Frank Oldfield / Lost and Found

Reverend T.P. Wilson

"Frank Oldfield"

Chapter One.

Lost.

“Have you seen anything of our Sammul?” These words were addressed in a very excited voice to a tall rough-looking collier, who, with Davy-lamp in hand, was dressed ready for the night-shift in the Bank Pit of the Langhurst Colliery. Langhurst was a populous village in the south of Lancashire. The speaker was a woman, the regularity of whose features showed that she had once been good-looking, but from whose face every trace of beauty had been scorched out by intemperance. Her hair uncombed, and prematurely grey, straggled out into the wind. Her dress, all patches, scarcely served for decent covering; while her poor half-naked feet seemed rather galled than protected by the miserable slippers in which she clattered along the pavement, and which just revealed some filthy fragments of stockings.

“No, Alice,” was the man’s reply; “I haven’t seen anything of your Sammul.” He was turning away towards the pit, when he looked back and added, “I’ve heard that you and Thomas are for making him break his teetottal; have a care, Alice, have a care—you’ll lose him for good and all if you don’t mind.”

She made him no answer, but turning to another collier, who had lately come from his work, and was sauntering across the road, she repeated her question,—

“Jim, have you seen anything of our Sammul?”

“No, I know nothing about him; but what’s amiss, Alice? you’re not afraid that he’s slipped off to the ‘George’?”

“The ‘George!’ no, Jim, but I can’t make it out; there must be summut wrong, he came home about an hour since, and stripped and washed him, then he goes right up into the chamber, and after a bit comes down into the house with his best shoes and cap on. ‘Where art going, Sammul?’ says I. He says nothing, but crouches him down by the hearth-stone, and stares into the fire as if he seed summat strange there. Then he looks all about him, just as if he were reckoning up the odd bits of things; still he says nothing. ‘Sammul,’ said I, ‘won’t you take your tea, lad?’ for it were all ready for him on the table. Still he doesn’t speak, but just gets up and goes to the door, and then to the hearth-stone, and then he claps his head on his hands as though he were fretting o’er summat. ‘Aren’t you well, Sammul?’ says I. ‘Quite well, mother,’ says he, very short like. So I just turns me round to go out, when he jumps up and says, ‘Mother:’ and I could see by the tears in his eyes that he were very full. ‘Mother,’ says he again, and then he crouches him down again. You wouldn’t believe, how strange I felt—you might have knocked me down with a feather; so I just goes across to old Jenny’s to ax her to come and look at him, for I thought he mightn’t be right in his head. I wasn’t gone many minutes, but when I got back our Sammul were not there, but close by where he were sitting I seed summat lapped up in a piece of papper, lying on the table. I opened it, and there were a five-shilling piece and a bit of his hair, and he’d writ on the papper, ‘From Sammul, for dear mother.’ Oh, what must I do—what must I do? I shall ne’er see our Sammul any more,” and the poor woman sobbed as if her heart would break.

Before Jim had time to answer, a coarse-looking man of middle height, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, a pipe in his mouth, and his whole appearance bespeaking one who, in his best moments, was never thoroughly sober, strode up to the unhappy mother, and shouted out,—

“What’s up now? what’s all this about?”

“Your Sammul’s run away—that’s what it’s about,” said Jim.

“Run away!” cried the other; “I’ll teach him to run away—I’ll break every bone in his body when I get him home again.”

“Ay, but you must catch him first,” said Jim, drily.

“Alice, what’s all this?” said Johnson, for that was the father’s name, turning fiercely on his wife.

She repeated her story. Johnson was staggered. Samuel was a quiet lad of fourteen, who had borne with moderate patience many a hard word and harder blow from both parents. He had worked steadily for them, even beyond his strength, and had seen the wages which ought to have found him sufficiency of food and clothing squandered in drink by both father and mother. Johnson was staggered, because he knew that Samuel could have a will of his own; he had felt a force in his son’s character which he could not thoroughly understand; he had seen at times a decision which showed that, boy as he was, he could break sooner than bend. Samuel, moreover, was an only son, and his father loved him as dearly as a drunkard’s selfishness would let him love anything. His very heart sickened at his wife’s story, and not without cause. They had but two children, Samuel and Betty. Samuel worked in the pits; his sister, who was a year younger, was employed at the factory. Poor children! their lot had been a sad one indeed. As a neighbour said, “yon lad and wench of Johnson’s haven’t been brought up, they’ve been dragged up.” It was too true; half fed and worse clothed, a good constitution struggled up against neglect and bad usage; no prayer was ever taught them by a mother’s lips; they never knew the wholesome stimulant of a sober father’s smile; their scanty stock of learning had been picked up chiefly at a night-school; in the Sunday school they had learned to read their Bibles, though but imperfectly, and were never more happy than when singing with their companions the hymns which they had practised together. They were specially dear to one another; and in one thing had ever been in the strictest agreement, they would never taste that drink which had made their own home so miserable and desolate.

About a fortnight before our story opens, Langhurst had been placarded with bills announcing that an able and well-known total abstinence advocate would give an address in the parish schoolroom. Many went to hear, and among them Samuel and Betty Johnson. Young and old were urged to sign the pledge. The speaker pictured powerfully a drunkard’s home—he showed how the drink enticed its victims to their ruin like a cheating fiend plucking the sword of resistance from their grasp while it smiled upon them. He urged the young to begin at once, to put the barrier of the pledge between themselves and the peculiar and subtle array of tempters and temptations which hedged them in on all sides. In the pledge they had something to point to which could serve as an answer to those who could not or would not hear reason. He showed the joy of a home into which the drink had never found an entrance—total abstinence was safety—“never to taste” was “never to crave.” He painted the vigour of a mind unclouded from earliest years by alcoholic stimulants; he pointed to the blessing under God of a child’s steady practical protest, as a Christian abstainer, against the fearful sin which deluged our land with misery and crime, and swept away every spark of joy and peace from the hearthstones of thousands of English homes. Every word went deep into the hearts of Samuel and his sister: the drunkard’s home was their own, the drink was ever before their eyes, the daily sin and misery that it caused they knew by sharp experience—time after time had they been urged to take the drink by those very parents whose substance, whose strength, whose peace had all withered down to the very ground under its fatal poison. How hard had been the struggle to resist! but now, if they became pledged abstainers, they would have something more to say which could give additional strength to their refusal.

The speaker stood pen in hand when he had closed his address.

“Come—which of you young people will sign?”

Samuel made his way to the table.

“I don’t mind if I do,” he said; and then turning to Betty, when he had written his name, “come, Betty,” he cried, “you’ll sign too—come, stick to the pen.”

“Well, I might do worse, I reckon,” said Betty, and she also signed. A few more followed, and shortly afterwards the meeting broke up.

But a storm was now brewing, which the brother and sister had not calculated for. Johnson and three or four kindred spirits were sitting round a neighbour’s fire smoking and drinking while the meeting was going on. A short time after it had closed, a man thrust open the door of the house where Johnson was sitting, and peeping round, said with a grin,—

“I say, Tommy Jacky,” (the nickname by which Johnson was familiarly known), “your Sammul and Betty have just been signing Teetottal Pledge.”

“Eh! what do you say?” exclaimed Johnson in a furious tone, and springing to his feet; “signed the pledge! I’ll see about that;” and hurrying out of the house, he half ran half staggered to his own miserable dwelling. He was tolerably sobered when he got there. Samuel was sitting by the fire near his mother, who was frying some bacon for supper. Betty had just thrown aside on to the couch the handkerchief which she had used instead of a bonnet, and was preparing to help her mother. Johnson sat down in the old rickety rocking-chair at the opposite side of the fire to Samuel, and stooping down, unbuckled his clogs, which he kicked off savagely; then he looked up at his son, and said in a voice of suppressed passion,—

“So, my lad, you’ve been and signed teetottal.”

“Yes, I have,” was the reply.

“And you’ve signed too,” he cried in a louder voice, turning fiercely upon Betty.

“Ay, fayther, I have,” said Betty, quietly.

“Well, now,” said Johnson, clenching his teeth, “you just mind me, I’ll have nothing of the sort in my house. I hate your nasty, mean, sneaking teetottallers—we’ll have none of that sort here. D’ye hear?” he shouted.

Neither Samuel nor Betty spoke.

“Hush, hush, Tom,” broke in his wife; “you mustn’t scold the childer so. I’m no fonder nor you of the teetottallers, but childer will not be driven. Come, Sammul—come, Betty, you mustn’t be obstinate; you know fayther means what he says.”

“Ay that I do,” said her husband. “And now, you listen: I’d sooner see you both in your graves, nor have you sticking up your pledge cards about the house, and turning up the whites of your eyes at your own fayther and mother, as if we were not good enough for the likes of you. Me and mine have ever loved our pipe and our pot, the whole brood of us, and we ne’er said ‘no’ to a chap when he asked for a drop of drink—it shall never be said of me or mine, ‘They give ’em nothing in yon house but tea and cold water!’”

“Ay, ay; you’re light, Thomas,” said his wife; “I’m not for seeing our bairns beginning of such newfangled ways. Come, childer, just clap the foolish bits of papper behind the fire, and sit ye down to your supper.”

“Mother,” said Betty, in a sad but decided voice, “we have seen enough in this house to make us rue that ever a drop of the drink crossed our door-step. We’ve toiled hard early and late for you and fayther, but the drink has taken it all. You may scold us if you will, but Sammul and I must keep our pledge, and keep it gradely too.”

“And I say,” cried her father, striking his hand violently on the table, “I’ll make you both break afore ye’re a day older; ye’ve pleased yourselves long enough, but ye shall please me now. I never said nothing afore, though mother nor me didn’t like to see ye scowling at the drink as if it were poison; a drop now and then would have done ye no harm, but ye were like to please yourselves—but it’s different now. We’ll have none of your pledges here, ye may make yourselves sure of that.”

“You can’t help yourself fayther,” said Samuel doggedly: “pledged we are, and pledged we’re bound to be, but—”

Before he could say more, Johnson had snatched up one of his heavy clogs and had hurled it at the head of his son, fortunately without striking him; then catching up both clogs, and hastily buckling them, he strode to the door, and pausing for a moment, gasped out, “I’ve said it, and I’ll stick to it; ye shall both break your teetottal afore this time to-morrow, as I’m a living man.”

He was gone, and was seen no more at home that night.

This scene occurred the evening before that on which our story commences. We have seen that Johnson, miserable and abandoned drunkard as he was, was utterly staggered at the flight of his son when coupled with his parting gift to his mother. Was he really gone, and gone for ever? Had his own father driven him, by his cruel threats, to desperation, perhaps to self-destruction? Unhappy man! he stood the very picture of dismay. At last he said,—

“Perhaps he mayn’t have got very far. I’ll just step over, Alice, to your brother John’s; maybe he’ll have looked in there for a bit.”

“Ay, do, Thomas,” cried his wife; “and you must just tell him that he mustn’t heed what you said to him and Betty last night; it were only a bit of a breeze. Oh, what’ll our Betty say when she finds our Sammul gone; she will fret, poor thing. She just stepped out at the edge-o’-dark, (see note 1) and she’ll be back again just now. Make haste, Thomas, and tell the poor lad he may please himself about the teetottal.”

“Ay, ay, Alice,” said poor Johnson dejectedly; “that cursed drink’ll be the ruin of us both—body and soul,” and he went on his sorrowful way.

Oh, what a crowd of thoughts came crushing into the heart of the wretched man, as he hurried along the path which he supposed his son to have taken. He thought of the day when he was married, and what a bright creature his Alice was then; but even over that day there hung a cloud, for it was begun in intemperance and ended in riot. He thought of the hour when he first looked on his boy, and had felt as proud as if no other man had ever had a bonny bairn but he. He thought with shuddering self-reproach of long years of base neglect and wrong towards the children whose strength and peace his own words and deeds had smitten down as with blows of iron. He thought of the days and years of utter selfishness which had drained away every drop of comfort from the cup which might have overflowed with domestic happiness. He thought how he had ever been his own children’s tempters beckoning them on towards hell in every hour’s example; and then he thought upon the life beyond the grave, but recoiled with horror from that dark and lurid future, and shuddered back to earth again. Oh, was there in all the world a more miserable wretch than he! But on he went; anything was better than rest. His road lay down a steep brow after he had passed along one field which separated the village from a wooded gorge. Here all had once been green and beautiful in spring and summertime; but now, for many years past, thick clouds of smoke from coal-pit engines and iron furnaces had given to trees and shrubs a sickly hue. Nature had striven in vain against the hot black breath of reeking chimneys. Right down among the stunted trees of this ravine went the foot-track which Johnson followed. Darkness had now gathered all around, yet here and there were wild lights struggling with the gloom. Just on the right, where the path came out on to the dusty road, and a little way down a bank, a row of blazing coke-ovens threw a ghastly glare over the scene, casting fantastic shadows as their waves of fiery vapour flickered in the breeze. A little farther on he passed a busy forge, from whose blinding light and wild uproarious mirth, mingling with the banging of the hammers, he was glad to escape into the darkness beyond—what would he not have given could he have as easily escaped from the stingings of his own keen remorse. On he went, but nothing could he see of his son. A mile more of rapid walking, and he reached his brother-in-law’s cottage.

“Eh, Thomas, is it you?” cried John’s wife. “Don’t stand on the door-step, man, but come in.”

“Have you seen our Sammul?” asked Johnson, in an agitated voice.

“Your Sammul? no, he hasn’t been here. But what ails you, Thomas?” The other could not speak, but sinking down into a chair, buried his face in his hands.

“Summat ails you, I’m sure,” said the kind woman.

“Oh, Jenny,” replied the unhappy father, “our Sammul’s gone off—gone off for good and all. I black-guarded him last night about yon teetottal chap as come a-lecturing and got our Sammul and Betty to sign the pledge, so just about an hour since he slips out in his Sunday hat and shoes, when Alice were down the yard, and when she comes back she finds a bit of papper on the table with a five-shilling piece and a bit of his hair lapped up in it, and there was writ on it, ‘From Sammul, for dear mother.’ Oh, Jenny, I’m afraid for my life he’s gone off to Americay; or, worse still, he may have drowned or hanged himself.”

