Though the four youngsters fancied that they had been wandering for hours in the cold and darkness, the time of their relief was early in the evening. Work was not yet over for somebody at the smithy. The forge was set up in a large building, which looked a sort of superior shed, open on the side next to the road, and with a paved court, worn by the tread of many horses, in front of it. Gazing across the unwalled court to the open shed, Frances saw in the brilliant light of the smithy fire a young man busily engaged with hammer and anvil; his tall, slight figure, in rough working dress, bent and raised with almost mechanical precision as his supple right arm swung its ponderous tool. When the lumbering waggon halted before the court, the worker paused in his labour, throwing back his head and screening his eyes with his free left hand, to gain a better view of the arrival. The waggoner called out a hasty summons, and the young smith left his forge and quickly crossed the yard.
“Anything wrong, Job?”
The lad’s voice was clear and soft, and his speech, though rustic in expression, conveyed no trace of dialect; while his face, now plainly visible in the lantern’s glow, appeared a singularly pleasant one. Its attraction increased when Max’s lively countenance was thrust forward by its owner, and when Max shouted a gay greeting.
“Hallo, Jim!—Jim East! Look out for a sensation! Here’s a snowed-up party of four humans and one animal come to beg help and shelter!”
Max had jumped down and was pouring out explanations in a moment. The young smith listened and looked, and shyly doffed his cap, standing bare-headed in the driving snow while his eyes rested in astonishment on the figures of the two girls.
“The little ladies!” murmured Jim; “they’ve never been with you, Master Brenton?”
“Haven’t they, though! They’ve found out what a snowstorm on Rowdon Common means, I can tell you. But I’m afraid they are very cold and tired,” added Max seriously. “I was beginning to think it was all up with us when I first caught sight of Job. Well, Jim, will you help us?”
“Surely!” exclaimed the lad.
Though evidently bashful, Jim East had nothing clownish about him. His manner showed a simple courtesy which pleased and reassured the girl-travellers, as he stepped close to the waggon and held up his strong, lithe arms.
“Come, Missies, let me lift you down, and show you the way to grandfather’s cottage. ’Tis but a step; and our old Elizabeth, if she’s there, shall wait on you. You’ll be sorely stiff with the terrible cold.”
The girls willingly accepted the young smith’s offered aid, and were placed with gentle care at Max’s side.
“Young master too?” suggested Jim, seeing Austin still above him.
“Oh, I can get down all right,” said Austin, not too civilly. Austin did not appear to advantage when brought by circumstances into contact with the class he chose to term “cads”. “Here, you chap, just catch this baggage, will you? We’ve no end of traps. I’ll throw them down.”
Frances blushed with sisterly mortification—why would Austin be so rude and snobbish to this worthy young artisan? Surely Jim East was a type of those whose humble toil was the crown of honest manhood. Certainly Austin was not a model member of the Woodend Society of Altruists. But glancing apprehensively at young East, lest her brother’s imperious commands should make him surly and indignant, Frances saw that the lad’s countenance revealed nothing but frank good-nature. He gave Austin a smiling reply, and would have obeyed him without question, had not Max laid a hand on his arm.
“Not a bit, Jim! I’ll see to the baggage. Do you get the girls under cover as quickly as you can, there’s a good fellow.”
Jim turned to Frances and Florry.
“You’ll come with me, then, Missies? Master Brenton knows the way.”
A few paces along the road a low hedge began. This bordered a long, narrow, old-fashioned garden, cut vertically in precise halves by a flagged pathway reached through a small green gate. Jim opened the gate for the girls, and led them towards a cottage lying back from the road at the end of the garden.
Frances, with Florry immediately behind her, stepped gladly into the light and shelter of a long passage with a door at either end. Another door, in the wall on their right, was pushed open by the young smith, whose dark eyes glowed with pleasure as he spoke softly to someone within:
“Grandfather, here’s little ladies for you—two little ladies! They’ve been like to have lost themselves in the storm, so Master Brenton’s been telling me. They’ll be best to come in here—eh, grandfather? And maybe they’ll warm themselves with you, till I fetch Elizabeth to wait on them.”
