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JUDY'S NEWS.
Perhaps my reader may be sufficiently interested in the person, who,
having once begun to tell his story, may possibly have allowed his
feelings, in concert with the comfortable confidence afforded by the
mask of namelessness, to run away with his pen, and so have babbled
of himself more than he ought--may be sufficiently interested, I
say, in my mental condition, to cast a speculative thought upon the
state of my mind, during my illness, with regard to Miss Oldcastle
and the stranger who was her mother's guest at the Hall. Possibly,
being by nature gifted, as I have certainly discovered, with more of
hope than is usually mingled with the other elements composing the
temperament of humanity, I did not suffer quite so much as some
would have suffered during such an illness. But I have reason to
fear that when I was light-headed from fever, which was a not
uncommon occurrence, especially in the early mornings during the
worst of my illness--when Mrs Pearson had to sit up with me, and
sometimes an old woman of the village who was generally called in
upon such occasions--I may have talked a good deal of nonsense about
Miss Oldcastle. For I remember that I was haunted with visions of
magnificent conventual ruins which I had discovered, and which, no
one seeming to care about them but myself, I was left to wander
through at my own lonely will. Would I could see with the waking eye
such a grandeur of Gothic arches and "long-drawn aisles" as then
arose upon my sick sense! Within was a labyrinth of passages in the
walls, and "long-sounding corridors," and sudden galleries, whence I
looked down into the great church aching with silence. Through these
I was ever wandering, ever discovering new rooms, new galleries, new
marvels of architecture; ever disappointed and ever dissatisfied,
because I knew that in one room somewhere in the forgotten mysteries
of the pile sat Ethelwyn reading, never lifting those sea-blue eyes
of hers from the great volume on her knee, reading every word,
slowly turning leaf after leaf; knew that she would sit there
reading, till, one by one, every leaf in the huge volume was turned,
and she came to the last and read it from top to bottom--down to the
finis and the urn with a weeping willow over it; when she would
close the book with a sigh, lay it down on the floor, rise and walk
slowly away, and leave the glorious ruin dead to me as it had so
long been to every one else; knew that if I did not find her before
that terrible last page was read, I should never find her at all;
but have to go wandering alone all my life through those dreary
galleries and corridors, with one hope only left--that I might yet
before I died find the "palace-chamber far apart," and see the read
and forsaken volume lying on the floor where she had left it, and
the chair beside it upon which she had sat so long waiting for some
one in vain.
And perhaps to words spoken under these impressions may partly be
attributed the fact, which I knew nothing of till long afterwards,
that the people of the village began to couple my name with that of
Miss Oldcastle.
When all this vanished from me in the returning wave of health that
spread through my weary brain, I was yet left anxious and
thoughtful. There was no one from whom I could ask any information
about the family at the Hall, so that I was just driven to the best
thing--to try to cast my care upon Him who cared for my care. How
often do we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go
to Him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that
the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the
desired haven; that we have been compelled, as to the last
remaining, so to the best, the only, the central help, the causing
cause of all the helps to which we had turned aside as nearer and
better.
One day when, having considerably recovered from my second attack, I
was sitting reading in my study, who should be announced but my
friend Judy!
"Oh, dear Mr Walton, I am so sorry you have been so ill!" exclaimed
the impulsive girl, taking my hand in both of hers, and sitting down
beside me. "I haven't had a chance of coming to see you before;
though we've always managed--I mean auntie and I--to hear about you.
I would have come to nurse you, but it was no use thinking of it."
I smiled as I thanked her.
"Ah! you think because I'm such a tom-boy, that I couldn't nurse
you. I only wish I had had a chance of letting you see. I am so
sorry for you!"
"But I'm nearly well now, Judy, and I have been taken good care of."
"By that frumpy old thing, Mrs Pearson, and--"
"Mrs Pearson is a very kind woman, and an excellent nurse," I said;
but she would not heed me.
"And that awful old witch, Mother Goose. She was enough to give you
bad dreams all night she sat by you."
"I didn't dream about Mother Goose, as you call her, Judy. I assure
you. But now I want to hear how everybody is at the Hall."
"What, grannie, and the white wolf, and all?"
"As many as you please to tell me about."
"Well, grannie is gracious to everybody but auntie."
"Why isn't she gracious to auntie?"
"I don't know. I only guess."
"Is your visitor gone?"
"Yes, long ago. Do you know, I think grannie wants auntie to marry
him, and auntie doesn't quite like it? But he's very nice. He's so
funny! He 'll be back again soon, I daresay. I don't QUITE like
him--not so well as you by a whole half, Mr Walton. I wish you would
marry auntie; but that would never do. It would drive grannie out of
her wits."
To stop the strange girl, and hide some confusion, I said:
"Now tell me about the rest of them."
"Sarah comes next. She's as white and as wolfy as ever. Mr Walton, I
hate that woman. She walks like a cat. I am sure she is bad."
"Did you ever think, Judy, what an awful thing it is to be bad? If
you did, I think you would be so sorry for her, you could not hate
her."
