VI.

“I wonder whether there is a more forlorn family in England than we are now,” said Woodruffe, as he sat among his children, a few hours after the funeral.

His children were glad to hear him speak, however gloomy might be his tone. His silence had been so terrible that nothing that he could say could so weigh upon their hearts. His words, however, brought out his widowed daughter’s tears again. She was sewing—her infant lying in her lap. As her tears fell upon its face, it moved and cried. Becky came and took it up, and spoke cheerfully to it. The cheerfulness seemed to be the worst of all. Poor Abby laid her forehead to the back of her chair, and sobbed as if her heart would break.

“Ay, Abby,” said her father, “your heart is breaking, and mine too. You and I can go to our rest, like those that have gone before us; but I have to think of what will become of these young things.”

“Yes, father,” said Becky gently, but with a tone of remonstrance, “you must endeavor to live, and not make up your mind to dying, because life has grown heavy and sad.”

“My dear, I am ill—very ill. It is not merely that life is grown intolerable to me. I am sure I could not live long in such misery of mind; but I am breaking up fast.”

The young people looked at each other in dismay. There was something worse than the grief conveyed by their father’s words in the hopeless daring—the despair—of his tone when he ventured to say that life was unendurable.

Becky had the child on one arm; with the other hand she took down her father’s plaid from its peg, and put it round his rheumatic shoulders, whispering in his ear a few words about desiring that God’s will should be done.

“My dear,” he replied, “it was I who taught you that lesson when you were a child on my knee, and it would be strange if I forgot it when I want so much any comfort that I can get. But I don’t believe (and if you ask the clergyman, he will tell you that he does not believe) that it is God’s will that we, or any other people, should be thrust into a swamp like this, scarcely fit for the rats and the frogs to live in. It is man’s doing, not God’s, that the fever makes such havoc as it has made with us. The fever does not lay waste healthy places.”

“Then why are we here?” Allan ventured to say. “Father, let us go.”

“Go! I wonder how or where! I can’t go, or let any of you go. I have not a pound in the world to spend in moving, or in finding new employment. And if I had, who would employ me? Who would not laugh at a crippled old man asking for work and wages?”

“Then, father, we must see what we can do here, and you must not forbid us to say ‘God’s will be done!’ If we cannot go away, it must be His will that we should stay and have as much hope and courage as we can.”

Woodruffe threw himself back in his chair. It was too much to expect that he would immediately rally; but he let the young people confer, and plan, and cheer each other.

The first thing to be done, they agreed, was to move hither, whenever the dismal rain would permit it, all Abby’s furniture that could not be disposed of to her husband’s successors. It would fit up the lower room. And Allan and Becky settled how the things could stand so as to make it at once a bed-room and sitting-room. If, as Abby had said, she meant to try to get some scholars, and keep a little school, room must be left to seat the children.

“Keep a school?” exclaimed Woodruffe, looking round at Abby.

“Yes, father,” said Abby, raising her head. “That seems to be a thing that I can do; and it will be good for me to have something to do. Becky is the stoutest of us all, and....”

“I wonder how long that will last,” groaned the father.

“I am quite stout now,” said Becky; “and I am the one to help Allan with the garden. Allan and I will work under your direction, father, while your rheumatism lasts; and....”

“And what am I to do?” asked Moss, pushing himself in.

“You shall fetch and carry the tools,” said Becky; “that is, when the weather is fine, and when your chilblains are not very bad. And you shall be bird-boy when the sowing season comes on.”

“And we are going to put up a pent-house for you, in one corner, you know, Moss,” said his brother. “And we will make it so that there shall be room for a fire in it, where father and you may warm yourselves, and always have dry shoes ready.”

“I wonder what our shoe leather will have cost us by the time the spring comes,” observed Woodruffe. “There is not a place where we ever have to take the cart or the barrow that is not all mire and ruts; not a path in the whole garden that I call a decent one. Our shoes are all pulled to pieces; while the frost, or the fog, or something or other, prevents our getting any real work done. The waste is dreadful. Nothing should have made me take a garden where none but summer crops are to be had, if I could have foreseen such a thing. I never saw such a thing before,—never—as market-gardening without winter and spring crops. Never heard of such a thing!”

