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Other documents randomly have
different content
Sarah held in her hand—"or, has any one of them been
writing to you?"

"No, no; worse than that, John. He has been writing to

me; he, his very self. Oh, why can't he let me alone?"

"Do you mean that that letter is from your cousin in

Australia, my dear?"

"Yes, that is what it is."

"Well, my pretty, I don't know why he should not write

to you. He writes no harm, does he? He is a married man,
you know. He does not ask you to run away from your own
husband, does he, love?" asked John, gravely, but not
without a gleam of humour, perhaps, on his countenance.

"How should I know what he writes?" cried Sarah,

piteously.

"Have you not read the letter, then?" Tincroft asked,

wonderingly.

"Read it! Read it! No, I should think not, John. You don't
think I could ever be so wicked, John, as to read a letter
from him, do you?"

"I am not sure it would have been wicked; indeed, I am

sure it would not have been," said the husband, soothingly.
"But if you have not read it, how do you know it is from
your cousin?" he asked.

"As if I didn't know his writing!" said poor weeping

Sarah, adding, "though it is so long since I saw any of it.
But I did look at the beginning and end; and it says, 'My
dear cousin Sarah' at the top, and 'Your affectionate cousin,
Walter Wilson,' at the bottom; and that is how I know it.
But I didn't read another word, John, indeed I didn't," said
she, very earnestly. "And I have brought it for you to read,
or to put in the fire, just which you please, John."

"I think we had better read it before we burn it, at all

events," he gravely replied, as he held out his hand for the
suspected treasonable epistle.

"Don't read it out loud, please, if there is anything in it

that I shouldn't hear," said the frightened wife, as she gave
it to him.

"Oh, certainly not," said the husband, smiling.

And then he commenced reading the first page of the

letter, while Sarah sat with her eyes directed to his, ready,
as it seemed, like a timid bird, to take wing on the first
symptoms of displeasure or alarm.

But no such symptoms appeared, only that John's

usually quiet and sedate countenance gradually became
sorrowful, and at last his eyes had tears in them ready to
start.

"Oh, John, what is it?" exclaimed Sarah, forgetting that

she had not wanted to hear a word of the letter.

Before answering the question, John read on to the end,

then he turned to Sarah.

"Your cousin is in great trouble," he said.

"Trouble?"

"Yes; listen. I will read the letter:"

 "'My dear cousin Sarah,—It is so long since I
heard anything about you, that I am not at all
sure of this reaching you, for I do not even
know whether you are yet living. I never have
letters from England now, since Ralph Burgess
and his sister went to America, three years
ago.'"

("This is the first we have heard of this," quoth John, in

a parenthesis; and then he resumed reading):

"'For I never hear from home.'"

("Which is a great pity—" in another parenthesis).

"'Hoping, however, that you still live and are

happy, I take up my pen to do what ought to
have done long and long ago.'"

"'Dear Sarah, I write first of all humbly to ask

you to forgive me all the wrong I did you so
many years ago. You knew partly how it was,
but not all that was said. But I don't blame
anybody so much as myself. I used you cruelly,
shamefully, Sarah; and now I am made to feel
it, now my great trouble is on me. And I ask
you again for your forgiveness. Not but what it
has been better for you, I make no doubt; for I
know you got a good—'"
 ("I think I had better not read the next line or two, my
dear," said John, looking up from the letter; so he skipped
that part, and went on again).

"'And I have to ask Mr. Tincroft's pardon too,

which I ought to have done long ago, for the
way I treated him. He didn't deserve it; but I
was blinded with obstinacy and jealousy, and
didn't know what I did. And I know now, and
have long known—'"

("Well, never mind that part; it is only a little that he

may have heard, somehow or other, about me, my dear,"
said John, once more looking up. All this time Sarah had
silently listened; but now she sobbed quickly, "If it is
anything good he writes about you, John, it can't be too
strong; for you have always been a good, kind husband, I
know." "As far as I have known how, I have tried to be,"
said John, softly; "but I would rather leave that out," and he
then proceeded):

"'I daresay'" (continued the letter) "'you have

heard—but perhaps not—that after I came out
here—a good bit after—I married a young
person I met with. Her name was Helen; and
my life from that time became a very happy
one, for I loved my wife very dearly; and she
gave all her love to me.'" (Here a deep sigh
escaped from Sarah.) "'And we lived together
all through many years, God prospering me in
His providence, until—until God saw fit to take
my Helen from me three months ago.'"
("Poor Walter!" whispered Sarah, softening.)

