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Letter Of Credit

<h4 id="id04127" style="margin-top: 2em">THE PURCELLS.</h4> Rotha's sleep had not lasted two hours when it was interrupted. There came a pounding at her door. She jumped up and unlocked it. "Joseph said, he guessed you'd want some dinner. I told him, I didn't know as you'd care for the victuals us has; but it's ready, if you like to come and try." The extreme rudeness of the woman acted by way of a counter irritant on Rotha, and gave her self-command and composure. She answered civilly; waited to put her hair and dress in order, wisely resolving to lose no means of influence and self-assertion that were within her reach; and went down. A small table was set in the kitchen, coarsely but neatly, as Rotha saw at a glance. It was set for three; and the third at the table was the hitherto unseen Mr. Purcell. He was a white man; not so good-looking as his wife, but with a certain aspect of sense and shrewdness that was at least not unkindly. He nodded, did not trouble himself to rise as Rotha came in; indeed he was busily occupied in supplying himself with such strength and refreshment as viands can give; and to judge by his manner he needed a great deal of such strength and was in a hurry to get it. He nodded, and indicated with a second nod the place at table which Rotha was expected to take. "It's an unexpected pleasure," he said. "Prissy and me doesn't often have company. Hope you left Mis' Busby well?" Rotha had an instant's hesitation, whether she should accept the place in the household thus offered her, or claim a different one. It was an instant only; her sense and her sense of self-respect equally counselled her not to try for what she could not accomplish; and she quietly took the indicated seat, and answered that Mrs. Busby was well. "Now, what'll you eat?" Mr. Purcell went on. "We're plain folks—plainer 'n you're accustomed to, I guess; and we eat what we've got; sometimes it's one thing and sometimes it's another. Prissy, she gen'lly fixes it up somehow so's it'll do, for me, anyhow; but I don' know how it'll be with you. Now to-day, you see, we've got pork and greens; it's sweet pork, for I fed it myself and I know all about it; and the greens is first-rate. I don' know what they be; Prissy picked 'em; but now, will you try 'em? If you're hungry, they'll go pretty good." "They's dandelions—" said Mrs. Purcell. Pork and dandelions! Rotha was at first dumb with a sort of perplexed dismay; then she reflected, that to carry out her propitiating policy it would be best not to shew either scorn or disgust. She accepted some of the greens and the pork; found the potatoes good, and the bread of capital quality, and the butter sweet; and next made the discovery that Mr. Purcell had not overrated his wife's abilities in the cooking line; the dinner was really, of its kind, excellent. She eat bread and butter, then conscious that two pair of eyes were covertly watching her, nibbled at her greens and pork; found them very passable, and ended by making a good meal. "You was never in these parts before?" Mr. Purcell asked meanwhile. "No," said Rotha. "Never." "Mis' Busby comin' along, some o' these days?" "No, I think not. I have not heard anything about her coming here." "'Spect she likes grand doings. Does she live very fine, down to New York?" "How do you mean?" "All the folks does, in the City o' Pride," remarked Mrs. Purcell. "Do Mis' Busby?" persisted her husband. "Be they all highflyers, to her house?" "I do not know what you mean by 'highflyers.'" "Folks that wears heels to their shoes," put in Mrs. Purcell. "They can't set foot to the ground, like common folks. And they puts their hair up in a bunch on the top." "Anybody can do that," said Mr. Purcell, sticking his knife in the butter to detach a portion of it. "Anybody can't, Joe! that's where you're out. It takes one o' them highflyers. And then they thinks, when their heels and their heads is all right, they've got up above the rest of we." "You can put your hair any way you've a mind to," returned her husband. "There can't none of 'em get ahead o' you there." Both parties glanced at Rotha. Her long hair was twisted up in a loose knot on the top of her head; very becoming and very graceful; for without being in the least disorderly it was careless, and without being in the least complicated or artificial it was inimitable, by one not initiated. Husband and wife looked at her, looked at each other, and laughed. "Mis' Busby writ me about you," said Joe, slightly changing the subject. "She said, you was one o' her family." "She is my aunt." "She is! I didn't know Mis' Busby never had no brother, nor sister', nor nothin'." "She had a sister once." "She aint livin' then. And you live with Mis' Busby?" "Yes." "Well, 'taint none o' my business, but Mis' Busby didn't say, and I didn't know what to think. She said you was comin', but she didn't say how long you was goin' to stay; and we'd like to know that, Prissy and me; 'cause o' course it makes a difference." "In what?" said Rotha, growing desperate. "Well, in our feelin's," said Mr. Purcell, inclining his head in a suave manner, indicating his good disposition. "You see, we don' know how to take care of you, 'thout we knowed if it was to be for a week, or a month, or that. Mis' Busby only said you was comin'; and she didn't say why nor whether." "I do not know," said Rotha. "You must manage as well as you can without knowing; for I cannot tell you." "Very good!" said Mr. Purcell, inclining his head blandly