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

of miles had been got over, they found that they had gone wrong, and that they were further from the great French capital than they had been the night before.

Without knowing it, they had wandered a good way into Normandy, and though it was now getting quite into the middle of February, there was not a trace of spring vegetation to be discovered. The weather, too, was bitter and wintry. East winds, alternating with sleet showers, seemed the order of the day.

Cecile had not dared to confide her secret to Mr. Danvers, neither had all Mrs. Moseley's motherly kindness won it from her. But, nevertheless, during the long, long days they spent together, she was not proof against the charms of the tall boy whom she believed Jesus had sent to guide her, and who was also her own fellow-countryman.

All that long and pathetic interview which Cecile and her dying stepmother had held together had been told to Jography. Even the precious leather purse had been put into his hands, and he had been allowed to open it and count its contents.

For a moment his deep-black eyes had glittered greedily as he felt the gold running through his fingers, then they softened. He returned the money to the purse, and gave it back, almost reverently, to Cecile.

"Little Missie," he said, looking strangely at her and speaking in a sad tone, "you ha' showed me yer gold. Do you know what yer gold 'ud mean to me?"

"No," answered Cecile, returning his glance in fullest confidence.

"Why, Missie, I'm a poor starved lad. I ha' been treated werry shameful. I ha' got blows, and kicks, and rough food, and little of that same. But there's worse nor that; I han't no one to speak a kind word to me. Not one, not one kind word for seven years have I heard, and before that I had a mother and a brother. I wor a little lad, and I used to sleep o' nights with my mother, and she used to take me in her arms and pet me and love me, and my big brother wor as good to me as brother could be. Missie, my heart has starved for my mother and my brother, and ef I liked I could take that purse full o' gold and let you little children fare as best you might, and I could jump inter the next train and be wid my mother and brother back in the Pyrenees in a werry short time."

"No, Joe Barnes, you couldn't do that," answered Cecile, the finest pucker of surprise on her pretty brow.

"You think as I couldn't, Missie dear, and why not? I'm much stronger than you."

"No, Joe, you couldn't steal my purse of gold," continued Cecile, still speaking quietly and without a trace of fear. "Aunt Lydia Purcell could have taken it away, and I dreaded her most terribly, and I would not tell dear Mrs. Moseley, nor Mr. Danvers, who was so good and kind; I would not tell them, for I was afraid somebody else might hear, or they might think me too young, and take away the purse for the present. But you could not touch it, Jography, for if you did anything so dreadful, dreadful mean as that, your heart would break, and you would not care for your mother to pet you, and if your big brother were an honest man, you would not like to look at him. You would always think how you had robbed a little girl that trusted you, and who had a great, great dreadful care on her mind, and you would remember how Jesus the Guide had sent you to that little girl to help her, and your heart would break. You could not do it, Joe Barnes."

Here Cecile returned her purse to its hiding place, and then sat quiet, with her hands folded before her.

Nothing could exceed the dignity and calm of the little creature. The homeless and starved French boy, looking at her, felt a sudden lump rising in his throat;—a naturally warm and chivalrous nature made him almost inclined to worship the pretty child. For a moment the great lump in his throat prevented him speaking, then, falling on his knees, he took Cecile's little hand in his.

"Cecile D'Albert," he said passionately, "I'd rayther be cut in little bits nor touch that purse o' gold. You're quite, quite right, little Missie, it 'ud break my heart."

"Of course," said Cecile. "And now, Joe, shall we walk on, for 'tis most bitter cold under this sand hill; and see! poor Maurice is nearly asleep."

That same evening, when, rather earlier than usual, the children and dog had taken refuge in a very tiny little wayside house, where a woman was giving them room to rest in almost for nothing, Joe, coming close to Cecile, said:

"Wot wor that as you said that Jesus the Guide sent me to you, Missie. I don't know nothink about Jesus the Guide."

"Oh, Joe! what an unhappy boy you must be! I was so unhappy until I learned about Him, and I was a long, long time learning. Yes, He did send you. He could not come His own self, so He sent you."

"But, indeed, Missie, no; I just runned away, and I got to France, and I heard you two funny little mites talking o' jography under the sand hill. It worn't likely as a feller 'ud forget the way you did speak o' jography. No one sent me, Missie."

"But that's a way Jesus has, Jography. He does not always tell people when He is sending them. But He does send them all the same. It's very simple, dear Jography, but I was a long, long time learning about it. For a long time I thought Jesus came His own self, and walked with people when they were little, like me. I thought I should see Him and feel His hand, and when me and Maurice found ourselves alone outside Calais, and we did not know a word of French, I did, I did wish Jesus lived down here and not up in heaven, and I said I wished it, and then I said that I even wished jography was a person, and I had hardly said it before you came. Then you know, Joe, you told me you were for a whole long seven years trying to get back to your mother and brother, and you never could run away from your cruel master before. Oh, dear Jography! of course 'twas Jesus did it all, and now we're going home together to our own home in dear south of France."

