Grandmother Dear: A Book for Boys and Girls Read online

  CHAPTER XI.

  "THAT CAD SAWYER."--PART II.

  "Did the road wind uphill all the way? Yes to the very end."

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

  Grandmother's voice had faltered a little now and then during the latterpart of her reading. The children looked at each other significantly.

  "Uncle Carlo _died_ you know," whispered Sylvia again to Ralph and Molly.

  "And uncle Jack too," said Ralph.

  "Yes, but much longer after. Uncle _Carlo_ was only a boy when he died,"said Molly, as if the fact infinitely aggravated the sorrow in his case.

  Their whispering did not interrupt their grandmother this time. She hadalready paused.

  "I think, dears," she said, "I had better read the rest to-morrowevening. There is a good deal more of it, and my voice gets tired aftera while."

  "Couldn't I read it for you, mother dear?" said aunty.

  Grandmother smiled a little roguishly. "No, my dear, thank you," shesaid. "I think I like best to read myself what I have written myself. Andyou, according to that, will have your turn soon, Laura."

  "_Mother!_ how did you find out what I was doing?" exclaimed aunty.

  "A little bird told me, of course," said grandmother, smiling. "You knowhow clever my little birds are."

  During this mysterious conversation the children had sat with wide openeyes and puzzled faces. Suddenly a light broke upon Sylvia.

  "I know, I know," she cried. "_Aunty's_ writing a story for us too. Oh,you delightful aunty!"

  "Oh you beautiful aunty! oh you delicious aunty!" echoed Molly. "Whydon't you say something too, Ralph?" she exclaimed, turning reproachfullyto her brother. "You like stories just as much as we do--you know youdo."

  "But you and Sylvia have used up all the adjectives," said Ralph. "What_can_ I call aunty, unless I say she's a very jolly fellow?"

  "Reserve your raptures, my dears," said aunty, "'The proof of thepudding's in the eating,' remember. Perhaps you may not care for my storywhen you hear it. I am quite willing to wait for your thanks till youhave heard it."

  "But any way, aunty dear, we'll thank you for having _tried_," said Mollyencouragingly. "I daresay it won't be _quite_ as nice as grandmother's.You see you're so much younger, and then I don't think anybody _could_tell stories like her, could they? But, grandmother dear," she went on,"would you mind telling me one thing? When people write stories how dothey know all the things they tell? How do you know what poor Mr. Sawyersaid to himself when he was alone in his room that day? Did he ever tellanybody? I know the story's true, because uncle Jack told it you himself,only I can't make out how you got to know all those bits of it, like."

  "What a goose you are, Molly!" exclaimed both Ralph and Sylvia. "Howcould any stories ever be written if people went on about them likethat?"

  But Molly's honest puzzled face made grandmother smile.

  "I know how you mean, dear," she said, "I used to think like that myself.No, I don't know _exactly_ the very words Mr. Sawyer said to himself,but, judging from my knowledge of the whole story, I put myself, as itwere, in his place, and picture to myself what I would have said. I toldyou I had altered it a little. When your uncle wrote it out it was all inthe first person, but not having been an eye-witness, as he was, itseemed to me I could better give the _spirit_ of the story by putting itinto this form. Do you understand at all better, dear? When you haveheard the whole to the end you will do so, I think. All the part aboutCarlo I had from his own lips."

  "Thank you, grandmother dear. I think I understand," said Molly, and shewas philosophical enough to take no notice of the repeated whisper whichreached her ears alone. "Oh, you _are_ a goose!"

  It was not till the next evening that grandmother went on with the secondpart of her story.

  "What do all those stars mean?" asked Molly, peeping over hergrandmother's shoulder before she began to read. "Look Sylvia, howfunny!" and she pointed to a long row of * * * * at the end of thefirst part of the manuscript.

  "They mean that some length of time had elapsed between the two parts ofthe story," said grandmother.

  "Oh, I see. And each star counts for a year. I suppose. Let me see; one,two, three----"

  "Molly, _do_ be quiet, and let grandmother go on," said Ralph and Sylvia,their patience exhausted.

