The Beth Book
anything for you?"
"I was thinking of the beauty of holiness," Beth answered, and passed
on.
The old man looked after her, too surprised for the moment to speak,
and by the time he had recovered himself, she had turned a corner and
was out of sight.
After Beth went home that evening, and had been duly reproached by her
mother for her selfish conduct, she stole upstairs to Aunt Victoria's
room, and found the old lady sitting with her big Bible on her knee,
looking very sad and serious.
"Beth," she said severely, "have you had any food? It is long past
your dinner-time, and it does not do for young girls to fast too
long."
"I'll go and get something to eat, Aunt Victoria," Beth answered
meekly, overcome by her kindness. "I forgot."
She went down to the pantry, and found some cold pie, which she took
into the kitchen and ate without appetite.
The heat was oppressive. All the doors and windows stood wide open,
but there was no air, and wherever Beth went she was haunted by the
sickly smell which she had first perceived coming up from the mud in
the harbour, and by the lines which seemed somehow to account for
it:--
"... the smell of death
Came reeking from those spicy bowers,
And man, the sacrifice of man,
Mingled his taint with every breath
Upwafted from the innocent flowers."
When she had eaten all she could, she went back to Aunt Victoria.
"Shall we read the psalms?" she said.
"Yes, dear," the old lady answered. "I have been waiting for you a
long time, Beth."
"Aunt Victoria, I am very sorry," Beth protested. "I didn't think."
"Ah, Beth," the old lady said sorrowfully, "how often is that to be
your excuse? You are always thinking, but it is only your own wild
fancies that occupy you. When will you learn to think of others?"
"I try always," Beth answered sincerely; "but what am I to do when
'wild fancies' come crowding in spite of me, and all I ought to
remember slips away?"
"Pray," Aunt Victoria answered austerely. "Prayer shapes a life; and
those lives are the most beautiful which have been shaped by prayer.
Prayer is creative; it transposes intention into action, and makes it
inevitable for us to be and to do more than would be possible by any
other means."
There was a short silence, and then Miss Victoria began the psalm. It
was a joy to Beth to hear her read, she read so beautifully; and it
was from her that Beth herself acquired the accomplishment, for which
she was afterwards noted. Verse by verse they read the psalms together
as a rule, and Beth was usually attentive; but that evening, before
the end, her attention became distracted by a loud ticking; and the
last word was scarcely pronounced before she exclaimed, looking about
her--"Aunt Victoria, what is that ticking? I see no clock."
The old lady looked up calmly, but she was very pale. "You do hear it
then?" she replied. "It has been going on all day."
Beth's heart stood still an instant, and, in spite of the heat, her
skin crisped as if the surface of her body had been suddenly sprayed
with cold water. "The Death Watch!" she ejaculated.
The ticking stopped a moment as if in answer to the words, and then
began again. A horrible foreboding seized upon Beth.
"Oh, no--no, not that!" she exclaimed, shuddering; and then, all at
once, she threw herself upon her knees beside Aunt Victoria, clasped
her arms round her, and burst into a tempest of tears and sobs.
"Beth, Beth, my dear child," the old lady cried in dismay, "control
yourself. It is only a little insect in the wood. It may mean
nothing."
"It does mean something," Beth interrupted vehemently; "I know--I
always know. The smell of death has been about me all the afternoon,
but I did not understand, although the words were in my mouth. When
things mean nothing, they don't make you feel queer--they don't
impress you. Nine times running you may see a solitary crow, or spill
the salt, or sit down thirteen to table, and laugh at all
superstitious nonsense; then the sign was not for you; but the tenth
time, something will come over you, and you won't laugh; then be
warned and beware! I sometimes feel as if I were listening, but not
with my ears, and waiting for things to happen that I know about, but
not with my head; and I try always to understand when I find myself
listening, but not with my ears, and something surely comes; and so
also when I am waiting for things to happen that I know about, but not
with my head; they do happen. Only most of the time I know that
something is coming, but I cannot tell what it is. In order to be able
to tell exactly, I have to hold myself in a certain attitude--not my
body, you know, _myself_--hold myself in suspense, as it were, or
suspend something in myself, stop something, push something aside--I
can't get it into words; I can't always do it; but when I can, then I
know."
"Who taught you this?" Aunt Victoria asked, as if she were startled.
"Oh, no one taught me," Beth answered. "I just found myself doing it.
Then I tried to notice how it was done. I wanted to be able to do it
myself when I liked. And it was just as if there were two doors, and
one had to be shut before I could look out of the other--the one that
is my nose and eyes and ears; when that is shut, then I know; I look
out of the other. Do things come to you so, Aunt Victoria?"
The old lady had taken Beth's hand, and was stroking it and looking at
her very seriously. "No," she said, shaking her head, "no, things do
not come to me like that. But although I have only one set of
faculties myself, my outlook is not so limited by them that I cannot
comprehend the possibility of something beyond. There are written
records of people in olden times who must have possessed some such
power--some further faculty such as you describe. It may be that it
lies latent in the whole race, awaiting favourable conditions to
develop itself, and some few rare beings have come into possession of
it already. We are complex creatures--body, soul, and spirit, says the
saint; and there is spiritual power. Beth, lay hold of that which you
perceive in yourself, cherish it, cultivate it, live the life
necessary to develop it; for be sure it is a great gift--it may be a
divine one."
