CHAPTER IV

TOM

ONE day Harebell paid a visit to Miss Triggs. She rode over to the village to post a letter for her aunt, and saw the little dressmaker at her cottage door. It was a very easy matter to tie Chrysoprasus to the gate-post.

"May I come in and see your little house?" Harebell asked.

Miss Triggs led the way proudly into her best parlour. The window was shrouded with flowers and muslin curtains. There were fashion papers on the round table, and an unfinished dress or two hanging up on the wall. Harebell thought it a very pretty room; she admired the dried grasses on the chimneypiece, and the bright-coloured pictures on the walls. Then she looked at an illuminated text over the door.

"'He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness.'"

"Is that a text?" she asked.

"Yes, isn't it a nice one for a dressmaker?" said Miss Triggs brightly. "I make clothes for people's bodies, but the Lord makes clothes for our souls."

Harebell looked at her with bright grave eyes.

"You're a very good person," she said reflectively. "Do you know, I don't know whether I'm through the Door or not. I have asked God to take me through, but I don't feel any different. How do you know whether you're through or not?"

"That's where faith comes in," said Miss Triggs, with a beautiful smile on her face.

"If you kneel down and ask Jesus to take you through, He will. And you must believe He has done it. Why, my dear, you've just to hold out your arms to Him. He loves you; He wants to have you in His Kingdom. Of course He does. He opened the Door into the Kingdom when He died upon the Cross. It has been standing wide open ever since for us all to go through. You won't have any difficulty in getting through—but there's a lot of difficulties after."

"Tell me."

"Well, p'r'aps I shouldn't say so, for He makes it easy. 'Tis the life of the Kingdom. We have to live like children of the Kingdom."

"Subjects," corrected Harebell. "A king has subjects in his Kingdom; Mr. Garland said so. I like the word subject much better than a child. It—it sounds more important and grown-up. I'm a subject if I'm through."

"You'll have to obey the laws, and fight and work for your King."

Harebell nodded.

"I know what the laws are—the ten commandments."

Then, with a child's inconsequence, she changed the subject.

"I want to see your brother. Is he here?"

Miss Triggs' bright smile faded.

"No, dear, he isn't. He spends most of his time away from me. Will you come in and see my mother? She dearly loves a visitor."

So Harebell went into a bright shining kitchen at the back of the house. There was a sewing-machine in one corner and a table littered with work. Miss Triggs' mother sat in an armchair by the fire. She was very old, but she looked at Harebell with bright eyes.

Harebell shook hands with her, and began to talk.

Miss Triggs went away for a few minutes, and in her absence Harebell asked eagerly:

"Mrs. Triggs, who do you like best, your wicked son or your good daughter?"

The old lady raised her head.

"I'll have nobody comin' here and abusin' my son, that I won't. He may be foolish, but he be my boy, and he be very good to his old mother."

"Oh!" said Harebell, abashed. "I—I—thought he was a drunkard. I would like to see him."

But Mrs. Triggs muttered angrily to herself, and when Miss Triggs came back, she could not soothe her.

"'Tis you a-callin' your brother such names and tellin' the whole place of his failin'. Take the little maid away. She be like the rest, just abusin' of him, like as you've teached her!"

Harebell retreated to the door, frightened at the old woman shaking her fist in her face.

"Tell her I'm sorry, Miss Triggs."

Miss Triggs led her out of the cottage.

"Yes—yes, dear, 'tis only mother's way. She loves my brother like a mother, you know, and can't bear any one to miscall him."

Harebell mounted her pony and rode thoughtfully away. But a little farther on, she happened to meet Tom Triggs. He was slouching along with his hands in his pocket. For a moment he looked up and eyed her.

Harebell's spirits rose at once.

"Are you Miss Triggs' brother? I hoped I would see you. I've been to see your cottage."

"Seen the old woman? Yes, I be Tom Triggs right enough. A thorough bad un, so they say."

He gave a surly laugh.

"But your old mother is very angry with me," said Harebell looking at him with interest. "Because—you promise not to be angry—I called you her wicked son."

The man's surliness vanished. His eyes twinkled. "You were a bold little un. An' what did her say?"

"I can't tell you, but she was very angry, and Miss Triggs says she loves you, and that's why it was." Then Harebell said cautiously: "Do you drink all day long? Isn't it rather difficult? Now I like eating better than drinking. I wonder if I was to eat all day long whether it would be wicked? I should have to choose my food, for I certainly couldn't eat porridge or bread-and-butter all that time. I think I could manage a good many jam tarts."

