"I understand,"cried the eldest son,his eyes sparkling;"you want to found a family.And so it shall be--we will settle at Beechwood Hall;all coming generations shall live to the honour and glory of your name--our name--""My boy,there is only one Name to whose honour we should all live.
One Name 'in whom all the generations of the earth are blessed.'In thus far only do I wish to 'found a family,'as you call it,that our light may shine before men--that we may be a city set on a hill--that we may say plainly unto all that ask us,'For me and my house,we will serve the Lord.'"It was not often that John Halifax spoke thus;adopting solemnly the literal language of the Book--his and our life's guide,no word of which was ever used lightly in our family.We all listened,as in his earnestness he rose,and,standing upright in the firelight,spoke on.
"I believe,with His blessing,that one may 'serve the Lord'as well in wealth as in poverty,in a great house as in a cottage like this.
I am not doubtful,even though my possessions are increased.I am not afraid of being a rich man.Nor a great man neither,if I were called to such a destiny.""It may be--who knows?"said Ursula,softly.
John caught his wife's eyes,and smiled.
"Love,you were a true prophet once,with a certain 'Yes,you will,'but now--Children,you know when I married your mother I had nothing,and she gave up everything for me.I said I would yet make her as high as any lady in the land,--in fortune I then meant,thinking it would make her happier;but she and I are wiser now.We know that we never can be happier than we were in the old house at Norton Bury,or in this little Longfield.By making her lady of Beechwood I should double her responsibilities and treble her cares;give her an infinitude of new duties,and no pleasures half so sweet as those we leave behind.Still,of herself and for herself,my wife shall decide."Ursula looked up at him;tears stood in her eyes,though through them shone all the steadfastness of faithful love."Thank you,John.Ihave decided.If you wish it,if you think it right,we will leave Longfield and go to Beechwood."He stooped and kissed her forehead,saying only:"We will go."Guy looked up,half-reproachfully,as if the father were exacting a sacrifice;but I question whether the greater sacrifice were not his who took rather than hers who gave.
So all was settled--we were to leave beloved Longfield.It was to be let,not sold;let to a person we knew,who would take jealous care of all that was ours,and we might come back and see it continually;but it would be ours--our own home--no more.
Very sad--sadder even than I had thought--was the leaving all the familiar things;the orchard and the flower-garden,the meadow and the stream,the woody hills beyond,every line and wave of which was pleasant and dear almost as our children's faces.Ay,almost as that face which for a year--one little year,had lived in sight of,but never beheld,their beauty;the child who one spring day had gone away merrily out of the white gate with her three brothers,and never came back to Longfield any more.
Perhaps this circumstance,that her fading away and her departure happened away from home,was the cause why her memory--the memory of our living Muriel,in her human childhood--afterwards clung more especially about the house at Longfield.The other children altered,imperceptibly,yet so swiftly,that from year to year we half forgot their old likenesses.But Muriel's never changed.Her image,only a shade,yet often more real than any of these living children,seemed perpetually among us.It crept through the house at dusk;in winter fire-light it sat smiling in dim corners;in spring mornings it moved about the garden borders,with tiny soft footsteps neither seen nor heard.The others grew up--would be men and women shortly--but the one child that "was not,"remained to us always a child.
I thought,even the last evening--the very last evening that John returned from Enderley,and his wife went down to the stream to meet him,and they came up the field together,as they had done so for many,many years;--ay,even then I thought I saw his eyes turn to the spot where a little pale figure used to sit on the door-sill,listening and waiting for him,with her dove in her bosom.We never kept doves now.
And the same night,when all the household was in bed--even the mother,who had gone about with a restless activity,trying to persuade herself that there would be at least no possibility of accomplishing the flitting to-morrow--the last night,when John went as usual to fasten the house-door,he stood a long time outside,looking down the valley.
"How quiet everything is.You can almost hear the tinkle of the stream.Poor old Longfield!"And I sighed,thinking we should never again have such another home.
John did not answer.He had been mechanically bending aside and training into its place a long shoot of wild clematis--virgin's bower,which Guy and Muriel had brought in from the fields and planted,a tiny root;it covered the whole front of the house now.
Then he came and leaned beside me over the wicket-gate,looking fixedly up into the moon-light blue.
"I wonder if she knows we are leaving Longfield?""Who?"said I;for a moment forgetting.
"The child."