When the old lady stopped, Beth raised her head and looked about her,
as if she had just awakened from sleep. "What were we talking about
before that?" she said. "Oh, I know--the Death Watch. It has stopped."
The equinoctial gales set in early that year, and severely. Great seas
washed away the silver sands which had been the delight of the summer
visitors, leaving miles of clay exposed at low water to add to the
desolation of the scene. The bay was full of storm-stayed vessels, all
headed to the wind, close reefed, and straining at their anchors.
There were days when the steamers had to steam full speed ahead in
order to keep at their berths; and then the big sailing ships would
drag their anchors and come drifting, drifting helplessly towards the
shore, and have to fly before the gale if they could, or take their
chance of stranding if the water were low, or being battered to bits
against the cliffs if the tide were in. Many a time Beth stood among
the fishermen watching, waiting, praying; her whole being centred on
some hapless crew, making for the harbour, but almost certain to be
carried past. There was a chain down the middle of the pier in the
winter to prevent people from being washed off, and she had stood
clinging to this, and seen a great ship, with one ragged sail
fluttering from a broken mast, carried before the wind right on to the
pier-head, which it struck with a crash that displaced great blocks of
granite as if they had been sponge-cakes; and when it struck, the
doomed sailors on its decks sent up an awful shriek, to which those on
the pier responded. Then there was a pause. Beth held her breath and
heard nothing; but she saw the ship slip back, back--down amongst the
mountainous waves, which sported with it once or twice, tossed it up,
and sucked it down, tossed it again, then suddenly engulfed it. On the
water afterwards there were ropes and spars, and dark things bobbing
like corks, but she knew they were men in mortal agony; and she found
herself shouting encouragement, telling them to hold on bravely, help
was coming--the lifeboat! the lifeboat! She joined in the sob of
excitement too, and the cheers of relief when it returned with its
crew complete, and five poor wretches rescued--only five out of
fifteen, but still----
"Blessed be God," said the old priest, "for those whom He has received
into glory; and blessed be His holy name for those whom He deigns to
let live."
Beth, standing beside him, heard the words, and wonderingly contrasted
him with Parson Richardson, who remained shut up with his fourth wife
in his fat living, making cent. per cent. out of his school, and
heedless of the parish, while one so old and feeble as Canon Hunter
stood by his people at all times, careless of himself, enduring
hardship, braving danger, a man among men in spite of age and
weakness, by reason of great love.
The pinch of poverty was severely felt again that winter in the
Caldwell household. Beth, who was growing rapidly, became torpid from
excessive self-denial; she tried to do without enough, to make it as
if there were one mouth less to feed, and the privation told upon her;
her energy flagged; when she went out, she found it difficult to drag
herself home, and the exuberant spirit of daring, which found
expression in naughty enterprises, suddenly subsided. She poached on
principle still for the benefit of the family; but the cool confidence
born of a sort of inward certainty, which is a premonition of
success, if it is not the power that compels it, was wanting; and it
was as if her own doubts when she set the snares released the
creatures from the fascination that should have lured them, so that
she caught but little. The weather, too, was very severe; every one in
the house, including Beth, was more or less ill from colds and coughs,
and Aunt Victoria suffered especially; but none of them complained,
not even to themselves; they just endured. They felt for each other,
however.
"Mamma, don't you think Aunt Victoria should have a fire in her room?"
Beth said one day.
"I do, my dear child," Mrs. Caldwell answered tartly; "but _I_ can't
afford the fuel, and she can't afford it either."
"I wish I had known that," said Beth. "I wouldn't have let her afford
to take me away in the summer, spending all her money for nothing."
"What a grateful and gracious child you are!" her mother exclaimed.
Beth went frowning from the room.
The snow was several feet deep on the ground already, and was still
falling heavily. Beth put on her things and stole out, her idea being
to gather sticks to make a fire for the old lady; but after a weary
trudge she was obliged to return empty-handed, wet, weary, and
disheartened. The sticks were deep down under the snow; there were
none to be seen.
"O God!" Beth prayed as she stumbled home, raising her pinched face to
the sombre sky, "O God, save Aunt Victoria all suffering. Don't let
her feel the cold, dear Lord, don't let her feel it."
Aunt Victoria herself was stoical. She came down to breakfast every
morning, and sat up stiffly at the end of the table away from the
fire, her usual seat, eating little, and saying little, but listening
with interest when the others spoke. Beth watched her, waited on her,
and lay awake at night fretting because there was nothing more to be
done for her.
One stormy night in particular, Beth could not sleep. There was a
great gale blowing. It came in terrific gusts that shook the house,
rattled the windows, and made the woodwork creak; then died away, and