Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

NINETEEN HUNDRED?
A FORECAST AND A STORY.

BY

MARIANNE FARNINGHAM,

Author of “The Cathedral Shadow,” “The Clarence Family,” “Songs of Sunshine,” &c., &c.

London:

JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET.

1892.

This little dream, of what, I hope, may be in the near future, was dreamed several years ago, and much of it written on paper, the rest having to wait for strength and opportunity. But, meanwhile, the spirit of progressive love has not had to wait, and already part of my dream has come true, for the genius of “applied Christianity” is at work, doing what I only saw in a vision. I take this fact as an earnest that the other good things will follow. But they will not unless it is realised that the hope of England is in her young. And I affectionately dedicate this forecast-story to all father-hearted men and mother-hearted women who see in every child a treasure of priceless value, a force of mightiest possibilities, to be redeemed for Christ at any cost.

CONTENTS.

Nineteen Hundred?

A FORECAST AND A STORY.

CHAPTER I.
OLD ENGLAND FOR EVER.

The good ship Kenwick Castle lay off Madeira. Few of her passengers cared to land, for they were homeward bound, and desired nothing so much as to get away speedily. Neither were they as much impressed as on the outward journey, by the soft brilliancy of the atmosphere and the picturesque loveliness of the crimped coast of the island. The towering peaks, the rainbow-spanned gorges and ravines, the dense foliage of the forests, the vineyards and the plantations—made up a picture worthy of admiration; but the eyes that looked across the waters to the white houses of Funchal were wearying for the quiet beauty of English meadows.

The scene between the ship and the shore was a lively one. Boats flashed in the sun, and a clamorous company of Portuguese, Moorish, and negro salesmen offered fruits, baskets, chairs, and ornaments of all sorts, so that those who had forgotten to bring presents for their friends might easily purchase them now. Swimming boys—black-skinned and coffee-coloured—were shouting for money to be thrown into the sea to test their diving powers, and boatmen were eager for customers. But the captain and the crew looked only for fresh passengers, and did but wait with dogged patience until they should arrive.

Two young men were leaning over the side of the vessel, and watching the boats and the shore.

“There are passengers coming,” said one. “It would indeed be strange if Miss Wentworth were among them.”

“Too strange to be true, I imagine. She is probably in England.”

“Yes. But she usually leaves Madeira about this time. I wish she might happen to be going with us.”

“So do I, heartily. And, look—look at the lady in the second boat. She is very like her.”

“How curious. It is really she. Let us see if we can help her.”

They hurried to the gangway and welcomed with great cordiality a lady whom everybody seemed glad to see, not a young lady, however, but a placid, kindly-looking woman, tall and matronly, who was between fifty and sixty years of age. She thanked the young men who had eagerly offered their services, but she evidently did not recognise them nor quite understand their manifest pleasure.

“How are you, Miss Wentworth? It is good to meet you again. You have forgotten us, I see. We came out with you six years ago in the Drummond Castle. My friend is John Dallington, and I am Arthur Knight.”

“Oh, yes, I remember! You were both sent from England to be out of the way; because your presence at home was embarrassing.”

“Exactly; and we have been together ever since. We have travelled nearly all over the world; but they cannot do without us any longer in England, so we are homeward bound, as you are. Don’t you want to know how we have been getting along since we parted from you at the hotel yonder?”

“I shall like to hear anything you have to tell me. You are both so altered that I should not have known you. You have grown, I think, and passed from youth into manhood. Six years make a great difference when you are young. What has become of the gentleman who went to take care of you? Is he with you still?”

“No, he is not. We must tell you of him presently.”

They made a pleasant-looking trio, frequently, during the three days that sufficed to carry them to England, as, with chairs drawn together on the deck, they talked of the past and the future. Miss Wentworth was an interested listener. Her fifty years had made her very kindly and sympathetic, and the motherliness of her nature rendered her the friend of every one who came within her reach, and especially of the young. She had been kind to the two youths, when, a little sore-hearted and rebellious, they were outward bound, and among the things which she had said to “hearten them up” had been one which they had not forgotten. They were therefore the more glad to see her now that their banishment was ended, and they were about to begin life in earnest.

Of the two young men, though Dallington was the more handsome, Knight was by far the more attractive. Rather taller than the average Englishman, strong and graceful in figure, with a broad forehead, masculine nose, firm lips, and wide chin, he was the personification of strength and manliness; but there was something about him which told also of great tenderness, refinement, and self-mastery. There was not a particle of self-assertion in him, and yet he was one who would never be overlooked, even in a crowd. When he entered a room people naturally observed him, when he spoke everybody listened; for he had the rare gift of magnetic influence, which seems to be possessed by only a few in a century.

Miss Wentworth had recognised this on her first meeting with him. She felt sure that if he lived the world would hear of Arthur Knight, and she was full of desire that the life so vigorous and forceful might be altogether on the side of righteousness and truth. So wistful was she that she could not let him go without one or two earnest words. She believed that “the Christian is the highest type of man,” and her faith in the power of the living Christ to draw and train disciples was great. She had doubts of the presumption which talks to people about “their souls,” yet she did summon courage to say to those young men, who glibly informed her that they did not believe in the Founder of the Christian religion, “No, for you do not need Him now; but when you do, you will find that He is both able and willing to help you.”

These words neither of the three had forgotten; and Knight referred to them in one of their conversations.

“I proved the truth of what you said, Miss Wentworth, in a very extraordinary manner. I had not the slightest sympathy with religion in any form. My mother died when I was about three, I can scarcely remember her; but my father, who was a Dissenter, took me to chapel with him always; though I never really entered into the service. I did not join in the prayer, for I did not want the things for which the minister asked, and the sermons never concerned me. They were for the most part disquisitions on texts, for which I did not care, and they seemed to me to have nothing whatever to do with the ordinary lives of the people. I cannot remember ever hearing anything to make a false or selfish man uncomfortable, and I could not see that those who were church members were at all better than those who were not. And I really believed that the whole thing was a farce.”

“I never went as far as that,” said Dallington. “But I did not have as much of it as my friend. We were Church people; and we had no prayer-meetings in the vestry, nor psalm-singing at home.”

“I had enough of it, and it was really irksome; and when I began to read books that were opposed to Christianity I agreed with every word that was said, and decided that as for religion there was absolutely nothing in it.”

“Yes?”

“But I know now that there is. You were asking me about my old tutor. He is dead; and it was at his death that I put your words to the test. It was very painful. We were alone, with none but Arabs near us. He was awfully ill; and when the thought came to him that he would probably die, he was altogether unnerved. The fact is that he was really afraid of what might be after death. He said to me, ‘Arthur, if there is a hereafter I am not prepared for it.’ Then I told him what you had said.”

At this point of the conversation John Dallington arose and walked to the side of the vessel.

“Mr. Knight, if you would rather not talk about it, do not tell me,” said Miss Wentworth, in a low voice.

“But I want you to know,” said Knight. “One cannot talk much about it; but I ought to tell you, and I will. I had never prayed before, but then with all my heart I called upon Jesus Christ. I asked Him, if it were true, as so many people believed, that He was really the living Saviour, to reveal Himself now. And He did.”

“But your friend did not live.”

“No; we did not ask for that. That was not what we most wanted. What we needed was the assurance that there is Some One who sees us in our weakness and cares for our pain, and hears us when we cry. The assurance came so certainly that I have never doubted since. Hutton grew first calm, and then radiantly happy—as I had never seen him before. He looked up with a wonderful light upon his face, as if he could really see what is beyond, and he died with the name of Jesus upon his lips.”

“I am very glad. And what of yourself?”

“Of course, I cannot explain things. Dallington and I have received pretty regularly from England all the books and journals which we could get; and I know that this is a time of great doubt. I cannot answer the questions that are asked. But”—and the young man bowed his head reverently—“I believe in the Son of God, and I rest in His salvation.”

Such a conversation could not be a protracted one. Miss Wentworth could only look the sympathy and joy which she felt; and Arthur Knight walked the length of the deck twice, and then joined his friend. When the three met again on the following day the talk was of a less serious character.

“I wonder,” said Miss Wentworth, “if you are going to rave against everything English, as so many of our countrymen do?”

“No, indeed,” replied Dallington; “I think we shall be more likely to err in the opposite direction. I, for one, am proud of my country. I suppose we might learn a few things from other nations, but I am very well satisfied to be an Englishman.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have an estate to look after,” said Dallington. “I am going to take care of my mother, and find out the best way of growing fruit and corn.”

“And I am going to help my father,” said Knight. “He is a manufacturer.”

“But his son does not wish to be a manufacturer,” said Dallington, significantly. “He hopes to talk the people of England round to his ideas.”

Knight’s face flushed almost painfully. “We cannot always alter circumstances,” he said; “but I confess that there is to me a marvellous fascination in a listening crowd. There is, however, no lack of orators in England.”

“A new man who has something to say, and knows how to say it, has always his chance, though,” said Miss Wentworth.

What his dreams had been by night and day the young man did not tell. He said, “My father’s business is a large one. I have some ideas on the subject of heads and hands, or masters and men; and hope I may have the opportunity of putting them into practice.”

“Oh! surely you have not been abroad to learn Socialism. We English people are afraid of that,” said Miss Wentworth.

“And yet many are dissatisfied with things as they are.”

“Certainly, and they have need to be. Side by side with all the good there are evils of which every decent person is utterly ashamed.”

“Then why do the decent people allow them to exist?”

“I suppose they cannot help it.”

“But they could if they would. They have the power and the influence, if they only had the will. Very much of the wealth, too, is in the hands of religious people, and if only they cared, as I think they ought, the great evils which are a disgrace to England might be stamped out in a year.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I feel sure of it. Englishmen do but need to know God’s greatness and their own, and then they could lift our country up to its name as a Christian land.”

Miss Wentworth laughed a little. “That would bring the Millennium much sooner than it is expected,” she said.

“Another Wesley is wanted, or even a non-political Gladstone, that is all. The people are ready for the man who has an understanding of the times.”

It was early in the morning, just after daybreak, that the long-looked-for homeland appeared in sight. Nobody had slept much that night, for the thoughts of the passengers had gone on before their eyes to the green heights of Plymouth Hoe. Yet it was not so much because of its historical associations that it so haunted them, but because it would give them the first glimpse of the old country. A cheer arose from the throats of the watchers as soon as it first came in sight, and preparations for disembarking were so rapidly completed that every one was ready long before the land was reached.

Arthur Knight stood with folded arms and glowing eyes looking at the land. How he had dreamed of that moment, and prayed, “Here am I, send me.” It was strange for a modern young man to be thinking of St. Paul and of Peter the Hermit, but he was. He believed, as they did, that he had received a God-inspired impulse, and that he had a message to deliver for which there were hundreds of thousands of people waiting in this dear native land of his. He was in a state of exaltation, tempered, however, with deep humility. “I am not worthy, yet send me,” he said. “Let me go to the crowded towns and the lonely villages, and tell the people what Thou hast told me.”

He uttered the words aloud, for no one was quite close, and the next moment he stepped ashore, and a man came forward to greet him. “Welcome home, Mr. Arthur. I am very glad to see you.”

“How do you do, Hancourt? How is my father?”

“Mr. Knight is well, sir; so am I, only I am much worried. As you said you wished to talk to me I have taken the liberty to engage a private compartment for the journey to London,” said the man.

“Very good. When does the train start?”

“Almost immediately. Can I look after your luggage?”

Knight at once took leave of his travelling companions. “My father’s chief business manager has come to meet me at my request,” he said, “and we travel together. Good-bye, Dallington, and thank you for everything, old fellow. Hope you will find your Margaret unchanged. I should be sorry to think we had come to the end of the story. Remember, we are but beginning it.”

“I will not forget,” answered Dallington.

“Good-bye, Miss Wentworth. I am glad to have your address. You will be sure to hear from me.”

When they were in the carriage, Knight and Hancourt looked steadfastly at each other before either spoke, and each noted the changes which the years had made.

“How is Mrs. Hancourt? And how are your children?” asked Knight.

“They are very well, thank you. Mr. Arthur, I am not sure that I ought to have met you, for there have been many changes in the last few months, and I am no longer in your father’s employment.”

“How is that? I thought my father could not do without you.”

“You are wanted at home, sir. Mr. Knight has become a universal manufacturer, and has an enormous business, or a dozen businesses, and employs thousands of hands. He has been for the last few years making money fast; but as fast as he has got rich his workpeople have got poor, and that is not right, Mr. Arthur.”

“You must take care what you say of my father, Hancourt.”

“Very good, sir. I am out of the concern, so it is nothing to me; but I hope you will let me tell you what is in my heart.”

“Go on, then.”

“Lately, indeed almost ever since you went away, the master has been cutting things very close and underselling everybody, and to do that he has used the commonest material, and has frequently lowered the wages of his hands. Many things which go across the sea are not worth the cost of carriage; they are just put together to look well and that is all. I think it is a great pity, and I ventured to say so to Mr. Knight, because he will lose his customers, and the business will go down as quickly as it went up if he does not change his method. But Mr. Knight told me he did not care for that. He thinks it is no business of his that other English manufacturers will be suspected because he has got England a bad name, but I think it ought to be, and that such conduct is unpatriotic. But excuse me, Mr. Arthur, I can’t help getting warm over it. I want to ask you, however, if you will not try and bring about a better state of things?”

Arthur felt as if a stone had been given him when he asked for bread. Could it be that this and not that was his duty? How should he give up his cherished ideas, and the work to which he honestly believed himself called, and come down to business?

Hancourt broke in upon his musings. “You see, sir, I am one of the people, and know what it is to work for starvation wages, and so I thought I would try and enlist your sympathy.”

“What are you doing yourself?”

“Nothing, sir, and I have a wife and two children. But I am afraid I have spoiled your home-coming.”

Indeed, he had.

CHAPTER II.
A SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY.

The door of the manor house was open, and the owner stood on the step looking across green fields and sloping hills. Both the man and the house were worthy of attention. The man was a strong, straight young Englishman of twenty-three years, a little above the average height, with a face full of health and intelligence, a mouth and chin that showed strength and firmness, grey eyes full of kindliness, and a well-shaped head covered with crisp, brown hair. The house was an old-fashioned English homestead, unpretentious, but substantial, and with an air about it of comfort and plenty. It was the sort of house always associated in our minds with the pictures of rural life which emigrants keep in their hearts, and painters put on the canvas.

The young man standing in the doorway was thinking not of the house, but of the view that was visible from it; and, in truth, it was a very pleasant one. The garden at his feet was ample and well kept, and already the spring flowers were making it beautiful. Around the outside there were shrubs of many kinds, and beyond them the home close looked green and sunny, while further still a little stream rippled and sang, and woods and fields made the landscape fair. John Dallington was by no means an emotional man, but his heart beat quickly as he looked across the fertile English lands that had been his father’s, and were now his own. He had never experienced the land-hunger that some people know; but if he had he could scarcely have felt a greater sense of satisfaction than that which filled him now.

“To think that so fair a piece of this wonderful little England is really mine, to have and hold, and do as I please with!” he thought. “I have seen nothing so peaceful and picturesque in all my wanderings. It is indeed good to be at home.”

And he felt this all the more because his absence had been a long one. More than six years had passed since on a cold, wet morning he had parted from his mother, and turned his back upon his home. It was better so he thought then, and it was his conviction still. But the memory was rather a painful one, though it came to him on a Sunday morning, when everything seemed glad, and the contrast between the present and the past was most striking.

John Dallington lost his father when he was between sixteen and seventeen years old. He had only just left school, and was beginning to learn the best way to farm land when his father died unexpectedly and suddenly. In his will he left everything to his wife, constituting her sole executrix, with power to make any arrangements or alterations she pleased until their child was of an age to assume the control of the estate. The lad loved his mother, and proudly endeavoured to take his place as her natural companion and protector. But when, less than a year after his father’s death, she married Mr. Daniel Hunter, everything became changed. John and his step-father disliked each other from the first, and the youth felt as an interloper in his home. There were a few stormy scenes between the two, the mother always taking sides with her husband; and then John made his mother so angry, by some hot words, which he uttered respecting a young lady in Darentdale whom she disliked, that she decided to send him away from home forthwith, and from that time until the previous evening the heir had not seen his home. But he never forgot what his future position was to be, and had spent considerable time in study, and in examination of agricultural plans as followed in the different countries which he visited. He was, therefore, not altogether unready for his new duties. But he had been in no hurry to return and take them upon himself. Even when his lawyer’s letter reminded him that he had attained his majority, and requested him to come home and claim his rights, he did not do so; and it was not until his mother wrote informing him that she was a second time a widow, and needed him, that he started on his journey.

While waiting for his mother on this, his first Sunday in England, his thoughts were full of kindliness toward her—“Poor little mother, it must be hard for her to be twice a widow. I wonder if Hunter really made her happy, and if she cared very much for him. I shall never be able to understand how it was that she married him—a man not fit to hold a candle to my father, and with scarcely a particle of his high principle and goodness! How could she do it? But it is strange to me if she has not had to suffer for it, and she certainly looks ill and miserable. It cannot be because she loved him. I hope he was good to her. In any case I will be. No woman can help liking to have her son with her, and I will try to make up to her for the trouble she has had.”

At that moment the sound of the bells came across the field, and John remembered that there was a mile to walk to church.

“Mother, it is time to start. Are you ready?” he cried, and she came immediately—a small figure, short and slight, but very dignified, and covered from head to foot in crape.

“What a shrouded up little mother it is!” he said tenderly, “and how uncomfortable you must be. Can you breathe at all under that thick thing?”

“Oh, yes. It is not so thick as it looks.”

“I am glad to hear it. I don’t like the crape fashion in the very least. It is a shame to cover up your face when it looks so pretty with the grey hair above it.”

“Ah, you must see a great change in me, John. My hair has got very grey during the last two years, and my sight is failing me too. I am quite the old woman already.”

“Not at all! Besides, you will be getting young again presently. You must wear glasses; they are an improvement to most people. And as for grey hair, what does that matter? Everybody knows that it means many things besides old age.”

“I am old, though, older than my years.”

“Poor little mother; you have had plenty to make you so; but you will soon feel better. Is not this a beautiful morning! And you cannot guess how glad I am to be at home with you. I used to read some poetry when I was away about ‘England’s primrose meadow paths,’ and try to remember what they looked like. It is a very agreeable change to see them. This is a cosy little wood.”

They were wending their way through the spinney, and the scent of the spring flowers was very sweet. The air, too, was full of music, for the birds were singing, and the chiming of the bells came nearer with every step they took. Now and then a thrush or blackbird sang to them as they passed, a squirrel sprang among the trees, and the rabbits scuttled across the path. The whole scene was so peaceful and lovely that John Dallington felt like taking his hat off in instinctive reverence for the beauty by which he was surrounded. He did not want to talk, and his mother seemed equally willing to be silent. Indeed, the finest sermon that could have been preached to the young man was finding its way into his heart as he walked toward the church that morning.

But when they emerged from the wood, and after crossing a meadow reached the high road, his thoughts were at once interrupted. The village of Darentdale was only a small one, and every individual in it knew that the young squire had come home to claim his own. There had been much talking of neighbours about him, and the liveliest interest was excited by his appearance. As he and his mother passed the scattered houses, faces peeped from the windows, and doors were softly opened to enable the occupants of the cottages to have a longer look at Mrs. Hunter and her son. Every one who passed glanced at the young man’s face, with an expression first of curiosity, and then of confidence and pleasure. In these days the villagers are not too much given to the “old-fashioned practice of saluting their betters”: they do not think that they have any; but on this Sunday morning all the women seemed inclined to remember their manners of the old style, and there was not a man who did not touch or raise his hat as they passed. It was all very agreeable to John Dallington, and the genial, hearty way in which he returned each salutation had the effect of at once favourably impressing his neighbours.

“He’ll do, won’t he? Eh!” said a man who was leaning over his garden gate.

“Oh, ah! he’ll do fine,” replied another, taking his pipe from his mouth for a moment. “He’s growed into a very likely lad, has he, and we shall do better with him nor we did with t’other.”

“That’s my ’pinion also. He looks like a fine young Englishman, though he have been a-living in foreign parts.”

“He’ll do, and that’s my verdict.”

John Dallington was looking at the villagers with an interest scarcely less keen than that with which they regarded him. He knew more about them than might be imagined. Newspapers, magazines, reviews, and other floating literature dealing with the questions of the day had been regularly transmitted to him during his absence, and he was, therefore, well acquainted with things as they were. He had read of bad harvests in England while lingering among the cornfields of America; and “the bitter cry” of London had reached him in New Zealand. Perhaps, as he looked at these subjects from a distance, and studied them very impartially by the aid of both Liberal and Conservative journals, he was as able to decide concerning them as those who had remained upon the scene. In any case, with the usual sanguine confidence of youth, he quite believed he was; and had already fully made up his mind in regard to his course of action. One of the first things he meant to do next morning was to go over the estate and “see to things,” especially keeping his eyes open to the needs of the cottage tenants on the farm.

“John, this is rather a trying ordeal,” said Mrs. Hunter, as they entered the churchyard. “Everybody seems to be looking at us.”

“Never mind, mother; they are looking very kindly. And here is Emerson, appearing not a day older than when I went away. I suppose he is as good as ever. He used to work as hard and live on as little as if he were the curate instead of the vicar. How strange it will feel to be in the old pew once more.”

The next minute they had taken their places; and as the last strokes of the bells died away the sounds of the organ were heard; and John knelt as he used to kneel when a little boy at his mother’s side, to join in the General Confession, and listen to the Absolution.

John Dallington had frequently availed himself of the opportunities afforded him in distant lands of attending religious services, but he never joined more heartily in the prayers than he did on this occasion. They expressed exactly what he felt, and the grand old Psalms and the Te Deum filled the little old Darentdale church with strains that were sweeter to his ears than any that he had heard in the grand cathedrals of the Continent. But now his heart was full of peace and goodwill, and he was in the mood to enjoy anything. How could he help wishing to be good when he had so much for which to be thankful? We hear plenty of talk about the salutary effects of sorrow, but is not joy salutary too? It is the miserable who are the most tempted to wickedness. If there were only more happiness in the world, it is almost certain that there would be more goodness also.

The services at Darentdale church were never unnecessarily lengthened, and before long the congregation was filing out. Most people waited to give some sort of respectful greeting to Mrs. Hunter and her son. Considerable sympathy was felt for the widow, though very little affection had been manifested toward her late husband, and the villagers managed to let the lady feel this.

“Things are looking very much the same, mother. I miss one or two of the older people, and some of the boys and girls have grown up like myself; but, on the whole, there is little change. How are the Dissenters getting on? Are there any more chapels built?”

“Oh, yes; one or two Methodists, besides the old Baptist and the Salvation Army.”

“I must turn into one of them this evening, and see how things look there!”

“I hope you will not take to chapel going!”

“Why not, mother?” laughed John. “It is a rule of mine to go everywhere, and see everything that I can. And it has answered very well, too. I assure you that one sometimes gets splendidly entertained in most unlikely places.”

“I hope you will not seek entertainment there, at all events; though, of course, you must do as you like now.” Mrs. Hunter accompanied the last clause with a significant sigh of resignation.

“That is a privilege you have always given me,” he answered, gently, “and I hope it has done me no harm. But here we are in the wood again. Mother, haven’t you heard people say that they love the very ground they tread on? That is how I feel to-day. I wonder how it is that we all have such a regard for land.”

“Because of what it brings forth, I suppose.”

“I scarcely think that accounts for it altogether. Of course, as the land is such a marvellous producer of wealth, it is only right and natural that it should be respected and well-treated. But it is no thought of crops that makes me like to look at it to-day.”

“That is as well, perhaps,” said Mrs. Hunter, grimly, “for he who sets his heart upon crops in these days is likely to become heart-broken.”

“I know they have been very poor for several seasons.”

“They have been utterly and wholly disappointing failures. I can tell you, John, that you have been spared an immense amount of worry by your residence abroad. Rain has come when we wanted it dry, and drought when we needed rain. Summers have had no sunshine, and winters no snow. This last winter, indeed, has been more like the old-fashioned kind; so, perhaps, the tide of misfortune is turning, and we may hope for better things. I should like one change which I suppose I shall not live to see, and that is the reduction of the present high rate of wages paid to agricultural labourers.”

“High wages do you call them? What do you think you could do with an income of sixteen shillings a week, mother?”

“Now, John, you need not speak so indignantly. I trust you have not imbibed any of those socialistic notions that seem to be prevalent. It will be so much the worse for you if you have, for you will find that the wages are higher than you can afford to pay; and besides, the men are neither better nor happier for receiving them.”

“I am not a Socialist,” said John, and then a diversion occurred.

“Why, who is this? Old Benham, isn’t it? Then he is still at work about the place. How are you, George?”

“I’m hearty, thank you, Master John, sir, and how’s yourself? How you have altered to be sure; but I knowed it was you when I seed you going down the lane this morning. And how did you like them furrin parts, sir?”

“Oh, I liked them very much; but there’s no place like home.”

“Werry true, sir, and I’m glad you think so, and it’s a beautiful morning to welcome you back. We’re a going to have a better season this year, Mr. John, you take my word for it. When that ’ere tree in the holler is covered in leaves by the fifteenth of April we allus gets a good summer. I’ve noticed it, bless yer heart, hundreds of times.”

“Have you though?” said John, laughingly. “I should not have thought it. You really look young for your years.”

Benham did not understand where the joke was, but he saw that he must have said a good thing, and laughed too. “And I hope it will be a good season,” he added, “since it’s the first in your home, and we be all glad, every man and boy on the estate, as you’ve come into your own, and long may you enjoy it.”

It was all very pleasant to John Dallington, who would not soon forget the first Sunday spent in his own place. In the afternoon he walked across the fields where the young corn was springing, and into the woods where bursting buds and merry songs were eloquent of spring. The delight of possession was very keen within him, and it, perhaps, more than anything else, made this sunny Sunday in the country to be for ever a delightful memory with him.

In the evening he did as he had said he would, and attended the service at one of the Darentdale chapels. There, as at the church, he was recognised, and cordially welcomed. There was something in the young man’s appearance that bespoke for him the universal favour of his kind. His eyes were so frank and clear, the smile upon his lips was so cheery and real, the tones of his voice were so hearty, that people trusted him and liked him at once. His presence at the chapel doors excited the liveliest approbation. Was the young squire a Dissenter? If so, then good times were coming for the little “cause” at Darentdale.

