The Old Helmet. Volume II

CHAPTER IX

IN CORRESPONDENCE

Peace had unbroken reign at Plassy from that time. Eleanor threw herself again eagerly into all her aunt's labours and schemes for the good and comfort of those around her. There was plenty to do; and she was Mrs. Caxton's excellent helper. Powis came into requisition anew; and as before, Eleanor traversed the dales and the hills on her various errands, swift and busy. That was not the only business going. Her aunt and she returned to their old literary habits, and read books and talked; and it was hard if Eleanor in her rides over the hills and over the meadows and along the streams did not bring back one hand full of wild flowers. She dressed the house with them, getting help from the garden when necessary; botanized a good deal; and began to grow as knowing in plants almost as Mrs. Caxton herself. She would come home loaded with wild thyme and gorse and black bryony and saxifrage and orchis flowers, having scoured hill and meadow and robbed the hedge-rows for them, which also gave her great tribute of wild roses. Then later came crimson campion and eyebright, dog roses and honeysuckles, columbine and centaury, grasses of all kinds, and harebell, and a multitude impossible to name; though the very naming is pleasant. Eleanor lived very much out of doors, and was likened by her aunt to a rural Flora or Proserpine that summer; though when in the house she was just the most sonsy, sensible, companionable little earthly maiden that could be fancied. Eleanor was not under size indeed; but so much like her own wild flowers in pure simpleness and sweet natural good qualities that Mrs. Caxton was sometimes inclined to bestow the endearing diminutive upon her; so sound and sweet she was.

"And what are all these?" said Mrs. Caxton one day stopping before an elegant basket.

"Don't you like them?"

"Very much. Why you have got a good many kinds here."

"That is Hart's Tongue, you know – that is wall spleenwort, and that is the other kind; handsome things are they not?"

"And this?"

"That is the forked spleenwort. You don't know it? I rode away, away up the mountain for it yesterday That is where I got those Woodsia's too – aren't they beautiful? I was gay to find those; they are not common."

"No. And this is not common, to me."

"Don't you know it, aunt Caxton? It grows just it the spray of a waterfall – this and this; they are polypodies. That is another – that came from the old round tower."

"And where did you get these? – these waterfall ferns?"

"I got them at the Bandel of Helig."

"There? My dear child! how could you, without risk?"

"Without much risk, aunty."

"How did you ever know the Bandel?"

"I have been there before, aunt Caxton."

"I think I never shewed it to you?"

"No ma'am; – but Mr. Rhys did."

His name had scarcely been mentioned before since Eleanor had come to the farm. It was mentioned now with a cognizance of that fact. Mrs. Caxton was silent a little.

"Why have you put these green things here without a rose or two? they are all alone in their greenness."

"I like them better so, aunty. They are beautiful enough by themselves; but if you put a rose there, you cannot help looking at it."

Mrs. Caxton smiled and turned away.

One thing in the midst of all these natural explorations, remained unused; and that a thing most likely, one would have thought, to be applied to for help. The microscope stood on one side apparently forgotten. It always stood there, in the sitting parlour, in full view; but nobody seemed to be conscious of its existence. Eleanor never touched it; Mrs. Caxton never spoke of it.

From home meantime, Eleanor heard little that was satisfactory. Julia was the only one that wrote, and her letters gave painful subjects for thought. Her father was very unlike himself, Julia said, and growing more feeble and more ill every day; though by slow degrees. She wished Eleanor would write her letters without any religion in them; for she supposed that was what her mother would not let her read; so she never had the comfort of seeing Eleanor's letters for herself, but Mrs. Powle read aloud bits from them. "Very little bits, too," added Julia, "I guess your letters have more religion in them than anything else. But you see it is no use." Eleanor read this passage aloud to Mrs. Caxton.

"Is that true, Eleanor?"

"No, ma'am. I write to Julia of everything that I do, all day long, and of everything and everybody that interests me. What mamma does not like comes in, of course, with it all; but I do very little preaching, aunt Caxton."

"I would go on just so, my dear. I would not alter the style of my letters."

