The Christmas Child | Page 9

the stillness of the night air.
But sad as the day was to Nathan, it was most miserable of all for Aunt
Priscilla. She had shut out the grey light of the wintry sky from her
room, and sat in gloom and cold, doing nothing. But she could not shut
out her thoughts and memories; she could not make her heart be still.
When she heard through the thin walls the faint little cry of the baby,
she fancied it was Rhoda's cry when she lay a helpless little creature on
her lap. Again and again Joan's young voice reached her ears, lulling
the baby to sleep with the old, familiar words of the Christmas Hymn--
Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.
But there was no peace for her. She paced restlessly up and down her
darkened room, repeating to herself hundreds of times, "God and
sinners reconciled!"
But she could never be reconciled to God, for she had vowed never to
be reconciled to Rhoda, who had sinned against her. She had sworn that
Rhoda should never enter her doors or see her face again. Would God
let her enter into His house, or behold His face? A silent, secret voice
kept whispering in her heart, "So likewise shall My Heavenly Father do
also unto you, if ye from your heart forgive not every one his brother
their trespasses."

Late at night Nathan knocked at her door; but she neither spoke nor
opened it.
"Miss Priscilla," he said, "I can find no sign of her anywhere. She's
gone, poor creature! There's some as fancy she's cast herself away into
the sea; and maybe that's true. It's borne in on my heart as that's true;
but God knows!"
Aunt Priscilla shuddered. She seemed to see in the darkness a slender,
girlish figure standing on the edge of one of the cliffs, and casting
herself down into the restless tide below. But she did not answer old
Nathan, and he went away with a very troubled heart.
But in a few days a rumour ran all through the country-side that Miss
Priscilla Parry's farmstead was haunted. And what spirit could haunt it
except Rhoda's? The washerwoman, coming to wash at three o'clock in
the morning, had seen a dim shape moving slowly in the black shadow
of the wall, made visible by a faint light from the setting moon. The
ploughboy and Nathan, going out early to work, had heard low, rustling
footsteps in the cow-shed as they opened the door.
Nurse Williams, who came every night to sleep with the baby, fancied
she was awakened by tappings on the lattice panes of the casement.
Even little Joan could hear Rhoda's sobs and moans, as she lay awake
shivering and trembling in bed, with her arm stretched across the baby
to save it from all harm. Everybody was certain now that Rhoda had
thrown herself from the cliffs into the sea; and though her body had
been drifted away by the currents, her ghost had come back to haunt the
place where she had once been so happy, and where her little baby was
living.
Aunt Priscilla had not left her locked and darkened room since she had
entered it on Christmas morning. No one dared to tell her directly of
Rhoda's spirit having come back to trouble and haunt the quiet
homestead. But she could hear all that went on in the kitchen below;
and in the daytime the neighbours were glad of any excuse to come to
the haunted house, though after nightfall no one would venture out into
the fold except old Nathan. The rough servant-girl and the ploughboy

had both been to her door, and given her notice that they were going to
leave; but she had not asked them for any reason. The last injury Rhoda
could do to her was to make the house a terror and a talk in the country.
And now, as she sat alone, brooding over the past, with no work filling
the hard hands which were used to be so busy, she no longer thought of
Rhoda with the bitterness of wrath. She remembered what a young girl
she was, and how full of fancies, which made it easy for people to
deceive her. How terrible must have been the girl's misery before she
could drown herself in the sea! And there was no rest for her troubled
spirit, even in death! She was not sleeping peacefully in the little
churchyard down by the shore, where all their kinsfolk lay within
sound of the sea by night and day. There was something awful to Aunt
Priscilla in the thought of Rhoda's homeless and restless spirit
wandering about the places where she had been an innocent and a
happy