“Very glad to see you, sir,” was the welcome given to him by one of the principal men in the place, whose duty it was to conduct strangers to their seats. He had not very much of this work to do, for few strangers came to Darentdale, and fewer still to the chapel; and so he was fain to open the pew doors for the regular attendants, and, with a bow and a smile, fasten them in their own rented domicile of the Sabbath. But now there was a chance to distinguish himself, and the air with which John Dallington was marshalled up the aisle and into the best square pew at the top was exceedingly impressive.

John looked about him for a moment with a little curiosity. He had never been into the place before, and he was surprised to see the numbers crowding the body of the chapel and pressing forward in the gallery. The fact of their presence was in itself sufficient to cause him to feel respect for the service, for John Dallington had not yet grown to think that he was right and everybody else wrong, and he entertained a profound reverence for anything that could influence numbers of people. He saw a plain-looking building, with uncomfortable pews, each securely buttoned, and each filled with persons. He saw a pulpit, rather more uncomfortable-looking than the pews, which a man with benevolent face and white hair presently entered, and was also shut in. And he saw, immediately under the pulpit, a large pool of water. He did not, as probably many young men would have done, promise himself some fun out of the entertainment. He had too much veneration in his composition for that. He had felt no inclination to laugh at the use made of water in the churches of the Continental cities which he had visited, and it must be confessed that he had seen nothing to sigh over either. It was evident that the people were sincere and attached some significance to the act, and that was enough for him. It was with precisely the same placid toleration that he looked at the baptistery in Darentdale Chapel. And, although he wondered how any one could prefer it to that which he attended in the morning, it was not with a feeling of indifference that the young man regarded the service. His whole being was susceptible to all the influences of that day, and he felt some stirring of heart when the people sang together their hymn of praise. The sermon was not a bad piece of oratory; the speaker knew his subject and handled it courageously, and as it proceeded John began to understand that the pool of water was not an ordinary adjunct to the service, but that he was about to witness the rite peculiar to the Baptist denomination.

His attention was held throughout; but when the minister had descended from the pulpit and was standing by the water, his heart gave a great bound. A girl who had been sitting in one of the pews, and whose face had been hidden from him by other people, quietly went to the side of the pool. “Margaret does look lovely to-night,” whispered some one behind him; and the next moment the girl lifted her eyes, luminous with some mysterious exultation, and they met his own. What happened after that he scarcely knew. As soon as he could he left the place and started across the fields to his home.

“It was no use sending me away,” he said. “The boy’s love is living yet. Margaret, Margaret, have you forgotten? I never shall forget, and you are all the world to me still.”

But he looked and felt much more troubled than glad as he thus uttered his thought.

CHAPTER III.
A SUNDAY IN LONDON.

To be in London at any time is an experience that is worth having; for all good things seem to tend to this wonderful city, which is the very heart of the world! What might of power and influence it possesses! What vivid life of all kinds exists in it! Some people say it is not beautiful as Paris, Brussels, and other cities are; but they are surely mistaken. It has a beauty and a homeliness that is all its own. No parks are more green; no streets are more interesting. To Arthur Knight, as he drove from West to East on his arrival, it seemed to him the fairest, as it was certainly the dearest, of all the world. The trouble that had been put into his mind by Hancourt, though a very personal one, could not absorb his thoughts as he looked upon his fellow-countrymen in the crowded thoroughfares. “If London were Christian, there would be hope of the whole world,” he said; and his was the dream of how many devout souls beside! With his strong heart full of the enthusiasm of youth, he did not for a moment consider the dream to be impossible of realisation. And with the same buoyant hopefulness he thought that something which he had to say would hasten that consummation. He passed by the dwellings of the rich, and, measuring others by himself, he peopled them with young men who were ready to live or die in the true service of their country. He believed that the time had come for the new aristocracy to assert itself—the aristocracy of character and helpfulness—the nobility of the future, whose destiny it is to rule the world with righteousness. “This little island ought to be full of friends,” he said, echoing the thought of one of England’s greatest teachers. But when he reached the East-end the awful contrasts of the metropolis impressed and saddened him.

It was in this part of London that Arthur Knight’s home was. Mr. Knight, senior, had not followed the fashion, and sought out a suburban residence. He preferred to live near his works, and could not bring himself to believe that a railway ride every morning and evening would be a saving of time, or strength, or money. He lived in an old house, surrounded by a moderately large garden, in which, however, few things flourished but shrubs. All around the garden was a high wall, which completely shut the place out of sight; so that, but for the noise, one might have fancied himself miles away from the great city. Not only was the house an ancient one, but the furniture in it was sombre and old-fashioned. It was not a home-like house, for no woman presided over it; only a couple of servants kept it in something like order, and carried out the wishes of the master. A child’s voice was never heard making music in it, and few guests ever entered it. If people wanted to see the owner, they generally sought him at his office, because there they were the most likely to find him; and no one had come to the house by invitation for several years. There were rooms enough in it to accommodate a large family, but Mr. Knight had lived in it, after his son went away, in complete solitude. He had often felt sorry that he had sent the lad from him in anger, and had not more patiently tried to bend the young will to his own; but the anger had died away now, and he had begun to acknowledge that he felt lonely.

It was on Saturday evening that Arthur passed through the well-remembered gateway. His heart beat rapidly as he entered the house, and when he took his father’s hand in his a great wave of tender feeling swept over him. His father was all that he had in the world. Mother, brothers, sister-all were gone, and he had not yet found any one on whom he could set his heart. But he owed everything to his father, and he resolved that it should go hardly with him indeed but that he would prove a loyal and helpful son now that he had at last recalled him. The old man trembled as he met him. He was as much altered as Arthur himself, and he looked as if the years had dealt far less kindly with him than they had with his son. Arthur could see that the meeting was trying his father exceedingly, and during the evening he did his best to keep the conversation on commonplace topics.

But after breakfast the next morning he could feel that something was coming. The church bells were chiming in all directions, and the young man’s heart was drawn towards the quiet and restfulness which he knew might be reached in a few minutes. But his father wanted him, and he thought his duty was with him.

“We may as well have a talk about things, Arthur,” he said. “I suppose you don’t care about going out? I have given up my sittings in Queen-street. I used to do a great deal for the place, as you know; but latterly they had a man whom I could not get on with. He insulted me, and I don’t take an insult twice from the same person. He told me that I did not subscribe enough money, and I was not going to stand such impertinence from anybody. I always thought the Nonconformist places of worship were maintained on the voluntary principle, but I don’t call it voluntary when a man tries to bully you out of your money.”

“No, indeed. I wish the question of money had not to come so much to the front.”

“I have saved the money that religion used to cost me, that is all.”

“Could you not have gone to some other church?” asked Arthur, gravely. He could not answer his father’s chuckle with a laugh.

“Of course I could! There were enough to choose from; but I know they are all alike in one respect—they are all greedy and grasping for money.”

“It seems that nothing can be carried on without it.”

“Then let those who like such things pay for them.”

Arthur was amazed. His father was indeed changed since those old Sundays which he remembered so well, when he had been taken to prayer-meeting, Sunday-school, and service from early morning until late at night. He wondered curiously how many orthodox sermons his father must have heard, and what had been the good of them all to him.

“Trade is bad,” said the old man, after a pause.

“Is it? I am sorry to hear that.”

“I hope it will not give out just yet, because I have not done all upon which I have set my heart. I have had some heavy losses, too, and these are the things that eat into a man’s life. But, still, I have not done badly after all, and I may as well tell you at once.”

Here he stopped, as if he would arouse his son’s curiosity; but Arthur only waited in courteous deference until his father chose to say the next thing. And it was rather long in coming.

“Arthur!”

“Yes, father?”

“I am almost a millionaire!”

“Father!”

“Really and truly, if I am spared a few years longer, and a kind Providence smiles on me still, I should not wonder if you prove to be the heir to a million of money.”

Arthur stared at his father, who had spoken the last words, as indeed they deserved to be spoken, in tones that were as solemn as they were triumphant.

“A million?” he echoed.

“That is between ourselves, of course. Nobody else knows exactly, and most people would scarcely believe me if I were to tell them.” And Mr. Knight leaned back in his chair, and laughed softly.

Arthur did not laugh; and presently his father glanced keenly at him.

“Well, my son, what do you think of that?”

“I think it is an enormous fortune, and that great responsibility attaches to it.”

In fact, his thoughts were so busy that he scarcely knew what to say. It seemed to him that many of his dreams might almost at once become accomplished facts. More than enough money would be his to set in action the beneficent schemes which, night and day, had haunted him during the last two years. And what was there to prevent him from spending his life in his own chosen way? The business indeed? Surely the right thing would be to retire from it altogether. And yet,—would that be right or best? Arthur Knight hungered for people; and here in his father’s employ were several thousands of them. Nay, he would not send all these adrift, since, in a sense, he would inherit them as well as his father’s fortune.

He arose from his seat in excitement, and paced the room, his father, in the meantime, scrutinising him closely.

“Arthur, I wonder if you have much business capacity?” he said, presently. “It is harder than ever now to make money. Competition is so keen and the price of labour is so great that one must be clever to make headway now.”

“But you have made your headway, father.”

“Oh! I have not done nearly all that I want to do. Arthur,” said the old man, suddenly, “if you had your own way, and were perfectly free to choose, what would you like to do?”

“I am going to try to help you.”

“Please to answer my question, sir.”

“A young man has his dreams generally, I suppose. I should like to talk to the people.”

A very impatient grunt met this assertion.

“Do you mean that you would like to be a parson?”

“Not exactly; but don’t you think it would be a good plan if men of means gave themselves to the work of the Church, so that all the money raised could go to beneficent purposes, instead of the people having to consider the minister’s salary? However, I do not feel that I ought to be a minister.”

“A Member of Parliament, Arthur? That you might very well be. There’s a wretched set of muffs in Parliament now. They ought to interfere in some matters more than they do.”

“It is a good thing that the markets of the world are open to us,” said Arthur. “I wish, though, that some of our merchants were a little more patriotic. They are sending out such worthless goods that they are getting a bad name for England.”

“That is not their fault, but the fault of the foreign dealers who are crying out for cheap things, and will always buy at the least price. A man must in self-defence put inferior articles in circulation if people will not give the good price for the good thing.”

“But he might meet the difficulty by taking less profit for himself.”

“Why in the world should he? He has himself to look after. He offers the articles that are asked for at a price which the people are willing to give. What more can be expected of him?”

Arthur resolved to use caution in the disclosure of his thoughts on the subject. For the next hour he kept his father amused with tales of his adventures.

Later, Mr. Knight again brought business forward; and the day of rest was to Arthur a very different one from that for which he longed.

They were still talking together when an unexpected diversion arose.

The gate which formed the only entrance to the grounds of Brent House was always kept locked, and could only be opened from the inside. There was a ring at the bell, and when the boy unlocked it three men immediately stepped inside. While the porter was asking their business, one of them again opened the gate, and a dozen other men pressed in. Mr. Knight and Arthur were endeavouring to discover what it all meant, and they saw that a great crowd was in the street. The frightened porter came breathlessly into the room.

“If you please, sir, here are men who say they are a deputation, and they come on very particular business.”

“Tell them to take their particular business away, then, as fast as they can.”

The boy went out with the message, and soon came again.

“They say they are your workmen, sir, and what they have to say concerns you very much. And they say they are not going until they have had their talk with you.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it? Set the dog on them.”

Arthur rose hastily.

“May I see them, father? They seem respectful and quiet enough. Let me hear what they have to say.”

“No, Arthur; I would rather you keep out of it. Would you let them tell you what they want if you were me?”

“Yes, I certainly would.”

Mr. Knight threw up the window.

“Now, then, you fellows, what is the meaning of this?”

A man who was in the front touched his cap and cleared his throat, and began a short speech.

“Beg pardon sir, but we are come to lay our case before you, man to man. We have been given to understand that the factory in Chislehurst-street belongs to you, though it is carried on in the name of Woolton and Company. We are all employed at that factory; and we are not satisfied with the wages. We want a rise, sir, begging your pardon.”

“And so do we,” said another man, in tones that were far less respectful. “We find that a good many of them works at the back of Stepton belong to you; and it is impossible for a man to keep his family respectable on the wages you give. We’re going to strike and demand better pay, and we have come here to-day to give you notice to that effect.”

“Yes, we have,” began another, but Mr. Knight angrily stopped him.

“If you don’t clear out of this directly I will have you all arrested for trespass,” he said. “And you are very much mistaken if you think this is the way to get what you want. If you have a case, lay it before the man from whose hands you take your money, and approach me through him.”

A scornful laugh broke in here, and several voices said, “A lot of good that would do!”

“But I may as well tell you now you are here,” continued Mr. Knight, “that this is no time to ask for higher wages. Trade is bad, and the manufacturers are not getting the money they ought. If you don’t like to take the wages you can leave them. I could get your places filled to-morrow, and with better men than you. So go about your business. And remember, you are marked men. I shall know your faces again, and you needn’t be surprised if you get notice to quit.”

“Please to understand, sir,” said the first speaker, “that we come as a deputation. Pretty well all your men are at the back of us. And we was to tell you that we would give you a week to consider it. We shall be glad to state our grievances to you, and also to mention the terms we think fair, if you will appoint an interview. Our Union will back us, and we don’t mean to go on in the old way, and so we give you notice.”

Mr. Knight closed his window, and again ordered his servant to set the dog loose; but the men quietly withdrew, pulling the gate to behind them, not, however, before the owner of the house and his son had another glimpse of the waiting crowd outside.

Mr. Knight was in a rage. “What do you think of that for a piece of impertinence?” he asked.

“How much can the men earn, father?”

“Oh, different sums. Nobody has less than fifteen shillings a week.”

“I should hope not. That is very little for a man who has a family.”

“Well, the family is no business of mine. I don’t employ more men than I can help. I like women and boys better. A woman is well off if she gets ten shillings a week, and she does as much work as a man will do for a pound.”

“Have you ever thought what a fair and right thing it would be to give your workpeople a share in your profits? You know that both individuals and companies have tried the plan, and found it answer. A man who has a stake in the concern will be more likely to do his best, and to work economically and diligently, than one who has no share in it.”

“What nonsense, Arthur! They do have a share in the profits when they get their wages, don’t they?”

It was inevitable that Arthur, being a young man, should look at things differently from the old one—young men always do. But he was sensible enough to be held in check by the reflection that his father had—what he certainly had not—experience. This made him resolve to be careful of his words, and only to speak when an opportunity had been given him to prove things. He knew, however, that sooner or later he would have to tell his father what his own views were, which he would certainly put into force if he had the opportunity, because he thought it quite possible that when his father was informed he would take care that his business should be put in other hands. Arthur believed that wealth, whether inherited or won, was a trust to be used for others.

“It seems to me,” he said, “that their share is often not a fair one. For instance, if I have invented an article which meets the needs or tastes of my customers, I have the right to what of financial good it brings if I can make the article with my own hands; but if I have to employ other hands they ought to have a much larger share than usually they do. And if I am getting rich, I ought not to lay more and more by, unless I give those who help me to get rich more and more. The fact is, father, that a Christian man may not do what others may. He cannot be selfish, and keep all the good things that come in his way; he must help others, and try to find his joy in that. You know money is no real good to a man. He can only eat as much, and drink as much, and wear as many clothes as others. But if he scatter his wealth, and make a hundred or a thousand families better off because he is rich, that seems to me splendid, and the lot of that man must be the best in the world.”

Arthur glanced at his father as he finished. His words had a curious effect upon the old man. He was bitterly disappointed, and yet, as he listened to his son, he was conscious of a feeling that was more like pride and gratification than anger.

“So those are your views, are they?” he said. “I am very glad you have told me what I have to expect. But I am not going to quarrel with you to-day. I will think what is the next best thing to do. Would you not like a walk? I am going to be busy for an hour or two.”

Arthur gladly went forth to mingle for a little in the life of the metropolis. It was not much like Sunday down in the East-end of the great city, where the stalls were in the streets, and the shops were open, and there was a great tumult among the people who were buying and selling, arguing and quarrelling, and, above all, drinking and smoking. Places of worship enough there were to contain them all, but few appeared to recognise the Father’s house, or to care to enter it. The noise of London seemed to surge round the churches and chapels, which are like harbours of refuge in the stormy sea—only, most of the people preferred to be out on the waters rather than within the calm. Centres of influence and helpful service were these, every one of them. If the ministers and the members did not work together with those of other churches, they had each their own set of workers, all honestly endeavouring to meet, in the way they thought best, the needs of the neighbourhood. Many stories of heroism and self-denial could be told of those who were consecrating their life to this East-end work, and labouring on, through good report and evil report, often with scant success to encourage them. A few of the people were lifted up and out of the mass of wickedness; but so few that they seemed to make little difference, for the streets were as terrible as ever. Still bad language shocked the ears of those who did not live amongst it; still drunkenness and cruelty appeared to flourish more than anything beside. And on this day the men and women who talked together in angry voices in some of the most densely-populated places were more fierce than usual because one of their favourite public-houses had lately been closed. Arthur Knight was shocked and pained with what he saw and heard, but he was not rendered hopeless and despairing. “They ought never to have been suffered to get into this state,” he thought. “Nearly all these men and women were once in the Sunday-school. How is it that they were let to slip away from those who were their best friends? But the hope of the future is with the young. The present generation of the young must be secured somehow.” And as he half-uttered aloud these words he passed a large hall filled with boys and girls listening delightedly to a man whom he half-envied, such power had his eloquence over them. Then he thought of the latest developments of Christian endeavour, and his heart leaped with joy as he remembered that he could now become associated in these and other services to humanity, so well and wisely rendered in modern times; and it was with a happy assurance that he went home, for the words that were upon his lips was a prophecy in process of fulfilment: “The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.”

CHAPTER IV.
COUSIN TOM.

“Mother, how is Cousin Tom?”

John Dallington had been enjoying a ride over his farm before breakfast, and had returned, as he said, with an enormous appetite. The morning was delightful, and the sweet scent of the early spring flowers came in at the open window as he spoke. Mrs. Hunter assumed a listening attitude, and then replied, “If I am not mistaken, Tom is coming to answer for herself.”

The next moment John was at the door, and in time to assist his cousin to alight from her horse; but she was by his side before he could quite reach her. This lady with the incongruous name, “Tom Whitwell,” was the youngest daughter of Henry Whitwell, Esq., of Hornby Hall, the father of eleven daughters and no son. Mr. Whitwell had waited very anxiously for the son who did not come; and when the eleventh daughter was announced, he declared that he did not wish to look at her. But meeting the disappointed gaze of his wife he relented.

“Never mind, wife,” he said, “we will make the best of the bad bargain. This last comer shall have a boy’s name, and a boy’s education, and, as far as possible, a boy’s portion. She shall be called Tom, after my father.”

Mrs. Whitwell suggested a compromise, and the baby was eventually named Thomasine Grace Whitwell. But she had always been called Tom, and to please her father she had endeavoured to live up to her name. She early learned to ride and row and play cricket. Her brown hair was cut short and parted on one side, and she wore the most gentlemanly hats, jackets, collars, boots, and gloves that could be bought. She cultivated the lower notes of her voice, and when asked to sing professed herself “only able to do bass.” She was fond of mathematics and science, and considered herself a very logical reasoner. She was a doughty defender of women, but a merciless critic of their weaknesses. She tried to look at things from a man’s standpoint, and laughed at the pleasures and pursuits of her own sex. But she did not do this when one of her friends, Margaret Miller, was near, for Margaret had a way of smiling quietly, and saying, “There is no more womanly woman living, really, at heart, you know, than little Tom Whitwell.”

John Dallington thought that she looked as fresh as the morning; her clear grey eyes were bright with pleasure; and as she glanced into her cousin’s face her cheeks glowed, and she was a vision of health and happiness that quite delighted him. Tom had always been a favourite with John, and he was unfeignedly glad to see her now.

“You have really got back, John! And how well you look!”

“So do you, Tom; and not a day older than when I went away.”

“Oh, thank you! You have grown polite, I find. I cannot return the compliment, for you look about ten years older.”

“Do I indeed? I am glad of that. I want to be old, to inspire you all with respect. Will you have some breakfast, Tom?”

“If I do, it will be the third this morning. The air makes one hungry. How do you like England, John?”

“I like it very much. I have been long enough away to make me think the old country charming.”

“‘No place like home,’ and all that sort of thing, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes! And ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ and all that sort of thing. You look splendid, Tom; and I do believe you have grown. Would not you like to see the places I have seen?”

“I would, indeed. You have been everywhere, haven’t you? And I have been staying in England all the time. It is well to be you, John.”

“That is precisely my opinion. But I have seen nothing more beautiful than the view from this window.”

“Really?”

“And truly. Of course I have seen many places a thousand times more magnificent, but none more lovely and picturesque. The world altogether is very beautiful, Tom. You come upon proofs of it in unexpected places. There are countries that everybody visits for the sake of their mountains or their rivers, or some special features of interest; but those less known are not the least lovely, and I have frequently enjoyed most when I have expected nothing.”

“It is not a very happy world, though, John.”

“I think it is! What has given you that idea?”

“Oh, everything! I have seen two persons this morning, one a woman and one a child, both poor and both suffering. And the doctors are of no use. John, do you know I mean to be a doctor myself?”

“Indeed?” laughed John. “Well, it may be desirable. The human race is increasing at too rapid a rate. Some parts of England are inconveniently crowded, and even the colonies are getting overstocked; so that anything which helps to thin the population will not be an unmixed evil. Taking all things into consideration, I do not know a less objectionable method of augmenting the death-rate than appointing a considerable number of lady-doctors. And there is no reason in the world why you should not be one of them.”

“You know nothing about the matter, or you would not talk so flippantly. When are you coming to Hornby? Father would like to see you soon, and so would my sisters.”

“Perhaps I can ride back with you. You will not return yet, I suppose?”

Before Tom could answer a dog-cart drove up to the door, and the faces of both ladies flushed and looked confused.

“Whom have we here?” asked John with interest.

“That is my stepson,” replied his mother shortly.

The visitor entered, and was introduced as Mr. William Hunter. John Dallington was kindly disposed, but he did not like his mother’s stepson, who came in with a very free-and-easy air, only removing a big cigar from his mouth to enable him to speak.

“How do, Dallington? Congratulate you, I’m sure. Good morning, mother. How are you, Miss Whitwell? Feel myself fortunate in meeting you.”

The new-comer threw himself into a chair and continued to smoke his cigar. This irritated Dallington, who was not a smoker, and disliked the habit in others. The coolness of the man who could behave so rudely in the presence of ladies annoyed him. “Do you dislike the smoke?” he asked of his cousin.

Mr. Hunter laughed. “Miss Whitwell is probably herself a smoker,” he said. “She is too sensible a lady to set herself against smoking, for that would be to set men against her.”

Tom flushed violently. “It is scarcely worth while to contradict you,” she said.

Mrs. Hunter interposed with some remarks upon the weather; she was extremely anxious that the two young men should be friends, but she had some misgivings, for she could not but know that her son and son-in-law were of very opposite natures, and that their tastes, therefore, were not likely to be the same. John Dallington, however, was too much interested in his cousin to give a second thought to William Hunter. “Will you come into the garden, Tom?” he said. “I have forgotten the names of some of the English flowers, and you must remind me of them.”

“I do so dislike that man,” she said, as soon as they were on the outside of the house. “He is a most unpleasant person, and not good either. Do not have much to do with him, John; and you must remember that you are master, and assert yourself accordingly.”

“I hope he will behave himself.”

“I do not think he knows how.”

“We must give him a few lessons. But never mind him now, Tom. Tell me about yourself and everybody. What have you been doing all this long time? Have you got yourself engaged yet?”

“Not I, indeed. There has been far too much to do. I have been making myself a practical farmer, and I am great on lands and soils and crops; so if you are at a loss, consult your cousin.”

“Thank you; I will with pleasure, for I am sure that I have very much to learn.”

“And I am sure that farming was never so difficult as now. Father often looks worried, though he keeps wonderfully well, on the whole.”

“I am glad of that. I want to see him. I shall have plenty to do, I find. I have actually already had an invitation to a wedding.”

“Mary Wythburn’s, I suppose? You must accept it, John. I am to be one of the bridesmaids, and many of your old friends will be there.”

“Give me a few names. First, the bridegroom: who is he?”

“Alfred Greenholme is the bridegroom, Dr. Stapleton the groomsman, and the vicar, Mr. Sherborne, will also be present as a friend. The other bridesmaids are Hilda Copeland and Margaret Miller.”

Tom glanced at her cousin as she uttered the last name, and saw that his countenance brightened.

“How is Miss Miller, Tom? Are you as good friends as ever?”

“Yes, we are good friends, and Margaret is very well. Which are the flowers whose names you have forgotten?”

“I am afraid we have passed them. Let us go back and look for them. I hope Alfred Greenholme is not as a man what he was as a boy, or Miss Wythburn is little to be congratulated.”

“She does not congratulate herself. In fact, I know that she is wretched. There is nothing very tangible against Mr. Greenholme. He is a lazy, self-pleasing, good-natured man; but girls of these days—some of them, at all events—want more than that. Mary Wythburn is a very clever girl, and far-seeing, too. She denounces such people as Mr. Greenholme. Like Mrs. Booth, she gets into a furious mood when she sees hosts of poor wretches starving, because they cannot get remunerative work to do, while men and women in good circumstances—professing Christianity, too—seem to have not a thought in life excepting that which touches their own pleasure. She thinks that if we are real Christians we cannot, and ought not, to be happy while so many are miserable, and I agree with her.”

“I often think the same. But she ought not to marry Greenholme if she feels like that. And the invitations are out?”

“Yes; so I suppose the wedding will take place. But I shall not quite believe it until I see her married. John, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of the best people in England who are absolutely weary of things as they are; and they are growing determined to change them, too. You have come home in time to help. We only want one or two men of genius and grace to show us the way. I believe the way is not through the giving of alms, for the money given to the poor every winter is enormous—besides special magnificent gifts for special purposes—and yet things are little better for it all.”

“Tom, have you been surreptitiously in correspondence with my old comrade, Arthur Knight?”

“Who and what is Arthur Knight? He has a good name.”

“Has he not? And he is a true knight, too—a splendid fellow, and great on this subject. He says things need not be another year as they are; and declares that it only requires a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull altogether to accomplish such a revolution as shall crown England with truer glory than she has ever known before.”

“I expect it is a revolution that we want. There has been a great deal of pottering, but the right thing has yet to be done. John, I must be going. Will you order my horse?”

“Yes, and ride with you. It will be like old times.”

They had a delightful ride, and almost forgot that they were not boy and girl together. They went the longest way round, and yet reached their destination sooner than they wished.

