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Fern's Hollow

<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> <h3>THE CABIN ON THE CINDER-HILL.</h3> The cinder-hill cabin was situated at the mouth of an old shaft, long out of use, but said to lead into the same pit as that now worked, the entrance to which was about a quarter of a mile distant. The cabin was about the same size as the hut from which the helpless family had been driven; but the thatch wanted so much mending that Stephen and Martha were obliged to draw over it one of their patchwork quilts, to shelter them for the night from the rain which was threatened by the gathering clouds. The door from the hut at Fern's Hollow was fortunately rather too large instead of being too small for the doorway; and William Morris promised to bring them a shutter for the window-place, where there was no glass. Altogether, the cabin was not very inferior to their old home; but, instead of the soft green turf and the fragrant air of the hills, they were surrounded by barren cinder-heaps, upon which nothing would grow but the yellow coltsfoot and a few weeds, and the wind was blowing clouds of smoke from the limekilns over and round the dismal cabin. Stephen, with the profound silence that began to frighten Martha, made every arrangement he could think of for their comfort during the quickly-approaching night; and as soon as this was finished, he washed and dressed himself, as upon a Sunday morning, before going to meet Miss Anne in the Red Gravel Pit. He was leaving the cabin without speaking, when little Nan, who had watched everything in childish bewilderment and dismay, set up a loud, pitiful cry, which he soothed with great difficulty. 'Stevie going to live here?' said the little child at last, with a deep sob. 'Ay, little Nan,' he answered; 'for a bit, darling. Please God, we'll go home again some day. But little Nan shall always live with Stevie. That'll do; won't it?' 'Ay, Stevie,' sobbed the child; and Stephen, kissing her tenderly, put her on to Martha's lap, and walked out into the moonlight. The clouds were hanging heavily in the western sky, but the clearer heavens shone all the brighter by the contrast. The mountains lay before him, calm and immovable in the soft light; and he could see the round outline of his own hollow, at which his heart throbbed for a minute painfully. But there was a hidden corner at the side of the cabin, and there Stephen knelt down to pray earnestly before he went farther on his errand, until, calm and quiet as the hills, and as the moon which seemed to be gazing lovingly upon them, he went on with a brave and stedfast spirit to the master's house. Botfield Hall was a large, half-timbered farmhouse, with a gabled roof, part of which was made of thatch and the rest of tiles. It stood quite alone, at a little distance from the works, on the other side of them to that where the village was built. The window-casements were framed of stone; and the outer doors were of thick, solid oak, studded with large-headed iron nails. The iron ring that served as a rapper on the back door fell with a loud clang from Stephen's fingers upon the nails, and startled him with its din, so that he could hardly speak to the servant who answered his noisy summons. They crossed a kitchen, into which many doors opened, to a kind of parlour beyond, fitted up with furniture that looked wonderfully handsome and grand in Stephen's eyes, and where the master was sitting by a comfortable fire. The impatient servant pushed him within the door, and closed it behind her, leaving him standing upon a mat, and shyly stroking his cap round and round, while the master sat still, and gazed at him steadily with an assumed air of amazement, though inwardly he was more afraid of the boy than Stephen was of him. It makes a coward of a man or boy to do anybody an injury. 'Pray, what business brings you here, young Fern?' he asked in a gruff voice. 'Sir,' said Stephen firmly, but without any insolence of manner, 'I want to know who has turned us out of our own house. Is it the lord of the manor, or you?' 'I've bought the place for myself,' answered the master, bringing his hand down with a heavy blow upon the table before him, as if he would like to knock Stephen down with the same force. 'There's nobody to sell it but me,' said the boy. 'You think so, my lad, do you? Why, if it were your own, you would have no power over it till you are one-and-twenty. But the place was your grandfather's, and he has sold it to me for £15. When your grandfather returned from transportation his wife's hut became his; and his right to it does not go over to anybody else till he is dead. It never belonged to your father; and you can have no right to it. If you want to see the deed of purchase, it is safe here, witnessed by my brother Thomas and Jones the gamekeeper, and your grandfather's mark put to it. I would show it to you; but I reckon, with all your learning, you would not make much out of it.' 'Sir,' said Stephen, trembling, 'grandfather is quite simple and dark. He couldn't understand that you were buying the place of him. Besides, he's never had the money?' 'What do you mean, you young scoundrel?' cried the master. 'I gave it into his own hands, and made him put it into his waistcoat pocket for safety. Simple is he, and dark? He could attend his son's funeral four miles off only a few months ago; and he can understand my niece Anne's fine reading, which I cannot understand myself. Ask him for the three five-pound notes I gave him, if you have not had them already.' 'How long ago is it?' inquired Stephen. 'You can't remember!' said the master, laughing: 'well, well, Jones left you a keepsake at your garden wicket for you to remember the day by.' Stephen's face flushed into a wrathful crimson, but he did not speak; and in a minute or two the master said sharply,— 'Come, be off with you, if you've got nothing else to say.' 