Tom Triggs laughed; he straightened himself up and stroked the nose of her pony. Then Harebell told him his name, and they were deep in talk over ponies' names and their habits and tricks, when the Rector came up. Tom Triggs lowered his head, and slouched off, but not before Harebell had called after him:

"Good-bye; I hope I shall see you another day."

Then, with an explanatory wave of her hand after the retreating figure, she said:

"It's Miss Triggs' brother, and I like him. I think he and me are going to be friends."

"I wish he could be persuaded to do some work," said Mr. Garland rather sadly.

"Has he got any he ought to do?" asked Harebell.

"He's a carpenter by trade. But nobody will employ him, as he won't stick at any job, and lives half his days at the 'Black Swan,' spending his sister's hard-earned money."

"Can't you tell him not to?" said the little girl with knitted brows.

The Rector looked at her with a smile and sigh.

"I am afraid my words are wasted. He and I have had many a talk. When a man makes drink his master, he cannot get away from it."

"I suppose," said Harebell softly, "God could get him away."

"Yes, little one. God alone can help him now."

"If he gets through the Door, he'll be all right. I'll ask him."

The Rector did not quite understand her. Then he asked after her aunt.

"Aunt Diana is always well, I think, like me. She hasn't melted yet."

The Rector shook his head at her.

"Ah! You little know your aunt's troubles," he said, and then with a nod, he passed on, and Harebell rode home very thoughtfully.

She tackled Andy as he was cleaning the silver in the pantry after tea.

"Andy, what are Aunt Diana's troubles? I didn't know she had any."

"Most on us have troubles," said Andy slowly; "and some take 'em softly, and some hardly, but have 'em we must."

"I haven't any just now," said Harebell. "Of course I've had a lot—chiefly in India, you know—mostly deaths I've had. They get killed so quickly in India—'specially puppies. Has Aunt Diana had many deaths belonging to her?"

Andy shook his head mysteriously.

"Ay, death would have been better, I'm thinkin'; 'twas a bad time for her. But there, I reckon she'd rather have it over again than be without the master as she is."

"Who is the master?"

"Why, Colonel Keith, to be sure."

"Is he dead?"

Andy lowered his voice.

"Hush you now, and don't be speakin' of it to a soul. The Colonel is not dead—just away in foreign parts. You see, he were very strong-willed, and so is she, and they are both hot-tempered, and he used to struggle hard—that I know to be a fact—to get the better of it, but her sharp words didn't help, and then one day there were a fine rumpus, and she said she'd rather be chained to a brute beast than to him—I heard her myself; but she were so hot that she didn't know rightly what she were saying, and he says:"

"'All right, I snap your chains, and you are free!'"

"With that he walks right out of the door, and never comes back again, nor sends her one word, and that were six years ago last Christmas. But I knows, he be alive, for he always giv' me a pocket gardener's di'ry every Christmas. Me and him were very good friends; and if you believe me, that pocket di'ry have never missed coming to me every Christmas since he went."

Harebell's face was a study; surprise, excitement, and keen interest flitted across it.

"Oh," she said, "poor Aunt Diana! How she must want to see him!"

"She's turned hard and cold, but her heart inside be right," said Andy. "I seed her take up my di'ry one day when I laid it on my pantry table, and when she put it down, her lips were all of a quiver."

"Could we write to him and ask him to come back?"

"Bless your little heart, nobody knows which quarter of the globe he be in—"

"What relation is he of mine?"

"I s'pose as how he be an uncle, eh?"

"Uncle what?"

"Uncle Herbert; but don't you go for to mention his name, or you'll get old Andy into trouble."

"I'll only mention him to God," said Harebell, rather loftily; "and I'll ask God not to tell anybody, if you like."

Andy turned away his head.

"'Tis something scandalous the way she talks of the Almighty," he informed Goody later on; "and yet 'tis done quite innocent like. 'Tis to be hoped the Almighty understands her, for I'm sure I don't."

"A good lot has happened to me to-day, darling Chris," said Harebell softly in the ear of her pony, as she wished him good-night that evening. She was getting quite accustomed to give him her confidences.

"It's a great comfort to tell secrets to some one who can't talk," she said to herself.

"You see, Chris, I've heard about one new man, and I've made friends with another, and it's very exciting to hear about an uncle of mine who I never knew belonged to me. I'm very sorry Uncle Herbert was so cross and ran away, but I dare say he's quite good now, sitting in some corner by himself and thinking about Aunt Diana. It's dreadful not to be able to tell him how unhappy she is without him. If he knew she wanted him, he would come tearing back to-morrow. Of course my best plan will be to ask God if He will be kind enough to make him understand. In a dream, or something like that. But I'll leave Him to do it the way He likes best. Isn't it nice, Chris, to have God knowing about everybody and everything and able to speak all over the world in the same minute? wonder if you understand about Him? He made you, so I expect He speaks to you sometimes."