“Nay, nay; don’t say so, Thomas,” said Jenny; “he’ll think better of it; you’ll see him back again in the morning. Don’t fret, man; he’s a good lad, and he’ll turn up again all right, take my word for it. He’d ne’er have taken his Sunday shoes if he’d meant to drown or hang himself; he could have done it just as well in his clogs.”

But Johnson could not be comforted.

“I must be going,” he said. “I guess there’ll be rare crying at our house if Sammul’s gone off for good; it’ll drive Alice and our Betty clean crazy.”

With a sorrowful “good night” he stepped out again into the darkness, and set his face homewards. He had not gone many paces when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he turned out of the road by which he had come, and crossing by a little foot-bridge a stream which ran at the bottom of a high bank on his right hand, climbed up some steep ground on the other side, and emerged into a field, from which a footpath led along the border of several meadows into the upper part of Langhurst. Here he paused and looked around him—the darkness had begun to yield to the pale beams of the moon. His whole frame shook with emotion as he stood gazing on the trees and shrubs around him; and no wonder, for memory was now busy again, and brought up before him a life-like picture of his strolls in springtime with his boy, when Samuel was but a tiny lad. ’Twas in this very field, among these very trees, that he had gathered bluebells for him, and had filled his little hands with their lovely flowers. Oh, there was something more human in him then! Drunkard he was, but not the wretched degraded creature into which intemperance had kneaded and moulded him, till it left him now stiffened into a walking vessel of clay, just living day by day to absorb strong drink. Yet was he not even now utterly hardened, for his tears fell like rain upon that moonlit grass—thoughts of the past made his whole being tremble. He thought of what his boy had been to him; he thought of what he had been to his boy. He seemed to see his past life acted out before him in a moving picture, and in all he saw himself a curse and not a blessing—time, money, health, peace, character, soul, all squandered. And still the picture moved on, and passed into the future: he saw his utterly desolate home—no boy was there; he saw two empty chairs—his Betty was gone, dead of want and a broken heart. The picture still moved on: now he was quite alone, the whole hearth-stone was his; he sat there very old and very grey, cold and hunger-bitten; a little while, and a pauper’s funeral passed from that hearth into the street—it was his own—and what of his soul? He started as if bitten by a serpent, and hurried on.

The village was soon reached; whither should he go? Conscience said, “home;” but home was desolate. He was soon at the public-house door; he could meet with a rude sympathy there—he could tell his tale, he could cheer him with the blaze and the gas, he could stupify down his remorse with the drink. Conscience again whispered, “Home,” but so feebly, that his own footstep forward quenched its voice. He entered, and sat down among the drinkers.

And what of his poor wife and daughter?

Johnson had not left his home many minutes when Betty came in.

“Where’s Sammul?” she asked, not noticing her mother’s agitation; “and where’s fayther? We’re like to have weary work in our house just now, I reckon.”

“Betty!”—was all that her mother could say, but in such a voice that her daughter started round and cried,—

“Eh, mother, what is’t? what ails you?”

“See there,” replied the poor woman, pointing to the little packet still lying on the table; “that’s what ails me.”

Betty took it up; she saw the money and the lock of hair; she read the words—it was all plain to her in a moment. She stood open-mouthed, with her eyes staring on the paper as one spell-bound, then she burst out into a bitter cry,—

“Oh, mother, mother! it cannot be, it cannot be! he wouldn’t leave us so! Oh, Sammul, Sammul, what must we do? It’s the drink has done it—fayther’s drink has done it! I shall never see you, Sammul, any more! Mother,” she suddenly added, dropping the apron which she had lifted to her streaming eyes, “where’s fayther? Does he know?”

“Yes; he knows well enough; he’s off to your Uncle John’s. Oh, what shall we do if he doesn’t bring our Sammul back? But where are you going, child?” for Betty had thrown her shawl over her head, and was moving towards the door. “It’s no use your going too; tarry by the hearth-stone till your fayther comes back, and then, if he hasn’t heard anything of Sammul, we’ll see what must be done.”

“I cannot tarry here, mother; I cannot,” was Betty’s reply. “Fayther’ll do no good; if Sammul sees him coming, he’ll just step out of the road, or crouch him down behind summat till he’s gone by. I must go myself; he’ll not be afraid of me. Oh, sure he’ll ne’er go right away without one ‘Good-bye’ to his own sister! Maybe he’ll wait about till he sees me; and, please the Lord, if I can only light on him, I may bring him back again. But oh, mother, mother, you and fayther mustn’t do by him as you have done! you’ll snap the spring if you strain it too hard; you must draw our Sammul, you mustn’t drive him, or maybe you’ll drive him right away from home, if you haven’t driven him now.”

So saying, she closed the door with a heavy heart, and took the same road that her father had gone before her.

Slowly she walked, peering into the darkness on all sides, and fancying every sound to be her brother’s step. She lingered near the coke-ovens and the forge, thinking that he might be lurking somewhere about, and might see and recognise her as the fiery glow fell upon her figure. But she lingered in vain. By the time she reached her uncle’s, the moon had fairly risen; again she lingered before entering the cottage, looking round with a sickening hope that he might see her from some hiding-place and come and speak to her, if it were but to say a last farewell. But he came not. Utterly downcast, she entered the cottage, and heard that her father had but lately left it, and that nothing had been seen of her brother. To her aunt’s earnest and repeated invitation to “tarry a while,” she replied,—

“No, Aunt Jenny; I mustn’t tarry now. I’m wanted at home; I shall be wanted more nor ever now. I’m gradely (see note 1) sick at heart. I know it’s no use fretting, but oh, I must fret! It were bad enough to be without meat, without shoes, without clothes, without almost everything; but it’s worse nor all put together to be without our Sammul.”

She turned away, and, with a heavy sigh, took her way home again. The moon was now shedding her calm light full on the path the poor girl was treading, leaving in dark shadow a high wooded bank on her left hand. Just a few feet up this bank, half-way between her uncle’s house and her own home, was the mouth of an old disused coal-pit-shaft. It had been long abandoned, and was fenced off, though not very securely, by a few decaying palings. On the bank above it grew a tangled mass of shrubs, and one or two fine holly bushes. Betty was just in the act of passing this spot when her eye fell on something that flashed in the moonbeams. She stooped to see what it was; then with a cry of mingled surprise and terror she snatched it from the ground. It was an open pocket-knife; on the buck-horn handle were rudely scratched the letters SJ. It was her brother’s knife; there could not be a moment’s question of it, for she had often both seen and used it. But what was it that sent a chill like the chill of death through every limb, and made her totter faintly against the bank? There was something trickling down the blade as she held it up, and, even in the moonlight, she could see that it was blood. A world of misery swept with a hurricane force into her heart. Had her brother, driven to desperation by his father’s cruelty, really destroyed himself? Perhaps he had first partially done the dreadful deed with his knife, and then thrown himself down that old shaft, so as to complete the fearful work and leave no trace behind. Poor miserable Betty! she groaned out a prayer for help, and then she became more calm. Creeping up close to the edge of the old shaft, she looked into it as far as she dared; the moonlight was now full upon it; the ferns and brambles that interlaced across it showed no signs of recent displacement; she listened in an agony of earnest attention for any sound, but none came up from those dark and solemn depths. Then she began to think more collectedly. Hope dawned again upon her heart. If her brother meant to destroy himself he would scarcely have first used the knife and then thrown himself down the shaft, leaving the knife behind him as a guide to discovery. Besides, it seemed exceedingly improbable that he would have put on his best hat and shoes if bent on so speedy self-destruction. She therefore abandoned this terrible thought; and yet how could the presence of the knife on that spot, and the blood on the blade, be accounted for? She looked carefully about her—then she could trace evident marks of some sort of scuffle. The bank itself near the old shaft was torn, and indented with footmarks. Could it have been that her father had encountered Samuel here as he was returning, that they had had words, that words had led to blows, and that one or both had shed blood in the struggle? The thought was madness. Carefully concealing the knife in her clothes, she hurried home at the top of her speed; but before she quite reached the door, the thought suddenly smote full and forcibly on her heart, “If fayther has killed poor Sammul, what will he be? A murderer!” She grew at once desperately calm, and walked quietly into the house.

“I haven’t heard anything of our Sammul,” she said sadly, and with forced composure. “Where’s fayther?”

“I’ve been looking for him long since,” replied her mother; “but I suppose he’s turned into the ‘George.’”

“The ‘George!’” exclaimed Betty; “what now! surely he cannot—”

Before she could say more, Johnson himself entered. For once in his life he could find no ease or content among his pot companions. They pitied, it is true, the trouble which he poured into their ears, but their own enjoyment was uppermost in their thoughts, and they soon wearied of his story. He drank, but there was bitterness in every draught; it did not lull, much less drown the keenness of his self-upbraidings; so, hastily snatching up his hat, he left the mirth and din of the drinkers and made his way home—ay, home—but what a home! dark at the best of times through his own sin, but now darker than ever.

“Well?” exclaimed both Betty and her mother when he entered—they could say nothing more. He understood too plainly what they meant.

“Our Sammul’s not been at your brother John’s,” he said to his wife; “what must we do now? The Lord help me; I’m a miserable wretch.”

“Fayther,” said Betty, greatly relieved, spite of her sorrow, for Johnson’s words and manner assured her at once that he and her brother had not met. “Fayther, we must hope the best. There’s a God above all, who knows where our Sammul is; he can take care of him, and maybe he’ll bring him back to us again.”

No more was said that night. Betty had a double portion of care and sorrow, but she had resolved to say nothing to any one about the knife, at any rate for the present. She was satisfied that her brother had not laid violent hands on himself; and she trusted that, in a few days, a letter from himself from Liverpool or some other seaport, would clear up the mystery, and give them at least the sad satisfaction of knowing whither their Samuel was bound.

Note 1. “Edge-o’-dark” means “Evening twilight.”

Note 2 “Gradely,” as an adjective means “sincere,” “proper,” or “true;” as an adverb, “rightly,” “truly,” or “properly.”

Chapter Two.

Samuel’s Home.

And what sort of a home was that which Samuel had so abruptly forsaken? “There’s no place like home;” “Home is home, be it never so homely.” Things are said to be true to a proverb; but even proverbs have their exceptions, and certainly no amount of allowance could justify the application of the above proverbs to Johnson’s dwelling. But what sort of a home was it? It would be far easier to say what it was not than what it was. Let us follow the owner himself as he comes in from his work, jaded and heart-sore, the night after Samuel’s departure.

The house is the worst in the row, for it is the cheapest—the tyrant “Drink” will not let his slave afford a better. The front door opens opposite the high dead wall of another block of houses, so that very little daylight comes in at the sunniest of times—no loss, perhaps, as the sunshine would only make misery, dirt, and want more apparent. A rush-bottomed chair—or rather the mutilated framework of one, the seat being half rotted through, and the two uppermost bars broken off with a jagged fracture—lies sufficiently across the entrance to throw down any unwary visitor. A rickety chest of drawers—most of the knobs being gone and their places supplied by strings, which look like the tails of rats which had perished in effecting an entrance—stands tipped on one side against the wall, one of its legs having disappeared. A little further on is a blank corner, where a clock used to be, as may be traced by the clusters of cobwebs in two straight lines, one up either wall, which have never been swept away since the clock was sold for drink. A couch-chair extends under the window the whole length, but one of its arms is gone, and the stump which supported it thrusts up its ragged top to wound any hand that may incautiously rest there; the couch itself is but a tumbled mass of rags and straw. A table, nearly as dilapidated, and foul with countless beer-stains, stands before the fire, which is the only cheerful thing in the house, and blazes away as if it means to do its best to make up for the very discouraging state of things by which it finds itself surrounded. The walls of the room have been coloured, or rather discoloured, a dirty brown, all except the square portion over the fire-place, which was once adorned with a gay paper, but whose brilliancy has long been defaced by smoke and grease. A broken pipe or two, a couple of irons, and a brass candlestick whose shaft leans considerably out of the perpendicular, occupy the mantelpiece. An old rocking-chair and two or three common ones extremely infirm on their legs, complete the furniture. The walls are nearly bare of ornament; the exceptions being a highly-coloured print of a horse-race, and a sampler worked by Betty, rendered almost invisible by dust. The door into the wash-house stands ajar, and through it may be seen on the slop-stone a broken yellow mug; and near it a tub full of clothes, from which there dribbles a soapy little puddle on to the uneven flags, just deep enough to float an unsavoury-looking mixture of cheese-rinds and potato-parings. Altogether, the appearance of the house is gaunt, filthy, and utterly comfortless. Such is the drunkard’s home.

Into this miserable abode stepped Johnson the night after his son’s disappearance, and divesting himself of his pit-clothes, threw them down in an untidy mass before the fire. Having then washed himself and changed his dress, he sat him down for a minute or two, while his wife prepared the comfortless tea. But he could not rest. He started up again, and with a deep sigh turned to the door.

“Where are you going?” cried his wife; “you mustn’t go without your tea; yon chaps at the ‘George’ don’t want you.”

“I’m not going to the ‘George,’” replied Thomas; “I just want a word with Ned Brierley.”

“Ned Brierley!” exclaimed Alice; “why, he’s the bigoted’st teetottaller in the whole village. You’re not going to sign the pledge?”

“No, I’m not; but ’twould have been the making on us all if I had signed years ago;—no, I only just want a bit of talk with Ned about our Sammul;” and he walked out.

