Esther's Charge: A Story for Girls

"I'm coming!" she cried down the mouth of the shaft, and then set off to run for the door in the hillside, the position of which she knew perfectly by this time.

The boys had often shown it to her, and had shown her the trick of opening it. But they had never gone in. Mr. Trelawny had forbidden them to do so, knowing their mischievous tendencies. Esther had the free right of entrance, but she would sooner have put her head into a lion's mouth than have exercised it. She had never been in since that first day when she had had to be carried out by Mr. Trelawny. She had hoped never to have to enter the fearful place again.

But she must to-day, she plainly must, though her knees were quaking at the bare thought.

She had had one or two talks with Mr. Earle about fear of the dark and how to conquer it. Esther was not afraid of the dark in the ordinary sense of the word. She was not afraid of going about in the dark in her own home; for she had tried that, and only now and then, when in a nervous mood, had felt any fear. But she knew that she could not bear strange underground dark places, and she had once asked Mr. Earle if he thought she ought to go there to get used to them. But he had looked at her for a few moments, and had then said, —

"No, I do not think so – not unless there were some object to be gained by it. There are many people in the world who dislike underground places, and avoid them. As a rule there is no call for them to conquer the dislike. Of course, if one could do any good by going, if there were some sufficient reason for it – if it were to help somebody else, for instance – then it would be right to try and overcome one's repugnance. But without some such motive, I do not see that any one would be greatly benefited by going into uncongenial places of the kind."

Esther thought of all this as she ran along. Hitherto it had been a comfort to her to think of this decision. But now it seemed to her that the time had come when she was bound to go. Somebody wanted help. There was nobody but herself to give it. She might not be able to accomplish much, but at least she ought to go and see. To turn and run away would be like the priest and Levite in the parable, who left the poor man wounded and half dead. Everybody knew that they were wicked. She must try and copy the good Samaritan, who, she knew, was the type of Jesus Himself.

That thought came to her like a ray of comfort, and it helped to drive back the flood of her fears. Then she remembered what Mr. Earle had said about what his mother told him to do; and, just as she reached the strange old door in the hillside, Esther dropped upon her knees and buried her face in her hands.

It was only for a few seconds, but when she got up again she felt that she could go into the cave. A few minutes before, it had seemed as if it were almost impossible.

The heavy door yielded to her touch. She knew it would swing back again when she let it go, so she took a big stone with her and set it wide open. There would be comfort in the feeling that there was light and air behind her, though the cave looked fearfully dark and gloomy, and the strange smell inside it, as she went slowly forward, brought back some of the dizzy feeling she had experienced upon her first visit.

A heavy groan smote upon her ears, and she gave a start and clasped her hands tightly together. She was through the passage now, and could just see the outline of the great dim cave. But where the living thing was that was making these sounds she could not guess. She stood quite still, and called timidly, —

"Is anybody there?"

"Yes, child," answered a voice which she knew, now that she heard it more plainly. "Come a little nearer. I can't see you. I'm afraid I've been an old fool; and if I haven't blinded myself, I shall have better luck than I deserve."

Esther sprang forward with a little cry of relief. It was no chained captive, no unknown, mysterious prisoner. It was Mr. Trelawny himself, and he was hurt.

In a moment she was by his side, bending over him, seeing a very blackened face and a brow drawn with pain. Mr. Trelawny was half sitting, half lying upon the cold floor of the cave, and there was a lot of broken glass all about him. So much she could see, and not much beside.

"O Uncle Robert, I am so sorry! What can I do?"

"Isn't there a lot of glass about?"

"Yes."

"Well, there is a broom somewhere about. Get it and sweep it away, and I'll try to get up. Every time I've tried to move I've got my hands cut. I can't see a thing, and I've little power to help myself."

Esther forgot all about being afraid now that there was something to do. She found the broom, and was soon sweeping away like a little housemaid. Now and then a groan broke from Mr. Trelawny, and at last she said gently, —

"I think there's no more glass. Please, are you very much hurt?"