She was a long time over her prayers that evening. Goody waxed rather impatient.

"It's just chattering, not praying that you're doing," she said a little severely, when at last with a happy sigh, Harebell got up from her knees.

Harebell looked up at her solemnly.

"Why, I've been pouring out, simply pouring," she said. "I had an awful lot to pray about."

Goody shook her head in disapproval, but she had learnt not to argue with Harebell.

Harebell never rested till she had another interview with Tom Triggs; and this time she was perched on the garden wall, when he slouched by.

Mrs. Keith had gone out to tea, and Harebell was left to play alone in the garden. She beamed all over when she saw who it was.

"If I jumped, could you catch me?" she asked.

Tom looked quite alarmed.

"You'd break your legs. Don't ye try it."

"But if there was a fire, and this was a window, you'd have to catch me," said Harebell.

"But there ain't a fire," argued Tom.

She sat swinging her small legs to and fro, looking down upon him with bright interested eyes.

"I wish," she said slowly, "that you would have a sweet little cottage of your own, Tom, with some nice little children, then you could ask me to tea. I should love to come."

Tom laughed. He took out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco from a greasy tin box in his pocket.

"Cottages and children cost money," he said. "I'm stony broke."

"But you could work for money, couldn't you? And give up drinking beer, that costs a lot of money."

"Ah," said Tom, "this 'ere pipe and a mug o' beer be better company than anybody else. The women and children be only a burden."

"I didn't say anything about women," said Harebell; "but I s'pose you'd have to have a wife to mind the children when you went to work."

Tom looked at her with twinkling eyes. Then his mood changed. He clenched one on his fists.

"Little missy, I'd give this 'ere right hand o' mine to be quit o' the drink sometimes. There was a lass once who loved me. She and me had set our hearts on that there cottage top o' village agen the old oak. We was for havin' our banns cried, an' I were so dazed wi' the luck in front o' me, I went and drunk more'n a man ought, and then visited my maid, afore the stuff had worked itself out o' me. She were one o' the Maxworthy stock, and held her head high, an' she sent me off, and would have none o' me. So that sent me to the devil!"

"Oh," interrupted Harebell, "I'm sure you didn't go to him. He doesn't live in this world, you know."

"But he does, right enough, missy. He have a tight hold of me—he and the drink together."

Harebell looked startled, then she smiled reassuring. "I know Somebody Who'll make you all right, and so do you."

Tom shook his head; he was ashamed of himself for giving his confidence to this small maiden; but he was attracted by her earnest trustful eyes, and did not seem able to help himself.

[Illustration: "I'D GET SOME GLUE, I THINK, AND STICK MY LIFE TOGETHER," SAID HAREBELL.]

"Why, of course, God will. He always helps us to be good. I know what I'd do if I were you."

"What?"

"I'd get some glue, I think, and stick my lips together, and put some cotton-wool up my nose, and then I would walk past the public-house six times running, and say a kind of spell. I'll make up one for you and bring it to you to-morrow. Will you promise to meet me outside the cottage you meant to live in? I will go with Chris. I know the old oak—"

"I'll be there—what time?"

"It mustn't be after four. Half-past three, because I ride then—"

Tom nodded, then slouched off; and Harebell watched till he was out of sight.

"What a funny man he is!" she said to herself. Then she settled down on the wall to compose a "spell." From a tiny child on her father's knee she had been accustomed to help him make up rhymes, and after a good deal of frowning and muttering, she evolved the following:—

Beer, beer! Call me not here! I shall drink no more, For it makes me poor. Beer, beer! Though you're so near, I can say good-bye Without a cry. So never no more Will I cross the door Where beer is sold Till I'm dead and cold. Beer, beer, you've spoilt my life, And now I'll go and get a wife.

She was very pleased with this composition, and climbing down from the wall, she ran indoors, and copied it out in her best handwriting, on the largest sheet of paper she could find. It was shown to Andy, who was awestruck at such a production, as Harebell hoped he would be.

"It's a piece of po'try, Andy. You didn't know I could write po'try, did you? I shall write book upon book when I grow up. It's a kind of spell, you know. To say to yourself when you're passing public-houses and want to have a glass of beer."

"But what on earth do you know about beer?" questioned Andy.

"I have friends," said Harebell in a remote tone.

Andy shook his head slowly backwards and forwards.

"You'll never grow up," he muttered. "Your head be too big for your body."