Chapter XIX: Home, Sweet Home!

That evening Mrs. Malcomson arrived at Jubilee Hall. Her sister, Lady Brinsley, had driven over in the waggonette for her; and having first, by Fred's express desire, told her everything which had occurred since her son's arrival at the Hall, with a troubled and sorrowful heart Mrs. Malcomson had taken leave of her husband, promising to return on the following day.

Fred was asleep when his mother arrived, and he continued to sleep on heavily for several hours. When he did awake, the long summer evening had slipped past, leaving only a gray twilight in his room, while outside, in the still pale-green sky, a crescent moon was shining softly.

Fred sighed heavily on first awaking, and finding himself alone in the large and now sombre bedroom; and, as is often the ease, the awaking from an afternoon sleep, instead of refreshing him, had flushed and heated him; and his mind was no sooner aroused and aware of the solitude and stillness of all about him, than it became filled with dark and fanciful apprehensions, to which he could give no definite shape or form.

One by one the guilty doings of the previous night passed before his mind in a dreary procession of horror. Once again the horny cockroaches seemed clinging to his shoeless feet; and the cold gust of wind, as he turned the lonely corners of the passages, seemed to blow down his neck and shoulders. Now the bolt creaked ominously in the secret door; and the faint odour of honey, which still pervaded the bedroom, became painfully overpowering and oppressive to his senses.

The suspense and horror of darkness which had filled his mind in the store-room the night before, as he waited the slow approach of daylight, seemed lying on him now; and the shadows cast by the rising moon on the furniture of his room gave them grotesque and unfamiliar shapes.

The grave eyes of his aunt, as she heard his confession, seemed gazing at him still through the gloomy air; so that he feared to turn his head towards the spot where she had stood, lest he should have to rehearse again the account of his crimes, and to meet her loving but reproachful gaze.

But all at once, with a great cry, he sat bolt upright in his bed, and called out eagerly, "Mother, mother! Yes, mother was to be here to-night! O mother, dearest mother! have you not come to see me and to help me?"

Just then there was a rustle by the bedside, and a startled voice which answered him out of the darkness: "Fred, my darling boy, I am here beside you! I thought you were asleep, or I would have spoken before. Here, dearest, turn towards me."

Poor Fred! he did turn in the direction of the voice, and as he caught sight of the shadowy figure seated close by his bedside, he flung his arms round it, and with a sob, born of the purest pleasure and the keenest pain, he laid his head on his mother's shoulder, and wept out the burden of his sorrow and care without a word; while in the security of her presence the shadowy ghosts, which had haunted the twilight, became comforting angels, and the whole room seemed suddenly peopled with a happy crowd of familiar faces; while the sprig of verbena in his mother's dress brought back the sunny home-garden, with its rose-covered walls and its shady nooks.

"O mother!" he sighed presently, "why did I ever leave you? Nothing ever goes well with me when you are away. I may go home with you to-morrow, may I not?"

"Certainly, if you wish it."

"Wish it! I am longing to be in the dear old place again."

"It is only four days since you left it."

"I know that, mother; and yet it seems like four years."

There was a long pause, Fred still leaning on his mother's shoulder, so heavily that he could hear the rapid beating of her heart.

"Mother."

"Well, Fred?"

"Mother, you are terribly unhappy about me; I know you are."

No answer.

"Mother, have I vexed you so awfully that you will never be able to love me any more?"

No answer.

"Mother, will you not speak to me? Do, dearest mother, do. What are you thinking of now, that you will not answer me?"

"I am thinking, Fred, and wishing--oh, so earnestly!--that you would love me less, or rather that you would love God more. It is because you lean so entirely on me when I am near you, that when I am absent you always fall into trouble, and sorrow, and disgrace."

"But could not I love God and you too, mother? I am sure I could. I will try---I will indeed--if you will help me."

"My help, dearest Fred, will be but a poor thing to lean on, compared to the help you could gain elsewhere, if you would only ask God for it, for Christ's sake."

"Will you ask Him for it for me, mother?" murmured Fred in a husky whisper. "Do, mother, now while you are here beside me;" and Fred, raising his head from his mother's shoulder, took both her hands in his, and drew her near him.

Then Mrs. Malcomson knelt down on the floor by her son's bedside, and prayed with all her heart for the much-needed help; for the heart to be made pure, for the good impressions to be made lasting, and for the peace of God which passeth understanding to be granted to both their souls, for Christ's sake. And when she had finished praying, they both sat hand in hand until the twilight had changed into darkness, and the young moon had gone down for the night. Then Harry and Kathleen came up to bed; and after a long chat over home and home doings, the party broke up, and Mrs. Malcomson retired to her own room.

The next day Fred told his aunt of his earnest wish to return home, and received from her the permission to do so. The history of his midnight raid on the store-room had, despite all Lady Brinsley's efforts, become the talk of the whole house; and Fred could not appear among his playmates and friends without running the risk of hearing much that would have been both unpleasant and painful. Nor could Harry bear to hear the hints and innuendoes thrown out against his brother by the less kind-hearted members of the company; so he and Kathleen willingly agreed to give up the remainder of their promised visit, and to share the banishment which Fred had incurred by his deceitful and dishonest conduct.

