There & Back Part 76

"I will say nothing to your mother.--Do you accept my offer?"

"I will think over it."

"Do," said Richard, and turned to go.

"Will you not settle something on Victoria?" said Arthur.

"We shall see what she turns out by the time she is of age! I don't want to waste money!"

"What do you mean by wasting money?"

"Giving it where it will do no good."

"G.o.d gives to the bad as well as the good?"

"It is one thing to give to the bad, and another to give where it will do no good. G.o.d knows the endless result; I should know but the first link of its chain. I must act by the knowledge granted me. G.o.d may give money in punishment: should I dare do that?"

"Well, you're quite beyond me!"

"Never mind, then. What you and I have to do is to be friends, and work together. You will find I mean well!"

"I believe you do, Richard; but we don't somehow seem to be in the same world."

"If we are true, that will not keep us apart. If we both work for the good of the people, we must come together."

"To tell you the truth, Richard, knowing you had given me the land, I could not put up with interference. I am afraid we should quarrel, and then I should seem ungrateful."

"What would you say to our managing the estates together for a year or two? Would not that be the way to understand each other?"

"Perhaps. I must think about it."

"That is right. Only don't let us begin with suspicion. You did me more than one kindness not knowing I was your brother! And you sent back Miss Brown."

"That was mere honesty."

"Strictly considered, it was more. My father had a right to take the mare from me, and at his death she came into your possession. I thank you for sending her to Barbara."

Arthur turned away.

"My dear fellow," said Richard, "Barbara loved me when I was a bookbinder, and promised to marry me thinking me base-born. I am sorry, but there is no blame to either of us. I had my bad time then, and your good time is, I trust, coming. I did nothing to bring about the change.

I did think once whether I had not better leave all to you, and keep to my trade; but I saw that I had no right to do so, because duties attended the property which I was better able for than you."

"I believe every word you say, Richard! You are n.o.bler than I."

CHAPTER LXVI. _BARBARA'S DREAM_.

Mr. Wylder could not well object to sir Richard Lestrange on the ground that his daughter had loved him before she or her father knew his position the same he was coveting for her; and within two months they were married. Lady Ann was invited but did not go to the wedding; Arthur, Theodora, and Victoria did; Percy was not invited.

Neither bride nor bridegroom seeing any sense in setting out on a journey the moment they were free to be at home together, they went straight from the church to Mortgrange.

When they entered the hall which had so moved Richard's admiration the first time he saw it, he stood for a moment lost in thought. When he came to himself, Barbara had left him; but ere he had time to wonder, such a burst of organ music filled the place as might have welcomed one that had overcome the world. He stood entranced for a minute, then hastened to the gallery, where he found Barbara at the instrument.

"What!" he cried in astonishment; "you, Barbara! you play like that!"

"I wanted to be worth something to you, Richard."

"Oh Barbara, you are a queen at giving! I was well named, for you were coming! I _am_ Richard indeed!--oh, so rich!"

In the evening they went out into the park. The moon was rising. The sunlight was not quite gone. Her light mingled with the light that gave it her. "Do you know that lovely pa.s.sage in the Book of Baruch?" asked Richard.

"What book is that?" returned Barbara. "It can't be in the Bible, surely?"

"It is in the Apocrypha--which is to me very much in the Bible! I think I can repeat it. I haven't a good memory, but some things stick fast."

But in the process of recalling it, Richard's thoughts wandered, and Baruch was forgotten.

"This dying of Apollo in the arms of Luna," he said, "this melting of the radiant G.o.d into his own pale shadow, always reminds me of the poverty-stricken, wasted and sad, yet lovely Elysium of the pagans: so little consolation did they gather from the thought of it, that they longed to lay their bodies, not in the deep, cool, far-off shadow of grove or cave, but by the ringing roadside, where live feet, in two meeting, mingling, parting tides, ever came and went; where chariots rushed past in hot haste, or moved stately by in jubilant procession; where at night lonely forms would steal through the city of the silent, with but the moon to see them go, bent on ghastly conference with witch or enchanter; and--"

"Where _are_ you going, Richard? Please take me with you. I feel as if I were lost in a wood!"

"What I meant to say," replied Richard, with a little laugh, "was--how different the moonlit shadow-land of those people from the sunny realm of the radiant Christ! Jesus rose again because he was true, and death had no part in him. This world's day is but the moonlight of his world.

The shadow-man, who knows neither whence he came nor whither he is going, calls the upper world the house of the dead, being himself a ghost that wanders in its caves, and knows neither the blowing of its wind, the das.h.i.+ng of its waters, the s.h.i.+ning of its sun, nor the glad laughter of its inhabitants."

They wandered along, now talking, now silent, their two hearts lying together in a great peace.

The moon kept rising and brightening, slowly victorious over the pallid light of the dead sun; till at last she lifted herself out of the vaporous horizon-sea, ascended over the tree-tops, and went walking through the un.o.bstructed sky, mistress of the air, queen of the heavens, lady of the eyes of men. Yet was she lady only because she beheld her lord. She saw the light of her light, and told what she saw of him.

"When the soul of man sees G.o.d, it s.h.i.+nes!" said Richard. They reached at length the spot where first they met in the moonlight. With one heart they stopped and turned, and looked each in the other's moonlit eyes.

Barbara spoke first.

"Now," she said, "tell me what Baruch says."

"Ah, yes, Baruch! He was the prophet Jeremiah's friend and amanuensis.

It was the moon made me think of him. I believe I can give you the pa.s.sage word for word, as it stands in the English Bible.

"'But he that knoweth all things knoweth her,'--that is, Wisdom--'and hath found her out with his understanding: he that prepared the earth for evermore hath filled it with four-footed beasts: he that sendeth forth light, and it goeth, calleth it again, and it obeyeth him with fear. The stars s.h.i.+ned in their watches, and rejoiced: when he calleth them, they say, Here we be; and so with cheerfulness they showed light unto him that made them. This is our G.o.d, and there shall none other be accounted of in comparison of him.'"

"That is beautiful!" cried Barbara. "'They said, Here we be! And so--'--What is it?"

"'And so with cheerfulness they showed light unto him that made them.'"

"I will read every word of Baruch!" said Barbara. "Is there much of him?"

"No; very little."

A silence followed. Then again Barbara spoke, and she clung a little closer to her husband.