  "No, they are not counted like that," said grandmother. "Listen, Molly,and you will hear for yourself."

  "The first part of my little story finished in the snow--on a coldDecember morning in England. The second part begins in a very differentscene and many, many miles away from Ryeburn. Three or four years havepassed. Some of those we left boys are now men--many changes have takenplace. Instead of December, it is August. Instead of England we have afar away country, which till that time, when the interest of the wholeworld was suddenly concentrated on it, had been but little known andstill less thought of by the dwellers in more civilised lands. It is theCrimea, children, and the Crimea on a broiling, stifling August day. Atthe present time when we speak and think of that dreadful war and thesufferings it entailed, it is above all the _winters_ there that werecall with the greatest horror--those terrible 'Crimean winters.' Butthose who went through it all have often assured me that the miseries ofthe summers--of some part of them at least--were in their way quite asgreat, or worse. What could be much worse? The suffocating heat; theabsence, or almost total absence, of shade; the dust and the dirt, andthe poisonous flies; the foul water and half-putrid food? Bad for thesound ones, or those as yet so--and oh, how intolerably dreadful for thesick!

  "'What could be much worse?' thought Jack Berkeley to himself, as after along killing spell in the trenches he at last got back to his tent for afew hours' rest.

  "'My own mother wouldn't know me,' he said to himself, as out of a sortof half melancholy mischief he glanced at his face in the little bit ofcracked looking-glass which was all he had to adorn himself by. He wasfeeling utterly worn out and depressed--so many of his friends andcompanions were dead or dying--knocked down at that time quite as much bydisease as by Russian bullets--in many cases the more terrible death ofthe two. And things in general were looking black. It was an anxious andweariful time.

  "Jack threw himself on the bed. He was too tired to undress. All helonged for was coolness and sleep--the first the less attainable of thetwo, for the thin sides of his tent were as powerless to keep out thescorching heat as the biting cold, and it was not till many more monthsof both heat and cold had passed that any better shelter was provided forhim or his fellows.

  "But heat and flies notwithstanding Jack fell asleep, and had sleptsoundly for an hour or two when he was suddenly awakened by a voicecalling him by name.

  "'Berkeley,' it said, 'you are Berkeley of the 300th, aren't you? I amsorry to awaken you if you're not, but I couldn't see your servant aboutanywhere to ask. There's a poor fellow dying, down at Kadikoi, asking forBerkeley--Jack Berkeley of the 300th.'

  "'Yes, that's me,' said Jack, rubbing his eyes with his smoke-begrimedhands, which he had neither had energy nor water to wash before he fellasleep. 'That's me, sure enough. Who is it? What does he want?'

  "'I don't know who he is,' replied the other. 'I didn't hear his name.He's not one of us. He's a poor devil who's out here as a correspondentto some paper--I forget which--he's only been out a short time. He'sdying of dysentery--quite alone, near our quarters. I'm Montagu of the25th Hussars--Captain Montagu, and our doctor, who's looking after him,sent in for me, knowing I'd been at Ryeburn, as the poor fellow saidsomething about it. But it must have been after my time. I left in '48.'

  "'I don't think I remember you,' said Jack meditatively. 'But you mayhave been among the upper boys when I was one of the small ones.'

  "'Sure to have been,' said Captain Montagu. 'But about this poor fellow.He was so disappointed when he found I was a stranger to him that I saidI'd try to find some other Ryeburn boy who might remember him. And someone or other mentioned you, so I came over to look you up.'

 
"'Very good of you,' said Jack, who was still, however, feeling so sleepythat he could almost have wished Captain Montagu had _not_ been so good.'Shall I go back with you to Kadikoi? Very likely it's some one I did notknow either, still one can but try.'

  "'You're very tired,' said Montagu, sympathisingly. 'I am sorry to giveyou such a long walk. But the doctor said he couldn't last long, and thepoor fellow seemed so eager when he heard your name.'

  "'Oh, he _does_ know me then?' said Jack, his interest reviving. 'Ididn't understand.'

