Facing Death Part 23

"What an impatient fellow you are, Jack!" Harry said smiling. "Nelly has no more idea that I care for her than you had, and I am not going to tell her so all at once. I don't think," he said gravely, "mark me, Jack, I don't think Nelly will ever have me, but if patience and love can win her I shall succeed in the end."

Jack looked greatly surprised again.

"Don't say any more about it, Jack," Harry went on. "It 'ull be a long job o' work, but I can bide my time; but above all, if you wish me well, do not even breathe a word to Nelly of what I have said."

From this interview Jack departed much mystified.

"It seems to me," he muttered to himself, "lads when they're in love get to be like la.s.ses, there's no understanding them. I know nowt of love myself, and what I've read in books didn't seem natural, but I suppose it must be true, for even Harry, who I thought I knew as well as myself, turned as mysterious as--well as a ghost. What does he mean by he's got to be patient, and to wait, and it will be a long job. If he likes Nelly and Nelly likes him--and why shouldn't she?--I don't know why they shouldn't marry in a year or two, though I do hate young marriages. Anyhow I'll talk to her about the dressmaking idea. If Harry's got to make love to her, it will be far better for him to do it here than to have to go walking her out o' Sundays at Birmingham. If she would but let me help her a bit till she's got into business it would be as easy as possible."

Jack, however, soon had the opportunity of laying his scheme fully before Nelly Hardy, and when she had turned off from the road with him she broke out:

"Oh, Jack, I have such a piece of news; but perhaps you know it, do you?" she asked jealously.

"No, I don't know any particular piece of news."

"Not anything likely to interest me, Jack?"

"No," Jack said puzzled.

"Honour, you haven't the least idea what it is?"

"Honour, I haven't," Jack said.

"I'm going to be a schoolmistress in place of Miss Bolton."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NEW SCHOOLMISTRESS.]

"No!" Jack shouted delightedly; "I am glad, Nelly, I am glad. Why, it is just the thing for you; Harry and I have been puzzling our heads all the week as to what you should do!"

"And what did your united wisdom arrive at?" Nelly laughed.

"We thought you might do here at dressmaking," Jack said, "after a bit, you know."

"The thought was not a bad one," she said; "it never occurred to me, and had this great good fortune not have come to me I might perhaps have tried. It was good of you to think of it. And so you never heard a whisper about the schoolmistress? I thought you might perhaps have suggested it somehow, you know you always do suggest things here."

"No, indeed, Nelly, I did not hear Miss Bolton was going."

"I am glad," the girl said.

"Are you?" Jack replied in surprise. "Why, Nelly, wouldn't you have liked me to have helped you?"

"Yes and no, Jack; but no more than yes. I do owe everything to you. It was you who made me your friend, you who taught me, you who urged me on, you who have made me what I am. No, Jack, dear," she said, seeing that Jack looked pained at her thanks; "I have never thanked you before, and I must do it now. I owe everything to you, and in one way I should have been pleased to owe this to you also, but in another way I am pleased not to do so because my gaining it by, if I may say so, my own merits, show that I have done my best to prove worthy of your kindness and friends.h.i.+p."

Tears of earnestness stood in her eyes, and Jack felt that disclaimer would be ungracious.

"I am glad," he said again after a pause. "And now, Miss Hardy," and he touched his hat laughing, "that you have risen in the world, I hope you are not going to take airs upon yourself."

Nelly laughed. "It is strange," she said, "that I should be the first to take a step upwards, for Mrs. Dodgson is going to help me to go in and qualify for a head-schoolmistress-s.h.i.+p some day; but, Jack, it is only for a little time. You laugh and call me Miss Hardy to-day, but the time will come when I shall say 'sir' to you; you are longer beginning, but you will rise far higher; but we shall always be friends; shall we not, Jack?"

"Always, Nelly," Jack said earnestly. "Wherever or whatever Jack Simpson may be, he will ever be your true and faithful friend, and nothing which may ever happen to me, no rise I may ever make, will give me the pleasure which this good fortune which has befallen you has done. If I ever rise it will make me happy to help Harry, but I know you would never have let me help you, and this thought would have marred my life.

Now that I see you in a position in which I am sure you will be successful, and which is an honourable and pleasant one, I shall the more enjoy my rise when it comes.--Does any one else know of it?" he asked as they went on their way.

"No one," she said. "Who should know it before you?"

"Harry will be as glad as I am," he said, remembering his friend's late a.s.sertion.

"Yes, Harry will be very glad too," Nelly said; but Jack felt that Harry's opinion was of comparatively little importance in her eyes. "He is a good honest fellow is Harry, and I am sure he will be pleased, and so I hope will everyone."

Jack felt that the present moment was not a propitious one for putting in a word for his friend.

Harry Shepherd carried out his purpose. For two years he waited, and then told his love to Nelly Hardy, one bright Sunday afternoon when they were walking in the lane.

"No, Harry, no," she said humbly and sadly; "it can never be, do not ask me, I am so, so sorry."

"Can it never be?" Harry asked.

"Never," the girl said; "you know yourself, Harry, it can never be. I have seen this coming on for two years now, and it has grieved me so; but you know, I am sure you know, why it cannot be."

"I know," the young fellow said. "I have always known that you cared for Jack a thousand times more than for me, and it's quite natural, for he is worth a thousand of me; but then, then--" and he hesitated.

"But then," she went on. "Jack does not love me, and you do. That is so, Harry; but since I was a child I have loved him. I know, none better, that he never thought of me except as a friend, that he scarcely considered me as a girl. I have never thought that it would be otherwise. I could hardly wish that it were. Jack will rise to be a great man, and must marry a lady, but," she said steadfastly, "I can go on loving him till I die."

"I have not hoped much, Nelly, but remember always, that I have always cared for you. Since you first became Jack's friend I have cared for you. If he had loved you I could even stand aside and be glad to see you both happy, but I have known always that this could never be. Jack's mind was ever so much given up to study, he is not like us, and does not dream of a house and love till he has made his mark in the world.

Remember only that I love you as you love Jack, and shall love as faithfully. Some day, perhaps, long hence," he added as Nelly shook her head, "you may not think differently, but may come to see that it is better to make one man's life happy than to cling for ever to the remembrance of another. At any rate you will always think of me as your true friend, Nelly, always trust me?"

"Always, Harry, in the future more than lately, for I have seen this coming. Now that we understand each other we can be quite friends again."

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE EXPLOSION AT THE VAUGHAN.

At twelve o'clock on a bright summer day Mr. Brook drove up in his dog-cart, with two gentlemen, to the Vaughan mine. One was the government inspector of the district; the other, a newly-appointed deputy inspector, whom he was taking his rounds with him, to instruct in his duties.

"I am very sorry that Thompson, my manager, is away to-day," Mr. Brook said as they alighted. "Had I known you were coming I would of course have had him in readiness to go round with you. Is Williams, the underground manager, in the pit?" he asked the bankman, whose duty it was to look after the ascending and descending cage.

"No, sir; he came up about half an hour ago. Watkins, the viewer, is below."

"He must do, then," Mr. Brook said, "but I wish Mr. Thompson had been here. Perhaps you would like to look at the plan of the pit before you go down? Is Williams's office open?"

"Yes, sir," the bankman answered.

Mr. Brook led the way into the office.