The strange house or, A moment's mistake
"Oh no! A hundred times prettier," said Gertrude enthusiastically;
"oh no! Her husband travels for a large firm in London, and my sister
generally has her home at Camptown, near where I come from."
"Yes," nodded Hugh. "I know about Camptown; there are soldiers there."
"Yes. Well, by and by there came a dear little baby boy to my sister's
home, and she and her husband doted on him more than I can say. My
sister used to take him about with her, if the places that her husband
went to were near enough, and they used to have such happy times.
Sometimes, however, he went alone.
"Once, when she was staying at a watering-place in the south, she was
suddenly called to Scotland to nurse her husband, and left her darling
little boy in the landlady's care.
"Whether she was right or wise to do such a thing does not matter
now. The landlady seemed a very nice woman, and my sister trusted her
completely.
"When she got back again—think of it, Daisy and Hugh—the house was
empty, the woman and her husband and little boy were all gone too!—and
with them our little darling, the most precious thing in the world to
all of us!"
Hugh and Daisy gazed in Gertrude's face, but they seemed as if they
could not ask a question.
"Ever since, my dear sister has gone about searching for her lost
child, little Lester. And never have we heard one single word of him
from that day to this."
Hugh's little hand was put out till it touched Gertrude's softly, and
he said—
"Perhaps, some day—"
"Yes," she answered, "we live in hope of that. Hugh, he used to say,
'I've opened my heart to Jesus, and He's come in!'"
"Who taught him that?" asked Daisy gently.
"I think I taught him," said Gertrude. "My dear sister did not know her
Saviour herself then, and it was not till little Lester was taken away
that she found she needed a Saviour."
Hugh's eyes gave a flash, but he looked down quickly and was silent.
"I believe you love Him too, Hugh," said Gertrude, drawing the boy to
her.
"I'm so bad," said Hugh in a low tone. "So afraid—and so nasty
sometimes, but yet—" he paused. Then meeting Daisy's eyes, and flushing
up to the roots of his hair, he added courageously, "Yes, I do. In
spite of not being a bit what I should be, I do. And He loves me!"
Daisy looked well satisfied. She had been almost afraid that Hugh's
courage would vanish under the test to which it was being put. But
as she had found many times, to her surprise, there was a secret of
strength in the frail little boy that surpassed her utmost expectations.
"Now we must go to bed," she said, rising reluctantly. "Thank you ever
so much, Miss Ashlyn."
Hugh put up his face for a kiss, and then Gertrude was left alone with
her heart full of her sister Rose and of lost little Lester.
And every time she shut her eyes, she seemed to see before them a pair
of worn, shabby little kid-lined slippers!
CHAPTER XVI.
A LATE VISITOR.
"I MUST go to-night," said the woman in a hoarse voice, rising from the
chair into which she had sunk ere she had opened that letter which bore
such sad tidings.
"You can't get there," said her husband. "It's ten o'clock now, and
every one 'ull be in bed."
"If he's bad—" She tried to finish the sentence, but her dry tongue
would not say the words.
"Perhaps he's better by now," said the man, not unkindly. "Mightn't you
as well go the first thing to-morrow?"
"I daren't go out in daylight, as you know. No; I shall be away all
to-morrow most likely, so you'll stay and mind him," glancing towards
the corner.
"I'll see to that," said the man.
The woman put her hand to her head as if dazed.
"Take a drop o' tea, or somethin'," urged the man. "You're about beat.
To think that there was a letter after all!"
"I somehow expected it," said his wife wearily. "Ought I to take
anything with me? I'd near done those little knickers, but he'll never
want them now."
"Oh, don't say so!" exclaimed the man.
She shook her head again. Then, after an instant's hesitation, she went
to the bed in the corner and bent over it, and there was a sound in the
still room as of a kiss.
The man looked on wondering. But in another moment, with a brief
good-bye, the woman had gone noiselessly down the stairs and had let
herself out into the darkness.
How she reached Highgate, she could never recall afterwards. Almost
blindly she hurried along, helping her steps by an omnibus on which
she happened to see Highgate written, and at length arrived at her
destination long after the clocks had struck eleven.
Almost breathless she paused at the house she was seeking, and with
anxious eyes gazed up at the windows. Darkness reigned, not a sign of
light or life appeared in any of them.
She began to breathe more freely, and to chide herself for her frantic
fears. All were evidently in bed and asleep.
But almost ere that thought had crossed her heart, came another which
seemed to strike her with more terrible fear still. What if all should
be over, and her boy should be dead?
She went up the front steps and took hold of the bell, but ere she had
rung it, came another thought. She quickly turned from the door, and
made her way up a side lane which was close by, and from that position
scanned the back of the house.
At the very top, two windows seemed to have a dim light in the room
belonging to them.
The woman put her hand to her heart as if with a sudden pang, and
almost stumbling along in her eagerness, once more reached the front
door, where she gave a low ring.
The sound went through the quiet house, and she heard it outside.
The minutes, though in reality they were very few, seemed very long
before a light began to glimmer through the ground glass of the door,
coming nearer and nearer.
Then a step was audible, and some one set the light down and undid the
fastenings of the door.