Ned Brierley was just what Alice Johnson, and scores more too, called him, a bigoted teetotaller, or, as he preferred to call himself total abstainer. He was bigoted; in other words, he had not taken up total abstinence by halves. He neither tasted the drink himself, nor gave it to his friends, nor allowed it an entrance into his house. Of course, therefore, he was bigoted in the eyes of those who could not or would not understand his principles. But the charge of bigotry weighed very lightly on him; he could afford to bear it; he had a living antidote to the taunt daily before his eyes in a home without a cloud, an ever-cheerful wife, healthy, hearty, striving, loving sons and daughters. And, best of all, Ned was a Christian, not of the talk-much-and-do-little stamp, nor of the pot-political-mend-the-world stamp. He loved God, and always spoke of him with a reverential smile, because his very name made him happy. He had a wife, too, who loved the same gracious Saviour, and joined with her husband in training up their children in holy ways. They knew well that they could not give their children grace, but they could give them prayer and example, and could leave the rest to God in happy, loving trust. People who talked about total abstinence as a sour and mopish thing, should have spent an evening at Ned Brierley’s when the whole family was at home; why, there was more genuine, refreshing, innocent fun and mirth there in half an hour than could have been gathered in a full evening’s sitting out of all the pot-houses in the neighbourhood put together. Ay, there were some who knew this, and could say, “If you want gradely fun that leaves no afterthought, you must go to Ned’s for it.” Of course Ned had won the respect even of those who abused him most, and of none more truly than Thomas Johnson. Spite of all his swaggering and blustering speeches no man knew better than he the sterling worth of Brierley’s character; no man was more truly convinced, down in the depths of his heart, that Ned’s principles and practice were right. And so now, restless and wretched, he was coming, he hardly knew exactly why, to ask counsel of this very man whom he had openly abused and ridiculed at the very time when he both envied and respected him.

Could there possibly be a greater contrast than between the house he had just left and the one which he now entered?

Ned Brierley’s dwelling was the end house of a row, which had been recently built out of the united savings of himself and children. It was rather larger than the rest, and had one or two out-buildings attached, and also a considerable piece of garden ground belonging to it. In this garden Ned and his sons worked at odd times, and everything about it had a well-to-do air. The neat rows of celery, the flower-beds shaped into various mathematical figures by shining white pebbles, the carefully-pruned apple trees, and the well-levelled cindered paths, all betokened that diligent hands were often busy there.

Johnson opened the little white gate, walked up the path, and hesitatingly raised the latch of the house door. What a sight met his eyes! it was a perfect picture. If the three sisters, Cleanliness, Neatness, and Order, had been looking out for a home, they certainly might have found one there. In some of the neighbours’ houses, go when you would, you would find the inmates always cleaning, but never clean; it was just the reverse at Ned’s, you always found them clean, and scarcely ever caught them cleaning. Then, what an air of comfort there was about the whole place. The arms and back of the couch-chair shone like mahogany, the couch itself was plump and smooth, like a living thing in good condition. The walls were a bright, lively blue, but there was not very much to be seen of them, so covered were they with all sorts of family-belongings and treasures. Against one wail stood a rather ambitious-looking article, half chest of drawers, half sideboard, the knobs of the drawers being of glass, which flashed in the bright fire-light as if smiling their approbation of the happy condition of their owners. Over the sideboard was a large and elaborate piece of needlework, a perfect maze of doors and windows in green and red worsted, with a gigantic bird on either side preparing to alight. This was the work of the eldest daughter, and purported, in words at the bottom, to be an accurate delineation of Solomon’s Temple. Close by stood a clock, tall and stately in its case, the hands of the brightest brass, over which appeared the moving face of a good-tempered looking moon. Then, on the next wall hung two large cases, one of butterflies, which were arranged in patterns to represent griffins, dragons, and other impossible animals; the other, of well-stuffed birds, with shining legs and highly-coloured beaks. Other parts of the walls were adorned with Scripture prints, more remarkable for brilliancy of colouring than correctness of costume; and in a conspicuous place, evidently the pride of the whole collection, was a full-length portrait of the Queen, smiling benignantly down on her subjects. Below the cases of butterflies and birds was a piano—yes, actually, a piano—and by no means a bad one too. Then, near the fire-place, was a snug little book-case, well furnished with books; and over the mantelpiece, in the centre of a warm-looking paper, was the text, in large characters, “The love of Christ constraineth us.” The mantelpiece itself glittered with a variety of brass utensils, all brightly polished. Over the middle of the room, suspended by cords from the ceiling, was a framework of wood crossed all over by strings, on which lay, ready for consumption, a good store of crisp-looking oat-cakes; while, to give still further life to the whole, a bird-cage hung near, in which there dwelt a small colony of canaries.

Such was the room into which Johnson timidly entered. By the fire, in his solid arm-chair, sat Ned Brierley, looking supremely content, as well he might, considering the prospect before and around him. On a large table, which was as white as scrubbing could make it, the tea apparatus was duly arranged. The fire was burning its best, and sent out a ruddy glow, which made every bright thing it fell upon look brighter still. Muffins stood in a shining pile upon the fender, and a corpulent teapot on the top of the oven. Around the table sat two young men of about the ages of nineteen and twenty, and three daughters who might range from eighteen to fifteen. Their mother was by the fire preparing the tea for her husband and children, who had all lately come in from their work.

“Why, Johnson, is that you?” exclaimed Ned Brierley; “come in, man, and sit ye down.—Reach him a chair, Esther,” he said to his youngest daughter.

“Well, Ned,” said Johnson, sitting down, and drawing back his chair as near the door as he could, “I thought, maybe, you could give me a bit of advice about our Sammul. I suppose you’ve heard how he went off yesternight.”

“Ay, Thomas, we’ve heard all about it. I’m gradely sorry too; but you mustn’t lose heart, man: the Lord’ll bring him back again; he’s a good lad.”

“He is a good lad,” said Johnson; “and I’ve been and driven him away from his home. That cursed drink has swept him away, as it’s swept almost everything good out of our house. It’ll do for us all afore we’ve done with it; and the sooner it’s the death of me the better.”

“Nay, nay, Thomas, you mustn’t say so,” cried the other; “it’s not right. God has spared you for summat better; turn over a new leaf, man, at once. He’ll give you strength for it if you’ll ask him. Come now, draw your chair to the table, and have a cup of tea and a bit of muffin; it’ll do you good.”

“Ned,” said Thomas, sadly, “I can’t take meat nor drink in your house. I’ve abused you behind your back scores of times, and I can’t for shame take it.”

“Nay, nay, man; never heed what you’ve said against me. You see you’ve done me no harm. I’m none the worse for all that folks can say against me; so draw up your chair, you’re gradely welcome to your tea.”

“Ay, do,” chimed in his wife; “doesn’t Scripture say, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink:’ and I’m sure you must be both hungry and thirsty if you haven’t tasted since you came from the pit.”

Poor Johnson could not speak. When he was sober he was a feeling man, and a sensible one too. Alas! his sober times were few, but he was sober now. The tears overflowed his eyes, and he brushed them hastily away as he drew his chair near to the bright little circle of happy healthy faces. He ate and drank for a while in silence, and then said with a faltering voice,—

“Ned, you’re a true Christian. I’ll never say a word against you behind your back any more.”

Brierley held out his hand to him, and the other grasped it warmly.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Ned, in a cheery voice, “I’d give a good deal, Thomas, to see you a total abstainer; it’d be the making of you.”

Johnson shook his head sorrowfully.

“I mustn’t; Alice wouldn’t let me. I can’t; the drink’s more to me nor meat, and clothes, and everything. I durstn’t, for my old pals at the ‘George’ would chaff me to death with their jeers and their jokes. I couldn’t face them for shame.”

“Oh, Thomas,” cried Ned, “what a slave the drink’s made of you:— mustn’t! can’t! durstn’t!—what! ain’t you a man? haven’t you got a will of your own?”

“No, Ned, that’s just it; I haven’t a will of my own: the old lad’s got it off me long since.”

“Ay, but, Thomas, you must get it back again,” exclaimed Brierley’s wife; “you must go to Jesus, and he’ll help you.”

Johnson fidgeted uneasily in his chair; at last he said,—

“I can’t do without my beer; I haven’t strength to work without it.”

“You’ve taken plenty of it, I reckon,” remarked Ned, “and you don’t seem to thrive much on’t.”

“I’ve taken too much,” said the other, “but I can’t do without a little.”

“You can’t do with a little, I fear. It’s first only a pint, and then it’s only a quart, and then it’s only a gallon, till at last it’s only a fuddled head and an empty pocket. Come, join us, Thomas; take the first step boldly like a man, and then just pray for grace, and you’ll not fear what other folks can do to you.”

“But I shall never get through my work without a drop of beer to wash dust out of my throat and spirit me up,” persisted Johnson. “I feel like another sort of man when I’ve had my pint.”

“Yes, just for a bit,” replied Ned. “Now it seems to me just the same as what we might do with our fire. I bid our Esther look to the fire, so she goes and sticks to the poker, and each now and then she pokes away at the fire, and the fire blazes up and blazes up, but very soon there’s nothing left to blaze with. The fire’ll be out directly, so I says to our Mary, you look after the fire, so our Mary goes to the heap and fetches a shovel of coal, and claps it on the top of the hot cinders, and she won’t let our Esther poke it no more, so it burns steady and bright, and throws out a good heat, and lasts a long time. Now, when you take your drop of beer, you’re just poking the fire, you’re not putting any coal on; you can work like a lion for a bit, but you’re only using up the old stock of strength faster and faster, you’re not putting on any new. I’ve helped you to put a little gradely coal on to-night, and I hope it won’t be the last time by many.”

“Father,” broke in Esther, laughing, and highly entertained at the part she bore in her father’s illustration, “when you tell your tale again, you must make our Mary stick to the poker, and me clap the coal on.”

“Ay, ay, child,” said her father, “you shall each take it in turn.”

“Well, you may be right,” sighed Johnson; “but Jack Barnes says as he’s knowed scores of teetottallers that’s wasted away to skin and bone for want of the drink; he says beer strengthens the bone, and makes the muscles tight and firm.”

“Jack Barnes may say what he likes, but I’ll just ask you, Thomas, to think and judge for yourself. You see me and mine; you see seven total abstainers here to-night. Not one of these childer knows the taste of the drink; they work hard, you know, some in the pit, some in the mill: do they look nothing but skin and bone? Where’ll you find healthier childer? I’m not boasting, for it’s the good Lord that’s given ’em health, yes, and strength too, without the drink.”

“Ay, and just look at Jack Barnes’s own lads, and the company they keep,” said John, the eldest son; “you may see them all at the four lane ends, (Note 1), any Sunday morn, with their pigeons, looking more like scarecrows than Christians; and afore night they’ll be so weary that they’ll scarce know how to bide anywhere. They’ll be lounging about, looking as limp as a strap out of gear, till they’ve got the ale in them, and then they’re all for swearing and shouting up and down the lanes.”

“I can’t deny,” said Johnson, “that you teetottallers have the best of it in many ways. It’s a bad bringing-up for childer to see such goings-on as is in Barnes’s house.”

“And, Thomas,” said Brierley’s wife, “you know how it is with Joe Taylor’s lads and wenches. There’s a big family on ’em. They’re not short of brass in that house, or shouldn’t be. There’s drink enough and to spare goes down their throats, and yet there’s not one of the whole lot but’s as lean as an empty bobbin, and as white as a heap of cotton. They’re nearly starved to death afore reckoning-day comes; and with all their good wage they cannot make things reach and tie.”

“Well, I must wish you good night now,” said Johnson, rising to go. “I suppose I can do nothing about our Sammul but have patience.”

“Yes, pray for patience, Thomas; and pray to be shown the right way: and give up the drink, man—ay, give it up at once, for Betty’s sake, for Alice’s sake, and for your own soul’s sake.”

“I’ll try, I’ll try; good night.”

“Good night.”

Johnson walked homewards sorrowful but calm. Should he take the pledge? should he boldly break his chains, and brave the scorn of his ungodly companions? He felt that he ought. He murmured a half prayer that he might have strength to do it. He reached his own home; he entered—what did, he see?

Round the fire, slatternly and dirty, with hair uncombed, dress disordered, shoes down at heel, lolling, lounging, stooping in various attitudes, were some half-dozen women, Alice being nearest the fire on one side. Most of them had pipes in their mouths. On the table were cups and saucers, a loaf and some butter, and also a jug, which certainly did not hold milk; its contents, however, were very popular, as it was seldom allowed to rest on the table, while the strong odour of rum which filled the room showed pretty plainly that it had been filled at the public-house and not at the farm. Every eye was flashing, and every tongue in full exercise, when Johnson entered.

“Well, Thomas,” said his wife, “I thought you were down at the ‘George.’ Our Betty’s not so well, so she’s gone up into the chamber to lay her down a bit; and I’ve just been axing a neighbour or two to come in and have a bit of a talk over our Sammul. Come, sit you down, and take a cup of tea, and here’s summat to put in it as’ll cheer you up.”

“I’ve just had my tea at Ned Brierley’s,” replied her husband; “I don’t want no more.”

“Ah, but you must just take one cup. Reach me the jug, Molly. You look as down as if you’d seen a boggart; (see note 2), you must drink a drop and keep your spirits up.”

He made no reply, but threw himself back on the couch, and drew his cap over his eyes. Seeing that he was not likely to go out again, the women dropped off one by one, and left him alone with his wife, who sat looking into the fire, comforting herself partly with her pipe and partly with frequent applications to the jug. After a while Thomas rose from the couch, and took his seat by the fire opposite to her. There was a long pause; at last he broke it by saying,—

“Alice.”

“Well, Thomas.”

“Alice, you know I have been up at Ned’s. Ned’s a quiet, civil man, and a gradely Christian too. I wish our house had been like his; we shouldn’t have lost our Sammul then.”

“Well, my word! what’s come over you, Thomas? Why, sure you’re not a-going to be talked over by yon Brierley folk!” exclaimed his wife. “Why, they’re so proud, they can’t look down upon their own shoes: and as for Brierley’s wenches, if a fellow offers to speak to ’em, they’ll snap his head off. And Martha herself’s so fine that the likes of me’s afraid to walk on the same side of the road for fear of treading on her shadow.”

“Well, Alice, I’ve oft abused ’em all myself; but I were wrong all the time. And you’re wrong, Alice, too. They’ve never done us no harm, and we’ve nothing gradely to say against ’em; and you know it too. They’ve toiled hard for their brass, and they haven’t made it away as we have done; and if they’re well off, it’s no more nor they deserve.”

“Not made away their brass! No, indeed!” said his wife, contemptuously, “no danger of that; they’ll fist it close enough. They like it too well to part with it. They’ll never spend a ha’penny to give a poor chap a drop of beer, though he’s dying of thirst.”

“No, ’cos they’ve seen what a curse the drink has been to scores and hundreds on us. Ah, Alice, if you had but seen the happy faces gathered round Ned’s hearth-stone; if you had but heard Ned’s hearty welcome—though he can’t but know that I’ve ever been the first to give him and his a bad word—you couldn’t say as you’re saying now.”