"'This is the great trouble I mentioned; and

since then my life has been a blank to me, or it
would be, only I have a daughter whom I dearly
love. She is about fifteen years old, and I am
troubled about her. For I feel I have not long to
live. The doctors out here tell me I have had a
mortal disease hanging over me for years and
years, and that it has laid hold of me all the
sooner because of my fretting about my poor
dear Helen who is gone. I am in a hopeless
decline, they say; and I feel it to be true. I am
worn away to a shadow of what I was; and they
tell me if I want to prolong my life, even for a
few months, I must have a sea-voyage, and get
to my native climate.'"

"'My dear cousin, I would not care to prolong

my life, even for a single day, if it were not for
my poor young Helen (for that is my daughter's
name, named after her mother). If it wasn't for
her, I seem as if I could have done with this
world to-morrow. But I am bound to care for
my poor motherless girl. And if she were left
here, all alone and unprotected, it would be bad
for her. So, as soon as I heard what the doctors
said, I made up my mind what to do. I have
sold my small property here to a person who
knows how to manage it, and I mean to take
passage home for my Helen and myself by next
month's mail ship. It may be that I shall not live
to reach England; but if I don't, I have left my
affairs in proper order, so that there will not be
any trouble about them. There will be enough
 for poor Helen after I am gone.'"

"'Now, my dear cousin,'" John went on

reading, after a little pause, "'I have done a
very bold thing. I have put in my will, and the
instructions to my London lawyer, that your
husband, Mr. Tincroft, is to be my sole executor,
and my daughter's guardian, if he will be so
kind as to undertake all the trouble for one who
used him, and you too, so badly as I did. I
know his goodness. I know more of it than you
would think, Sarah; and there isn't anybody in
the world I would so soon have as Mr. Tincroft
and you for my poor Helen's friend.'"

("Oh, John, does Walter Wilson say that?" said Sarah,

interrupting the reading.)

"Yes; and he goes on to say that, trusting to our being

willing to befriend his Helen, he intends to give directions,
in case of his not living through the voyage, that notice
shall be sent to us when the ship comes in, so that his
daughter may have friends to take care of her and do the
best for her. And he says that if he should reach England
himself, he will write to us directly he gets to London. That's
all, Sarah. No, not quite; for he writes down the name of
the ship they are coming by. It is the Sea Bird."

"There, my wife, that is your cousin's letter," said John,

when he had finished reading it. "There is no harm in it, you
see, though there is a good deal of trouble."

"Poor Walter!" sobbed Sarah. "But, John, you wouldn't

like that trouble put upon you—and you with all your books
to write, that keep you so busy always; besides—"
 "My books may go to the bottom of the Red Sea, for
anything I care," quoth John, with unwonted alacrity.

"Oh, John, John! And you so fond of writing!"

"I won't write another line," said John, heroically, "while

there is anything better to do. And there is something
better to do now, Sarah; we must get our best rooms ready
for your cousin and his dear girl; and we must look out for
the Sea Bird, and go and meet them when it comes in; and
we must make them come down here, and get Walter
strong again if we can. And if he hasn't got money enough
to set him up in a farm, why, I must help him; and there, I
think that's all I have to say about it just now."

"But, John, dear John!" remonstrated Sarah.

"Why, isn't it what you would like to be done?" said he.

"But think how he used you, John, when you were

trying to help him out of his troubles once," said she. "You
can't have forgotten," Sarah added, "how he used you
then."

"I shall never forget that I have had you to love and
cherish ever since then, my dear," said John, gallantly.

And then, fairly broken down, poor Sarah, with a thrill

of joy she had not felt for a long time, fairly broke out into a
childlike cry,—

"Oh, John! I love you, I love you; I do love you, and

only you!"