The woman, who was grasping the stone balustrade for support, lifted
her eyes to meet those of a sweet-looking nurse, who in snowy cap and
apron stood holding the door in her hand.
"Are you—" she asked and paused. Then altering the form of her
question, said gently, "What may you be wanting, ma'am? Have you come
to see any one?"
The woman's lips formed some words, but they were inaudible.
"Perhaps you are my patient's mother?" suggested the nurse. Then seeing
that this was the case, she held out her hand and led the woman into
the hall, placed her in a chair, and carefully closed the front door.
"Then he is alive," the poor mother at last found voice to say.
"Yes, he is alive," answered the nurse.
"May I go to him?" asked the woman, starting up.
"Not yet. You are not fit to see him yet. Come in here, and I will tell
you about him. Perhaps you will be able to quiet him better than I. He
has something which is on his mind, I fear."
The woman hung her head, but then with a sudden passion she exclaimed,
"It was no fault of his—no fault at all. It was all my doing! Oh! I
have suffered for it—My boy! My boy!"
"Hush! If you wish to see him, you will have to be a great deal calmer
than this. I will go back to him, and will fetch you in five minutes."
"Oh, let me come now!" besought the woman, rousing herself. "Oh, I will
be calm, indeed I will."
"Wait an instant then," said the nurse in her sweet, calm tone.
She left the room and returned in a moment with a glass of milk, which
she evidently expected the poor mother to drink, and which she held
to her lips authoritatively, not noticing her reluctance. Then with a
kind cheering word, in which she heard, "The dear Saviour has been here
before you," she led the way up the quiet staircase, to that room where
the dim light was burning.
CHAPTER XVII.
BEFORE DAWN.
"INFLAMMATION of the lungs," the nurse had whispered.
But when the woman entered that darkened room, she was hardly prepared
for the little figure she found propped up in the narrow bed, nor for
the sunken cheeks and staring eyes of her once healthy boy.
Her promise of calmness and her fear of not being allowed to see him
kept the woman from the first wild impulse to throw herself at his feet
and devour him with kisses.
As she crossed the room to his side, she felt like some untamed animal
being robbed of its offspring. But all she did was to bend over him and
say with a strangled sob—
"Oh, Johnnie, are you very ill, my dear?"
After trying vainly to speak, he nodded slightly, but looked
appealingly towards his nurse, and laid his head back on his high
pillow.
"He will be better presently, ma'am," said the nurse, putting a chair
near. "He wants to tell you something, but he has not much breath at
times. He will speak when he feels able. Is not that right, dear?"
Johnnie was watching his mother's face with those pathetic eyes, in
which some urgent request lay hidden. As the nurse bent over him with
some medicine, he whispered—
"Shall I have time?"
"I think you will," she answered. "But if not, Johnnie, I can tell her
what you have told me."
"Ah, but—"
No telling of hers, he felt, would have the weight of his own dying
request. But he could not as yet gather strength to speak.
"He has been light-headed a good bit," explained the nurse, "but he is
better of that now."
The woman had taken her child's hand, but he drew it away as if more
than he could bear, and in a short breathless way gasped—
"I'll speak presently."
Just at this moment the door opened noiselessly, and the master of the
school came in.
"We feared you would be too late," he said gravely, in a low tone, to
Johnnie's mother. "Did you not receive my letter?"
"No," answered the woman briefly; "not till to-night."
Then, as if impelled by something she could not resist, she asked in an
almost inaudible tone—
"Is there no hope, then?"
"I fear not."
The master turned to the bed, spoke a few kind words to the boy, and
noiselessly left the room.
Still Johnnie lay with that distressed look on his face. And the nurse
stood by watching him, but without saying a word to break the silence,
lest in doing so she might hinder rather than help her poor little
invalid.
The mother, sitting there in that unbroken silence, felt as if she
could not bear the agony of it much longer.
She was just turning towards Johnnie with an appealing look, when he
said in that same short, gasping way—
"I want you to take him back, mother."
The woman shrank, and the child felt it.
"I never knew how wicked it was—till now," he went on, gazing still at
her averted eyes.
"You did not know," whispered his mother.
"No—no, mother—not that! But taking him away! It was awful of me to
do what I did—I never knew the harm—but you will take him back now,
mother."
"I don't see how I can," she said at last.
"Mother!" he urged. "'He's' got a mother."
There was a breathless pause. The nurse, standing by, feared that her
little patient's life would ebb away in the agony of that ungranted
request.
"I'm going to Jesus," whispered Johnnie again, in a broken voice. "He's
forgiven me that, and all my other sins—every sin. He has washed me
clean and white. But, mother, you must give him back, indeed you must."
"She will," interposed the nurse soothingly, "when she has had time to
think of it! Just tell him that you will, if you can, ma'am!"
With a warning glance she went to the fire for some broth, while the
woman, urged by her look and by the beseeching, dying agony of her
child's eyes, said slowly—
"I will—Johnnie—I will."
Then realizing what she had done, she buried her face in her hands, and
trembled from head to foot.
Johnnie's hand, which had lain listlessly on the counterpane, sought