Heriot's Choice: A Tale. Rosa Nouchette Carey
stories about twenty years ago; these are enlightened times compared to them. We are getting on tolerably well, and can afford to wait; our daily services are badly attended. There is the vicarage pew, Aunt Milly; I must go now.'
Only nineteen—Richard's mannishness was absolutely striking; how wise and sensible he seemed, and yet what underlying bitterness there was in his words as he spoke of Olive. 'His heart is sore, poor lad, with missing his mother,' thought Mildred, as she watched the athletic figure, rather strong than graceful, cross the broad chancel; and then, as she sat admiring the noble pulpit of Shap granite and Syenetic marble, the vicarage pew began slowly to fill, and two or three people took their places.
Mildred stole a glance at her nieces: Olive looked heavy-eyed and absent; and Chriss more untidy than she had been the previous night. When service had begun she nudged her aunt twice, once to say Dr. Heriot was not there, and next that Roy and Polly had come in late, and were hiding behind the last pillar. She would have said more, but Richard frowned her into silence. It was rather a dreary service; there was no music, and the responses, with the exception of Richard's, were inaudible in the vast building; but Mildred thought it restful, though she grieved to see that her brother's worn face looked thinner and sadder in the morning light, and his tall figure more bowed and feeble.
He waited for her in the porch, where she lingered behind the others, and greeted her with his old smile; and then he took Richard's arm.
'We have a poor congregation you see, Mildred; even Heriot was not there.'
'Is he usually?' she asked, somewhat quickly.
'I have never known him miss, unless some bad case has kept him up at night. He joined us reluctantly at first, and more to please us than himself; but he has grown into believing there is no fitter manner of beginning the day; his example has infected two or three others, but I am afraid we rarely number over a dozen. We do a little better at six o'clock.'
'It must be very disheartening to you, Arnold.'
'I do not permit myself to feel so; if the people will not come, at least they do not lack invitation—twice a day the bells ring out their reproachful call. I wish Christians were half as devout as Mahometans.'
'Mrs. Sadler calls it new-fangled nonsense, and says she has not time to be always in church,' interrupted Chrissy, in her self-sufficient treble.
'My little Chriss, it is not good to repeat people's words. Mrs. Sadler has small means and a large family, and the way she brings them up is highly creditable.' But his gentle reproof fell unheeded.
'But she need not have told Miss Martingale that she knew you were a Ritualist at heart, and that the daily services were unnecessary innovations,' returned Chrissy, stammering slightly over the long words.
'Now, Contradiction, no one asked for this valuable piece of information,' exclaimed Roy, with a warning pull at the rough tawny mane; 'little girls like you ought not to meddle in parish matters. You see Gregory has been steadily at work this morning, father,' pointing to the long swathes of cut grass under the trees; 'the churchyard will be a credit to us yet.'
But Roy's good-natured artifice to turn his father's thoughts into a pleasanter channel failed to lift the cloud that Chrissy's unfortunate speech had raised.
'Innovations! new-fangled ideas!' he muttered, in a grieved voice, 'simple obedience—that I dare not, on the peril of a bad conscience, withhold, to the rules of the Church, to the loving precept that bids me gather her children into morning and evening prayer.'
'Contradiction, you deserve half-a-dozen pinches for this,' whispered Roy; 'you have set him off on an old grievance.'
'Never sacrifice principles, Cardie, when you are in my position,' continued Mr. Lambert. 'If I had listened to opposing voices, our bells would have kept silence from one Sunday to another. Ah, Milly! I often ask myself, "Can these dry bones live?" The husks and tares that choke the good seed in these narrow minds that listen to me Sunday after Sunday would test the patience of any faithful preacher.'
'Aunt Milly looks tired, and would be glad of her breakfast,' interposed Richard.
Mildred thanked him silently with her eyes; she knew her brother sufficiently of old to dread the long vague self-argument that would have detained them for another half-hour in the porch had not Richard's dexterous hint proved effectual. Mildred learnt a great deal of the habits of the family during the hour that followed; the quiet watchful eyes made their own observation—and though she said little, nothing escaped her tender scrutiny. She saw her brother would have eaten nothing but for the half-laughing, half-coaxing attentions of Roy, who sat next him. Roy prepared his egg, and buttered his toast, and placed the cresses daintily on his plate, unperceived by Mr. Lambert, who was opening his letters and glancing over his papers.
When he had finished—and his appetite was very small—he pushed away his plate, and sat looking over the fells, evidently lost in thought. But his children, as though accustomed to his silence, took no further notice of him, but carried on the conversation among themselves, only dropping their voices when a heavier sigh than usual broke upon their ears. The table was spread with a superabundance of viands that surprised Mildred; but the cloth was not over clean, and was stained with coffee in several places. Mildred fancied that it was to obviate such a catastrophe for the future that Richard sat near the urn. A German grammar lay behind the cups and saucers, and Olive munched her bread and butter very ungracefully over it, only raising her head when querulous or reproachful demands for coffee roused her reluctant attention, and it evidently needed Richard's watchfulness that the cups were not returned unsweetened to their owner.
'There, you have done it again,' Mildred heard him say in a low voice. 'The second clean cloth this week disfigured with these unsightly brown patches.'
'Something must be the matter with the urn,' exclaimed Olive, looking helplessly with regretful eyes at the mischief.
'Nonsense, the only fault is that you will do two things at a time. You have eaten no breakfast, at least next to none, and made us all uncomfortable. And pray how much German have you done?'
'I can't help it, Cardie; I have so much to do, and there seems no time for things.'
'I should say not, to judge by this,' interposed Roy, wickedly, executing a pirouette round his sister's chair, to bring a large hole in his sock to view. 'Positively the only pair in my drawers. It is too hard, isn't it, Dick?'
But Richard's disgust was evidently too great for words, and the unbecoming flush deepened on Olive's sallow cheeks.
'I was working up to twelve o'clock at night,' she said, looking ready to cry, and appealing to her silent accuser. 'Don't laugh, Chriss, you were asleep; how could you know?'
'Were you mending this?' asked her brother gravely, holding up a breadth of torn crape for her inspection, fastened by pins, and already woefully frayed out.
'I had no time,' still defending herself heavily, but without temper. 'Please leave it alone, Cardie, you are making it worse. I had Chriss's frock to do; and I was hunting for your things, but I could not find them.'
'I dare say not. I dare not trust myself to your tender mercies. I took a carpet bagful down to old Margaret. If Rex took my advice, he would do the same.'
'No, no, I will do his to-day. I will indeed, Rex. I am so sorry about it. Chriss ought to help me, but she never does, and she tears her things so dreadfully,' finished Olive, reproachfully.
'What can you expect from a contradicting baby,' returned Roy, with another pull at the ill-kempt locks as he passed. Chriss gave him a vixenish look, but her aunt's presence proved a restraining influence. Evidently Chriss was not a favourite with her brothers, for Roy teased, and Richard snubbed her pertness severely. Roy, however, seemed to possess a fund of sweet temper for family use, which was a marked contrast to Richard's dictatorial and somewhat stern manner, and he hastened now to cover poor Olive's discomfiture.
'Never mind, Lily, a little extra ventilation is not unhealthy, and is a somewhat wholesome discipline; you may cobble me up a pair for to-morrow