CHAPTER I

Upon the Christmas morning the parish flocked to church, and the church was dressed so beautifully that every one was amazed. Amy and Eoa made the wreaths, the garlands, and rosettes; there was only one cross out of the lot, a badly–bred Maltese one; and Eoa walked over the barbarous pewscreens (like the travisses in a stable), springing from one to another, with a cable of flowers and evergreens, as easily and calmly as she would come down–stairs to dinner. Of course she had never heard of that sort of thing before, but she took to it at once, as she did to anything pretty; and soon she was Amyʼs mistress, as indeed she must be every oneʼs, unless she could not bear them.

The sons of the Forest looked up with amazement as they shambled in one after other, and an old woodcutter went home for his axe, lest the ivy should throttle the pillars. On the whole, the parish attributed this great outburst of foliage to the indignation of the pixies at Parson Johnʼs going to London, and staying there so long.

The prayers were read by Mr. Pell, for the rector was weary and languid; but he would not forego his pleasant words to the well–known flock that day. While the choir was making a stupendous din out of something they called an “anthem,” Octave slipped off to his Rushford duty, through the chancel–door. Then, with his silken gown on – given him years ago by subscription, and far too grand for him to wear, except at Christmas and Easter – John Rosedew mounted the pulpit–stairs, and showed (as in a holy bower of good–will and of gratitude) the loving–kindness of his face and the grandeur of his forehead. As he glanced from one to the other with a general welcome, a genial interest in the welfare both of soul and body, a stir and thrill ran through the church, and many eyes were tearful. For already a rumour was abroad that “Uncle John” must leave them, that another Christmas Day would see a stranger in his pulpit.

After dwelling briefly on his favourite subject, Christian love, and showing (by quotations from the noblest of heathen philosophers) how low and false their standard was, how poor a keystone is earthly citizenship, the patriotism of a pugnacious village, or a little presumptuous Attica, to crown and bind together the great arch of humanity; after showing, too, with a depth of learning wasted on his audience, how utterly false the assertion is that the doctrines, or rather the principles, nay, the one great principle of our New Testament, had ever been anticipated on the banks of the Yellow River – eloquently he turned himself to the application of his subject.

With some unconscious yearning perhaps, or perhaps some sense of home–truth, he gazed towards the curtained pew where sat his ancient friend, brought thither (it was too evident) by tidings of his absence. As the eyes of the old men met, for the first time after long estrangement – those eyes that had met so frankly and kindly for more than fifty years, during all which time each to the other had been a “necessarius” – and as each observed how pale and grey his veteran comrade looked, neither heart was wholly free from self–reproach and sorrow.

John Rosedewʼs mild eyes glistened so, and his voice so shook and faltered, that all the parish noticed it, and wondered what harm it had done last week. For none of them had ever known his voice shake, except when some parishioner had done the unbecoming; and then the village mourned it, because it vexed the parson so.

The next day, as soon as Parson John had found that all parochial matters were in proper trim, and that he might leave home again without neglect of duty, what did he do but order a fly, no less than a one–horse fly, from the “Jolly Foresters;” which fly should rush to the parsonage–door, as nearly as might be, at one oʼclock? Now why would not Coræbus suffice to carry the rector and valise, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, a distance of two parasangs?

Simply because our Amy was going, and had every right to go. Beautiful Amy was going to London, great fountain–head of all visions and marvels, even from white long–clothes up to the era of striped crinoline. And who shall object, except on the ground that Amy was too good to go?

If Amy were put down now in Hyde Park, Piccadilly, or Regent–street, at the height and cream of the season, when fop, and screw, and fogey, Frivolus and Frivola, Diana Venatrix, Copa Syrisca, Aphrodite Misthote, yea, and even some natural honest girls moderately ticketed, are doing their caravaning – if Amy were put on the pathway there, in her simple grey hat and feather, and that roundabout chenille thing which she herself had made, and which followed the lines of her figure so, fifty fellows, themselves of the most satisfactory figure (at Drummondʼs, or at Couttsʼs), fifty fellows who had slipped the hook fifty times apiece (spite of motherly bend OʼShaugnessey) must have received their stroke of grace, and hated Cradock Nowell.

Although the South–Western Railway had been open so many years, our forest–child had never been further from green leaf and yellow gorse than Winchester in the eastern hemisphere, and Salisbury in the western. And now after all to think that she was going to London, not for joy, but sorrow. Desperate coaxing it had cost; every known or new device – transparent every one of them, as the pleading eyes that urged it – every bit of cozening learned from three years old and upward, every girlish argument that never can hold water, unless it be a tear–drop; and, better than a million pleas, every soft caress and kiss, all loving, all imploring – there was not one of these but came to batter Amyʼs father, or ever he surrendered. For Johnʼs ideas were very old–fashioned as to maidenly decorum, and Aunt Eudoxiaʼs view of the matter was even more prim and grim than his. Yet (as Amy well remarked) if she could see no harm in it, there certainly could be none; and how could they insist so much on the καλόν and the πρέπον, as if they over–rode τὸ δέον!