  "'Oh yes. I mentioned your name when I heard it, and he said at once ifit was _Jack_ Berkeley he would extremely like to see him. It was stupidof me not to ask his name.'

  "'I'll be ready to go with you in a moment,' said Jack, after franticefforts discovering in a bucket a very small reserve of water with whichhe managed to wash his face clear of some part of its grimy covering.'My servant's gone to Balaclava to see what he could get in the way offood for a change from these dreadful salt rations. He brought me abottle of porter the other day; it cost three shillings, but I neverenjoyed anything so much in my life.'

  "'I can quite believe it,' said Captain Montagu feelingly. 'Your servantmust be worth his weight in gold.'

  "In another minute they were on their way. The sun was beginning to sink,fortunately; it was not _quite_ so hot as a few hours previously. But itwas quite as dusty, and the walking along a recently and roughly madetrack, not worthy the name of road, was very tiring. It was fully fivemiles to Kadikoi--five miles across a bare, dried-up country, from whichall traces of the scanty cultivation it had ever received were fastdisappearing under the present state of things. There was not a tree,hardly a stunted shrub, to be seen, and the ground--at best but a fewinches of poor soil above the sterile rock, felt hard and unyieldingas well as rough. It was a relief of its kind at last to quit the levelground for the slope leading down to Balaclava, where, though they weretoo small to afford anything in the shape of shade, the sight of somefew, starved-looking bushes and some remains of what might once have beengrass, refreshed the eye, at once wearied and dazzled by the glare andmonotony of the sun-dried plain.

  "The tent to which Captain Montagu led the way stood by itself on somerising ground, a little behind the row of nondescript hovels or mud hutsrepresenting what had been the little hamlet of Kadikoi. It lookedwretched enough as the two young men made their way in, but everywherelooked wretched, only the bareness and comfortlessness impressed onedoubly when viewed in connection with physical suffering that would havebeen hard to endure even with all the alleviations and tenderness offriends and home about one.

  "The doctor was just leaving the tent--his time was all too preciousto give much of it where it was evident that his skill could be of noavail--but before going he had done what he could for the sick man'scomfort, and he lay now, pale, worn, and wan, but no longer in pain, andby the bedside--a low narrow camp stretcher--sat a young soldier, holdingfrom time to time a cup of water to the dry lips of the dying man. Clumsyhe might be, but there was no lack of tenderness in his manner orexpression.

  "That's one of our men that the doctor sent in,' whispered Montagu; 'thepoor fellow there had been lying alone for two or three days, and no oneknew. His Greek servant--scoundrels those fellows are--had deserted him.'

  "Jack cautiously approached the bed.

  "'This is Mr. Berkeley--Jack Berkeley of the 300th, whom you said youwould like to see,' said Captain Montagu gently, stepping in front ofJack.

  "The sick man's eyes lightened up, and a faint flush rose in his cheeks.He was very fair, and lying there looked very young, younger somehow thanJack had expected. _Had_ he ever seen him before? There was nothingremarkable about the face except its peculiarly gentle and placidexpression--yet it was a face of considerable resolution as well, andthere were lines about the mouth which told of endurance and fortitude,almost contradicting the wistfulness of the boyish-looking blue eyes.Jack grew more and more puzzled. _Something_ seemed familiar to him,yet----

  "'How good, how very good of you to come. Do you remember me, Berkeley?'said the invalid, feebly stretching out a thin hand, which Jackinstinctively took and held gently in his own strong grasp.

  "Jack hesitated. A look of disappointment overspread the pale face.

  "'I am afraid you don't know me. Perhaps you would not have come if youhad understood who it was.'

  "'I did not hear your name,' said Jack, very gently, 'but, of course,hearing you wished to see me----' he hesitated. 'Were we at Ryeburntogether?'

  "'Yes,' said the dying man. 'My--my name is Sawyer--Philip Sawyer--butyou only knew my surname, of course.'

  "Jack understood it all. Even before the name was mentioned, theslight nervous stammer, the faint peculiarity of accent, had recalledto his memory the poor young junior master, whose short, apparentlyunsuccessful, Ryeburn career had left its mark on the lives of othersbesides his own.