Hornby Hall was an old-fashioned manor house—large, substantial, and comfortable—standing in its own grounds, and itself covering considerable space. It was built in the Gothic style, and had any number of large, low rooms, with thick walls, and ample chimney-corners and enticing window seats.

The master, “a fine old English gentleman,” came forward to greet his nephew with much cordiality, and John Dallington felt proud of his uncle, as well he might, for he was an upright man, who could not do a mean thing, stately in form and spotless in character, a magistrate, a member of the County Council, a man whose name was respected through the whole province, whose keen grey eyes seemed to see everything, whose courteous bearing delighted everybody, who was beloved and honoured by the poor and admired and trusted by the rich; a man without reproach, whose glory was not in what he had, but in what he was. It was a privilege to be related to him, as Dallington felt.

“Welcome home, my boy,” he said, kindly. “I am glad you have come into your own, and that we shall see something of you again. I wish you health and happiness for your new life. Come in, and be made much of by your aunt and cousins; they are not all such forward things as Tom, but they will be just as glad to see you.”

And indeed they appeared to be, and seemed bent on spoiling the returned wanderer, who might have been a veritable prodigal son, so eager were they to lavish the best of everything upon him.

John spent some very pleasant hours that day at Hornby Hall, hearing the news and telling stories of his own experiences. His cousins were merry girls, quick at repartee, and full of good-humoured fun. Some of them were married, but there were quite enough of them at home to fill the old house with pleasant sights and sounds.

In the afternoon Mr. Whitwell took his nephew over the farm and showed him the improvements he had made during his absence. “You must see my model cottages, John,” he said. “The old places were falling into dis-repair, and were not very comfortable to live in; but you will be pleased with these, I think.”

“These are scarcely like the old style of agricultural cottages.”

“No; are they? But the old style of thing will not do in these days. You see they have large gardens. I am not a Radical, you know, John, but a steady-going Conservative; and that is how it is that I have come to see what a shame it is for a man to work on a farm, and have spacious fields and meadows all around him, and yet not have a patch of ground large enough to grow a bed of cabbages or a few potatoes to call his own. Monstrous, when you come to think of it!”

“Yes, so it is,” assented Dallington; “but I should not have thought that such ideas on your part were the outcome of Conservatism.”

“Would you not? I am happy to say that most of the old Tories of my acquaintance have come to have the same opinion as I.”

“I am glad to hear it. I shall have to do something to my own cottages, I expect. Why, you have actually planted these gardens with fruit trees.”

“Oh, yes! It does not do to expect too much from my tenants. If they take care of the trees, and train them and eat the fruit, it is as much as one has a right to look for.”

“They are very pretty cottages.”

“I am glad you like them. And they are convenient. They have rooms enough, and they are not too small. At one time a man was satisfied with a four-roomed cottage, no matter how many sons and daughters he had; but all that has passed away before a better education, thank God!”

“The gardens look well kept.”

“They are; and they provide vegetables enough to last the whole year. The people are all right, you know, if they have fruit and vegetables, corn and milk.”

“Have you raised the rents?”

“No; nor yet the wages. The men are quite alive to the value of the house and garden. But come and look at the crops.”

The estate was, as John knew, strictly entailed. At Mr. Whitwell’s death it would pass away from his family of girls to the next heir, who was his brother’s son. But all the same for that, indeed, partly because of it, the squire of Hornby was scrupulously anxious to do the very best he could for the property. The farm buildings were either new or kept in perfect repair. He was careful not to impoverish any of the land, but by all the means which modern science had made possible he nursed it for the heir as carefully as if he had been his son. The said heir was a young man of whom his uncle did not approve, and, vain as it was, he could not keep the wish from his mind that, since he had no sons of his own, John Dallington had been the next in succession.

It was late in the day when John left to go home, accompanied part of the way by three of his cousins. Tom did not go, but she stood at the window watching until they were out of sight. Then her father called her into the library, where the two were often together hard at work for many hours.

“It is too late for those accounts, Tom, I’m afraid.”

“I think it is, father. They can wait until to-morrow, cannot they?”

“Oh, yes! Very well. John has become a fine young fellow, hasn’t he?”

“Yes; I think he is very much improved. I wonder if he has seen his lawyer?”

“Ah, poor fellow! No; he has not seen him yet. If he had he would not be as light-hearted as he is. I think his father did not treat him quite fairly. The lad ought to have been told how things were. And then it was too hard for Dallington to leave so much power in his wife’s hands. She has made things a good deal worse for John. He will find it as much as he can do to hold his own.”

“I suppose he can sell part of his land?”

“Yes, if he can get anybody to buy it. But land does not now fetch the price it ought, and farming is not what it used to be.”

Tom was silent for some minutes, and her face became first red and then pale.

She wanted to say something to her father. Generally she thought aloud in his presence, such good friends were they; but she needed more courage than she had now.

At last she rose and stood beside him, putting her hand on his shoulder, and turning her face so that he could not see it.

“Father,” she said, trying to steady her voice and speak in her ordinary tones, “do you remember promising me that I should have that mortgage, or whatever it is, for my portion?”

“Of course I do.”

“May I have the papers and keep them in my possession now?”

“Why, what do you want them for, Tom? What possible good could they do you?”

“No good at all, only I should like them.”

Mr. Whitwell hesitated.

“Do you think you are quite capable of taking care of them? They are worth three thousand pounds, you know.”

“Yes; I do not forget their value. You are not afraid to trust me, father, are you?”

“I trust you with everything, Tom, as you know.”

But Mr. Whitwell said no more; and Tom waited.

Presently she sighed, and pressed her lips to her father’s cheek. “Never mind,” she said, “if you would rather not. I am sure you know best what is right and wise.”

Mr. Whitwell arose, unlocked a safe, and took from it a parchment.

“Here it is,” he said. “Take care of it, and I think it will be prudent of you to give it back into my charge when you have looked it through.”

Tom took the paper without a word, and her father did not notice how pale she was. She kissed him, and, going swiftly to her own room, locked the parchment in a drawer.

But that night she took it out and read it through, every word. Then a strange expression came over her face, and she folded up the parchment, muttering, “If only I dared! If only I dared!” and held it above the flame of the candle, so near that it began to be scorched. And then she opened it, and spread it on the bed, and fell on her knees to pray, but burst instead into a flood of tears.

CHAPTER V.
THE DUTY THAT IS NEAREST.

Arthur Knight scarcely knew whether pleasure or pain predominated in his mind during the first days which he spent at home. London interested him intensely. The vivid life, the untiring resolution, the concentrated energy of the people amazed and delighted him. And when he saw all that was being done to further the cause of righteousness, he was as proud of his country as an Englishman ought to be. But that which had presented itself to his mind as the blot upon the picture, when he contemplated it from a distance, filled him with as much wonder and sadness when he was on the spot. Since his people could do so much, why did they not do more? They had conquered so many worlds; why did they not conquer their own? Were they as great as they used to be? Were they not rather afraid of being great? What was it that dominated most of the individuals that made up a London crowd? It needed very little discernment to discover that the one great desire of the people was to get on—not to get up, or to rise higher in intelligence or character, but to be able to pay a pound or two more of rent, and a longer bill at the tailor’s, or grocer’s, or milliner’s. Certainly there was nothing great, but everything that was infinitesimally little, in such an ambition as that! But he knew—a traveller in all lands must always know—that simple living brings as much happiness as luxurious fare, and he believed that if the spell could be broken, and the people who were so eager to get on that they had not time to think of other things could once get the fashion changed, they would rise to their own capabilities, and, completely changing their standpoint, would become really great in character and achievement. And he believed that the time for this was coming.

The first ten days of Arthur’s return were very memorable ones.

One of the incidents that ever afterward remained in his memory was that of his first attempt to speak to English people of that which was in his heart. He was passing down the City-road when he noticed that men were rapidly entering the historical Wesley Chapel. He went into the building, and found that a Conference of Christian men had been called to consider whether means could not be taken beforehand to prevent the misery which every recurring winter brought to the East-end of London. It was felt by the conveners of the meeting that it would be a wise step to prepare for the inevitable, and that the appalling distress might be to a great extent prevented if good arrangements were made in time.

Arthur Knight knew that the Wesleyans had been moving forward for a considerable period. He knew, too, that the last few years had seen the Salvation Army and other organisations making extraordinary endeavours to stem the tide of misery and sin, and that, indeed, every department of the Christian Church was working for this end, with much personal effort, and by means of enormous sums of money both specially and annually contributed. But the disappointing thing was that so little difference seemed to have been made by it all. The world of London was scarcely better. Still men cursed God and died. Still there were cases of death from starvation and cold; even in the last winter thousands of men were unemployed, while drunkenness, cruelty and sin seemed as strong as ever.

The speakers at the meeting referred to this in tones of disappointment and sorrow. They could not but thank God for what had been done; but they felt that the work was piecemeal and inefficient. A paper was read suggesting some new methods of raising money, and indicating some fresh methods of service, and then the meeting was thrown open, and any one who had anything to say which could be said in five minutes was invited to say it.

This was Arthur Knight’s opportunity. He waited until several persons had spoken, and then he sent up his name, and made his five minutes’ speech.

“Much that we wish for could be accomplished in a single year, in one way,” he said. “Christian brothers, let us be heroic for Christ’s sake! Let us join our forces and work together. We have our differences and divisions, and these are the things that weaken us. How long shall we ourselves hinder the fulfilment of our Lord’s prayer, ‘That they all may be one, that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.’ If we were to lift up the white flag of truce and fight under it, every Christian man, shoulder to shoulder, the battle of peace and righteousness could be won. These things that you deplore need not exist another year. England is so small, and, therefore, so manageable. It is mapped out into parishes and into Parliamentary divisions. You have no difficulty in getting into contact with every man when you want his vote. Your School Board officers know the number and age of every child in the kingdom. It will be easy, therefore, for a committee of church members to ascertain the circumstances of every individual around the centre of a church or chapel. Gentlemen, nearly two-thirds of the entire population of England are members of some Christian church; the money, the intelligence, the influence, the character, the ability of the nation are mostly among these two-thirds. What of the other third? Do you believe that we are powerless to deal with it—two to one, and more? Why, we are strong enough to see that every man has work to do, and every man does it, that the idle shall be forced to labour, that the inefficient shall be taught, that the sick shall be nursed and the children fed, that our ships shall be laden with good things only, that our people shall not be drunken, that another language than that of swearing and blasphemy shall be heard in our streets, that cruelty and vice shall hide their heads. Sirs, we are the masters in England; why, then, do we allow the things which shame us to exist? Only because we are craven and selfish, and small when we ought to be great; only because we care more for our denominations, and our party, and our own personal ease than for Christ and righteousness. Shall we change all this? You are able. Are you willing and ready? Will you, sons of Wesley, who occupy the middle position between the Church of England and Nonconformity, lead the way?”

Cries of “Yes, yes!” greeted this appeal, and when Knight sat down many rose to their feet to echo his words. Later they called for him to speak again; but it was found that he had left, and he did not know till afterwards what was the result of his first speech.

His heart was beating rapidly as he went forth into the London streets. He had only uttered a part of his convictions, but he was thankful to have had the opportunity to do that. He crossed over, and stood for a few minutes among the graves of Bunhill Fields, and saw the names of the brave men who had done the work which God gave them to do; and he vowed that he would lose no chance of using his voice, whenever and wherever he could, for he longed to see the Church united in the work which was so evidently waiting to be done.

But he had much to engross him in his own and his father’s affairs. He spent some hours of every day in the office, endeavouring to grasp the real state of things there, and finding much to make him sad. His father was very disinclined to give way to the men; and one of those much-to-be-regretted labour disputes seemed inevitable. The men appeared to have very little power, really, to secure that which they wanted. Crowds of unemployed were always ready to step into vacant places. For one situation there would be fifty applicants, and this made it possible for masters to be to some extent independent of the men, notwithstanding the trades unions. And there had arisen an antiunionist association composed of men who helped each other and fought for each other, and who were now numerically strong enough to resist the trades union men who in a strike tried to keep them out of wharves, docks, and factories. Mr. Knight, finding that women and boys could do his work as well as men, and for less wages, had in his employ many thousands of these, and this was a grievance of which the men bitterly complained. It happened in an enormous number of cases that men were idling about, and drinking, while their wives were employed at factories, in consequence of which the homes were wretched, and the children sorely neglected. There were, indeed, a hundred wrongs that called for reform, and a crying need of some one with a clear head and a kindly Christian heart to put matters straight.

Arthur Knight knew from the first day that he spent in his father’s office that under existing conditions it was no place for him. He would not, he simply could not, for the sake of all the wealth of the world, so do violence to his conscience, and slay all that was best in him, as to continue to sell goods that were next to worthless, and keep thousands of families on the verge of starvation, while he was getting richer every year. So much he settled with himself once for all, although he equally resolved to have no rupture with his father.

He was troubled at the signs of seething discontent and unrest which were visible; and he succeeded in winning a promise from his father that he would consider one or two suggestions that he made. He had mentioned Hancourt, and although Mr. Knight would not promise to reinstate him, he commissioned his son to visit him for the purpose of discovering whether he would return if an offer were made him, and, accordingly, on Saturday afternoon, Arthur made his way to Hancourt’s residence. He was not at home, but as his wife expected him shortly, he waited.

Mrs. Hancourt was a good-looking woman, with a pleasant face, and with lady-like manners. The home was the picture of neatness and comfort, and it was evident that its mistress was a person of refined tastes and habits. The arrangements of the house were artistic even, and there was a warmth and homeliness about them which were to Arthur very attractive. And Mrs. Hancourt could talk well. She had read books, and thought about them. She had ideas of her own, and a happy way of expressing them. She was a good listener, too, and anxious to learn; and a very delightful half-hour was passed by Arthur, who felt as if he had found a little haven of refuge after a sea of trouble. Mrs. Hancourt had two beautiful children—the one, a boy between seven and eight; the other, a girl between five and six. A lovely picture they made, standing together and looking through their blue eyes into Arthur’s face with the frank fearlessness which characterises English children. They came very demurely to shake hands with Arthur, and the little girl, whom they called Sissie, lifted her pretty face to be kissed, and was perfectly willing to sit upon his knee, and to be told about little girls whose faces were black. But after a time, when the conversation became uninteresting, she said, “I like you, Mr. Arthur—you are a nice man; but I like my brother best. Please set me down.” And the children were soon happily at play together by the window. After a time Mrs. Hancourt was called away, and Arthur took a book, and appeared to be engrossed by it. In reality, he was being greatly entertained by the little ones.

“Now, Sissie, you are a prisoner, you know; the giant has locked you up, but I am a knight coming to deliver you. Look at me through the back of the chair—that is a strong iron gate, a fortress. I shall climb over the bars of the gate, and mount the tower, and pick you up, and carry you off, and make you my wife.”

“And then shall I crown you with flowers?”

“Oh, yes, of course! Knights are always crowned with flowers.”

“Are they the crowns they wear in heaven, Geoff? Jane told me we should all be crowned in heaven.”

“I don’t think they are flowers—they are gold crowns they have there.”

“Are the gold crowns heavy?”

“I suppose so; gold is the heaviest metal, I know, for I learnt that in my lesson book.”

“Oh, then, how their heads must ache! But perhaps they haven’t any heads in heaven.”

“Sissie, how foolish! Of course they have heads, or how could they be crowned?”

The girl was silent a little after that, but presently she said, musingly, “I’m so afraid I shall forget—and I don’t want to forget—but I can’t quite remember what heaven was like.”

“Sissie, what do you mean? Why, you never were in heaven!”

“Oh, yes, Geoff! I was in heaven before I came here.”

“What nonsense! I’m sure you have never been in heaven, at all.”

“Haven’t I? Then where was I?”

Geoff was thoughtful for a few minutes, and then he said, “I think it was like this: God thought He would like to have a little Sissie, so He said, ‘Let there be Sissie!’ and there was Sissie.”

“Yes; I suppose that was it. Geoffrey, say a little bit of the ‘Fairy Queen.’”

Geoff repeated a few lines which he had been taught, but his sister interrupted him.

“Geoff, where is the Fairy Queen now?”

“In heaven, I expect,” was the answer.

“How long has she been there?”

“Most all the time, I should think. You know, Sissie, our Lord was in the grave three days; but common people like the Fairy Queen have to stay longer—I should think about a fortnight or three weeks.”

Here the conversation abruptly terminated, for Arthur Knight burst into a laugh so loud and startling that the children were quite disconcerted.

“I am so sorry, but I really could not help it,” he said. And then the door opened, and Mr. Hancourt entered, looking very pale and anxious.

“Oh, Mr. Arthur,” he said, “I am sorry to see you here. I hoped you were at home. I am afraid there will be a riot this evening. The men who are disappointed are swearing that they will seek your father and compel him to listen to them. Indeed, they are talking very foolishly and wildly about revenge, and all that sort of thing.”

“Your money or your life, I suppose?”

“Exactly. It is a great pity that Mr. Knight lives so near the works. Most people reside a long way from their places of business, somewhere in the country, where their men cannot find them; but Mr. Knight has not chosen to do this, and as the men know where to find him they are going to march to his house. And they talk about having a band, and I am afraid they have a great many sympathisers and friends.”

“I came to ask you if you could give me any advice, or say what can be done.”

“I am afraid it is too late to do anything.”

“In any case I must hasten home and stand by my father. Will you come with me?”

As soon as a cab could be procured they drove away, telling the driver to make all possible speed.

But the crowd reached Brent House before them, and it was a more ugly crowd than that of the week before. As Hancourt and Arthur entered the gate, Mr. Knight showed himself at the window, and this was a signal for all sorts of cries and execrations.

“Give us our rights!” “Hypocrite!” “Robber!” “Tyrant!” “Live and let live, can’t you?” “Do as you’d be done by, or it will be the worse for you!” “What did you turn Hancourt away for?” “And Hamilton?” “And Allen?” “Better men than you are!” These and worse things were shouted by the crowd, which presented a very threatening aspect.

“Come into the house,” said Arthur to Hancourt. “We can get in by the side door.”

“No; I will not come in. I will be among the men, and see if they will hear reason, while you go to your father.”

Arthur found Mr. Knight greatly excited.

“I wanted you to go for the police,” he said. “But I have sent for them, and they will be here soon. The wretches! I did not expect them to-day. I meant to have had the place guarded to-morrow, but they have stolen a march upon me. And yet I cannot think how they got in. Those stupid servants must have undone the gate for them. What a horrible noise they are making! But they are only bringing worse things upon themselves.”

“Father,” said Arthur, “it is a pity to have all this fuss if we can help it. You are going to let me have a voice in the business, are you not? And I will tell them so, and that there will be two of us to consider their claims and grievances.”

Before Mr. Knight could answer he threw open the window, and his clear voice rang through the crowd. “Men,” he said, “I want you to give us a little time——” A stone was thrown at him, which struck his head and knocked him down.

It was not the first time that a messenger of peace had been misunderstood and ill-treated. Arthur thought at the moment of other peacemakers, and he kept his temper.

He rose to his feet, and, with the blood streaming from his head, he again faced the people. “The man who threw that stone does not know me,” he said, “or he would not have thrown it. I am Arthur Knight——”

“Oh, yes! the man who threw the stone knew that,” shouted a voice.

“I am going to help my father in his business, and I promise you that I will try to see that justice is done, both to him and to you. If your grievances are real they shall be removed, as far as I am able to arrange things; and if your claims are reasonable and just they shall be met—if possible. I cannot tell how far you are right. I know you are not at all right in coming here to make a commotion, and calling names and throwing stones—all this is unmanly and unworthy of you—but you may think that you have some excuse, and I will hear all you have to say about it if you choose three men, and let them meet me on Monday evening at eight o’clock in the office. Will you?”

“Yes, sir!” The words came in a great shout. The effect of Arthur’s little speech had been marvellous. Where was its power? In the words or in the man? These questions were to be often asked in the future.

“And what are we to do on Monday morning?” some one asked.

“What are you to do? Why, go to work, to be sure, if you want your wages. Don’t strike, don’t lose time. You cannot afford that as well as we can, you know. Be in your places on Monday morning, and do your best for us, and I promise you that I will do my best for you.”

How was it that they all believed him? They certainly did. There was not a man who doubted.

“Three cheers for the young governor!” said one, and a hearty hurrah was raised.

“Thank you,” said Arthur, when the noise ceased, “I shall be glad now to see how much or how little I am hurt.”

“Sorry you are hurt at all, sir,” said one. “Now then, mates, clear out! The youngster looks faintish like.”

They vanished speedily, and then as Arthur turned from the window he wondered where his father was, and what he would say to him. He was not in the room, but Hancourt was there, holding by the collar a pale, unkempt youth, who looked considerably crestfallen and frightened.

“This is the fellow who threw a stone at you, Mr. Arthur. His name is Jones. As there was no policeman near I arrested him myself. I suppose now that there is little need of their services the police will soon be coming, and I will keep this fellow until I can give him into custody.”

“Bring him into my room, and turn the key upon us both.”

Tea had been set on the table, some cold chicken, pie, cake, and toast.

“Come and have some,” said Arthur to his prisoner. “You look hungry, and it is tea-time.”

The lad could not keep his eyes from wandering to that well-spread table. He was hungry, certainly, for he had scarcely tasted food that day; but he did not think he was so far gone as to eat the food of the man whom he had struck with a stone.

“Now then,” said Arthur, “why don’t you begin? You know it will be some time before they give you anything to eat at the police-station. You had better get a meal while you have the chance.” As he spoke he was tying a handkerchief around his head.

“I wish that stone hadn’t hit you,” said the youth.

“Oh, yes! I am sure you do, because it was a cowardly thing to throw it, and no man likes to be a coward. I will cut you some chicken.”

A well-filled plate was put before the young man, who really could not resist it; and if he could have got rid of the lump in his throat he would have greatly enjoyed it, for such bread, such ham, and such chicken he had never tasted before.

“Will you have a glass of milk?” said Arthur, pouring it out. “I am not going to give you into custody, though a whole army of police should come to take you, because, as you say, you did not mean to hurt me.”

“Thank you, kindly, sir, I’m sure.”

Arthur Knight let the young man go on with his meal in comfort, and then he began to question him.

“Now, which workshop are you in?”

“I ain’t in no workshop at all, sir.”

“What do you do then?”

“Oh! I do odd jobs, and earn a sixpence here and there.”

“I suppose you work for my father?”

“What say, sir?”

“You work for Mr. Knight, don’t you?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what in the world are you here for if the quarrel is none of yours?”

“I seed the men coming, and as there was a row on I thought I’d come too.”

“Ah! there are plenty of lads about like you, I suppose? I have heard of you. Such as you do most of the mischief that is done, don’t you?”

“That’s about it, sir,” said the lad, grinning as if he thought it was a very fine thing, though that expression changed to one of shame when Arthur looked at him steadily.

“There is not much gain to be got out of such a life as that, you know,” said Arthur, gravely. “It is not anything to be proud of really, is it? I think it is a pity for a strong, likely lad such as you are to take up with that sort of thing. I wouldn’t if I were you. I call it a waste of good power, because you are sharp enough to make your way in the world if you will only set about it in the right fashion.”

“I ain’t got nobody to show me the way, nor I ain’t got nobody to help me.”

“Oh, yes, you have! You’ve got me, and I shall be very glad to help you. I will find some work for you, and if you don’t know how to do it, you shall be taught, and put in the way of earning an honest living. Will you do your best?”

The lad hesitated. He really felt that he was giving up a great deal. The prospect which Arthur held out was not very alluring. He and his companions considered that “earning an honest living” was far too slow a thing for them. But somewhere under his ragged waistcoat the lad had a heart, and Arthur had found his way to it, as to so many more of the same kind.

“Yes, I will, sir!”—the words were spoken quite solemnly—“I will, indeed, sir, to make up for hurting of ye.”

“Very good! Shake hands upon it.”

The steady tramp of the policemen’s feet was heard in the grounds, and Arthur opened the door. Hancourt came forward.

“Where is the boy?” he asked.

“Oh, the boy is all right! I am not going to give him into custody; and, Hancourt, will you tell those fellows that things are quiet, and send them about their business? If they see me with my head bandaged, I suppose they will think they ought to do something, and there is nothing for them to do.”

Arthur was getting anxious. He had no doubt that his father would be angry with him; but he had done what he felt sure was the only right thing to do, and he was not without hope that he would bring his father to his way of thinking. But he was desirous of getting it over as soon as possible, and he rang the bell and inquired of the servant if she knew where Mr. Knight was. She replied that she had heard him go into the library and shut the door some time ago.

Arthur went at once to the room and knocked. There was no response. He opened the door, and found the room empty. Then he went to his father’s bedroom, and found it locked. “Father!” he called, but there was no answer. He listened a moment, and then, with all the force of his strong young frame, he burst open the door, and saw what he feared to see—his father lying on the floor in a state of unconsciousness!

No time was lost, and two doctors were speedily on the spot; but they were able to do very little for the stricken man. They did not pronounce the case hopeless; they said it was possible that there might be partial recovery, but even that was improbable. They feared it was the beginning of the end, and the end might be not far off.

Arthur Knight was profoundly grieved. The love for his father—which had always been in his heart, though for years it had been restrained—was warm and strong now, as he sat by the bedside of the unconscious man, and he forgot everything but that he was his father, and had always been generous and kind to him. How he wished he had come home before! A flood of compassion filled his heart as he pictured the lonely man in the solitary house, melancholy and bitter. How joyless his life must have been! He seemed to have had little to comfort him but the one fact of his commercial success; and there must have been many times when that failed, and he was altogether comfortless. So far as the world judged him he was an honourable man. His life had been pure from many of the vices of the age, and as Arthur thought over these things he wished with all his heart that he might recover, if only to find comfort in his son. But there seemed little hope of that. The doctors looked more grave at each visit, and made no secret of their conviction that the days of Mr. Knight were numbered.

So Arthur had a son’s sacred duty to perform in nursing and watching his father, his heart full of sorrow that he could not do more for him. He was very tender and affectionate; and half hoping that some of his words might pierce through the cloud over him, he told him of his love, and uttered slowly and impressively those good words of the wonderful Book which tell of a Father’s love and a Saviour’s power. Arthur could not feel afraid to trust the dying man to the compassionate Christ. He did not doubt that the Great Father, who had loved and cared for this neglectful child of His for so many years, would pity him because he had lived out his life to such unworthy issues, and found it so disappointing, and had made so many mistakes, and suffered for them, as was inevitable, and that He would have mercy upon him, whether at the last he was able to ask for it or not. Arthur’s hope was not in his father, but in his God; and there was no fear, but much faith in his prayers.