And then, in the midst of their newly-found happiness,

came a sharp tap at the study door, with a—
 "Please, ma'am, it is two o'clock, and there's that pie-
crust on the board as you left it."

CHAPTER XXIII.
A MONTH OF WONDERS.

CHRISTMAS had come and was gone; it had been gone

a month or more, and there had been an unwonted bustle
in Tincroft House. The best rooms, usually shut up, had
been duly put in order, and for a whole week, fires had been
kept burning in them—that is to say, in the great or state
parlour facing the south, on the first floor, and the chamber
adjoining; and also in another pretty room on the same
floor, that had a verandah in front of the French windows
which opened upon it. The prospect from this window was
chilly enough now, certainly; for the distant plantation on
which it looked was bare of foliage, and the meadows which
intervened were brown with wintry frosts where they were
not white with the contains of the last snowfall; and the
tastily laid-out flower garden beneath the window, with
which John had taken such pains—for he was fond of
flowers—was, like everything else, under the ban of winter.
But it was the nicest, "sweetest, darlingest room in the
house in spring and summer and autumn," said Sarah; and
this one was to be Helen's room—so Sarah had decreed.

John Tincroft had kept to his word. Whatever he had

done with the previous chapters of his unfinished work,
whether consigned to the Red Sea or elsewhere, he had not
written a line since the day when we last fell in with him. He
had something better to do, he said; for he had fully
determined, then and there, that Walter Wilson and his
daughter, on their arrival in England, were to make Tincroft
House their home as long as they liked to stay there. For
that they would both arrive, he professed to be sure.

"There's nothing like a long sea-voyage," he had said to

his wife, "for setting people to rights when their health gets
out, of sorts. Your cousin won't die on his way home, bless
you," said he, perhaps with more confidence than he really
felt; but he was determined to believe in his own
prognostications too. "We'll get him down here, and you
shall see how soon we shall set him up again."

"You don't know that he will come down here at all,

John, if he does get to England alive," said Sarah, meekly.
It should be said that this dialogue took place the very day
on which Walter's letter was received, when the pair were
seated together after their pieless dinner.
 "Ah, but he must," said John; "why, where else is he to
go? And where is that dear little Helen to go? They have no
other friends in England, you see—at their first landing, at
least, they won't have; though we must try and make
friends between them and Walter's father and mother and
all the rest. But this will be a work of time. And when your
cousin and his darling girl get out of the ship, they will have
nowhere else to go. And that is why I say we must go to
London, or wherever else it may be, and see Walter at once,
so that he may know he has got a home; and not have to
wait, and run the risk of getting ill again in some strange
hotel."

"And, besides, Sarah—think. He writes about his small

property out there—small, you observe, he distinctly writes
'small'—and of having sold it; and having enough to live
upon when he gets to England, and to leave to his Helen
when he dies—which, it is to be hoped, he won't do for
many a long day. But I will be bound to say that it is little
enough he has saved. And my private opinion is that it is
not much he will have to live upon when he gets back. For
there's the long voyage, and that swallows up a great deal
of money. So it will never do to let your cousin sink for want
of help. I wonder whether he has kept to his old profession
of land-surveying. But that isn't the question now. The first
thing is to make him and his Helen comfortable, and get
him well again. There will be time enough then to think how
we can set him on his legs once more."

This was a long speech for John to make; but he made

it. And what is more than can be said of some long
speeches—whether delivered at Westminster or elsewhere—
the speaker believed in every word he uttered. We know
better, of course. We know that Walter Wilson was a rich
man. And John's friend, Tom Grigson, had also been told
the same thing. But John Tincroft knew nothing about this;
for, as I have said, he rarely heard news of any kind; and he
had never happened to hear of Sarah's cousin, save that he
was married; and he had not seen Grigson for a good many
months.

So, in his former fashion (and not an uncommon one

with others besides John Tincroft) of arguing upon false
premises, he arrived at once at the conclusion that his old
rival was coming home in forma pauperis, or something like
it; and he was quite ready, you see, to "heap coals of fire
upon his head," in the true New Testament fashion; and, for
the matter of that, in the Old Testament fashion also.

