The Christmas Child | Page 6

she speak a word that was not absolutely necessary. She gave
up going to church and market, and she refused to see any visitor who
came up to the farm.
On Sunday evening, when the usual meeting was held in her kitchen,
and the curious neighbours came in larger numbers than usual, they no
longer saw her in her old place on the settle, where Rhoda's pretty face
had made so strong a contrast with her aunt's. Miss Priscilla, after
Rhoda's foolish flight, always retreated to her bedroom overhead, in
which there was a small trap-door, made when her mother was
bedridden, that she might hear the prayers and the sermon and the
singing in the kitchen below. It was some weeks before old Nathan,
who looked every Sunday if the trap-door was open, saw that it had
been lifted up, and knew his mistress was listening.
When Miss Priscilla was downstairs about her work it was a sad sight
to see her. Her grey hair had gone quite white, and her eyes were worn
out with weeping. Her shoulders were bent as if she was always
stooping under a heavy burden, and she seldom lifted her head or
looked up from the ground. Joan often saw her lips moving, though no
sound came through them. Everybody except old Nathan thought she
was mad.
CHAPTER III
THE CHILD IN THE MANGER
The long winter evenings were very dreary when the sun set early and
the rain and the fogs overspread the mountains, and enshrouded the
home with blackness.
Aunt Priscilla used to retire upstairs, where Joan could hear her sobbing

often in the darkness; and the two young servants, the maid and the
ploughboy, as soon as she was safely out of the way, would slink off
out of the kitchen, where their mistress could overhear them.
It was not worth while to light a candle for a little girl like Joan, and
many a long hour she sat alone in the dark chimney-corner with no
light save the dull red glimmer of the embers in the grate, and hearing
strange, mysterious noises all about her, sounds so low and quiet that
they could only be heard when everything else was perfectly still. And
going to bed was always a terror to her. The little creature could not put
her terror into words; but all day long it was as if some powerful and
pitiless enemy was lying in wait to seize her; and as the hour came
when all the household went to bed, and she was forced to creep up her
separate staircase to her lonely room, the terror reached its utmost
height, and she often sprang into bed dressed, and drew the coverings
up above her head, lest she should see or hear something more horrible
than what she could image to herself.
What Joan would have done without Nathan no one can tell. During the
long winter nights, whenever he was sitting with her by the fireside, he
taught her to read, or read aloud to her out of his Bible, which was
yellow and worn with much turning over of its leaves. He could sing a
little still, though now his teeth were gone his voice was weak and
quavering; but he made Joan sing with him, and took care to choose
such hymns as his mistress had been taught when she was a child,
knowing well she could not help hearing them through the unceiled
rafters overhead. The newer hymns which Rhoda had often sung with
her young, sweet voice, old Nathan never sung; and Aunt Priscilla, in
her dark, desolate room, would sit still and listen, and think of the days
when she was herself a child, and go to sleep and dream that she was a
child again.
The third Christmas Eve came; the second since Rhoda ran away from
her tranquil home and all who loved her truly. Joan had grown into a
very silent, pale, and sad child, seldom laughing, and with no
companion save old Nathan and a doll he had bought for her in the
market-town, where he went every week instead of Miss Priscilla. She

and Nathan could not sing, "Hark! the herald angels!" because that was
one of Rhoda's favourite hymns; but as they sat together on the settle
very quiet, for both of them were full of sorrowful thoughts, Joan laid
her small fingers timidly on the old man's hard and horny hand.
"Nathan," she said very softly, lest Aunt Priscilla overhead should hear
her, "can I go to-morrow, like Rhoda and me said we would, and look
into the manger for the child Jesus? I know He can't be there, because
I'm a big girl now. But me and Rhoda said we'd go every Christmas
morning