All Joan knew of the beginning of this mournful change was, that she awoke one pleasant sunny morning and found Rhoda gone.
That day Aunt Priscilla roamed about the farmstead and the scattered fields her grandfather had enclosed upon the mountain, like one distracted, calling everywhere for Rhoda. The farm-laborers loitered about the fold and the little blacksmith’s shop, whispering mysteriously whenever Joan had been within hearing. There had been nobody to keep them to their work, for Nathan was away all day, and did not return till the late sunset was past and even the loftiest peak of the highest mountain stood gray and dark against the sky.
Nobody had bade Joan to go to bed, and she was afraid of her little, lonely, separate room, if Rhoda was not coming back to sleep with her. Not a single word had Aunt Priscilla spoken to her all the day, and if the young servant-girl had not given her some bread and a bowl of milk she would have been left without food, for Aunt Priscilla had not eaten a morsel, or sat down in the kitchen, since the early morning.
Joan had curled herself up in a corner of the oak settle, which stood as a screen on one side of the corner fireplace, and had fallen fast asleep there, when she was aroused by Nathan’s voice. He spoke so quietly and sadly that it did not quite awake her, and her drowsy ears took in the sound as if he had been talking to some one a long way off. But suddenly Aunt Priscilla spoke, in a voice so terrible and loud that she woke up in a fright. Her aunt was standing in the middle of the floor, and the light from a candle fell upon her face, weary and gray, and drawn into a frown of stern and passionate anger.
“She shall never enter my doors again!” she exclaimed; “neither she nor her husband, Evan Price—the worst scamp in the country! I’ll never forgive her. Deceiving me all these months! Let nobody ever name her name to me again; she’s dead to me for evermore.”
“No, no,” said old Nathan, sorrowfully; “don’t thee harden thy heart against her, Miss Priscilla. She’s been deceived as well as us, poor, young, ignorant lass! She does n’t know what Evan is yet: a handsome young raskill, as all the girls make much of. If she repents—and she will repent, poor creature—thou must pardon her.”
“Never!” cried Aunt Priscilla, “not on my death-bed!”
“‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive them as sin against us,’” he answered, in a very mournful and solemn voice.
“I’ll never pray that prayer again!” she said fiercely. “I haven’t sinned against the Lord as she’s sinned against me. I’ve never brought shame and disgrace on Him. The Lord may pardon her, but I can’t!”
“Hush!” exclaimed Nathan, “hush! God Himself is hearkening to us. Our sins against Him are as if we owed Him ten thousand talents; and the sins of our fellow-creatures against us are no more than a hundred pence. It is our crucified Lord that says it. Ah! thou knowest it well. ‘O thou wicked servant, said the lord in the parable,’I forgave thee all that debt because thou desiredst me; shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. So likewise shall My Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother his trespasses.’ It’s an awful thing when the Heavenly Father delivers a soul to the tormentors! May God in His infinite mercy deliver thee; only take heed that thou drive not away His Holy Spirit from thee!”
Aunt Priscilla said no more, but went away upstairs, leaving the kitchen in utter darkness. Joan trembled from head to foot as she listened to her heavy tread in the room above. When old Nathan struck a light, her white, scared little face was the first thing he saw. He sat down on the settle beside her, and took her tenderly into his arms.
“It’s a sad day for thee, too, my little lamb,” he said; “thou’s lost thy playfellow, and there’s hard times before thee.”
“Where’s Rhoda?” asked Joan, trembling.
“She’s been tempted away from us,” he said sorrowfully, “by one as pretends he loves her more than us. But thou must go to bed, my little lass. See! I’ll carry thee upstairs. I’m a poor, rough nurse for thee, but my room’s next to thine, on the other side o’ the wall, and thee can cry to me i’ th’ night if thou’s frightened. And tomorrow I’ll knock a hole through the wall, so as thou can hear me speak to thee. But there’s no wall between thee and the Lord; He’s close beside thee, and thou need never be affrighted.”