Illness and death are great softeners of human hearts. It was wonderful how tender the people who knew Mr. Knight became towards him when they heard that he was dying. All thought the best and none the worst of him then. And when they looked through the eyes of love and pity, instead of those of censure, they were not long in finding his good traits. Even his workpeople altered their tones. “After all,” they said, “he had been no worse a master than other men. Of course, he had tried to get all he could out of them; it was only natural—other people did the same. And it was not altogether his fault, perhaps, that he had not used better materials; people would have nasty cheap things nowadays, and they could not expect them to be cheap and good too.” So they talked, the people whose hearts are mostly kind at the bottom, not because they quite believed what they said, nor because they did not understand the meaning of justice, truth, and honesty, but because in the presence of death even the hardest becomes pitiful.

It was a great comfort to Arthur Knight to know that many kind inquiries were being made and much sympathy shown for his father, and these things helped him through the time of waiting.

It was not a very long time either.

“He has not the strength to rally,” said the doctors. “He may have a gleam of consciousness towards the last, but it is scarcely likely, and the end may come at any time.”

The end came suddenly. Mr. Knight opened his eyes and fixed them upon his son. “Arthur,” he said.

“Yes, father; I am here. I love you. What can I do for you?”

The eyes closed wearily again for some minutes. Then they were once more lifted to the sorrowful and sympathetic face bending over him, and the dying man made an effort to speak. “Arthur—undo it all—if you can—and pray for me. God be merciful—to me—a sinner.”

Then, after a few minutes of struggle, his eyes closed, and his face grew calm.

CHAPTER VI.
ARTHUR KNIGHT’S INHERITANCE.

The stateliness of death was upon the still face of his father when the son gazed upon it for the last time. A wonderful peace and beauty, which had never been seen before, was there; and as Arthur looked through his tears he saw that all the wrinkles which care had made were smoothed away, and something of the youthfulness which he remembered had returned. Did it mean anything or nothing, he wondered, this calm which is always so comforting to those who look upon their dead? Love made him tender; but neither it nor sorrow could make him unmindful of facts. His father had not really been an irreligious man. He had known his Lord’s will; but in many things he had not done it. He had gone home to God with the cry of mercy on his lips and in his heart; and his son believed in nothing so entirely as in the compassion of the Father, as Christ represented Him. Arthur was not afraid; but he wondered where the dead man was now, and how it fared with him. His father had appeared to be entirely engrossed with the world of money-making and business; and what sort of preparation was that for the hereafter which was before him? Had the habit of worldliness so hardened his heart that it had kept the weary wanderer from going back to the Father? Arthur was thankful that he had heard the dying lips pray, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” What issues might have hung upon the prayer for the man who was passing away he could not tell, but there was infinite comfort in it for the one who remained. Yet he mourned for what might have been. He knew enough of his own heart, with its weaknesses and sins, to understand how a man’s prayer has at the last to take the deprecating tones of humility and confession. In the silent hours of his life he had dared to pray with Moses, “Show me Thy glory,” and he to whom that is an answered prayer must needs abhor himself in dust and ashes. He understood how natural it was that a good and great man should have asked that the only epitaph upon his tomb should be—

A guilty, weak, and helpless worm,

On Thy kind arms I fall;

Be Thou my strength and righteousness,

My Saviour, and my all.

Arthur Knight had uttered these words for himself many a time. But still he knew, and never failed to realise, that there is another side to it all. He delighted to dwell on the heroic side of Christ’s men. He believed that what St. Paul said every disciple of Jesus might say, “I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me,” and that the inspiring song of victory which the Apostle raised might be echoed by every one whom faith made strong: that the Christian indeed should live so grand a life that he also might declare at the last, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

As he thought of all the possibilities which his father had had, of the life which he had lived and the life that he might have lived, he was filled with sorrow—just such sorrow as many of us are preparing for those who know and love us best. But Arthur had a child’s faith as well as a man’s loyalty; and he did what we all have to do—and what, indeed, we are all glad to do—he left his dead with God. He knew every saving clause in the history of the life that had ended—what relentings and repentances and upward wistful glances there had been, and how fierce was the struggle between the better and the worse nature of the man! God knew it all, and that was enough. “I know not where he is; but, O my Father! he is in Thy hands, commended to Thy love, and I am not afraid to leave him with Thee,” he said; and with these words he was comforted.

The great manufacturer of the East-end had left a fortune considerably in excess of the amount which he had mentioned to his heir; and the young man was too sensible to feel other than glad when he had the facts of his inheritance placed before him in figures which told their own story. With the exception of a few legacies to old servants, among whom Arthur was gratified to see Hancourt’s name, everything was left to him absolutely. Houses and lands, shares and investments were all at his disposal, together with the business by which they had been won. But to the new master these were chiefly valuable as means to an end. That which thrilled his soul, and caused his eyes to flash and his heart to glow, was the fact that nearly three thousand persons, men and women, youths and girls, looked to him for work and wages. He needed no one to remind him that whatever of other thoughts and plans were in his mind, the duty that lay the nearest to him was the care of these people—their bodies and their souls. And he never thought of this without a thrill of joy. “They are My People, and, God helping me, I will do my duty by them,” he said, and he meant much more than most men when he said it.

It was with considerable emotion that Arthur Knight went through the factories and saw his people at work. They were all English, like himself, and he felt drawn towards them for this reason, if for no other—for he was a true-hearted patriot. Many of them, too, were nearer him because they were sharers in his faith, served the same Master, and hoped for the same heaven. He thought he could tell which these were by the look upon their faces, by their demeanour, and even their dress: for his religion was very simple and sincere; and he had not a doubt but that godliness exalts a man in every respect, and is profitable altogether, for the present as well as the future life. These men and women, who were members of Christian churches, and, therefore, must be living their daily life on a higher level than the rest, having nobler motives to guide them, would, he hoped, be very much his friends and helpers in his future efforts to benefit the others. Knight looked upon them all, indeed, as his friends; a great change and deterioration would have to be wrought in him before he could regard them as “hands” merely; to him they were men and women, boys and girls; they were heads and hearts, much more than hands, and were to be his companions as well as his servants in the future. To him “the fatherhood of God” and “the brotherhood of man” were not well-sounding phrases only, but very significant realities; but he knew that he would have to prove this to his people before they would believe it. So he was busy with plans, which he confided to his friend John Dallington, who came to spend a few days with him. He would at once provide a reading-room for the men, and he would get Miss Wentworth and her band of helpers to look after the women. For the boys—great, rough, uncouth fellows as some of them were—he had a warm heart, a resourceful brain, and a patient, tolerant temper; and the first thing he did was to turn the top floor of his house, which had hitherto been unoccupied, into class rooms of different kinds for their especial comfort and benefit.

One morning he told Dallington that he was going to see a former employé of his father’s, and invited him to accompany him. “I must try to master the broad facts and general principles of the business myself,” he said, “and I have a hard spell of work before me. But Hancourt can help me. I should like your opinion of him. Come with me and see him. It is a pleasant errand. My father has left him a hundred pounds, and I will give him the cheque with the news. And Hancourt has two children well worth knowing.”

When they reached the house the children were as usual very much in evidence. “How do you do, Mr. Arthur?” said the girl, and when he lifted her she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. “Mother said I was to kiss you as soon as ever I saw you, because your father is dead.”

“Oh, Sissie!” said Geoff, reprovingly. “You should not talk about Mr. Knight to Mr. Arthur, now, you know.”

“Yes, she should,” said Arthur. “Are you sorry for me, Sissie?”

“Yes, I am very sorry. Were you a good boy to your father, Mr. Arthur?”

“Not always, Sissie; and I am sorry for it now. You will always be good to your father and mother, won’t you?”

“I don’t know. Mother says I’m very bad. Did you ever have a mother?”

“Yes; but that was a long, long time ago. She died when I was such a little boy that I cannot even remember her.”

“But what will you do now, when you have not either a father or a mother?”

“I don’t know, Sissie. I shall be very lonely. I think you must come and see me.”

“I’m much obliged to you. Thanks very much.”

This was said in such a droll way that Dallington laughed.

“You shouldn’t laugh; it’s rude,” said the child. But her brother rebuked her.

“It is you who are rude, Sissie; isn’t she, mother?”

“I am afraid she is, Geoff.”

“She is very entertaining,” said Dallington. “Sissie, will you not be gracious, and give me a kiss, too?”

“Have you got any little girls at home?”

“No; I am sorry to say I have not. Will you come home with me?”

“No; I could not leave Geoff. He would be always in trouble without me.”

“Then come to me for a little time now; for if you do not I shall be jealous.”

“What is ‘jealous’?”

“I am afraid you know the thing if you do not know the word,” said Mrs. Hancourt.

“Is it to be naughty, mother?”

“Yes, Sissie; and that is what you have been to-day. And you must go to bed early. Indeed, you had better say ‘Good-night,’ and go now.”

“But let me say my prayers down here, mother, because I always do, you know.” And without more ado the child knelt down, and, folding her hands together, she said: “Oh, God, please make Sissie a good girl!” and demurely added, “And if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

Sounds that were not devotional were heard from the other parts of the room, and Mrs. Hancourt lifted the little one in her arms. “I think, darling,” she said, “you had better finish your prayers upstairs.”

When Mrs. Hancourt and the children had left, Arthur told his news. “I have the pleasure to inform you, Mr. Hancourt, that my father proved the respect which he had for you by leaving you a small legacy.”

“A legacy, sir?” exclaimed the man, in amazement. “A legacy for me? Left me by Mr. Knight? Do let me call my wife. Kate, come here! This is news, indeed. Mr. Knight really had not any ill-feeling toward me, after all.”

“Oh! I am very glad,” said Mrs. Hancourt. “Mr. Arthur, my husband, ever since Mr. Knight’s illness, has been wondering if he had not been harsh and wrong.”

“But, Kate, you would never guess the rest. Mr. Knight has left us a legacy.”

“It is nothing to make a fuss about,” said Knight. “It is only a hundred pounds. Here is a cheque for the amount.”

“A hundred pounds?” It was all that Hancourt could say. He changed colour, and struggled for composure.

His wife had tears in her eyes. “You must please excuse him,” she said to Arthur. “You do not know, you cannot guess, what this money is to us, nor what we have gone through lately.”

Knight’s heart beat quickly. He had not felt so glad before as he did now that he was rich. How possible it would be for him to increase the happiness of other people if only he used his inheritance wisely!

“Mr. Hancourt,” he said, “you were for a long time my father’s right-hand man. Will you be mine? My father’s most solemn legacy to me was his command to undo anything which is wrong in the business. Justice shall be done, as far as it is possible; but wisdom is a part of righteousness, and I need to be much wiser than I am to do perfectly the part that is allotted to me. It is my firm conviction that it is as possible to-day as ever to carry on a business upon Christian principles, and I am going to try. Will you help me?”

“With all my heart, sir,” said Hancourt, fervently. “And I will try to deserve your confidence.”

“The first thing I wish you to do is to furnish me with all the particulars of my constituency of labour. I want to know my people. Make me out a list of their names, and write beside each the sex, age, residence, religious denomination, what work he does, what wages he gets, and anything and everything there is to say about him. I hope in time to make the personal acquaintance of every individual who works for me. First, I must know the boys; and before another week is gone I shall get them together in some suitable place, that we may have a talk, and understand each other. I hope you agree with me, Mr. Hancourt, that the hope of the future is in the young. If we can secure them on the right side everything is gained.”

Hancourt was delighted. He had found a master after his own heart. Hope had come back to him, and there was great gladness in the little home in which he lived.

“I wish, Dallington, you could give me a year,” said Knight, as they drove back together. “It is not in my inheritance of money, but in my inheritance of men that I rejoice. These claim my first attention. I mean to make my employés my friends.”

“I hope you are not attempting the impossible. Many masters before you have tried, and failed,” replied Dallington. “Human nature is a very difficult thing to manage. Still, I wish you success. You will do it if it can be done, because you recognise the rights of brotherhood. But I am sorry that before you have everywhere delivered that speech which is in your mind you have all these new duties thrust upon you.”

“I am not sorry. I have the chance to test my theories upon my own people; could anything be better? And, besides, it is the busy people who will do this work that has to be done. I am not going to delay my part, John. You and I and many others will proclaim the fact that the Church must not be afraid to take the greatness which the Master is thrusting upon her, and that for His sake, and her own sake, and the world’s sake, she must be an united and not a split-up Church.”

“But people—even good people—love to fight.”

“Very well; and there is still the world, the flesh, and the devil for them to attack. That they should waste their strength in fighting one another after all these centuries of Christian teaching seems to me wonderful. But I am sure the Christian world is ready for a change. Already there are dozens, soon there will be thousands, of preachers proclaiming a truce, while the Church puts right the wrongs of the poor and degraded in England.”

But Knight found that his hands were full when he went to look at the properties that had come into his possession. Among the rest was an immense number of courts and alleys near the places of business; and the heart of the young owner of them grew very sad as he examined them. They were most of them miserably old and dirty, and the women and children whom he saw lounging about the doorways looked sickly and filthy, too. He remembered what he had once read—that men and animals were greatly influenced by the character of the places in which they ate and slept; and he ceased to wonder that some of the men of whom he had heard were lazy, drunken, and blasphemous. The places were not homes—they did not deserve the name. And to think that his brother-men had to pass their hours of leisure there or in a public-house!

He continued his researches, however, for some hours, after which he felt utterly miserable and ashamed that such places should form part of his inheritance.

He was turning to go home when a lady accosted him. “Excuse me,” she said, “people are telling me that you are the owner of these houses. Will you be good enough to come and look at one of them?”

She spoke in a low voice, which thrilled with indignation, and her eyes were blazing with a passion of anger.

“I have only been the owner for a few days,” said Arthur. “I am not proud of them, I assure you, but very much ashamed of them. I will do what I can as speedily as I can; they cannot be changed by a miracle. I wish they could.”

The girl did not reply; and Arthur followed her into the most wretched house that he had ever seen, and into a room where there was a hole in the roof and another in the floor, and in the corner of which lay a woman suffering horribly from rheumatic fever, while two wretched, half-clothed children sat by her side, munching a piece of bread.

“This woman, a deserted wife,” said the young lady, “sews packing-bags for the factory near. By working fourteen hours a day she can earn eight shillings a week; and the man who pays the wages has five shillings back for rent. It is iniquitous, all of it! It is a shame to pay so little for so much work; and it is even worse robbery to take more than a nominal rent for such a disgraceful place. Robbery! It is murder! And the man who has committed it would have to take his trial for it if there were any justice in England.”

Arthur looked into the flushed face lifted so accusingly to his own with mixed feelings. He felt almost like a schoolboy being scolded, or like the prisoner she had spoken of arraigned before a judge who would have very little mercy; and he was almost amused at her vehemence, too.

“Really—yes,” he stammered. “It is, as you say, iniquitous, all of it. Believe me, so far as I am responsible, it shall be changed. In the meantime, let me do what I can for this woman. Cannot she be removed to the hospital? Allow me——”

He took some money from his purse and held it towards her, but she refused it. “I have taken this case in hand,” she said. “You will find plenty of others quite near if you are really in earnest; but what all these people want is not charity, but justice.”

“It is good of you to visit and help them,” began Knight; but the young lady smiled a peculiar smile that made him feel uncomfortable.

“Good?” she said. “If any of us were good, we would surely be able to prevent such things as these.”

Knight much wished to know something of the young lecturer who had so taken him to task; but she dismissed him with a stately bow, and there was nothing for him but to leave, more resolute than ever to at once begin what really appeared a hopeless task. But early the next morning he had an inspiration.

It was possible for him, with the money which he had and could make, to take his business and his people out of this terrible city altogether, and he would do it! What a chance he had! He could plan a model town; and there set his people to work under far different conditions. He felt that the thought was a call from God, and he had some minutes of such joyous thankfulness as come to few men in a lifetime. Here was a bit of work that suited him exactly; and with all the energy he had, he at once set about making the thought an accomplished fact. He had an inheritance, indeed, of duty and of joy.

CHAPTER VII.
MARY WYTHBURN’S WEDDING.

John Dallington had his own troubles to bear, although they were of a different character from those of Arthur Knight. For a few weeks he rejoiced greatly in his heritage, while the land of his fathers grew dearer to him day by day; and then he learnt that only a part of it was really his own, and that some of it had been mortgaged. That there could be a debt upon his inheritance was a possibility that had never once occurred to him; and the fact was an exceedingly bitter one—indeed, he had not known how to bear it. Years afterward he remembered the lawyer’s office in which the unwelcome news was told him so distinctly that he knew the pattern of the paper on the wall and the number of panes in the window.

“I will redeem it,” he said; “I could not bear to let even a bit of the land go. It will take me years to do it, no doubt, but if I live it shall be accomplished.”

“A very worthy ambition,” replied the solicitor, who was sorry for the young man, and sympathised with him. “It is a good thing to have an object in life—keeps a man out of mischief, you know, and helps him to put forth his best powers. I assure you, Mr. Dallington, that there is nothing like trouble of this sort for making a man of you.”

But it was with a sore heart and rueful countenance that Dallington betook himself to his farm. He had been so sure that it was his, to do as he liked with, and his fancy had painted glowing pictures of what he would do for his mother, and his cottage tenants afterwards. And now he must economise, and deny himself the pleasure of making improvements, and must be careful of his own personal expenses. The thought made him sigh; not that he had extravagant habits, but because he had already hoped to persuade the lady of his heart to begin with him the new life which was before him. That was out of the question now, and he must not seek her, nor even think of her.

So he said to himself as he was moodily making his way home, and he had no sooner said it than his heart gave a leap of joy, for, there before him, in the little woodland path, coming towards him with a flush upon her beautiful face, and her eyes shining like stars, was Margaret Miller. She was used to these woods and loved them; but she would not have been there that day had she expected to meet him there. She steadied herself to speak to him with quiet friendliness, but he took both her hands, and gazed in her face, with his heart in his eyes, and could only say, “Margaret, Margaret!”

So they stood for a few moments, and a year of happiness was in them; and then John remembered! If it had happened yesterday he would have poured forth his love in a torrent of words, and asked her at once to be his wife; but now he must not, for stern duty forbade. As for Margaret, she had not forgotten; and though, for an instant, her heart sank with dismay lest he had read the truth, she soon recovered herself, and helped him to do the same. But all the pain went from him, and when he turned and walked back with her, and the sweet summer sun kissed them both, while the birds sang as if in sympathy with their joy, he felt strong enough and brave enough to do everything. And he took her at once into his confidence. Every one else did the same; it was wonderful how many secrets of sorrow had been given to Margaret to keep, young as she was; but it was no wonder that Dallington felt the comfort and strength of her sympathy. It was not news to Margaret that John Dallington was not a rich man, for in a little place like Darentdale few things are altogether hidden, and she could not feel as sorry for his pain as she was glad to learn in what the chief pain consisted.

“I was hoping,” he said, “that there might not be a really poor person on my estate. I meant every man to have a chance—and every woman, too. The cottages need rebuilding badly, and the labourers ought to have some share in the land; but what am I to do now?”

“It would not make much difference to your income,” said Margaret, gently, “if you gave them half of one of your meadows as allotments or gardens; and that would probably furnish each of your labourers with a strip of ground. Even if they had it rent free you would not lose very much; but if you let them have it for the value of the grass it would not cost them much either. It is too bad of those farmers who charge the men higher rents for small pieces than they would get for the larger ones.”

John Dallington saw his way at once. “To be sure, I can do that,” he said. “I intended to put a garden to each cottage; but it does not matter where it is, and I have a field that will do for that purpose exactly.”

“And you have a stone quarry. Why not allow your men to use your stone, and enlarge or rebuild their own cottages? Labour is even more costly than materials, and you might save that if you could induce the men to do the work themselves. But I expect you would have to grant them leases, unless they trust you more than they do most masters, so that they could have no fear or possibility of being turned out of the places they had renovated.”

John thought it was beautiful of her to be so much interested; and was she not as sensible as she was good? Then they talked together of old times, and every care vanished from them both.

“I shall see you to-morrow,” he said, as they parted. “I am going to Miss Wythburn’s wedding.”

The next day dawned auspiciously in Scourby, a manufacturing town at the head of Darentdale, where the wedding was to take place.

Mrs. Wythburn’s face was a little tearful on that morning, for Mary was her only child, and the mother’s heart was full of solicitude. But with the self-repression characteristic of mothers she was prepared to put her own feelings on one side, and meet her friends with smiles as bright as she could make them.

The father of the bride did not pretend to smile at all, and made no secret of his sentiments in regard to weddings. He had been in a chronic state of grumblement since the day was fixed. “They say that a man’s house is his castle; mine is much more like a fancy fair,” he said. “People have been coming in at all my doors as if they had a right; the only person who has seemed to have no right to be upon the premises is myself. I shall be glad when the fuss is over.”

His wife was not disconcerted by this pretence at ill-temper, for she knew how much—or, rather, how little—it meant; and was assured that her husband would be genial enough when the time arrived for his after-breakfast speech. For she knew that Mr. Wythburn would not on any account have had things other than they were, since he had long wished to see his daughter married to his oldest neighbour.

Some of Mary’s friends thought it a pity. The two were so entirely different that it was doubtful if they had any tastes or feelings in common. Alfred Greenholme was inactive, self-indulgent, unambitious. Everything was too great an exertion for him. He never wanted even to play at tennis, nor to dance at an evening party. “There was no harm in him,” people said. “He was a good-natured sort of fellow enough;” but he positively seemed to care for nothing but lounging about and smoking cigars. But Mary Wythburn was full of intense, vivid life. She had an enormous capacity for work, and she used this capacity to the utmost. Quiet, and even timid, in manner, she had such perfect control over herself that few guessed how keen was her desire to know and to do. She was an exceedingly clever girl, and had availed herself to the utmost of all the educational advantages which the modern spirit of fairness has granted to women, and at school, college, and university she had gained distinctions and carried off prizes. Her father and mother had not hindered her; but she knew that though they could not help feeling a little proud of her successes, they did not altogether approve of her. They had her portrait taken in the college cap and gown which became her so well; and they said that, since the letters which she had the right to put after her name meant something, she ought to use them; but they both considered it a little unwomanly to be too clever, and wished that she would settle down and be married.

In another respect they scarcely understood their daughter. Her nature was intensely sensitive and sympathetic. She knew what it was to weep over sorrows that were none of hers, and to be punished for sins which she had not committed. Pain, want, wickedness, and woe were spectres that haunted the girl, and would not let her forget them. Moreover, Mary was grievously beset by doubt, which she endured in loneliness because the least expression of it so shocked those whom she loved that she had not the courage to say all that was in her mind. She had once declared, with flushed face and dilated eyes, on returning from visiting a woman who was dying of cancer, that she did not, could not, would not believe that the poor creatures who were so badly off in this world would be also punished in the next, even for their sins. Her father and mother, secure and comfortable in their church-going consummateness, believing all that they ought to believe, and never troubling themselves further, asked her sternly if she read her Bible now. Truth to tell, she read it very little. She tried to reconcile that which she knew was in it with that which she saw in the world, and finding the two apparently irreconcilable she yielded to unbelief; and because she could not herself believe, began to doubt the honesty of those who did. Poor Mary had lost her child’s faith in the Fatherhood of God, and had failed to apprehend the meaning of the sacrifice of His Son.

She sorely needed some one to help her. She was not in the least brave, though she was clever, and had simply drifted into an engagement with Mr. Greenholme.

But when the wedding was drawing near she filled her mother with consternation.

“Mother,” she said, “I am really not sure that I can marry Alfred after all.”

“Oh, my dear child! how you frighten me! What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe I care for him as people generally do care when they are going to be married.”

“Is there any one else for whom you care, Mary?”

“Oh, no, mother! There is not any one whom I like better than Alfred; and he is very kind to me; but I do not want to be married at all.”

“That will come right, my dear. I am sure you would not like to be an old maid; no woman does. Oh, yes, you may think now you would not mind, because you are young; but you would be very miserable afterward, and as Alfred’s wife you will have every comfort. You must not think of anything now but your promise.”

So the preparations went on, and every one was pleased with Mary.

It was to be a quiet wedding. The three bridesmaids—Mary’s girl-friends, the Misses Copeland, Miller, and Whitwell—had arrived on the previous evening, since they all lived some distance from Scourby. Miss Copeland was a tall and graceful young lady who, for some reason or other, appeared ill-tempered and irritable; Miss Miller was quiet and happy; and Miss Whitwell as merry as a cricket.

Dr. Stapleton, a friend of the family, called early, and asked after the health of the bride. “I am now going to see her,” said Mrs. Wythburn; and she went away wearing the bright look of love which makes mothers’ faces so beautiful.

But in a few minutes she came back, looking quite changed. Her face had lost its colour, and she trembled so that she could scarcely walk. She seemed to have become suddenly blind, for although the drawing-room door stood open she appeared to be feeling for the handle.

The only person who observed her was Margaret Miller, who saw at a glance that either Mrs. Wythburn had been taken suddenly ill, or something dreadful had happened. Swiftly and silently Margaret went to her side, and, closing the door behind them, led the shaking women into the dining-room.

“What is the matter, Mrs. Wythburn? I hope nothing is wrong. Where is Mary?”

Mrs. Wythburn tried to speak, but at first no words could be uttered. Margaret was as tender as a daughter. “Don’t be frightened, my dear, whatever it is,” she said. “There is a little mistake, somehow, perhaps. Or a little sudden faintness, which will pass off presently.”

After a time Mrs. Wythburn managed to gasp out a few words. “Margaret, there is great trouble. I do not know what it is. Fetch my husband.”

They had been married many years, but they were a very kindly Darby and Joan, and the wife felt as if she could not break to her husband the news that she had to tell.

“Why, Martha, what is the matter?”

“Oh, John, God help us, for something terrible has happened!”

“Don’t give way, dearie; we have borne some troubles together, and we will meet this. Tell me what it is. Is it anything about Mary?”

“Yes, it is. Mary—Mary is gone!”

“Gone where?”

“Ah, that is it! Mary has not slept in her room, and she is not in the house. No one has seen her this morning, and she is not to be found anywhere. I have questioned the servants; I have searched every room.”

Here the poor woman’s feeling quite overcame her, and Mr. Wythburn placed her on the couch and went straight to his daughter’s apartment.

