CHAPTER VIII.

THE FARM PURCHASED BY ONE RALPH CHANNELL.

Eight years passed away. In Huntsdean churchyard the grass had grown over Helen’s grave, covering up the bare, brown earth, as new interests cover an old sorrow.

Little Nelly had never realized her loss. It contented her to know that her mother had been laid to rest in a sweet place, and would rise again some day when the Lord called her. She always hoped that Helen might rise in the spring, and find the primroses blooming round her pretty grave. She might have fancied that, like Keats, her mother could “feel the flowers growing over her.” Children and poets often have the same fancies.

November had come again; and with it came a new anxiety.

The small farm, rented by Farmer Farren, had passed into new hands. Squire Derrick was dead, and “another king arose, who knew not Joseph.” The heir was a needy, grasping man. Old tenants were nothing to him, and he was in want of ready money.

He had made up his mind to sell the little farm. It was more than likely, therefore, that the Farrens would be turned out of the old nest. For the young, it is easy to build new homes, and gather new associations around them; but for the old, it is well-nigh impossible. Their very lives are built into the ancient walls. When they leave a familiar dwelling, they long to go straight to “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

John was now bailiff to a rich landowner in Sussex. He had a wife and child; but he was not unmindful of other ties. “Come to me,” he wrote, “if you are turned out of the old place.” But the parents sighed and shook their heads. They had not greatly prospered in Huntsdean, yet no other spot on earth could be so dear to them.

“Whatever the Lord means me to do, I’ll strive to do it willingly,” said the farmer, bravely. “Oftentimes I’m mighty vexed with myself for clinging so hard to these old bricks and mortar, and those few fields yonder. If I leave them, I shan’t leave my Lord behind me; and if I stay with them, He’ll soon be calling me away. But you see, an old man has his whims; and I wanted to step out of this old cottage into my Father’s house.”

In this time of uncertainty, a new duty suddenly called Rhoda from home. Her father’s only sister—a childless widow—lay dying in Norfolk, and sent for her niece to come and nurse her.

It was decided that she must go. Her aunt had no other relatives, and could not be left alone in her need. But it was with a heavy heart that Rhoda said farewell to the three whom she loved best on earth, and set out on her long, solitary journey.

It was a keen, clear morning when she went away. A brisk wind was blowing; the brown leaves fled before it, as the hosts of the Amorites before the sword of Joshua. In dire confusion they hurried along over soft turf and stony ground. It was a day on which all things seemed to be astir. Crows were cawing, and flying from tree to tree; magpies flashed across the road; flocks of small birds assembled on the sear hedges. And far off could be heard the clamour of foxhounds and shouts of the huntsmen.

Rhoda wondered, with a pang, how it would be when she came back. Do we ever leave any beloved place without fearing that a change may fall upon it in our absence? It is at such times as these that the heart loves to rest itself upon the Immutable. “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place from all generations.” “Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”

It was a weary sojourn in Norfolk. The widow’s illness was long and trying. But God has a way of making hard work seem easy; and He lightened Rhoda’s labour with good news from home.

Two months passed by, and her aunt still hovered between life and death. Mrs. Farren’s letters had not given any definite reason for hope; and yet hopefulness pervaded every line, and clung to every sentence like a sweet perfume. Rhoda felt its influence and rejoiced. And at last, when January came to an end, the mother spoke out plainly.

The farm was purchased by one Ralph Channell. He was a prosperous man who had come from Australia, and had been settled in England about a year. He was quite alone in the world, and had proposed to take up his abode with the Farrens in the old cottage. The farmer was to manage everything as usual. No change would be made in any of their household ways. Mr. Channell had been acquainted with Robert Clarris in Australia, and it was through Clarris that he had first heard of the Farrens. What he asked of them was a home. They might have the old house rent-free, if they would let him live in it with them.

Thus, a heavy burden was lifted from Rhoda’s heart. Mrs. Farren’s letter was a psalm of thanksgiving from beginning to end. “In the day when I cried, Thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul,” she wrote, in her gladness. And Rhoda’s spirit caught up the joyful strain. Yet she once found herself wishing that Mr. Channell had not been one of Robert Clarris’s friends. True, Clarris had long ago restored the three hundred pounds, and had regularly sent money for his child’s support. But was not the old taint upon him still?

