Fated to Be Free. Jean Ingelow
open air. Peter and the rest of the party were with her, and after a long silence he turned towards her and said, "Grandmother, there are no ghosts in our house, are there?"
"Ne'er a one," exclaimed the nurse with zealous promptitude, "they don't come to houses where good folks live."
"I wish they would," said Peter, thoughtfully, "I want to see one."
"What does he say?" asked the great-grandmother. The nurse repeated
Peter's audacious remark; whereupon Madam Melcombe said briskly and
sharply, "Hold your tongue, child, and eat your bread and milk like a
Christian; you're spilling it on the floor."
"But I wish they would," repeated Peter softly; and finishing his bread and milk, he said his grace; and his fishing-rod being near at hand, he leaned his elbows on the balustrade, threw his line, and began to play at his favourite game.
"I think," he said, presently turning to his aunt, "I think, aunt, I shall call the garden the 'field of the cloth of gold;' it's so covered with marigolds just now that it looks quite yellow. Henry's tent shall be the arbour, and I'll have the French king's down in this corner."
On hearing this, his mother slightly elevated her eyebrows, she had no notion what he was alluding to; but his grandmother, who seemed to have been made rather restless and uneasy by his remarks about ghosts, evidently regarded this talk as something more of the same sort, and said to her granddaughter, "I wish, Laura, you wouldn't let him read such a quantity of fairy tales and heathenish nonsense—'field o' the cloth o' gold, indeed!' Who ever heard of such a thing!"
"He has only been reading the 'History of England,' grandmother," said
Peter's aunt.
"I hadn't read anything out of that book for such a long time," said Peter; "my Bible-lesson to-day made me remember it. About that other field, you know, grandmother."
"Come, that's something like," said old Madam Melcombe. "Stand up now, and let me hear your Bible-lesson."
"But, grandmother," Peter inquired, "I may call this the 'field of the cloth of gold,' mayn't I?"
"O dear me, call it anything you like," she replied; "but don't stand in that way to say your task to me; put your feet together now, and fold your hands, and hold your head up. To think that you're the child's aunt, Laura, she continued fretfully, and should take no more heed to his manners. Now you just look straight at me, Peter, and begin."
The child sighed: the constraint of his attitude perhaps made him feel melancholy. He ventured to cast one glance at his fishing-rod, and at the garden, then looking straight at his great-grandmother, he began in a sweet and serious tone of voice to repeat his lesson from the twenty-seventh chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, the third to the tenth verse.
3. "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
4. "Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
5. "And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
6. "And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.
7. "And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.
8. "Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood unto this day.
9. "Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value.
10. "And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me."
What was this!—standing upright again, as she had done several times in the church—was she listening? It scarcely appeared that she was; she took first one hand from her staff, and looked earnestly at it, and then she took the other, and with wide-open eyes examined that also.
"O cruel, cruel," thought Peter's mother, when Peter had repeated a verse or two, "why did not Laura prevent this, she who knew what the child's lesson was?" and she sat cold and trembling, with an anguish of pity; but she felt that now it was too late to stop her boy, he must go on to the end. As to the nurse, she sitting there still, with her work on her knees, felt as if every word rose up and struck her on the face. He was slowly, pensively, and O so calmly, describing to the poor mother the manner of her son's death.
"That will do, master Peter," she exclaimed, the moment he had finished; and she snatched his hand and led him away, telling him to go and play in the orchard.
Peter was not destitute of gratitude, and as he made his exit, he thought, what a good thing it was that he did not say his lesson to his grandmother every day.
When the nurse turned again she observed that Madam Melcombe had tottered a step or two forward: her grand-daughter, and her grandson's widow were supporting her. One of them called to her to fetch some cordial, and this seemed to disturb the poor old woman, for she presently said slowly, and as if it caused her a great effort to speak—
"What are they gone for? and what are you doing?"
"We're holding you up, grandmother; you tremble, dear; you can hardly stand. Won't you sit down?"
"Won't I what?" she repeated. "I don't hear;" and she began to move with their help and that of her staff to the balustrade.
The old fancy; the constant fancy; gazing at the bed of lilies, and talking to herself as, with her trembling hand to her brow, she peered out towards the arbour. They were words of no particular significance that she said; but just as the nurse came back bringing her a cordial, she turned round and repeated them distinctly, and with a solemnity that was almost awful.
"They all helped to dig it; and they know they did."
Words that appeared to be so far from the tragical recollection which must have first caused this disturbance in her poor mind; but her grand-daughter thought proper to make her some kind of answer.
"Did they, grandmother?" she said in a soothing tone, "and a very good thing too."
She stopped short, for upon the aged face fell suddenly such a look of affright, such renewed intelligence seemed to peer out of the dim eyes, and such defiance with their scrutiny, that for the moment she was very much alarmed.
"She's not quite herself. Oh, I hope she's not going to have a stroke!" was her thought.
"What have I been a saying?" inquired Madam Melcombe.
"You said it was a good thing they dug the lily bed," answered her grand-daughter.
"And nothing else?"
"No, ma'am, no," answered the nurse; "and if you had, what would it signify?"
Madam Melcombe let them settle her in her chair and give her her cordial, then she said—
"Folks are oft-times known to talk wild in their age. I thought I might be losing my wits; might have said something."
"Dear grandmother, don't laugh!" exclaimed her grandson's widow; "and don't look so strange. Lose your wits! you never will, not you. We shall have you a little longer yet, please God, and bright and sensible to the last."
"Folks are oft-times known to talk wild in their age," repeated Madam Melcombe; and during the rest of that evening she continued silent and lost in thought.
The next morning, after a late breakfast, her family observed that there was still a difference in her manner. She was not quite herself, they thought, and they were confirmed in their opinion when she demanded of her grand-daughter and her grandson's widow, that a heavy old-fashioned bureau should be opened for her, and