Her Benny/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX.
Life at the Farm.
Source of my life's refreshing springs,
Whose presence in my heart sustains me,
Thy love appoints me pleasant things,
Thy mercy orders all that pains me.
Well may Thine own beloved, who see
In all their lot their Father's pleasure,
Bear loss of all they love, save Thee —
Their living, everlasting treasure.
Waring.
Mrs. Fisher waited anxiously in an adjoining room for the coming of her husband to tell her that Benny was no more. She could not go back into the sick-room, she dared not see the child die. It was only such a short time ago she held her own dying Rob in her arms while he gasped out his little life, and the wound in her heart was not healed yet; she fancied it never would be. The sick child in the next room, that she had taken to her heart, had opened it afresh, and she felt that to see the little fellow struggling in the agonies of death would be more than her nerves could bear. And so she waited while the moments dragged slowly
along.
"How tenaciously the child clings to life!" she said to herself as she paced restlessly up and down the room. Still her husband came not.
"Can he be fighting death all this while?" she said; "I hope the little spirit will be released soon." Then she fell upon her knees and prayed—prayed long and earnestly that, if it were the Lord-s will, the boy that had been thrown upon their care might have a speedy and sweet release from the burden of the flesh.
It seemed long since she had left the sick-room, and still the moments travelled slowly on.
"It cannot be much longer," she said; then a step on the landing made her look up anxiously, and her husband came quickly into the room.
"Come this way, Mary," he said, without waiting for her to speak.
"Is it all over?" she questioned, looking up into his face.
"No, I can't understand it at all: the lad seems better, though he's evidently wrong in his head."
Without further remark, she went at once to the bed-side, and laid her hand gently upon his forehead, Benny opened his eyes slowly, and raised them to her face, then tried to speak, but only a faint whisper escaped his lips.
"What do you say, poor boy?" said Mrs. Fisher kindly, bending down her ear to listen.
"May I see Nelly, please?" he whispered.
"Who is Nelly?" she replied.
"Nelly is my sister; may I not see her?" in the same faint whisper.
"Where is your sister, my boy?" said Mrs. Fisher, looking a little perplexed.
"Nelly's in heaven," he said. "This is heaven, aint it?"
"No, my boy, this is not heaven," she replied.
"Oh, I thought it wur," he said, closing his eyes with a look of pain. And Mrs. Fisher's eyes became moist, as she saw the big tears stealing out under the lashes, and rolling slowly down the pale wasted cheeks.
After awhile Benny fell into a sound sleep, from which he did not awake till morning. When the doctor came next day he rubbed his hands with glee.
"Never had but one case before to equal it!" he said," but it's wonderful what children will pull through: just as you think they are going right over the precipice, they turn round, and coolly walk back into health."
"Do you think he will get better?" said Mrs. Fisher.
"More likely than not," was the reply; "the tide has turned, evidently. He had reached the crisis when you thought he was dying last night, and instead of kicking the beam, why, here he is ever so much better."
From that day Benny got better. Not rapidly; no, it was a slow coming back to health; still, he did get better. Day by day he gathered strength, though scarcely perceptible at times. The doctor rather wondered at this, for he expected his recovery to be much more rapid. But the secret lay in the fact that Benny did not want to get better. And one day, about a week after the time of which we have spoken, he positively refused to take his medicine.
"But it is to make you better," said Mrs. Fisher gently.
"But I dunna want to get better," said Benny; "I wants to go to heaven."
"But you should be willing to wait the Lord's time, Benny."
"I's waited so long," he said fretfully, "that I's tired of waitin'."
"But it's wrong to murmur at what is God's will, Benny."
"Are it?" he said. "I didn't know; but I's very tired."
"But you'll get rested after a while, if you'll be patient."
"Ah, then," he said, with a sigh, "I mun try, I s'pose."
But in spite of Benny's anxiety to die, health and strength came back to him day by day, and one beautiful July Sabbath afternoon he was dressed, for the first time, in a suit of dead Rob's clothes, and carried into another room, and placed in an easy chair by the window, that he might feast his eyes on the beautiful landscape that stretched out before him. Benny submitted to the process without speaking a word, for he was still very weak; but after he had recovered himself a little, he looked curiously at the clothes in which he was enveloped, as if not at all certain of his identity.