"Earle will tell me I ought to have been blown into a thousand fragments," was the rather grim reply. "I think I've got off cheap. But I've had a tremendous electric shock; and I'm a good bit cut and burnt, I expect. If only my eyes are spared, I'll not grumble at anything else. How came you here, child? I thought I should have an hour or more to wait till Earle got back."

Esther explained then what had happened, for Mr. Trelawny, although in much pain, had all his wits about him; and when he knew that Mr. Earle might be detained, he said to Esther, —

"Then you must be my attendant messenger instead. Go up by those stairs into the house, and fetch down Merriman and another of the men. I don't think I can get up there without more help than your little hands can give."

Esther quickly obeyed. She knew the way up into the house, and the key was in the door, so that she had no difficulty in getting there. The hall above was almost as dark by that time as the cave below; for the storm had gathered fast, and the black clouds seemed hanging right over them. But Esther had other things to think of now, and she quickly summoned the men, and sent them down to Mr. Trelawny; and then, being used in her own house to illness, she ran for the housekeeper, and begged her to get oil and linen rag and wine and soup ready, because Mr. Trelawny had burnt and hurt himself, and somebody must look after him, till the doctor came, and he could not well be sent for till after the storm had gone by, for it was going to be a very bad one.

So before very long Mr. Trelawny was lying at full length upon a great wide oak settle in the hall, and Esther was gently bathing his cut and blackened and blistered face and hands, and covering up the bad places with oiled rag, as she had seen Genefer do when cook had burnt herself one day.

Mr. Trelawny kept his eyes closed, and he drew his breath rather harshly, like one in pain, and his brows were drawn into great wrinkles.

"Do I hurt you?" Esther asked from time to time. The housekeeper seemed to think that Esther had better do the actual handling of the patient while she kept her supplied with the things she wanted. Mr. Trelawny's servants – and especially the women servants – stood in considerable awe of him. He never liked any attentions from a woman that a man could bestow, and the housekeeper preferred to remain discreetly in the background, leaving Esther to play the part of nurse.

Esther was well used to the rôle, and had a gentle, self-contained way with her that had come from her long tendance upon her mother. Her touch was very soft and gentle, but it was not uncertain and timid. Indeed she did not feel at all afraid of Mr. Trelawny now, only afraid of hunting him.

"No, no, child," he answered when she put the question; "your little hands are like velvet. They don't hurt at all. But what's all that noise overhead?"

"It's the rain," answered Esther. "There is such a storm coming up. Hark! don't you hear the thunder? And there was such a flash of lightning."

Mr. Trelawny put his hand up to his eyes, and made an effort to open them, but desisted almost immediately, with an exclamation of suffering.

Esther clasped her soft little hands round one of his in token of sympathy. She could understand the terrible fear which must possess him just now.

The servants had moved away by this time. They knew that the master did not like being looked at and fussed over. He had made a sign with his hand which they had understood to be one of dismissal, and Esther was alone with him now in this big place.

The storm was raging fearfully, but the child was not frightened. She had other things to think of, and she was thinking very hard.

"I hope Mr. Earle has got the boys safe," she said, with a tone of anxiety in her voice.

There was no reply. Mr. Trelawny was suffering keenly both in mind and body. Esther looked at him, and realized that this was so. She hardly meant to speak the words out loud, but they came into her head and they passed her lips almost before she was aware of it.

"Jesus can stop the storms and make them quiet again, and keep people safe in them. And He can make blind people see."

There was no reply; but Esther felt one of the bandaged hands feel about as if for something, and she put her own little hand into it at once. The fingers closed over it, and the man and the child sat thus together for a very long time.

Then there was a little stir in the hall, as the butler appeared, bringing tea; and Mr. Trelawny told Esther to get some, and give him a cup, as he was very thirsty.

She was glad enough to serve him, and did so daintily and cleverly; and before they had finished, the storm had very much abated. The rain still fell, and the wind blew; but the sun was beginning to shine out again, and Esther knew that the worst was over now.

"It is light again now," she said. "It was so dark all that time – almost as dark as the cave."

Mr. Trelawny looked more himself now. The pain of his burns was soothed by the dressing laid upon them, and the lines in his face had smoothed themselves out.