It was true. The dainty little room was in perfect order, save for the wedding finery that overflowed the wardrobe and occupied some of the chairs. The bed was not disturbed, and the gas was burning as it was last night. There was not a scrap of paper anywhere to explain the strange absence of the bride; only one thing was certain—that she was gone! Vague fears took possession of the father’s mind: there must have been foul play, for surely no girl in her senses would run away from her own wedding! But what was to be done? Of course there could be no marriage without a bride, and the bridegroom must be warned. Mr. Wythburn tried to control himself, but his face was ghastly and his hands were shaking. His thoughts turned to Margaret Miller: he knew that she would keep her senses and prove reliable, and at that moment she appeared.

“What is it, Mr. Wythburn? Mary is not here. Ah! do not be unnecessarily alarmed; Mary will explain it. Nothing has happened to her.”

“But, Margaret, where can my child be, and what is to be done? Alfred Greenholme——”

“Yes; I will ask Dr. Stapleton to fetch him, and to see that the church remains closed. I will manage it. We will not have more talk than we can help. And, Mr. Wythburn, do not give way to grief. Be sure that it will all come right in the end. Oh, be sure that Mary is to be trusted! She will, perhaps, be here presently, and laugh at all our fears.”

Margaret went at once to the room where Dr. Stapleton still waited. He was standing and looking eagerly toward the door when it was opened. He seemed to have a prevision of some catastrophe.

“What is it?” he said. “Something wrong with Mary, isn’t it? Tell me what it is. Is she ill?”

Margaret noticed that he looked white, as if with fear, and that he used her Christian name when speaking of Miss Wythburn.

“Yes; I think there is no doubt that she is ill. I had better tell you all the truth, Dr. Stapleton, for we are both Mary’s friends and the friends of the family. Mary, for some reason, left her home last night. Her room was not disturbed, and no one has seen her this morning, or has the slightest idea where she can be.”

Dr. Stapleton said nothing. He caught Margaret’s hands and held them forcibly, looking in her face with staring eyes.

“Dr. Stapleton, please, I want you to help us. Some one must go to Mr. Greenholme’s house. Will you go and ask Alfred to come here at once? And will you tell the sexton not to open the church until he hears from us? But it will be better to say nothing of what has happened.”

Still Stapleton did not speak or move.

“I think Mary will be here directly, do not you? I cannot imagine her doing anything unusual. Please go directly, and tell Mr. Greenholme.”

Margaret gave him a little push and put his hat in his hand and opened the door. Even then he seemed scarcely to understand, but he passed out mechanically, and Margaret saw that he went in the direction of Mr. Greenholme’s house.

She herself turned to meet the dismayed faces of the other two bridesmaids.

“Margaret, what is it?” asked Miss Whitwell. “Mr. Wythburn has just rushed through the room saying that he was going to search the garden for Mary. Is not Mary in the house?”

“No; she must have left the house last night, for she has not slept in her bed. Hilda, your room was next Mary’s; did you hear her in the night?”

“No. But Mary is a little peculiar. Perhaps she went for a walk, and sprained her ankle or something. We had better go through the grounds. I should not be surprised if she went over the hill to Rayford. It was a magnificent night, and the moon made it almost like day; but if she attempted to go across the rocks she might well meet with an accident.”

“Oh, but she never would! What is the use of saying such things?” exclaimed Miss Whitwell, and immediately added, “Perhaps she is somewhere near, and we shall find her.”

But Margaret felt sure that she would not be found, and, instead of joining the others, she went to Mrs. Wythburn, who was still going into one room after another, and peering into all sorts of unlikely places, searching for her missing daughter and sobbing as if her heart would break.

Presently in came Alfred Greenholme and his father, the former feeling more disturbed than he had ever felt in his life before.

“What in the world is the matter?” he said. “Stapleton seems to have taken leave of his senses. He was as incoherent as if he had been drinking; but I understand him to say that Mary is missing.”

“Yes; he said what is true. Mary cannot be found.”

“Then there must have been foul play. Where were her jewels kept? Have they been stolen?”

“No,” replied Margaret; “nothing seems to have been touched. All her wedding presents are exactly as they were, and her jewels are in the drawer in which they were always kept.”

“What am I to do?” asked Alfred. “Surely Mary will be here presently. She will not get late for the wedding? She fixed the time herself.”

“I am so sorry for you,” said Hilda Copeland. “Mary must have been out of her senses.”

“Did she seem so? Was she ill last night?” demanded Greenholme.

“She did not say so. She was very quiet, though.”

“Quiet!” repeated Alfred, forgetting to be courteous. “She was never other than quiet. But such conduct is perfectly inexplicable. Are you sure Mary is not in the house, Miss Miller?”

“Quite sure. We have looked everywhere.”

“Where is Stapleton? He might go and prevent the carriages from coming. We do not want a row of them standing in front of the house for an hour.”

“The servants will attend to that. There will be no wedding to-day,” said Margaret.

“Do not say so. Mary may yet be in time. Is there no letter, or something to explain where she is or what she has done?” demanded the disappointed bridegroom.

“No; we can find nothing.”

“Then she will be forthcoming presently.”

But she was not; the searchers returned and looked at each other in dismay.

The hours wore on. Mr. Greenholme thought the police should be communicated with, but Mr. Wythburn was not willing.

“I cannot have detectives trying to track my daughter,” he said. “Mary is not a child unable to take care of herself. We shall have a telegram presently, or a letter from her in the morning.”

Alfred Greenholme said very little. But when Mrs. Wythburn came tremblingly towards him, and kissed him, he said, “Do not be more anxious than you can help. We both know Mary. Nothing dreadful can have happened. We must wait. And let us keep our own counsel as much as we can, and not set the whole town gossiping.”

But many friends of the family called during the day, and of course the news spread rapidly. The vicar came, and his presence proved a great comfort, for he said what commended itself to all. “Be sure that Mary is in God’s keeping. No harm has come to her. For some reason or other Mary has absented herself rather than be married. It is a very strange thing; but we must not be too swift to blame her. She has really lived a very independent life, you know, and she has simply acted for herself now. Do you not think that is the explanation, Miss Miller?” And Margaret had little doubt that it was.

The Greenholmes remained all day, for the trouble was one to be shared between them. Alfred behaved very well; but he seemed to suffer more annoyance than grief, and that is decidedly the more easy to bear.

And late in the afternoon a telegram came for Mr. Greenholme. It contained only these words: “Do not be anxious. All is well. Mary.”

It wrought instantly a change in the feelings of the household; for anger and vexation took the place of grief and anxiety. “It is too bad of Mary,” everybody said; and hot words of blame were spoken freely. Nobody took her part very courageously. Even Margaret admitted that her friend had been, at the very least, guilty of great cowardice, while Miss Copeland abused her in unmeasured terms; and only Tom Whitwell pleaded that they would give her time to explain before they judged and condemned her.

It had been arranged that Mr. Dallington should drive his cousin home. He had come, as he thought, to the wedding, and seeing that there was to be none, he thought they should leave early. Dr. Stapleton was to have taken Miss Miller to Darentdale, but as he had not returned she accepted Dallington’s invitation, and accompanied him and Miss Whitwell.

“I told you that I believed the wedding would not take place, did I not, John?” asked the latter, as soon as they had started.

“Yes, you did, Tom; but I consider that your friend has disgraced her womanhood in acting as she has done. If I were Greenholme I would never forgive her.”

“I am sure she will never ask him,” said Tom. “But she has been a great coward through it all.”

“She ought never to have allowed herself to be engaged to him,” said Margaret; “but having done so she ought to have gone through with it.”

“And been miserable for ever after,” added Tom.

And then the clouds cleared away; for why should three healthy happy young people be sad because one had been stupid?

Late in the evening Dr. Stapleton called at Mr. Wythburn’s to make inquiries. He only stayed a few minutes; and when he left the vicar went with him. They parted after ten minutes’ walk, and as they did so Mr. Sherborne looked straight into the doctor’s eyes, and suddenly asked him a question. “Stapleton, do you know where Miss Wythburn is?”

The doctor started violently, and the colour first came into his face, and then left him pale.

“I? No, indeed!” he exclaimed. “I wish to God I did!”

“If you know anything at all you ought to tell her father.”

“What can I know?” stammered Stapleton.

But the vicar lifted his hat and walked away without another word.

CHAPTER VIII.
SOME SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

Mary Wythburn’s disappearance was one of the signs of the times. And, excepting to the parties most nearly concerned, it was scarcely a nine days’ wonder. To a great extent even their minds were speedily set at rest, for a few days after the wedding was to have taken place a letter reached her friend, Margaret Miller, which explained in part the occurrence, though unquestionably the real reason was that Mary’s heart was playing truant.

“Dear Margaret,” it said, “I am so frightened at what I have done that I do not know how to bear it; but you know I am such a coward that I could not bravely face it all out as I ought to have done. I simply dare not marry Alfred Greenholme, and I dare not say so. Do go to my mother and comfort her, and tell her that I am safe and well; but I cannot let any one know where I am, for, of course, if I did I should be fetched home; and I would rather die than go. Margaret, I am doing what I have always known I ought to do. I am at work on my own plans in this terrible London, and, God helping me, I will make a few of my own sex better and happier before I die. It makes me sick to see how wretched and wicked they are. Please be my friend, and do not let my dear father and mother, whom I love with all my heart, be more miserable than they need be. Of course, I know they are angry with me, and I deserve that they should be; it is very hard for them that they could not have a daughter like other people’s girls. I can bear their anger, but they must not be anxious or sorrowful about me. I have my cheque-book, and I can take care of myself for a little while; but, oh, Madge! what would I not give to put my head on your shoulder and have a good cry, and hear you scold me (as I know you would). I am very thankful to sign myself, still ever yours,

Mary Wythburn.”

In point of fact Mary Wythburn had not done an unheard-of thing in preferring to work among the poor rather than be married. Many girls had made the same choice; and many men too. The world of the great East of London was the scene of more heroic labours for the wretched than had ever been known before. Methodism had its centre there, from which radiated all sorts of beneficent lights that flashed across the darkness. The Congregationalists had a home where good women who had given up their wealth for Christ’s sake, and that of humanity, lived together in a little community, and laboured in every conceivable way among the poor. The Baptists had long led the Forward Movement, which was another name for the “applied Christianity” in which the Church had now come to believe. The Episcopal Church had brought wealth, culture, and influence to bear upon the problem of the outcasts. University men had chosen this work instead of Parliamentary honours, or the accumulation of money. And many a young lady had quietly disappeared from society, and, receiving a pound or two a week from her father for her personal needs, had gone to dwell among the poor, as poor, in order to live a consecrated life of Christian helpfulness. Mary Wythburn had but added one to the already swelling multitude who had yielded to the fascination of the modern ministry of love and service. The old things repeated themselves—with a difference. The piety which had moved men and women to withdraw from the world and give themselves entirely to a religious life was equally strong and impassioned in many of the young men and women who were sworn disciples of Jesus now; but they served Him by withdrawing from luxuries only, and not from men. They took no vows upon them excepting the usual ones which characterise the entrance into the Church, but they put a different meaning into them. They heard a call summoning them into the thick of the crowd, there to do the works of their Master—to feed the five thousand, to heal the sick, to open the eyes of the blind, to deliver the captives; aye, to take the little children into their arms and bless them.

For thoughtful people were most of all concerned about the young. The State had given them enough schooling to render them precocious, for it was compulsory and free; but it had not educated them, for the conscience and the character were very much untouched by the schools, since the children left far too early to have had a chance to gain anything more than the mere rudiments of elementary training. The years at which they might begin to labour were put back a little, but now there were thousands, where fifty years before there had been dozens, earning their own livelihood in factories and works of various kinds. This massing of young people together, with little control over their tongues or conduct, was having a terrible effect upon the men and women of the next generation. Their conversation was frequently of the most filthy kind, and juvenile immorality was frightfully on the increase.

Arthur Knight had a shock as, sitting in his office one day with the windows open, he overheard some of the girls in his employ talking together, and he lost no time in providing a place where Miss Wentworth and her helpers might begin a beneficial work among these young people, many of whom, though at present between fourteen and sixteen, would soon be the mothers of children, and who for that, if no other reason, needed greatly the womanly ministrations of Christian love.

But it happened that at the first of the girls’ meetings in the temporary evening homes prepared for their reception Miss Wentworth could not be present, and, indeed, for several weeks the young ladies who were to help her had about fifty factory girls to themselves. Neither of them would ever forget their experience. Provision had been made for the girls to wash at the rooms, and take tea there, so that they might be as long as possible under the influence of their friends, who earnestly desired to render them real service, but who were at their wit’s end to know how to accomplish it. The girls brought curling-tongs, and spent most of their time in “frizzing” their “fringes.” They were urged to join a savings’ club, but said they were already in a “feather club,” to which they paid, out of their earnings of seven or eight shillings, a shilling a week for “fashion and finery,” and they could not afford to save anything else. For some time it seemed impossible to reduce them to any sort of order. They at once gave nicknames to the ladies; and began by mimicking their manner of speaking. One of the girls went to a timid, nervous young lady, and, looking her full in the face, said, “Blush! blush!” an order which was, of course, instantly obeyed, to the great glee of those who stood around, and who laughed uproariously. One impudent-looking girl had a dreadful black eye, and in reply to a lady who kindly inquired if she had met with an accident, said, “Mother did that. She throwed a tater at me, and it hit my eye. My mother can’t do nothing with me, and it makes her mad.” The words were immediately sung in a sort of chorus: “My mother can’t do nothing with me, and it makes her mad.” A lady offered to give a little talk on the body, having made physiology her favourite study; the girls sat and giggled the whole time, at the end of which they dubbed their teacher, “Bones.” The young ladies were very much troubled by the boys outside, who waited about for the girls, and amused themselves by knocking at the doors and climbing up to the windows, and who became at last so troublesome that a policeman was asked to take up his station near and keep order. The next day many of the girls brought the policeman offerings of flowers, and nearly all surrounded him, and began talking and joking with him.

“It is of no use to try. We shall never do them any good. We must give it up and leave them to their fate.” But this was not what those educated, Christ-obeying girls said. Some whom they knew had gone away to work among the dwarfs of the Congo, the fever-stricken men and women of the jungle, and the lepers of Siberia; should these be less heroic than they? They kept steadily on, and, after a time, a few of the girls for whose salvation they agonised grew more quiet than the rest, and these would distribute themselves among the others and try to keep order during the prayer-time; and, at last, now and then the young hearts of these home missionaries were thrilled with such whispers as this: “I do want to be better, please tell me how?” So they worked faithfully.

But many signs of the times were less hopeful than this. It was known in England, and especially in London, that few financial ventures were so absolutely safe as those connected with journalism, provided the popular taste was met. Those who won the greatest popularity were those who wrote down to the masses, and went even a little lower than they. The sale of such journals was largely helped by religious people, not that they approved the morality of the journals, but because they were amusing, the gossip being of a spicy nature, and the tales sensational and enthralling. For several years almost all papers had become increasingly personal in their character, and editors were willing to pay large sums for little bits of news touching persons who were in the least distinguished for position, possession, or power. The society journals had always a large sale, especially those that were the most unscrupulous in hunting for skeletons in cupboards, and exhibiting them to the public at the rate of a penny a week.

But lately there had been commenced a new journal, which was giving intense pain, and covering with shame a large section of the British people. Its registered title was Saints’ Society, and the motto under the title, chosen in confessed irony, was, “See how these Christians love one another.” It existed for the express purpose of blackening the character and showing up the weaknesses of all sections of the Church, and was full of personalities of the vilest kinds. It would have done less harm if it had been boycotted by respectable or even Christian people, but too many women and some men bought the paper, and gloated over it in semi-secret circles, because of what it told of individuals whom they knew. The adults who did this could not perhaps be greatly harmed by it, since, already, the process of deterioration must have gone so far with their own characters that a little more made almost no perceptible difference; but it was the young people in their families who suffered most, and who, by hundreds throughout the land, were declaring gleefully or angrily, according to their temperament, that religion was a sham and a fraud, which they declined altogether to uphold by any adhesion of theirs.

But the paper was chiefly supported by those who openly hated anything bearing the Christian name. Certain individuals in some sections of the Church had roused considerable antagonism by harassing, with piecemeal legislation, the supporters of existing evils. They had not the energy and perseverance, perhaps they had not the power, to destroy the wrongs of which they complained—that would require a revolution—but they had made it disagreeable for a good many people who coined money by, and were otherwise interested in, the perpetuation of these wrongs, and this had created a great amount of angry feeling. The Saints’ Society Journal was the outcome of revenge.

But in one respect the journal was serviceable. It threw a vivid light upon the standard of excellence which the world expects in Christian people, and many readers turned away from its columns with uneasy consciences. Even The Saints’ Society had a generous word for real goodness, but for those who professed to be religious and yet were not good it had no mercy. It devoted a whole page to paragraphs referring to incidents in which professors fell below their ideal. The following are illustrations from a single number of the paper:—

“Art and Artful.—One day last week a young lady brought a painting to a fine art depository in the West-end, and asked the proprietor to buy it for two pounds. He looked at it, and declared the price ridiculously high, inquiring, with a sneer, where she got such a lofty estimate of her own talents. She replied that she was in most urgent need of two pounds, and felt sure that the picture was worth the money. He told her to take her picture and clear out if she had no more sense than that. Then she asked him what he would give her for it; and he replied that he would pay her eighteen shillings. With trembling lips she said eighteen shillings would not be enough, she must have more; would he not make it twenty-five? No, he replied, not a penny more than eighteen shillings. Eventually, she left it on sale or return, and was to call again in two or three days. It was an exquisite little gem, and before the day was ended it was sold. A gentleman bought it for ten guineas. Two days later, the artist called again and saw the proprietor. Was her picture sold? Oh yes, it was sold, and there was the money for it—eighteen shillings. The poor girl began hysterically to beg for more, and to ask in agony, what should she do? The dealer in art ordered her to leave his premises, and not make a scene, or it would become unpleasant for her; and after vainly trying to melt the heart of stone of the art man, she went away cursing him. But he is a much respected churchwarden of St. Ronald’s. Could a wronged girl’s curse touch him?”

“Going Shares.—A gentleman had in his employment a skilled workman to whom he paid thirty-five shillings a week, which is about the usual wages for the sort of work he did. Ten years ago the workman saw how, by a slight alteration in a machine, the work might be done much more advantageously, and he told his master. ‘A very good idea, Smith,’ he said; ‘can you manage to set it down in writing and make a drawing of it?’ Smith did so, and the master had it patented. He has just died, leaving a fortune of sixty thousand pounds, made chiefly, as all the world knows, by that improved machine. Did he go shares with Smith? Oh, yes! This is how he went shares: he gave him a pound for his idea; and before he died Mr. Jones made things still more right by leaving two hundred pounds to the hospital in which Smith is ending his days!”

“A Case of Starvation has just been brought to light in King Court. A screaming child attracted the notice of the police, who broke into the room from which the sounds issued. A dead woman lay on the bare floor, and by her side a naked female child was endeavouring to awaken the mother. There was not a scrap of food in the place, and the only furniture was a wooden stool, a table, a ginger-beer bottle, and an old blanket, which partly covered the body of the corpse. The room was a very small one; the floor was broken in several places; there were three broken panes of glass in the window; the walls were damp and dirty, and the ceiling far from waterproof. An inquest will be held to-morrow. It has been ascertained by our detective that the woman paid four shillings a week for this room. We had some difficulty in finding the real owner of the house; but we have discovered him to be Mr. John Smith, of Albert Buildings. Mr. Smith is a deacon of the Duke Street Church. The woman made sacks. By working thirteen hours a day she could earn tenpence. She was employed by Mr. Samuel Sneed, of Thames Place. Mr. Sneed attends the church of Mole Street. He is the respected leader of the Band of Hope.”

“A Shocking Accident has occurred in Westleigh, a London suburb, to John Lane, the driver of a grocer’s van. His horse stumbled, and he was thrown from his seat; the horse lost its footing and fell on the unfortunate man. The vehicle was overturned, and it was with difficulty the horse was removed; but when this had been accomplished it was discovered that the man was dead. Two of his brothers subsequently demanded his watch, each declaring himself to be the elder, and the policeman gave it to the one whose appearance pointed him out as the senior. A disgraceful fight ensued, during which the watch got injured. The man has left a wife and three children; but as the widow was too much overcome with grief to demand the watch for her deceased husband’s eldest son, and no one spoke for her (although two parsons were in the crowd), she has lost the watch as well as her husband.”

“Modern Girls.—On Sunday evening, at seven o’clock, the servant left in charge of No. 1. Freeman Street, was summoned to the door by a loud peal of the bell. As soon as she opened it, a company of rough girls rushed in, pushing the servant violently into a back room and locking her in. They then proceeded to ransack the house, and appropriated all the money, jewellery, plate, and other moveable articles they could find, after which they took what food there was, and departed. It is satisfactory to be able to state that these girls—fifteen in number—were found spending the stolen money in the Half Moon public-house, in Bull Street—satisfactory, because so many of these things have occurred lately, and the police have not been able to detect the offenders. Unfortunately, however, thirteen of the girls managed to escape after the policemen who endeavoured to arrest them had been severely beaten, and the house in which they were found almost wrecked by them. They were angry because the landlord did not bar his doors against the upholders of the law, and declared that they, who had hitherto been his best customers, would ruin him. Our detective has interviewed two of the girls who escaped, and they have informed him that every one of the fifteen had at some time or other been scholars in a Sunday-school.”

“Last Night a band of boys and girls assembled in Oxford Street, and for an hour held revelry there before the police succeeded in dispersing them. Several persons were robbed, and an old lady was so much hurt that she had to be taken to the hospital. The leader of the gang was the son of the Rev. J. B. Yellowstone; and his seconder was the son of Mr. Waller, an active Christian man and churchwarden.”

“A Sailor’s Freak.—A young man, who was under orders to sail and return in the steamship Smart, has been summoned for neglect of duty. He was one of Miss King’s saints, and having been converted and signed the pledge, announced his intention of never sailing under a flag which waved above a cargo of alcohol going to foreign shores. But the young prig reckoned without his host. He was compelled to keep his engagement, although he made the discovery that the Smart carried both London gin and Scotch and Irish whisky. Somewhere out at sea the ship fell in with a fleet of fishing-boats. It was found that the Smart was licensed, and the captain ordered the lad to serve the customers who floated round the ship. This he refused to do. He was put in chains, and kept on a diet of bread and water. But his insubordination was repeated on several occasions, both while the ship was on the sea and when she was in port. His defence was that he did not engage to be a barman in a floating grog-shop, but that his work was to help sail the ship. The magistrate, however, informed him that he was to do as his captain bade him, and in order to enforce the lesson he gave him six months’ hard labour. Our grandmotherly legislators will, no doubt, ask a question to-night in the House.”

But there were happier signs than these, which told that a new revival was silently spreading among the churches. In confirmation of this, we will give one more illustration from Saints’ Society.

“Quixotic Saints.—We are informed that a very lively scene took place at Green Place Chapel, at a church meeting. The subject under consideration was the debt on the chapel. The building is one of the most ornate in the neighbourhood, and has a pretty spire and stained-glass windows. The seats are lined and cushioned throughout. The pulpit is of marble—the gift of Mr. Golden, the well-known distiller. Upon the chapel there is a debt of nearly four thousand pounds. The minister feels the pressure of this debt, and besought his people to do their utmost to lessen it. Mr. Smith, one of the leading men, made the following remarks:—‘Our minister is not the only one who would be glad to see this debt removed, and I for one am prepared to do what I can. I have the pleasure to hand over to the treasurer, on my own behalf, a second donation of thirty pounds. And I am happy to say that my daughters have, during the past month, been working for the cause. They have written seven hundred letters to well-known persons in all parts of the country, begging for help; and though I grieve that, so strong is the spirit of worldliness in the land, more than two-thirds of the persons addressed have not even had the courtesy to respond, they have yet received cheques and postal orders to the amount of twenty-seven pounds eighteen shillings and sixpence.’

“A working man in the meeting said, ‘Sir, it is our chapel and we ought to pay for it ourselves. It is well known that our brother whose daughters have been flooding the land with begging letters could, if he would, write a cheque for the whole amount of the debt. The place has been built in accordance with his wish, and I for one hope he will see his way to give instead of beg.’

“Mr. Shelve, a gentleman in the middle of the room, next arose with a beaming smile upon his countenance. ‘I, sir,’ he said, ‘am the bearer of good news. Like our friend Mr. Smith, I have written a few letters, and in response to one of these I have received this cheque for one hundred pounds, which I have much pleasure in presenting in the name of the giver.’

“Very loud applause followed this announcement, and then a man asked, in a quiet voice, ‘Will Mr. Shelve kindly give us the name of the generous friend?’

“‘Certainly,’ was the reply. ‘The munificent gift is from Mr. William Quellset.’

“‘Then,’ said the questioner, who was still on his feet, ‘I beg to propose that we respectfully return this cheque to the sender. Mr. William Quellset can well afford to give a hundred pounds to this chapel, and he is anxious to stand well with the people of this neighbourhood, whom he intends, if possible, to represent in Parliament. But no blessing could go with any amount of money from such a man.’

“There was some interruption, and the speaker corrected himself. ‘I beg pardon; I know nothing of the personal character of Mr. Quellset. I will therefore change the form of my words and say, No blessing could go with money made as he makes his. I suppose everybody knows that he is the patentee of those lozenges which are so attractive that probably the wives and daughters of nine-tenths of the men present are eating them every day—the lozenges to which he has not given the name of opium, but which have done more than anything else to make opium-eating universal amongst us. As our Government grows opium, and is anxious to sell it, it has contented itself, as you know, with imposing a duty on Mr. Quellset’s articles, and many a statesman quiets his conscience in regard to this growing evil by telling himself that the country is enriched by this increase to its revenue. Sir, the country is being ruined by it. The drink has slain its thousands and opium is slaying its tens of thousands. Mr. Quellset has found out how to make it palatable, and he has grown enormously rich; but surely, sir, we do not now live in days when men think they can purchase pardon and heaven by presenting to the Church a small part of their ill-gotten gains. I hope there may be found some one to second my proposition.’

“‘I will do so,’ said a blunt, uneducated man, ‘and I cry shame on any church which, for the sake of adorning its building, will in such a way as Mr. Shelve proposes thus make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.’