“Come, Thomas,” said his wife, “don’t be a fool. If Ned Brierley likes his teetottal ways, and brings up his lads and wenches same fashion, let him please himself; but he mustn’t make teetottallers of you nor me.”

“And why shouldn’t he make a teetottaller of me?” cried Thomas, his anger rising at his wife’s opposition. “What has the drink done for us, I’d like to know? What’s it done with my wage, with our Betty’s wage, with our poor Sammul’s wage? Why, it’s just swallowed all up, and paid us back in dirt and rags. Where’s there such a beggarly house as this in all the village? Why haven’t we clothes to our backs and shoes to our feet? It’s because the drink has took all.”

“It’s not the drink,” screamed Alice, her eyes flashing with rage. “You’ve nothing to blame the drink for; the drink’s right enough. It’s yourself; it’s your own fault. You haven’t any conduct in your drink like other folk. You must sit sotting at the ‘George’ till you can’t tell your hand from your foot; and then you must come home and blackguard me and the childer, and turn the house out of the windows. You’ve driven our Sammul out of the country; and you’ll be the death of our Betty, and of me too, afore you’ve done.”

“Death of you!” shouted her husband, in a voice as loud as her own. “And what odds then? No conduct in my drink! And what have you had in yourn? What’s there to make a man tarry by the hearth-stone in such a house as this, where there’s nothing to look at but waste and want? I wish every drop of the drink were in the flames with this.” So saying, he seized the jug, threw the little that was left of the spirits in it into the fire, and, without stopping to listen to the torrent of abuse which poured from the lips of his wife, hurried out of the house. And whither did he go? Where strong habit led him, almost without his being conscious of it—he was soon within the doors of the “George.” By this time his anger had cooled down, and he sat back from the rest of the company on an empty bench. The landlord’s eye soon spied him.

“What are you for to-night, Thomas?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Johnson, moodily; “I’m better with nothing, I think.”

“No, no,” said the other; “you’re none of that sort. You look very down; a pint of ale’ll be just the very thing to set you right.”

Johnson took the ale.

“Didn’t I see you coming out of Ned Brierley’s?” asked one of the drinkers.

“Well, and what then?” asked Johnson, fiercely.

“Oh, nothing; only I thought, maybe, that you were for coming out in the teetottal line. Ay, wouldn’t that be a rare game?”

A roar of laughter followed this speech. But Johnson’s blood was up.

“And why shouldn’t I join the teetottallers if I’ve a mind?” he cried. “I don’t see what good the drink’s done to me nor mine. And as for Ned Brierley, he’s a gradely Christian. I’ve given him nothing afore but foul words; but I’ll give him no more.”

A fresh burst of merriment followed these words.

“Eh, see,” cried one, “here’s the parson come among us.”

“He’ll be getting his blue coat with brass buttons out of the pop-shop just now,” cried another; “and he’ll hold his head so high that he won’t look at us wicked sinners.”

A third came up to him with a mock serious air, and eyeing him with his head on one side, said,—

“They call you Thomas, I reckon. Ah, well, now you’re going to be one of Ned’s childer, we must take you to the parson and get him to christen you Jonadab.”

Poor Johnson! he started up, for one moment he meditated a fierce rush at his persecutors, the next, he turned round, darted from the public-house, and hurried away he knew not whither.

And what will he do? Poor man—wretched, degraded drunkard as he had been—he was by natural character a man of remarkable energy and decision; what he had fairly and fully determined upon, his resolution grasped like a vice. Brought up in constant contact with drunkenness from his earliest years, and having imbibed a taste for strong drink from his childhood, that taste had grown with his growth, and he had never cared to summon resolution or seek strength to break through his miserable and debasing habit. Married to a woman who rather rejoiced to see her husband moderately intoxicated, because it made him good-natured, he had found nothing in his home, except its growing misery, to induce him to tread a better path. True, he could not but be aware of the wretchedness which his sin and that of his wife had brought upon him and his; yet, hitherto, he had never seen himself to be the chief cause of all this unhappiness. He blamed his work, he blamed his thirst, he blamed his wife, he blamed his children, he blamed his dreary comfortless home—every one, everything but himself. But now light had begun to dawn upon him, though as yet it had struggled in only through a few chinks. God had made a partial entrance for it through his remorse at the loss of his son; that entrance had been widened by his visit to Ned Brierley, yet he was still in much darkness; his light showed him evil and sin in great mis-shapen terrible masses, but was not so far sufficiently bright to let him see anything in clear sharp outline. A great resolve was growing, but it needed more hammering into form, it wanted more prayer to bring it up to the measure of a Christian duty.

And here we must leave him for the present, and pass to other and very different scenes and characters essential to the development of our story.

Note 1. “Four lane ends,” a place where four roads meet.

Note 2. “Hoggart”, a ghost.

Chapter Three.

The Rectory.

The Reverend Bernard Oliphant, rector of Waterland, was a man of good family and moderate fortune. At the time when this tale opens he had held the living eighteen years. He had three sons and one daughter. The eldest son, Hubert, was just three-and-twenty, and, having finished his course at Oxford with credit, was spending a year or two at home previously to joining an uncle in South Australia, Abraham Oliphant, his father’s brother, who was living in great prosperity as a merchant at Adelaide. Hubert had not felt himself called on to enter the ministry, though his parents would have greatly rejoiced had he seen his way clear to engage in that sacred calling. But the young man abhorred the thought of undertaking such an office unless he could feel decidedly that the highest and holiest motives were guiding him to it, and neither father nor mother dared urge their son to take on himself, from any desire to please them, so awful a responsibility. Yet none the less for this did Hubert love his Saviour, nor did he wish to decline his service, or shrink from bearing that cross which is laid on all who make a bold and manly profession of faith in Christ Jesus. But he felt that there were some who might serve their heavenly Master better as laymen than as ministers of the gospel, and he believed himself to be such a one. His two younger brothers, not feeling the same difficulties, were both preparing for the ministry. Hubert had a passionate desire to travel; his parents saw this, and wisely judged that it would be better to guide his passion than to combat it; so, when his uncle proposed to Hubert to join him in Australia, they gave their full consent. They knew that a strong expression of dissuasion on their part would have led him to abandon the scheme at once; but they would not let any such expression escape them, because they felt that they were bound to consult his tastes and wishes, and not merely their own. They knew that his faith was on the Rock of Ages; they could trust his life and fortunes to their God. For Bernard Oliphant and his wife had but one great object set before them, and that was to work for God. The rector was warm and impulsive, the fire would flash out upon the surface, yet was it under the control of grace; it blazed, it warmed, but never scorched, unless when it crossed the path of high-handed and determined sin. She was all calmness and quiet decision; yet in her character there ran a fire beneath the surface, sending up a glow into every loving word and deed. She had never been beautiful, yet always beautified by the radiance of true holiness. In her, seriousness had no gloom, because it was the seriousness of a holy love. She made even worldly people happy to be with her, because they felt the reality and singleness of her religion—it was woven up with every hour’s work, with every duty, with every joy. She lived for heaven not by neglecting earth, but by making earth the road to heaven. Her religion was pre-eminently practical, while it was deeply spiritual; in fact, it was the religion of sanctified common sense. The true grace of her character gained the admiration which she never sought. As some simple unadorned column rising in the midst of richly-carved sculptures arrests attention by its mere dignity of height and grace of perfect proportion, so in the unassuming wife of Bernard Oliphant there was a loftiness and symmetry of character which made people feel that in her was the true beauty of holiness.

And the children trod in the steps of their parents. Mary Oliphant was the youngest; she was now just eighteen—slight in make, and graceful in every movement. Her perfect absence of self-consciousness gave a peculiar charm to all that she said and did; she never aimed at effect, and therefore always produced it. You could not look into her face without feeling that to her indifference and half-heartedness were impossible things; and the abiding peace which a true faith in Christ alone can give, was on those lovely features in their stillness. Such was the family of the Reverend Bernard Oliphant.

Waterland was a rural parish in one of the midland counties. The rectory stood near one end of the village, which was like a great many other country villages. There were farm-houses, with their stack-yards and clusters of out-buildings, with their yew-trees and apple-orchards. Cottages, with low bulging white-washed walls and thatched roofs, were interspersed among others of a more spruce and modern build, with slated roofs, and neat little gardens. Then there were two or three shops which sold all things likely to be wanted in everyday village life, eatables and wearables nestling together in strange companionship; and, besides these, were houses which would not have been known to be shops, but for a faded array of peppermints and gingerbread, which shone, or rather twinkled, before the eyes of village children through panes of greenish glass. Of course there was a forge and a wheel-wright’s shop; and, equally of course, a public-house—there had been two, there was now but one, which could readily be known by a huge swinging sign-board, on which was the decaying likeness of a “Dun Cow,” supposed to be feeding in a green meadow; but the verdure had long since melted away, and all except the animal herself was a chaos of muddy tints. The “Dun Cow,” (a sad misnomer for a place where milk was the last beverage the visitors would ever think of calling for), was to many the centre both of attraction and detraction, for here quarrels were hatched and characters picked to pieces. The landlord had long since been dead, of the usual publican’s malady—drink fever. The landlady carried on the business which had carried her husband off, and seemed to thrive upon it, for there was never lack of custom at the “Dun Cow.” Just a stone’s-throw from this public-house, on the crest of the hill along which wound the village street, was the church, a simple structure, with a substantial square tower and wide porch. It had been restored with considerable care and taste by the present rector, the internal appearance being sufficiently in accordance with the proprieties of ecclesiastical architecture to satisfy all but the over-fastidious, and yet not so ornamental as to lead the mind to dwell rather on the earthly and sensuous than on the heavenly and spiritual. Behind the church was the rectory, a quaint old building, with pointed gables, deep bay-windows, and black beams of oak exposed to view. It had been added to, here and there, as modern wants and improvements had made expansion necessary. The garden was lovely, for every one at the rectory loved flowers: they loved them for their own intrinsic beauty; they loved them as God’s books, full of lessons of his skill and tender care; they loved them as resting-places for the eye when wearied with sights of disorder and sin; they loved them as ministering comfort to the sick, the aged, and the sorrowful to whom they carried them.

Such was the village of Waterland. The parish extended two miles north and south of the church, a few farms and labourers’ cottages at wide intervals containing nearly all the rest of the population that was not resident in the village.

It has been said that there were once two public-houses in Waterland, but that now there was but one. This was not owing to any want of success in the case of the one which had become extinct; on the contrary, the “Oldfield Arms” had been the more flourishing establishment of the two, and was situated in the centre of the village. Its sign, however, had long since disappeared; and it was now in the hands of the rector, its principal apartment having been transformed into a reading-room, and place for holding meetings. And how was this brought about? Simply thus. When Bernard Oliphant first came to Waterland, he found the “Oldfield Arms” doing a most excellent business; so far as that can be an excellent business which builds the prosperity of one upon the ruin of hundreds. People grumbled at the lowness of wages; wives were unable to procure money from their husbands for decent dress; children were half-starved and two-thirds naked; disease and dirt found a home almost everywhere; boys and girls grew up in ignorance, for their parents could not afford to send them to school; the men had no tidy clothes in which to appear at church. Yet, somehow or other, the “Oldfield Arms” was never short of customers; and customers, too, who paid, and paid well, sooner or later, for what they consumed. So the rector went among the people, and told them plainly of the sin of drunkenness, and pointed out the misery it brought, as their own eyes could see. They confessed the truth—such as he could manage to get hold of—and drank on as before. He was getting heart-sick and miserable. Preach as he might—and he did preach the truth with all faithfulness and love—the notices of ale, porter, and spirits, set up in flaming colours in the windows and on the walls of the “Oldfield Arms,” preached far more persuasively in the cause of intemperance.

One day he came upon a knot of men standing just at the entrance of the yard that led to the tap-room. They were none of them exactly drunk; and certainly none were exactly sober. There were some among them whom he never saw at church, and never found at home. He was grieved to see these men in high discussion and dispute, when they ought to have been busily engaged in some lawful calling. He stopped, and taking one of them aside whose home was specially miserable, he said,—

“James, I’m grieved to see you here, when I know how sadly your poor wife and children are in need of food and clothing.”

The man looked half angry, half ashamed, but hung down his head, and made no reply. The rest were moving off.

“Nay, my friends,” said the rector, kindly, “don’t go. I just want a word with you all. I want to say a few words of love and warning to you, as your clergyman. God has sent me here to teach and guide you; and oh, do listen to me now.”

They all stood still, and looked at him respectfully. He went on:—

“Don’t you see that drinking habits are bringing misery into the homes of the people in our parish—ay, into your own homes? You must see it. You must see how drunkenness stores up misery for you here and hereafter. What will become of you when you die, if you go on as you are doing now? What will become of your families? What will—”

At this moment there was a loud shout of “Hoy! hoy!” from the lips of a carter who was coming with a brewer’s dray out of the inn-yard. The man had just been depositing several full casks, and was now returning with the empty ones. He did not see the rector at first; but when the group made way for him, and his eyes fell on Mr Oliphant, he touched his hat as he was passing, and said,—

“I beg pardon, sir; I did not know as you was there.” Then suddenly pulling up his horse, he added— “Oh, if you please, sir, master bid me say he’s very sorry he hasn’t any of the ale you’ve been drinking ready just now, but he hopes you’ll let me leave this barrel of stout, it’s in prime order, he says.”

“Very well,” replied Mr Oliphant; “you may leave it.”

Then he turned again to the men: they were moving off. He would have taken up his earnest appeal where he left it; but somehow or other he felt a difficulty in speaking, and the deep attention was evidently gone from his hearers. He hesitated. They were already dispersing: should he call them back? He felt as if he could not. He turned sadly towards home, deeply vexed and chafed in his spirit. He blamed the ill-timed interruption of the carter; and yet he felt that there was something else lurking in the background with which he felt dissatisfied—something which wanted dragging out into the light.