Jim stood on one side, his happy excitement controlled by an instinctive wish to be quiet and unobtrusive in the company of young gentlefolk. The two girls, with ready thanks on their lips, passed by their conductor into a fair-sized room furnished with much homely comfort, and saw in an arm-chair by the fire an old man, whose fine head, with its massive forehead, keen eyes, and firm mouth, denoted strength of will and individual character. William East’s silvery locks were quick to command the respect of the two girls, who stepped slowly towards their aged host.
“Elizabeth has gone home, grandson,” said East, speaking in a quavering voice which still retained a note of decision and authority, as towards one who had been taught prompt obedience. “So you will wait on the little ladies yourself. Chairs to the fire for them, Jim,—and off with their boots. Then you’ll make some hot, strong coffee, and see you’re quick with it. These are not the kind as needs to lose themselves in snowstorms.” East turned his face to the girls, and it softened wonderfully, while he addressed them in very different tones: “Come near to the fire, Missies, and tell me all about it. Why, you both look fairly spent. There, there, dearies—the recklessness one sees in young folk! But sit you down, and be sure you’re kindly welcome.”
“You’re very good,” said Frances gratefully. “I don’t know why you should be troubled with all of us boys and girls. There are four of us, Mr. East,—and a pony. We’ve left the carriage somewhere in the snow. I’m afraid we’re a great bother, but you must please try not to let us worry you;—Max Brenton has been telling us that you aren’t very well just now, and I’m so sorry.”
Frances’s sympathy was sure of appreciation—it was so earnest and sincere, and expressed with the simplest good-will. Old East greeted it with many nods and smiles, and beckoned Frances to the chair nearest to himself. Indeed, he was amazingly pleased to see this bright young lady by his side.
Jim waited deftly on both the girls, taking off their wet boots and coats, and trying to rub some feeling back into their half-frozen feet. Next he went away with the boots into the kitchen, and set about making coffee in his best style.
Meanwhile Frances and Florry made great friends with the ailing grandsire.
“I must tell you our names,” said Frances presently, when the boys had joined the group in the cottage parlour. “Of course you know the Doctor’s son—everybody knows Doctor Max.”
“Ay, he’s his father’s son truly—I can’t say better for him than that.”
“And the boy beside him is my brother Austin. Then this is Miss Florry Fane, the best of girls; and I am Frances Morland.”
The old man leaned forward suddenly, and seemed to scan the speaker’s face with a curious intentness.
“Morland, did you say, my dear? Ah! once I knew someone with that name. Does your father live here-abouts?”
“My father is dead. Austin and I live with our mother in Woodend; but we have not been here long—only since the spring.”
Frances talked on easily and quietly, fearing to disturb East, who, with his face turned from her, gazed into the fire. One hand he held across his eyes; the other, which rested on his knee, trembled a little. For a time he sat thus, hardly speaking, yet evidently listening with interest and pleasure to all the young girl cared to tell him. When she did hear his voice, it addressed her in quavering gentleness:
“And you’ve come to see me, Missy,—you, so blithe and bonnie! The Lord Himself sent you this night to gladden my old eyes. Ah! but I’m thankful—I’m thankful! Will you remember, little Missy, when I’m gone hence, as your coming brought a blessing with it to Rowdon Cottage?”
“THE OLD MAN LEANED FORWARD SUDDENLY TO SCAN THE SPEAKER’S FACE.”
Frances, moved by this appeal, and somewhat shy—for the aged face near her was quivering, and the aged voice faltered and broke—put her small hand trustfully on East’s wasted fingers.
“I am glad we came; and you are very kind. Mayn’t I come and see you sometimes, with Max?”
“Rarely welcome would you be, little Missy,” said the old man, brightening. “And there’s something I’d say. If ever my Jim needs kindness, as like enough he may, will you try to be good to him?”
“Oh yes, I will,” said Frances soberly, knowing that East’s thoughts were anticipating his nearing end and his grandson’s consequent loneliness.
