FIRST ACQUAINTANCES

"THERE, Hannah! Now what do you think of our new home?"

"Indeed, mum, it's a queer place for you."

Rhoda laughed at the look of perplexity on Hannah West's face, as she surveyed for the first time her young mistress's choice of a dwelling-place. She had been maid to Rhoda's mother, and was deeply attached to the family, but five years ago had married their coachman, who died shortly after, and since then she had kept one of the lodges. She had always begged Rhoda to let her live with her if she married, and there had been no difficulty in getting her to come with her now.

It was a month after the family gathering at the Manor, and it had been a busy time with Rhoda. Her untiring energy, and determination to overcome the many obstacles raised in her path, had served her in good stead. She had gone down to the village of Ashampton, and had taken lodgings there with her brother Rodney.

There had been difficulty at first about the cottage; the old couple that had been put in as caretakers during the winter had first to be provided for. Then the landlord, who owned a large straggling property on the moor, was abroad, and his agent was not sure whether he would like a permanent tenant, and be willing to undertake the necessary alterations to make it habitable for a lady.

But when these preliminaries were at last satisfactorily arranged, Rhoda and Rodney set to work with a will, and when she brought Hannah out and showed her over the tiny domain, she said laughingly, "I almost feel as if I have built the place myself, I have made so many improvements."

The cottage was of rough grey stone. It stood on the side of the moor, and commanded one of the finest and most extensive views in the country. There was a small enclosure in front, just large enough to hold a few hardy shrubs and flowers, behind were two or three wooden outhouses which were dignified by the name of stables.

Inside, the cottage certainly had a very cosy appearance. The front door opened into a large low room which, though originally meant for a kitchen, Rhoda had converted into a very pleasant sitting-room. A large old-fashioned open hearth faced you as you stepped in; on either side of it were two deep recesses, filled with shelves reaching to the ceiling, one containing Rhoda's books, the other some valuable old china. At the opposite ends of the room were two low casement windows, one facing east, the other west, and their recesses were filled with cushioned window seats. The cottage piano, a screen, a comfortable couch and two or three easy-chairs, a quaint old escritoire and one or two smaller tables and seats, completed the furniture of the room.

Two doors led to the other part of the house, one into Rhoda's bedroom, the other into a bright little kitchen; and beyond the latter lay a nice pantry and dairy and two small rooms, one of which was fitted up as Hannah's bedroom. The other one was intended to be a spare room for any visitor, but at present, it remained unfurnished.

Hannah was delighted with the kitchen; it was tiled underfoot but had a warm rug laid down by the fire, and the neat dressers and large kitchen range comforted her soul.

"It's a poor place for you, mum," she said with a shake of her head, "but I'll be bound I can make it comfortable for you, and if the ovens are as good as they look, I shall be satisfied."

"We will bake our own bread, Hannah," Rhoda went on cheerfully, "and milk our own cow, and make our own butter. Do you know that Mr. Howard has given me a £10 note to buy a cow and two pigs? I mean to have a poultry yard too, and if we can only get a nice spot close to the house for a kitchen garden, we shall have all that we need."

"I'm afraid of the cold, though," the old servant pursued, looking round her doubtfully. "I've heard tell the wind sweeps down from the top of the moor like a hurricane, and the snow nearly buries one alive."

"We shall weather it. I am going to have very thick curtains put to all the windows and doors. I am having two layers of thick felt put down in my sitting-room, and I have lots of old Persian rugs to go on the top, and if you find the tiles cold in the kitchen, we will cover it all over with coco-nut matting. I am determined that we shall be warm at all costs."

And then Rhoda went back to her brother in the sitting-room.

"The only thing that puzzles me," she said, as she drew a chair to the fire, "is whether Hannah and I shall be able to do all the work of the house together. Hannah will work until she drops, I know, and she can turn her hand to anything. But if we have a garden and poultry, I cannot expect her to attend to it all."

"Get a boy," suggested her brother; "you could have one up from the village for very little, and he need not sleep on your premises—unless you need him for protection at nights."

Rhoda laughed. "Who would visit us up here at night, do you think? Burglars must be unknown in this part of the country, and even they would hardly think this poor cottage could produce enough to make it worth the risk."

"You have some of the plate here."

"Only my own, and that is a very small quantity, I assure you. But I will certainly get a boy; he will be able to take a lot of the rough work off our hands. What I should like to get into order before you go, Rodney, is my garden. I saw one further down the moorside, which was so sunk in the ground that it was sheltered from the wind. Do you think mine could be managed so?"

"I will see about it to-morrow," was her brother's reply.