Rhoda could never get rid of the notion that he had been too leniently dealt with. Hers was a mind which always clings to an idea. Moreover, her life, from its very beginning, had been a narrow life. She had never been called upon to battle with a strong temptation. But, like all whose strength has not been tried, she believed that she could have stood any test. It is easy for him who sits in peace to cry shame on the soldier who deserts his post. There are few of us who cannot be heroes in imagination. And most of our harsh judgments come from a narrow experience.

We can only learn something of the power of Divine Love by knowing the evil against which it contends. Those who want to see what God’s grace can do must look for its light in dark places.

When February and March had gone by, Rhoda found herself free to go home. She went back to the sweet lights and shadows of April; to the glitter of fresh showers, and the scent of hyacinths and wall-flowers. Her mother’s arms were opened to her. Nelly clung to her neck, half-crying for joy. Her father and Mr. Channell were out in the meadows, they told her; they would come indoors for tea. It was Nelly who had most to say about the stranger.

“You never knew anybody so kind, Rhoda,” she said, earnestly. “He makes us all happy, and he’s taken me to see mother’s grave every Sunday while you were away.”

Rhoda was standing at the back-door when she saw them coming from the fields. Nelly, with her pinafore full of kittens, still chattered by her side. Just in front of the door was the old cherry-tree, covered with silvery blossoms and spangled with rain-drops. It looked like a bridal bouquet hung with diamonds. Men were sowing barley in the acres beyond the fence. Rhoda was watching the blossoms and the sowers, and yet she saw those two figures.

The first glance told her that Mr. Channell was a strong man. In his younger days he might have been almost handsome, but he was one of those men who had lost youth early in life. It was a face with which sorrow had been very busy, and hard work had put the finishing touches to the lines that sorrow had begun. Rhoda did not know what it was in this man that made her think of Luther. But when she looked at him she saw the same kind of peace that the reformer’s features might have worn. It may be that there is a family likeness among all God’s Greathearts. For all those who have fought the good fight must show “the seal of the living God” on their foreheads as well as the scars of the conflict. Even our dim eyes may see the difference between the marks that are got in the devil’s service and those that have been won in the battles of the Lord.

From that very day there was a change in Rhoda’s life. Some of us, in looking back on our lives, can remember the exact spot where the old straight road took a turn at last. It had run on so long in the same even line, that we thought there would never be any change at all. Other roads had always been crooked—full of twists and ups and downs; ours never varied. But at last, when it looked straightest and smoothest, the turn came.

Rhoda began to think that the world was widening, as we all do when an expanding process is going on within ourselves.

First she found out that the old cottage was a much pleasanter place than it used to be, and that the parents seemed growing younger instead of older. Mr. Channell discovered all their little likings and dislikings and carefully studied them. Some folks think they have done wonders if they scatter flowers in a friend’s path, but Ralph Channell’s work was the quiet removal of the thorns. Perhaps the best labourers in the world are those who have striven to undo evil rather than to do good, but they are not those who have had the most praise.

He had brought a goodly number of books to Huntsdean, but Rhoda learnt more from the life-histories that he told her than from the printed volumes. They helped her to read the books by a new light.

In his way—and it was a very unassuming way—he had been doing missionary work in Melbourne. And in listening to him Rhoda first understood how Christ’s love follows the sinner, and hunts him into the darkest corners of the earth rather than lose him. In this universe, where wheat and tares grow together, and angels and devils strive together, mercy never rests. For the prince of darkness is not so active as He who hath said, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” If the devil “goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking those whom he may devour,” the Good Shepherd is seeking, too, to save them that are lost. There is only one power stronger than hate, and that is love.

In this strain did Mr. Channell talk to Rhoda. The spring passed away, summer days came and went, and still no mention had ever been made by either of them of Robert Clarris. At last, however, his name was brought up abruptly by Rhoda herself.