen and Clarice could earn, until among them they could save enough for passage-money and outfit again.

Lizzie and Donald, however, begged to have Frank and Agnes left with them until that time should come. And it was so plainly the best plan for the children, that the rest consented, though the parting was a very hard matter.

As soon as all their affairs at Ballintra were arranged, the four Egertons went to London. Everything was soon ready for Aymer's departure; another day, and he would leave them.

Mrs. Browne had contrived to spare another bedroom rather than lose her lodgers, so Clarice was sitting in her old place in the little parlour sewing buttons on Aymer's shirts, and damaging their stiffness by crying over them, when the door opened, and some one came gently in. She did not look round, because she was trying to dry her eyes unperceived, when the new-comer said, laying a hand on her shoulder,—

"What, crying, Cousin Clarice? And won't you even look at me, after this long time that we have never met?"

"Why, Villiers! Is this really you? Oh, how glad I am to see you! But I'm afraid you ought not to be here."

"Why, Clarice?"

"Your grandfather!"

Villiers sat down beside her and took her hand in his own.

"Dear cousin," he said, "our poor grandfather is dead. You know about the letter that poor Uncle Guy sent him—I think it was in your writing. Well, when it came, he read it quietly enough; quite calmly, in fact, and told us,—

"'My younger son, Guy, is dead.'

"And though we thought he looked pale and ill, he never gave in a bit or made any further remark about it. But two days afterwards, he died quite suddenly—he was not ill for more than a few minutes, and we all believe that it was suppressed agitation—the unnatural strain it must have been—that killed him. I was with him, of course. He hardly spoke; but once, with a great effort, he made a few words plain.

"'Villiers, you'll find a letter in my desk—see to it.'

"And that letter, Clarice, contains an order on his bankers for one thousand pounds, and it is directed to Aymer."

"Oh, Villiers! And Aymer was to leave us to-morrow and go alone to Now Zealand. Now we can all go together, as we used to plan it."

Then she added, sorrowfully, "I think I am very hard-hearted, to rejoice over it, and never care for poor Sir Aymer. He wished to be kind at last, you see."

The others came in presently, and were told the news—good news, as they could not help feeling it to be.

Next day Lady Anne came to see them, and by her graceful tact, she actually induced Aymer to allow his cousin to make them all a present of their outfit and passage, so that their little capital might reach Now Zealand untouched. And then, taking Helen and Clarice with her in her carriage, she purchased such an outfit as they had never dreamed of. There was hardly room to move in Mrs. Browne's little rooms, as there was such a large number of boxes.

Aymer went "home," as they still called Ballintra, for the children; and Guy gave Dr. Majoribanks notice that he could not remain with him any longer. Dr. Majoribanks was terribly angry, and as much surprised at what he was pleased to term "young Egerton's ingratitude," as if he had invariably been kind and considerate to him, instead of having been a hard taskmaster to a most painstaking secretary.

Lady Anne took such a fancy to Clarice that she wanted to keep her, promising that she should be as her own daughter; but Clarice was not to be tempted; and the others raised nearly as great a disturbance as they had in old times, when Elise Anderson proposed to take Clarice home with her.

The rest may be imagined. A pretty, irregularly built house, all covered with flowers, stands on thriving sheep farm in New Zealand, and bears the name of Ballintra. It is not very long since the Egertons went out, but so far they have prospered greatly, and there is good reason to hope that their prosperity will be lasting. Sir Villiers Egerton has visited them twice, coming out in his steam yacht, the "Clarice," bringing them books and pictures, and everything which he thinks will add to their comfort.

A very happy household theirs is, and not the least cheerful and useful of the party is "young Egerton's lame sister," as the scattered neighbours call her. Yet she is still, and will always be, a crippled sufferer; but she holds by her old resolution: she does what she can. And any one can do that.

Yes—but what a changed world it would be, if every one did it!

[Illustration]

————————————————————————————————————— Pardon & Sons, Printers, Paternoster Row, London.