Chapter XI: Brought Into Light

"Another called, another brought, dear Master, to Thy feet!
Oh, where are words to tell the joy so wonderful and sweet!
* * * * * *
Another heart will own Thee, Lord, and worship Thee as King,
And grateful love and glowing praise and willing service bring."
F. R. HAVERGAL.

AS days went on, Heather spent a good deal of her time at the farm, and before long had become fast friends with Miss Vaughan.

One afternoon, they were out-of-doors together in a lovely nook by the river. Dick, the red-haired boy, was farther down the river, trying to catch fish for his mistress's supper.

"I think," said Heather, laughing, "if I had been a man, I should have fallen in love with you at first sight, and by this time, I should have proposed to you. Would you have had me, I wonder?"

"I am certain I should not," was the amused reply. "Disparity of age would have been the chief obstacle."

"Oh, you are not so very very much older than I am."

Miss Vaughan rested her hand affectionately on Heather's shoulder, as she reclined on the grass at her side.

"I am years older in experience, dear."

"I feel I have had experience," said Heather, thoughtfully. "Society life in London makes one grow old very quickly. I learnt more in one year about the world, and—and people generally, than I would have done if I had lived on here for twenty years."

"And did the knowledge do you good?"

"Perhaps not; and yet how I did enjoy it! Miss Vaughan, don't think better of me than I deserve. I did not leave society because I was sick of it. I would go back to it to-morrow with joy, if I could with a clear conscience. If some one left me a fortune, I would. I am fretting and chafing my heart out here in this narrow groove."

"You conceal it very well."

Heather laughed.

"I try to, of course. I should despise myself if I went crawling about and whining to everybody about my hard fate. And I am fond of our poor people. There are compensations. Still one is dreadfully cramped and stifled in such a life."

"What must mine be, then?"

"Oh, you are different."

"My dear child, I had ten years of what you call 'society life.' I suppose I enjoyed it after my own fashion, but comparing it with my present one, I shiver at the narrowness, the paucity, the emptiness of it all! If you want width—breadth—depth—you will never have it in all that. It cramps and chokes the soul as nothing else does! I can breathe now, parts of me live that were lying dead or dormant, and isn't it a grand thing to be able to defy all circumstances to mar or disturb your happiness and peace! There! I must not talk so much of myself and my feelings! It is a way invalids have!"

Heather looked at the glowing eyes of her friend and sighed.

"I often wonder if my religion was real at all," she said. "I think Bluebell and I grew up in a Christian atmosphere, took everything for granted, and just went through a routine of it. Yet I cannot remember the time when I did not realize that God loved me, was watching over me, and that I belonged to Him."

"And when did you first lose the reality of it all?"

"I suppose in London. There seemed so little time for thinking about such things. We seemed in such a whirl. And I think, when we found the things we had been brought up to consider as wicked were what every nice person seemed to be doing, it shook our faith in what we had been taught. Abigail would tell you that we have 'fallen from grace.' I hardly know where I am now. I try not to think of it."

Miss Vaughan looked at Heather with much interest.

"We have had a very different experience. Now, I was brought up to be a success in society. I never had a serious thought till after my accident. Perhaps that is the reason why my happiness is so great now. I always had an uneasy feeling at the bottom of my heart that I was not ready to meet death. To look forward now, and to be able to say with calm assurance, 'I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day,' why, it does indeed bring one a peace that is not of this world!"

Heather sighed again, and said after a few minutes' silence—

"I have no love for God; I feel quite indifferent."

"No love for your Saviour?"

"I am afraid not much."

"Do you want to have love for Him?"

"I—I—don't know. Yes, I think I do, but I have—to put it frankly—a fear if I were to become a very earnest Christian, I should think it right to give up all enjoyments of any kind, and I don't want to do that."

"You feel you haven't had your fill yet of this world's pleasures?"

"Yes; Abigail's religion is such a hard and narrow one."

"Now, my dear Heather, don't take your religion from Abigail. She has naturally, I expect, an austere, severe nature. I find that since I have given myself to God as His servant, I have tenfold more pleasure in life. Grasp the fact that God loves you, and wants you to be happy. That He gives us this lovely country, the flowers, the birds, everything that sings His praises; that He is caring for us, shaping every circumstance for our good, and teaching and preparing us a little every day, for our glorious future by-and-by! If you can once believe this, will you be able to go about in gloom and depression? And add to this the wonderful fact of our redemption and the intense love of our Saviour for us, what ingrates we are, not to be bursting with praise all our lives long!"