"Well, missie, perhaps as you're right. Certain sure it is, as I could never run away before; and I might ha' gone round to the side o' the sand hill and never heerd that word jography. That word settled the business for me, Miss Cecile."

"Yes, Joe; and you must love Jesus now, for you see He loves you."

"No, no, missie; nobody never did love Joe since he left off his mother."

"But Jesus, the good Guide, does. Why, He died for you. You don't suppose a man would die for you without loving you?"

"Nobody died fur me, Missie Cecile—that ere's nonsense, miss, dear."

"No, Joe; I have it all in a book. The book is called the New Testament, and Mrs. Moseley gave it to me; and Mrs. Moseley never, never told a lie to anybody; and she said that nothing was so true in the world as this book. It's all about Jesus dying for us. Oh, Jography! I cry when I read it, and I will read it to you. Only it is very sad. It's all about the lovely life of Jesus, and then how He was killed—and He let it be done for you and me. You will love Jesus when I read from the New Testament about Him, Joe."

"I'd like to hear it, Missie, darling—and I love you now."

"And I love you, poor, poor Joe—and here is a kiss for you, Joe. And now I must go to sleep."

CHAPTER V. OUTSIDE CAEN.

The morning after this little conversation between Joe and Cecile broke so dismally, and was so bitterly cold, that the old woman with whom the children had spent the night begged of them in her patois not to leave her. Joe, of course, alone could understand a word she said, and even Joe could not make much out of what very little resembled the Bearnais of his native Pyrenees; but the Norman peasant, being both kind and intelligent, managed to convey to him that the weather looked ugly; that every symptom of a violent snowstorm was brewing in the lowering and leaden sky; that people had been lost and never heard of again in Normandy, in less severe snowstorms than the one that was likely to fall that night; that in almost a moment all landmarks would be utterly obliterated, and the four little travelers dismally perish.

Joe, however, only remembering France by what it is in the sunny south, and having from his latter life in London very little idea of what a snowstorm really meant, paid but slight heed to these warnings; and having ascertained that Cecile by no means wished to remain in the little wayside cottage, he declared himself ready to encounter the perils of the way.

The old peasant bade the children good-by with tears in her eyes. She even caught up Maurice in her arms, and said it was a direct flying in the face of Providence to let so sweet an angel go forth to meet "certain destruction." But as her vehement words were only understood by one, and by that one very imperfectly, they had unfortunately little result.

The cottage was small, close, and very uncomfortable, and the children were glad to get on their way.

Soon after noon they reached the old town of Caen. They had walked on for two or three miles by the side of the river Orne, and found themselves in old Caen before they knew it. Following strictly Cecile's line of action, the children had hitherto avoided all towns—thus, had they but known it, making very little real progress. But now, attracted by some washer-women who, bitter as the day was, were busy washing their clothes in the running waters of the Orne, they got into the picturesque town, and under the shadow of the old Cathedral.

Here, indeed, early as it was in the day, the short time of light seemed almost to have disappeared. The sky—what could be seen of it between the tall houses of the narrow street—looked almost black, and little flakes of snow began to fall noiselessly.

Here Joe, thinking of the Norman peasant, began to be a little alarmed. He proposed, as they had got into Caen, that they should run no further risk, but spend the night there.

But this proposition was met by tears of reproach by Cecile. "Oh, dear Jography! and stepmother did say, never, never to stay in the big towns—always to sleep in the little inns. Caen is much, much too big a town. We must not break my word to stepmother—we must not stay here."

Cecile's firmness, joined to her great childish ignorance, could be dangerous, but Joe only made a feeble protest.

"Do you see that old woman, and the little lass by her side making lace?" he said. "That house don't look big; we might get a night's lodging as cheap as in the villages."

But though the little Norman girl of seven nodded a friendly greeting to pretty brown-eyed Maurice as he passed, and though the making of lace on bobbins must be a delightful employment, Cecile felt there could be no tidings of Lovedy for her there; and after partaking of a little hot soup in the smallest cafe they could come across, the little pilgrims found themselves outside Caen and in the desolate and wintry country, when it was still early in the day.

Early it was, not being yet quite two o'clock; but it might have been three or four hours later to judge by the light. The snow, it is true, had for the present ceased to fall, but the blackness of the sky was so great that the ground appeared light by comparison. A wind, which sounded more like a wailing cry than any wind the children had ever heard, seemed to fill the atmosphere.

It was not a noisy wind, and it came in gusts, dying away, and then repeating itself. But for this wailing wind there was absolutely not a sound, for every bird, every living creature, except the three children and the dog, appeared to have vanished from the face of the earth. Maurice, not caring about the weather, indifferent to these signal flags of danger, was cross, for he wanted to talk