The strange house or, A moment's mistake
had stood there a whole quarter of an hour, she began to despair at
last.
She ceased knocking and ringing, and then could bear the strokes of a
spade in the back garden.
She went to the side gate and shook it, and after some time an elderly
man came shuffling up the path and approached the green lattice-work
fence.
"Does Mrs. Swift live here?" said Rose as boldly as she could, her
heart beating.
"My name's Brown," said the man surlily.
"Could I speak to your wife?" asked Rose, looking earnestly in his face.
"I'm alone," answered the man with increased surliness. "What's the
good of asking me to see my wife? She went away from me a long time
ago,—and, as I tell you, I'm all alone."
He began to turn towards his garden again.
"Oh, please!" implored Rose. "Would you tell me if you ever lived at
Blank—?"
A startled look, despite an evident effort, overspread the man's face.
"No, I never did!" he answered heartily enough. "You never heard of a
Mrs. Swift there, a lodging-house keeper, with one little boy?"
Did Rose fancy a spasm passed across the haggard face before her? It
was only for an instant.
"Didn't I tell you," he asked roughly, "that I was never at the place?
How is it likely I should know any one there? Why do you come here
hindering me at my work?"
He left her abruptly, and Rose stood baffled.
"Oh, please!" she called in her soft, musical voice, which must have
reached him well enough. "Please do come and talk to me a little while!"
But the man crunched over the gravel unheedingly, and took up his spade
within sight of her, and so dug and dug persistently till, tired out,
and fearing she was ridiculous, Rose turned back to the Shaddocks'
house, feeling that indeed this had been "No thoroughfare" in good
earnest.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A HINDRANCE.
"I THOUGHT—I hoped," sobbed poor Rose, "that—at last—my waiting time
was over, and I—might be going to find my little Lester—if it were
God's will."
"And the worst is," she added, when she was calmer and was sitting
in Gertrude's bedroom, "the worst is, Gertrude, if there should be
anything wrong, they will move away at once."
"Yes," said Gertrude, kneeling down by her and laying her head on
her sister's shoulder, "but then—even supposing all that, if God has
allowed us to get on this track, and it is the right one, He will
certainly make a way out of what seems so dark and difficult now."
The words quieted Rose's aching heart.
"I was almost forgetting that in my disappointment! Dear Gertrude, you
are a true comforter."
There was silence then, Rose reviewing all the strong consolation which
she felt at the times when she remembered that her Father in heaven
could work for her; while Gertrude realized, as never before, how
precious were her dear ones at home, and felt it would certainly break
her heart to see Rose go away and leave her behind.
A summons to dinner interrupted these thoughts.
"How truly kind Mrs. Shaddock is!" said Rose, as they went down. "She
has asked me to stay the night here, or as long as I like. I never saw
strangers so kind."
At dinner, the plans for the afternoon were freely discussed, for till
Rose could communicate with her lawyer and ask his advice, she could do
nothing, "but enjoy herself," as Randall told Daisy.
"I have to go to Highgate to make two or three calls," said Mrs.
Shaddock, "and shall drive. If Mrs. Leigh will come with me—"
"And me, mother?" interrupted Randall.
"Very well—and you—the rest can walk and meet us there. Then you can
show Mrs. Leigh the cemetery while I make my calls, and I will take her
up at the lower gates at five o'clock. Miss Ashlyn, I know you like
walking, do you not?"
This plan was hailed with applause by the children. For Mrs. Shaddock,
if she took them a little jaunt in this way, was always very
generous in her plans. And they knew that a pleasant tea at the best
pastrycook's in Highgate would be in the programme, and that their
mother would perhaps tell them to have a cab to bring them home.
So they set off in wild spirits, some time before their mother's
carriage was ordered, and timed their arrival at the upper gates at
Highgate Cemetery just as it came bowling along the road.
It stopped to put Mrs. Leigh down, and then Mrs. Shaddock beckoned
Mollie to the window.
"Have a nice tea," she whispered, pressing some money into Mollie's
hand, "and do not hurry. Mrs. Leigh says she would like to walk home
with her sister. So either, of you girls, can come with me or walk
home, which you like."
"Daisy can come then," said Mollie; "I would much rather stay with
them."
The carriage drove on, and the party was left standing on the path.
"Which way are we to go?" asked Gertrude.
"I know!" exclaimed Randall. "Come along, Mrs. Leigh, I'll show you."
Mrs. Leigh, looking upon every little boy with the eyes of a bereaved
mother, had longingly regarded little Randall as perhaps reminding
her of her own six-year old child. But even if his bright colour and
yellow hair might have done for little Lester's pink cheeks and golden
curls, the defiant eyes and bold mien did not remind her of her tender
darling, and no amount of imagination would turn Randall into a little
Lester. She however took the child's hand, her fingers thrilling at the
little fingers, and went forward with him in front, the rest following
at leisure.
It was a glorious afternoon; the sunshine was perfect, and the fresh
breeze and the autumn foliage were so entrancing that the children's
spirits could hardly be kept within bounds in that quiet resting-place
of the dead.
Several times, Gertrude had to warn them to be more moderate, till at
last Randall said, "We always do just as we like here, Miss Ashlyn."