"Ah, the cave!" he repeated. "I thought that the cave was your special abhorrence, Esther. How came you to be there all alone to-day?"

"I came after you," answered Esther. "I heard somebody groan and call for help."

"Did you know who was calling?"

"No, the voice sounded so muffled and strange."

"I wonder you weren't afraid, you timid little mouse. Suppose it had been some great, rough smuggler fellow, such as used to live in that cave long ago!"

"But I knew he was hurt; he was groaning and calling for help."

"And that gave you courage?"

Esther hesitated.

"I don't think I felt very brave, but I knew I ought to go."

"Why ought you?"

"O Uncle Robert, you know we ought always to help people when they are in trouble – especially if they are hurt."

"Didn't you think you might get hurt too?"

Esther's face was rosy now, though he could not see it.

"I thought a great many silly things," she confessed softly. "I think I have been very silly and cowardly often, but I'm going to try not to be any more. I don't think I should mind going down into the cave again now."

"Tell me what you thought about it before," said Mr. Trelawny, in his imperious way; and though it was rather a hard command to obey, Esther thought it might, perhaps, amuse him to hear some of the things that she and the boys together had imagined about him, and perhaps he would tell her then how much of it all was true. So she told what Puck had said about the tanks where skeletons were pickled, and about the electric eye, and the elixir of life, and the different things that different persons had said, and the interpretation the boys had put upon their words, and how she had fancied that the groans she heard that day must proceed from some miserable captive destined for one of the tanks. It was rather hard to say all this, for some of it sounded quite silly now; but Esther bravely persevered, for she thought if she could once talk it right out she might never feel so frightened again.

Mr. Trelawny lay still, and she could not quite see the expression on his face, because it was partly covered up; but at last he seemed able to contain himself no longer, and he broke into a real laugh – not quite so loud or so gruff as usual, but very hearty for all that.

At the sound of that laugh Esther's fears seemed to take wing. It must all have been nonsense, she was sure. Nobody who had really been doing wicked and cruel things would laugh to know that they had been found out.

"I shall have to take you over my laboratory one of these days, and really show you my pickled skeletons, and my electric eye, and all the other mysteries. Now you need not shake, my dear. I have nothing in pickle worse than a specimen animal; and as for the electric eye, that is very far from being perfect, and it will be a long while before I can make you understand its use, or what we mean by the term. Anyhow, it is not an eye that we carry about with us. In your mind it would not be an eye at all, though it has some analogy to one. And as for the elixir of life, my dear, I would not drink of it if I were to find it. To live forever in this mortal world of ours would be a poor sort of thing; and we know that there is an elixir of life preparing for us, of which we shall all drink one day – all to whom it is given, that is. And then there will be new heavens and a new earth, and we shall all be glorified together."

Esther sat very still, trying to take in the magnitude of that idea, and feeling that she should never be afraid of Mr. Trelawny again, now that she had spoken so freely of her fears to him, and he had been so kind, and had said such nice things.

The shadows were beginning to fall now, and she was wondering how long she would have to stay here. She did not mean to leave Mr. Trelawny till Mr. Earle got back to take care of him; but she began to wish that he would come, and that she might get news of the boys.

At last the sound of a firm, ringing step was heard without, and Esther sprang to her feet. The big door was open, for it was quite warm still, though the rain had taken the sultriness out of the air. She ran out, and met Mr. Earle face to face. He was wet through and almost dripping, but he looked as quiet and composed as ever.

"O Mr. Earle, where are the boys?"

"Safe at home in bed, like a pair of drowned rats. It was a good thing you came to warn me, Esther, or they might have been miles out at sea by this time, or else at the bottom of it."

Esther's face paled a little.

"O Mr. Earle, what did they do?"

"You'd better run home and hear all about it from them. I thought you'd be back before I was."

"O Mr. Earle, I couldn't go till you came. Mr. Trelawny has hurt himself. They've sent for the doctor now. But they couldn't just at first, the storm was so bad. Please, will you go to him? Then I can go home. But may I come again to-morrow to see how he is?"

Mr. Earle had uttered a startled exclamation at hearing Esther's words, and was now striding into the hall, almost forgetful of her.