And Rhoda went to sleep that night feeling that a new life was opening out before her.

A few weeks later, when her brother left her, she began to realize the strange isolation of her position.

But what to others would have been a keen deprivation was real enjoyment to her. She was out in the fresh breezy air, bringing in treasures of nature to adorn her rooms: bits of lichen, golden bracken and heather, bright red berries of all sorts were deftly and beautifully grouped together. Sometimes she would bring in an armful of sticks, to add to their little store of firing, occasionally bunches of watercress from the neighbouring stream; and her bright laugh and sweet clear voice constantly carolling out some quaint ditty as she helped Hannah in the household work, was music in that faithful servant's ears.

But Rhoda was soon intent on the work that she had come to do. As she stood at her door on a fine frosty afternoon, looking down to the valley below, with the village clustering under a thickly wooded height of firs, and a little farther on the grand old ruins of Ashampton Castle, looking picturesque in their comfortable cloak of evergreen and ivy, she called Hannah to her.

"How am I to begin, Hannah?" she said. "I am shy of visiting my neighbours when they don't know who I am. I want to be friends with them; how shall I start?"

"Them stiff formal visits aren't much to any one's liking, I'm thinking," rejoined the old woman, thoughtfully. "If you want to be friends, mum, keep on the look-out to do them some neighbourly action, and you'll get a better welcome than going to their door like a parish visitor."

"But I don't see any one," objected Rhoda. "I go down to the village on market days, and every morning for my letters, but no one seems to notice me, or care for my coming and going."

"I shouldn't be in a hurry, mum, only keep a quick look-out, and the opportunity will come. I'm thinking that Jock may have some belongings that might like to hear how he's getting on in his place."

"Oh, Hannah, how dull I am! I will go and see his mother to-morrow. Is he in the garden? I will speak to him now."

"She never lets the grass grow under her feet," muttered Hannah, as she went back to the kitchen. "It's patience ought to be more to the fore: she's such a one for dashing straight off at a thing and stopping to think after, but there isn't any one her equal with it all!"

With swift steps Rhoda turned towards her little garden plot, which Rodney had successfully sunk in the ground, and which was already planted for the coming spring.

Jock Chalmers, a red-headed boy of fourteen, looked up with a vacant stare from the weeds he was hoeing, upon her approach.

"Jock," she said brightly, "do you think your mother would like to see me? I thought of calling on her to-morrow and telling her how nicely you get through your work here."

Jock gave a kind of grunt.

Rhoda continued, "Tell me where you live. Can you see your home from up here?"

"Na, yon big trees hideth of 'un!"—and a dirty forefinger indicated in which direction to look.

"Would you like me to go and see your mother?"

"A'm agreeable!"

There was evidently nothing to be got out of Jock. Rhoda turned away a little discouraged, and went back to her position at the door. As she gazed away from the wild moorland around her, down to the cultivated valley below, and up again on the other side to long stretches of ploughed land, with farms scattered here and there surrounded by the rich red earth, she said to herself with a sigh, "It takes a long time and much labour to cultivate the earth. I expect I shall not find it easy to reach the hearts of these people; it will be hard ploughing perhaps at first."

It was her custom every morning after breakfast to walk down to the village for her letters, and bad weather never kept her indoors. She enjoyed the fresh morning air, and would return up the hillside rosy and warm with the exercise. But the following morning dawned upon a thick drenching-mist, and Hannah tried to dissuade her from going.

"It will not hurt me," Rhoda declared; "I have a thick ulster, and I want my letters. That is the worst of living beyond the country postman's beat, but exercise is good for me. Good-bye, Hannah. If the mist clears, I shall go and see Jock's mother before I come back, so don't expect me till you see me!"

"Take an umbrella, mum, then, do!"

"No, indeed; the wind is too strong for that. I am quite impervious to the wet."

But Rhoda was not experienced in these moor mists, and though thickly shod, by the time she reached the little post-office her feet were wet through. The postmistress, a grim, hard-featured woman, who rarely spoke unless asked a direct question, and who had handed Rhoda her letters morning by morning without a gleam of recognition, now glanced at her with commiseration.

And when Rhoda proceeded to take off her cap, and wipe her streaming face, she said gruffly, "It's a wet walk for you, miss."

"Yes, it is, but I am very strong, and can stand it. I wonder if you would allow me to wait here for a little, on the chance of the mist clearing off. It looks lightening."

The woman opened a door and motioned to her to enter. But Rhoda hesitated for a moment when she saw a bright, cosy sitting-room, spotlessly neat and tidy, and before a blazing fire a cheery-faced little woman, enveloped in a large shawl, seated in a comfortable easy-chair, the morning's paper on her lap.

