Part 86 (1/2)

'Long or short horns, since Bertha is not here to make me call them antennae. I must take him home to draw, as soon as I have gathered some willow for my puss. You are coming home with me?'

'I meant to drink tea with you, and be sent for in the evening.'

'Good child. I was almost coming to you, but I was afraid of Mervyn.

How has it been, my dear?'

Phoebe's 'he is very kind' was allowed to stand for the present, and Honora led the way by a favourite path, which was new to Phoebe, making the circuit of the Holt; sometimes dipping into a hollow, over which the lesser scabious cast a tint like the gray of a cloud; sometimes rising on a knoll so as to look down on the rounded tops of the trees, following the undulations of the grounds; and beyond them the green valley, winding stream, and harvest fields, melting into the chalk downs on the horizon.

To Phoebe, all had the freshness of novelty, with the charm of familiarity, and without the fatigue of admiration required by the show-places to which Mervyn had taken her. Presently Miss Charlecote opened the wicket leading to an oak coppice. There was hardly any brushwood. The ground was covered with soft gra.s.s and round elastic cus.h.i.+ons of gray lichen. There were a few brackens, and here and there the crimson midsummer men, but the copsewood consisted of the redundant shoots of the old, gnarled, knotted stumps, covered with handsome foliage of the pale sea-green of later summer, and the leaves far exceeding in size those either of the sapling or the full-sized tree--vigorous playfulness of the poor old wounded stocks.

'Ah!' said Honor, pausing, 'here I found my purple emperor, sunning himself, his glorious wings wide open, looking black at first, but turning out to be of purple-velvet, of the opaque mysterious beauty which seems n.o.bler than mere l.u.s.tre.'

'Did you keep him? I thought that was against your principles.'

'I only mocked him by trying to paint him. He was mine because he came to delight me with the pleasure of having seen him, and the remembrance of him that pervades the path. It was just where Humfrey always told me the creatures might be found.'

'Was Mr. Charlecote fond of natural history?' asked Phoebe, shyly.

'Not as natural history, but he knew bird, beast, insect, and tree, with a friendly hearty intimacy, such as c.o.c.kney writers ascribe to peasants, but which they never have. While he used the homeliest names, a dish-washer for a wagtail, cuckoo's bread-and-cheese for wood-sorrel (partly I believe to tease me), he knew them thoroughly, nests, haunts, and all.'

Phoebe could not help quoting the old lines, 'He prayeth well that loveth well both man and bird and beast.'

'Yes, and some persons have a curious affinity with the gentle and good in creation--who can watch and even handle a bird's nest without making it be deserted, whom bees do not sting, and horses, dogs, and cats love so as to reveal their best instincts in a way that seems fabulous. In spite of the Lyra Innocentium, I think this is less often the case with children than with such grown people as--like your guardian, Phoebe--have kept something of the majesty and calmness of innocence.'

Phoebe was all in a glow with the pleasure of hearing him so called, but bashful under that very delight, she said, 'Perhaps part of Solomon's wisdom was in loving these things, since he knew the plants from the cedar to the hyssop.'

'And spoke of Nature so beautifully in his Song, but I am afraid as he grew old he must have lost his healthful pleasure in them when he was lifted up.'

'Or did he only make them learning and ornament, instead of a joy and devotion?' said Phoebe, thinking of the difference between Bertha's love and Miss Charlecote's.

'Nor does he say that he found vanity in them, though he did in his own gardens and pools of water. No, the longer I live, the more sure I am that these things are meant for our solace and minor help through the trials of life. I a.s.sure you, Phoebe, that the crimson leaf of a Herb-Robert in the hedge has broken a strain of fretful repining, and it is one great blessing in these pleasures that one never can exhaust them.'

Phoebe saw that Miss Charlecote was right in her own case, when on coming in, the gra.s.shopper's name and history were sought, and there followed an exhibition of the 'puss' for whom the willow had been gathered, namely a gra.s.s-green caterpillar, with a kitten's face, a curious upright head and shoulders, and two purple tails, whence on irritation two pink filaments protruded,--lashes for the ichneumons, as Honora explained. The lonely woman's interest in her quaint pet showed how thickly are strewn round us many a calm and innocent mode of solace and cheerfulness if we knew but how to avail ourselves of it.

Honora had allowed the conversation to be thus desultory and indifferent, thinking that it gave greater rest to Phoebe, and it was not till the evening was advancing, that she began to discharge herself of an urgent commission from Robert, by saying, 'Phoebe, I want you to do something for me. There is that little dame's school in your hamlet. It is too far off for me to look after, I wish you would.'

'Robin has been writing to me about parish work,' said Phoebe, sadly.

'Perhaps I ought, but I don't know how, and I can't bear that any change in our ways should be observed;' and the tears came more speedily than Honor had expected.

'Dear child,' she said, 'there is no need for that feeling. Parish work, at least in a lay family, must depend on the amount of home duty. In the last years of my dear mother's life I had to let everything go, and I know it is not easy to resume, still less to begin, but you will be glad to have done so, and will find it a great comfort.'

'If it be my duty, I must try,' said Phoebe, dejectedly, 'and I suppose it is. Will you come and show me what to do? I never went into a cottage in my life.'

I have spoken too soon! thought Honor; yet Robert urged me, and besides the evil of neglecting the poor, the work will do her good; but it breaks one's heart to see this meek, mournful obedience.

'While we are alone,' continued Phoebe, 'I can fix times, and do as I please, but I cannot tell what Mervyn may want me to do when he is at home.'

'Do you expect that he will wish you to go out with him?' asked Honora.

'Not this autumn,' she answered; 'but he finds it so dull at home, that I fully expect he will have his friends to stay with him.'

'Phoebe, let me strongly advise you to keep aloof from your brother's friends. When they are in the house, live entirely in the schoolroom.