again; "then that's one point. You don' know yourself." "No." "That means she aint a goin' in a hurry," said Mrs. Purcell. "There's her trunk, Joe, that you've got to tote up stairs." "I'll do that," said Joe rising; "if it aint bigger 'n I be. Where is it at?" "Settin' out in the road." "And where's it goin'?" "Up to her room. She'll shew you." Rotha mounted the stairs again, preceding Joe and her trunk, and feeling more utterly desolate than it is easy to describe. Shut up here, at the top of this great empty house, and with these associates! Her heart almost failed her. "Well, you've got it slicked up here, nice!" was Mr. Purcell's declaration when he had come in and deposited the little trunk on the floor, and could look around him. "You find it pretty comfortable up here, don't you." "It's very far from the kitchen—" said Rotha with an inward shudder. "Well—'tis; but I don' know as that's any objection. Young feet don't mind runnin' up and down; and when you are here, you've got it to yourself. Well, you can take care o' yourself up here; and down stairs Prissy will see that you don't starve. I expect that's how it'll be." And with again an affable nod of his capable head, Mr. Purcell departed. Rotha locked the door, and went to her window; nature being the only quarter from which she could hope for a look or a tone of sympathy. The day was well on its way now, and the May sun shining warm and bringing out the spicy odours of the larches and firs. A little stir of the soft air lightly moved the small branches and twigs and caressed Rotha's cheek. A sudden impulse seized her, to rush out and get rid of the house and its inmates for a while, and be alone with the loveliness of the outer world. She threw a shawl round her, put on her straw bonnet, locked her door, and ran down. The front door of the main hall was fast, and no key in the lock; Rotha must go out as she had come in, through the kitchen. Mrs. Purcell was there, but made no remark, and Rotha went out and made her way first of all round to the front of the house. There she sat down upon the steps and looked about her. An unkept gravel road swept round from the gate by which she had entered, up to her feet, and following a similar curve on the other side swept round to another gate, opening on the same high-road. The whole sweep took in a semicircle of ground, which lay in grass, planted with a few trees. To explore this gravel sweep was the first obvious move. So Rotha walked down to the gate by which she had come in that morning, and then back and down to the corresponding gate on the other side. All along the way from gate to gate, there ran wide flower beds on both sides; the back of the flower beds being planted thick with trees and shrubbery. Old fashioned flowering shrubs stood in close and wildering confusion. Lilac bushes held forth brown bunches where the flowers had been. Syringas pushed sweet white blossoms between the branches of other shrubs that crowded them in. May roses were there, with their bright little red faces, modest but sweet; and Scotch roses, aromatic and wild-looking. There was a profusion of honeysuckle, getting ready to bloom; and laburnums hung out tresses of what would be soon "dropping gold." And Rotha stood still once before the snowy balls of a Guelder rose, so white and fresh and fair that they dazzled her. She went on, down to the gate furthest from Tanfield, and spent a little while there, looking up and down the road. A straight, well-kept country road it was, straight and empty. Not a house was in sight, and only farm fields on the other side of the bordering fences. Rotha would have gone out, and walked at least a rod or two, but that gate was locked. There was no traffic or intercourse in any direction but with Tanfield. The empty highway seemed very lonely and desolate to the gazer at the gate. How shut off from the world she was! shut off in one little corner where nobody would ever look for her. If Rotha had put any faith in her aunt's promises, of course she would not have minded a month's abode in this place; but she put no faith in her aunt, and had a sort of instinct that she had been sent here for no good reason, and would be allowed, or forced, to remain here for an indeterminate and possibly quite protracted length of time. The mere feeling of being imprisoned makes one long to break bounds; and so Rotha longed, impatiently, passionately; but she saw no way. A little money would enable her to do it. Alas, she had no money. Her aunt had taken care of that. After paying for her breakfast and drive, she had only a very few shillings left; not even enough to make any impression upon the good will of her guardians, or jailers. Somehow they seemed a good deal more like that than like servants. Rotha turned despairingly away from the gate and retraced her steps, examining the old flower beds more minutely. They were terribly neglected; choked with weeds, encroached upon by the bordering box, the soil hard and unstirred for many a day. Yet there were tokens of better times. Here there was a nest of lilies of the valley; there a mat of moss pink, so bright and fresh that Rotha again stood still to admire. Daffodils peeped out their yellow faces from tufts of encumbering weeds; and stooping down, Rotha found an abundance of polyanthus scattered about among the other things, and periwinkle running wild. Nothing was seen to advantage, but a great deal was there. If I stay here, thought Rotha, I will get hold of a hoe and rake, and put things to rights. The flowers would be good