'I have got something else to say,' answered Stephen, walking up to the table and looking steadily into his master's face. 'God sees both of us; and He knows you have no right to the place, and I have. I believe some day we'll go back again, though you have pulled the old house down to the ground. I don't want to make God angry with me. But the Bible says He seeth in secret, and He will reward us openly.' The master shrank and turned pale before the keen, composed gaze of the boy and his manly bearing; but Stephen's heart began to fail him, and, with trembling limbs and eyes that could scarcely see, he made his way out of the room, and out of the house, down to the end of the shrubbery. There he could bear up no longer, and he sat down under the laurels, shivering with a feeling of despair. The worst was come upon him now, and he saw no helper. 'My poor boy,' said Miss Anne's gentle voice, and he felt her hand laid softly on his shoulder. 'My poor Stephen, I have heard all, and I know how bitterly hard it is to bear.' Stephen answered her only with a low, half-suppressed groan; and then he sat speechless and motionless, as if his despair had completely paralyzed him. 'Listen, Stephen,' she continued, with energy: 'you told me once that the clergyman at Danesford has some paper belonging to you, about the cottage. You must go to him, and tell him frankly your whole story. I do not believe that what my uncle has done would stand in law, and I myself, if it be necessary, would testify that your grandfather could not understand such a transaction. But perhaps it could be settled without going to law, if the clergyman at Danesford would take it in hand; for my uncle is very wishful to keep a good name in the country. But if not, Stephen Fern, I promise you faithfully that should Fern's Hollow ever come into my possession, and I be my uncle's only relative, I will restore it to you as your rightful inheritance.' She spoke so gravely, yet cheeringly, that a bright hope beamed into Stephen's mind; and when Miss Anne held out her hand to him, as a pledge of her promise, she felt a warm tear fall upon it. He rose up from the ground now, and stood out into the moonlight before her, looking up into her pale face. 'Stephen,' she said, more solemnly than before, 'do you find it possible to endure this injury and temptation?' 'I've been praying for the master,' answered Stephen; but there was a tone of bitterness in his voice, and his face grew gloomy again. 'He is a very miserable man,' said Miss Anne, sighing; 'I often hear him walking up and down his room, and crying aloud in the night-time for God to have mercy upon him; but he is a slave to the love of riches. Years ago he might have broken through his chain, but he hugged it closely, and now it presses upon him very hardly. All his love has been given to money, till he cannot feel any love to God; and he knows that in a few years he must leave all he loves for ever, and go into eternity without it. He will have no rest to-night because of the injury he has done you. He is a very wretched man, Stephen.' 'I wouldn't change with him for all his money,' said Stephen pityingly. 'Stephen,' continued Miss Anne, 'you say you pray for my uncle, and I believe you do; but do you never feel a kind of spite and hatred against him in your very prayers? Have you never seemed to enjoy telling our Father how very evil he is?' 'Yes,' said the boy, hanging down his head, and wondering how Miss Anne could possibly know that. 'Ah, Stephen,' she continued, 'God requires of us something more than such prayers. He bids us really and truly to love our enemies—love which He only can know of, because it is He who seeth in secret and into the inmost secrets of our hearts. I may hear you pray for your enemies, and see you try to do them good; but He alone can tell whether of a truth you love them.' 'I cannot love them as I love you and little Nan,' replied Stephen. 'Not with the same kind of love,' said Miss Anne; 'in us there is something for your love to take hold of and feed upon. "But if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?" Your affection for us is the kind that sinners can feel; it is of this earth, and is earthly. But to love our enemies is heavenly; it is Christ-like, for He died for us while we were yet sinners. Will you try to do more than pray for my uncle and Black Thompson? Will you try to love them. Will you try for Christ's sake?' 'Oh, Miss Anne, how can I?' he asked. 'It may not be all at once,' she answered tenderly; 'but if you ask God to help you, His Holy Spirit will work within you. Only set this before you as your aim, and resist every other feeling that will creep in; remembering that the Lord Jesus Himself, who died for us, said to us, "Love your enemies." He can feel for you, for "He was tempted in all points as we are."' As she spoke the last words, they heard the master's voice calling loudly for Miss Anne, and Stephen watched her run swiftly up the shrubbery and disappear through the door. There was a great bolting and locking and barring to be heard within, for it was rumoured that Mr. Wyley kept large sums of money in his house, and no place in the whole country-side was more securely fastened up by day or night. But Stephen thought of him pacing up and down his room through the sleepless night, praying God to have mercy upon him, yet not willing to give up his sin; and as he turned away to the poor little cabin on the cinder-hill, there was more pity than revenge in the boy's heart. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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