“And yet it’s so foolish!” he said to himself, as he walked slowly up the street. “My drinking in moderation has nothing in common with their drinking immoderately. Why should my use of intoxicating liquors fetter me in dissuading these poor creatures from their abuse? They ought to see the difference.” Then a voice, deeper in the heart, whispered— “They ought; but they do not, and their souls are perishing. They are your people: you must deal with them as they are, not as they ought to be.”

That night the rector’s sleep was very troubled.

It was about a week later that he was again near the “Oldfield Arms,” when a spruce-looking man—his wine-merchant’s agent—came out of the inn door, and walked up the street. Two men were standing with their backs to the rector just outside the yard. He was about to pass on; when he heard one say,—

“What a sight of wine some of them parsons drink! Yon fine gent couldn’t afford all them gold chains and pins if it warn’t for the parsons.”

“Ay,” said the other, “it’s the parsons as knows good wine from bad. I heerd yon chap say only this morning: ‘Our very best customers is the clergy.’”

“Well,” rejoined the other, “I shouldn’t mind if they’d only leave us poor fellows alone, and let us get drunk when we’ve a mind. But it do seem a little hard that they may get drunk on their wine, but we mustn’t get drunk on our beer.”

“Oh, but you know, Bill,” said the other, “this here’s the difference. When they get drunk, it’s genteel drunk, and there’s no sin in that; but when we poor fellows get drunk, it’s wulgar drunk, and that’s awful wicked.”

Bernard Oliphant was deeply pained; he shrank within himself.

“It’s a cruel libel and a coarse slander,” he muttered, and hastened on his way. “Am I answerable,” he asked himself, “for the abuse which others may make of what I take moderately and innocently? Absurd! And yet it’s a pity, a grievous pity, that it should be possible for such poor ignorant creatures to speak thus of any of our holy calling, and so to justify themselves in sin.”

Yes, he felt it to be so, and it preyed upon his mind more and more. He mentioned what he had heard to his wife.

“Dear Bernard,” she replied, “I have thought a great deal lately on this subject, especially since you told me about your speaking to those men when you were interrupted by the drayman. I have prayed that you and I might be directed aright; and we shall be. But do not let us be hasty. It does seem as though we were being called on to give up, for the sake of others, what does us personally no harm. But perhaps we may be wrong in this view. A great many excellent Christians, and ministers too, are moderate drinkers, and never exceed; and we must not be carried away by a mistaken enthusiasm to brand their use of fermented drinks as sinful because such frightful evils are daily resulting from immoderate drinking. We must think and pray, and our path will be made plain; and we must be prepared to walk in it, cost what it may.”

“Yes,” said her husband; “I am getting more and more convinced that there is something exceptional in this matter—that we cannot deal with this sin of drunkenness as we deal with other sins. But we will wait a little longer for guidance; yet not too long, for souls are perishing, and ruin is thickening all round us.”

They had not to wait long; their path was soon made clear.

It was on a bitter and cheerless November evening that Mr Oliphant was returning to the rectory from a distant part of his parish. He was warmly clad; but the keen wind, which drove a prickly deluge of fine hail into his face, seemed to make its way through every covering into his very bones. He was hurrying on, thankful that home was so near, when he suddenly stumbled upon something in the path which he had not noticed, being half blinded by the frozen sleet. With difficulty he saved himself from falling over this obstacle, which looked in the feeble moonlight like a bundle of ragged clothes. Then he stooped down to examine it more closely, and was horrified at hearing a low moan, which showed that it was a living creature that lay on the path. It was plainly, in fact, some poor, half-frozen fellow-man, who lay coiled together there, perishing of cold in that bitter night. The rector tried to raise the poor wretch from the ground, but the body hung like a dead weight upon him.

“Come,” he said, “my poor fellow; come, try and rouse yourself and get up. You’ll die if you lie here.”

The miserable bundle of humanity partly uncoiled itself, and made an effort to rise, but sunk back again. Mr Oliphant shouted for help. The shout seemed partly to revive the prostrate creature, and he half raised himself.

“Come,” said the rector again,— “come, lean on my arm, and try and get up. You’ll die of cold if you stay here.”

“Die!” said a thick, unearthly voice from out of that half-frozen mass of flesh and blood. “In Adam all die.”

“Who and what are you?” cried the rector, in extreme astonishment and distress.

“What am I? Ah, what am I?” was the bewildered, scarce audible reply.

By this time help had arrived. Two men came up, and assisted Mr Oliphant to raise the poor man, and support him to the “Oldfield Arms,” where he was immediately put to bed; one of the men being sent off by the rector to fetch the nearest medical man, while he himself gave orders that everything should be done to restore the unhappy sufferer to warmth and consciousness.

“Please, Mrs Barnes,” said he to the landlady, “be so good as to send up to the rectory, and let me know, when the doctor comes, if he says that there is any danger. If his report is favourable, I will leave a night’s rest to do its work, and will look in again early to-morrow. And pray let the poor man have everything that he needs, and send up to the rectory if you are short of anything.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Mrs Barnes. “I will see that he is properly looked to.”

The rector then went home, and in another hour received a message from the inn that the doctor had been, and that there was no danger of any immediately fatal result; that he would call again on his patient the following morning, and should be glad to meet the rector at the inn.

Accordingly, the following day at the appointed hour Bernard and the doctor went up together into the sick man’s room. As they opened the door they were astonished to hear the patient declaiming in a loud voice,—

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

Bernard’s heart grew sick. Could it be? Could this miserable creature be one of his own profession? Were these words the ramblings of one who had been used to officiate as a Church minister? And, if so, what could have brought him to such a state of utter destitution? The doctor seemed to read his thoughts, and shook his head sadly. Then, putting his mouth to his ear, he said,—

“It’s the drink; the smell of spirits is still strong on him.”

“Poor wretched creature!” said Mr Oliphant. “Can it be that the love of drink has brought a man of position and education to such a state as this? What can be done for him?”

“Not much at present,” was the reply, “beyond keeping him quiet, and nursing him well till the fever has run its course. And one thing is clear—we must keep all intoxicants from him. They are downright poison to a man of his constitution; and should he get hold of any spirits before his health is thoroughly established again, I would not answer for his life.”

The rector called Mrs Barnes, and told her what the doctor had said, adding,—

“You must find a trustworthy nurse for him—one who will strictly attend to the doctor’s orders.”

The landlady promised she would do so; and the rector left the sick-chamber with a sorrowful look and troubled heart.

In ten days’ time the patient was well enough to sit up in bed and converse with Mr Oliphant.

“My poor friend,” said the rector, “I grieve to see you in your present state, especially as I cannot but perceive that you have seen better days, and moved among people of education. However, there is great cause to thank God that he has so far spared your life.”

A deep flush overspread the sick man’s face as he replied,—

“Yes, indeed, I owe you, my dear sir, a debt of gratitude I can never repay. You say the truth—I have seen better days. I was sought after in good society once, little as you might think it.”

“I can believe it,” said the rector, quietly. “But do not distress yourself by referring to the past, if it gives you pain.”

“As to that,” replied the other, “it matters to me little now what I once was; but it may interest you to know, and may serve as a warning. I was a popular preacher once. I was an ordained minister of the Church of England. Crowds flocked to my church. I threw all my energies into my preaching. I was a free man then; at least I believed myself so. While I proclaimed the love of God to sinners, I also preached vehemently against sin. I never felt myself more at home than when I was painting the miserable bondage of those whom Satan held in his chains. I could speak with withering scorn of such as made a profession while they were living in any known wickedness. I was specially severe upon the drunkard’s sin. But preaching such as mine, and in a large church, was very exhausting. I found that I wanted support; so I began with an egg beaten up with brandy, and took it just before going into the pulpit. This made me doubly fervent; some of my hearers thought me almost inspired. But the exhaustion was terrible at the end; so I added another glass of egg and spirits after the sermon. Then I found that, somehow or other, I could not preach in the evening after taking much solid food; so I substituted liquids for solids, and lived on Sundays almost entirely on malt liquors and spirits. When these failed to keep me up to the mark, I had to increase the quantity. At last I saw that my churchwarden began to look a little strangely and suspiciously at me; ugly sayings reached my ears; the congregation began to thin. At last I received a letter from a Christian man of my flock, telling me that himself and many others were pained with the fear that I was beginning to exceed the bounds of strict temperance: he urged total abstinence at once; he was a total abstainer himself. I was startled—prostrated—humbled to the very dust. I reflected on the quantity of intoxicants I was now taking daily, and I shuddered. I thanked my friendly adviser with tears, and promised to return to strict moderation. Total abstinence I would not hear of; it was quite out of the question. I could no more do without alcoholic stimulants then than I can do now.”

He paused, and fixed a peculiar look on Mr Oliphant; who, however, did not, or would not, understand it. So he went on:—

“I tried moderation; but it would not do. I prayed for strength to be moderate; but I know now that I never really desired what I prayed for. It was too late to be moderate; my lust had got the bit between its teeth, and I might as well have pulled at the wind. I went from bad to worse. Desertion, disgrace, ruin, all followed. Everything has gone—church, home, money, books, clothes—the drink has had them all, and would have them again if they were mine at this moment. For some years past I have been a roaming beggar, such as you found me when you picked me up in the road.”

He said all this with very little emotion; and then lay back, wearied with his exertions in speaking.

“And have you any—” The rector did not know how to finish the sentence which he had begun after a long pause.

“Have I any family? you would ask,” said the other. “I had once. I had a wife and little child; my only child—a little girl. Well, I suppose she’s better off. She pined and pined when there was next to nothing to eat in the house; and they tell me—for I was not at home when she died—that she said at the last, ‘I’m going to Jesus; they are not hungry where he is.’ Poor thing!”

“And your wife?” exclaimed Bernard, his blood running cold at the tone of indifference in which this account was given.

“Oh, my wife? Ah, we did not see much of one another after our child’s death! I was often from home; and once, when I returned, I found that she was gone: they had buried her in my absence. She died—so they said—of a broken heart. Poor thing! it is not unlikely.”

Mr Oliphant hid his head in his hands, and groaned aloud. He had never before conceived it possible—what he now found to be too true—that long habits of drunkenness can so utterly unhumanise a man as to reduce him to a mere callous self, looking upon all things outside self as dreamy and devoid of interest, with but one passion left—the passion for the poison which has ruined him.

At last the rector raised his head, and said slowly and solemnly,—

“And if God spares you, will you not strive to lead a new life? Will you not pray for grace to conquer your besetting sin?”

The wretched man did not answer for a while. Then he said,—

“I have only one thing to live for, and that is the drink. I cannot live without it. Oh, I implore you to let me have some spirits! You do not, you cannot, know how I crave them, or in pity you would not withhold them from me.”

Mr Oliphant rose.

“Compose yourself, my poor friend,” he said. “I dare not grant your request; it might be your death. Farewell for the present. May God, with whom all things are possible, help you through your present trouble, and enable you in the end to conquer.”

The wretched man called imploringly after him; but he closed the door, and summoning Mrs Barnes, begged her to look well after him, and to see that the nurse did all in her power to keep him calm, and to soothe him to rest.

Two days after this he called again.

“How is your patient to-day, Mrs Barnes?” he said to the landlady, whom he met on the landing.

“I cannot quite tell you, sir, for I have not been in to see him this morning. He was so much better yesterday that the doctor said Mrs Harper might go home. I went to look at him after he had taken his tea, and I found old Jane Hicks with him. She had called to speak with Mrs Harper, and the poor gentleman got her to go and borrow him a newspaper which he wanted to see. I think I heard her come back twice since Mrs Harper left; but perhaps he wanted something else. He said I had better not wake him very early, as he thought he should sleep well; so I haven’t disturbed him yet.”

A strange misgiving crept over the rector.

“Let us go in at once,” he said.

They knocked at the bed-room door—there was no answer; they opened it softly and went in. The sick man lay on his back, apparently asleep, but when they came closer they saw that he was dead. A stain on the sheet attracted Mr Oliphant’s notice; he hastily turned it down, uncovering the hands; in the right was a bottle—it had held spirits; there was nothing in it now.

So died the miserable victim of drink; so died the once flourishing professor; so died the once acceptable preacher.

Mr Oliphant knelt by the bed-side and poured out his heart to God in prayer, entreating to be directed aright, and to be kept from ever in any degree disgracing his profession as this unhappy man had done. He was reminded that he was not alone by the sobs of the landlady, who had fallen on her knees near him.

“Mrs Barnes,” he said, on rising, “I have resolved, God helping me, to be a total abstainer from this day forward. I have nothing to do with the consciences of others, but for myself I feel that I shall be a happier and a wiser man if I wholly abstain from those stimulants which have power to make such a shipwreck as this.”

She did not answer except by tears and a deep sigh; and he made his way sadly and thoughtfully home.

From that day forward the drink was wholly banished from the rectory; there was no difference of opinion between Bernard and his wife—they would bring up their children without the ensnaring stimulant. Mr Oliphant showed his colours at once; and he preached as well as practised total abstinence, not in the place of the gospel, but as a handmaid to the gospel. And Mrs Barnes was the first who joined him.

“I’ve long hated selling beer and spirits,” she said. “I’ve seen the misery that the drink has brought even into our little village. But I didn’t see my way nor my duty plain before, but I see them now. You’ve set me the example, sir; and, please God, I’ll follow. You know my poor master left me the farm for my life, and I shall be happier there with a little than I could be if I were to stop here and be making ever so much.”

She kept to her resolution. So the “Oldfield Arms” was closed, to the astonishment of all the neighbours. What was the foolish woman about? Had she lost her senses? Why, the inn was doing a capital business. Sir Thomas Oldfield himself came down on purpose from Greymoor Park, when he heard what she was going to do, and tried to talk and laugh her out of it. But she was firm. The house was her own freehold, and she would neither use it herself as an inn, nor let any one else rent it for the same purpose. Of course, she was a fool in the eyes of the world, but she did not care for that; and any one who saw her bright face as she walked about her farm, would have perceived that, whether fool or no, she had the enjoyment of peace in her heart.

But the “Oldfield Arms” was not long without a tenant. The rector took it, as we have before said, and used it partly as shops, and the large public room as a reading-room. And thus it was that the “Dun Cow” remained without a rival as the dispenser of strong drink to the inhabitants of Waterland.

Chapter Four.

The Park.