“‘Sir,’ said another, ‘I move that the grateful thanks of this church be presented to Mr. Quellset for his munificent gift. We have been patiently listening to a lot of arrant nonsense. We have nothing to do with the way in which a man chooses to make his money. If we had, I should say that Mr. Quellset has done the country more good than harm. He has found a new employment for men, women, and children. He pays better wages for box-making and all the other branches of his industries than they could earn in many ways. It is not yet proved that opium does more harm than alcohol; and, for my own part, I believe that all these good gifts of God, taken in moderation, are useful. And, besides, beggars must not be choosers, and it would be an insane thing to return a man’s money when we need it so much.’

“Nevertheless” [added the journal], “this Quixotic company of saints decided by a majority to return the cash, and pay its debts by the practice of its own self-denial and generosity.”

There were many quiet souls filled with piety and patriotism who thanked God and took courage when they heard this, for there was a leaven working in the real Christian society of the day which was destined eventually to bring about a marvellous change.

And this change, like almost everything else in England, had to do with politics.

CHAPTER IX.
IN THE AUTUMN.

Little Darentdale led the way.

The summer had not yet died into winter, nor had the leisure which comes into a country parish with the short days and long evenings left the thoughts of the people free. Nevertheless, some time and thought were given to an experiment which John Dallington, urged by Arthur Knight, had proposed should be tested in the village. The village was a small one, and it was almost wholly agricultural. There were about thirty persons who were employers of labour, and the rest were employed by them. Thirteen were looked up to as belonging to the moneyed classes, and of these, Mr. Whitwell—who lived out of the village, but had property in it—and John Dallington were the principal individuals. They employed on their farms the largest number of labourers, but besides these there were two smaller farmers, and several other persons who owned or rented a few acres of land, a gentleman who had retired from his business in London and had bought a good-sized house and garden, a lady of limited income, who kept one servant, and the general shopkeeper, who combined the businesses of chemist and druggist, draper, grocer, and coal dealer, all in one. There were, besides, two bakers, a blacksmith, a butcher, four publicans, and Henry Harris.

“We have everything in our own hands,” said John Dallington, “and it ought to be possible for us to have each man, woman, and child in our care, if not under our control. We may not be able to make the villagers religious; but surely it is possible so to govern our little world that there shall be no poverty in it, but every one have a share in the comforts and refinements which the richest enjoy. I find that we have some poor to be relieved, and some evilly-disposed persons—the most poor and the most miserable of all—who must be helped out of themselves.”

There were eight persons in conference—the Vicar, the Rev. George Emerson, the Baptist minister, the Rev. Henry Marshall, and the chief supporter of the Methodists—Mr. Rouse, who was also the principal tradesman in the place—Mr. Whitwell, and Dallington. There was here, happily, no bitterness between the Clergyman and the Dissenting ministers. The men knew each other so well that they had lost the disposition for fighting. In theory, of course, Mr. Marshall thought the Church should be disestablished, and when the time came he would do his duty, and vote to that effect; in theory, too, Mr. Emerson thought the Dissenters were schismatics, and ought to be repressed; but in practice the men were brothers, who respected the good which they saw in each other, and carried together the burden of the souls of the people. Neither begrudged the other the success which came to him, both mourned because they, though helped by the Salvationists and Methodists, failed between them to bring to the house of God as many as two-thirds of the people of Darentdale. But for this sympathy which existed between the Christian workers of the denominations, Dallington would have had no hope whatever for the success of his plan.

They had before them a list of the inhabitants, the joint work of Margaret Miller and Tom Whitwell, which gave all necessary particulars of the family and circumstances of each householder, together with certain facts touching their character, religion, and occupation—a list quite easily drawn up, since every individual was well known.

“Our parochial system has already parcelled out the country,” began Mr. Emerson.

“And placed a gentleman in every parish,” quoted Mr. Marshall, with a significant smile.

“Exactly; and to help him teach the people the Free Churches have been established, so that it is certainly not an impossible thing for us together to provide religious instruction on the Sunday, and visitation during the week. I do not quite know how it is that we have failed to get hold of so many of the people.”

“For part of the trouble our collections are responsible,” said Mr. Marshall. “The working classes do not care to be asked continually for money.”

“I do not think they mind paying for what they have,” said the Methodist. “The penny a week from our people comes in readily enough, and the Salvation Army procures immense sums from the working-classes. The real difficulty is that men do not consider religion a thing worth paying for. They judge it by its professors, and pronounce it a fraud or a failure, because so many of us are not what we declare religion makes people to be. There is not enough difference between those who are naturally good and those who profess to have been made good by grace.”

“Exactly,” said the clergyman. “Among the poor and irreligious of this village there is no man so highly respected as Mr. Harris, who never darkens the doors of church or chapel.”

“Yes; the carnal mind is still at enmity against God,” remarked the Baptist minister. “But is not even that, to a great extent, because the representatives of Christ have failed to prove that they are the bringers of good tidings? What is your gospel of help to the people, Mr. Dallington?”

“Better wages, better homes, more leisure, better amusements, better education,” he replied, promptly; “every Christian employer the friend and brother of his own people; every church the centre of a religious activity which leaves none near it untouched by brotherly love. And charity begins at home, and everybody is to look after his own neighbour.”

The little company knew that he was himself doing that which he urged them to do, and this gave him the greater power and influence.

The meeting was a very practical one. The farmers declared that they would slightly increase the wages of their men, and follow Dallington’s plan. Each cottager should have a strip of land for a garden, and every one who was willing to repair his own house during the winter should have the materials given him. They knew that Dallington had set before him the task of winning back the whole of his inheritance, but he would not do it at the expense of the comfort and well-being of his men. Mr. Whitwell was not so rich as he was thought to be, but a few pounds could be spared which, paid in shillings, would make all the difference to the families of some of his men. The only thing which had hitherto prevented him from paying more in some cases was his desire not to appear more generous than his neighbours.

It was agreed at the meeting that there should be an invitation sent to all the better-class people in the village to come to the vicarage for consultation. After that, “all who professed and called themselves Christians” were invited to the same place, the vicarage being selected instead of the schoolroom of the Baptist Chapel, out of deference to the bigotry of a few Church people.

And so it was decided that when November came a wonderful thing should happen. But in the meantime the summer lingered, and John Dallington was in love with it. One fine morning he said, “I am amazed at the manner in which English people libel their own climate. Never were such perfect summer days as these; nor is there, in any part of the world, grander harvest scenery.” As he spoke his eyes looked lovingly over the prospect before him, which was, indeed, a pleasant one. The remark was made to two of his cousins, Edith and Tom, who had ridden over to Darentdale with a message from their father, and having delivered it to the young farmer, whom they found where he ought to have been, among his fields, were lingering by his side. John’s hand was on the neck of the horse on which his youngest cousin sat, and she glanced at him with a smile half merry and half sad as he spoke.

“Yes, I am glad that for once the season is behaving properly,” she said. “It does not often, and it is well that you should not find everything disappointing. All your hay is safely in, I see; so is ours, and father is better tempered than ever in consequence. But don’t be too sanguine. Remember the proverb, ‘Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed.’ I should be sorry to suggest evil; but there are such things, even in this magnificent English climate, as storms of wind and rain, and even hail, that spoil the crops of the most hopeful men.”

“But they will surely respect John’s crops,” said Edith, “especially after he has so complimented the weather. I am glad you are courageous enough to grow corn at all, for it will scarcely pay you to compete with the foreign wheat in the market. England will soon cease to be a corn-growing country.”

“Never mind; let England grow men,” said Dallington, “and all the other lands grow corn for them to eat. You know the English-speaking race is destined to dominate the world.”

“Say the worlds, while you are about it, John. You are a true Englishman in conceit of your country. I think the dominant race might be improved,” remarked Tom.

“So do I; but we are getting on all the same. The real aristocracy—that of character—is realising its power a little, and before you are many years older, Tom, you will see a change.”

“Yes? Then I promise that when it comes I will remember the words of the prophet John.”

“You are winning golden opinions from your labourers,” said Edith. “You have followed father’s example, I hear, and given them pieces of ground for their own use. Now that so much of the land produces nothing but grass it will not mean as great a loss to you as gain to them. Old Benham said to me, ‘Lor’, miss, our young master be a brick, and no mistake;’ and, you know, to be called a brick is the highest praise any one can hope for.”

“I suppose that is because I have told him he shall have as many bricks as he likes with which to build a wing to his house.”

“I am afraid your men will not take the trouble to do the work, even though you give the time and material.”

“I think they will,” said John, quietly. “Indeed, I am sure of it; and this is another prophecy for you to remember, Tom. Are you not coming into the house? How tired you look!”

Tom answered hastily: “No, we cannot call; we saw Mr. Hunter as we passed, and father will be expecting us.”

“Tom is not well,” said Edith; “she is always tired now; she has lost her appetite, and she does not sleep. I want father to let us go away for a change——”

“Do not be stupid, Edith,” interrupted Tom, irritably; “I am all right, and where could we find purer air and more bracing breezes than on our own farm? The sea? Oh, it is not half as good as this! Besides, think of the poor wretches in London being baked and boiled in stifling streets and rooms! Good-bye, John, and a good harvest to you.”

“Tom,” he said, “the poor people in London will not be any cooler because you deny yourself sea-breezes.” But Tom only lifted her hat in her most gentlemanly fashion, and rode away with a smile on her lips that quivered with pain the next moment.

John was very fond of his cousin, and was really troubled at the change which he saw in her appearance, and which he felt also, though he could not define it. He would probably have ridden after her, but that his mind was turning in another direction than that of Hornby Hall, for he knew that Margaret Miller was at Scourby, and, guessing that she would walk home in the evening, he was resolved at all hazards to meet her.

Margaret’s home was in the centre of the pretty Darentdale Village, and the name of it was “The Old House”—a name which was appropriate since it was the oldest dwelling in the place. The other inhabitants were a man whom she called grandfather, whose name was Henry Harris, and his housekeeper, Ann Johnson. The Old House had originally belonged to John Dallington’s uncle, Captain Frank Dallington, and it was he who brought Harris to Darentdale. Margaret came with them, and since she was but a child they at once made inquiries for a suitable person to act as foster-mother to her as well as housekeeper to Harris. Ann Johnson presented herself, and was accepted; nor had there been reason to regret the appointment, for she had proved herself warm-hearted, if somewhat rough, and entirely trustworthy, though peculiar. The Old House had previously been empty for some time, for Captain Dallington would neither let it nor live in it; but he had it furbished up and comfortably furnished, and then he spent some months in it with Harris. There were plenty of rooms in the house, and one of them which faced the front was turned into a bookseller’s shop. But Darentdale folk were not great readers, and the trade was so small that the people became rather suspicious about the shop, and often wondered where Harris got the money to enable him to live comfortably. He, however, vouchsafed no information, and when Ann Johnson was questioned, she always began telling a tale about somebody or other, instead of giving a definite answer, so the Darentdalers had nothing left but to exercise their imagination. Mr. Harris was for some time no favourite in the place. Some said he was an atheist, though he was pronounced generally to be neither one thing nor the other. He did not go to either of the inns to spend his evenings sociably with his neighbours; but neither when a Temperance Mission was held did he don the Blue Ribbon. As to politics, he acknowledged that he was neither a Tory nor a Radical, but voted for the best man—as if the man had anything to do with it when there was the party to support! The villagers did not know what to make of a man who never called others names, and had no principles at all. But he had now been at Darentdale fifteen years, and it was strange how few people there were in the parish who, at some time or other, had not been helped by Henry Harris. There was nobody like him for getting another out of a difficulty, and almost every one had been glad to avail himself of the unostentatious assistance that was always ready. But some people liked Harris less on that account, and a few whom he had served the most were the most sure that they owed him a grudge. It is only noble people who know how to accept help gracefully.

Nobody disliked him more than John Dallington’s mother. But she had more reason than others for her disaffection, because she had a settled conviction that Harris and his granddaughter had money which she ought to have. Captain Dallington, who was always a wanderer, did not return to Darentdale after he had installed Harris and the child in the Old House. He had now been dead some years, and when his will was read his brother and his wife were astonished to find how little he had to leave. What he had was bequeathed to his relatives, excepting “the Old House, and all that was in it,” which was left to Henry Harris and Margaret Miller after him. The phrase—“and all that is in it”—had given John Dallington’s mother many an unhappy hour.

But what it was that was in it nobody outside the house knew, excepting that for the last few years there was in that Old House the most beautiful and interesting girl that Darentdale ever owned. It was not her beauty alone, nor her tall, graceful figure, nor her musical voice, nor her sweet, brown eyes that were the attraction; but there was a charm about her that could not be named, and generally could not be resisted. Most people loved Margaret, even those who did not want to.

Margaret, visiting Mrs. Wythburn, found her preparing for her departure. “We have made up our minds,” she said, “to go to London. Mary is there, and my husband believes that we shall be able to find her if we watch there. So we have taken rooms as near as possible to the Bank; and we quite hope to be successful in our search. We are willing that she should remain at the work she has chosen to do; and we shall no doubt eventually live in London altogether.”

“But it is a pity to leave the country for London now, when the weather is so unusually hot.”

“Our child is enduring the heat somewhere, and so can we. Besides, we cannot stay at Scourby. Do you know that Alfred Greenholme is already engaged to Hilda Copeland?”

“No; but I am not surprised. She is far more suitable for him than our splendid Mary, who never could have been happy as his wife. I hope you are not letting that trouble you, Mrs. Wythburn?”

“Perhaps it is annoyance rather than trouble. Mrs. Greenholme herself told me, and naturally, I had an unpleasant ordeal to go through. But the worst of it is, Margaret, that the people are setting very disagreeable stories afloat. Mrs. Greenholme said it was reported in the town that Mary and Dr. Stapleton had gone off together.”

“Oh, the slanderous tongues! How dare they give utterance to such abominable falsehoods! I should feel disposed to try to trace the lie to its source, though really it would be waste of time, for no one who knows Mary could believe it.”

“But I am sure that something is wrong with Dr. Stapleton. He is not in the least like himself. He looks ten years older since Mary’s disappearance. And his charges are almost double what they were. He is making the poor pay now, which, you know, he never did before, for he has always been most attentive and kind to those who could not pay him. He is often away, and cannot be found; and when he is summoned he is absent-minded and disagreeable. And people say all this looks suspicious, especially as he and Mary were known to be great friends.”

“Oh, my dear Mrs. Wythburn, every one will know that it is only a coincidence! Dr. Stapleton must have some trouble which he does not care to publish; but, of course, it has nothing to do with Mary. I am very sorry for him; he has always been so kind and good. But I hope for every reason that Mary will soon let you know where she is, and then all this will be made right.”

Mr. Wythburn entered the house while they were talking, and he was in excellent spirits.

“We shall be happy to see you in London, Margaret. We have not yet selected our town house, but when we have there will be a room for you in it. And we are going to catch Mary and chastise her. We have spoiled the child by sparing the rod. Now we shall alter all that!”

“It is rather late to begin, is it not?”

“Better late than never. But do you know, Margaret, I am coming to think that Mary is right. Some of us do not deserve to be called Christians, or to have any comfort, because we spend our lives on such a low level. Mary shall train up her parents in the way they should go.”

“That will suit Mary very well, no doubt; for that is what all young people feel called upon to do in these days.”

“And I think we needn’t be very unhappy about her. I am thankful that on her birthday I made over that money to her and gave her the cheque-book. She will not want for anything that money can buy, and that is a great comfort.”

“Let me help you to get ready,” suggested Margaret; and before she left the boxes were packed, the carriage was ordered, and Mr. and Mrs. Wythburn were almost as jubilant as if they were going to London on their honeymoon.

The hot afternoon was wearing towards evening when Margaret started on her homeward journey. She elected to walk, for it was delightful to be out of doors, and having nothing to cause her to hasten her steps, she might linger in the green lanes and sunny fields as long as she pleased, and so the burden of care was rolled away.

How blue the skies were and how fresh was the air! Margaret felt that everything was friendly towards her. The flowers seemed to look into her eyes as she touched them with caressing fingers. She had always a feeling that they knew who loved them, and could be happy or sad as other and bigger things were. She never gathered them to die in hot rooms, or faint their lives away, plucked and then neglected. She loved and cared for them, and thought they knew it. The birds were growing silent, but a few even now sang to her, and she answered them.

Yes, my Father cares for you,

Little birds amid the blue;

Praise Him, and I praise Him, too.

You know little of His care;

I, who feel Him everywhere,

Voice my love in praise and prayer.

You a little while may sing:

I will love and praise my King,

Yonder, in unending spring.

There was no one in sight, and Margaret’s sweet, clear voice rose and fell as she pleased. Presently she was too happy even to sing, for God seemed so near to her, and all things so glad that her eyes grew dim for very sympathy with the world. A little aside from the path, and near a gate, was a beautiful ash-tree, whose roots provided a comfortable seat, and she sat down to rest, and was presently lost in thought. Some one was approaching, but she did not see or hear him until he was almost close to her. Then she arose and turned, her face lighted with the thought that had been last in her mind, and confronted John Dallington.

He came eagerly forward, a great gladness in his heart.

Margaret was glad, too, as the rose colour in her face might have told him, and she lifted her eyes a moment to his with all the pleasure in them; but they fell before his gaze, for it told her almost too much.

“Which way are you going? Home? So am I. Let us go together—together.” He lingered on the word, for it was sweet to him—he would that they should always go together! “Margaret, say you are glad to see me, if you honestly can.”

“I am unfeignedly glad,” said Margaret in a low voice, and she asked herself how she could possibly be other than glad? But she was almost frightened to find how great the joy was, and how necessary it became that she should keep her feelings under control.

Ah! what a walk that was! They were both so young and so noble—so loving, too,—and all Nature was in sympathy with them. They had plenty to say—at least Dallington had; but the moments when they said nothing, and a soft silence fell upon them, were the sweetest, for they were side by side, and could glance into each other’s eyes when they did not hear the voice which was to the other the best-loved music of the world.

Time passes swiftly under such conditions, and the distance across the fields appeared as nothing. Quite before they expected it the spire of Darentdale Church became visible, and then Dallington turned from the path.

“Let us go this way,” he said. “We do not want to get home just yet, do we?” Margaret hesitated. He asked, “Are you too tired to go farther?”

“No; I am certainly not too tired,” she said. “But I have been away all day, and my grandfather may have wanted me. I must return soon.”

“Very well; we will not go far. But tell me about yourself,” he said. “Do you know that I went to the chapel on my first Sunday evening at home, and saw you?”

“Yes, I know.”

“I wondered very much what made you do that thing? It could not have been pleasant; was it?”

“Indeed, it was not.” Margaret was silent for a few minutes; and then she continued, in the low tones which she always used when she was deeply moved, “The fact is, that a change has come over me lately. I was always helped to form habits which were of the better sort, and I thought myself a very good Christian until a little while ago, when, after I had read a book opposed to Christianity, I began to really study the New Testament.”

“And what did you find?”

“I found Christ.”

“Of course!”

“No; it was not ‘of course’ at all. I had read it many times, and found a great deal about Him that was interesting and beautiful. But I had not found Him, which is quite a different thing. It is as if I had been in the dark, and a sudden flash had lighted up everything.”

“I wish the flash would come to me! I am anxious to see that Sermon on the Mount put into living form.”

“But it can never be while it is considered to be merely an exquisite literary production, to be praised and patronised. It has to be acknowledged as a code of laws absolutely binding on those who profess to be the disciples of Him who proclaimed it. But it is impossible for these laws to be entirely obeyed except by those who have found in Christ the Regenerator of themselves. Don’t you think so? I used to admire Him and venerate Him, and perhaps fear Him a little; but now it is all so different; I know Him, a living, reliable, present Friend and Companion. And I love Him because He first loved me.”

Dallington looked into the beautiful eyes, alive with feeling, and said, “And He is really real to you?”

“Real to me?” she cried. “I am not more real to myself. And it is all so wonderful!”

“And that ceremony in the chapel was the outcome of all this? And, I suppose, you mean to live up to it?”

“I am certainly going to try.”

“Margaret let us try together. I cannot let you go without telling you that which is my heart. Do you remember what the last words were which I said to you before I went away?”

Margaret had grown pale, and was trembling. “You must not say them again,” she said.

“But, indeed, I have been saying them ever since, and I shall say them as long as we both live. I chose you for my own dear love when I was a boy, and now that I see you as you are—oh, Margaret, surely you must love me a little, because you see how dear you have been to me all these years!”

“But you know,” said Margaret, very gently, “that I must not let myself care for you. The old reasons remain still.”

“I know of no reason in the world that should keep us apart. When I spoke to you before I was not my own master; but now I am free to decide for myself. Oh, my darling, if you love me we shall be so happy.”

Margaret turned from his pleading eyes as she answered, “You have the duties and responsibilities of your position. You must not be unfaithful to them. And you must not marry one who is beneath you; and——”

“Beneath me! Oh, Margaret, do not talk nonsense! I cannot bear it. The only inequality there is between you and me is that I am not half worthy of you, not half good enough for you. And you know already that I have my troubles—money troubles, and others—so that life is going to be a fight for me, as it is for most men. I am very much worried already. No man needs a good wife to help him more than I.”

“I hope you will find one, my friend,” said Margaret, bravely. “No one would rejoice more heartily than I to see you happy and prosperous. You must look for some one who can help you financially as well as in every other way.”

Dallington laughed a little bitterly. “My mother has been telling me to marry money. I scarcely expected Margaret Miller to give me the same advice. You are like the rest of the world after all, I suppose. Do you mean to marry money too, Margaret?”

“Are you going to be cruel to me?”

“No, dear; but neither must you be to me. Margaret, listen to me. I will not persecute you with unwelcome attentions; but I will not give you up until I discover that you are promised to another. You have grown so lovely and so sweet that, of course, you may have already learnt to care for some one else”—Margaret smiled—“but I do not think you have; and if you say No to-day, I shall ask you again. I have thought of you in every land to which I have gone. I have compared, or rather, contrasted—all women with you. Once, when I was ill, a strange feeling came over me that you were praying for me. It was my greatest hope when I returned to England that at last you would accept me. I have been very faithful to you, Margaret, because I love you—I love you! Darling, give me my answer now.”

They were standing under the shade of a tree in the lane behind Margaret’s home, and none saw or heard but the birds. The girl hesitated for a few seconds. It was no use to try to persuade herself that she did not care for him, for she knew better. He was searching her face with eager eyes, and she dared not meet his passionate gaze. She had given him love for love all along, and it was this that made it impossible for her to care for those who in his absence had sought her hand. Ah! yes, she loved him, and because she did his happiness should be dearer to her than her own. Oh! if she could believe that it would be really best for him, so that she might give him the answer he wanted, and which was throbbing in her heart and trembling on her lips! Might she? Dare she? True love is always humble, and there were strong reasons why Margaret’s should be especially so; and yet——

“Margaret, my darling, you do care for me!” he said, and he drew her gently toward him.

“Care for you? Oh, John, John!” It was no use; love is stronger than anything. She yielded herself for a moment to his arms, and he took his first sweet kiss of love.

CHAPTER X.
IN PARADISE.

Who is responsible for the naming of places?

Paradises and Edens are plentiful in London, if there is anything in names: but some of them have surely received their cognomens in bitter irony. Near Mr. Knight’s premises was a court which was called Nightingale Lane, and another known as Wild Rose Court, the houses in which were, most of them, a disgrace to civilisation. But there was another, containing about seventy dwellings, which rejoiced in the name of Paradise Grove. Away at the church, the sound of whose bells came in a sort of muffled music, they used sometimes to sing about Paradise in the anthem—

O Paradise! O Paradise!

Who doth not crave for rest?

Who would not seek the happy land

Where they that love are blest?

But this Paradise was hot and close and dreadfully dirty. At the open windows of the little houses men sat in ragged shirts and trousers, and worked off and on every day but Monday. There was a smell of dirt everywhere, and the children, escaping from the vigilance of the School Board officer, lay about in the dusty road until they looked like heaps of dust themselves. As for the language heard in Paradise, it was astonishingly bad. The men could scarcely utter a sentence without bringing in some oaths. The children, even when they meant to say good-natured things to each other, used the foulest of our language; and, worst of all, the girls raised yells of laughter by their filthy conversation. There was not a tree in Paradise Grove, nor a flower of any kind, but weeds grew there, and ill thoughts and utter misery.

Were there no churches or chapels or missions near?

Oh, yes! But the Grove people did not believe in Christianity, and declared themselves against humbugs. They were fond of that word, and applied it to every one who was in any way better than themselves.

No one had succeeded in effecting an entrance into the hearts of the inhabitants of Paradise Grove until a young woman, plainly dressed in grey cloak and hat, and having a sweet, sad face, had called at the doors with a basket of articles which she was anxious to sell. The people looked at her a little suspiciously at first. If she had brought tracts and magazines, she might go where she came from; they had had such visitors before. But she assured them, with a smile, that tracts and magazines were not in her line. She had large pieces of beautiful soap, exceedingly cheap, and would sell for a halfpenny a piece big enough for the whole family. And she had good scrubbing-brushes and hairbrushes, for which she would take a few pence only; and little white table cloths; no one knew what a difference it made to a room if a white cloth were put on a table before the loaf was placed upon it. The Grove men and women thought it perfect nonsense. Where was the good of wasting money over such extravagances as table-cloths? There was some sense in getting more to eat. When the people had their way, and right was done, chickens and hares and pheasants would be within the reach of the poor. If one of them could be placed beside the loaf, that would be something worth talking about. But in the meantime the woman’s things were certainly cheap, and she appeared very anxious to sell them; so now and then a purchase was made—especially when the women found that they could pawn the articles for as much as, or more than, they had given for them.

By degrees the woman and her basket had come to be familiar objects in Paradise Grove, and the people had grown to like her a little. She never attempted to meddle with them or lecture them. They tried once or twice to shock and frighten her; but she did not seem afraid; only, at first, it was noticed that if two men or women happened to be quarrelling and fighting when she came, she turned faint, and had to leave the neighbourhood. She never could be got to take sides in a quarrel; and now and then, very gently and unassumingly, she tried to put in a peacemaking or quieting word, but generally she was content to sell the articles she had brought, and explain their use.

The best of all was that the woman seemed to know about ailments, and what could cure them. There was always some one ill in Paradise Grove, and “the Basket Woman,” as they called her, carried medicine which generally did the sick ones good. Also, she made a very pleasant drink. It was not ale, for you could drink a gallon of it, and it would not get into your head; but it tasted something like ale, and was almost as nice.

But whether it was crockery, or medicine, or drink, the woman never would give it away or sell it on trust. Her wares were both cheap and good, but she would be paid for them; and so when she came they had to find their money. And this very fact caused them to respect her and themselves. Some of the women got quite an air of independence as they talked to her, and some of the men, respectable in whole shirts which she had sold them, held up their heads with an expression of superiority which was altogether new.