Becky glanced towards Allan, to see if he had nothing to propose. If they could neither mend the place nor leave it, it did seem a hard case. Allan was looking into the fire, musing. When Moss announced that the rain was over, Allan started, and said he must be fetching some of Abby’s things down, if it was fair. Becky really meant to help him; but she also wanted opportunity for consultation, as to whether it could really be God’s will that they should neither be able to mend their condition nor to escape from it. As they mounted the long flight of steps, they saw Mr. Nelson issue from the Station, looking about him to ascertain if the rain was over, and take his stand on the embankment, followed by a gentleman who had a roll of paper in his hand. As they stood, the one was seen to point with his stick, and the other with his roll of paper, this way and that. Allan set off in that direction, saying to his sister, as he went,

“Don’t you come. That gentleman is so rude, he will make you cry. Yes, I must go, and I won’t get angry; I won’t indeed. He may find as much fault as he pleases; I must show him how the water is standing in our furrows.”

“Hallo! what do you want here?” was Mr. Nelson’s greeting, when, after a minute or two, he saw Allan looking and listening. “What business have you here, hearkening to what we are saying?”

“I wanted to know whether anything is going to be done below there. I thought, if you wished it, I could tell you something about it.”

“You! what, a dainty little fellow like you?—a fellow that wears his Sunday clothes on a Tuesday, and a rainy Tuesday too! You must get working clothes and work.”

“I shall work to-morrow, Sir. My mother and my brother-in-law were buried to-day.”

“Lord bless me! You should have told me that. How should I know that unless you told me?” He proceeded in a much gentler tone, however, merely remonstrating with Allan for letting the wet stand in the furrows, in such a way as would spoil any garden. Allan had a good ally, all the while, in the stranger, who seemed to understand everything before it was explained. The gentleman was, in fact, an agricultural surveyor—one who could tell, when looking abroad from a height, what was swamp and what meadow; where there was a clean drain, and where an uneven ditch; where the soil was likely to be watered, and where flooded by the winter rains; where genially warmed, and where fatally baked by the summer’s sun. He had seen, before Allan pointed it out, how the great ditch cut across between the cultivated grounds and the little river into which those grounds should be drained; but he could not know, till told by Allan, who were the proprietors and occupiers of the parcels of land lying on either side the ditch. Mr. Nelson knew little or nothing under this head, though he contradicted the lad every minute; was sure such an one did not live here, nor another there; told him he was confusing Mr. Smith and Mr. Brown; did not believe a word of Mr. Taylor having bought yonder meadow, or Mrs. Scott now renting that field. All the while, the surveyor went on setting down the names as Allan told them; and then observed that they were not so many but that they might combine, if they would, to drain their properties, if they could be relieved of the obstruction of the ditch—if the surveyor of highways would see that the ditch were taken in hand. Mr. Nelson pronounced that there should be no difficulty about the ditch, if the rest could be managed; and then, after a few whispered words between the gentlemen, Allan was asked first, whether he was sure that he knew where every person lived whose name was down in the surveyor’s book; and next, whether he would act as guide to-morrow. For a moment he thought he should be wanted to move Abby’s things; but, remembering the vast importance of the plan which seemed now to be fairly growing under his eye, he replied that he would go; he should be happy to make it his day’s work to help, ever so little, towards what he wished above everything in the world.

“What makes you in such a hurry to suppose we want to get a day’s work out of you for nothing?” asked Mr. Nelson. He thrust half-a-crown into the lad’s waistcoat pocket, saying that he must give it back again, if he led the gentleman wrong. The gentleman had no time to go running about the country on a fool’s errand; Allan must mind that. As Allan touched his hat, and ran down the steps, Mr. Nelson observed that boys with good hearts did not fly about in that way, as if they were merry, on the day of their mother’s funeral.

“Perhaps he is rather thinking of saving his father,” observed the surveyor.

“Well; save as many of them as you can. They seem all going to pot as it is.”