"Oh, I wish I could feel as you do," said Heather, wistfully. "I think if I were really happy, I could be quite content not to go back to London again, but to live my life here. But I am restless and dissatisfied, and I find doing my duty every day is very irksome and disagreeable. Tell me how I can learn to love God as you do?"

Miss Vaughan was silent for a few minutes, her usually bright face softened into solemn reverence. Then she said quickly—

"Do you like me, Heather?"

"You know I do. I have never met any one before that I wanted so much to be my friend."

"When you first heard I was coming to lodge here, you didn't care about me?"

"I did not know you."

"I think, dear, that answer explains your lack of love for your Saviour; you do not know Him. Now, how did you get to know me?"

"I came over to see you, we had talks together, and every time I was with you, I liked you better."

"Exactly. Now, the oftener you talk to Christ, the oftener you read His Word, His Life, His Sayings, the better you will get to know Him, the more you will love Him. And the first step towards loving Him comes when we gaze at Him on the cross."

"Go on," said Heather, breathlessly; "tell me more!"

"Have you ever stood gazing up at the cross like Christian, with his burden on his back? Have you ever realized your sins nailed Him there? Have you heard His cry of agony when your sins were laid on Him, 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' And then, have you heard the cry of triumph, 'It is finished'? And have you cast yourself at His feet, in humble gratitude for the pardon He obtained for you then?"

Miss Vaughan sank her voice to an impressive whisper.

Heather shaded her eyes with her hand, and looked across the rippling water in front of her to the blue sky beyond. Her heart was stirred; light was creeping in, as it had never done before. She was intensely still, and Miss Vaughan did not break the silence that fell on them both. She had the consciousness of a soul groping after its Redeemer, and would not by word or look thrust herself in between.

And then, after a long time, Heather turned round, and with misty eyes silently kissed her friend.

"I am going home," she said very quietly. "I shall hope to see you to-morrow."

Miss Vaughan let her go without a word, and sat in her chair silently praying for her, till Dick came up excitedly with a fair-sized trout, and claimed his mistress's interest and attention for the time.

Miss Vaughan was not surprised the next afternoon, when Heather met her with a happy face.

They talked long together of the subject uppermost in their minds.

"I never saw it so before," said Heather, softly. "I don't think I ever realized that I had part in the Crucifixion. I have been thinking of it so much. Of course, all my life I have believed that Christ died for the sins of the whole world, but it never came home to me personally. I grew up trying to be good, but I never definitely took Him for my Saviour. Miss Vaughan, you have brought me into close touch with God at last. How can I thank you! I think I hardly deserve to have come into the light so suddenly. I wasn't properly seeking. I was only wanting it in a half-hearted way."

"The Shepherd goes out to seek His sheep before they are conscious of seeking Him," responded Miss Vaughan. "You will find it make a great difference in your life, Heather."

"Indeed I shall. I seem almost overwhelmed with God's goodness. I feel I shall never be unhappy again."

It was not long before Abigail was aware of the change in her young mistress. She found her one evening with her Bible on her knees, marking some verses. Heather's first natural instinct was to close her Bible at once upon Abigail's approach. Though perfectly frank and open with Miss Vaughan, she could not conquer the reserve that had sprung up between herself and Abigail, but she thought better of it, and did not move her position.

"I'm glad to see you reading that blessed Book," was Abigail's comment.

Heather looked up gravely.

"Yes," she said, "I hope I shall never neglect it again."

"Are you back in the fold, Miss Heather?"

"I think I am, perhaps safer than I ever was before."

Abigail turned round and abruptly left the room, to Heather's great surprise.

She would have been still more surprised if she had seen that good woman hasten downstairs and with radiant smile and streaming eyes fling open the kitchen door.

"Rachael, give thanks with me. The Lord has answered my prayers. Miss Heather is restored to His favour!"

And Abigail's solemn, rugged face seemed a good ten years younger for the next few days.

Heather's friendship with Miss Vaughan, or "Ena," as she had learnt to call her, deepened day by day. Those days were intensely happy ones to her. She had been very lonely since she had left London. She could not even yet become reconciled to her separation from Bluebell, but her heart was satisfied as it had never been before, and the Christian life, instead of a monotonous round of duty, seemed to be one flooded with sunshine.

She said something of this sort to Ena one afternoon.

"Yes, I know," was the quick response. "It is good to bask in the sunshine of God's great love; but, Heather, do not think there will never be any clouds in your life again."

"Have you experienced any? You do not look as if you have."