"Not if I am in charge," said Gertrude quietly.
"Let us go and look at what we call 'the catacombs,'" said Randall. "If
you peep in, you can see the coffins all along!"
He went off with his sisters, and Gertrude and Rose were left alone.
"You have a handful with that little boy?" said Rose, looking after
them.
"Yes," answered Gertrude, "he is my cross."
"Then, darling, he may yet be your 'crown'!" Rose answered tenderly.
Gertrude did not reply, but followed on the heels of her flock to see
that they did not get into mischief.
By and by, they began to clamour for tea, and the party made their way
out of the cemetery and wandered into the town, looking at shops as
they went along, till Mollie exclaimed, "Miss Ashlyn, I 'must' buy that
pattern; it is just what I have been wanting for ever so long."
Gertrude feared that it was getting late, and begged her to defer her
purchase till after tea, but she would not hear of it. Then the shop
was full, and they had to wait, so that when they finally reached the
pastrycook's, the clock pointed to ten minutes to five.
"You will keep your mother waiting!" exclaimed Gertrude. "Daisy, dear,
have something to eat, and let us hasten to meet her. I had no idea we
should be so long in that shop."
The child took some cake and hurried back with Gertrude through the
quiet cemetery, and arrived breathless, five minutes before the
carriage came.
"What will they think has become of you?" asked Daisy, to whom the
moments while they stood waiting seemed longer than they really were.
"I told them to have their tea and to go home without me if I did not
come," said Gertrude.
And then the carriage came, and she left Daisy with her mother and
retraced her steps back through the trees and flowers and graves.
CHAPTER XXIV.
AT THE GRAVE.
THE autumn afternoon was closing in, and but that Gertrude had noticed
some men filling in a new-made grave as she went down, she would have
feared that she might find the gates shut.
She walked as fast as she could, taking one of the narrower paths,
and was almost within sight of the upper gates when her attention was
arrested by a figure crouching over that very new-made grave which she
had seen.
Her quick steps took her past before she had realized that there was
some one who was in great need.
But what was it to her that a mourner should be weeping there? Were not
all those graves dear to some hearts? And was this not one among many?
Still she could not go on and leave the drooping figure. Somehow there
was an abandonment in the grief that made Gertrude feel she "could" not
"pass by on the other side."
One moment she hesitated—then advanced softly across the grass, which
had already in the dusk lost its greenness, and was now nothing but a
carpet of deep shade beneath her feet.
She sat down on the ground beside the weeping woman and touched her
hand.
"You are in great trouble," she said gently.
A moan was the only answer.
"Have you lost your husband?" asked Gertrude tenderly.
A decisive shake of the head.
"Then perhaps it is a child?" asked the soft voice again.
The woman turned away with a sudden sort of pang, but after a moment
she said, as if in spite of herself—"My only one!"
"That must be terrible," said Gertrude, thinking of Rose, and trying to
match this woman's grief with what she knew of her sister's.
The woman raised herself a little, but only to cover her head in her
shawl more effectually, out of which her voice sounded far-off and
thick.
"Could you tell me?" said Gertrude tenderly, thinking about her Lord
and Master, and trying to picture "His" great love and sympathy, so
that she might copy Him.
"Why do you care for a stranger?" flashed this woman from the depths of
the shawl.
"Because I love the Lord Jesus," answered Gertrude, "and He wept at the
grave."
"At the grave?" questioned the woman. "Whose grave?"
But before Gertrude could answer, she had flung herself round again,
and ended in burying her face in her hands on the girl's lap, where
she shook with a paroxysm of grief such as Gertrude had never imagined
could be.
It was impossible to leave her, and yet what about those closing gates
and the growing darkness?
Then Gertrude noticed to her intense relief that some men were
spreading gravel near the entrance, and were rolling it backwards and
forwards without apparently any signs of giving up.
So she turned her attention once more to the mourner, who was clasping
her as if she were the only comfort left.
She whispered words of the love of Jesus, of His sympathy, of His
ability to save to the uttermost, of His love for the little children.
And as she went on, feeling her way as it were, she began to understand
what a mighty Saviour she had for her own, and a great longing came
over her for this poor soul who, evidently, was a stranger to His great
love.
"I'm a wicked woman," groaned her listener at last. "You would not
speak to me so if you guessed how wicked I have been."
"Jesus our Saviour came to save sinners," whispered Gertrude.
"That is what 'he' said," she exclaimed, her eyes raining down tears.
"Your little boy?"
"Yes; but—but he asked me to do two things, and I can't do either."
"He wanted you to come to Jesus?" asked Gertrude eagerly.
"Yes, but though I cannot do that, it was not the hardest thing. I
promised him, and yet I am going to break my word!"
"Break your word to him?" asked Gertrude reproachfully. "You will not
do that."
"I shall—simply because I never can do it! I thought I would when I
promised, but I can't. No, I can't. Johnnie, it is of no use."
Again she wept hopelessly, while Gertrude trembled, she hardly knew why.
"Is it something you ought to tell?" asked Gertrude.
A movement of the woman's head seemed to acknowledge that it was.
"Then God will help you to tell it, if you ask Him."
"I have never asked Him anything. Yes, I have; I asked Him that Johnnie