It was a great vexation to Sir Thomas Oldfield that Mrs Barnes would neither keep the “Oldfield Arms” open herself, nor let it as a public-house to any one else. The “Dun Cow” was quite an inferior place altogether, and nothing but rebuilding it could turn it into anything like a respectable house; but it did very well for the villagers to sot in. There was a good fire, and plenty of room in its parlour, so the “Dun Cow” kept its name, and reigned alone. Sir Thomas, indeed, had no wish to see the public-houses multiplied, for he highly disapproved of drunkenness, so there was no encouragement to set up another house in a fresh place. And, indeed, though there was always custom in abundance for one such establishment, a second would, at the time of the opening of our story, have driven but a poor trade; for the example and appeals of the rector for some seventeen years as a Christian total abstainer, together with the knowledge that all the rectory household were consistent water-drinkers, had been greatly blessed in Waterland. Many had left their drunkenness; a happy change had taken place in several homes; and a flourishing total abstinence society, which included many members from other parishes and villages, held its monthly meetings in the large temperance room under the presidency of Bernard Oliphant.

Sir Thomas Oldfield hated drunkenness, and was very severe upon drunkards, under ordinary circumstances, when brought before him as a magistrate. But, on the other hand, he hated total abstinence very cordially also. He was fond of making sweeping assertions, and knocking timid opponents down with strong asseverations, which passed for excellent arguments at assize dinners, and at parties at Greymoor Park; for it is wonderful what exceedingly loose logic will satisfy even highly-educated people when employed on the side of their appetites or prejudices. Once, indeed, the squire was very considerably staggered, but he never liked a reference to be made afterwards to the occasion. He was presiding at a harvest-home given to his own tenants, and had passed from a warm eulogium on temperance and moderation to a vehement harangue against total abstinence and total abstainers. He was, however, cut short in the midst of his eloquence by a sturdy-looking labourer, who struggled forward, beer-jug in hand, and, tottering at every step, spluttered out,—

“Hooray, hooray, Sir Thomas! Here’s long life to the squire—here’s long life to moderation. Hooray lads, hooray! Here’s three cheers for the squire and moderation. Stand fast to your principles, like me; as for them total abstainers, they haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

With that he tumbled forward, and, unable to recover his balance, fell flat on the ground before Sir Thomas, and lay there utterly unable to rise.

As was the squire, so had he brought up his family.

Greymoor Park was a noble property, which had come down to him through a long line of ancestors. The house stood on a rocky height, and was surrounded, but not encumbered, by noble groups of trees, from the midst of which it looked out over sloping terraced gardens, glowing with flower-beds, which enamelled the smoothest of turf, across the park from which the estate took its name. The original house was old, but while the fine bay-windows, massive porch, stately gables, and wide staircases, with their carved oak balustrades and pendants, had been preserved untouched, all such modern improvements had been added as would soften off the inconveniences of a less luxurious age. The park itself was remarkable for the size and grouping of its timber, and was well-stocked with deer. A fine sheet of water also spread itself out over an open space between the trees, so as to form a delightful variety to the view from the great bay-windows. Indeed, if the things of the present life could have made a man happy, Sir Thomas had abundant grounds for happiness in this world. Yes, in this world, but not beyond it. For Sir Thomas was just simply and thoroughly a man of the world, and a most respectable man of the world too. No man could place his finger on a blot in his character or conduct. He lived for the world, and the world applauded him. He lived to please self, and to a considerable extent he succeeded.

Lady Oldfield wished to be something higher. She knew the emptiness of the world, at least in theory. She wished to be a Christian, but was not. The glow of a pure gospel faith, caught by intercourse with true Christians, might be often found in her words, but it went no farther; as the pavement on which the rich hues of a stained glass window fall, is but a cold colourless pavement after all, so was her heart cold, worldly, colourless for God. She was careful to have her children taught religiously—the Bible lesson, the catechism, were learnt both regularly and perfectly. No child might omit its prayers night or morning, nor be absent from the daily family worship. No household was more strict in its attendance at church; and nothing brought down more speedily and severely her ladyship’s displeasure than negligence to go to God’s house, or irreverence or inattention during the service. Thomas, the eldest son, and heir to the baronetcy, was at present abroad with his regiment; the second son, Frank, was just one-and-twenty; the rest of the children were daughters.

Ever since the coming of Bernard Oliphant to Waterland, there had been free intercourse between the two families at the hall and the rectory; for Mr Oliphant was a distant relation of the Oldfields, and it was through Sir Thomas that he had been presented to the living. So the young people grew up together, though there was, strictly speaking, more intimacy than friendship between them, especially as the total abstinence principles of the rectory were a bar to any great cordiality on the part of the squire and his lady. On this point the baronet and his wife were entirely agreed. She was less openly severe, yet quite as determined and bitter in her opposition as he. So the two families met, and were civil, and exchanged calls, and the Oliphants dined at the hall occasionally, and the children of both houses had little gatherings and feastings together from time to time. Thus had things gone on for some years after Mr Oliphant had first shown his colours as a total abstainer; Lady Oldfield jealously watching her children, lest any of them should be corrupted by the absurd notions, as she counted them, of the rector and his wife on this subject of total abstinence. She had, however, nothing to fear on this score, as regarded her eldest son. He had never taken much to the Oliphants as a boy, and his absence from home at school and the university had kept him out of the reach of their influence till he left England with his regiment. It was otherwise with the second son, Frank, who was specially his mother’s idol, and indeed almost every one else’s too. From his earliest boyhood he took people’s hearts by storm, and kept them. No one could see him and not love that open, generous, handsome face, with its laughing blue eyes, and setting of rich brown curling hair. No one could hear his joyous, confiding voice, and the expressions of unaffected and earnest interest with which he threw himself into every subject which fairly engaged his attention or affections, without feeling drawn with all the cords of the heart to the noble boy. There was such a thorough openness and freedom in all that he did and said, yet without recklessness and without indifference to the feelings of others. And when, through thoughtlessness or forgetfulness, as was not unfrequently the case, he happened to find himself in some awkward scrape or perplexity, he would toss back his waving hair with a half-vexed half-comical expression, which would disarm at once his mother’s anger, spite of herself, and turn her severe rebuke into a mild remonstrance. Alas, that sin should ever mar such a lovely work of God! Frank loved the look of nature that lay open all around him, but not his own books. He abhorred study, and only submitted to it from a sense of duty. His father, at Lady Oldfield’s urgent request, kept him at home, and engaged a private tutor for him, whose office would have been a sinecure but for the concern it gave him to find his pupil so hard to drag along the most level paths of learning. Dog’s-ears disfigured Frank’s books, the result simply of restless fingers; and dog’s heads; executed in a masterly style, were the subjects of his pen. He loved roaming about, and there was not an old ruin within many miles round of which he did not know every crevice, nor any birds of song or prey with whose haunts and habits he was not intimately acquainted. In fishing, riding, swimming, he was an early adept, and every outdoor sport was his delight. All the dogs in the neighbourhood rejoiced in him, and every cottager’s wife blessed him when he flung his bright smiles around him as he passed along. At no place was he more welcome than at the rectory, nor was there any house in which he felt so happy, not even excepting his own home. With all his wildness he felt the most sincere love and respect for Mr and Mrs Oliphant, and rejoiced in a day spent with their children. And there was one of these towards whom he was drawn with feelings of peculiar tenderness. He was not conscious of it, and would have laughed at the idea had it been suggested to him; yet it was true that when he was but just sixteen Mary Oliphant had begun to wind herself around his heart with those numberless invisible cords which would by degrees enchain him in bonds which no power on earth could break. Mary, of course, mere child as she then was, and brought up by her parents as a child should be, obedient, gentle, unobtrusive, delighted in the companionship of the lively, open-hearted boy, without a thought beyond, and heartily enjoyed many a happy ramble with him and her brothers among the woods and meadows. Frank Oldfield could not but be struck by the love and harmony which reigned in the Oliphant family. He saw the power of a religion which made itself felt without thrusting itself forward into notice. He could not but reflect sometimes, and then even his sunny brow was clouded, that he wanted a something which the children at the rectory possessed; that he wanted a great reality, without which he could not be fully happy. He saw also the bright side of total abstinence when he spent a day with the rector’s family. At home there was always abundance of beer and wine upon the table, and he drank it, like others; and not only drank it, but thirsted for it, and felt as if he could not do without it. It was not so when he dined at the rectory, at their simple one o’clock meal, for he enjoyed his food, and seemed scarcely to miss the stimulant.

One day, when he was sitting at the rectory table, he said to Mr Oliphant, looking up with one of his bright smiles,—

“I wish I was a total abstainer.”

“Well,” said Mr Oliphant in reply, with a smile, “I wish you were; but why do you wish it just now, my dear boy?”

“Oh, I’ve been thinking a good deal about it lately. I see you smile, Hubert, but I really have been thinking—yes, thinking—I’ve been thinking that I should like to do as you all do; you’re just as happy without beer and wine, and just as well too.”

“And is that your only reason, dear Frank?” asked Mrs Oliphant.

“Oh no! that’s not all; the plain truth is this, I can’t help thinking that if I keep getting fonder and fonder of beer and wine, as I’m doing now, I shall get too fond of it by-and-by.”

Mr Oliphant sighed, and poor Mary exclaimed,—

“Oh, Frank, don’t say that.”

“Ay, but it’s true; don’t you think, Mr Oliphant, that I should be better and safer without it?”

“I do, most sincerely, my dear boy,” answered the rector; “yes, both better and safer; and specially the latter.”

“I know,” said Frank, “that papa and mamma are not fond of total abstinence; but then, I cannot think that they have really looked into the matter as you have.”

“No, Frank, your father and mother do not see the matter in the same light as myself and I have no right to blame them, for, when I first came to Waterland, I thought nearly the same as they do. Perhaps they will take my view by-and-by.”

Frank shook his head, and then went on,—

“But you do think it the best thing for young people, as well as grown-up people, to be abstainers?”

“Yes, assuredly; and I will tell you why. I will give you a little illustration. There is a beautiful picture representing what is called the ‘Lorelei,’ a spirit fabled to haunt some high rocks that overlook the Rhine. This spirit is represented in the picture as a beautiful female, with a sweet but melancholy expression of countenance. She kneels on the top of the rock, and is singing to a harp, which she strikes with her graceful fingers. Below is a boat with two men in it, the one old, and the other young. The boat is rapidly nearing the rocks, but both the men are utterly unconscious of their danger—the old man has ceased to hold the helm, the young man has dropped the oars, and both are fondly stretching out their hands towards the deceiving spirit, wholly entranced with her song—a few moments more and their boat will be a wreck. Now, it is because the drink is such an enticing thing, like the Lorelei spirit; because it seems to sing pleasantly to us, and makes us forget where we are; because it lures on old and young to their ruin, by robbing them of their self-control;—it is for these reasons that I think it such a happy thing to put every safeguard between ourselves and its snares.”

“Yes,” said Frank thoughtfully; “I know the drink is becoming a snare to me, or may become so. What shall I do? Ought I to give it up altogether?”

“It is a very difficult thing to answer that question,” replied the rector. “I could hardly urge you to give up beer and wine altogether, if your father and mother positively forbid your doing so; there is no sin, of course, in the simple taking of fermented liquors, and therefore I could not advise you to go directly contrary to your parents’ orders in this matter.”

“There is no harm, however, in my trying to give up beer and wine, if my father and mother will allow me?”

“Certainly not, my dear boy; and may God make your way plain, and remove or overcome your difficulties.”

The day after this conversation, Frank was sitting in his place at the dinner-table of the hall. The butler brought him a glass of beer. “No, thank you,” he said. A little while after he filled a tumbler with water, and began to drink it.

“Frank, my boy,” said his father, “are not you well? Why don’t you take your beer as usual?”

“I’m quite well, thank you, papa; but I’d rather have the water.”

“Well, put some port wine in it, at any rate, if you don’t fancy the beer to-day.”

“I’d rather have neither beer nor wine, thank you, papa.”

By this time Lady Oldfield’s attention was drawn to what was passing between her husband and son.

“Dear Frank,” she said, “I shall not allow you to do anything so foolish as to drink water. James, hand the beer again to Master Frank.”

“Indeed, dear mamma,” he urged, “I mean what I say; I really should rather have water.”

“Absurd!” exclaimed her ladyship angrily; “what folly has possessed you now? You know that the medical men all say that wine and beer are necessary for your health.”

“I’m sure, mamma, the medical men needn’t trouble themselves about my health. I’m always very well when I have plenty of air and exercise. If ever I feel unwell, it is when I’ve had more wine or beer than usual.”

“And who, pray, has been putting these foolish notions into your head? I see how it is; I always feared it; the Oliphants have been filling your head with their extravagant notions about total abstinence. Really, my dear,” she added, turning to Sir Thomas, “we must forbid Frank’s going to the rectory, if they are to make our own child fly in the face of our wishes.”

“Mamma,” cried Frank, all on fire with excitement and indignation, “you’re quite mistaken about the Oliphants; they have none of them been trying to talk me over to their own views. I began the subject myself, and asked Mr Oliphant’s advice, and he told me expressly that I ought not to do what you would disapprove of.”

“And why should you ask Mr Oliphant’s advice? Cannot you trust your own father and mother? I am not saying a word against Mr Oliphant as a clergyman or a Christian; he preaches the gospel fully and faithfully, and works hard in his parish, but on this subject of total abstinence he holds views which neither your father nor I approve of; and, really, I must not have you tampered with in this matter.”

“Well, dear mamma, I’ve done; I’ll do as you wish. Farewell water—welcome beer and wine; James, a glass of ale.”

It was two years after this that a merry company from the hall and rectory set out to explore a remarkable ruin about five miles distant from Waterland. Frank was leader of the party; he had never given his parents any more anxiety on the score of total abstinence—on the contrary, he had learned to take so freely of wine and beer, that his mother felt at times a little alarmed lest he should seriously overpass the bounds of moderation. When at the rectory, he never again alluded to the subject, but rather seemed eager to turn the conversation when any remark fell from Mr or Mrs Oliphant on the evils arising from intemperance. And now to-day he was in the highest spirits, as he rode on a sprightly little pony by the side of Mary Oliphant, who was mounted on another pony, and was looking the picture of peaceful beauty. Other young people followed, also on horseback. The day was most lovely, and an inspiriting canter along lane and over moor soon brought them to the ruin. It was a stately moss-embroidered fabric, more picturesque in its decay than it ever could have been in its completeness. Its shattered columns, solitary mullions, and pendent fragments of tracery hoary with age, and in parts half concealed by the negligent profusion of ivy, entranced the mind by their suggestive and melancholy beauty; while the huge remnant of a massive tower seemed to plead with mute dignity against the violence which had rent and marred it, and against the encroaching vegetation, which was climbing higher and higher, and enveloping its giant stones in a fantastic clothing of shrub and bramble.