Certainly the most popular person in Paradise was the “Basket Woman.” But one day a Paradise girl, who rejoiced in the name of Fan Burton, spread through the Grove the news that their “Basket Woman” was not a basket woman at all, but a lady, who only pretended to sell things that she might “get round them.” Fanny had seen her dressed and talking to a gentleman. Why this should make any difference it would be difficult to tell; but after Fan had cleverly and maliciously circulated this news, the women chose to feel themselves “sold,” and a strange reaction set in. “She has had us nicely!” said Fan. “Let’s pay her out for it. I shouldn’t wonder if she turns out one of them female detectives, or, perhaps, she’s worse; how do we know as that drink and medicine ain’t poison? I don’t trust her one bit. Well, I ain’t had none of her rubbish, except a scrubbing-brush, and that can’t hurt me much.”

Then other women took the same tone; one especially told how she had been impudent enough to interfere when Mrs. Broggins beat her Sammy, as if a woman mightn’t do what she liked with her own brat. And what business was it of that Basket Woman’s, so long as Sammy wasn’t killed? She talked about fetching the police, she did—ah! she forgot herself then; she was mostly a meek-faced thing enough, but everybody had seen how she flared up about that boy—“a himperant, hinterferen ’ussy” as she was!

Things looked rather black for the Basket Woman; and it would have been well if some one could have warned her. But there was no one to do it, and she came into the Grove as usual, with a smile upon her face.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, pleasantly, “I dare say you know as well as anybody how to knit?”

“It ain’t no business of yours whether I do or not,” said the woman, in tones that became louder with every word. Then a shout came down the road. “Basket Woman! come here! I want a talk with you.”

A loud guffaw from all the women at all the doors showed that something had happened to make the dwellers in the Grove angry. The Basket Woman was not very courageous, and her first impulse was to fly; but she went toward the person who had called her.

“Will you have some wool?” she asked. But the person addressed turned angrily upon her.

“Wool, indeed? No; nor anything else that you have. I’ll tell you what you are! You are a sneaking hypocrite.”

A flush shot over the refined face, the basket was put down, and she faced the woman and the group that had gathered curiously around her. “Now, what is the matter? And what does all this mean?”

A torrent of abuse was poured upon her. She stood perfectly still, and her face was now white but firm. Presently, when there was a lull, she said, in a quiet, penetrating voice, “How hard and unkind you women can be!”

“Clear out! We don’t want none of your tongue!”

“I shall not go until you have let me say one thing,” she said, becoming suddenly brave. “I have as much right as anybody to come here and try to sell things. Why are you angry with me? Have I ever done you any harm?”

There were more shouts of scorn and anger, and nobody was courageous enough to say a word in favour of the stranger. In the crowd was a woman whose child she had nursed through two nights of croup, and another whose house she had cleaned because the mistress’s hand had been hurt. The Basket Woman looked into the faces of these women with pathetic wonder and disappointment, while all sorts of things were shouted at her and of her. Then she turned sorrowfully, and, taking up her basket, walked slowly out of the court.

“I hope you will let me come again, when you are not quite so angry with me, because I like you, and I thought some of you were my friends.”

As she said the words her eyes fell on the face of Fanny Burton, who looked sorry for her part in the matter, and who felt more than a little doubtful as to whether she had not made a mistake. But the woman herself was so sorely disappointed that the tears sprang to her eyes, and her lips quivered, as she slowly, and with gentle dignity, made her way along the court to the street at the end of it.

“Drive her out!” somebody hissed presently, and then there was sound of hurrying feet behind her. She quickened her steps a little, but before she reached the entrance to the court a big boy of eighteen came hastily behind her and gave her a push of so violent a character that she was propelled suddenly into the street and fell. With a wild yell the women took to their heels, and, running up Paradise Grove, disappeared in their houses.

The Basket Woman lay stunned in the street, her head having come in contact with the kerb-stone, and she remained for several moments insensible.

A lady who was passing in her carriage had seen the sudden rush in the street, and immediately went to the aid of the prostrate woman. Some water was brought, and presently the white eyelids opened.

“My carriage is here,” said the lady, who had been intently regarding her. “Let me take you home with me for some tea.”

“Oh, no, thank you! My home is quite near. I can reach it, I am all right now.”

“You belong to the Helpful Ministry, I can see,” said the lady, “by whatever name you may call yourself; and you have received quite the customary thanks and pay. My name is Wentworth, and I love girls, and am glad to find any who need mothering; and just now you need not only a mother’s love, but a mother’s skill also. Come with me.”

The Basket Woman sighed, and glanced at the kind face beside her. But the next moment she grew frightened, and answered hastily, “Oh, no, I cannot do that. Thank you so much, but I would rather go to my lodging.”

“Very well, I will help you,” said Miss Wentworth, for it was she. “No? I must not do that? Ah! I quite understand. But you may trust me. Here is my card. Will you promise to come and see me? If not, I shall not leave until I know where to find you.”

It was very tiresome, the Basket Woman thought; but she took the card, and gave the promise, and then crept back to her lodging, and went at once to her bed, where she remained for some days, with ample time and opportunity for testing the efficacy of her own medicines. Truth to tell, while enduring considerable pain and weakness, she much wished that she could have accepted the kind invitation of Miss Wentworth; but afterwards she was glad she had not. As soon as she was able she called on that lady, but was relieved to find that she was out. And then she gave herself afresh to her work. Paradise Grove was her own “happy hunting-ground,” and, therefore, she had taken two rooms, and thoroughly whitewashed and cleaned them, and lived among the people. She was glad to find that the ill-feeling which had been roused against her seemed all to have died out, and, as there never had been any in her heart, she went on with her work as if nothing had happened. She was needed just then for a bad case of sickness, and before that duty was through an incident occurred in connection with Fanny Burton that gave the Basket Woman great joy.

It was Sunday, and Paradise Grove was less savoury than usual. It was also more active, for most of the cleaning and washing were done on that day. Sunday, too, was the grand cooking-day of the week; everybody in the Grove tried to get a little hot meat on the Sunday. Often it was not possible, for in the Grove were many of the victims of London’s cruel sweating system, and many a woman worked fourteen hours a day for less than a shilling. Considering this terrible fight for life, and the environments of these people, the wonder was that they were not worse than they were. Happily, however, the system was doomed, for England was determined not to endure it, and public opinion was so severe on the sweaters themselves that their number became less every month. There was in process of formation a new Volunteer Corps, which already numbered thousands of employers of labour, who were sworn to abolish slavery in London, and set every man, woman, and child free. The Basket Woman, like many others, was preparing the way for this consummation.

Fanny Burton was busy on Sunday morning. First she helped her mother scrub the floor of the living room, and then she washed and ironed a pair of cuffs and a pocket handkerchief; next she brushed her Sunday dress, putting a stitch here and there to make it tidy. The fact was that Fanny was going out. George Green had invited her, and she had consented, to take a walk to Harleigh Furze; and, as she herself would have said, she was “counting on it,” not altogether for George’s sake, but still more for the sake of the flowers and the ferns; for this poor, uneducated girl, who spent the greater part of her life in a close factory, had the love of flowers born with her.

“Hurry on the dinner, mother,” she said; “I want to go out.”

“Very well; you must get it ready yourself, then,” was the curt reply. “Nobody else can please you.”

After dinner Fanny hastened from the Grove to the appointed rendezvous to meet George. He was not there, and the girl waited nearly half an hour before he appeared. When he came there was a sheepish look on his face. “How are you, Fan? You won’t mind, will you, if Drom Jones goes with us? She asked me to take her, and I couldn’t say we wouldn’t have her. And we won’t go to the Furze. Drom wants to go to Addington Park instead, because it’s nearer.”

A look of scorn came into Fanny’s eyes. Andromeda Jones (the Paradise Grove people were fond of fine names) was no favourite of hers, and George knew that.

“I have been counting on Harleigh Furze all the week,” she said, “and I shall go there. You can take Drom Jones to the Park if you like. It will not be the first shabby trick you have played me, George Green, but it will be the last.”

“Don’t be stupid, Fan. What is a fellow to do?”

“What he likes.”

At this moment Andromeda herself appeared on the scene, and, without another word, Fanny walked away.

But it was not until she had quite got away from the houses, and had walked some distance from the tram terminus, that she succeeded in overcoming the ill-humour that possessed her; and when she entered a field where no one was in sight, the first thing she did was to sit down upon a green bank and shed a few hot tears—not many, for Fanny was a girl of spirit, and did not indulge in such weaknesses as a rule. It was not jealousy in regard to George Green that troubled her, for after the first feeling of annoyance had passed away she did not give him a thought, but a restlessness that had taken possession of her, and that caused her to feel her own life to be altogether unsatisfactory. Not that it had ever occurred to her to think about her life until lately; but a subtle change had been going on within the girl which could scarcely be explained or accounted for. Fanny was active and curious, and had the desire to know which characterises some young folk. She had been sent to school long enough to learn to read, and she devoured everything that came in her way. Her knowledge, therefore, was of a very miscellaneous kind. Such periodicals as Paradise Grove affected were always read by her, for she borrowed every scrap that she saw, and until lately no girl more loved to shock the sensibilities of the Christian girls working beside her with impudent and blasphemous assertions than Fanny Burton. But, thanks to the Basket Woman, Fanny had certainly been growing more quiet and less confident lately. Instead of glorying in her surroundings she was sickened by them, and there had sprung up within her a great scorn of herself and her own people, and an awakening desire after better things.

And here was the girl on a beautiful Sunday afternoon away from the dirt and the heat of Paradise Grove, and face to face with Nature. Every step that she took drew her farther from the town and closer to the heart of the green forest. The flowers grew in the hedge, the daisies kissed her feet, the soft air fanned her face, and the tall grasses thrust themselves caressingly into her ungloved hands. It seemed that a great hush settled down upon her, and a new refinement of feeling, and then a strange hunger after God. The unbelievers’ words and works, the clamour of the court where she lived, the riotous behaviour and noisy talk of companions, seemed to be like things she had known in a bad dream; and now she was living in a new life. Was it earth or heaven? And would the great God—in whom, after all, she did hope—take notice of poor Fan Burton? I do not think that the feelings which so moved this girl would have been called into existence had she gone to the woods in company with her associates, or had the occasion been the annual picnic of the factory where she worked, or even a Sunday-school treat, where she was one of several hundreds. But she was alone with Nature and with God; and perhaps if we could make this possible to those for whom we build mission-halls, and provide crowded meetings, others would be similarly affected.

The girl walked or rested, with some new beauty to arrest her at every step, and with peaceful, purifying thoughts floating in her mind, until presently there came through the trees the sweet sound of church bells chiming their invitation to prayer. For a few moments, with clasped hands, and eyes that dared to look earnestly up to the blue skies, she stood and listened; and then, impelled by she knew not what, she knelt on the grass and offered her first prayer—a prayer odd enough to raise a smile if there had been any one to hear it, but sincere enough to win its way to heaven.

“Our Father which art in heaven, if You can hear me, and if You can help me, please do. I am so hard and so wrong, and such a fool, that I don’t know nothing, but I want to know, and I want to be better; please make me want it more. If You will help me I’ll try to be good, for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever, Amen. There, now, I’ve prayed; I really have prayed; and if there is Anything to hear, something will come of it. Anyway, it has done me good to pray, and I will go back home and see what is to be done next.”

Sweeter than ever seemed the flowers, and greener the trees, as the girl walked quietly and reluctantly away from the wood, feeling almost as if something new was going to happen. Nothing did happen until she had nearly reached Paradise Grove, and then she saw a crowd.

“What is it, Bet?” she asked of one of the girls who was standing near.

“Only the Salvation Army, as usual, come to convert us all,” was the reply.

Fanny did not laugh, as her custom was, but she went toward the crowd, and pushed her way in and listened. A man was talking of the love of God and somehow Fanny understood it, for her mind was full of the beautiful sights and sounds of the wood, which seemed to make the fact of God’s love not only possible, but most likely to her. She had heard it all before, but did not understand the whole of the address. The words which the speaker, in common with all evangelists, used bewildered her. “Come to Jesus! Will you not come now and be saved?”

After the address a hymn was sung, “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds!” and then there was a prayer, and the meeting was over.

Fanny had been watching her opportunity, and as the speaker moved away she laid a hand on his arm. “Tell me,” she said, “tell me quietly what you mean. How am I to come to Jesus?”

“In prayer,” said the man. “Jesus can hear every word you say just as well as when He was on earth; and He says, ‘Come unto Me.’ You ask Him to save and forgive you, and He will.”

A girl with a Salvation Army bonnet on came up, and was about to take possession of Fanny, but she, looking up, saw the Basket Woman, who had no basket, as it was Sunday, and who was regarding the scene with interest. She saw something in Fanny’s eyes as they met hers; and this friend of the people understood, and was at the girl’s side in a moment.

“What is it?” she asked, gently. “Can I do anything for you? Your name is Fanny Burton, isn’t it? Will you come into my room, and have a talk with me?”

Fanny looked rather frightened, but she turned her face toward the home of the Basket Woman, who shook hands with the Salvation Army girl as if she were her friend.

“I know Miss Burton—she lives near me, and I should like to help her if I may,” she said courteously; and the other, with equal good feeling, quitted the court and joined her friends.

“You have never been to my home, have you, Fanny? I am glad you are coming now.”

The room into which Fanny went was plainly furnished and was scrupulously clean. On the table were a snowy cloth and shining glasses, and two or three knives and forks, which Fanny thought looked like silver. There was a delicious scent of coffee, too, in the place, and, as the girl looked around, she thought, “This is too good for me.”

“I will not stay now, thank you,” she said aloud. “Perhaps I will come again another time, when you have had your supper, or whatever it is.”

“Oh, don’t say so. I do not like to eat alone. You do not know how dull it is to be quite lonely, especially on Sunday,” said the Basket Woman, and Fanny saw that there were tears in her eyes. Fanny yielded instantly; and while they had the simple meal together the Basket Woman talked to her on all sorts of things. When the meal was over, and the coffee drunk, they sat together in the pleasant room, and Fanny told her friend where she had been, and some of the things she had seen.

“Oh, Fanny, I wish I had been with you! I love the country so much. You went by tram, I suppose?”

“Yes; and then I walked a long way. I think it was the beautiful fields that made me feel queer.”

“Queer? How do you mean, Fanny?”

“They made me sorry I am so bad, and they made me feel as if I want to be better.”

“Yes; that is just how they make me feel. Some day, Fanny, not on Sunday though—perhaps next Saturday afternoon, if you can spare the time—I should like so much to go into the country with you. Would you be willing?”

“Yes; I should like it ever so much.”

“Then we will go together, if nothing happens to prevent. I was glad to see you listening to the Salvation Army. Did you ever go to Sunday-school?”

“Yes; when I was a little thing I used to go sometimes. There is a Mission-school, you know, just round the corner, where me and the others went.”

“And why did you leave?”

“Oh, we didn’t like the teacher for one thing; and, for another, it was hot and close; and I like to walk about the streets much better. I wish I hadn’t left, though, now.”

“You can go back again; I am sure they would be glad to see you. Why do you wish you had not left?”

“Because, perhaps, if I had stayed I should have known more. I want to know things. I know nothing. I could not even understand what the Salvation man said.” She paused a moment, and then her eyes suddenly flashed into the grave, kind face before her, and she said impetuously, “Oh, do tell me if it is all real—religion, I mean, and God, and Jesus Christ, and heaven, and all that they talk so much about!”

“Oh, yes, Fanny! It is quite real. I am more sure of that than ever.”

“Then please will you tell me all about it?”

The lady thus appealed to had surprised herself by the dogmatic manner in which she had asserted the reality of the Christian faith. The truth was that she had often doubted, and sometimes been inclined to believe nothing; yet now that a soul looked to her for light all the doubts seemed strangely to vanish, and all the old lessons came back to her, as she told the story of the Christ, and His beautiful life, and the great kingdom which He came to set up. It was longer than a sermon, but Fanny listened, with her eyes on the face that kindled with joyous earnestness, and it never occurred to her to yawn or feel tired.

“And I am sure,” she said at last, “that if only we do what He wants us to do, and are not selfish and wicked, but are true and kind, that is the best way to be happy. And He will show us all the rest.”

And then a warm impulse moved her, and she put her arm suddenly around Fan’s waist and drew her to her knees, and spoke softly to the Father in heaven for both of them, and asked the living, loving Saviour to reveal His grace to the girl by her side. It was done in the most natural manner, and only occupied one or two minutes; but when they arose, Fan was secured as a loyal disciple for ever.

“And I will never forget it,” she said, through her tears. “I love you; I know you are a lady, and not used to this sort of thing, and only come to do us good; and it was my fault that you were set on that time; but you don’t know how I will love you!”

“And you will really be my friend, Fanny, and help me? Ah, then we will make our Grove more like Paradise than it has ever been before! Do you think you could persuade the boys of the Grove to come and spend their evenings with me, and will you help me entertain them, and see that they have a real good time? I want to get them out of the streets, and teach them how to enjoy better things than pitch-and-toss, and swearing and cheating. But, of course, they will not come if my evenings are dull. I mean them to be very lively; and as you know what sort of things they like, your aid will be invaluable.”

“Yes, I will come with pleasure. I know all the boys in the court, and believe I could persuade them, one and all, to spend their evenings with us; that is, if we make it worth their while. I won’t quite exactly promise every evening until I have talked it over with my mother. I didn’t use to think so much of my mother as I do now; but I’ve thought a deal about her lately, and I’m going to make things better for mother. There ain’t no sense in trying to do other people good, and neglecting your own mother, is there?”

What made the Basket Woman blush and look conscience-smitten and uncomfortable? She did not speak for a moment or two, and then, in a faltering voice, she said: “You are quite right, Fanny; ask your mother, and I will ask mine.”

CHAPTER XI.
OUR PARISH.

The harvest was over, and it had been a good one. The usual festivities were held, and were more really joyous than such occasions frequently are. Already in many parts of the country the true leaders of the people were looking forward to the winter, not only in preparation, but with resolution, and were manfully determined that, if they could not prevent the usual sin, they would prevent some of the attendant misery of the days of cold and gloom. Arthur Knight was doing the work of two or three men. His brain was busy in regard to his own people; but whenever and wherever it was possible he was preaching his Gospel of Christian unity for the world’s good. By the seaside, in the mission hall, in drawing-rooms, in chapels by the dozen he was entreating, in words made eloquent by feeling, that the Church would no longer mourn over the evils of the world, but would set itself by one great united effort to remedy them. And, happily, Knight was only one; there were a dozen other men saying and writing the same thing.

And it was little Darentdale that led the way. By the aid of quiet visits and persuasive talk a number of persons had been led to acquiesce in the plan of making this special harvest festival the occasion for a new start, which made almost every heart in the village glad, for most working men and women had the surprise of a rise of wages—“for no earthly reason,” the people said, but for a very heavenly reason, as all knew who were in the secret. This was what everybody could appreciate, and did. The additional money was no great sum; in many cases it was only a shilling a week, and with it was expressed, as delicately as possible, a hope that it would not find its way into the publican’s hands; nor did it, for the event made the men desire their families to share it. The beauty of the increase lay in the fact that it had been voluntarily and freely given, without any threat of a strike, and even without the asking. That was the wonder of it!

Nor was this all. There were a few loafers in the parish, and every one of these received on the same day an offer of regular work at good wages. There were several who had lost their characters, and each of these had another chance given him. The lads and girls who had left the Sunday-school received an invitation to tea at some ladies’ or gentlemen’s home the next Sunday. Work was found for all who could work, and even for poor old people who could do very little, so that they might still feel themselves independent, and not fear the workhouse. In connection with each of the churches a room was to be fitted up for the purpose of “a girls’ parlour,” or a “boys’ reading-room.” An invitation to an “At Home,” with music and coffee, was signed by Margaret and Tom, and sent to every man who was known to frequent the public-house; while those who were steady, and especially those of the people who were members of Christian churches, were urged to “Come themselves and bring their mates with them.”

So Darentdale led the way. It was all arranged quietly and without ostentation, and this is what was accomplished—there was no poor person in the parish to whom no friendship and help was offered. It was the gladdest day the place had ever known; for there is no joy so great as that of “offering willingly” that which we have to men for Christ’s sake. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” “There is that scattereth and yet increaseth.” There was no man who took the extra money (which was not given as a favour, but yielded as if it were a right—as, indeed, in most cases it was) who did not resolve that he would put in a better week’s work for the better week’s wage; but it was no shrewd anticipation of this which gave to such men as Whitwell, Dallington, and others the exuberance of that never-to-be-forgotten-day. It would mean more work and self-denial for themselves, they knew; but they faced most joyously all that was involved in the effort which they were making.

Of course there were a few people who shut themselves out of the feast, and sneered at the music and dancing, all the more angrily because they knew that they were not sharers in some strange joy which they could not understand. Mrs. Hunter and her stepson were among the number. William smoked more cigars in that one day than he had ever consumed in the same space of time before, for his nerves needed soothing.

“It is more than a sane fellow can comprehend—madness, I call it,” he said, between the whiffs; “throwing money away on the lower orders. I told John so this morning; and what do you think he said?”

“I cannot tell, indeed; something about universal brotherhood or other nonsense of the same kind,” said John’s mother.

“He said there were no lower orders!”

“Indeed?”

“Yes; he said there must always be masters and men—persons who represented property and persons who represented labour: those who worked with the head and those who worked with the hands; but no Christian man had a right to selfishly keep his riches to himself; and that in this country, with all the money that is going, no one ought to know the meaning of the word ‘poverty’; and that it was adding insult to injury to speak of lower orders.”

“And what did you say?”

“‘Bosh!’ and he said ‘Perhaps,’ and then I said ‘Rot!’ and he laughed. And I told him he was going dead against the Bible, and casting pearls before swine; and that, instead of thanking him, they would turn again and rend him. And he said he was not doing it in the hope of getting thanks, and was paid as he went on, whatever that might mean; and I called him a fool.”

“You did?”

“Yes, I did; but I thought it better not to let him hear me.”

“He will bring ruin upon us all with these stupid, new-fangled notions.”

“He says they are not new-fangled, but as old as the Gospel and the Sermon on the Mount.”

“I cannot understand it. Somebody has got hold of him. I suppose Margaret Miller and Arthur Knight have between them turned his brain.”

“A set of hypocrites, pretending to be so much better than their neighbours! I have no patience with them. But it won’t last.”

“No; it won’t last.”

There were four or five other houses in Darentdale where those who stood aloof from the new movement tried to comfort themselves also, as well as they could, by declaring that it would not last, and no good would come of it.

Margaret Miller and Tom Whitwell had a royal time, assisted by the other young ladies of the village. “Margaret, can you find out what they do at ‘the public,’” asked Tom, “because I am going to compete with the publican for the favour of the men of our parish?”

“There is, first of all, the drink.”

“Yes; but my sisters are clever in the matter of eating and drinking. They have coached me up in a few facts, the most important of which is that the way to a man’s soul, as well as his heart, lies through his stomach. We have acted accordingly, and I really think that our viands are appetising enough to insure any man’s reform.”

“And the men like to be amused, you know; they cannot get on without that.”

“Well, Margaret, you must sing your sweetest, and I will talk to them. They liked to be talked to, don’t they? especially about politics.”

“Most of all, I think a man likes to spend his evenings in an armchair in a warm, well-lighted room, with a pipe in his mouth, something to drink at his elbow, and a newspaper in his hand.”

“If they could but do without the pipe! But I suppose that would be too great a sacrifice. And it is no use to try to ‘wind them up too high for mortal man beneath the sky’; we must take them as they are. Old Benham once said to me, ‘I ham as I ham, and I can’t be no hammer!’ There is a profound truth in that remark, don’t you think so, Margaret? But I am glad we have made up our minds to do something for our brothers and sisters. The inequalities of life have often made me bitter.”

“And how must poor women have felt who have struggled to bring up respectably a family of children on the money that it has cost us for dress!”

The “At Home” was a great success. Two better persons to manage it could not have been found than Margaret and Tom. They had the rare gift of always being natural. Many a philanthropic endeavour fails because the ladies and gentlemen, though striving to do their best, and longing to be useful, cannot feel perfectly at home among the poor, and make them feel the same. The latter often mistake the stiffness, which is more the result of nervousness than anything else, for patronage and condescension, and they are very quick to resent anything of that kind. It was greatly because Margaret and Tom were already respected and beloved that their invitation was so almost universally accepted. They had some fun, both with the men and the women.

“Christmas comes early this year, Miss Tom, don’t it?” one asked, with a wink at the men who sat opposite to him.

“Does it, Nelson? I think it is about the same time as usual. My almanack declares it to be on the 25th of December, as it was last year, if you remember rightly.”

“Oh! I thought tea-fights and such things only comed at Christmas. What’s all this mean, miss? Are religious people more religious than usual, or what?”

“It only means that they are more friendly than usual.”

“They want to get us, don’t they?” The man’s eyes were twinkling; but Tom answered quite seriously, “Yes, Nelson, they want very much indeed to get you.”

“And they are willing to bid for us in tea-fights, and coffee, and even fires and newspapers?”

“Yes; and anything else that they can think of.”

“Ah! that’s just what I says to my mate. I says, ‘It’s like the ’lections used to be.’ I’ve had many a glass of whisky for a vote; and I ain’t much of a hand at politics, so I voted honest for the man as treated me most liberal; and so I will now. I ain’t much of a hand at sermons and prayers neither, but I wouldn’t mind obliging either church or chapel for once in a way, if they’re after bidding for us; but, of course, Miss Tom, I values myself at the highest price, as is only natural.”

“Quite natural, Nelson. But you are mistaken this time. The churches and chapels are not bidding against each other; the people who”—Tom hesitated—“who are good, you know, are joining together to try and make things a little better and more happy for those who are not as well off as themselves. That is all it means.”

“And ain’t we agoing to be persuaded to go neither to church nor to chapel?”

“No; though we should all be glad if you went somewhere—we don’t care where. You would have a welcome in either case, of course.”

“Well, that beats all!” said Nelson. “And is this ’ere room to be lighted up comfortably every night for us?”

“Yes, it is; and we shall be glad if you will all come every night and enjoy it.”

“What’s this stuff I’m a-drinking, Miss Tom?”

“Beer.”

“What sort o’ beer?”

“Very nice beer, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s A 1, and I’ve had four glasses; but it ain’t reg’lar beer, cause, however much you drinks, you don’t get any forrader with it. It won’t make you drunk, will it, now?”

