is not high. Just a hilly ridge. What is on it?"
"Nothin's on it, but a mean little pack o' savins Aint good for nothin'; not even worth cuttin' for firewood. What ever do you s'pose hills was made for? I mean, sich hills; that haint got nothin' onto 'em but rocks. What's the use of 'em?"
"If it wasn't for hills, Mr. Purcell, your low lands would have no water; or only in a pond or a ditch here and there."
"What's the reason they wouldn't? There aint no water on the hills now."
"Springs?"
"There's springs every place. I could count you a half a dozen in less'n half a mile."
"Ay, but the springs come from the hills; and if it were not for the hills they would not be anywhere."
"O' course it's so, since you say it," said Mr. Purcell, scratching his head with a comic expression of eye;--"but I never see the world when there warn't no hills on it; and I reckon you didn't."
Rotha let the question drop.
"I s'pose you'd say, accordin' to that, the rocks made the soft soil?"
"They have made a good deal of it," said Rotha smiling.
"Whose hammer broke 'em up?"
"No hammer. But water, and weather; frost and wet and sunshine."
"Sunshine!" cried Mr. Purcell.
"They are always wearing away the rocks. They do it slowly, and yet faster than you think."
"But I'll tell you. You forget. The soil aint up there--it's down here."
"Yes, I know. I do not forget. Water brought it down."
Here Mr. Purcell went off into an enormous guffaw of laughter, amused to the last degree, and probably in doubt whether to think of his informant as befooled or befooling. He went off laughing; and Rotha returned slowly homeward. Half way towards the drive, she struck a walk which led obliquely through the tangled shrubbery to the kitchen door.
Her room, when she reached it, looked cheerful and pleasant enough. The open windows let in the air and the sunshine, and the top of the tulip tree was glittering in the warm light. At the same time the slantness of the rays shewed that the afternoon was on its way. Night was coming. And a spasm of dread seized Rotha at the thought of being up there, quite alone, away from anybody, and without guardianship or help in any occasion of need or alarm. Rotha was of a nervous and excitable temperament, a coward physically, unaccustomed to being alone or to taking care of herself. She looked forward now to the darkness with positive dread and dismay. O for her little corner room at Mrs. Mowbray's, where she was secure, and in the midst of friends! O for even her cheerless little room at her aunt's, where at least there were people below her to guard the house! Here, quite alone through the long, still nights, and nobody within even calling distance, how should she ever stand it! For a little while Rotha's wits were half paralyzed with terror. Reason then began slowly to assert herself, and the girl's natural force of character arose to struggle with the incubus of fear. She reminded herself that nothing was more unlikely than a night alarm; that the house was known to be empty of all that might tempt thieves, and that furthermore also it was in the highest degree unlikely that the neighbourhood of Tanfield harboured such characters. Probably she was safer from disturbance up here, than either at Mrs. Mowbray's or at Mrs. Busby's. But of what use was the absence of disturbance, when there was the presence of fear? Rotha reasoned in vain. She had a lively imagination; and this excellent property now played her some of the arch tricks of which it is capable. Possible disturbances occurred to her; scenes of distress arose upon her vision, so sharp and clear that she shrank from them. Probable? No, they were not; but who should say they were not possible? Had not everything improbable happened in this world, as well as the things which were reasonably to be expected? And if only possible, if they were possible, where were comfort and security to be found? Without some degree of both, Rotha felt as if she must quit the place, set out and walk to the hotel at Tanfield; only she had no money to pay her charges with if she were there.
Distress, and be it that it was unreasonable, it was very real distress, drove her at last to the refuge we all are ready to seek when we can get no other. She took her Bible and sat down with it, to try to find something that would quiet her there. Opening it aimlessly at first; then with a recollection of certain words in it, she turned to the third psalm.
"I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill. Selah. I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about."
David had more than fancied enemies to fear; he was stating an actual, not a problematical case; and yet he could say "_I will not be afraid"!_ How was that ever possible? David was one of the Lord's people; true; but do not the Lord's people have disagreeable things happen to them? How can they, or how should they, "not be afraid"? Just to reach that blessed condition of fearlessness was Rotha's desire; the way she saw not. There was a certain comfort in the fact that other people had seen it and found it; but how should she? Rotha had none to ask beside her Bible, so she went to that Query, do the books and helps which keep us from applying to the Bible, act as benefits or hindrances?
Rotha would have been greatly at a loss, however, about carrying on her inquiry, if it had not been for her "Treasury of Scripture Knowledge."
Turning to it now as to a most precious friend, she took the words in the psalm she had been reading for her starting place. And the very first next words she was directed to were these:--
"I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell in safety." Ps. iv. 8.
Rotha stopped and laid down her face in her hands. O if she could quietly say that! O what a life must it be, when any one can simply and constantly say that! "Lay me down and sleep"; give up the care of myself; feel secure. But in the midst of danger, how can one? Rotha thought she must be a poor, miserable fraction of a Christian, to be so far from the feeling of the psalm; and probably she was right. "If ye had faith as _a grain of mustard seed_," the Lord used to say to his disciples; so apparently in his view they had scarce any faith at all. And who of us is better? How many of us can remove mountains? Yet faith as big as a grain of mustard seed can do that. What must our faith be? Not quite a miserable sham, but a miserable fraction. Rotha felt self-reproved, convicted, longing; however she did not see how she was at once to become better. She lifted her eyes, wet with sorrowful drops, and went on. If there were help, the Bible must shew it. Her next passage was the following:--
"It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; for so he giveth his beloved sleep."--Ps. cxxvii. 2.
Studying this a good while, in the light of her fears and wants, Rotha came to a sense of the exquisite beauty of it; which wiser heads than hers, looking at the words merely in cool speculation, do fail to find. She saw that the toiling and moiling of men passes away from the Lord's beloved; that what those try for with so much pains and worry, these have without either; and in the absolute rest of faith can sleep while the Lord takes care. His people are quiet, while the world wear themselves out with anxiety and endeavour.
"His beloved."--I cannot have got to that, thought Rotha. I am not one of them. But I must be. That is what I want to be.
The next thing was a promise to the Israelites, as far back as Moses' time; that if they kept the ways of the Lord, among other blessings of peace should be this: that they should lie down and none should make them afraid; but Rotha thought that hardly applied, and went further. Then she came to the word in the third of Proverbs, also spoken to the man who should "keep wisdom":--
"When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid; yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet."--Prov. iii. 24.
It set Rotha pondering, this and the former passage. Is it because I am so far from God, then? because I follow and obey him so imperfectly? that I am so troubled with fear. Quite reasonable, if it is so. Naturally, the sheep that are nearest the shepherd,
feel most of his care. What next? It gave her a stir, what came next: It was in the time of the early church; James, the first martyr among the apostles, had been beheaded by Herod's order; and seeing that this was agreeable to the fanatical Jews, he had apprehended Peter also and put him in ward; waiting only till the feast of the Passover should be out of the way, before he brought him forth to execution. And it was the night preceding the day which should be the day of execution; "and the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains." Chained to a Roman soldier on one side of him, and to another on the other side of him, on no soft bed, and expecting a speedy summons to death,