“Jim’s one to think much of kindness from little ladies,” continued the grandfather wistfully. “I fancy, maybe, as I’ve not done well by him. ’Twas my wish to bring him up strong and sturdy and independent; for, as a wean even, the boy was gentle and soft, and fond of daintiness. That’s why I made him a smith by trade. Thought I, ‘He’ll learn hardness as he stands by the forge and bends the iron to his will’. But no, Jim’s craft will never make a man of him.”
“That’s a pity,” said the consoling voice of Max, who had drawn near. “A fellow ought to match his trade. My trade’s doctoring,—at least it’s going to be; so I don’t miss a chance of practice. It’s not often I get a really good thing, though. Still, all my chums have promised that if they break an arm they’ll let me set it.”
Max, with his cheery laugh, could dispel most shadows, but East’s thoughtful gravity did not disappear. Frances was drawn across the room by the fragments she caught of a conversation between her brother and the young blacksmith, and East’s eyes followed her and watched all her movements.
Jim was begging Austin to come to the kitchen and be swathed in blankets while his clothes were drying. Not that the working lad would have thought much of being in a yet damper condition than was his boy-guest, but he had heard Frances confide to his grandfather her fears for her brother.
“Do now, young master, do!”
“Catch me!” retorted Austin, more bored than angry; “I’m not such a soft. Clear off, I say, Jim East. I tell you, I won’t be coddled.”
“Better take a bit of care than lie abed,” argued Jim sensibly. “And Missy’s feared for you, sir.”
“Girls always fuss,” muttered the boy, growing cross. He pushed aside, with unmannerly roughness, young East’s detaining hand, and was making for the fireside when Frances intercepted him.
“Oh, Austin, how can you be so rude?” whispered the girl reproachfully. “Do go with this good-natured lad,” she pleaded. “You know how dreadful it is when you get a bad throat.”
“As though I’d loaf about his dirty old kitchen and be rolled up in smithy blankets!” said Austin, in extreme disgust.
He spoke low, but Frances knew that Jim must hear, and she coloured deeply in her distress. Her brother’s over-fastidiousness on some points always made her impatient, but now she felt that he was both foolish and ungrateful in repelling kindly advances. She allowed Austin to pass, and throw himself on the rug before the fire at Florry’s feet; then she turned to Jim, again apprehensive that his feelings might have been hurt by his guest’s unmannerly words and ungracious bearing.
Jim’s eyes were on Austin; Jim’s lips smiled as, without a touch of jealousy, he recognized in the handsome, attractive boy the evidence of the better training and opportunities denied to himself.
“Boys are always so tiresome, aren’t they?” said Frances, seeing with relief that Jim’s face betrayed no sense of injury. “My brother won’t be taken care of, you see; though I’m sure if he does have a sore throat, he won’t like it.”
“Oh, I hope he won’t be ill, Missy,” said Jim. “He looks so—so game, and happy-like. I’d think it wasn’t easy to coddle him.”
“It isn’t,” said Frances soberly; “and I don’t want him to be a molly—only I wouldn’t like him to be ill again. I’m ever so much obliged to you for offering to help him.”
“You’ve no call to thank me, Missy. It wouldn’t have been much to do. The pony’s safe in the shed,” added the young smith shyly; “I’ll give him a rub down and a feed by and by.”
“You are good,” said Frances. “Oh, do you think there’s any chance of getting home to-night? All our friends will be so anxious if we don’t return till morning, though it’s very kind of your grandfather to say we may camp here.”
“Indeed and you mustn’t worry, Missy,” said Jim. “Sometimes there’s folks passes here much later than this; and if you’d not mind mounting into a waggon again—”
“We wouldn’t mind a bit. I can’t think what Mamma will do if she hears nothing about us till morning.”
Jim’s young face looked very serious, but he offered no further comfort; and Frances, feeling that her low spirits might become infectious, tried to divert her mind by asking leave to look at a book-case against the wall near at hand. While she looked, and wondered a little at the class of books she found on the shelves, Jim fetched her a cup of hot coffee and placed it on a small table by her side. Frances was used to the companionship and natural attentions of well-bred lads, but it struck her that none of her boy-friends could have shown her more courteous respect than she was now receiving from this pleasant young rustic.