“You surely do not want it to make you drunk, do you?”

“Well—no—not as I knows on,” said Nelson, slowly; and the men around him laughed.

“I used to go to church when I were a boy,” said another man, Benham; “but if I go anywhere now, I goes to the Methodists when they has the open-air service. It don’t agree with my health to be shut up in a close church or chapel.”

“I suppose you find a bar-room better ventilated?” said Tom; and this time the laugh was against Benham.

“I used to go to church when I were a boy,” echoed another man. “My father were one of the singers, and he left all through a quarrel about a anthem. He wanted ‘All people that on earth do dwell’; but another man wanted ‘I will arise’; my father wouldn’t give way, nor the other man neither. Father says, ‘It shall be “All people that on earth do dwell,”’ and the t’other says, ‘Cuss “All people that on earth do dwell”’; and my father put on his hat, and walked out of the church forthwith, and he never entered it again till he were carried there; and that is the truth, and I do not deceive you.”

The last words were spoken so solemnly that Tom had to beat a retreat. But the evening passed pleasantly enough, and Margaret’s singing was greatly appreciated.

The next night the attendance was less, for some of the men spent the evening at the public-houses, talking the matter over; but our friends were not discouraged. They resolved to keep on—and wait. They were trying to feel their way, and by a wise judiciousness overcome the suspicion and opposition which they would probably encounter.

But from that seed-sowing harvest day could be dated a most beneficent change in Darentdale. The homes of the people put on a more comfortable appearance, and the spiritless women, feeling that something was expected of them in return for the sympathy and help which they received, began to be more sprightly, and to take some pride in making their rooms not only clean but pretty. By the end of the year but few had grown weary in well-doing, and in many hearts that had been hopeless before new hopes were springing up.

No one more approved this effort for the people than Mr. Harris. He contributed nothing to the cakes and tea, but he had done a kindness on his own account that was very acceptable, for he had presented every poor person with an armchair! And this he did as a sort of thank-offering for the pleasure it was to him to know that a good man cared for his Margaret.

But a few days after the harvest festival Margaret’s mind was considerably disturbed by an anonymous letter. It ran thus:—“A friend sends you this word of warning. Why do you try to tempt a gentleman from his duty and fealty to another? Already you and yours have wrongful possession of a house and money that by right belong to him. Will you rob him also of his good name, and cast a blight over his life? If you care for him you will not do this; unless, indeed, you are false and fast. Two hearts will break if he be drawn into your meshes; for who and what are you, and who were your parents? Has he come back to his native land to be beguiled by one who will but try to drag him down to her own level? His friends are determined to prevent this sacrifice; so you will but cause him and them the more trouble by your guile. A stigma attaches to you, which God forbid that he should share.”

To the last sentence Margaret breathed a fervent Amen. But it will be readily imagined that this letter caused her a very bad half-hour. Had she really an enemy—she who was used to seeing nothing but kindness in every face? And, if so, what was the enemy’s name? She could not tell.

But the pain had a greater sting in it when the thought suggested itself that perhaps this letter was not the work of an enemy, but of a friend. For, after all, there was some truth in it. Who and what was she, and who were her people? She really could not answer the question, for she did not know. And that was the reason why she had hesitated to accept John Dallington.

“The time has surely come for me to know,” she said. “I have had vague fears, but they must be either dispelled or confirmed now. It is not fair to me or any one else that I should be left in any uncertainty.”

Mr. Harris had a cosy little room opening out of the shop, and here he usually sat during eight hours of every day in case a customer should come and require books, papers, or stationery. “I am for the eight-hour movement,” he used to say, with a significant smile at Margaret. “Eight hours are long enough for any man to work.”

And she always agreed with him. “Especially when it is such arduous work as yours, Graf, requiring such close attention to detail, so exhausting for the brain and the arms, as indeed all work is in these days of fierce competition. How much did you take over the counter yesterday—fourpence halfpenny?”

“Oh, I had a good day! I sold a copy of Browning’s poems, and the purchaser appeared much pleased with it.” The purchaser in almost every case would be himself, for few Darentdalers bought books or read them, and those who did sent to London or ordered them through a bookseller in Scourby. But Margaret and her grandfather had much quiet fun over the shop, and were decidedly its best customers.

Margaret loved the old man, and was as tender as a daughter could be toward him; and how much he cared for her all the years of her life had told. It was, nevertheless, difficult for her to broach the subject that was uppermost in her mind.

“Has there been a great rush of customers to-day, Graf?”

“Well, I have been quite busy enough for the greater part of the day. Newspapers have sold well; they are very interesting, for Parliament was last night discussing the question of adopting that new gun—a noiseless, smokeless weapon which can kill at the distance of a mile and fire three hundred shots in succession. Other nations are adopting it, and Christian England must not be behind. One good thing about it is that any number of armies could be annihilated in a day; so if the battles are fierce they will not be long.”

“Dreadful! Surely they will never fight again now that killing is so easy and so certain?”

“I don’t know; I hope not. I think not, if England would lead the way, as she ought, and would be always for peace.”

“I am feeling very warlike this evening, Graf.”

“Are you, Margaret? You are young to suffer from nervous irritability. Do you feel as if you want to bang something?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Go up the house and down the house and bang all the doors. No? You want something human? I am quite at your service, my dear—bang me! I am substantial enough for anything.”

“Graf, you are generally young and frivolous when I want you to be staid and serious. Something has happened to me, and I need help and advice.”

“Really and truly, my child?”

“Yes; very really and truly, indeed. I have had an anonymous letter.”

“Don’t read it, Margaret. I have had many such in my time, denouncing me as a sceptic and an atheist, and consigning me to the lowest regions. They don’t hurt you much when you are used to them. Put your letter in the fire unread, and forget all about it.”

“But I have read it, grandfather; I could not help that, and I want you to read it, too.”

“I think it would be better not.”

“Please, because I wish it.”

The old man read it through twice, and then looked at Margaret, with a curious smile. “You need not mind this in the least,” he said. “I suppose you know who wrote it?”

“I have not the slightest idea.”

“No? It was Mrs. Hunter, John Dallington’s mother.”

“Mrs. Hunter! Oh! surely not? What can make you think that?”

“I do not think it; I am sure of it. There has been an attempt to disguise the writing, but it is certainly Mrs. Hunter’s. Now, my dear, never tell any one that you have had it as long as you live. Burn it, and forget all about it. That is the only thing to do.”

“Graf, you must be mistaken; it could not be Mrs. Hunter.”

“Very well, my dear. Settle it so, and welcome. But I do not believe there is any one else in Darentdale who would have done it, unless her stepson did it, and I am sure he did not. Never mind who wrote it, Margaret, nor what is in it. Somebody is afraid that Dallington has fallen in love with you. It is a proof of his great good sense and intelligence that the suspicion is correct.”

“Grandfather,” said Margaret, in grave tones and with trembling lips, “you have seen what this letter says. Please tell me, who am I?”

Mr. Harris began to look troubled, but he answered, “You are Margaret Miller. I can tell you no more than that.”

“Oh, but you must!” said the girl, pleadingly. “It is not kind to me; it is not right to withhold anything from me that touches me so closely.”

“Margaret, I can tell you one fact. You are fit to mate with John Dallington or any other man. Your parents were good people, and occupied a high position. They were married in Spain, and I was present at their wedding.”

“Which of them was your child, grandfather?”

Harris hesitated, but Margaret was urgent.

“The time has surely come for you to be open with me,” she said. “Dear old Graf, I cannot bear to trouble you; I hate myself for doing it. If you think I ought not to ask you, I will try to be silent; but it is hard to have a stigma resting upon me.”

“Child,” he said, angrily, “there is no stigma of any kind attaching to you! Have I not told you so already?”

“Graf, do not be angry with me. Which of my parents was your child?” Margaret repeated.

“Neither,” said Harris, and he looked white and pained; “but if you had been my own child I could not have cared more for you, and you could not have given me more joy through all these years. Your parents both died of cholera in Spain—one two days after the other. There were perils that beset their only child; and from these you were rescued by Mr. Dallington, who was under an obligation to your father, and who, in order to pay it, adopted you; and whose will provided for you by leaving this house and all that is in it to you after me.”

“And is my name Margaret Miller, really?”

“Yes, that is your name.”

“But there is a secret somewhere?”

“There is; but the secret belongs to the dead. No person living is affected by it; and it will die with me, for I swore not to reveal it; nor will I, neither at the bidding of hate, nor of love. You know enough, Margaret. Be content.”

Margaret bowed her head. “Thank you for telling me so much,” she said; “and for the years of love and kindness which have made my life so happy that I have scarcely missed my father and mother.”

“I have but done my duty and kept my promise. And you see that you owe me nothing, Margaret, not even the obedience and love of a granddaughter.”

“Dear Graf, I owe you everything—all the gratitude, goodwill, and affection of which I am capable. And I will never forget it. We will be just as happy together now as we have always been, and forget the anonymous letter. I am sure that there is not a grain of truth in the insinuation that we are enjoying money that ought to belong to others.”

“You know quite well, Margaret, that a man has a right to leave his property to whomsoever he pleases. Mr. Dallington was an eccentric man; but he was only right and just when he took care that you should want for nothing. It was his duty to do this—mark what I am saying, Margaret—his duty. He would have been culpable if he had not done it. But he did it in a curious, unusual way. Some day I will tell you where you will find, on these premises, enough hard cash to maintain you in the comfort you have been used to, and, at the rate at which it is spent now, until you are eighty years old. Now, Madge, my child, you know all that I can tell you; and it is nobody’s business but ours. I want to talk to you on another subject. We have all our troubles, my dear”—the old man sighed as he said it—“and they are not very big ones either, for they give us more worry than pain. But a very little worry is large enough to spoil a life if we will let it. You will not let this thing overshadow your life—if I know you, I am sure you will not—for you are a believer in the Christ——”

“And so are you, Graf,” interpolated Margaret.

“And it seems plain to me, though, as everybody knows, I am a sceptic and an unbeliever, that He meant all His followers to live the same kind of life as He lived. Therefore, my child, you will put yourself on one side in this matter. Such petty things as anonymous letters are beneath you now; you must be invulnerable to the little stings which would force your thoughts upon yourself. Be a large-minded, large-hearted Christian, or none at all, Margaret. Christianity is not a creed; it is a life. Don’t you think so?”

“I do, indeed, thanks to your teaching.”

“Oh, no! I am a very irreligious person; but I do not want you to be.”

Margaret was right in saying that she owed everything to this old man, whom so many denounced. “He is perishing in his sins,” a man had said of him once, because, when he had been invited to a special service, he had replied with a laugh that he would rather have one to himself by the river. But Margaret, whom none ever heard say an unkind thing of another, whose very presence raised the tone of a garden party, who was the champion of the absent, whose loving nature made itself felt everywhere, had formed her opinions and habits after those of her guardian, and was much the better for it.

“Graf,” said Margaret, “a young woman has no right to come between a mother and a son, has she? If Mrs. Hunter regards me in this way I am sure Mr. Dallington must be unhappy about it.”

“I advise you not to mention this letter to him. He gave me to understand that he was not in a position to marry immediately; and while you are waiting things may right themselves. In any case, he is of age, and has a right to choose his own wife. I am glad he has chosen my child. He took me by surprise, though, because I thought he would marry Miss Tom Whitwell—for I have fancied many times since his return that she cared for him. But everything is as it should be. Hear what Browning says, ‘God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.’”

But the talk and the letter caused Margaret a sleepless night, though it was not so much the letter as the suggestion about her friend, Tom Whitwell. Can it be true? she asked herself many times; and she was half afraid it was, now that she thought things through. But she did not keep the trouble to herself; and her cry, “Show me the right, and give me strength to do it!” was certain of an answer.

CHAPTER XII.
A NEW ORDER.

Margaret Miller and Tom Whitwell read together an account of some meetings at which Arthur Knight had been speaking, and they confided to each other their own ideas on the subject. As the reader knows, each had her own reason for anxiety and trouble; but each felt that this was a time for laying all personal affairs and feelings on one side, and doing her part in the New Crusade which was being fought.

“We ought to do so, Margaret,” said Tom, “because I believe that for the existing state of things women must bear much of the blame. We have left off sending our knights to battle for God and the right, and we encourage them instead to take to money-grubbing in the city.”

“A good deal of heroism of a certain kind is practised, though, even thus,” replied Margaret. “Many a man who raises himself from a lowly position to a lofty one does it much more for the sake of his wife and children than for his own.”

“Oh, yes! And dies on the field, content to have won a carriage for his widow, and funds for the gambling purposes of his sons. What astonishes me is that women can accept such heroic sacrifices for such small ends. But I am afraid that we are all becoming about as mean as mice; at least, if we are to be measured by the topics of our talk at afternoon tea.”

“Ah! but we are not. We are so foolishly and wickedly afraid of revealing our best to one another that we pretend to be as frivolous and heartless as we possibly can. It is a great fraud, and some of us have eyes keen enough to see through it. I always find it difficult to keep from laughing when you, Tom, make believe to be interested in the edifying tales that are told about your neighbours.”

“It is abominable, Margaret, and I hate it. Fine companions for true men are we, if we are to be judged by our own representations of ourselves! And we might do so much; for we really have a good deal of power over men.”

Margaret smiled significantly.

“‘Ah! wasteful woman,’” she quoted. “And yet, you know, there is nothing a woman really cares so much about as the good opinion of her male friends.”

“Oh, I know it is the men’s fault in the first place; but we are to be their helpers, not their slaves.”

“I will tell you where I think our help might come in. You remember when we were in London last we saw quite a crowd of girls coming out of a low-looking public-house, some of them half-tipsy?”

“I should think I do remember it. Who that had once seen such a sight could ever forget it?”

“But the girls would never have gone in of themselves. It was because of the young men who were there. The girls would be easily dealt with if once they could understand that that sort of thing disgusts men.”

“Ah! but it doesn’t.”

“I am not quite sure of that. I believe it does—for every man has a better and a worse self, and everything depends upon which part of the man’s nature is influenced by the woman whom he loves.”

At this point of the conversation Tom asked a very peculiar and personal question, which brought the colour to her friend’s face.

“Margaret, have you any money?”

“I have a little, enough for my needs.”

“What I have been wondering is whether you and I together could spare some for the rent of a drawing-room in London near that particular public-house, where we could try our Darentdale plan with those creatures who are neither boys nor men. People say that almost any lad, even the roughest, will treat a gentlewoman with courtesy. We could invite them, before they go into that place, to come into ours, and there you might talk to them in your own way, and perhaps I in mine. We might give two evenings in a week. Our people would not mind if we were together, and we could get home easily, though a little late, for the trains are so good. If we can only succeed in a small way it is worth while to try.”

“Oh, Tom, how brave you are! Something of the kind has been floating in my own mind, but I should never have had the courage to try without you.”

When the true history of the world comes to be written it will be seen how much in this remarkably formative period in England was commenced in just such a simple manner as this talk between our two friends.

It was on a cold, drizzling night, when the London streets were as uncomfortable as only London streets can be, that two well-dressed young ladies went up to a group of boys, all somewhere in their teens, and invited them to come in and have a cup of hot coffee and some buttered toast. The fair, smiling faces of the girls and their friendly and gracious manners forced the boys to courtesy, and eight of them—about half the number—consented. They looked at their dirty hands and boots when they were taken into the drawing-room with comical seriousness.

“Oh, never mind!” said Tom. “Look at my boots; you cannot keep clean on such a night as this. Have the coffee while it is hot. And here are some potted beef sandwiches. Perhaps you have not yet had your teas?”

The boys laughed. “We have had our teas,” said one. “A hextra meal don’t make no difference to the likes of us.”

And so, indeed, it seemed; for the coffee and eatables disappeared in almost no time.

The boys were not as much surprised as boys would have been twenty years before, at the invitation.

“They are trying another dodge on us, that’s all,” whispered one to his mates; but they looked with a little curiosity when the plates and cups had been collected; and when, for a moment or two, the ladies had left the room, a brisk bit of betting went on.

“Ten to one on Music!” “Thirteen to one on Sign the Pledge!” “Twenty to one agin Gambling—look out!”

“We cannot tell how glad we are to see you,” said Tom, rather nervously, as she took her seat. “You can spare time to stop a little while, cannot you?”

“That depends,” said one. “I’ve got a pressing engagement—very pressing, indeed; but I’m always ready to oblige a lady, specially such a stunner as you, miss.”

“Thank you; much obliged for the compliment. Well, we are going to tell you a story. You like tales, don’t you?”

“Yes; but not true ones, mind.”

“Very well. Miss Miller will tell the first and I the second.”

No one guessed the trouble to which the narrators had gone to prepare these stories, nor the numbers of dreadful boys’ books through which they had waded in order to get some idea of the style which would be acceptable. Some hair-breadth escapes there were, and a few things to laugh at, especially in Margaret’s, which she told so effectively that her audience was spell-bound. It was the story of a poor boy, dreadfully tried and tempted, who, by his self-control, and because, though he sometimes did the wrong, he loved the right, made his way in the world, and won the gratitude and respect of all who knew him. It was a good story, well told, and the boys applauded it vigorously.

“That is a story of up, up, up,” said one.

“It is,” replied Tom. “That is a clever title for it, and mine is a story of down, down, down!”

“Of course, the fellow was a religious cove.”

“Certainly; he would not have done as he did if he had not had Some One to help him.”

“Ah, but we ain’t religious—not much!”

“No? Ah! that accounts for some things,” said Tom, glancing at the rags and the dirt and the unkempt hair of the speaker—a glance so eloquent that every one understood it.

“Now let’s have yourn, miss; my engagements is a-pressing me like anythink.”

Tom was not herself prepared for the effect upon the boys which her recital had, and Margaret listened in amazement. She made the boy in the story live before her listeners, so that they seemed to know him, and were entirely in sympathy with him. They knew all about his uncomfortable home, and his tobacco money, and his bets. He was a nice fellow, too, and good-natured to his “pals” at first; but just because he was selfish and weak, and could not say No at the right time, and because he never called upon God except to blaspheme Him, and because he wouldn’t be a teetotaller, and was so altogether mistaken in his ideas about manliness and honour, his end was full of misery. Tom’s eyes filled with tears, and her voice trembled as she described the downward progress of this boy and his death; and when she finished with a little prayer, “O Lord! for Jesus Christ’s sake, save these boys from all that!” she could not repress a sob, which awoke an answer in the hearts of almost all the boys.

The boys were subdued as they went away, and two or three, at least, resolved to make their lives from that night a story of “Up, up, up.” Most of them came on the next appointed evening, and brought others with them. Of course, all meetings were not successes; nor did the boys invariably continue to be interested. All workers have some disappointments, and Margaret and Tom had many. The habits already formed by the boys were not suddenly broken, nor was the evil in them readily subdued. But the effort was yet a remarkably prosperous one; and, though small in its beginning, it was the commencement of a very great thing indeed. It was not quite at first evangelistic, in the usual sense of the word, but it soon became so in the largest and fullest sense. Our friends would not easily forget the first devotional ten minutes they spent with the boys, nor did they.

“They was the realest prayers I ever heered, and they fairly knocked me down,” said one of the boys.

“But we mustn’t have the ladies knocked down, and some of the chaps, and the gals, too, are mad about this thing; so we’ll conduct them to the station.”

And when that evening was over Tom said, admiringly, “What gentlemen they are!”

After a time they saw that the thing would be too big for them to cope with alone. They needed some one older, who resided in London, to help and advise them. And at this juncture Tom remembered that she had heard her cousin speak of a lady who would probably be interested in this movement.

“Margaret,” she said, “My cousin John has told me of a Miss Wentworth, whom he met on board-ship, who is very kind and philanthropic. I will get a letter of introduction from him, and we will call and see her to-morrow.”

This was done, and the older worker welcomed the young ones with great cordiality, and listened full of sympathy to the tale they had to tell.

“The thought has been given to you by God,” she said. “All our hopes for the future are in the young, and especially in the boys. I have myself thought how well it would pay for Christian women to give up all other work, and devote themselves to mothers and the children alone. My house is entirely at your service; I shall consider it most honoured to be used in any way for the promotion of this enterprise. As for myself, I am an old woman, and cannot do much; but anything and everything which I can do will be most gladly done. Do not scruple to ask me for money, or service, or room. If only for Mr. Dallington’s sake, I should like to prove myself your friend.”

The girls were fortunate in having found so able a helper, and they promised that Miss Wentworth should at once be taken into their complete confidence.

The first result of this was that that lady invited by letter all the gentlemen’s boys whom she knew, and Margaret and Tom had a drawing-room meeting of a different kind. They were boys such as Arnold would have loved and Thring believed in—sons, for the most part, of Christian parents, fine specimens of young England, the statesmen and merchants and professional men of the future. And these boys, full of fun and ready for mischief, but generous and manly, hating lies and cowardice as only English boys can, became the nucleus of a grand army destined to save the nation and lift it into a glory such as it had never known before.

Margaret’s gentle voice and beautiful face won their way immediately to the boys’ hearts. She told the same story as before, but in different words and with a different significance, leaving them to see how they might help those who were down to rise; and that their education and position put upon them the responsibility of doing so. Next, in glowing terms she reminded them of the old Crusaders, and the Knights of Chivalry, and besought these modern boys of England to enter upon the new crusade, and drive out from their native land the drunkenness and gambling, the impurity and misery which were crowding round its holy places. She reminded them that they must bring about the great reformation; that they must acknowledge Christ, and for His sake the brotherhood of man; it would be their sin and shame if poor women were still to work for starvation wages, and wretched men lose their manliness because they had lost their hope. She took it for granted, she said, that they were Christian boys, and that they would be true to the faith of their fathers, which faith was not simply a belief in Christ as a Saviour, though it was that first of all, but an obedience to Christ as a law-giver, and that the command to love one another, to care for the poor, to acknowledge the equality of man, to be strictly fair and honourable, were simple everyday duties incumbent upon all who bore the name of Christ. She spoke of the waste of God-given power in war, and urged them in glowing words to pledge themselves never to uphold those who pressed a national quarrel to murder; and she asked them, now in their youth, and afterwards in their manhood, to suspend for a while even the strife of political parties until the wrongs of the poor and the ignorant were righted; and to accomplish a grand mastery of self that they might become the masters of the world. And then she bade them win the love and reverence of women by being such brave, high-minded, clean-souled men as they dreamed all Englishmen should be.

After this Tom told her story, showing at every step how if the boy who went down into the lowest depths of degradation had had a strong man—a gentleman—to help him, it would have been different. “But the young gentlemen,” said Tom, “were smoking and drinking, and so busy in robbing themselves of their own strength and manhood that they took no notice of the poor wretches who were dying by their side, and Noblesse oblige had no meaning for them.”

“But it has for us,” said a boyish voice, its owner rising in the middle of the room; and Margaret was delighted as she looked at him; a tall, straight, good-looking boy with his brown curls tossed back from his forehead, and his blue eyes flashing with fearless determination. “Let me tell the ladies who have spoken that there are hosts of us quite ready to form a new army of Volunteer Crusaders. But we want a little help and encouragement; we are so cowardly, afraid and ashamed of appearing as good as we are. Could not another word for good be invented? We would rather face a lion than the stigma of being called goody-goody; but let nobody on that account suppose that our hatred of wrong, and our indignation against the wrong-doer, is any less hot in us than in our fathers. We have been born with consciences, and we have energy enough to battle with anything. You fellows, what do you say? Shall we, here in London, and to-night, form a regiment of Soldiers of Peace? I believe the idea would be taken up all over England; for the boys I know—most of them, at all events—do not want to disgrace their names. If we could really believe that we are called to be heroes there is that in us which would help us to rise to the name. Yes, and let us wear a rosette of the red, white, and blue of Old England, which no boy shall wear except worthily; the blue for temperance, the white for purity, and the red for battle or endeavour. These colours have won renown in the past; they shall win higher renown still in the new days for our country, for—” and the young voice rang out like a bugle call—“we swear to God that we will do our part to make our nation exalted by its righteousness.”

The boys shouted “Hurrah!” they could not help it; they were wonderfully moved by the short harangue of their comrade, Ned Northcote, a favourite of all who knew him. And Tom trembled with excitement as she put her hand on the arm of her hostess.

“We must take this holy enthusiasm at its flow,” she said. “Miss Wentworth, will you let your house be the rallying ground for this grand new army?”

And the older woman replied with quivering lips, “Only too gladly! Never before was the house so consecrated as it is to-night.”

She might well say so; for at that moment a boy’s voice, in simple boyish language, was vowing for himself and his fellows, all of them standing, with bowed heads and swiftly-beating hearts, that they would live for the kingdom of Christ, and be the King’s soldiers.

“Here is a book. I think we should have a roll-call,” said Tom. “I am not a boy; I almost wish I were to-night: but I shall belong to the regiment. It is late now; will you enrol your names in your own handwriting, and come again to-morrow?”

The movement became known through the Press. There were several flourishing weekly journals and one daily devoted to the interests of women, the columns of which were chiefly occupied with the fashions and tit-bits of news about “Society People.” A letter was addressed to each of these describing the meetings here referred to, and appealing to the ladies of England to help, by drawing-room meetings and any other means that should offer, in the formation of a national army of Volunteer Boy Crusaders, pledged to the extirpation of evil and the uplifting of the standard of righteousness.

Most of the editors of these papers inserted the letters (and those who did not wished afterward they had done so), and the response to them was marvellous. The religious papers, of course, most willingly gave their assistance, and so it came about that in a comparatively short time after the meeting in Miss Wentworth’s room thousands of meetings were being held in connection with churches of all denominations in all parts of the country; for the idea had everywhere caught the imaginations and consciences of Christian women, and God wills it was borne in upon them.

And then it became evident what a wonderful preparation for this had been going on during the past years. All sorts of societies were already in existence, ready to be amalgamated. There was the “Society of Christian Endeavour,” which numbered thousands of young people; and it was easy and natural to show how their endeavour, which was, firstly, for their own religious advancement, should be, secondly, definitely on behalf of other boys and girls less favoured than they. Then there was “The Boys’ Brigade,” which had made fine, soldierly lads of some of the roughest street boys of the large towns, but which was regarded with suspicion by some who feared that the organisation might be used as a recruiting agency for military purposes. But it was found that these boys were as ready, and even eager, to take the Pledge of Peace as the rest; and so well disciplined were they, so used to obey the officers under whom already they served, that they were invaluable in the new army of young crusaders. The Bands of Hope, too, had their thousands already engaged in negative work, but thirsting to become aggressive, who signed the new pledge, “We will,” after the old one, “We will not.”