  "_Jack_ understood--not so the sick man. He was surprised and almostbewildered by the eagerness with which his visitor received hisannouncement.

  "'Sawyer, Mr. Sawyer!' he exclaimed. 'You cannot imagine how glad I amto see you again. I don't mean--I am terribly sorry to see you likethis--but I have so often wished to find you, and I could never succeedin doing so.'

  "He turned as he spoke to Captain Montagu.

  "'I'll stay with him for an hour or two--as long as I can,' he said.'I think,----' he added, glancing at the extempore sick-nurse, andhesitating a little. Captain Montagu understood the glance.

  "'Come, Watson,' he said to the young soldier, 'Mr. Berkeley will sitwith--with Mr.----'

  "'Sawyer,' said Jack.

  --"'With Mr. Sawyer for a while. Shall he return in an hour, Berkeley?'

  "'Thank you, yes,' said Jack, and then he found himself alone with hisold master.

  "'You said you tried to trace me after I left Ryeburn,' said Sawyer.'Will you tell me why? There was no special reason for it, was there? Iknow I was disliked, but the sort of enmity I incurred must soon havedied out. I was too insignificant for it to last. And the one greatendeavour I made was to injure no one. That was why I lefthurriedly--before I should be forced to make any complaints.'

  "He stopped--exhausted already by what he had said. 'And I have so muchto say to him,' he whispered regretfully to himself.

  "'I know,' said Jack sadly. 'I understood it all before you had left manymonths.'

  "Mr. Sawyer looked pleased but surprised.

  "'It is very kind of you to speak so,' he said. 'I remember that dearlittle brother of yours when he came to see me off that last morning--Iremember his saying, 'I'm sure Jack would have come if he had thought ofit.' You don't know what a comfort the remembrance of that boy has beento me sometimes. You must tell him so. Dear me--he must be nearly grownup. Is he too in the army?'

  "'No, oh no,' said Jack. 'He--he died the year after you knew him.'

  "Sawyer's eyes looked up wistfully in Jack's face. 'Dead?' he said. 'Thatdear boy?'

  "'Yes,' Jack went on. 'It was of scarlet fever. It was very bad atRyeburn that half. We both had it, but I was soon well again. It was nottill Carlo was ill that he told me of having run over to wish yougood-bye that morning--he had been afraid I would laugh at him for beingsoft-hearted--what a young brute I was--forgive my speaking so, Sawyer,but I can't look back to that time without shame. What a life we led you,and how you bore it! You were too good for us.'

  "Sawyer smiled. 'No,' he said. 'I cannot see it that way. I had not theknack of it--I was not fit for the position. The boys were very goodboys, as boys go. It would have been inexcusable of me to have made themsuffer for what, after all, was an unfortunate circumstance only. I hadattempted what I could not manage. And Carlo--he is dead--somehow,perhaps because I am so near death myself, it does not shock or startleme. Dear little fellow that he was!'

  "'And while he was ill he was constantly talking about you. It seemed theonly thing on his conscience, poor little chap, that he had joined at allin our treatment of you. And he begg
ed me--I would have promised himanything, but by that time I saw it plainly enough for myself--to try tofind you and ask you to forgive us both. But I little thought it wouldhave been like this--I had fancied sometimes----' Jack hesitated, and thecolour deepened in his sunburnt cheeks.

  "'What?' said Mr. Sawyer. 'Do not be afraid of my misunderstandinganything you say.'

  "'I had hoped perhaps that if I found you again I might be able to be ofsome use to you. And now it is too late. For you see we owe you somereparation for indirectly forcing you to leave Ryeburn--you might haverisen there--who knows? I can see now what a capital teacher you were.'

  "Mr. Sawyer shook his head.

  "'I know I could teach,' he said, 'but that was all. I did not understandboys' ways. I never was a boy myself. But put all this out of your mind,Berkeley, for ever. In spite of all the disappointment, I was very happyat Ryeburn. The living among so many healthy-minded happy human beingswas a new and pleasant experience to me. Short as it was, no part of mylife has left a pleasanter remembrance. You say you would like to dosomething for me. Will you write to my mother after I am gone, and tellher? Tell her how little I suffered, and how good every one was to me,a perfect stranger. Will you do this?'

