The Children's Pilgrimage by L. T. Meade (best sales books of all time txt) 📗

answered the practical husband. The wife did so.

Alas! her fears were confirmed. A very old mother down in the country was pronounced dying, and Mrs. Moseley must start without an hour's delay if she would see her alive.

Then ensued bustle and confusion. John Moseley was heard to mutter that it came at a queer ill-conwenient time, Mr. Danvers being away, and a deal more than or'nary put in his wife's hands. However, there was no help for it. The dying won't wait for other people's convenience. Cecile helped Mrs. Moseley to pack her small carpet-bag. Crying bitterly, the loving-hearted woman bade both children a tender good-by. If her mother really died, she would only remain for the funeral. At the farthest she would be back at the end of a week. In the meantime, Cecile was to take care of Moseley for her. By the twelve o'clock train she was off to Norforkshire. She little guessed that those bright and sweet faces which had made her home so homelike for the last two months were not to greet her on her return. Maurice cried bitterly at losing Mammie Moseley. Cecile went to school with a strangely heavy heart. Her only consolation was in the hope that her good friend would quickly return. But that hope was dashed to the ground the very next morning. For Mrs. Moseley, writing to her husband, informed him that her old mother had rallied; that the doctor thought she might live for a week or so longer, but that she had found her in so neglected and sad a condition that she had not the heart to leave her again. Moseley must get someone to take up her church work for her, for she could not leave her mother while she lived.

It was on the very afternoon of this day that Cecile, walking slowly home with Maurice from school, and regretting very vehemently to her little brother the great loss they both had in the absence of dear, dear Mammie Moseley, was startled by a loud and frightened exclamation from her little brother.

"Oh, Cecile! Oh, look, look!"

Maurice pointed with an eager finger to a woman who, neatly dressed from head to foot in black, was walking in front of them.

"'Tis—'tis Aunt Lydia Purcell—'tis wicked Aunt Lydia Purcell," said Maurice.

Cecile felt her very heart standing still; her breath seemed to leave her—her face felt cold. Before she could stir a step or utter an exclamation the figure in black turned quickly and faced the children. No doubt who she was. No doubt whose cold gray eyes were fixed on them. Cecile and Maurice, huddling close together, gazed silently. Aunt Lydia came on. She looked at the little pair, but when she came up to them, passed on without a word or sign of apparent recognition.

"Oh! come home, Cecile, come home," said Maurice.

They were now in the street where the Moseleys lived, and as they turned in at the door, Cecile looked round. Lydia Purcell was standing at the corner and watching them.

CHAPTER X. STARTING ON THE GREAT JOURNEY.

Cecile and Maurice ran quickly upstairs, pulled the rope with a will, and got into the Moseleys' attic.

"We are safe now," said the little boy, who had not seen Lydia watching them from the street corner.

Cecile, panting after her rapid run, and with her hand pressed to her heart, stood quiet for a moment, then she darted into their snug little attic bedroom, shut the door, and fell on her knees.

"Lord Jesus," she said aloud, "wicked Aunt Lydia Purcell has seen us, and we must go away at once. Don't forget to guide me and Maurice and Toby."

She said this little prayer in a trembling voice. She felt there was not a moment to lose; any instant Aunt Lydia might arrive. She flung the bedclothes off the bed, and thrusting her hand into a hole in the mattress, pulled out the Russia-leather purse. Joined to its former contents was now six shillings and sixpence in silver. This money was the change over from Maurice's half sovereign.

Cecile felt that it was a very little sum to take them to France, but there was no help for it. She and Maurice and Toby must manage on this sum to walk to Dover. She knew enough of geography now to be sure that Dover was the right place to go to.

She slipped the change from the half sovereign into a sixpenny purse which Moseley had given her on Christmas Day. The precious Russia-leather purse was restored to its old hiding place in the bosom of her frock. Then, giving a mournful glance round the little chamber which she was about to quit, she returned to Maurice.

"Don't take off your hat, Maurice, darling; we have got to go."

"To go!" said Maurice, opening his brown eyes wide. "Are we to leave our nice night's lodging? Is that what you mean? No, Cecile," said the little boy, seating himself firmly on the floor. "I don't intend to go. Mammie Moseley said I was to be here when she came back, and I mean to be here."

"But, oh! Maurice, Maurice, I must go south, Will you let me go alone? Can you live without me, Maurice, darling?"

"No, Cecile, you shall not go. You shall stay here too. We need neither of us go south. It's much, much nicer here."

Cecile considered a moment. This opposition from Maurice puzzled her. She had counted on many obstacles, but this came from an unlooked-for quarter.

Moments were precious. Each instant she expected to hear the step she dreaded on the attic stairs. Without Maurice, however, she could not stir. Resolving to fight for her purse of gold, with even life itself if necessary, she sat down by her little brother on the floor.

"Maurice," she said—as she spoke, she felt herself growing quite old and grave—"Maurice, you know that ever since our stepmother died, I have told you that me and you must go on a long, long journey. We must go south. You don't like to go. Nor I don't like it neither, Maurice—but that don't matter. In the book Mrs. Moseley gave me all about Jesus, it says that people, and even little children, have to do lots of things they don't like. But if they are brave, and do the hard things, Jesus the good Guide, is so pleased with them. Maurice, if you come with me to-day, you will be a real, brave French boy. You know how proud you are of being a French boy."

