The Billow and the Rock Part 12

"Well, I never heard--!" exclaimed mamma.

"What can possess them?" inquired papa. "My dears, why do you not love the lady, eh,--Kate?"

"I don't know," said Kate.

"You don't know?--That is foolish. Adam, why do you not love this lady who is to live with us? Do not tell me that you don't know, for that is foolish. Why do you not love the lady?"

"Because I can't."

"Why, that is worse still. How perverse," he said, looking at the ladies, "how perverse is the human heart. My dear, you can, and you must do what is right. You may love me and your mamma first, and next you must love this lady. Say you will try."

"I'll try," said Kate.

Adam whimpered a little longer; but then he also said, "I'll try."

"That is right. That is the least you can say after your extraordinary behaviour. Now you may go with the lady, as she is so kind as to wish it."

Lady Ca.r.s.e moved off in silence; and the children, tightly grasping each other's hands, followed as if going to a funeral.

"Jump, my dears," said papa, when they had reached the down. "Jump about: you may be merry now."

Both looked as if they were immediately going to cry. "What now, Adam?"

stooping down that the child might speak confidentially to him, but saying to Lady Ca.r.s.e as he did so, that it was necessary sometimes to condescend to the weakness of children. "Adam, tell me why you are not merry, when I a.s.sure you you may."

"I can't," whispered Adam.

"You can't! What a sudden fit of humility this boy has got, that he can't do anything to-day. Unless, however, it be true, well-grounded humility, I fear--"

Mamma now tried what she could do. She saw, by Lady Ca.r.s.e's way of walking on by herself, that she was displeased; and, under the inspiration of this grief, Mrs Ruthven so strove to make her children agreeable by causing them to forget everything disagreeable, that they were soon like themselves again. Mamma permitted them to look for hens'

eggs among the whins, because they had heard that when she was a little girl she used to look for them among bushes in a field. There was no occasion to tell them at such a critical moment for their spirits that it was mid-winter, or that whins would be found rather p.r.i.c.kly by poultry, or that there were no hens in the island but Mrs Macdonald's well sheltered pets. They were told that the first egg they found was to be presented to Lady Ca.r.s.e; and they themselves might divide the next.

Their mother's hope, that if they did not find hens' eggs, they might light upon something else, was not disappointed. Perhaps she took care that it should not. Adam found a barley-cake on the sheltered side of a bush; and it was not long before Kate found one just as good. They were desired to do with these what they would have done with the eggs-- present one to Lady Ca.r.s.e and divide the other. As they were very hungry, they hastened to fulfil the condition of beginning to eat.

Again grasping one another's hands, they walked with desperate courage up to Lady Ca.r.s.e, and held out a cake, without yet daring, however, to look up.

"Well, what is that?" she asked sharply.

"A barley-cake."

"Who bade you bring it to me?"

"Mamma."

"You would not have brought it if mamma had not bid you?"

"No."

"Allow me to suggest," observed papa, "that they would not have ventured. It would be a liberty unbecoming their years to--"

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Lady Ca.r.s.e; "I hate these put-up manners. No, miss--no, young master--I will not take your cake. I take gifts only from those I love; and if you don't love me, I don't love you--and so there is a Rowland for your Oliver."

The children did not know anything about Rowlands and Olivers; but they saw that the lady was very angry--so angry that they took to their heels, scampered away over the downs, and never stopped till they reached home, and had hidden themselves under the bed.

They were not followed. Punishment for their act of absconding was deferred till Lady Ca.r.s.e's errand should be finished. When once down among the rocks, Lady Ca.r.s.e was eager to show her dear friends all the secrets of her late hiding. As soon as Macdonald's watchman was convinced by the lady that she was not drowned, and by the minister that he might go home--as soon as he was fairly out of sight, the wonders of the caves were revealed to the pastor and his wife. The party were so interested in the anecdotes belonging to Lady Ca.r.s.e's season of retreat, that they did not observe, sheltered as they were in eastern caves, that a storm was coming up from the west--one of the tempests which frequently rise from that quarter in the winter season, and break over the Western Islands.

The children were aware of it before their parents. When they found they were not followed, they soon grew tired of whispering under the bed, and came cautiously forth.

It was very dark, strangely dark, till a glare of lightning came, which was worse than the darkness. But the thunder was worse: it growled fearfully, so as to make them hold their breath. The next clap made them cry. After that cry came help.

The widow heard the wail from next door, and called to the children from her door; and glad enough were they to take refuge with a grown-up person who smiled and spoke cheerfully, in spite of the thunder.

"Are you not afraid of the thunder?" asked Kate, nestling so close to the widow that she was advised to take care lest the sharp bone knitting needles went into her eyes. "But are not you afraid of the thunder?"

"Oh, no!"

"Why?"

"Because I am not afraid of anything."

"What, not of anything at all?"

"Not of anything at all. And there are many things much more harmful than thunder."

"What things?"

"The wind is, perhaps, the most terrible of all."

"How loud it is now!" said Adam, s.h.i.+vering as the rus.h.i.+ng storm drowned his voice. When the gust had pa.s.sed, the widow said, "It was not the wind that made all that noise, it was a dash of hail. Ah! if I do fear anything, it is large hail; not because it will hurt me, but because it may break my window, and let in the wind to blow out my lamp."

"But why do not things hurt you? If the lightning was to kill you--"

"That would not hurt me," said the widow, smiling. "I do not call that being hurt, more than dying in any other way that G.o.d pleases."

"But if it did not kill you quite, but hurt you--hurt you very much indeed--burned you, or made you blind?"

"Then I should know that it was no hurt, but in some way a blessing, because the lightning comes from G.o.d. I always like to see it, because--There!" she said, as a vivid flash illumined the place. "Did you ever see anything so bright as that? How should we ever fancy the brightness of G.o.d's throne, if He did not send us a single ray, now and then, in this manner--one single ray, which is as much as we can bear?

I dare say you have heard it read in church how all things are G.o.d's messengers, without any word being said about their hurting us,--'fire and hail;' here they are!"

When that gust was past, she went on, "'Snow and vapour, stormy winds fulfilling His word.' Here we are in the midst of the fire and the hail and the stormy winds. If we looked out, perhaps we might see the 'snow and vapour.'"

The children did not seem to wish it.

"Then again," the widow went on, "we are told that 'He causeth His wind to blow, and the waters flow.' I am sure I can show you that. I am sure the sea must have risen much already, before such a wind as this.

Come!" she continued, wrapping her plaid round herself and the children; "keep close to me and you will not be cold. The cold has not come yet: and if we stand under the sheltered side of the house we shall not be blown. Hark! there is the roar of the waves when the thunder stops.

Now we shall see how 'He causeth His wind to blow and the waters flow.'"

She looked so cheerful and promised them such a sight, that they did not like to beg to stay within. Though the hail came pelting in gusts, there was no rain at present to wet them. The wind almost strangled them at the first moment; but they were under the eastern gable of the cottage in an instant, out of the force of the blast.

There they sat down, all huddled together; and there the children saw more than they had been promised.