So the flowers of June were replaced by the flowers of July; and the beauties of July gave place to the purple "ling" of August, with gentian and centaury and St. John's wort; and then came the Autumn changes, with the less delicate blossoms of that later time, amidst which the eclipsed meadow-sweet came quite into favour again. Still Eleanor brought wild things from the hills and the streams, though she applied more now to Mrs. Caxton's home store in the garden; wild mints and Artemisias and the Michaelmas daisy still came home with her from her rides and walks; the rides and walks in which Eleanor was a ministering angel to many a poor house, many an ignorant soul and many a failing or ailing body.

Then came October; and with the first days of October the news that her father was dead.

It added much bitterness to Eleanor's grief, that Mrs. Powle entirely declined to have her come home, even for a brief stay. If she chose to submit to conditions, her mother wrote, she would be welcome; it was not too late; but if she held to her perversity, she must bear the consequences. She did not own her nor want her. She gave her up to her aunt Caxton. Her remaining daughter was in her hands, and she meant to keep her there. Eleanor, she knew, if she came home would come to sow rebellion. She should not come to do that, either then or at all.

Mildly quiet and decided Mrs. Powle's letter was; very decided, and so cool as to give every assurance the decision would be persisted in. Eleanor felt this very much. She kept on her usual way of life without any variation; but the radiant bright look of her face was permanently saddened. She was just as sweet and companionable an assistant to her aunt as ever; but from month to month Mrs. Caxton saw that a shadow lay deep upon her heart. No shadow could have less of anything like hard edges.

They had been sitting at work one night late in the winter, those two, the aunt and the niece; and having at last put up her work Eleanor sat gravely poring into the red coals on the hearth; those thought-provoking, life-stirring, strange things, glowing and sparkling between life and death like ourselves. Eleanor's face was very sober.

"Aunt Caxton," she said at length, – "my life seems such a confusion to me!"

"So everything seems that we do not understand," Mrs. Caxton said.

"But is it not, aunty? I seem taken from everything that I ought most naturally to do – papa, Julia, mamma. I feel like a banished person, I suppose; only I have the strange feeling of being banished from my place in the world."

"What do you think of such a life as Mr. Rhys is leading?"

"I think it is straight, and beautiful," – Eleanor answered, looking still into the fire. "Nothing can be further from confusion. He is inhis place."

"He is in a sort of banishment, however."

"Not from that! And it is voluntary banishment – for his Master's sake.That is not sorrowful, aunt Caxton."

"Not when the Lord's banished ones make their home in him. And I do not doubt but Mr. Rhys does that."

"Have you ever heard from him, aunt Caxton."

"Not yet. It is almost time, I think."

"It is almost a year and a half since he went."

"The communication is slow and uncertain," said Mrs. Caxton. "They do not get letters there, often, till they are a year old."

"How impossible it used to be to me," said Eleanor, "to comprehend such a life; how impossible to understand, that anybody should leave home and friends and comfort, and take his place voluntarily in distance and danger and heathendom. It was an utter enigma to me."

"And you understand it now?"

"O yes, aunty," Eleanor went on in the same tone; and she had not ceased gazing into the coals; – "I see that Christ is all; and with him one is never alone, and under his hand one can never be in danger. I know now how his love keeps one even from fear."

"You are no coward naturally."

"No, aunt Caxton – not about ordinary things, except when conscience made me so, some time ago."

"That is over now?"

Eleanor took her eyes from the fire, to give Mrs. Caxton a smile with the words – "Thank the Lord!"

"Mr. Rhys is among scenes that might try any natural courage," said Mrs. Caxton. "They are a desperate set of savages to whom he is ministering."

"What a glory, to carry the name of Christ to them!"

"They are hearing it, too," said Mrs. Caxton. "But there is enough of the devil's worst work going on there to try any tender heart; and horrors enough to shock stout nerves. So it has been. I hope Mr. Rhys finds it better."

"I don't know much about them," said Eleanor. "Are they much worse than savages in general, aunt Caxton?"

"I think they are, – and better too, in being more intellectually developed. Morally, I think I never read of a lower fallen set of human beings. Human life is of no account; such a thing as respect to humanity is unknown, for the eating of human bodies has gone on to a most wonderful extent, and the destroying them for that purpose. With all that, there is a very careful respect paid to descent and rank; but it is the observance of fear. That one fact gives you the key to the whole. Where a man is thought of no more worth than to be killed and eaten, a woman is not thought worth anything at all; and society becomes a lively representation of the infernal regions, without the knowledge and without the remorse."