friends, any way. Coming up towards the house again, Rotha saw a road which branched off at right angles from the sweep and went straight on, parallel to the side of the house but at a good distance from it. She turned into this road. Between it and the house was one mass of thick shrubbery, thick enough and high enough to hide each from the other. Following 011, Rotha presently saw at a little distance on her right hand, the house being to the left, a black board fence with a little gate in it. The garden perhaps, she thought; but for the present she passed it. Further along, the shrubbery ceased; a few large trees giving pleasant shade and variety to the ground about the barns, which stood here in numbers. Stables, carriage house, barn, granary; there was a little settlement of outhouses. Rotha had a liking for this neighbourhood, dating from old Medwayville associations; her feet lingered; her eyes were gladly alive to notice every detail; her ears heard willingly even a distant grunting which told of the presence of the least amiable of farm-yard inhabitants, somewhere. Rotha opened a door here and there, but saw neither man nor beast. Wandering about, she found her way finally to a huge farmyard back of the barn. It was tramped with the feet of cattle, so cattle must be there at times. On one side of the farmyard she found the pig pen. It was so long since she had seen such a sight, that she stood still to watch the pigs; and while she stood there a voice almost at her elbow made her start. "Them pigs is 'most good enough to belong to Mis' Busby, aint they?" Mr. Purcell was coming at long strides over the barnyard, which Rotha had not ventured to cross; she had picked her way carefully along a very narrow strip of somewhat firm ground by the side of the fence. The man seemed disposed to be at least not unkindly, and Rotha could not afford to do without any of the little civility within her reach. So she answered rather according to her policy than her feeling, which latter would have bade her leave the spot immediately. "I am no judge." "Never see a litter o' piggies afore?" "I suppose I have, sometime." "Them's first-rate. Like to eat 'em?" "Eat them!" cried Rotha. "Such young pigs?" "Just prime now," said the man, looking at them lovingly over the fence, while grunting noses sniffing in his direction testified that the inmates of the pen knew him as well as he knew them. "Just prime; they's four, goin' on five, weeks old. Prissy's at me to give her one on 'em; and maybe I will, now you've come. I telled her it was expensive, to eat up a half a winter's stock for one dinner. I aint as extravagant as Prissy." "How 'half a winter's stock'?" said Rotha, by way of saying something. "Bless you, don't you see? Every one o' them fellers'd weigh two hundred by next Christmas; and that'd keep Prissy and me more'n half the winter. I s'pose you won't be here to help us eat it then?" "Next Christmas! No," said Rotha. "I shall not be here so long as that." "Summer's got to come first, hain't it? Well, you might be in a wuss place." Slowly Mr. Purcell and Rotha left the pig pen and the barnyard and came out into the space between the various farm buildings. "Where does that road lead to?" Rotha asked, pointing to one which ran on from the barns with a seemingly straight track between fields. "That? that don't lead no wheres." "Where should I find myself, if I followed it out to the end?" "You'd find yourself jammed up agin the hill. Don't you see them trees? that's a hill runnin' along there." "Running right and left? It is not high. Just a hilly ridge. What is on it?" "Nothin's on it, but a mean little pack o' savins Aint good for nothin'; not even worth cuttin' for firewood. What ever do you s'pose hills was made for? I mean, sich hills; that haint got nothin' onto 'em but rocks. What's the use of 'em?" "If it wasn't for hills, Mr. Purcell, your low lands would have no water; or only in a pond or a ditch here and there." "What's the reason they wouldn't? There aint no water on the hills now." "Springs?" "There's springs every place. I could count you a half a dozen in less'n half a mile." "Ay, but the springs come from the hills; and if it were not for the hills they would not be anywhere." "O' course it's so, since you say it," said Mr. Purcell, scratching his head with a comic expression of eye;—"but I never see the world when there warn't no hills on it; and I reckon you didn't." Rotha let the question drop. "I s'pose you'd say, accordin' to that, the rocks made the soft soil?" "They have made a good deal of it," said Rotha smiling. "Whose hammer broke 'em up?" "No hammer. But water, and weather; frost and wet and sunshine." "Sunshine!" cried Mr. Purcell. "They are always wearing away the rocks. They do it slowly, and yet faster than you think." "But I'll tell you. You forget. The soil aint up there—it's down here." "Yes, I know. I do not forget. Water brought it down." Here Mr. Purcell went off into an enormous guffaw of laughter, amused to the last degree, and probably in doubt whether to think of his informant as befooled or befooling. He went off laughing; and Rotha returned slowly homeward. Half way towards the drive, she struck a walk which led obliquely through the tangled shrubbery to the kitchen door. Her room, when she reached it, looked cheerful and pleasant enough. The open windows let in the air and the sunshine, and the top of the tulip tree was glittering in the warm light. At the same time the slantness of the rays shewed that the afternoon was on its way. Night was