Ena laughed a little, then she said earnestly—"My experience has been this. I, like you, felt at first my heart and life flooded with sunshine, and wondered if it were possible that anything on earth could trouble me again. Very soon clouds came. Physical weakness and depression with me. I lost heart, and then was led to realize that the sun was shining still, and always would shine, behind the cloud. So I waited, believing the cloud would pass. It did. I have had many ups and downs; and I think the lesson one gradually learns is that one will never find sunshine in one's self—only in our Master. He is always the same. Our feelings may rise and fall, but we can rest on His faithfulness and unchangeableness, and this brings the settled brightness and peace into our souls. I wonder if I have explained myself clearly? I am not a very experienced Christian, you know, but I seem to have learnt this."

"It must have been dreadful when the doctor told you that you would never walk again," said Heather, slowly, after a pause. "I don't think I could be as bright us you are, if I knew I was doomed to be a perpetual invalid."

"Yes, you could," replied Ena, smiling. "It was a black cloud at first, but I don't feel it now. Religion is not real if it does not help you to rise above your circumstances."

Then Heather changed the subject.

"I have been wanting to ask you, Ena, if you will take pity on my loneliness, and leave your lodgings for a week or two. It would be so delightful for me if you were my visitor. I could give you a bedroom on the ground floor, and Dick could come too. You don't know what miserable evenings I have. Of course, I have been happier lately, but I never shall get accustomed to living alone, it is dreadful! I generally spend my evenings in writing to Bluebell, and I cry over my letters, and go to bed in the depths of woe. It is very foolish of me, but I have never been away from her before. She is a bit of my life gone."

"I do not think you should be alone. You are too young."

"That is what Cousin Ida says. She says I want a chaperon. Oh, Ena, will you come and act as one? I should love to have you."

"And what about my brother?"

"I keep forgetting you have one. Isn't he always abroad?"

"No, indeed. He has been in Scotland for the last month, but I heard from him this morning, and he is coming down in a few days' time to see what my quarters are like, and how soon I shall return home."

Heather's face fell.

"He doesn't want you as much as I do. Do you always live together?"

"Always. I don't know what I should do without him. He has been so good, so patient with me since my accident. I should like you to know him, Heather. He is one of those people who say little but do much. His whole life has been one long sacrifice for others. I never talk about him much, for I cannot bear brothers and sisters singing each other's praises in public. But it is only since I have been lying on a sick bed that I seem to have had glimpses of what he has given up and missed for our sakes."

"I don't think that is the way of most men," said Heather, slowly.

"No. I will tell you a little of our family life, if you like. We were very well off as long as my father lived. When he died, my mother and I had hardly enough to live upon. Bertram was in the 9th Lancers. He was just made captain, and was going abroad. I must tell you my father had left him and my eldest brother Frank a very comfortable allowance, and this was rather a sore point with my mother. The fact was, the investment that my father hoped would bring in a good bit to my mother failed almost directly after his death. It was not his fault.

"Frank married at once, and went out to Australia. Bertram wrote to him to suggest that they should both make my mother a small allowance, and so enable her to have the same comforts she had always been accustomed to. He wrote back saying that as he was a married man, this was impossible. Then Bertram, after much thought, left his regiment, and exchanged into the Line. He felt this very keenly, but he did it without saying a word to us, for he could not afford to give my mother so much if he stayed on in the Cavalry.

"I was just leaving school then, and I am afraid, wishing to please me, and give me a good time, my mother moved to London, and we soon were in the midst of a lot of gaiety, and consequently spent a good deal of money. Bertram came to our rescue more than once, but the more he gave us, the easier it seemed to us to spend, and we had no idea how rigidly he was denying himself. I heard through a girl then that he had been very nearly engaged to the colonel's daughter in the 9th Lancers, but when he left the regiment, he lost her as well. I remember wondering why he had done it. Of course, I did not understand then what I do now.

"My mother died rather suddenly, when we were staying abroad, and then I wrote to Bertram asking him what I had better do. He came out and brought me back, and then told me that he could not bear the idea of barrack life for me, so he had resolved to leave the Service. If I would be content with a country life, and an occasional visit to town, he would take the offer he had had of an old priory that belonged to a cousin of ours, and farm his own land. It would give him occupation, and we could live very comfortably together. I was delighted at the idea, and we have lived there ever since. He gave me every comfort, and till I met with this accident, I used to hunt four days in every week in the season, and enjoyed myself immensely. But I see now how all my life I have been taking from him and giving nothing in return.

"Of course, I tell you this in the greatest confidence. I think we are very happy together. But he has still anxieties about money matters. My brother Frank seems in continual trouble. He helps him a great deal. Now, don't you see, dear, that I cannot leave him? Doesn't this make you understand how strongly I feel that my home is with him?"

"I suppose so," said Heather, with a sigh. "Still, you could come to me for a short visit, could you not?"

"Perhaps I could do that. I will talk it over when he comes."