at sunset mr. hartley and robin unexpectedly returned to talwandi, the strength of the former having proved unequal to the fatigues of camp-life. the old missionary had hardly been able to keep the saddle.
“why, alicia, you must have been ill! what have you been doing while we were away?” was robins first exclamation, as he took the hand of his sister and looked with affectionate concern at her pale face and drooping appearance.
“alicia has been a little imprudent,” said harold.
“and has paid dearly for her imprudence,” added alicia with a rather forced smile.
then followed the story of the invasion of the white ants, and an account of the means taken to prevent its repetition.
“tar is not enough to keep out the dimaks,” said robin; “they are the most persevering little workers in the world. hunt them from one corner, and presently you see their brown tunnels in another; chase them from the floor, and they are up in the beams. there is no weapon for fighting the white ants to be compared to a good stout spade. i’ll take mine, and go out early to-morrow morning, and see if i cannot find the trace of a colony somewhere near. if i do, then will come the work of sapping and mining. we must follow the enemy to his underground fort, and if possible capture his queen.”
“i never saw white ants in lahore,” said alicia.
“they have rural tastes like myself: they prefer country to town, like those gentry whose music now breaks on the ear.”
“oh, what is that frightful yelling and howling?” exclaimed alicia in alarm. “i hope, i trust, that this jungly place is not infested by wolves!”
“merely jackals,” said harold quietly.
“but don’t jackals hunt in packs? might they not attack one?” asked alicia anxiously, as the wild yells came nearer and nearer.
“jackals are the most cowardly brutes in the world,” exclaimed robin; “they have none of the boldness of the dimak. i doubt whether jackals would attack any human being, except, of course, a baby. even you, alicia, might face a jackal.”
“i should rather not meet one in the dark, to say nothing of a pack!” cried the lady. “i never before heard such a horrible sound as their yells.”
“you will grow accustomed to it,” observed harold.
on the following morning robin started off with his spade, and did not return for hours. harold went to his work, and alicia was left with her father-in-law, who was too poorly to leave the house. mr. hartley was for some time occupied with translating, whilst alicia, seated near him, removed from some of her choice books, as far as she could, traces of the ravages of damp and of white ants. the two were making a study of the veranda, the single sitting-room in the mission bungalow being uncomfortably crowded by alicia’s luggage, which had been removed for the present from her damp house.
after writing for some time, mr. hartley glanced up from his desk, and his eyes met those of alicia, who had also paused in her occupation, after laying down a sadly marred volume of poems.
“i wonder why white ants were created?” she murmured; “they do nothing but mischief in the world.”
“they are probably, like briers and thorns, a part of the curse,” observed mr. hartley, putting away his pen. “but as all things work for good to the servants of the lord, even white ants may have their mission.”
“i cannot imagine what it possibly can be,” said alicia.
“our small worries, in this life of probation, my child, may be as effectual as great troubles in disciplining the mind, and keeping the soul from resting too much on things of earth. have you yourself learned nothing from yesterday’s disappointment?”
alicia did not answer the question directly, but, after a pause, said a little bitterly,—
“was it wrong in me to wish to make my husband’s home look pretty?”
“no, my daughter,” said the missionary very gently; “your object was not in itself wrong, but it was, perhaps, not pursued in quite a right way.”
“i do not understand,” said alicia.
“i will try to explain myself better. was my daughter not aware that she was risking the loss of her health by working for many hours in a place exceedingly damp?”
“one cannot be always thinking about health,” said alicia, with the slightest touch of impatience in her tone.
“do you not think that our mortal frames belong to the lord as well as our intellectual powers? have we a right to injure the instrument given us to be employed in this work?”
“oh, dear mr. hartley, i think that you are hardly the one to give reproof on this subject!” cried alicia, looking at the wasted form beside her.
“it is because my conscience reproves me as being a defaulter that i am the more able to point out to others the places where my own foot has slipped,” was the meek rejoinder. “i came to india, alicia, a vigorous, agile man, quite as strong as your harold is now; you see me, at the age of little more than fifty, an old man, compassed with infirmities, which, alas! hinder my work.”
“but you have worn out your health in the lord’s service, dear father,” said alicia.
“by no means altogether so, my child. i was proud of my agility and strength; i liked to show my powers and my daring; i scorned what i thought womanish precautions; what you said just now was often on my lips—‘one cannot always be thinking about health.’ now with something like repentance i look back on useless, perhaps vainglorious exertions, by which i wasted god-given strength. that strength, if only employed on god’s work, might have made me a vigorous labourer still.”