But there was no great air of banishment about the sunny fields and grassy meadows of The Cedars, as they turned in at its familiar gates, and drove up through the sweet-scented lime avenue to the door of their home.

"Oh, the dear old house, how did we ever care to leave it!" cried Harry, as he leaped with one bound from the carriage to the steps of the portico, and rushed inside for his father's sure greeting and welcome.

Fred's joy was even more intense, though it was silent, at finding himself once more within the shelter of his home; and he, too, wondered with a silent pang of surprise and pain how he could ever have felt such keen delight in leaving it as he had done only a few mornings ago, when he had started in such rampant spirits for Jubilee Hall. But the pleasure of his return was damped not a little by the anticipation of his father's displeasure, and the certainty of the pain which he had caused him by his conduct during his absence from home.

"Mother, will you go in and speak to him first?" pleaded Fred. But Mrs. Malcomson only answered by a look, which recalled with a strange vividness their conversation of the night before; and Fred, gathering up all his courage, walked bravely into the house to meet his father, and to receive with humility the sorrowful reproaches which he could not but feel he had most justly deserved.

Mr. Malcomson, however, said very little on the subject of his son's faults, as he preferred speaking to him on such a grave matter in private to rebuking him publicly before his younger brother and his sister, and the meeting passed off with less pain on both sides than could have been anticipated; for Mr. Malcomson could not but discern, by the expression of Fred's face, that he was returning in a softened and penitent mood, instead of being sullen and hardened. And Fred felt grateful for the consideration shown him by his father, and was, consequently, more desirous to prove by his conduct his contrition for his faults.

The supper was laid in the bright parlour, with its pretty low window looking out upon the flowerbeds and trim yew hedges, while the scent of the roses, hanging across the trellis-work of the verandah, came in delicious gusts across the table.

There were strawberries and raspberries, and cakes steaming from the oven, and jugs of rich cream fresh from the dairy, arranged in tempting order on the clean white cloth. And the room, though it looked tiny after the lofty walls of Jubilee Hall, had an air of cosy comfort, very cheering to those who now sat down with grateful hearts to partake of the evening meal.

After supper Fred went out, leaning on his mother's arm, through the verandah into the garden, and walked with her up and down its well-known paths, and round its box-edged flower-beds. They neither of them said much, but they felt as if some new bond of love had arisen between them, stronger than any they had known before. It was not until Fred was taking his last turn round by the grotto and the little fern-grown well, that he spoke out what had been the real burden of his thoughts all the evening,--

"Mother, there is no place, after all, so safe for a young fellow as his own home. I mean, of course, a really good home like ours."

"What makes you say so, Fred?"

"Because I feel it. I thought, when I was leaving this place a few days ago, I should be ten times as happy and jolly as I had ever been before--I could then be my own master, and I could do just as I liked: but instead of that, I never was so miserable or wretched; and it was just the very freedom which I had longed for so much which made everything go on so badly."

"I am sure you are quite right, Fred."

"I know I am, mother; and I should never care to go away from home again without you and father. It is so awfully jolly to be with you both once more."

"Yes, ain't it just," cried Harry, who could no longer resist his desire to join the two ramblers in the garden. "Home is the most golliferous place in the whole creation;--though, for all that, Aunt Marian was awfully kind, and so was Maurice, and every one."

"Yes; it was not their fault that we were all so very unhappy while we were there,--at least that I was," said Fred humbly: "for, after all, it is not so much the place that makes one jolly or miserable. but the things that happen in the place; and not having father and the dear old mother herself with us, was the reason we all came to grief: besides,--besides, of course, other things as well;" and Fred, stooping down, picked up an unripe apple from the ground, and shied it over the garden hedge; then, in a somewhat hoarse whisper, he added, "We shall do better perhaps by-and-by, with God's help; sha'n't we, mother?" and he leaned his curly head against her shoulder, and pressed her hand nearer to his side.

"Yes, dearest Fred, with God's help we shall: and meantime, I think, it has done us all no harm to find out what a pleasant and safe place home is; and to discover for ourselves that the discipline of home-life, though sometimes irksome and apparently vexatious in its rules and obligations, is, after all, one of our greatest safeguards, protecting us against the dangers and temptations of life, which, if unopposed, would very quickly overcome us, and destroy all our peace of mind and the innocent enjoyment of our lives."

"Which means," cried Harry, turning a somersault over the low yew hedge beside the path, and seizing his mother's disengaged arm in an enthusiastic embrace,--"which means, in other words, words composed expressly for the occasion by the great poet Shakespeare, Milton, Mrs. Browning, or whoever the individual may be or may have been,--that

''Midst pleasures and palaces
Though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like home.'"

THE END.