Frank and his party first shut up their horses in the old refectory, closing the entrance with a hurdle, and then dispersed over the ruins. Mary had brought her drawing-pad, that she might sketch a magnificent pillar, and the remains of a transept arch which rose gracefully behind it, crowned with drooping ivy, and disclosing in the back ground, through a shattered window, the dreamy blue of the distant hills. She sat on the mutilated chapiter of a column, and was soon so wholly absorbed in her work, that she never turned her eyes to notice Frank Oldfield, who, leaning against a low archway, was busily engaged in a vigorous sketch, of which herself was the prominent object. And who could blame him? for certainly a lovelier picture, or one more full of harmonious contrast, could hardly have been found, than that presented by the sweet and graceful figure of the rector’s daughter, with its surroundings of massive masonry and majestic decay. She all life, a creature of the present, and yet still more of the future, as bright with the sunshine of a hope that could never die; and they, those mouldering stones, that broken tracery, those mossy arches, sad in the desolation of the present, sadder still in the memories of an unenlightened past. Frank finished his sketch, and, holding it behind him, stole gently up to the side of Mary Oliphant.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “a most lovely little bit; and yet, I have the vanity to think that my choice of a subject has been better than your own.”

“The drawing is, no doubt,” she answered; “but I hardly think you can find such a picturesque group as this in any other part of the ruins.”

“Let us compare, then,” he said, and placed his own sketch by the side of hers.

“Oh, Frank,” she cried, “how can you be so foolish?”

At the same time the colour which flushed her face, and the bright smile which lighted it, showed that the folly was not very reprehensible in her eyes.

“Is it so very foolish?” he asked, half seriously, half playfully. “Well; I wish I had shown the same kind of folly in my choice of some other things as I have in the choice of a subject.”

She was about to reply, when suddenly, without any warning, a savage-looking dog dashed into the open space before them, and, making a fierce rush at Mary, caught her by the dress.

“Down, you brute, down!” shouted Frank; but the dog still retained his hold, and growled and tossed himself about savagely. Frank had no stick nor weapon of any kind in his hands, but he darted to a heap of loose stones, and snatching one up turned towards the dog. In the meantime, Mary, in extreme terror, had dropped her drawing-pad, and plucking her dress from the fierce creature’s mouth, fled with all her speed across the pavement, and sprang up the projecting stones of an old archway. The dog, with a loud yell, followed her, and easily overtook her, as the ascent up which she had climbed presented a broad footing. Utterly terrified, and unconscious of what she was doing, the poor girl clambered higher and higher to escape her enemy. Frank had now turned upon the dog, and hurled one huge stone at him; it passed near, but did not touch him. Mary’s terror only excited the furious animal to follow, and as she saw him close upon her again, with a wild cry she leaped right across to an old fragment of a turret which stood out by itself in an angle of the wall. The dog hesitated, but, before it could decide to follow her, another stone from Frank had struck it full in the side. With a tremendous howl it tumbled down into the court and fled. Poor Mary! she gasped for breath, and could not for a long time recover her self-possession. When at last she became more calm, soothed and encouraged by the kind voice and earnest entreaties of Frank, it was only to awake to the extreme danger of her present position. Fear had made her take a leap which she could never have dared to attempt in her calm senses. She looked across the chasm over which she had sprung, and shuddered. Could she try the leap back again? No; she dared not. In the meantime, the stones to which she was clinging began to loosen beneath her weight. She looked down, and became giddy.

“Oh, save me—save me—I shall fall!” she cried. She clutched at a strong stem of ivy which was climbing up the wall close by, and so supported herself; but it was evident that she could not long retain her hold in that constrained position, even if the stonework did not give way beneath her feet. All the party had now gathered in the open space below, and some began to climb the path by which she had mounted. Frank, in the meanwhile, was making desperate efforts to reach the poor girl.

“Hold on—hold on—dear Mary!” he cried; “a few moments, and I shall be with you; don’t lose courage—keep a firm grasp on the ivy; there—I’ve got a landing on the top of this old arch; now, I’m only a few feet off—steady, steady—don’t stir for your life—only a few moments more and I shall be at your side.”

It was perilous work indeed; and all who beheld him held their breath as he made his way towards where the object of their deep anxiety was crouched. Now he was clinging to a rough projecting stone, now swinging by a rusty bar, now grasping ivy or brambles, and every now and then slipping as the old masonry gave way beneath his feet. At last, with immense exertion, he gained a ledge a little below where the terrified girl was perched, half lying, half crouching. Here he had firm standing-ground. Placing his hand gently upon her, he bade her slide down towards him, assuring her that she would have a firm footing on the ledge. She obeyed at once, feeling his strong arm bearing her up and guiding her. Another moment, and she stood beside him. But now, how were they to descend? She dared not attempt to leap back to the spot from whence she had sprung in her terror, and there was no regular descent from the slab on which they were perched, but only a few projecting stones down the perpendicular face of the wall, and these at wide intervals.

“There’s no way but a roundabout climb down by the ivy,” said Frank at last. “Trust to me, dear Mary, and do exactly what I tell you. I will go first, and do you place hand and foot just as I bid you. There—put your foot in that crevice—now take firm hold of that branch; there—now the other foot—now the next step a little to the right, the good ivy makes a noble ladder—now we’re nearly landed; there—be careful not to slip on that round stone—one step more, and now we’re safe. Oh, thank God, you’re safe!”

He clasped her to his heart; she knew that heart was hers; she could not resent that loving embrace; it was but for a moment. He released her, and was turning to the friends who were gathering and pressing round, when a heavy stone, loosened in their descent, fell on his outstretched arm, and struck him to the ground.

Mary sprang towards him with a cry of deep distress.

“Frank, dear Frank—you’re hurt—you’re dreadfully hurt, I’m sure.”

“No, no; not much, I hope,” he said, springing up, but looking very pale. “It’s an awkward blow rather, but don’t distress yourself—we’ll make the best of our way home at once—just one of you see to the horses.”

He spoke with effort, for he was evidently in great pain. Mary’s heart ached for him, but exhaustion and anxiety quite deprived her of the power of speaking or thinking collectively.

The horses were speedily brought. Frank held out his uninjured arm to help Mary Oliphant to mount her pony.

“I’m so very, very sorry,” she said, “to have caused this disaster, and spoiled our happy day through my foolish timidity.”

“Nay, nay; you must not blame yourself,” said Frank. “I am sure we all feel for you. It was that rascal of a dog that did the mischief, but I gave him such a mark of my respect as I don’t think he’ll part with for a long time.”

Poor Frank, he tried to be cheerful; but it was plain to all that he must be suffering severely. They were soon on their way home, but a cloud rested on their spirits. Few words were said till they reached the spot where the roads to the hall and the rectory parted. Then Frank turned to Mary and said, with a look full of tenderness, rendered doubly touching by his almost ghastly paleness,—

“Farewell; I hope you’ll be none the worse, dear Mary, for your fright. I shall send over to-morrow to inquire how you are. It was a happy escape.”

“Good-bye, good-bye!” she cried; “a thousand thanks for your noble and timely rescue! Oh, I hope—I hope—”

She could not say more, but burst into tears.

“All right—never fear for me!” he cried cheerily as he rode off, leaving Mary and a groom to make their way to Waterland, while himself and the rest of the party hastened on to Greymoor Park.

They had not far to ride, but Frank was evidently anxious to reach home as speedily as possible. With clenched teeth and knit brow, he urged on his pony to a gallop. Soon they reached the lodge; a few moments more and they had passed along the drive and gained the grand entrance. Lady Oldfield had just returned from a drive, and was standing on the top step.

“You’re early home,” she remarked. “Dear Frank, I hope there’s nothing amiss,” she added, noticing the downcast looks of the whole party.

Her son did not answer, but, dismounting with difficulty, began to walk up the steps. She observed with dismay that he tottered as he approached her. Could he have been drinking so freely as to be unable to walk steadily? Her heart died within her. The next moment he staggered forward, and fainted in her arms.

Chapter Five.

Good Resolutions.

“What—what is this?” cried Lady Oldfield in bitter distress. “Frank—my child—my beloved boy—oh, open your eyes—look at me—speak—what has happened? Oh, he’s dying, he’s dying—James—Richard—carry him up to his room. One of you tell Tomkins to ride off immediately for Dr Portman. Thomas, fetch me some brandy—quick—quick!”

They carried him in a state of complete insensibility to his room, and laid him on the bed. His mother stood over him, bathing his temples with eau-de-cologne, and weeping bitterly. The brandy was brought; they raised him, and poured a little through his blanched lips; slowly he began to revive; his lips moved. Lady Oldfield stooped her ear close to his face, and caught the murmured word, “Mary.”

“Oh, thank God,” she exclaimed, “that he is not dead! Does any one know how this has happened?”

“I believe, my lady,” replied one of the servants, “that Mr Frank was hit by a big stone which fell on him from the top of the ruins. I heard Juniper Graves say as much.”

“Ay, my lady,” said another; “it were a mercy it didn’t kill Mr Frank outright.”

The object of their care began now to come more to himself. He tried to rise, but fell back with a groan.

“What can I do for you, my poor boy?” asked his mother; “the doctor will be here soon, but can we do anything for you now? Where is your pain?”

“I fear my left arm is broken,” he whispered; “the pain is terrible.”

“Take some more brandy,” said his mother.

He took it, and was able to sit up. Then with great difficulty they undressed him, and he lay on the bed pale and motionless till the doctor arrived. On examination, it was found that the arm was terribly bruised, but not broken. There were, however, other injuries also, though not of a serious character, which Frank had sustained in his perilous climbing to the rescue of Mary Oliphant. Fever came on, aggravated by the brandy injudiciously administered. For some days it was doubtful what would be the issue; but at last, to the great joy of Sir Thomas and his wife, the turning-point was passed, and Dr Portman pronounced their child out of danger—all he needed now was good nursing, sea-air, and proper nourishment. During the ravings of the fever his mind was often rambling on the scene in the ruins—at one time he would be chiding the dog, at another he would be urging Mary to cling firmly to the ivy; and there was a tone of tenderness in these appeals which convinced Lady Oldfield that her son’s heart was given to the rector’s daughter. This was confirmed by a conversation which she had with him at the sea-side, where he was gone to recruit his strength. There he opened his whole heart to her, and confessed the depth of his attachment to her whose life he had so gallantly saved. Lady Oldfield was at first pained; she would not have preferred such an alliance for her son. But, on further reflection, the prospect was not so displeasing to her. Mary Oliphant was not inferior to her son in birth, and would have, when she came of age, a good fortune which had been left her by a wealthy aunt. Frank’s love for beer and wine, and even spirits, had grown so much of late, that his mother had begun to feel very anxious about him on that score. She had no wish that he should become a total abstainer; indeed she was, at this very time, giving him, by the doctor’s orders, as much porter and wine as he could bear; but she thought that Mary’s total abstinence might act as a check upon him to keep him within the bounds of strict moderation. She knew, too, that Mary was a genuine Christian, and she sincerely believed that true religion in a wife was the only solid foundation of domestic happiness. Before, therefore, they returned to Greymoor Park, Frank had his mother’s hearty consent, subject to Sir Thomas’s approval, to his engaging himself to Mary Oliphant.

And what were Mary’s own feelings on the subject? Poor girl, she had never realised before that day of peril and rescue that she felt, or could feel, more than a half friendly, half sisterly liking for Frank Oldfield. She had always admired his open generous disposition, and had been happy in his society; but they had been so many years companions, that she had never thought of looking upon him as one likely to form an attachment to herself. But now there could be no doubt on the subject. What passed in the old ruin had convinced her that his heart was given to her; and more than this, that her own heart was given to him. And now his sufferings and illness, brought on him through his exertions to save her from destruction, had called out her love for him into full consciousness. Yet with that consciousness there came a deep sense of pain. It had taken her so by surprise; her heart was given before she had had time to reflect whether she ought to have given it. Could she be happy with him? was he a real Christian? did he love the same Saviour she loved herself? Oh, these thoughts pressed heavily upon her spirit, but she spread out her cares first before her heavenly Father, and then with full childlike openness before her earthly parent—that loving mother from whom she had never had a single concealment.

Mrs Oliphant sighed when her daughter had poured out her anxieties and difficulties.

“Oh, mamma—dearest mamma!” cried Mary, “what ought I to do? I am sure he loves me, and I know that he will tell me so, for he is the very last person to keep back what he feels. What would you and dear papa wish me to do, should he declare his affection? I could not honestly say that my heart is indifferent to him, and yet I should not dare to encourage him to look forward to a time when we shall be one on earth, unless I can trust too that we shall be one hereafter in heaven.”

“My precious child,” replied her mother, “you know our doubts and our fears. You know that Frank has acknowledged to increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. You know that his poor mother will rather encourage that taste. And oh, if you should marry, and he should become a drunkard—a confirmed drunkard—oh, surely he will bring misery on my beloved child, and her father’s and mother’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.”

“Dearest mamma, you have only to say that you are convinced that I cannot be happy with him, or that you and dear papa consider that I ought to relinquish all thoughts about him, and I will at once endeavour to banish him from my heart.”

“No, my child. Your affections, it is clear, have already become entangled, and therefore we are not in the same position to advise you as if your heart were free to give or to withhold. Had it been otherwise, we should have urged you to pause before you allowed any thoughts about Frank to lodge in your heart, or perhaps to be prepared to give a decided refusal, in case of his making a declaration of his attachment.”

“But you do not think him quite hopeless, dear mamma? Remember how anxious he seemed at one time to become a total abstainer. And might not I influence him to take the decided step, when I should have a right to do so with which no one could interfere?”

