Wilfrid Cumbermede Part 26

'So he ought to be. To speak like that to a lady, when her very friendliness put her off her guard! I never was treated so in all my life.'

She spoke so loud that she must have meant Charley to hear her. But when I looked back, I saw that he had fallen a long way behind, and was coming on very slowly, with dejected look and his eyes on the ground.

Mr Coningham did not interfere by word or sign.

When we reached the inn he ordered some refreshment, and behaved to us both as if we were grown men. Just a touch of familiarity was the sole indication that we were not grown men. Boys are especially grateful for respect from their superiors, for it helps them to respect themselves; but Charley sat silent and gloomy. As he would not ride back, and Mr Coningham preferred walking too, I got into the saddle and rode by Clara's side.

As we approached the house, Charley crept up the other side of Clara's horse, and laid his hand on his mane. When he spoke Clara started, for she was looking the other way and had not observed his approach.

'Miss Clara,' he said, 'I am very sorry I was so rude. Will you forgive me?'

Instead of being hard to reconcile, as I had feared from her outburst of indignation, she leaned forward and laid her hand on his. He looked up in her face, his own suffused with a colour I had never seen in it before. His great blue eyes lightened with thankfulness, and began to fill with tears. How she looked, I could not see. She withdrew her hand, and Charley dropped behind again. In a little while he came up to my side, and began talking. He soon got quite merry, but Clara in her turn was silent.

I doubt if anything would be worth telling but for what comes after.

History itself would be worthless but for what it cannot tell, namely, its own future. Upon this ground my reader must excuse the apparent triviality of the things I am now relating.

When we were alone in our room that night--for ever since Charley's illness we two had had a room to ourselves--Charley said,

'I behaved like a brute this morning, Wilfrid.'

'No, Charley; you were only a little rude from being over-eager. If she had been seriously advocating dishonesty, you would have been quite right to take it up so; and you thought she was.'

'Yes; but it was very silly of me. I dare say it was because I had been so dishonest myself just before. How dreadful it is that I am always taking my own side, even when I do what I am ashamed of in another! I suppose I think I have got my horse by the head, and the other has not.'

'I don't know. That may be it,' I answered. 'I'm afraid I can't think about it to-night, for I don't feel well. What if it should be your turn to nurse me now, Charley?'

He turned quite pale, his eyes opened wide, and he looked at me anxiously.

Before morning I was aching all over: I had rheumatic fever.

CHAPTER XIX.

CHARLEY NURSES ME.

I saw no more of Clara. Mr Coningham came to bid me good-bye, and spoke very kindly. Mr Forest would have got a nurse for me, but Charley begged so earnestly to be allowed to return the service I had done for him that he yielded.

I was in great pain for more than a week. Charley's attentions were unremitting. In fact he nursed me more like a woman than a boy; and made me think with some contrition how poor my ministrations had been.

Even after the worst was over, if I but moved, he was at my bedside in a moment. Certainly no nurse could have surpa.s.sed him. I could bear no one to touch me but him: from any one else I dreaded torture; and my medicine was administered to the very moment by my own old watch, which had been brought to do its duty at least respectably.

One afternoon, finding me tolerably comfortable, he said, 'Shall I read something to you, Wilfrid?'

He never called me Willie, as most of my friends did.

'I should like it,' I answered.

'What shall I read?' he asked.

'Hadn't you something in your head,' I rejoined, 'when you proposed it?'

'Well, I had; but I don't know if you would like it.'

'What did you think of, then?'

'I thought of a chapter in the New Testament.'

'How could you think I should not like that?'

'Because I never saw you say your prayers.'

'That is quite true. But you don't think I never say my prayers, although you never see me do it?'

The fact was, my uncle, amongst his other peculiarities, did not approve of teaching children to say their prayers. But he did not therefore leave me without instruction in the matter of praying--either the idlest or the most availing of human actions. He would say, 'When you want anything, ask for it, Willie; and if it is worth your having, you will have it. But don't fancy you are doing G.o.d any service by praying to him. He likes you to pray to him because he loves you, and wants you to love him. And whatever you do, don't go saying a lot of words you don't mean. If you think you ought to pray, say your Lord's Prayer, and have done with it.' I had no theory myself on the matter; but when I was in misery on the wild mountains, I had indeed prayed to G.o.d; and had even gone so far as to hope, when I got what I prayed for, that he had heard my prayer.

Charley made no reply.

'It seems to me better that sort of thing shouldn't be seen, Charley,'

I persisted.

'Perhaps, Wilfrid; but I was taught to say my prayers regularly.' 'I don't think much of that either,' I answered. 'But I've said a good many prayers since I've been here, Charley. I can't say I'm sure it's of any use, but I can't help trying after something--I don't know what--something I want, and don't know how to get.'

'But it's only the prayer of faith that's heard--do you believe, Wilfrid?'

'I don't know. I daren't say I don't. I wish I could say I do. But I dare say things will be considered.'

'Wouldn't it be grand if it was true, Wilfrid?'

'What, Charley?'

'That G.o.d actually let his creatures see him--and--all that came of it, you know?'

'It would be grand indeed! But supposing it true, how could we be expected to believe it like them that saw him with their own eyes? _I_ couldn't be required to believe just as if I could have no doubt about it. It wouldn't be fair. Only--perhaps we haven't got the clew by the right end.'

'Perhaps not. But sometimes I hate the whole thing. And then again I feel as if I _must_ read all about it; not that I care for it exactly, but because a body must do something--because--I don't know how to say it--because of the misery, you know.'

'I don't know that I do know--quite. But now you have started the subject, I thought that was great nonsense Mr Forest was talking about the authority of the Church the other day.'

'Well, _I_ thought so, too. I don't see what right they have to say so and so, if they didn't hear him speak. As to what he meant, they may be right or they may be wrong. If they _have_ the gift of the Spirit, as they say--how am I to tell they have? All impostors claim it as well as the true men. If I had ever so little of the same gift myself, I suppose I could tell; but they say no one has till he believes--so they may be all humbugs for anything I can possibly tell; or they may be all true men, and yet I may fancy them all humbugs, and can't help it.'

I was quite as much astonished to hear Charley talk in this style as some readers will be doubtful whether a boy could have talked such good sense. I said nothing, and a silence followed.

'Would you like me to read to you, then?' he asked.

'Yes, I should; for, do you know, after all, I don't think there's anything like the New Testament.'

'Anything like it!' he repeated. 'I should think not! Only I wish I did know what it all meant. I wish I could talk to my father as I would to Jesus Christ if I saw _him_. But if I could talk to my father, he wouldn't understand me. He would speak to me as if I were the very sc.u.m of the universe for daring to have a doubt of what _he_ told me.'