Sarah answered this long speech of John's by saying

that she was ready to do anything he thought right to be
done; and that if he did not care to remember her cousin's
former perverseness, it wasn't for her to put him in mind of
it. And then she cried again a little, but her tears were not
bitter ones; and she went over again the lesson she had so
recently learnt by heart—

"Oh, John, I love you; I love you; I do love you, and

only you."

And then, when these raptures were calmed down a

little, they began to plan what they should do for Walter's
comfort, and for poor motherless Helen's also. And that was
how "the sweetest, darlingest room" in the whole house was
fixed upon for Helen's room.

And the very next day—cold as it was—Sarah and John

went over to Trotbury in the passenger van which passed
through the village every morning, to make a call at the
paperhanger's, to select a new paper for the walls. Of
course John knew nothing about this sort of thing, so he left
Sarah to choose, and was quite prepared to approve her
taste, wherever it might lead her. And it led her to admire a
most wonderful pattern, composed of trellis-work on a light
ground, interwoven with climbing, twisting foliage, bearing
the most impossible flowers and luscious fruits, with birds of
paradise and many other either imaginable or unimaginable
specimens of the animal creation nestling in, or soaring
above, or disporting below the branches.

After this being settled to their mutual satisfaction, the

pair proceeded to the upholsterer's and selected what
furniture they had previously decided on as needful for the
rooms especially set apart for the expected guests. Then
they returned home, tired with their unwonted exertions,
but satisfied with their day's exploit.

And then, as I have said, the month following had been

occupied by them and Jane and the house-boy, with the aid
of painters and paperhangers and a charwoman or two, in
so furbishing up the old house (in those especial
apartments, at any rate) that a report was spread abroad
that a member of Parliament, at the very least, was
expected to pay a long visit to Tincroft House, if not to take
it off John's hands entirely.

Under all these circumstances, it is no wonder that

Tincroft had to discontinue his researches into Chinese
Cosmogony, or whatever else had previously bewildered his
brain; nor that Sarah had, for the time, been roused into
such unwonted activity of mind and body that the lines of
languor and dissatisfaction which had for so long a time
been half-spoiling her pretty face, were fast disappearing,
so that every now and then John caught himself in a
confused contemplation of that same yet altered face, in
amazement, and thinking, in an odd kind of way, of the old
days at High Beech so many years ago, when, without
intending it, he ventured so near the maelstrom.
 Of course, in all this preposterous activity, with its still
inure preposterous origin and design, John was doing what
you and I, reader, supposing we are extremely worldly-wise
and knowing, should never have thought of doing; and we
are at liberty, of course, to smile at John's simplicity, in
suffering his good-nature to outrun his discretion. But then
John was simple have we not said so a score of times? But
then again, oh reader, there is a simplicity that is worth
more than your worldly wisdom and mine put together—an
uncalculating simplicity, a Christian simplicity, a wonder-
working simplicity. And John's simplicity was of this nature.

It worked wonders. It always had worked wonders. It

had worked wonders in the genuine respect for him which it
had created and sustained in the thoughts and feelings of
those who were always ashamed after having been
betrayed occasionally into making an innocent joke at his
expense. It had worked wonders in men with whom he had
dealings—hard-headed men and not over-scrupulous
perhaps, who would have prided themselves in getting the
upper-hand and taking advantage of clever fellows with all
their wits about them, but who would have felt many extra
twinges of conscience had they at any time taken
advantage, and made a gain, of John's simplicity.

It had wrought wonders with the poor children of the

village, uncouth and home-neglected as they were, whom
he taught from Sunday to Sunday in a large class in the
Sunday school, and who looked upon him as alike a mine of
erudition (though they wouldn't have used those express
words) and a model of human kindness and forbearance.
For though I have said little about John Tincroft from a
theological and "professingly Christian" point of view, it
must be once for all understood that it is not because I
have nothing to say, but that this has not been quite the
place in which to make a parade of it; it is not, out of place,
however, to say that he was "a teacher of babes" in the
school of Christ.