At the same time, knowing what I knew now, and remembering that
impressions can date from farther back than the memory can reach, I
was not surprised to hear that Judy hated Sarah, though I could not
believe that in such a child the hatred was of the most deadly
description.
"I am afraid I must go on hating in the meantime," said Judy. "I
wish some one would marry auntie, and turn Sarah away. But that
couldn't be, so long as grannie lives."
"How is Mr Stoddart?"
"There now! That's one of the things auntie said I was to be sure to
tell you."
"Then your aunt knew you were coming to see me?"
"Oh, yes, I told her. Not grannie, you know.--You mustn't let it
out."
"I shall be careful. How is Mr Stoddart, then?"
"Not well at all. He was taken ill before you, and has been in bed
and by the fireside ever since. Auntie doesn't know what to do with
him, he is so out of spirits."
"If to-morrow is fine, I shall go and see him."
"Thank you. I believe that's just what auntie wanted. He won't like
it at first, I daresay. But he'll come to, and you'll do him good.
You do everybody good you come near."
"I wish that were true, Judy. I fear it is not. What good did I ever
do you, Judy?"
"Do me!" she exclaimed, apparently half angry at the question.
"Don't you know I have been an altered character ever since I knew
you?"
And here the odd creature laughed, leaving me in absolute ignorance
of how to interpret her. But presently her eyes grew clearer, and I
could see the slow film of a tear gathering.
"Mr Walton," she said, "I HAVE been trying not to be selfish. You
have done me that much good."
"I am very glad, Judy. Don't forget who can do you ALL good. There
is One who can not only show you what is right, but can make you
able to do and be what is right. You don't know how much you have
got to learn yet, Judy; but there is that one Teacher ever ready to
teach if you will only ask Him."
Judy did not answer, but sat looking fixedly at the carpet. She was
thinking, though, I saw.
"Who has played the organ, Judy, since your uncle was taken ill?" I
asked, at length.
"Why, auntie, to be sure. Didn't you hear?"
"No," I answered, turning almost sick at the idea of having been
away from church for so many Sundays while she was giving voice and
expression to the dear asthmatic old pipes. And I did feel very
ready to murmur, like a spoilt child that had not had his way. Think
of HER there, and me here!
"Then," I said to myself at last, "it must have been she that played
I know that my Redeemer liveth, that last time I was in church! And
instead of thanking God for that, here I am murmuring that He did
not give me more! And this child has just been telling me that I
have taught her to try not to be selfish. Certainly I should be
ashamed of myself."
"When was your uncle taken ill?"
"I don't exactly remember. But you will come and see him to-morrow?
And then we shall see you too. For we are always out and in of his
room just now."
"I will come if Dr Duncan will let me. Perhaps he will take me in
his carriage."
"No, no. Don't you come with him. Uncle can't bear doctors. He never
was ill in his life before, and he behaves to Dr Duncan just as if
he had made him ill. I wish I could send the carriage for you. But I
can't, you know."
"Never mind, Judy. I shall manage somehow.--What is the name of the
gentleman who was staying with you?"
"Don't you know? Captain George Everard. He would change his name to
Oldcastle, you know."
What a foolish pain, like a spear-thrust, they sent through
me--those words spoken in such a taken-for-granted way!
"He's a relation--on grannie's side mostly, I believe. But I never
could understand the explanation. What makes it harder is, that all
the husbands and wives in our family, for a hundred and fifty years,
have been more or less of cousins, or half-cousins, or second or
third cousins. Captain Everard has what grandmamma calls a neat
little property of his own from his mother, some where in
Northumberland; for he IS only a third son, one of a class grannie
does not in general feel very friendly to, I assure you, Mr Walton.
But his second brother is dead, and the eldest something the worse
for the wear, as grannie says; so that the captain comes just within
sight of the coronet of an old uncle who ought to have been dead
long ago. Just the match for auntie!"
"But you say auntie doesn't like him."
"Oh! but you know that doesn't matter," returned Judy, with
bitterness. "What will grannie care for that? It's nothing to
anybody but auntie, and she must get used to it. Nobody makes
anything of her."
It was only after she had gone that I thought how astounding it
would have been to me to hear a girl of her age show such an
acquaintance with worldliness and scheming, had I not been
personally so much concerned about one of the objects of her
remarks. She certainly was a strange girl. But strange as she was it
was a satisfaction to think that the aunt had such a friend and ally
in her wild niece. Evidently she had inherited her father's
fearlessness; and if only it should turn out that she had likewise
inherited her mother's firmness, she might render the best possible
service to her aunt against the oppression of her wilful mother.
"How were you able to get here to-day?" I asked, as she rose to go.
"Grannie is in London, and the wolf is with her. Auntie wouldn't
leave uncle."
"They have been a good deal in London of late, have they not?"
"Yes. They say it's about money of auntie's. But I don't understand.
I think it's that grannie wants to make the captain marry her; for
they sometimes see him when they go to London."
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