"Poor creatures!" said Eleanor.

"You comprehend that there must be a great deal of trial to a person of fine sensibilities, in making a home amongst such a people, for an indefinite length of time."

"Yes, aunty, – but the Lord will make it all up to him."

"Blessed be the name of the Lord!" it was Mrs. Caxton's turn to answer; and she said it with deep feeling and emphasis.

"It seems the most glorious thing to me, aunt Caxton, to tell the love of Christ to those that don't know it. I wish I could do it."

"My love, you do."

"I do very little, ma'am. I wish I could do a thousand times more!"

The conversation stopped there. Both ladies remained very gravely thoughtful a little while longer and then separated for the night. But the next evening when they were seated at tea alone, Mrs. Caxton recurred to the subject.

"You said last night, Eleanor, that you wished you could do a great deal more work of a certain kind than you do."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Did your words mean, my love, that you are discontented with your own sphere of duty, or find it too narrow?"

Eleanor's eyes opened a little at that. "Aunt Caxton, I never thought of such a thing. I do not remember that I was considering my own sphere of duty at all. I was thinking of the pleasure of preaching Christ – yes, and the glory and honour – to such poor wretches as those we were talking of, who have never had a glimpse of the truth before."

"Then for your part you are satisfied with England?"

"Why yes, ma'am. I am satisfied, I think, – I mean to be, – with any place that is given me. I should be sorry to choose for myself."

"But if you had a clear call, you would like it, to go to the Cape of

Good Hope and teach the Hottentots?"

"I do not mean that, aunty," said Eleanor laughing a little. "Surely you do not suspect me of any wandering romantic notion about doing the Lord's work in one place rather than in another. I would rather teach English people than Hottentots. But if I saw that my place was at the Cape of Good Hope, I would go there. If my place were there, some way would be possible for me to get there, I suppose."

"You would have no fear?" said Mrs. Caxton.

"No aunty; I think not. Ever since I can say 'The Lord is my

Shepherd – ' I have done with fear."

"My love, I should be very sorry to have you go to the Cape of Good Hope. I am glad there is no prospect of it. But you are right about not choosing. As soon as we go where we are not sent, we are at our own charges."

The door here opened, and the party and the tea-table received an accession of one to their number. It was an elderly, homely gentleman, to whom Mrs. Caxton gave a very cordial reception and whom she introduced to Eleanor as the Rev. Mr. Morrison. He had a pleasant face, Eleanor saw, and as soon as he spoke, a pleasant manner.

"I ought to be welcome, ma'am," he said, rubbing his hands with the cold as he sat down. "I bring you letters from Brother Rhys."

"You are welcome without that, brother, as you know," Mrs. Caxton answered. "But the letters are welcome. Of how late date are they?"

"Some pretty old – some not more than nine or ten months ago; when he had been stationed a good while."

"How is he?"

"Well, he says; never better."

"And happy?"

"I wish I was as happy!" said Mr. Morrison. – "He had got fast hold of his work already."

"He would do that immediately."

"He studied the language on shipboard, all the way out; and he was able to hold a service in it for the natives only a few weeks after he had landed. Don't you call that energy?"

"There is energy wherever he is," said Mrs. Caxton.

"Yes, you know him pretty well. I suppose they never have it so cold out there as we have it to-night," Mr. Morrison said rubbing his hands. "It's stinging! That fire is the pleasantest thing I have seen to-day."

"Where is Mr. Rhys stationed?"

"I forget – one of the islands down there, with an unintelligible name.

Horrid places!"

"Is the place itself disagreeable?" Eleanor asked.

"The place itself, ma'am," said Mr. Morrison, his face stiffening from its genial unbent look into formality as he turned to her, – "the place itself I do not understand to be very disagreeable; it is the character of the population which must make it a hard place to live in. They are exceedingly debased. Vile people!"

"Mr. Rhys is not alone on his station?" said Mrs Caxton.

"No, he is with Mr. and Mrs. Lefferts. His letters will tell you."

