CHAPTER XX.

IN MEMORY OF FARMER BLUFF.

A FEW hours later, Bill had made acquaintance with one of the narrow beds in the accident ward of the Riverbridge Infirmary, where—after going through the exhausting process of having his clothes removed, and his leg put in splints—he fell asleep and dreamt all sorts of extraordinary things. Amongst others, that the Squire had caught him stealing eggs in the hay, and had him nailed out on a flat board—like the stoats on the lower boarding of the barn; and that when he tried to get away, Farmer Bluff's dog came and barked at him. Then the dog suddenly changed into a woman with a snow-cloud on her head, who clapped ice on his forehead, to make him forget for a little while. This imaginary ice being none other than the hand of the kind-hearted night nurse, under the touch of whose cool palm Bill from time to time forgot his feverish struggles to toss about. And so the morning dawned; the first of forty days, or more, that the Bill would have to spend upon that narrow bed.

In the meantime, Dick, arrayed in Bill's Sunday suit, and escorted by the Squire, had gone off up the hill, leaving his half-dry clothes in Mrs. Mumby's charge.

Arrived at home, he was at once put to bed between blankets, and made to swallow a large basinful of hot gruel, which would have been unpalatable enough, had he not been so long fasting that anything of the nature of food was welcome.

Between the gruel and the blankets, he was soon perspiring violently, and in a sound sleep, from which he did not rouse until long after Bill—in accordance with the early rule of the Infirmary—had breakfasted. Then, feeling very much dispirited and out of sorts, and looking a wretched object, with his bruised and battered face and fists, he dressed and came downstairs, more thankful than words can describe, to find his father already gone, and as grateful for the message he had left behind, excusing him from school for the day, on condition that he did not stir outside the house.

Dick, as may readily be imagined, willingly accepted the condition, and remained at home, answering his mother's numerous questions, and enduring her reproaches as stoically as he could; and looking forward with great misgivings to the lecture which, he knew only too well, he could not hope to escape, on his father's return from business.

Next morning, he went back to school as usual, and after several days of quizzing and jeering on the part of his schoolmates, things fell back into their ordinary course. By degrees the cuts and bruises disappeared; and but for two things Dick might perhaps have soon succeeded in forgetting the whole occurrence—at any rate until Bill's discharge from the Infirmary brought him home, with one leg a full inch shorter than the other, to limp for life—a perpetual reminder of the whole disgraceful affair.

Meanwhile, Dick had been forced to abide by the harsh, though just words with which his father had concluded his lecture that evening.

"You pride yourself on common sense," said Mr. Crozier, "and have on more than one occasion rebelled against seeing by the light of my maturer wisdom. Common sense should have taught you that no person, young or old, can violate the laws of God, but they are sure to reap due punishment. Bill has learnt the wholesome truth in a manner that I hope he will not easily forget. It will be my duty to make sure that you remember too. I had intended taking you on the river this coming Bank Holiday, to give you your first lesson in rowing. But since you have so persistently and dishonourably disregarded my injunctions with regard to it, I shall put off doing so another year, or until I find that you have learnt obedience."

As time went on, Dick found this decision of his father's harder than he had even thought; for several of his schoolmates had boats upon the river, and every invitation to their water-parties had to be refused.

The hardest time of all was when Hal invited him to his birthday picnic.

Hal's birthday was always the closing fête of the summer holidays; and this year the Squire had planned an excursion to some picturesque old ruins, eight or ten miles up stream. A large pleasure-boat had been hired, with men to tow or row, as convenience required; and there were grand preparations to be undertaken in the Manor House kitchen for the rural spread. A number of cousins, boys and girls, were to join them, and Hal—as hero of the day—was invested with carte blanche to invite as many as the boat would accommodate.

"Ask just whom you please," the Squire said to him, knowing that he might rely on Hal's good taste. "The more the merrier, so long as we can see our water-mark. I want your picnic to be a grand success."