"Trelawny!" she heard him exclaim; and then Mr. Trelawny said in his dry way, —

"Yes; crow over me now as much as you like. I neglected your valuable advice, and see the result!"

Mr. Earle went and bent down over him; and Esther, feeling her task done, took her hat and stole out into the soft dusk, and ran down the hill home as fast as she could.

CHAPTER X

CONFESSIONS

Esther found Genefer at the door on the lookout for her.

"O Miss Esther, my dear, I am glad to see you! I was getting fidgety about you – so long away up there, and the storm and all. But you are not wet through at all events," feeling the condition of her clothing and the temperature of her hands. "Why did you stay such a time up there after the storm was over?"

"I stayed with Mr. Trelawny; he has been hurt. I found him in the cave where he tries his experiments. I didn't like to leave him till Mr. Earle came back. But the boys, Genefer – what about them?"

"Oh, they're in bed – the best place for them too. They were just soaked to the skin, and Master Percy had some of the pluck taken out of him. I don't know just what it was all about. I was busy getting them put into a hot bath, and then tucked up between hot blankets. Master Philip doesn't seem any the worse. He was asking for you all the time. I said you would go up as soon as you got in."

"I will," said Esther. "I've had my tea up at the Crag. How is mama?"

"Lying down still with a headache. She got a bit upset when the boys were brought in, so when I'd seen to them I coaxed her to go to bed, and I hope she's asleep. The thunder upset her head, as it almost always does. I wouldn't go to her unless she calls to you going by."

Esther lingered a moment by her mother's door, but no voice summoned her in, so she went up-stairs, and soon heard Pickle's unmistakable tones urging her to speed.

"Is that you, Essie? Come along! What a time you've been! We've got such things to tell you! Come on!"

Esther pushed open the boys' door, and entered the room where two small beds stood side by side, and a small boy occupied each. Puck was snuggled down in his, though his eyes were wide open; but Pickle was sitting up, quivering with excitement to tell his tale to more sympathetic ears than those of either Mr. Earle or Genefer.

"O Esther! why didn't you come before? We've such things to tell you! Where have you been?"

"Up with Mr. Trelawny at the Crag. He's hurt himself. I had to stay with him. O Pickle, what were you doing? The old fisherman's wife said you were on the little island, and couldn't get back. Did Mr. Earle come and fetch you?"

"Oh, she let on to somebody, did she? I didn't quite understand about that part of it. Well, perhaps it was a good thing she did. But, I say, Esther, we did have a jolly old time of it for a bit. We went such a sail by ourselves. If it hadn't been for that stupid storm coming up and spoiling it, we could have showed everybody that we could manage a boat first-rate."

"Bertie was sick," chimed in Puck from his nest, "and I didn't like it when we couldn't get to shore. I thought we were going to be upset and drowned once. I didn't like that part of it."

Esther looked from one to the other in some bewilderment and anxiety.

"O boys, what did you do?"

Then Pickle plunged headlong into the story. It was all rather mixed up and difficult for Esther to follow, but she began to understand that the boys had taken advantage of their liberty on Saturdays to go off regularly to the little island, and that they had kept this "city of refuge" quite as a secret of their own.

"I shouldn't have minded telling you," said Pickle, "only we thought perhaps you'd tell Mrs. Poll-parrot, or Pretty Polly, and then all the fun would have been gone."

"It wouldn't have been a city of refuge if the avenger of blood could come after us in another boat and take us away," added Puck. "I'm afraid it won't be a city of refuge any longer now. I wish we hadn't gone sailing, but just gone home. Then nobody would have known anything."

"Were you out on the water in the storm?" asked Esther, with a little shiver. "O Pickle, you should not have been so disobedient. You know Mr. Earle and Mr. Trelawny would not let you sail the boat alone."

"Not the Swan," said Pickle quickly, "but nobody had said anything about that old tub."

Esther looked rather grave, and a quick wave of color swept over Pickle's face.

"I wanted to do it," he said in rather a low voice; "perhaps that was why it seemed all right."

"You might have been drowned," said Esther in a voice of awe; "Mr. Earle said so himself."

