Tell Me a Story

Tom’s employment was more wonderful still. He was playing with Lily, who was sitting perched upon his shoulder, laughing and screaming with delight. As soon as she saw Charlie she slid down, and holding Tom’s great rough hand in her tiny one, pulled him along the lane towards her little friend.

“Tom is not exactly a bear or a lion,” thought Charlie, with a somewhat misty recollection of one of the verses his mother had read to him, running in his head; “but he’s quite as fierce, and it says ‘A little child shall lead them.’”

“O Charlie!” exclaimed Lily, when she drew near, “Tom is so good. I have been riding on his back up and down the lane ever so long, and do look what a nice, pretty clean face he has got!”

But Charlie felt so eager to explain to Lily what he knew to be the cause of this extraordinary transformation, that he could not wait to speak to Tom.

“Come along the lane with me Lily,” he said, “I have wonderful things to tell you.”

So the two trotted off together, Tom smiling after them. A little up the lane the music of the birds and insects, and flowers, which Charlie had been hearing all the morning, sounded clearer and fuller than ever; and somehow Lily seemed to know of herself, without his telling her, all about the Millennium having come, even though she was such a little girl, only five years old.

“Isn’t the music beautiful, Lily? Don’t you think it is ‘Jerusalem the Golden?’”

“I have been thinking all the morning that it was ‘There is a happy land,’” replied she, “but look, Charlie, at that great white thing coming along the road.” Just where they had got to, the lane ran into the highway, and looking where Lily pointed, Charlie saw the great white thing she spoke of, moving towards them. As it came nearer they saw that it was a crowd of children, of all ages and sizes, dressed alike in pure white, which shone in the sun as they marched along. They sang as they walked, and Charlie thought he heard the words —

“For ever and for ever, Are clad in robes of white.”

One little boy, somewhat in advance of the others, as soon as he caught sight of Charlie and Lily, ran forward to meet them, and Charlie saw that it was his friend, little Frank Grey, the miller’s son.

“O Charlie!” he exclaimed, “are you there already? We were coming to fetch you and Lily. You must come with us.”

“Where are you going to?” said Charlie.

“Don’t you know?” said Frank. “We are all going to meet the Prince, who is coming this morning to live among us.”

“The Prince of Wales, do you mean?” asked Charlie.

“O no!” replied his friend, “a greater Prince than he is. The Prince of the Golden City.”

“Is that the same as ‘Jerusalem the Golden,’ do you think?”

“I daresay it is,” said Frank, “but the Prince has a great many names, each more beautiful than the other. Some call him the ‘Prince of Peace.’”

“I know that name,” said little Lily, softly, “it is very pretty.”

“But,” said Charlie, “you are all so beautifully dressed. Lily and I must run home for our best frocks first.”

“O no!” said Frank, “you are just as nicely dressed as we are.” And Charlie looked down at his own clothes and Lily’s, and saw to his surprise that both their dresses were of pure shining white, like those of the other children. It puzzled him a good deal, for he felt sure he remembered his nurse putting on his little plaid stuff coat and brown holland pinafore that morning. But a new thought struck him. “Don’t you think, Frank, I had better run home and tell mother, for fear she should not like me to go?”

“O no!” again answered Frank; “she is sure to let you go, for all the boys and girls in the country are coming, and we have several more to call for still; besides the fathers and mothers themselves will soon be coming after us in another procession, so you will see your mother directly.”

Quite happy now, Charlie and Lily joined the children, marching all in twos and twos, keeping time to the music they were singing, which Charlie felt sure was “Jerusalem the Golden,” though Lily would sing “Happy Land,” for all he could say to her. However, it did not matter, for it seemed to do just as well, and all their voices suited beautifully. They went on as happily as could be, not feeling the least tired, though it was a good way. Charlie was turning to ask Frank some more questions about the Prince they were going to meet, when he was startled by some one calling him from behind, “Charlie! Charlie!” the voice sounding rather sharply, and seeming to jar against the sweet singing. He looked round, and there, hastening after him was nurse, with, alas! her old face on, not the pretty new one. She came on quickly, and soon reached him, catching him rather roughly by the arm. Charlie gave a cry of distress, and – woke! to find himself, poor little boy, in his crib on a dull gloomy winter morning, and nurse shaking him a little, to wake him, and speaking very crossly. It was too much. Six years could not bear the terrible contrast, and little Charlie sat up in bed and burst into tears.

“Oh, it’s not true, it’s not true,” he cried, and nurse looked crosser than before.

“The child’s going out of his mind!” exclaimed she, vainly endeavouring to stop his tears. His little heart bursting with sorrow, poor Charlie got slowly out of bed, and sitting down on the floor, shaking with sobs and cold, began to try to put on his socks. But just then a tap came to the door, and a voice said, “Is that my Charlie crying, first thing on a Monday morning?” And Charlie jumped up and ran, all shaking and shivering, to his nice warm mother, who took him in her arms and carried him off just as he was, to dress him in her own room, where there was a beautiful fire; and there poor Charlie told his story. He could not help crying again when he came to the end and tried to describe his bitter disappointment. His mother did not speak, and he began to fear she was displeased; but when he looked up in her face, and saw tears in her pretty kind eyes, he knew she was not vexed with him.

“My poor dear little boy,” she said, and then she comforted him so sweetly that the tears went away. And after breakfast she talked to Charlie again about the Millennium, and explained about it a little more, to him. She said he must not be unhappy because his dream was not true, for she thought it was a beautiful dream, and there was one way in which he might make it true. Little boy though he was, there need be no delay in his welcoming the Prince of Peace into the country of his own heart, and year by year devoting himself more and more earnestly to that blessed service, till in God’s own good time he should be one of the happy dwellers in the “Golden City” above.

So that, after all, Charlie’s wonderful dream did not remain the source of sorrow and disappointment to him. And I think it was one of the things that helped him to grow up a good man, for he never forgot it. One special good result it had, I know. It roused an interest in Black Tom, whom every one had feared and hated, and no one had ever tried to love, which never rested till gradually, and by slow degrees, the poor smith became a very different being from the fierce man who had been the terror of Charlie’s childhood.