For the letters Mrs. Caxton was evidently impatient; but Mr. Morrison's refreshment had first to be attended to. Only fair; for he had come out of his way on purpose to bring them to her; and being one of a certain Committee he had it in his power to bring for her perusal and pleasure more than her own letters from Mr. Rhys, and more than Mr. Rhys's own letters to the Committee. It was a relief to two of the party when Mr. Morrison's cups of tea were at last disposed of, and the far-come despatches were brought out on the green table-cloth under the light of the lamp.

With her hand on her own particular packet of letters, as if so much communication with them could not be put off, Mrs. Caxton sat and listened to Mr. Morrison's reading. Eleanor had got her work. As the particular interest which made the reading so absorbing to them may possibly be shared in a slight degree by others, it is fair to give a slight notion of the character of the news contained in those closely written pages. The letters Mr. Morrison read were voluminous; from different persons on different stations of the far-off mission field. They told of difficulties great, and encouragements greater; of their work and its results; and of their most pressing wants; especially the want of more men to help. The work they said was spreading faster than they could keep up with it. Thousands of heathen had given up heathenism, who in miserable ignorance cried for Christian instruction; children as wild as the wild birds, wanted teaching and were willing to have it; native teachers needed training, who had the will without the knowledge to aid in the service. Thirty of them, Mr. Lefferts said, he had under his care. With all this, they told of the wonderful beauty of the regions where their field of labour was. Mr. Lefferts wrote of a little journey lately taken to another part of his island, which had led him through almost every variety of natural luxuriance. Mountains and hills and valleys, rivers and little streams, rich woods and mangrove swamps. Mr. Lefferts' journey had been, like Paul's of old, to establish the native churches formed at different small places by the way. There he married couples and baptized children and met classes and told the truth. At one place where he had preached, married several couples, baptized over thirty, young and old, and met as many in classes, Mr. Lefferts told of a walk he took. It led him to the top of a little hill, from which a rich view was to be had, while a multitude of exquisite shrubs in flower gave another refreshment in their delicious fragrance. A little stream running down the side of the hill was used by the natives to water their plantations of taro, for which the side hill was formed into terraced beds. Paroquets and humming birds flew about, and the sun was sinking brilliantly in the western ocean line as he looked. So far, everything was fair, sweet, lovely; a contrast to what he met when he reached the lower grounds again. There the swarms of mosquitos compelled Mr. Lefferts to retreat for the night within a curtain canopy for protection; and thither he was followed by a fat savage who shared the protection with him all night long. Another sort of experience! and another sort of neighbourhood from that of the starry white Gardenia flowers on the top of the hill.

Nevertheless, of a neighbouring station Mr. Rhys wrote that the people were at war, and the most horrible heathen practices were going on. At the principal town, he said, more people were eaten perhaps than anywhere else in the islands. The cruelties and the horrors were impossible to be told. A few days before he wrote, twenty-eight persons had been killed and eaten in one day. They had been caught fishing – taken prisoners and brought home – half killed, and in that state thrown into the ovens; still having life enough left to try to get away from the fire.

"The first time I saw anything of this kind," wrote Mr. Rhys, "was one evening when we had just finished a class-meeting. The evening was most fair and peaceful as we came out of the house; a fresh air from the sea had relieved the heat of the day; the leaves of the trees were glittering in the sunlight; the ocean all sparkling under the breeze; when word came that some bodies of slain people were bringing from Lauthala. I could hardly understand the report, or credit it; but presently the horrible procession came in sight, and eleven dead bodies were laid on the ground immediately before us. Eleven only were brought to this village; but great numbers are said to have been killed. Their crime was the killing of one man; and when they would have submitted themselves and made amends, all this recompense of death was demanded by the offended chief. The manner in which these wretched creatures were treated is not a thing to be described; they were not handled with the respect which we give to brute animals. The natives have looked dark upon us since that time, and give us reason to know that as far as they are concerned our lives are not safe. But we know in whose hands our lives are; they are the Lord's; and he will do with them what he pleases – not what the heathen please. So we are under no concern about it."

