Part 6 (1/2)

The entertainments on Sat.u.r.day afternoons had also somewhat changed in their nature by this time. The social element was still preserved, but instead of the riotous fun and hilarity of the opening meeting, a quieter mode now prevailed. After tea, there was usually a game, then all sat down, and the girls drew forth their sewing with which they proceeded while the boys sat quietly in their places, all listening eagerly to some entertaining book read by one of the young ladies till about half-an-hour before the usual hour for dispersion which was given up to general conversation, and the singing of a few hymns.

One night, during this half-hour, one of the young ladies, Agnes Summers by name, the same Agnes who had defended Minnie on a former occasion, began to wonder if there was nothing the boys could do while the reading was going on.

n.o.body could suggest anything at first, but at length one boy volunteered the information that he could knit; other two professed the same accomplishment, and, encouraged by this example, several voices expressed their willingness to learn.

”The very thing!” exclaimed Mabel, ”we might have thought of that sooner.”

”O, but,” objected Minnie, ”wouldn't it be too ridiculous to see boys sitting knitting.”

”Not at all,” a.s.serted Mabel. ”I once knew a family of Germans, rich people too, who had all their knitting done by the young men, and anyhow it won't matter if it is ridiculous, it's useful, and n.o.body will laugh when they remember that. I thought at first it would have been rather ridiculous to see the girls painting the gates and palings, but it turned out quite the opposite. It is wonderful how earnestness beautifies the most commonplace things, and reconciles us to the most incongruous.”

”Well, I see you are right, and I suppose I must give in,” answered Minnie, ”We can give it a trial at any rate, though it will justify its existence, in my eyes, I am afraid, only by its success, as papa said our undertaking had in his,--oh, that's a dreadfully narrow way to look at it, no, I'll give the plan my unqualified support.”

”That's more like you,” said Mabel, smiling at her impulsive afterthought, ”it isn't your way to be half-hearted in anything. Now, I'll tell you what I propose should be done about this. We must supply ourselves with a quant.i.ty of worsted, and a sufficient number of knitting-needles, and set all the boys at once to knit stockings and socks for their own winter wear. I propose that they shall, every pair as it is finished, be put into a box with the maker's name attached to it, and be kept there for distribution in the cold weather.”

This motion meeting with general approval, was forthwith adopted, and the conversation for that evening ended. The boys, as a rule, were greatly delighted with the proposed change, for they did not find it by any means an easy matter to sit quite still, doing nothing, even while listening to the most interesting story, and thus it promised to be a comfortable, as well as a useful arrangement all round.

That night as Mabel was locking the door preparatory to going home, she noticed a little boy who usually attended the Sat.u.r.day evening meeting, but who had that night been absent, waiting outside the gate. As soon as he saw her come out, he ran up the path, and eagerly caught by her dress, begging her to come to his mother.

She inquired what the matter was, but he could do nothing but sob and cry to her to make haste. She hesitated for a moment. She was already later than usual and the night was rather stormy, but the little creature's distress moved her to go with him.

He led her into one of the cottages where, in the kitchen, lay a woman evidently in the last stage of consumption. The house was in a terrible state of disorder, having, apparently, never been touched since its mistress lay down, which Mabel learned was about three weeks ago.

Her husband was away at the pit, she said, and the little boy who had brought Mabel was her eldest child. An infant of about four months old slept beside her, and two other children of about two and three years of age respectively sprawled on the floor, screaming with all the strength of their united lungs.

After speaking for a few minutes to the poor woman, Mabel decided that she could do nothing until the noise was stopped, and after many unsuccessful efforts, at last had the satisfaction of seeing the two drop off to sleep, thoroughly exhausted with crying. She then turned her attention to the sick woman, whom she found to be in a very weak state indeed. She told Mabel that the doctor had visited her that morning, and had thought it his duty to tell her that she had only a very few days more to live.

Mabel hardly knew what to do, or what to say, but at last suggested, that perhaps she would like to see Mr. Chadwell or the missionary, as she gathered from her conversation that she was in great spiritual distress.

”Oh, no,” sighed the poor creature, ”I daren't have any of them here.

The missionary was here once, and it was the words he spoke that first set me thinking. He left me a book too, that was full of good things, but my husband burned it when he came home, and the priest said if he ever came here again my eyes would never look on the blessed Virgin.”

She was stopped by a hollow cough that completely racked her wasted frame, and then went on in a faint voice:

”I couldn't rest, though, and the priest did not give me any comfort.

Then I heard Willie there tell what the kind young ladies said about going to Heaven directly we die, and never a word of purgatory, and I thought maybe one of you could tell me something to ease my heart.”

”What can I do?” Asked Mabel of herself--”What can I say? My heart seems frozen, and my lips powerless to tell her what she is dying to hear. How can I tell her what I have never experienced? How can I comfort her with words that have never comforted me?”

She laid her head down on the torn coverlet, and prayed for strength and wisdom--but no strength--no wisdom seemed to come--the Heavens seemed as bra.s.s above her--she felt nothing but a dreary blank.

And yet the woman was dying, she must do something.

For a brief moment--like a flash--she pictured herself in the dying woman's place, and felt the horror of being there without hope. With a convulsive shudder she rose and sitting down by the bedside, she took the woman's thin wasted hand in hers, and asked her if indeed she had no hope.

”Hope!” she repeated. ”I read in that book--he called it the word of G.o.d--that the wages of sin is death. The priest said it was only purgatory, but I know more than he thinks I do--and I know what death that means--No, I have no hope. I know what a sinner I have been, and I know what the wages of sin are.”

”But,” said Mabel, gently, ”we are all sinners. We cannot--even the best of us--hope for anything but the wages of sin, except through the death of Christ, who died to save sinners--even the chief.”

”O, you know nothing of sin,” said the woman in an agonised voice. ”Here it has not been so bad, but if you had seen the place we came from you might know something of it.” And the remembrance seemed to completely overcome her, for she lay moaning and crying in a perfect agony of despair.