Hal instantly thought of Dick.

Now, it was not surprising that Dick, heartily ashamed of the figure he had cut on the unfortunate afternoon of Bill's accident, should have so carefully avoided Hal ever since, that they had not once so much as exchanged nods. The fact was, Dick hardly thought that Hal would care to speak to him again. But Hal, much as he disapproved of Dick's conduct, was not the sort of boy to throw him up on that account; and guessing that shame was most probably Dick's chief reason for holding aloof, he was determined to do his utmost towards bringing about a correct understanding. And here was his opportunity.

The first thing was to waylay Dick. This was not difficult. Hal had only to watch at the plantation palings till he saw Dick coming down the hill; then lay in wait inside the gate till just as he came up, and pop out on him before he had a chance to run.

Dick looked "caught," and tried to get away; but Hal was not to be done in that fashion. He button-holed him without ado, and stated his business.

Dick stammered an excuse; but Hal saw, by the blank look on his face, that there was something behind it. A little pressing brought it out.

"And it's no go," said Dick regretfully. "You might as well waste your strength trying to move a mountain as my father when his mind is made up."

Hal offered to see what he could do to soften Mr. Crozier's heart; but Dick shook his head.

"It's no go," repeated he; "and I shall have to stay away."

So all that glorious September day Dick spent in vain regrets that but for his own folly, he might have been one of Hal's merry birthday party.

But as the autumn days fell on the woods, a shadow settled on the cottage by the gate, where Farmer Bluff was drawing towards his death. Death is not always dark. The end of life is sometimes like a glorious sunset, when the light of day sinks in triumphant promise of another dawn. But Farmer Bluff had sinned, and had never made the Bible promises his own.

Hal often went to sit beside his bed.

"The others play as well without me," he would say. "I'm not much good in games, you see; and I would rather come and help you bear your pain."

"It's not so much the pain," the farmer said to him one day. "I'd go on bearing that. But they tell me that I'm going fast; and I can't see where. I've never been a praying man; and now it's dark. 'Prepare to meet thy God,' they say. How can a man prepare?—What can I do?—I've lost my right to think of ever getting Him to listen to my prayers; and I must go before His judgment-seat with all my sins upon my back."

Hal was silent.

"It's very sad," said he presently; "because, you see, you've wasted all the best part of your life. And I should think a man wouldn't like to have to go to God and ask to be taken into heaven, when he'd done so badly all along. Of course, there was the prodigal, who squandered all his father gave him so disgracefully; but you see, he was a young man, and he went back to work again as soon as the feast was over. The Bible doesn't say so; but it seems to me he'd work like two, whenever he remembered how his father ran to meet him, open-armed. You're more like the man who didn't come to work until the eleventh hour," added Hal thoughtfully.

Farmer Bluff asked to have the passage read to him.

"He got his penny just the same as all the rest, you see," said Hal, when he had finished it.

But the sick man shook his head.

"That's not like me," he said. "He worked one hour. I'm past that. I'm good for nothing; I've destroyed myself."

And Hal went away grieved; for he felt the words were just. And yet—although he knew that God was ready to receive all those who turn to Him through Christ—he could not think of how to tell him so.

But the following Sunday, as he sat beside the Squire in the high-backed Manor pew, his crutches either side of him, the "how" was made quite plain.

"This is the work of God," the vicar read, "that ye believe on Him whom God hath sent."

Will and Sigismund were very busy watching a wasp that had strayed in at one of the windows, and was making up its mind to settle on the velvet hangings of the pew. They glanced at Hal, but his thoughts were too much occupied with Farmer Bluff to notice any of their signs.

All at once he seemed to see how it is faith in Christ alone that gives the sinner peace, when looking back repentant on a misspent life.

He seemed to see, too, how that "faith" can be called "work," since "to be" alone enables man "to do."

