'I only pray that all that seems burnt out of me by what I have seen, and heard, and felt, may not come back with my strength.'
'I could hardly pray that for you, Herbert,' said Jenny. 'Spirits are wanted to bear a clergyman through his work, and though you are quite right not to
'If I never was tempted.'
'It need not be temptation. It would not be if your mind were full of your work-it would only be refreshment. I don't want my boy to turn stern, and dry, and ungenial. That would not be like your Rector.'
'My Rector did not make such a bad start, and can trust himself better,' said Herbert. 'Come, Jenny, don't look at me in that way. You can't wish me to go to York, and meet those rattling girls again?'
'No, certainly not, though Sister Margaret told Rosamond they had never had such a sobering lesson in their lives as their share in the mischief to you.'
'It was not their fault,' said Herbert. 'It was deeper down than that. And they were good girls after all, if one only had had sense.'
'Oh!-'
'Nonsense, Jenny,' with a little smile, as he read her face, 'I'm not bitten-no-but they, and poor Lady Tyrrell, and all are proof enough that it is easy to turn my head, and that I am one who ought to keep out of that style of thing for the future. So do silence Phil, for you know when he gets a thing into his head how he goes on, and I do not think I can bear it now.'
'I am sure you can't,' said Jenny, emphatically, 'and I'll do my best. Only, Herbie, dear, do one thing for me, don't bind yourself by any regular renunciations of moderate things now your mind is excited, and you are weak. I am sure Julius or Dr. Easterby would say so.'
'I'll think,' said Herbert. 'But if I am forgiven for this year, nothing seems to me too much to give up to the Great Shepherd to show my sorrow. 'Feed My sheep' was the way He bade St. Peter prove his love.'
Jenny longed to say it was feeding the sheep rather than self-privation, but she was not sure of her ground, and Herbert's low, quiet, soft voice went to her heart. There were two great tears on his cheeks, he shut his eyes as if to keep back any more, and turned his face inwards on the sofa, his lips still murmuring over 'Feed My sheep.' She looked at him, feeling as if, while her heart had wakened to new glad hopes of earth, her brother, in her fulfilled prayer, had soared beyond her. They were both quite still till Mrs. Duncombe came to the door.
She was at the Rectory, her house being dismantled, and she, having stayed till the last case of fever was convalescent, and the Sisters recalled, was to go the next day to her mother-in-law's. She was almost as much altered as Herbert himself. Her jaunty air had given way to something equally energetic, but she looked wiry and worn, and her gold pheasant's crest had become little more than a sandy wisp, as she came quietly in and took the hand that Herbert held out to her, saying how glad she was to see him on the mend.
He asked after some of the people whom they had attended together, and listened to the details, asking specially after one or two families, where one or both parents had been taken away. 'Poor Cecil Poynsett is undertaking them,' was the answer in each case. Some had been already sent to orphanages; others were boarded out till places could be found for them; and the Sisters had taken charge of two.
Then one widow was to 'do for' the Vicar, who had taken solitary possession of the Vicarage, but would soon be joined there by one or more curates. He had been inducted into the ruinous chancel of the poor old church, had paid the architect of the Rat-house fifty pounds (a sum just equalling the proceeds of the bazaar) to be rid of his plans; had brought down a first-rate architect; and in the meantime was working the little iron church vigorously.
'Everything seems to be beginning there just as I go into exile!' said Mrs. Duncombe. 'It seems odd that I should have to go from what I have only just learnt to prize. But you have taught mo a good deal-'
'Every one must have learnt a good deal,' said Herbert wearily. 'If one only has!'
'I meant you yourself, and that is what I came to thank you for. Yes, I did; even if you don't like to hear it, your sister does, and I must have it out. I shall recollect you again and again standing over all those beds, and shrinking from nothing, and I shall hold up the example to my boys.'
'Do hold up something better!'
'Can you write?' she said abruptly.
'I have written a few lines to my mother.'
'Do you remember what you said that night, when you had to hold that poor man in his delirium, and his wife was so wild with fright that she could not help?'
'I am not sure what you mean.'
'You said it three or four times. It was only-'
'I remember,' said Herbert, as she paused; 'it was the only thing I could recollect in the turmoil.'
'Would it tire you very much to write it for me in the flyleaf of this Prayer-Book that Mr. Charnock has given me?'
Herbert pulled himself into a sitting posture, and signed to his sister to give him the ink.
'I shall spoil your book,' he said, as his hand shook.
'Never mind,' she said, eagerly, 'the words come back to me whenever I think of the life I have to face, and I want them written; they soothe me, as they soothed that frightened woman and raving man.'
And Herbert wrote. It was only-'The Lord is a very present help in trouble.'
'Yes,' she said; 'thank you. Put your initials, pray. There-thank you. No, you can never tell what it was to me to hear those words, so quietly, and gravely, and strongly, in that deadly struggle. It seemed to me, for the first time in all my life, that God is a real Presence and an actual Help. There! I see Miss Bowater wants me gone; so I am off. I shall hear of you.'
Herbert was exhausted with the exertion, and only exchanged a close pressure of the hand, and when Jenny came back, after seeing the lady to the door, she thought there were tears on his cheek, and bent down to kiss him.
'That was just the way, Jenny,' his low, tired voice said. 'I never could recollect what I wanted to say. Only just those few Psalms that you did manage to teach me before I went to school, they came back and back.'
Jenny had no time to answer, for the feet of Philip were on the stairs. He had been visiting Mrs. Hornblower, and persuading her that to make a dragoon of her son was the very best thing for him- great promotion, and quite removed from the ordinary vulgar enlistment in the line-till he had wiled consent out of her. And though Philip declared it was blarney, and was inclined to think it infra dig. to have thus exerted his eloquence, it was certain that Mrs. Hornblower would console herself by mentioning to her neighbours that her son was gone in compliment to Captain Bowater, who had taken a fancy to him.
The relief to Herbert was infinite; but he was by this time too much tired to do anything but murmur his thanks, and wish himself safe back in his bed, and Philip's strong-armed aid in reaching that haven was not a little appreciated.
Julius looked in with his mother's entreaty that Philip, and if possible his sister, should come up to eat their Christmas dinner at the Hall; and Herbert, wearily declaring that sleep was all he needed, and that Cranky would be more than sufficient for him, insisted on their accepting the invitation; and Jenny was not sorry, for she did not want a tete-a-tete with Philip so close to her patient's room, that whatever he chose to hear, he might.
She had quite enough of it in the walk to the Hall. Phil, with the persistency of a person bent on doing a kind thing, returned to his York plan, viewing it as excellent relaxation for a depressed, over-worked man, and certain it would be a great treat to 'little Herb.' He still looked on the tall young man as the small brother to be patronized, and protected, and dragged out of home-petting; so he pooh-poohed all Jenny's gentler hints as to Herbert's need of care and desire to return to his work, until she was obliged to say plainly that he had entreated her to beg it might not be argued with him again, as he was resolved against amusement for the present.
Then Phil grew very angry both with Herbert and Jenny.
'Did they suppose he wanted the boy to do anything unclerical?'
'No; but you know it was by nothing positively unclerical that he was led aside before.'
Phil broke out into a tirade against the folly of Jenny's speech. In his view, Herbert's conduct at Wil'sbro' had confuted the Bishop's censure, and for his own part, he only wished to amuse the boy, and give him rest, and if he did take him to a ball, or even out with the hounds, he would be on leave, and in another diocese, where the Bishop had nothing to do with him.