His simplicity had worked wonders, too, in the rough,

garden-robbing neighbourhood in the midst of which he
dwelt, inasmuch as though no steel-trap and spring-gun
warnings were set up on his premises, the apples in his
orchard generally hung secure till they were plucked by his
own hands, while those of the law and fury breathing
country squire and J.P. on the rising ground a quarter of a
mile off, though surrounded by a high brick wall, regularly
received more than one annual (or seasonal) nocturnal
visit. On one occasion, truly, John's exposed orchard was
robbed; but such an outcry of shame followed upon it from
the whole country-side round that the daring yet easily
enough executed deed was never repeated:

"For all agreed the rogues were mad,

To rob so good a man."

Above all things, John's simplicity had worked wonders

in winning the respect and esteem of the woman he had so
many years before married to rescue from reproach and
poverty, that he might protect and provide for her. Of
course it was very simple to do this, when he might have
made a much better match if he had only waited till he
came into his property. Everybody who knew anything
about it had said this over and over again. Richard Grigson
had said this, and so had Tom Grigson; so also had Mr.
Rubric, and also Mr. Roundhand. But all these loved him for
it. But Sarah had not yet loved him for it. How could she
love (with woman's love) a man whom she had begun by
despising and laughing at, and ridiculing and making jokes
about? All in a silly, flirting, coquettish sort of way, to be
sure; but still she had done it. I ask, how could she love
such a one, though, in desperation, she had taken him for
her husband?

Well, his simplicity had not wrought this wonder yet;

but it had done more, it had made her regard him with
veneration.

"Because he is so good, you know," she had said to

herself, over and over again, any time within those twenty
years which had passed and gone; while, at the same time,
she might have been—and no doubt was—vexed with him
for being so learned, such a clever fool, in fact; and with
herself for being such an unclever one.

But, in the month which had now passed away since

that letter came to Tincroft House, a new light had broken
in upon Sarah's feeble mind. How kind John was, and how
forgiving! What could be the meaning of it? To think of how
he had read all that letter, which she did not dare read
herself when she found out who it was from; and, instead of
being in a great angry rage, as most of the men would have
been—so Sarah thought and believed and argued—and of
visiting it home upon the weaker vessel, how he had not
had a word to say that was not good and kind to her, and
about Walter!

And then to think that such preparations were being

made to receive her cousin! I don't know whether Sarah
most longed for or dreaded the meeting with Walter. If it
was the first feeling, it was not because there was one
particle of guilty love in her composition. Nothing of the old
ideal of her cousin Walter as her lover remained in her
mind. It had not lasted long—it was not the sort of affection
to last long under any circumstances, perhaps.

But seeing that they had parted, never to meet again,

as they thought, and in anger with each other, and seeing
that Walter had gone his way, and married a wife (not
Sarah) so many years ago, and that she (Sarah) had also
gone her way, and married a husband (not Walter) so many
years ago, there was not any danger of harm arising, in
thought or word, from their meeting. Besides, was not
Walter so ill as to be doubtful whether he should live to
reach England at all? All this passed, though I have no
doubt in a confused sort of way, through Sarah's mind as
she thought of what was to be. No doubt she would like to
see Walter again, and to be friends with him.

Wasn't he her cousin before he had ever thought of

being her husband, or it had been put into her little head to
be his wife? And now that her resentment of his treatment
of her had long since faded away, carrying with it her
dreams of what might have been, but was never to be, her
cousinly regard still remained. And, though she dreaded the
meeting—she did not exactly know why—she should like to
see him again, and was glad it would be in her power to
comfort him, in her small way of comfort-giving, in his
sorrow, and to nurse him in his sickness.

But it was when she thought of the young Helen that

Sarah's feelings expanded to such an extent as to overflow
her full heart. There was no danger in indulging these
womanly out-goings of affection and sympathy for the
motherless girl.

"I will be her mother, and make up to her as well as I

can for what she has lost, poor dear," said she to herself.
 And then she began to wonder what Helen's mother had
been like, and to make an imaginary character of her, full of
beauty and love and all manner of perfections. And the
young Helen was to be a copy of her mother. There was a
mysterious, and yet, in some ways of looking at it, a natural
instinct in all this, perhaps. That which is mysterious I do
not, of course, pretend to explain; but it was natural,
surely, for Sarah to wish for an object on which to expend a
store of love within, which had hitherto lain dormant
because there had been no demand for it.

