The old housekeeper took two or three side glances at the boy's sober face as she poured the hot water over her dishes, and said at last, "Now don' ye s'pose Hagar knows what ye're t'inkin' ob so hard, chile?

Ki! she c'u'd tell ye quicker'n nuffin. You's t'inkin' ob dem mis'able Culm folks, you is."

"You are partly right," said Noll. "It seems to me as if I couldn't think of anything else. I try to sometimes, but the sight of their wretched ways keeps coming to me, and it's no use to try and put it away. Oh, dear, I wish something could be done for them!"

"Dat's yer bressed father all ober!" said Hagar. "'Spects ef he was 'live an' livin' on dis yer wild'ness, we'd see somethin' did fur 'em.

But Mas'r d.i.c.k--well, his heart is all frizzed up, jes' as I telled ye afore. But de Lord'll open it sometime, honey,--Hagar's got faith 'nough to b'lieve dat!"

"Oh! I hope so," said Noll; "but what are the people going to do till then?"

"Can't tell ye nuffin 'bout dat," said Hagar, making a vigorous clatter among her dishes; "'spects the day's comin', tho', when de Lord gets ready fur't. 'Tain't till _he_ says, honey."

Noll gravely replenished the fire from the great basket of cones and chips which stood on the hearth, and stood listening, for a little time, to their brisk snap and crackle, then turned to Hagar, saying,--

"Do you think I could do anything for them, Hagar? I've been thinking this long time about it, and there's no one to ask but you, for I can't quite get courage enough to say anything to Uncle Richard about it,--he would be angry, I'm afraid. Do you think I could do anything, Hagar?"

The old housekeeper let go her dishcloth, and turned about to look at Noll, as he stood before the fire. Her eyes surveyed the lad from head to foot,--as if it was the first time she had seen him,--and after a few minutes of silence she slowly said, "What put dat in yer head, chile?"

"I don't know; it's been there this great while. It was the misery over there, I suppose," said Noll.

"Well, well," said she, turning back to her dishes, "Hagar's 'stonished, she is! Does I 'spect ye ken do anything fur dem yer?

Bress de Lord! He'll help ye, honey!--he'll help ye! An' ef it wa'n't de Lord dat put it in yer head--Well, chile," Hagar added, "de Lord's eberywhere, an' 'pears to me like as ef it was his doin'. What ye t'ink, honey?"

Noll was looking in the rosy bed of coals, and for a few minutes made no reply; then he said, in answer to Hagar's question,--

"I'd like to think that, Hagar. I'd like to have all my thoughts and plans come from him, and I'd like to do the Lord's work; for that's what I promised,--that's what I am trying to do."

Hagar wiped a pile of plates, and laying down her towel, said, reverently,--

"Promise, chile? Did ye promise de Lord, or who?"

After she had asked this question, she looked furtively over her shoulder at Noll, as if fearing she had asked about something which she had no right to know.

But Noll, with hands clasped over knee, was looking straight into the firelight, and did not appear offended; and pretty soon he said, slowly and softly, Hagar stopping her clatter to listen,--

"Before mamma died--Did you know mamma, Hagar?"

"Not muchly, chile," said Hagar; "yer Uncle d.i.c.k's wife was my lady."

"Well, before mamma died," continued Noll, "we used to take long walks upon the sh.o.r.e by the town. A great shining sh.o.r.e it was, I remember, and yellow like gold sometimes when the sun shone upon it."

"Like de sh.o.r.e ob de new Jerusalem," interposed Hagar, gazing abstractedly in her dish-pan.

"And there were great cedars and pines drooping down from the rocks,"

continued Noll, "and here mamma and I used to walk up and down when papa was busy in his study; and almost always he used to come out to walk a little with us before we were through. And one day we waited a long time for him to come out, and at last sat down on a rock, for mamma was not well then, and could not walk long without a rest; and as she looked across the smooth water, she said, 'And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear gla.s.s.' Though I was a good deal smaller than I am now, I knew what she meant, and of what she was thinking, for mamma used to talk about leaving me then; and I laid my head in her lap and cried a little, and said,--

"'Oh, don't talk of that, mamma, for what am I going to do?'"

Noll choked a little here at the remembrance, and Hagar drew a long breath.

"Then," continued Noll, with a quivering voice, "she bent her face over me and the tears in her eyes ran over on to my cheeks, and she said,--

"'Oh, my little Noll, if mamma could feel sure that you were ready to come after her into that city, she would never cry or mourn again!'

"It seemed as if my heart would break to see her cry and to know that I was _not_ ready, and that I could not stop her tears. I wanted to scream and groan, my heart swelled so."

"Ob course ye did," said Hagar, with ready sympathy.