coming. And a spasm of dread seized Rotha at the thought of being up there, quite alone, away from anybody, and without guardianship or help in any occasion of need or alarm. Rotha was of a nervous and excitable temperament, a coward physically, unaccustomed to being alone or to taking care of herself. She looked forward now to the darkness with positive dread and dismay. O for her little corner room at Mrs. Mowbray's, where she was secure, and in the midst of friends! O for even her cheerless little room at her aunt's, where at least there were people below her to guard the house! Here, quite alone through the long, still nights, and nobody within even calling distance, how should she ever stand it! For a little while Rotha's wits were half paralyzed with terror. Reason then began slowly to assert herself, and the girl's natural force of character arose to struggle with the incubus of fear. She reminded herself that nothing was more unlikely than a night alarm; that the house was known to be empty of all that might tempt thieves, and that furthermore also it was in the highest degree unlikely that the neighbourhood of Tanfield harboured such characters. Probably she was safer from disturbance up here, than either at Mrs. Mowbray's or at Mrs. Busby's. But of what use was the absence of disturbance, when there was the presence of fear? Rotha reasoned in vain. She had a lively imagination; and this excellent property now played her some of the arch tricks of which it is capable. Possible disturbances occurred to her; scenes of distress arose upon her vision, so sharp and clear that she shrank from them. Probable? No, they were not; but who should say they were not possible? Had not everything improbable happened in this world, as well as the things which were reasonably to be expected? And if only possible, if they were possible, where were comfort and security to be found? Without some degree of both, Rotha felt as if she must quit the place, set out and walk to the hotel at Tanfield; only she had no money to pay her charges with if she were there. Distress, and be it that it was unreasonable, it was very real distress, drove her at last to the refuge we all are ready to seek when we can get no other. She took her Bible and sat down with it, to try to find something that would quiet her there. Opening it aimlessly at first; then with a recollection of certain words in it, she turned to the third psalm. "I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about." David had more than fancied enemies to fear; he was stating an actual, not a problematical case; and yet he could say "I will not be afraid"! How was that ever possible? David was one of the Lord's people; true; but do not the Lord's people have disagreeable things happen to them? How can they, or how should they, "not be afraid"? Just to reach that blessed condition of fearlessness was Rotha's desire; the way she saw not. There was a certain comfort in the fact that other people had seen it and found it; but how should she? Rotha had none to ask beside her Bible, so she went to that Query, do the books and helps which keep us from applying to the Bible, act as benefits or hindrances? Rotha would have been greatly at a loss, however, about carrying on her inquiry, if it had not been for her "Treasury of Scripture Knowledge." Turning to it now as to a most precious friend, she took the words in the psalm she had been reading for her starting place. And the very first next words she was directed to were these:— "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety." Ps. iv. 8. Rotha stopped and laid down her face in her hands. O if she could quietly say that! O what a life must it be, when any one can simply and constantly say that! "Lay me down and sleep"; give up the care of myself; feel secure. But in the midst of danger, how can one? Rotha thought she must be a poor, miserable fraction of a Christian, to be so far from the feeling of the psalm; and probably she was right. "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed," the Lord used to say to his disciples; so apparently in his view they had scarce any faith at all. And who of us is better? How many of us can remove mountains? Yet faith as big as a grain of mustard seed can do that. What must our faith be? Not quite a miserable sham, but a miserable fraction. Rotha felt self-reproved, convicted, longing; however she did not see how she was at once to become better. She lifted her eyes, wet with sorrowful drops, and went on. If there were help, the Bible must shew it. Her next passage was the following:— "It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so he giveth his beloved sleep."—Ps. cxxvii. 2. Studying this a good while, in the light of her fears and wants, Rotha came to a sense of the exquisite beauty of it; which wiser heads than hers, looking at the words merely in cool speculation, do fail to find. She saw that the toiling and moiling of men passes away from the Lord's beloved; that what those try for with so much pains and worry, these have without either; and in the absolute rest of faith can sleep while the Lord takes care. His people are quiet, while the world wear themselves out with anxiety and endeavour. "His beloved."—I cannot have got to that, thought Rotha. I am not one of them. But I must be. That is what I want to be. The next thing was a promise to the Israelites, as far back as Moses' time; that if they kept the ways of the Lord, among other blessings of peace should be this: that they should lie down and none should make them afraid; but Rotha thought that hardly applied, and went further. Then she came to the word in the third of Proverbs, also spoken to the man who should "keep wisdom":— "When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid; yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet."—Prov. iii. 24. It set Rotha pondering, this and the former passage. Is it because I am so far from God, then? because I follow and obey him so imperfectly? that I am so troubled with fear. Quite reasonable, if it is so. Naturally, the sheep that are nearest the shepherd, feel most of his care. What next? It gave her a stir, what came next: It was in the time of the early church; James, the first martyr among the apostles, had been beheaded by Herod's order; and seeing that this was agreeable to the fanatical Jews, he had apprehended Peter also and put him in ward; waiting only till the feast of the Passover should be out of the way, before he brought him forth to execution. And it was the night preceding the day which should be the day of execution; "and the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains." Chained to a Roman soldier on one side of him, and to another on the other side of him, on no soft bed, and expecting a speedy summons to death, Peter was sleeping. All sorts of characters do sleep, it is said, the night before the day when they know they are to be put to death; in weariness, in despair, in stolid indifference, in stoical calmness, in proud defiance. But Rotha knew it was upon no such slumbers that the "light shined in the prison," and to no such sleeper that the angel of the Lord came, or ever does come. That was the sleep of meekness and trust. The list of passages given by the "Treasury" on that clause of the third psalm here came to an end. Rotha had not enough, however; she took up the words in the 6th verse—"I will not be afraid," etc. And then she came to the burst of confident triumph in the 27th psalm. And then, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."—Ps. xlvi. 1, 2. Here was a new feature. Trouble might come, yea, disaster; and yet the children of God would not fear. How that? Such absolute love, such perfect trust, such utter devotion to the pleasure of their Father, that what was his will became their will, and they knew no evil could really touch them? It must be so. O but this is a step further in the divine life. Or does this devotion lie also at the bottom of all those declarations of content and peace she had been reading? Rotha believed it must, after she had studied the question a little. O but what union with God is here; what nearness to him; what consequent lofty and sweet elevation beyond the reach of earthly trouble. Rotha got no further. She saw, in part at least, what she wanted; and falling on her knees there by the open window, she prayed that the peace and the life and the sweetness of the May might come into her heart, by the perfecting of love and faith and obedience there. She prayed for protection in her loneliness, and for the trust which saves from fear of evil. A great asking! but great need makes bold. She prayed, until it seemed as if she could pray no longer; and then she went back to her Bible again. But gradually there began to grow up a feeling in Rotha, that round the walls of her room there was an invisible rampart of defence which nothing evil could pass. And when one of her Bible references took her to the story of Elisha, shut up in a city enclosed by an army of enemies, but whose servant's eyes in answer to his prayer were opened to see "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha"—her faith made a sort of spring. She too seemed to have a sight of the invisible forces, mostly undreamed of because unseen, which keep guard around the Lord's people; and she bowed her head in a sort of exulting gladness. Why this was even better than to need no defence, to know that such defence was at hand. Without danger there could be no need of guard; and is not such unseen ministry a glorious companionship? and is it not sweeter to know oneself safe in the Lord's hand, than to be safe, if that could be, anywhere else? I have learned one thing, said Rotha to herself, as she rose to make some final arrangements for the evening. I wonder if I came here partly to learn this? But what can I have been brought here for, indeed? There is some reason. There is the promise that everything shall work for good to them that love God; so according to that, my coming here must work good for me. But how possibly? What am I to do, or to learn, here? It must be one thing or the other. My learning in general seems to be stopped, except Bible learning. Well, I will carry that on. I shall have time enough. What else in all the world can I do? Her unfinished calico dresses occurred to her. There was work for some days at least. Perhaps by that time she would know more. For the present, with a glad step and a lightened heart she went about her room, arranging certain things in what she thought the prettiest and most convenient way; got out some clothes, and even work; and then wished she had a book. Where was she to get books to read? and how could she live without them? This question was immediately so urgent that she could not wait to have it settled; she must go down without delay to Mrs. Purcell, and see if any information respecting it was to be had in that quarter. <h4 id="id04230" style="margin-top: 2em">CHAPTER XXV.</h4> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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