“Jim,” said the voice of the old grandfather, “fetch your fiddle, lad. Maybe the young folks might like to hear a tune.”
Austin grimaced expressively behind his hands, but only Max saw, and Max joined the girls in polite invitations to blushing Jim. The fiddle was brought from another room, and its owner, seating himself modestly in a dark corner, begged to know what tune the little ladies would like best. Florry, guessing that the performer’s repertory might be limited, suggested “Home, Sweet Home”.
Then Jim surprised his audience, for though his rendering was entirely simple, it showed an ear for rhythm, a taste for expression, and an unerring correctness of pitch.
“He does play in tune,” murmured Austin the critic, while the other children thanked the fiddler heartily.
Jim coloured with gratification to find himself approved, and willingly obliged his guests with all their favourite popular airs. By the time he had satisfied everybody the evening had worn far on; and Jim, yielding his fiddle into the hands of Austin, who longed to finger the instrument of his fellow-musician, went to hold a low-voiced consultation with his grandfather.
The result of this talk was the summoning of Frances to consider a plan of action, as proposed by the Easts.
“My grandson fears there’s no chance now of a way home for you to-night, Missy. The snow is too deep for any wise man to take a beast into without necessity. I’m thinking ’twere best if you settled yourselves down quiet-like, took a bit of supper, and made the best of what I can give you. There’ll be a tidy room upstairs for the missies, and the young masters will sleep soundly on yonder big couch. ’Tis all I can do.”
“Indeed, you are very kind,” said Frances. “Of course we shall do splendidly. It’s only because of our friends that we mind. My mother is all alone—except for servants,—and she will be so frightened. Then there are Florry’s parents, and the Doctor.”
“You’re right to think of them, Missy,” said the old man, whose eyes seemed to shine with a sort of solemn joy when they rested on Frances. “And ’twould never do to let them go in fear all night. They’d be out scouring the country, like as not. There’s Jim will set out for Woodend just as soon as he can get ready; and he’ll let your friends know you’re safe and well, and waiting here till sent for.”
“Jim cross the Common to-night!” cried Max, coming forward as spokesman for the visitors. “Oh, I say, Mr. East! How could he?”
“We mustn’t let him,” said Frances. “I’m sure we oughtn’t to.”
“I could go myself rather,” went on Max seriously. “It isn’t fair that Jim should suffer for my foolery. I ought to have backed up Frances when she wanted to hire a trap in Exham.”
“That’s over and done with, master,” said East, “and it’s no use to spend your time blaming yourself for what was just a bit of a frolic. Jim will go, he’s tall and strong and hardy.”
Frances looked at the grandson’s slight figure and sensitive face. Jim was healthily spare and wiry, but hardly robust. And he must be all in all to his grandfather—the prop of the little home. Her sense of justice made her beg hard that the venturesome journey to Woodend might not be made; but both the Easts, though they tried to reassure their anxious young guests, had evidently made up their minds.
“Elizabeth—our old housekeeper—lives quite close at hand,” said Jim to the girls. “I shall pass her cottage, and I’ll bid her come to you, Missies, and see to your comfort as well as she can.”
The girls insisted that they needed no waiting-woman, but Jim smiled in respectful disagreement while he wished them good-night. The room door closed softly behind him, and the grandfather, pitying the disturbed young faces, told their owners not to fret, for Jim would surely come safely back from Woodend, though not till long after they were a-bed and asleep.
The snowstorm which had brought with it to our youngsters so great an adventure was the talk of the countryside for many a week. The roads about Exham were impassable for some days, except to sturdy rustics or stout farm-horses. Dr. Brenton came to the smithy next day in a great waggon (just like Job Benson’s rescuing ark), which he had borrowed from a Woodend farmer; and with hearty thanks to the Easts, and warm acknowledgments of Jim’s pluck and consideration, carried off the wanderers to their homes.
“We should like to come again, if we may,” said Frances, lingering by the old grandfather for a second farewell.
“Ay,” he returned, pressing the girl’s kind little hand. “I’m glad I’ve seen you, Missy. Come again.”
“Please!” added Jim from the background. “We’ll be proud to have you, Missy. Come again.”