Noll was silent for a long minute. Somehow, the talk with Uncle Richard in the library had brought back the remembrance of all these past events so brightly and vividly that it was like living them over again. But he had not yet got to the "promise," and Hagar was waiting patiently. So he continued, with a slight effort, saying,--

"Mamma dried her tears very suddenly, for papa came in sight just then, and I suppose she feared he would be worried or anxious about her, and though she said nothing more to me about the city to which she was going, I couldn't forget her tears, nor that she was sorrowful and unhappy on my account. It made me miserable. I didn't want to walk with her the next day, for fear I should see her tears again; and I knew I could not bear _that_. So when it came time to go, I hid away, and she went alone."

"Poor honey!" said Hagar, reflectively.

"But that only made it all worse. I knew that I was all wrong, and that I ought to try and find Jesus, through whom, mamma said, she could only enter into the city. But it seemed as if he had hidden away from me; and the way was all dark and I was afraid and wretched and miserable."

"Oh, chile," said Hagar, "de bressed Lord was waitin' an' ready to take ye up in his arms de berry minnit ye frowed yerself on his mercy!"

"Yes," said Noll, "but I was not ready. I held back, and was wicked and wretched; but it couldn't last alway, and one night when I had said my prayer and been tucked in bed by mamma's poor weak, patient hands, I could delay no longer, and throwing my arms about her neck when she bent down to kiss me, I cried and sobbed, and begged her to help me find Jesus, who reigned over the city, and mamma cried too,--tears of joy they were, she said,--and told me that I had not to seek for him as for a great stranger, but that he stood ready to enter in and dwell in my heart the moment I yielded it up to him."

"Dat was de bressed troof!" said Hagar, with shining eyes; "an' what did ye do den, honey?"

"Mamma called papa to come, and he prayed that Jesus would forgive me and make my heart his own, and help me to always walk in the path that ends at last at the gate of his city. And," Noll added, turning partly about to Hagar, "I did give up, and--and I think he forgave me. The dreary load went off my heart, and I promised Jesus then to never forget him nor his work. When mamma did at last go to the city, I promised her the same; when papa went, I promised him too. That is my promise," said Noll, a little tremulously. "Do you think I can forget it, Hagar? Do you think I can help wanting to do what is his work?"

Hagar wiped her eyes. "'Spects dere's no need ob answerin' dat question," said she, quietly; "when de Lord's wid ye, dar ain't n.o.body gwine to 'vent yer workin' good, nohow."

"But I don't know how to begin," said Noll, "even if I could do anything. There's so much to be done, and I've nothing to do with. And I'm afraid that Uncle Richard will forbid me to do anything about it.

He doesn't want me to go to Culm, he says, and he dislikes the Culm people."

Hagar did not know what consolation to offer for this unfavorable prospect. She could not counsel the boy to disobey his uncle's commands, neither did she accept the idea of having Noll's projects defeated for lack of permission to carry them out.

"Don' know, honey," said she, after a long meditation; "can't tell ye nuffin 'bout dat, nohow. But jes' go right on wid yer plans, an' de Lord'll find a way fur ye. He ken do it,--he ken do it, chile."

But the question was not settled in Noll's mind. It was not a thing to be undertaken without much deliberation, and, as yet, only the vaguest of schemes floated through his mind. He wished to aid, he longed to be doing something of the work that was to be done, but there did not seem to be the smallest prospect of a commencement.

Christmas came and went. The eve was not an unpleasant one to Noll, though he remembered all too well what a blithe evening the last Christmas-eve had been, and could not help thinking yearningly of the dear friends gathered merrily together across the sea, and wonder whether he was missed from the throng, as he sat by the fire all the solitary evening.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE WINTER'S WANING.

Dirk's little one was not the only fever-stricken sleeper that was laid to rest in the dreary little burying-ground that winter. The fever, born of want and filth and exposure, lingered among the wretched huts, taking down the strong men and wasting the lives of the little ones, till, after weary lingering, they flickered out. Of course the sick ones had but the poorest of care and the rudest of medical aid. The people were disheartened and apathetic, and seemed to have no idea of cleansing their habitations or reforming their way of living. Noll once ventured to hint to Dirk, with whom he was more intimately acquainted than the others, that cleanliness and care might do much toward ridding them of the haunting fever. The fisherman stared blankly at this suggestion, and replied,--

"It mought do fur the like o' ye, lad; but we be poor folks, an' I don't think 'tw'u'd do the good ye think. The fever be come, an' it be goin' to stay till we be all lyin' up in the sand yender."

So the sickness lingered, meeting no resistance and no attempts to check its progress. It smote heaviest the little ones just toddling about, and who had not enough of strength and endurance in their little bodies to resist the slowly-destroying fever. So Dirk's treasure did not sleep alone in the sand, for many another father's was there to keep it company. Oh! the weariness of the days, the slow dragging of the weeks! When the sickness seemed to have spent itself, and hope was beginning to flicker up, back came the destroyer and fell upon some little one whom father and mother had fondly hoped to save,--for these Culm people, dull and ignorant though they were, had a strong and pa.s.sionate love for their children that showed itself most vividly in these days of death,--and then the people settled into their old apathetic despair and found no light nor comfort for their souls.