When Allan burst in, carrying nothing of Abby’s, but having a little color in his cheeks for once, his father sat up in his chair, the baby suddenly stopped crying, and Moss asked where he had been. At first, his father disappointed him by being listless—first refusing to believe anything good, and then saying that any good that could happen now was too late; and Abby could not help crying all the more because this was not thought about a year sooner. It was her poor husband that had made the stir; and now they were going to take his advice the very day that he was laid in his grave. They all tried to comfort her, and said how natural it was that she should feel it so; yet, amidst all their sympathy, they could not help being cheered that something was to be done at last.

By degrees, and not slow degrees, Woodruffe became animated. It was surprising how many things he desired Allan to be sure not to forget to point out to the surveyor, and to urge upon those he was to visit. At last he said he would go himself. It was a very serious business, and he ought to make an effort to have it done properly. It was a great effort, but he would make it. Not rheumatism, nor anything else, should keep him at home. Allan was glad at heart to see such signs of energy in his father, though he might feel some natural disappointment at being left at home, and some perplexity as to what, in that case, he ought to do about the half-crown, if Mr. Nelson should be gone home. The morning settled this, however. The surveyor was in his gig. If Allan could hang on, or keep up with it, it would be very well, as he would be wanted to open the gates, and to lead the way in places too wet for his father, who was not worth such a pair of patent waterproof tall boots as the surveyor had on.

The circuit was not a very wide one; yet it was dark before they got home. There are always difficulties in arrangements which require combined action. Here there were different levels in the land, and different tempers and views among the occupiers. Mr. Brown had heard nothing about the matter, and could not be hurried till he saw occasion. Mr. Taylor liked his field best, wet—would not have it drier on any account, for fear of the summer sun. When assured that drought took no hold on well-dried land in comparison with wet land, he shook with laughter, and asked if they expected him to believe that. Mrs. Scott, whose combination with two others was essential to the drainage of three portions, would wait another year. They must go on without her; and after another year, she would see what she would do. Another had drained his land in his own way long ago, and did not expect that anybody would ask him to put his spade into another man’s land, or to let any other man put his spade into his. These were all the obstructions. Everybody else was willing, or at least, not obstructive. By clever management, it was thought that the parties concerned could make an island of Mrs. Scott and her field, and win over Mr. Brown by the time he was wanted, and show Mr. Taylor that, as his field could no longer be as wet as it had been, he might as well try the opposite condition—they promising to flood his field as often and as thoroughly as he pleased, if he found it the worse for being drained. They could not obtain all they wished, where everybody was not as wise as could be wished; but so much was agreed upon as made the experienced surveyor think that the rest would follow; enough, already, to set more laborers to work than the place could furnish. Two or three stout men were sent from a distance; and when they had once cut a clear descent from the ditch to the river, and had sunk the ditch to seven feet deep, and made the bottom even, and narrowed it to three feet, it was a curious thing to see how ready the neighbors became to unite their drains with it. It used to be said, that here—however it might be elsewhere—the winter was no time for digging; but that must have meant that no winter-digging would bring a spring crop; and that therefore it was useless. Now, the sound of the spade never ceased for the rest of the winter; and the laborers thought it the best winter they had ever known for constant work. Those who employed the labor hoped it would answer—found it expensive—must trust it was all right, and would yield a profit by and by. As for the Woodruffes, they were too poor to employ laborers. But some little hope had entered their hearts again, and brought strength, not only to their hearts, but to their very limbs. They worked like people beginning the world. As poor Abby could keep the house and sew, while attending to her little school, Becky did the lighter parts (and some which were far from light) of the garden work, finding easy tasks for Moss; and Allan worked like a man at the drains. They had been called good drains before; but now, there was an outfall for deeper ones; and deeper they must be made. Moreover, a strong rivalry arose among the neighbors about their respective portions of the combined drainage; and under the stimulus of ambition, Woodruffe recovered his spirits and the use of his limbs wonderfully. He suffered cruelly from his rheumatism; and in the evenings felt as if he could never more lift a spade; yet, not the less was he at work again in the morning, and so sanguine as to the improvement of his ground, that it was necessary to remind him, when calculating his gains, that it would take two years, at least, to prove the effects of his present labors.