But little Joan was frightened, both that night and many another dark hour, when she felt herself alone in the solitary little room. The child’s life became very hard and desolate. Aunt Priscilla took no notice of her beyond providing her with food to eat and clothes to wear. She did not talk to her, and she never took her on her lap or kissed her. Sometimes Joan would creep timidly to her side and look up into her face, but Aunt Priscilla never seemed to see her.
There was nothing for the little girl to do but to wander solitarily about the fields or sit up in her lonely room with no one to speak to her for hours together. She was more desolate than she had been in London; for there her mother had sometimes come up to the attic to play with her, or to nurse her in her arms for a few minutes. There was no one to love her now, except old Nathan.
There was a still greater change in Miss Priscilla Parry. The neighbors said she was gone out of her mind; and it was true that all her nature seemed turned to hardness and sternness. She was never seen to smile, nor did she speak a word that was not absolutely necessary. She gave up going to church and market, and she refused to see any visitor who came up to the farm.
On Sunday evening, when the usual meeting was held in her kitchen, and the curious neighbors came in larger numbers than usual, they no longer saw her in her old place on the settle, where Rhoda’s pretty face had made so strong a contrast with her aunt’s. Miss Priscilla, after Rhoda’s foolish flight, always retreated to her bedroom overhead, in which there was a small trap-door, made when her mother was bedridden, that she might hear the prayers and the sermon and the singing in the kitchen below. It was some weeks before old Nathan, who looked every Sunday if the trap-door was open, saw that it had been lifted up, and knew his mistress was listening.
When Miss Priscilla was downstairs about her work it was a sad sight to see her. Her gray hair had gone quite white, and her eyes were worn out with weeping. Her shoulders were bent as if she was always stooping under a heavy burden, and she seldom lifted her head or looked up from the ground. Joan often saw her lips moving, though no sound came through them. Everybody except old Nathan thought she was mad.
CHAPTER III. THE CHILD IN THE MANGER
The long winter evenings were very dreary when the sun set early and the rain and the fogs overspread the mountains, and enshrouded the home with blackness.
Aunt Priscilla used to retire upstairs, where Joan could hear her sobbing often in the darkness; and the two young servants, the maid and the ploughboy, as soon as she was safely out of the way, would slink off out of the kitchen, where their mistress could overhear them.
It was not worth while to light a candle for a little girl like Joan, and many a long hour she sat alone in the dark chimney-corner with no light save the dull red glimmer of the embers in the grate, and hearing strange, mysterious noises all about her, sounds so low and quiet that they could only be heard when everything else was perfectly still. And going to bed was always a terror to her. The little creature could not put her terror into words; but all day long it was as if some powerful and pitiless enemy was lying in wait to seize her; and as the hour came when all the household went to bed, and she was forced to creep up her separate staircase to her lonely room, the terror reached its utmost height, and she often sprang into bed dressed, and drew the coverings up above her head, lest she should see or hear something more horrible than what she could image to herself.
What Joan would have done without Nathan no one can tell. During the long winter nights, whenever he was sitting with her by the fireside, he taught her to read, or re
ad aloud to her out of his Bible, which was yellow and worn with much turning over of its leaves. He could sing a little still, though now his teeth were gone his voice was weak and quavering; but he made Joan sing with him, and took care to choose such hymns as his mistress had been taught when she was a child, knowing well she could not help hearing them through the unceiled rafters overhead. The newer hymns which Rhoda had often sung with her young, sweet voice, old Nathan never sung; and Aunt Priscilla, in her dark, desolate room, would sit still and listen, and think of the days when she was herself a child, and go to sleep and dream that she was a child again.
The third Christmas Eve came; the second since Rhoda ran away from her tranquil home and all who loved her truly. Joan had grown into a very silent, pale, and sad child, seldom laughing, and with no companion save old Nathan and a doll he had bought for her in the market-town, where he went every week instead of Miss Priscilla. She and Nathan could not sing, “Hark! the herald angels!” because that was one of Rhoda’s favorite hymns; but as they sat together on the settle very quiet, for both of them were full of sorrowful thoughts, Joan laid her small fingers timidly on the old man’s hard and horny hand.