"I've got it, Farmer Bluff!" he cried, next time he went up to his room. "Believe in Jesus Christ,—that is 'the work of God;' and you can do that lying here. It's only to be sorry, and to trust in Christ, who died for us." And sitting down by him, he found the verse and read it out.

"And I think," he added, "that perhaps in heaven God will give you something to do for Him, to make amends for what you left undone down here."

The dying man lay still for some minutes; then a light broke over his face, and he repeated,—"Only to be sorry—He knows I'm truly sorry—and to trust in Christ—who died for me. That's all 'the work of God.'"

And so, just when the bitter punishment of all his sins was near at hand, the Saviour's sacrifice brought peace and light; and Farmer Bluff began the life that might have been so full of fruit in this world and the next, had he but commenced it earlier.

But next time Hal came upstairs to see him, he said he had been thinking there was one thing he could do. "I could warn some other sinner what an awful grief it is to go down to the grave with nothing but a wasted life," said he; "and maybe they might listen to a man who hasn't many days to live."

So Hal brought Dick and Bill to see the dying man; and Farmer Bluff talked to them in a way that neither of the boys ever forgot.

"There's one thing more I want to do before I die," said Farmer Bluff to Hal, when they were gone. "I feel the end is coming fast; another day I mayn't have strength. That mug. It's on the chest of drawers. Bring it me, will you?"

Hal fetched the silver mug, and brought it to the bed.

The old man took it in his hands and turned it over many times.

"I want to give it to you," he said at length; "because I'd like it melted down. I wouldn't like to put the blame of all my folly on this silver mug; because the evil was inside me, in my evil heart, that nothing save the grace of God could change. But it seems like part of the old life. It stood there by my side and tempted me; and I should like to feel that when my body's underneath the grass, the old life is all done away. No matter what you make of it, so you promise me to have it melted down."

"I promise," answered Hal.

And the farmer put the mug into his hand.

"Then there's Grip and Blazer," continued Farmer Bluff. "I've given Grip to Dobson there, next door; but Maggie and her mother very likely mayn't stay here, and Blazer is very much attached to you. I'd like to know he'll have a master when I'm gone."

"And why not have the silver made into a collar for him?" cried Hal suddenly. "And he shall wear the mug upon his neck, in memory of you."

So it was agreed; and Hal went home.

Hal never saw his old friend any more alive. Going home through heavy rain that afternoon, he caught a chill that forced him to stay indoors for several days; and one morning, before the week was out, a message came to say that at the break of dawn, poor Farmer Bluff's spirit had departed to its rest.

The cottage by the wood was soon untenanted again. Maggie, through the Squire's interest, was got into an orphan school, where she soon gave promise of a bright and useful womanhood; and Mrs. Rust obtained a responsible place as housekeeper, where she went on saving up whatever she could spare, to lay by with the little sum of money left her by her brother at his death; so that when old age crept on she might not be a burden on her child.

Meanwhile, from the day when Blazer became Hal's property, the young Squire was seldom seen abroad without his dog; and on his neck, Blazer always wore a massive silver collar, bearing on one side his name and the four words—"Who saved two lives;" and on the other, the inscription—"In memory of his old master, Farmer Bluff."

Thus reminded what a solemn charge is God's great gift of life, Hal went onward towards the time when his aged grandfather must follow Farmer Bluff, and leave the Manor in his hands.

There is little hope that he will ever be robust enough to lead the steeplechase, or ride out in the morning mist behind the hounds. Probably he will never learn to do without his crutches, and will never be "a stalwart Englishman" to look upon. But his heart is brave and true; and these are things he does not much regret. His strong determination is to do his best in hunting out the sin and godlessness that work such havoc in the lives of men; and—God helping him—to be the foremost in the race that has the throne of heaven for its aim.

But that time, he hopes, is still some years ahead.

Meanwhile, he strives to gather wisdom as he grows; and since his copy—as he told Dick Crozier—is the perfect God-man, Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that he will grow to be a useful, honoured man, and at last receive the incorruptible crown.

THE END.

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