"I thought so once," said the boy; "I was frightened then."

"Tell me about it," said Esther with a little shiver. She sat down on the side of Puck's bed, and he got fast hold of her hand. He was more subdued than Pickle, though Esther could see that even the bold elder boy had received a considerable shock to his nerves. His eyes were bright, and he was excited and not quite himself.

"We had always wanted so much to sail the boat," said he in response to Esther, "but there had never been any wind. And to-day, when it began just to blow a little, it seemed just the very thing. So we got in and went off, and it was delicious. We did it beautifully, and it was all pretty and sunny on the sea, and we went along finely. But by and by the waves got bigger, and Bertie began to get sick, and some of them wanted to get home again. So we tried to tack her round as Mr. Earle does, but she wouldn't go against the wind a bit, and the waves splashed in and wet us. And then we tried to row, but we only got farther and farther away from land, and the sea got rougher and rougher. And Bertie was sick and frightened, and everybody wanted to get home, and we couldn't."

"O Pickle, how dreadful! What did you do?"

"Well, we had to turn round at last and run before the wind," answered the boy, with as much of the sailor air as he could assume. "I saw it was the only thing to try for. The waves were all right if you didn't try to meet them; and we thought perhaps we should meet a ship which would take us up."

"That might have been rather nice," said Puck, "only it got so dark, and then the thunder and lightning came; and oh, how it did rain! We couldn't see anything. We felt like being all alone on the sea. I was frightened then, and Bertie was awfully sick, and Milly began to cry. I wanted to cry, too, only I thought it would be like a girl."

Esther was shivering herself at the bare picture of all these horrors. She had nothing but sympathy for the boys now, though she knew that it had been the spirit of disobedience which had prompted them to this daring escapade.

"Oh, what did you do?" she asked, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

"We couldn't do anything but sail on and on," answered Pickle; "but Puck said, —

"Yes, we could. Milly proposed it. We all said our prayers; and Milly reminded us about Jesus walking on the water, and making the storm stop. So we asked Him to come and do the same for us."

"The storm did stop by and by," said Esther in a low voice.

"Yes, it did – almost just after we'd been praying," said Puck; "and when the rain went away and the sun came out, we saw the Swan coming after us as hard as ever it could come. Bertie thought perhaps it was Jesus coming to us on the water, but it was only Mr. Earle."

"Perhaps Jesus sent him to you," said Esther in a low voice.

"He said it was you who sent him," said Pickle the practical.

"Yes, in one way," answered Esther, coloring up, for she was shy of uttering her deeper thoughts; "but I shouldn't have known if the old woman hadn't come up. Perhaps it was Jesus who sent her – I mean, put it into her head to come."

"Do you think so?" asked Puck, with wide-open eyes, and Esther answered softly and steadily, —

"Yes, I do."

Puck suddenly scrambled up in his bed and got upon his knees.

"Genefer put us to bed without our prayers – she was in such a hurry," he said. "I'd like to say my prayers now, because I'm very much obliged, if it was like that. It's mean not to thank people when they've done things for you. Let's all say our prayers together."

Esther immediately knelt down beside the little bed, and in a moment Pickle was out and on his knees beside her. They both hid their faces, and a few half-whispered words and snorts from Puck, who was very much in earnest, alone broke the silence of the upper room. But presently Esther felt that the child kneeling beside her was quivering all over, and suddenly Pickle broke down and began to sob uncontrollably.

This was a strange thing in Pickle, who had hardly shed a tear all the months he had been under the roof of the Hermitage, and Esther was distressed and almost frightened at the sudden vehemence of the outburst. She put her arms round him, and rather to her surprise he did not repulse her overture of sympathy, but clung to her convulsively, weeping silently, but with great gasping sobs, that seemed wrung from him by some power too strong to be resisted.

Puck crept into bed again, and watched his brother with wondering eyes. But Nature was claiming her dues now from both, and Puck's eyes grew heavy with sleep even as he watched, and soon shut themselves up altogether. Not even curiosity, or the remains of the excitements through which they had passed, could keep him longer from the land of dreams.