Helen was not many years younger now than her

(Sarah's) little bud of mortality would have been had it
pleased God to spare it to her. And, in her foolish thoughts,
it was as if that little bud was coming back to her at last, in
another form, and expanded into a lovely flower.

And then, from these vagaries of imagination, Sarah's

more sober thoughts came back again to legitimate home;
and, day after day, as she looked at her husband's patient
countenance, and heard his quiet, uncomplaining words,
and reflected how good he had been to her all those past
years, and given her so much more, to say the least of it,
than she had given him, she seemed to herself to be waking
up from some distressing if not hideous dream, till she
could not contain her self-reproach on the one hand, and
her thankfulness on the other.

And one evening, when they were by themselves in

John's gloomy-looking study, whither they had repaired
after a hard day's work in putting the finishing strokes to
their preparations, poor Sarah fairly gave way, and,
throwing her arms around John's neck, and hiding her face
on his breast, she sobbed out her penitent confession of
shortcomings and her new-found love.
 "I do love you now, John, dear, dearest husband. I have
never loved you as I ought to have done, till now. But I love
you now, dear, good, good John!"

Yes, it had come at last. John had never given up

hoping for it; and now, after so long a time, it had come to
him. His wife loved him.

Happy John Tincroft!

CHAPTER XXIV.
"COALS OF FIRE."

BY dint of persevering inquiries made through the

agency of his once guardian, Mr. Rackstraw, John had
ascertained at what time the Sea Bird was likely to arrive in
port. It wanted but a few days of this date when the final
touches were put to the preparation of Tincroft House. And
then John announced to Sarah that the time was come for
them to take their journey to London.
 "It will not matter, my dear, if we should have to wait a
week before the ship gets in," said he; "but it won't do to
be a day too late!"

So places were taken in the Trotbury coach—for the

London and Trotbury and Smashum line was not open then
—and two days afterwards they were on the road. That
same evening they had ensconced themselves in a private
boarding-house in the City, having first of all made
arrangements for extra rooms for the expected homeward-
bound ones.

They had not to wait many days. The winds and waves
were propitious; and as they sat at breakfast on the fourth
morning after their departure from home, news came that
the ship—having coming up from Gravesend on the
previous day—was then in the—docks. No time was to be
lost, therefore. But hurried as were their movements that
morning, we must precede the Tincrofts some short space
of time, and take our station on the quarter-deck of the Sea
Bird.

There, pacing to and fro, with slow and feeble steps,

and clad in rough but warm sea-going garments, was a tall
man, of well-built and once powerful frame, viewing with a
kind of languid interest the busy scene around him. He was
pale, what part of his face was not concealed by the thick
dark beard he wore; and he looked pensive, not to say
sorrowful.

By this sick man's side, and waiting on him as it seemed

with anxious watchfulness, was a tall, slight young woman,
whom it was natural to suppose was his daughter. A flush of
health intensified the brunette hue of her cheeks and
forehead, and added to the general loveliness of her
countenance as it beamed forth under the warm and
closely-fitting bonnet which partly concealed her dark brown
hair. But the great charm of her countenance at that time
was expressed in the loving, trusting, earnest, half-sad and
half-hopeful gaze she fixed on her companion.

"This is London, Helen; what do you think of it?" said

the invalid, gravely.

"I don't like it, father," the girl returned, with a shudder.
"But it is not all like this—ships and water, piers and
warehouses—I suppose?"

"No, there are streets and churches, and public

buildings—but it all amounts to much the same thing,
houses and men here and there and everywhere."

The man said this wearily, as though he had seen too

much of civilisation at some former time.

"But we shall not live in London, father?"

"For a time we must, perhaps. But I don't know yet

what we shall do. The first thing will be to get ashore as
soon as we can; and then, in a day or two, I will write to—
to the gentleman I was telling you of; and if he will let us go
and see him for a few days till we can find a home, well and
good."

"And then you are to get well again, you know, father,
and strong, and we will be happy—so happy again."

There was a great crushing and bustling on the main-

deck. But I shall not stay to describe it, save only that great
numbers of people were now coming on board. They were
of all sorts; and among them, stepping on board from the