“it is said, better wear out than rust out,” observed alicia.
“that proverb is perfectly true, but it does not quite bear on the subject before us,” was the quiet reply. “the choice is not between wearing and rusting, but between careless, wilful neglect of common precautions (perhaps in the pursuit of amusement), and a conscientious reserving of one’s strength for daily duties. i have known a missionary bring on sunstroke, because she could not resist the pleasure of gathering flowers in the heat of the day, and could not hold up an umbrella whilst wielding the garden-scissors. another felt that society did her good by refreshing her spirits after hard work. ‘sitting up late does not mean rising late,’ she observed. so my friend sat up night after night till past eleven, then bravely went to her work at six. nature could not bear the double strain, and the result was that a valuable missionary had to rest for six months in the hills, leaving her important station without a single worker.”
“yes, i see that one should attend to the care of health for the sake of others,” said alicia, remembering the anxiety which her own little attack of fever had cost her husband.
“and if you are not weary of an old man’s talk,” continued her father, “might i ask whether, when pursuing your work so eagerly, you had no idea that you were doing what harold, had he known of it, would have forbidden?”
alicia coloured, and assented by silence. after a while, however, she observed, “my husband had never spoken on the subject.”
“affection needs not the spoken command; it divines the will, and obeys it.”
“you are rather hard on me, father,” said alicia. “i fear that you will often blame me, if you notice such little things.”
“these little things seem to me symbolized by the dimak,” observed mr. hartley. “small errors do not startle conscience as do more evident sins, that, like the jackals, give loud warning of their approach. we may be in little danger of defrauding, or lying, or hating; but the small faults creep noiselessly on us, working, as it were, under ground, yet gradually marring beauty of character and injuring peace of mind.”
“to what special faults do you allude?” asked alicia.
“want of consideration for others, foolish talking, exaggeration, and discontent; to which i must add another, to which, i grieve to say, i too often give place. this is irritability of temper,—most unbecoming in a christian.”
“i have never seen you show irritability, dear father, except, perhaps, once or twice with the servants.”
“sometimes in the bazaars the blasphemy of the infidel or the insolence of the moslem makes me speak with unguarded heat.”
“surely such anger is lawful in a missionary defending his master’s cause,” said alicia.
“my daughter, no cause is gained by its advocate losing his temper. i have bitterly repented of words spoken in a moment of irritation.”
here the conversation was suddenly interrupted by robin’s bursting into the veranda, a spade in one hand, and in the other an earthen saucer, which he triumphantly waved aloft.
“after four hours of work, behold the spoils of victory!” he cried, and he handed the saucer to alicia.
“what are these hideous fat white creatures?” she exclaimed, looking with disgust at three huge grubs, each of the size of her little finger.
“these are the mother-queens of the dimak,” said robin gaily, “which the natives, with a sublime contempt for grammatical rules about gender, call badshahs (kings). whether kings or queens, they are the source of all the mischief done by white ants; and since these are ‘in captive held,’ we may get rid of their troublesome subjects.”
“what am i to do with the horrid creatures?” said alicia.
“put them in spirits, and keep them as curiosities, or trophies, if you like the word better. now, i must be off, for i have other work to do besides digging;” and with quick step robin quitted the veranda.
“robin dug deep,” observed mr. hartley after a pause; “so he came to the root of the mischief.”
“i am sure that you are thinking of something besides white ants,” said alicia. “perhaps you would suggest that if we dig down deep enough in our consciences we may find out the source of our so-called little sins.”
“can you not divine them?” said mr. hartley. “there are many; but to preserve our analogy, let us unearth but three—selfishness, self-righteousness, and self-will. i have traced most of my own errors to one or other of these.”
the conversation was not continued. alicia took away the unsightly creatures, and her father resumed his translation. mr. hartley paused, however, ere he had written half a page. “was i too hard on the dear child?” he said to himself.
alicia flung away the queen-ants; she did not care to preserve them. she felt humbled and a little distressed by the conversation which had just taken place. it was a new thing for her to have her faults so closely dealt with, for her good-natured, easy-going father had never been aware that she had any; and harold, though less blind, was just as indulgent. the brief talk with an experienced christian had opened alicia’s eyes to the fact that she had a great deal to learn, and a good deal of discipline perhaps to undergo, before her self-will should be dug up, and she should become worthy to be called a missionary’s wife.