It is likely enough that this last stroke won the palm of victory; for, though Miss Amy knew little of Greek, and her father knew a great deal, she often contrived, with true feminine skill, to take his wicket neatly, before he had found his block–hole. And then her father would smile and chuckle, and ask to have his bat again; which never was allowed him. To think that any man should be the father of such ἐυστοχία!

Therefore, that father was compelled to throw himself, flat as a flounder, on Eudoxiaʼs generosity; for the leech–bottle now was dry.

“Darling Doxy, you know quite well you are such a wonderful manager; you have got a little cash somewhere?”

He put it with a twist of interrogation, a quivering lever of doubt, and yet a grand fulcrum of confidence, which were totally irresistible. No wonder his daughter could coax. Oh that I were like you, John, when I want a bit of money!

Hereupon Aunt Doxy smiled, with the perception of superior mind, and the power of causing astonishment. Never a word she said, but went to some unknown recesses in holy up–stair adyta: she fussed about with many keys, over sounding boards and creaking ones, to signify her caution; and at last came back with a leathern bag, wash–leather tied with bobbin. Putting up her hands to keep Amy at a distance, she pursed her lips, as if to say, “Now donʼt be disappointed; there is really nothing in it. Nothing, at least, I mean for people of your extravagant ideas.”

Then, one by one, before Johnʼs eyes, which enlarged with a geometric progression of amazement, she laid a gorgeous train of gold, as if it were but dominoes, beginning with half–sovereigns first, then breaking into the broader gauge, until there must have been twenty pounds, and John thought of all his poor people. Verily then she stopped awhile, to enhance her climax; or perhaps she hesitated, as was only natural. But now the pleasure of the thing was too much for her prudence. Looking at John and then at Amy, and wanting to look at both at once, she drew from a little niche in the bag, with a jerk (as if it were nothing) a dainty marrowfat ten–pound note of the Bank of England, with a name of substance upon the back, and an authenticity of grease grander than any water–mark. She tried very hard to make light of it, and not wave it in the air even; but the tide of her heart was too strong for her, and she turned away, and cried as hard as if she had no money.

Who may pretend to taste and tell every herb in the soup of nature? There is no sovereign moly, no paramount amellus; even basil (the herb of kings) may be lost in garlic. Blest are they who seek not ever for the forced–meat balls, but find some good in every brewis, homely, burnt, or overstrained. John Rosedew, putting on his boots for the road to London, felt himself, at every tug, quite as rich as Megacles – that man of foremost Athenian blood, but none the more a gentleman, who walked capaciously into, and rapaciously walked out of, the gold–granaries of Crœsus. A delightful sense of having gotten great money out of Eudoxia – a triumph without historic parallel – inspired him, away with that overdone word! – aerated him with glory. Thirty pounds, and some odd shillings, wholly at John Rosedewʼs mercy (who never gave quarter to money, but hewed it as small as Agag when anybody asked him), – thirty pounds, with no duty upon it, no stamp of responsibility, and a peculiar and peppery piquancy in the spending of every halfpenny, to wonder what sister Doxy would think if she could only know it! He gave careful Amy the note to keep, and 15l. to go inside it, because he had promised to do so, for Doxy knew his nature.

In that noble fly from the “Foresters,” which had only two springs broken, John and his daughter went away to catch the train at Brockenhurst. Out of the windows dangerously they pushed their beautiful heads – the beauty of youth on one side, the beauty of age on the other – although the coachman had specially warned them that neither door would fasten. But what could they do, when Aunt Doxy was there by the great rhododendron, with a kettle–holder over her mouth because it was so cold; fat Jemima too, and Jenny, and Jem Pottles leading Coræbus to shake off his dust at the shay–horse, and learn what he might come to?

Some worthy people had journeyed up from the further end of the village, to bid an eternal farewell to Amy, and to take home the washing. They knew she would never come back again; she would never be let go again; folks in London were so wicked, and parson was so innocent. Evil though the omens were, as timidly blushing she went away, tearfully leaving her fatherʼs hearth, though a daw on the left hand forbade her to go, and a wandering chough was overheard, and a croaking raven whirled away into the wilds of the woodland – for whom shall I fear, I the cannie seer, while Amy smiles dexter out of the cab, and wraps her faith around her?

Make we not half our life here, according as we receive it? Is it not as the rain that falls, softly when softly taken, as of leaves and grass and water; but rattling and flying in mud and foul splashes, when met at wrong angles repulsively?

My little daughter, if you cannot see your way in that simile – a very common–place one, – take a still more timeworn and venerable illustration. Our life is but a thread, my child, at any moment snappable, though never snapped unwisely; and true as it is that we cannot spin and shape it (as does the spider) out of our own emotions, yet we have this gift of God, that we can secrete some gold along it, some diamonds fetching the sunlight. Knowing, then, in whose Hand we are, and feeling how large that Hand is, let us know and feel therewith that He will not crush us; that He loves us to rejoice therein, and tamely to regard Him; with confidence in adoration, a smile in every bow to Him.