  "Jack bent his head. 'Willingly,' he said.

  "'You will find her address in this book,' he went on, handing a thickleather pocket-book to Jack. 'Also a sort of will--roughly drawn up, butcorrectly--leaving her all I have, and the amount of that, and the Bankit is in--all is noted. I have knocked about so--since I was at Ryeburn Ihave tried so many things and been in so many places, I have learnt toface all eventualities. I was so pleased to get the chance of coming outhere----'

  "He stopped again.

  "'You must not tire yourself so,' said Jack.

  "'What does it matter? I can die so much more easily if I leave thingsclear--for, trifling as they are, my poor mother's comfort depends onthem. And I am so glad too for you to understand about me, Berkeley. Thatday--it went to my heart to have to refuse you about the subscription forthe fireworks.'

  "'Don't speak of it. I know you had some good motive,' said Jack.

  "'Necessity--sheer, hard necessity,' said poor Sawyer. 'The money I hadgot that morning was only just in time to save my younger brother fromlife-long disgrace, perhaps imprisonment.'

  "Then painfully--in short and broken sentences--he related to Jackthe history of his hard, sad, but heroic life. _He_ did not think itheroic--it seemed to him, in his single-minded conscientiousness, thathe had done no more than his duty, and that but imperfectly. He had givenhis life for others, and, hardest of all, for others who had littleappreciated his devotion.

  "'My father died when I was only about twelve,' he said. 'He had been aclergyman, but his health failed, and he had to leave England and take asmall charge in Switzerland. There he met my mother--a Swiss, and there Iwas partly brought up. When he died he told me I must take his place ashead of the family. I was not so attractive as my brother and sister; Iwas shy and reserved. Naturally my mother cared most for them. I fear shewas too indulgent. My sister married badly, and I had to try to help her.My poor brother, he was always in trouble and yet he meant well----'

  "And so he told Jack the whole melancholy history, entering into detailswhich I have forgotten, and which, even if I remembered them, it would beonly painful to relate. His brother was now in America--doing well hehoped, thanks of course to him; his sister's circumstances too hadimproved. For the first time in his life Sawyer had begun to feel hisburdens lessening, when he was brought face to face with the knowledgethat all in this world was over for him. Uncomplainingly he had, throughall these long years, borne the heat and burden of the day; rest for himwas to be elsewhere, not here. But as he had met life, so he now metdeath--calmly and unrepiningly, certain that hard as it had been hard asit seemed now, it must yet be for the best--the solving of the riddle heleft to God.

  "And his last thought was for others--for the mother who had so littleappreciated him, who required to lose him, perhaps, to bring home to herhis whole value.

  "'I have always foreseen the possibility of this,' he said, 'and preparedfor it as best I could. Besides the money I have confided to you, Iinsured my life, most fortunately, last year. She will have enough to geton pretty comfortably--and tell her,' he hesitated, 'I don't think shewill miss me very much. I have never had the knack of drawing muchaffection to myself. But tell her I was quite satisfied that it is allfor the best, and Louis may yet return to cheer her old age.'

  "Jack stayed till he could stay no longer. Then, with a grasp of the handwhich meant more than many words, he left his new, yet old friend,promising to be down again at Kadikoi first thing in the morning. 'Buttake the papers with you, Berkeley, the papers and the pocket-book, incase, you know----' were Sawyer's last words to him.

  "Jack was even earlier the next day than he had expected. But when he gotto the tent the canvas door was drawn to.

  "'Asleep?' he said to the doctor of the 25th Hussars, who came up at thatmoment, recognizing him.

  "'Yes,' said the doctor, bending his head reverently, as he said theword.

  "He unfastened the door, and signed to Jack to follow him. Jackunderstood--yes, asleep indeed. There he lay--all the pain and anxietyover, and as the two men gazed at the peaceful face, there came intoJack's mind the same words which his mother had whispered over the deadface of his little brother,

  "'Of such is the kingdom of Heaven'."