That storm appeared to have passed away; for in later letters Mr. Rhys and Mr. Lefferts spoke of acceptable services among the people and an evidently manifested feeling of trust and good will on their part towards the missionaries. Indeed these were often able to turn the natives from their devilish purposes and save life. Not always. The old king of that part of the country had died, and all the influence and all the offers of compensation made by the missionaries, could not prevent the slaughter of half a dozen women, his wives, to do him honour in his burial. The scene as Mr. Lefferts described it was heart-sickening.

As he drew near the door of the king's house, with the intent to prevail for the right or to protest against the wrong, he saw the biers standing ready; and so knew that all the efforts previously made to hinder the barbarous rites had been unavailing. The house as he entered was in the hush of death. One woman lay strangled. Another sitting on the floor, covered with a large veil, was in the hands of her murderers. A cord was passed twice round her neck, and the ends were held on each side of her by a group of eight or ten strong men, the two groups pulling opposite ways. She was dead, the poor victim underneath the veil, in a minute or two after the missionaries entered; and the veil being taken off they saw that it was a woman who had professed Christianity. Her sons were among those who had strangled her. Another woman came forward with great shew of bravery when her name was called; offered her hand to the missionaries as she passed them; and with great pride of bearing submitted herself to the death which probably she knew she could not avoid. Everybody was quiet and cheerful, and the whole thing went on with the undisturbed order of a recognized and accustomed necessity; only the old king's son, the reigning chief for a long time back, was very uneasy at the part he was playing before the missionaries; he was the only trembling or doubtful one there. Yet he would not yield the point. Pride before all; his father must not be buried without the due honours of his position. Mr. Rhys and Mr. Lefferts had staid to make their protest and offer their entreaties and warnings, to the very last; and then heart-sick and almost faint with the disgusting scene, had returned home.

Yet the influence of the truth was increasing and the good work was spreading and growing around them, steadily and in every direction. A great many had renounced heathenism; not a small number were earnest Christians and shewed the truth of their religion in their changed lives. A great number of reports proved this.

"It is work that tries what stuff men's hearts are of, however," remarked Mr. Morrison as he folded up one packet of letters. Neither of his hearers made him any answer. Mrs. Caxton sat opposite to him, deeply attentive but silent, with her hand always lying upon her own particular packet. Eleanor had turned a little away and sat with her side face towards Mr. Morrison, looking into the fire. Her work was dropped; she sat motionless.

"I have a letter to read you now of a later date," Mr. Morrison went on, – "from Mr. Rhys, which shews how well he has got hold of the people and how much he is regarded by them already. It shews the influence gained by the truth, too, which is working there fast."

After giving some details of business and of his labours, Mr. Rhys wrote – "My last notable piece of work, has been in the character of an ambassador of peace – not heavenly but earthly. News was brought four or five days ago that the heathen inhabitants of two neighbouring districts had engaged in open hostilities. Home business claimed me one day; the next morning I set out on my mission, with one or two Christian natives. The desolations of war soon met our eyes, in destroyed crops and a deserted village. Nobody was to be seen. I and those who were with me sat down in the shade of some trees, while a native went to find the inhabitants who had hid themselves in a thicket of mangroves. As soon as the chief heard that I was there, and what I had come for, he declared he would be a Christian forthwith; and four or five of his principal men followed his example. They came to me, and entered fully into my object; and it was decided that we should go on immediately to the fortress where those who wished to carry on war had intrenched themselves. We got there just as the sun was setting; and from that time till midnight I was engaged in what I saw now for the first time; a savage council of war. Grim black warriors covered with black powder sat or stood about, on a little clear spot of ground where the moon shone down; muskets and clubs and spears lay on the glass and were scattered about among the boles of the trees; a heathen-looking scene. Till midnight we talked, and hard talking too; then it was ended as I had prayed it might. The party with whom I was had suffered already in battle and had not had their revenge; it was difficult to give that up; but at last the chief got up and put his hand in mine. 'I should like to be a heathen a little longer,' he said, 'but I willlotu as you so earnestly entreat me.' Lotu is their name for embracing Christianity. Another young warrior joined him; and there under the midnight moon, we worshipped God; those two and those who were with me. In another part of the village a dozen women for the first time bowed the knee in the same worship.