"I shall bring in so much wet with me," she said.

But in a moment, a drugget was spread over the hearth-rug, and she was invited to stand upon it.

"I think I might be introduced to the young lady, Susan," said the figure in the chair, in a slightly injured tone.

The postmistress's tone was very glum as she said to Rhoda, "This is my sister, Mrs. Thatcher. We live together here; her husband died twenty years ago."

And then she went back to the shop, shutting the door after her with a sharp bang.

"My poor sister never thinks of people's nerves," said Mrs. Thatcher, smiling apologetically; "she is a very good business woman, and is quite wrapped up in it. I sometimes wish she was of a more cheerful disposition. I always try to look at the bright side of everything. A wet day only makes me appreciate the warmth and comfort of our own fireside the more, and if it has brought you in to have a few words with a poor invalid, why then, indeed, it will have added to my comforts. I seldom get a chance of having a chat with any one; my sister is so unsociable, as I often tell her."

Rhoda began to be interested. Was this an opening for a little work? she wondered.

"Have you been an invalid long?" she inquired sympathetically.

"I am subject to bronchitis in the winter, so I never go out, and even in the warm weather I have to be very careful. We have come down in life—there was a time when my husband had a nice trap and horse, and when business was over, oh, the nice drives we had! You see, my dear young lady, our pride sometimes has to have a sad fall. When I was governess in some of the most genteel families in the county, and when I married John Thatcher, auctioneer and agent to most of the building property round, I never thought I should live to come down to a little country post-office and a stationery depository combined!

"But my dear husband was taken ill of congestion of the lungs, and died leaving me without a penny. It was a terrible blow to me, and here I am, a helpless, useless encumbrance to my energetic, busy sister. Not that I wish to complain, as I said before; I always try to look on the bright side of things. I remember my father used to call me his 'sunshine,' and Susan his 'shadow.' She always took life seriously, Susan did, and she is so quick and clever that she looks down upon me, I sometimes think, for my want of knowledge about business matters."

"I shall like to come in and see you again if I may," Rhoda said gently, "but I am not in a fit condition to stay long now. As it is, I am afraid that I shall make this room a great deal too damp for your welfare."

"I shall be delighted to see you any day," responded Mrs. Thatcher with alacrity. "You are a stranger in these parts, are you not? Do you live far off?"

"Up on the moor."

"Then you are the young lady there has been so much talk about! Maggie Simes, our little maid-of all-work—she is a dreadful girl for gossip, and I suppose she means well, for I must say a chat does cheer me up—she was telling me about you."

"What did she say?" asked Rhoda, laughing. "I did not know I was of sufficient importance to furnish gossip for the neighbourhood."

"Ah, well, it's best not to repeat all one hears; people will talk. Some say you have been crossed in love, and have retired from the world, and gone to live up there in disgust at society. And some hinted you were rather queer in the head; and I think all of us have been very curious about you."

Rhoda's sweet, clear laugh rang out merrily.

"Why shouldn't a person be allowed to settle in the country without having a mystery attached to them, I wonder! I have no strange history, Mrs. Thatcher. I am only a very common-place young woman who likes country better than town, and a quiet life better than a noisy bustling one. Now I must say good-bye—the mist seems to be clearing a little—and if you will allow me, I will come and pay a longer visit one afternoon, may I?"

Mrs. Thatcher eagerly expressed her hope that she would do so. And Rhoda, after a few bright words of thanks to the silent sister, left the post-office with elation at having gained an entrance there.

It was still raining a little, but she walked valiantly on till she reached Jock's home. It was not a propitious day for visiting; Mrs. Chalmers was in the midst of her washing, and the small cottage looked the picture of untidiness and discomfort. Mrs. Chalmers herself was a nervous, careworn little woman; she thanked Rhoda profusely for coming to see her, but beyond that seemed to have no conversation, and her "No, ma'am," and "Yes, ma'am," were, to say the least of it, disheartening.

At last, as she was coming away, Rhoda said with some effort, "I wonder if you would let me leave you a little book? I suppose you are able to read sometimes? I always feel that we want some quiet moments in this busy life of ours to think of better things and of our own souls. Do you ever get a quiet time to yourself?"

"No, ma'am!"

Rhoda laid her little book down and left with a sigh. As she was toiling up the steep hill towards home, her heart went up in prayer for those she had seen. She had an earnest longing to be used by God in winning souls into the Kingdom, but she felt the ground hard and unprepared for the seed.

"May God teach me how to plough," was her inward thought; "or rather, may He do it Himself! I would like to be the plough in His hands, if He will use me."