“Nathan,” she said very softly, lest Aunt Priscilla overhead should hear her, “can I go tomorrow, like Rhoda and me said we would, and look into the manger for the child Jesus? I know He can’t be there, because I’m a big girl now. But me and Rhoda said we’d go every Christmas morning very early; and she’ll be thinking of it tomorrow. I’m sure Rhoda’ll remember, and think I’m going to look for Him.”
“Ay, ay, Joan,” answered the old man; “I’d never say nay to anything as is done out o’ love. Maybe Rhoda’ll be thinking of it, and please God it’ll do her good. I’ll be up early i’ th’ morning and light the lantern, and see thee safe across the fold and hearken to thee singing the ‘Heral’ angels.’”
There was neither frost nor snow this Christmas. The weather had been as soft and mild as autumn, and there were still some pale monthly roses blooming against the southern walls of the farmhouse. Old Nathan lighted Joan across the causeway and put the lantern into her hand when they reached the door of the outer cowshed. As she stood alone on the low threshold of the farther shed, and looked up to the black space above her, where the bay of the barn opened into it on her left hand, she felt a little terrified. The light from her dim lantern could not reach the roof, but she could see the piled-up straw rising high above her, and the utter blackness beyond it.
Her own white, melancholy-looking face was lit up by the rays from the perforated top of the lantern, which swung from her hand as she lingered on the door-sill gazing forward into the dark shed. The thought of old Nathan not far away gave her some courage, and, after a timorous pause of a minute or two, her young, clear, yet tremulous voice began to sing the Christmas Hymn:
Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King; Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.
All the other verses seemed to slip suddenly out of Joan’s memory. She heard something stirring in the stall before her, the straw rustled softly, and there was a faint, slight sound of a gentle breathing. With her heart beating fast she stole forward on tiptoe to the manger, well lined with hay, and lifted up the lantern. It was no longer empty: there lay a child asleep, a little babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and cradled in the manger!
No doubt was there in Joan’s little heart, no question as to who the sleeping child could be. All the little learning she had gained died away when she saw the child. She had come to seek the babe whose birth the angels had sung over, and she had found him. Without speech or motion, scarcely breathing for very joy, she stood gazing at it. The little head and small face, the tiny hands, filled her soul with awe and tenderness. Very timidly she touched the soft cheek with the tip of her finger—the warm, soft cheek—and the baby stirred a little. Then Joan, hanging the lantern to the rack above the manger, knelt down by its side to watch the quiet slumber of the welcome child.
Were the angels there, asked Joan of herself, unseen and unheard by her, singing glory? And oh! where was Mary, His mother? and where could Joseph be? She must take care of the sleeping baby till they came back; and surely Aunt Priscilla would consent to have such guests as these in her house.
But before very long she heard Nathan’s voice calling her anxiously. He wanted his lantern; and his mind was not quite easy as to whether it was well for Joan to keep up a fancy like this. At the sound the baby stirred, and its tiny features grew puckered up, as if it was about to cry. Joan sprang up quickly yet quietly, and appeared in the doorway, beckoning to old Nathan to keep still.
“Hush! hush!” she cried; “he is here sleeping, and you mustn’t wake him. But I don’t know where Mary is or Joseph. There is nobody but the baby. Oh, I am so happy! I am so happy!”
“What does Joan mean?” thought Nathan, stepping heavily yet gently on into the inner shed, which he had filled with provender the day before. Joan led him to the farther stall, and there, in a warm, soft nest of hay, well wrapped up and sleeping soundly again, lay the baby. The old man stood silently gazing at it till the slow tears trickled down his gray and withered cheeks.
“God help us!” he sobbed at last; “poor little lost babe! Come on Christmas mornin’! And where’s thy poor, sorrowful mother? What can we do for thee, Joan and me? Nobody to give thee a welcome but an old man and a little child. But we’ll love thee for the dear Lord’s sake as sent thee to us on Christmas mornin’. Ay, and, old as I am, I’ll fight thy battles for thee, poor lamb!”