"Yes," answered Maurice, pouting his pretty rosy lips a little, "I don't want to be an English boy. I want to be French, same as father. But it won't make me English to stay in our snug night's lodging, where everything is nice and warm, and we have plenty to eat. Why should we go south to-day, Cecile? Does Jesus want us to go just now?"

"I will tell you," said Cecile; "I will trust you, Maurice. Maurice, when our stepmother was dying, she gave me something very precious—something very, very precious. Maurice, if I tell you what it was, will you promise never, never, never to tell anybody else? Will you look me in the face, and promise me that, true and faithful, Maurice?"

"True and faithful," answered Maurice, "true and faithful, Cecile. Cecile, what did our stepmother give you to hide?"

"Oh, Maurice! I dare not tell you all. It is a purse—a purse full, full of money, and I have to take this money to somebody away in France. Maurice, you saw Aunt Lydia Purcell just now in the street, and she saw me and you. Once she took that money away from me, and Jane Parsons brought it back again. And now she saw us, and she saw where we live. She looked at us as we came in at this door, and any moment she may come here. Oh, Maurice! if she comes here, and if she steals my purse of gold, I shall die."

Here Cecile's fortitude gave way. Still seated on the floor, she covered her face with her hands, and burst into tears.

Her tears, however, did what her words could not do. Maurice's tender baby heart held out no longer. He stood up and said valiantly:

"Cecile, Cecile, we'll leave our night's lodging. We'll go away. Only who's to tell Mammie Moseley and Mr. Moseley?"

"I'll write," said Cecile; "I can hold my pen pretty well now. I'll write a little note."

She went to the table where she knew some seldom-used note paper was kept, selected a gay pink sheet, and dipping her pen in the ink, and after a great deal of difficulty, and some blots, which, indeed, were made larger by tear-drops, accomplished a few forlorn little words. This was the little note, ill-spelt and ill-written, which greeted Moseley on his return home that evening:

"Dear Mammie Moseley and Mr. Moseley: The little children you gave so many nights' lodgings to have gone away. We have gone south, but there is no use looking for us, for Cecile must do what she promised. Mammie Moseley, if Cecile can't do what she promised she will die. The little children would not have gone now when mammie was away, but a great, great danger came, and we had not a moment to stay. Some day, Mammie Moseley and Mr. Moseley, me and Maurice will come back and then look for a great surprise. Now, good-by. Your most grateful little children,

"CECILE—MAURICE.

"Toby has to come with us, please, and he is most obliged for all kindness."

This little note made Moseley dash his hand hastily more than once before his eyes, then catching up his hat he rushed off to the nearest police-station, but though all steps were immediately taken, the children were not found. Mrs. Moseley came home and cried nearly as sorely for them as she did for her dead mother.

"John," she said, "I'll never pick up no more strays—never, never. I'll never be good to no more strays. You mark my words, John Moseley."

In answer to this, big John Moseley smiled and patted his wife's cheek. It is needless to add that he knew her better than to believe even her own words on that subject.

THIRD PART.

THE GREAT JOURNEY.

"I know not the way I am going',
But well do I know my Guide."

CHAPTER I. ON THE SAND HILL.

There is an old saying which tells us that there is a special Providence over the very young and the very old. This old-world saying was specially proved in the cases of Maurice and Cecile. How two creatures so young, so inexperienced, should ever find themselves in a foreign land, must have remained a mystery to those who did not hold this faith.

Cecile was eight, Maurice six years old; the dog, of no age in particular, but with a vast amount of canine wisdom, was with them. He had walked with them all the way from London to Dover. He had slept curled up close to them in two or three barns, where they had passed nights free of expense. He had jumped up behind them into loaded carts or wagons when they were fortunate enough to get a lift, and when they reached Dover he had wandered with them through the streets, and had found himself by their sides on the quay, and in some way also on board the boat which was to convey them to France. And now they were in France, two miles outside Calais, on a wild, flat, and desolate plain. But neither this fact nor the weather, for it was a raw and bitter winter's day, made any difference, at least at first, to Cecile. All lesser feelings, all minor discomforts, were swallowed up in the joyful knowledge that they were in France, in the land where Lovedy was sure to be, in their beloved father's country. They were in France, their own belle France! Little she knew or recked, poor child! how far was this present desolate France from her babyhood's sunny home. Having conquered the grand difficulty of getting there, she saw no other difficulties in her path just now.

"Oh, Maurice! we are safe in our own country," she said, in a tone of ecstasy, to the little boy.

Maurice, however,—cold, tired, still seasick from his passage across the Channel,—saw nothing delightful in this fact.

"I'm very hungry, Cecile," he said, "and I'm very cold. How soon shall we find breakfast and a night's lodging?"

"Maurice, dear, it is quite early in the day; we don't want to think of a night's lodging for many hours yet."

"But we passed through a town, a great big town," objected Maurice; "why did you not look for a night's lodging there, Cecile?"

"'Twasn't in my 'greement, Maurice, darling. I