"I reckon I's not Benny Bates," he said at length.
"Oh, yes, you are," said Mrs. Fisher, who had been watching him with an amused smile upon her face.
"Then," he said, looking up, "these are not my togs."
"No; but I think I'll give them to you, Benny."
"Whew!" lifting his eyebrows. Then he began to search carefully all the pockets; that done, he lifted his white scared face to Mrs. Fisher, and said—
"Where's the bob, please?"
"Where's what?"
He lifted his white scared face to Mrs. Fisher.
"The shillin'."
"What shilling?"
"The one the angel gived me. Ain't yer seen it?"
"No, where was it?"
"In the linin' of my wesket."
"Oh, then, perhaps we can find it."
"Oh, yes, do, please; I wouldna lose that bob for a hunderd poun'."
"A hundred pounds is a lot of money, Benny."
"Don't care; don't you see, an angel gived it to me."
"An angel, Benny?"
"Ay, an angel, a real one; but if you'll find the bob, I'll tell yer all about it."
After some searching the shilling was found, and Benny, as good as his word, told Mrs. Fisher the story connected with it. In fact, he would, now that the ice was broken, have told that day all the story of his life, but Mrs. Fisher insisted that it would tire him too much, and that she would hear it some other day.
So day after day as he sat by the window, with the soft summer breeze fanning his brow, and with the songs of the birds in his ears, he told the story that we have written. Told of his father's cruelty, of Joe Wrag's friendship, and of his sister's love—told of his sorrow and loss, his hunger and despair, and of the angel that came to him in his hour of need—told of his success in Mr. Lawrence's office, of his thirst for knowledge, and of the bright hopes he cherished for the future. And he told her, too, of the charge of theft, of his imprisonment and temptation, of his release and resolve, of his fierce battle with hunger and want; and how, to be out of the reach of temptation, he had wandered away into the country until, worn out with hunger and fatigue, he lay down to die.
And while Mrs. Fisher listened, she felt thankful that she had been able to befriend the homeless boy. Benny was winning his way to her motherly heart in a wonderful manner, and was helping to fill the gap caused by the death of little Rob. And could she have had her own way, she would have adopted him as her own, and sent him to school when he was strong enough, with Harry and George. But Benny's independent spirit would not hear of it. He would stay at Scout Farm if he might be permitted to earn his own living; but if they could not find employment for him he must go out into the great world once more, and try over again to earn, by some means, his daily bread. So it was settled at length that he should stay, and learn to be a farmer; and then Benny grew strong rapidly, and ere the sunny September days passed away, he was out in the breezy fields helping to gather in the late harvest, and trying to make himself useful in every possible way. He was willing, nay, anxious to learn, and the work was by no means difficult. For the first few weeks he was very tired when evening came, but the fresh air gave him an appetite, and the work developed his muscles, and life once more became to him a joy.
He very soon got to know what to do without being told. He would tie up the cattle in the evening as if he had been used to a farm all his life; groom the horses as if he and they were old acquaintances; and feed the calves with all the dispatch of an old hand at the work. Mr. Fisher was delighted with him; "a handier little chap" he declared, "he had never come across." And instead of being in the way, as Mrs. Fisher feared he would be, he soon made himself necessary to them.
When winter came, with its long dreary evenings, he found a new source of pleasure, and that was a night school. It was Mrs, Fisher—to whom he had spoken of his thirst for knowledge—who persuaded him to attend. She knew he would not only derive pleasure, but profit. Benny was considerably puzzled at first as to what a "night school" was like; but he soon discovered its purpose, and night after night, through wind and rain, he plodded along the dark country lane to the neighbouring village of Scoutleigh, eager to improve his mind and add to his small store of knowledge. Never had a village school-master a more diligent pupil than he, and rarely one that improved more rapidly.
Nor did he forget in the summer that followed what he had learnt during the winter. There were books in Mr. Fisher's house to which he had free access, for though on the farm he worked side by side with the hired servants, in the house he was treated as one of the family; and when the day's work was done, he found in his books his most congenial companions. And so he grew in body and mind, and thanked God in his heart for the haven he had found at last.