Very gently he lifted up the tender little creature, and laid it in Joan’s outstretched arms, which tingled with delight, mingled with fear lest she should loose her hold of it. A flush of color had come to her pale face, and all the sadness had fled from it, and her eyes were shining with joy. Nathan lighted her steps along the stony causeway, which she trod with a thrill of anxious care, lest she might slip and fall with her precious burden. But the house was reached in safety, and the sleeping child had uttered no cry.
“Lay it warm in thy own bed,” said Nathan, “and wrap the blankets about it, and I’ll run and fetch Nurse Williams, that knows how to manage little babes; and keep it still, Joan, while I’m away, whatever you do. Don’t let thy aunt hear it till I come back.”
How long Nathan was away Joan could not tell. She knew nothing of time as she knelt by the bedside watching the child sleeping so softly and soundly, its tiny face growing rosy with warmth. But at last her long day-dream was broken by the sound of her own name, uttered in so loud and terrible a voice that she felt as if she could not stir hand or foot. It was Aunt Priscilla’s voice, not far away, nay, at the very foot of the steep and narrow staircase leading up to her room. Joan’s heart seemed to stand still with terror.
“Joan, bring that child down at once!” were the words that rang in her ears; “I’ll not have it one moment under my roof.”
Joan did not answer or move, except to throw her little arms over the sleeping baby.
“No, no!” she heard old Nathan say; “I’ve lived here in this place all my life, with thy grandfather and father and thee, and I’ve been true and faithful in my service, and I’ve grieved over the poor unhappy mother of the little babe as if she’d been my own child. And now, if the baby goes away from out of the house I’ll go with it. I’ll stay no longer, not another hour. Thou’rt a hard woman, Priscilla Parry, and God’ll show Himself hard to thee. With the unmerciful He’ll show Himself unmerciful, and with the froward He’ll show Himself froward. And oh! it’s a fearful thing to think of an unmerciful and hard God!”
Joan listened in terror to Nathan’s strange words, but she did not hear her aunt’s voice making any answer. There was utter silence for a long minute or two, followed by the sound of slow and dragging footsteps, which grew fainter and fainter till she could hear them no more. Then old Nathan came upstairs, and Nurse Williams, whom he had been to fetch.
CHAPTER IV. LOST AND FOUND
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It was a very happy Christmas Day for Joan, though she never left her little bedroom. Her delight was in watching the wonderful Christmas child all day, and in helping to nurse him. Never had she seen anything so perfectly lovely as his tiny hands and feet, and the little head that nestled down so peacefully on her arm. A good part of the day she was left alone with the baby, for Nurse Williams was busy about the house, where there was a good deal of stir and excitement. The neighbors were coming in to inquire about the rumors that had reached them, and Nathan was away, and Miss Priscilla had shut herself up in her room, taking no notice whatever of any appeals to her to open the door or to speak.
Happy as it was to Joan, to old Nathan it was the saddest Christmas Day of his life. He was seeking some trace or tidings of the baby’s mother; and his weary feet, made heavy by his heavy heart, trod many a mile that short wintry day in quest of her. It could be no one else but Rhoda who had laid the child in the manger. She had never been heard of since Aunt Priscilla had answered her first and only letter, asking forgiveness, by a bitter, stern, and terrible command that she must never show her face again at home, or dare to ask for any help, whatever misery befell her.
But Nathan’s search was all in vain. No one had seen her down in the village, or in the scattered dwellings far and wide upon the mountains. But more than one had hinted to him that there were places, not far away, where the cliffs overhung the sea; and as he returned sorrowfully homewards he could hear the sad moaning and sobbing of the sea following him through the stillness of the night air.
But sad as the day was to Nathan, it was most miserable of all for Aunt Priscilla. She had shut out the gray light of the wintry sky from her room, and sat in gloom and cold, doing nothing. But she could not shut out her thoughts and memories; she could not make her heart be still. When she heard through the thin walls the faint little cry of the baby, she fancied it was Rhoda’s cry when she lay a helpless little creature on her lap. Again and again Joan’s young voice reached her ears, lulling the baby to sleep with the old, familiar words of the Christmas Hymn—
The Second Christmas Megapack: 29 Modern and Classic Yuletide Stories Page 30