Time passed quickly at Scout Farm. There was always so much to be done that he had little time to brood over the past, or sigh over "what might have been." Occasionally he longed for the busy life of the town he had left, but the feeling was only momentary. On the whole he was pleased with the life he was living, and though he saw no prospect of ever realizing the dreams that once he cherished, yet he tried to be content. So the weeks passed away, and lengthened into months, and the months lengthened into years, almost unconsciously to Benny. He found himself growing into a man almost against his will.
*******
Six years passed away, and Benny had grown almost out of recognition. No one would have thought that the tall, handsome young fellow who did so large a share of the work at Scout Farm, was the pale and famished child that dragged himself along the dusty highway six years before. He used to laugh sometimes when reminded of the past, and say that he was an example of what hard work, fresh air, and good food could accomplish. Mr. Fisher was almost as proud of him as if he had been his own son, and never seemed tired of declaring that "Ben Bates could swing a scythe, shear a sheep, plough a furrow, build a corn-stack, or thatch a hayrick equal to any man for ten miles round." Nor was John Fisher the only man that sang Benny's praises. The superintendent of the Methodist Sunday-school at Scoutleigh averred that Benny was the most punctual, diligent, and successful teacher he had.
Benny always declared, however, that he learnt more than he ever taught. Up to the time that he commenced to teach, he had looked upon religion as stem, cold duty, and as that only; a question simply of doing or not doing. It is true that he heard occasionally sermons on the subject of experimental religion, but he thought it was only a way the preachers had of expressing themselves. He had no doubt that he was a Christian, He had been trying to be one ever since the death of his little Nell; he said his prayers regularly, and always tried to do his duty; and he asked himself what more could he do. Yet as he studied the New Testament carefully week by week, in order that he might instruct his class of boys, he became slowly conscious of the fact that feelings and experiences were hinted at in that Book of books that he was a stranger to. What did he know about that "peace that passeth understanding," or of "rejoicing with joy unspeakable"? Was his life "hid with Christ in God," and was he certain what was meant by "holding communion with God and fellowship with Christ"? He now began to pay more attention to the sermons that were preached, and to the hymns that were sung. One Sunday morning he stopped singing at the verse—
"Jesus, Thine all-victorious love
Shed in my heart abroad,
Then shall my feet no longer rove,
Rooted and fixed in God."
"What did it mean?" he asked himself, "this love shed abroad in the heart, inspiring the life, beautifying the character? Was religion as much a matter of love as of duty?" He heard nothing of the lesson that was read; bat when the congregation stood up to sing again he was all attention. Slowly the words rang out, and filled the little sanctuary—
"Give me the faith which can remove
And sink the mountain to a plain;
Give me the child-like praying love
Which longs to build Thy house again;
Thy love, let it my heart overpower,
And all my simple soul devour.
"Enlarge, inflame, and fill my heart
With boundless charity divine!
So shall I all my strength exert,
And love them with a zeal like Thine,
And lead them to Thy open side.
The sheep for whom the Shepherd died."
That hymn for the rest of the day became the burden of his prayer, and for many days after, though when the answer came, or how, Benny never knew. That it did come he had no doubt, for he discovered that religion was no longer the cold formal thing he had once imagined it to be, but a warm living something that filled his whole life. Duty now became a joy, because love inspired it. Loving God, he loved His service and loved His people; and at last he understood the words of the Master, "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work."
I do not know that any one saw any change in Benny's life, except perhaps the superintendent of the school. He taught from henceforth as if his whole heart and soul were in the work; duty was no longer irksome, but a delight, and when some of the boys of his class were raised to a higher one, he went out into the village and got other boys to take their places. Thus in earnest Christian work he spent his Sabbath days; and on the Monday morning he would start out into the fields with a light heart, feeling all the happier and stronger for doing the Master's work on the previous day.
For many months nothing had happened to disturb the quiet and peaceful lives that were lived at Scout Farm. Harry and George were at college, one studying to be a doctor, the other to be a solicitor. Winnie, the baby—born since Benny came to the farm—had grown into a bonny little creature, the pet of all the household; and Mr. and Mrs. Fisher were as contented with their lot as two people could be, and wanted no change of any kind. Benny was a little restless at times, but on the whole was happy. But this quiet life could not be lived always, and soon afterwards a circumstance transpired which was destined to affect Benny's future in a way that he had no conception of. What that circumstance was shall be told in another chapter.