“It might be so, my darling. God will direct. But only promise me one thing—should Frank ask you to engage yourself to him, and you should discover that he is becoming the slave of intemperance before the time arrives when you are both old enough to marry, promise me that in that case you will break off the engagement.”

“I promise you, dearest mamma, that, cost what struggle it may, I will never marry a drunkard.”

It was but a few days after the above conversation that Frank Oldfield called at the rectory. It was the first time that he and Mary had met since the day of their memorable adventure. He was looking pale, and carried his arm in a sling, but his open look and bright smile were unchanged.

“I carry about with me, you see, dear Mary,” he said, “my apology for not having sooner called to inquire after you. I hope you were not seriously the worse for your fright and your climb?”

“Oh no,” she replied earnestly; “only so grieved when I found what you had suffered in saving me. How shall I ever thank you enough for sacrificing yourself as you did for me?”

“Well,” he answered with a smile, “I suppose I ought to say that you have nothing to thank me for. And yet I do think that I may accept of some thanks—and, to tell the truth, I have just come over to suggest the best way in which the thanks may be given.”

Mary did not answer, but looked down; and, spite of herself, her tears would fall fast.

“Dear Mary,” he said, “the plainest and shortest way is the one that suits me best. I want you to give me your heart—you have had mine long ago, and I think you know it.”

She did not speak.

“Oh, Mary, dearest Mary, can I be mistaken? Cannot you—do not you love me?”

“Frank,” she replied, in a low and tearful voice, “it would be affectation in me to make a show of concealing my love to you. I do love you. I never knew it till that day; but since then I have known that my heart is yours.”

She said this so sadly, that he asked half seriously, half playfully,—

“Would you then wish to have it back again?”

“No, dear Frank; I cannot wish that.”

“Then one day—if we are spared—you will be my own loving wife?”

There was no reply, but only a burst of tears.

“Mary, dearest Mary, what am I to understand? Do your parents object to your engaging yourself to me? Oh, surely it is not so?”

“No, Frank; they have not objected—not exactly—but—”

She hesitated and looked down.

“Oh, why then not give me a plain ‘Yes’ at once? You own that your heart is mine—you know that my heart is yours—why not then promise to be mine altogether?”

“It is true, dear Frank,” she replied slowly, “that my heart is yours—I cannot take it back if I would—but it may be my duty not to give my hand with it.”

“Your duty! Oh, Mary, what a cold, cruel speech! Why your duty?”

“Well,” she replied, “the plain truth is best, and best when soonest spoken. You must know, dear Frank, how we all here feel about the sin and misery caused by strong drink. And you must know—oh, forgive me for saying it, but I must say it, I must be open with you now on this subject—you must know that we have reason to fear that your own liking for beer and wine and such things has been, for the last year or two, on the increase. And oh, we fear—we fear that, however unconsciously, you may be on the downward road to—to—”

She could not finish her sentence.

Frank hung down his head, and turned half away, the colour flushing up to the top of his fair forehead. He tried to speak, but could not for a while. At last, in a husky voice, he whispered,—

“And so you will give me up to perish, body and soul, and to go down hill with all my might and main?”

“No, Frank,” she answered, having now regained her composure; “no; I have no wish to give you up to sin and ruin. It will rest with yourself. I cannot promise absolutely that I will be yours. It will depend upon—upon—upon what you are yourself when the time comes that we might marry.”

“And you have promised your mother—”

“I have promised—oh, Frank, dear Frank, pardon me if I wound you by plain, rough words, but they must be spoken—I have promised that I will never be the wife of a drunkard.”

He bowed his head on his hand, and there was a long and painful silence. Poor Mary, her heart bled for him, as she saw the tears forcing their way between his thin, pale fingers.

“Mary,” he said at last, “you must be mine; I cannot live without you. Trust me; you shall have no cause to be ashamed of me. I know—I feel that I have been in great danger of sliding into intemperate habits; but you shall see me and hear of me henceforth as strictly moderate. I solemnly promise you this; and on the very day that makes us one, I will be one with you in total abstinence also. Dearest, will this satisfy you?”

“Yes, dear Frank; I have no right to ask more, if you can be strictly moderate; but oh, do not trust in your own strength. Pray for help, dear Frank, and then you will be able to conquer.”

“Oh, of course,” he said hastily; “but never fear, I give you my solemn promise that you shall never see nor hear of any excess in me.”

And did he keep his resolution? Yes; for a while. But, alas! how little do those in circumstances like his really appreciate the awful difficulties which beset those who are struggling to maintain strict moderation. This makes drunkenness such a fearful and exceptional sin,—

“The bow well bent, and smart the spring,
Vice seems already slain.”

The resolution is firmly set; the man walks forth strong as a rock in his determination. He begins to drink; his rock is but a piece of ice after all, but he knows it not; it is beginning to melt with the warmth of the first glass; he is cheered and encouraged by the second glass, and his resolution seems to himself stronger than ever, while in very truth it is only melting faster and faster. At last he is over the border of moderation before he conceives that he had so much as approached it. Then, alas! the word “moderation” stands for an unknown quantity, easy to use but hard to define, since one man’s moderation may be another man’s excess, and to-day’s moderation may be an excess to-morrow.

Poor Frank was never more in earnest than when he promised Mary Oliphant that he would observe strict moderation. He had everything to induce him to keep his word—his love for Mary; his desire to please his own parents, who had begun to tremble for him; his own self-respect. So he left the rectory strong as a lion in his own estimation, yet not without a sort of misgiving underlying his conviction of his own firmness; but he would not listen to that misgiving for a moment.

“I mean to be what I have promised, and I will be,” he said to himself. “Mary shall see that, easy and self-indulgent as I have been, I can be rigid as iron when I have the will to be so.”

Poor Frank! he did not knew his own weakness; he did not know that his was not a will of iron, but was like a foot once badly sprained, which has lost its firm and unfaltering tread. Happy would it have been for him had he sought a strength higher than his own—the strength from above.

For several weeks he kept strictly to his purpose. He limited himself to so much beer and wine, and never exceeded. He became proud of his firmness, forgetting that there had been nothing to test the stamina of his resolution.

At last the annual harvest-home came round. It was a season of great festivity at Greymoor Park. Sir Thomas, as we have said, wished all his tenants and labourers to be sober, and spoke to that effect on these occasions; at the same time he was equally anxious that both meat and drink should be dealt out with no niggard hand. So men and women took as much as they liked, and the squire was very careful to make no very strict inquiries as to the state of any of his work-people on the following day; and if any case of intemperance on these occasions came to his knowledge afterwards, as commonly happened, it was winked at, unless of a very gross and open character.

“Poor fellows,” said the good-natured landlord, “it’s only once in a year that they get such a feast, and I must not be too strict with them. There’s many a good fellow gets a little too much on these days, who is an excellent steady workman and father all the rest of the year. It’s drunkenness—the habit of drunkenness—that is such a sin and scandal.”

So everything was done to make the harvest-home a day of feasting and mirth.

On the present occasion the weather was as bright and propitious as could be desired. A blazing sun poured down his heat from a cloudless sky; scarce a breath of wind stirred the flag which, in honour of the day, floated above the entrance of the hall. Two large tents were spread out by the borders of the ornamental water, in full view of the hall windows. A band, hired for the occasion, poured forth a torrent of fierce music. Children decked in blue ribbons and ears of corn ran in and out of the tents, getting in everybody’s way; but as everybody was just then in the best of humours, it was of no consequence. Visitors began to arrive in picturesque groups, strolling through the trees towards the tents. Hot footmen were rushing wildly about, carrying all sorts of eatables and drinkables. Tables creaked and plates clattered. Then, just about one o’clock, came the squire and his lady, followed by many friends, among whom were Mr and Mrs Oliphant; while Frank, looking supremely happy, with his sunny face all life and playfulness, came last, with Mary on his arm. Usually the Oliphants had kept away from these harvest-homes, for they were not conducted to the rector’s satisfaction, but to-day they had a special reason for coming. Frank had been over to the rectory with an urgent request from his father that Mr Oliphant would be present. He might do good by appearing among them, and Frank wanted Mary to see how he could use his influence in keeping order and sobriety. There were loud cheers, pleasant smiles, and hearty greetings as the party from the hall entered the tents, where all things were as bright and beautiful as banners, mottoes, and ears of corn arranged in all sorts of appropriate devices could make them. The tenants dined in one tent, the labourers and their wives in the other. Sir Thomas and Lady Oldfield presided in the former, and Frank took the head of the table in the latter. Mr and Mrs Oliphant and Mary sat near the baronet.

The two tents were separated by several yards from one another, so that while the guests were all partaking of dinner at the same time, the hum of voices, the clatter of knives and forks, the braying of the brass instruments which were performing in the space between the two parties, and the necessary attention to the wants of the visitors, quite prevented those presiding in the principal tent from hearing what was passing in the other. It was the intention of the squire, after all had been satisfied, to gather both companies together in the open park, and address them before they separated to join in the various amusements provided for them.

The guests in the chief tent had just concluded their dinner, and those at the upper table, where the party from the hall had been sitting, were dispersing and making their way into the open air, when a burst of cheers and shrieks of laughter from the other tent made Sir Thomas remark, with a slight cloud on his face,—

“Our friends over there seem very merry.”

Then came louder cheers and louder laughter. Mary’s heart died within her, she hardly knew why. She hurried out of the tent, when she was met by Juniper Graves, the groom, a man from whom she shrank with special dislike, for reasons which will shortly be explained.

“Come here, miss,” he cried, with a malicious grin; “here’s Mr Frank making such capital fun; he’ll send us all into fits afore he’s done! I never seed anything like it—it’s quite bacchanalian!”

Under other circumstances Mary would have hurried away at once, but the name of Frank acted like a spell. She peeped in at the tent-door where the labourers were dining, and almost sank to the ground at the sight she beheld.

Standing on a chair at the head of the table, his face flushed a deep red, his beautiful hair tossed back and his eyes flashing with excitement, a bottle flourishing in his right hand, was Frank Oldfield, roaring out, amidst cheers and shouts of applause, a boisterous, roystering comic song. Mary was shrinking back in horror when she saw Juniper Graves glide behind his young master’s chair, and fill his glass from a jug which he held in his hand. Frank saw the act, caught up the glass, and drained it in a moment. Then launching out into his song again, he swayed himself backwards and forwards, evidently being in danger of falling but for the help of the groom, who held out his arm to steady him. Mary tottered back out of the tent, but not till her eyes had met those of her lover. Oh! it sickened her to think of so pure and holy a thing as love in connection with such a face as that.

“My child,” said her father, to whom she had hurried, pale, and ready to sink at every step, “what has happened? what is the matter? Are you ill?”

“Oh, take me home, take me home,” she cried, in a terrified whisper. The noise of the band prevented others from hearing her words of distress, and she was hidden from the rest of the company by a fold of the tent.

“But what shall I say to Sir Thomas?” asked her father.

“Say nothing now, dear papa; let us get away from this—this dreadful place—as quickly as we can. Send over a note, and say you took me home because I was ill, as indeed I am—ill in body, sick to death in heart. Dearest mamma, come with us; let us slip away at once.”

So they made their way home swiftly and sadly—sadly, for the rector and his wife had both now guessed the cause of their child’s trouble; they had heard something of the uproar, with sorrowful misgivings that Frank was the guilty cause.

Unhappy Mary! When they reached home she threw herself into her loving mother’s arms, and poured out all her grief. A messenger was at once dispatched to the hall with a note of apology for their abrupt departure. It was, however, needless. The messenger brought back word that, when the people had been gathered for the address, Frank Oldfield had staggered forwards towards his father so hopelessly intoxicated, that he had to be led away home between two of the servants. Sir Thomas said a few hasty words to the assembled tenants and work-people, expressing his great regret at his son’s state, but excusing it on the ground of his weakness after his illness, so that the great heat of the weather had caused what he had taken to have an unusually powerful effect upon him. In reply to Mr Oliphant’s note, the squire made the same excuse for his son, and trusted that Miss Oliphant would not take to heart what had happened under such exceptional circumstances. But Mary could not pass the matter over so lightly. She could not wipe out from her memory that scene in the tent. She pressed her hand tightly over her eyes, and shuddered as she thought of Frank standing there, wild, coarse, debased, brutalised, a thing to make rude and vulgar merriment; while the man, the gentleman, and the Christian had been demonised out of that fair form by the drink. Oh, what bitter tears she shed that night as she lay awake, racked with thoughts of the past and despairing of the future. The next day came a penitential letter from Frank; he threw himself on her pity—he had been overcome—he abhorred himself for it—he saw his own weakness now—he would pray for strength as she had urged him to do—surely she would not cast him off for one offence—he had been most strictly moderate up to that unhappy day—he implored her forgiveness—he asked her to try him only once more—he loved her so dearly, so passionately, that her rejection would be death to him.

What could she say? She was but a poor erring sinner herself and should she at once shut the door of pity upon him? He had fallen indeed, but he might be taught such a lesson by that fall as he might never forget. Once more—she would try him once more, if her parents thought her right in doing so. And could they say nay?—they felt they could not. Little as they really hoped for any permanent improvement, they considered that they should be hardly right in dissuading their child from giving the poor penitent another trial.

So Mary wrote back a loving earnest letter, imploring Frank to seek his strength to keep his resolution in prayer. Again they met; again it was sunshine; but, to poor Mary’s heart, sunshine through a cloud.

Chapter Six.

A Discussion.

It was about a month after the harvest-home, so full of sad memories for all at the hall and rectory, that Mr Oliphant was seated one afternoon in the drawing-room of Greymoor Park. The company assembled consisted of the baronet and Lady Oldfield; the baronet’s brother, Reverend John Oldfield; Dr Portman, the medical man; and Bernard Oliphant.

Mr John Oldfield had been telling the news of his part of the county to his brother and sister-in-law.

“You’ll be sorry to hear,” he continued, “that poor Mildman’s dead.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the rector. “I’m very sorry. Was there any change in him before his death?”

“No, I fear not. His has been a very sad case. I remember him well when he was vicar of Sapton. A brighter and more loving Christian and pastor I never knew, but somehow or other he got into drinking habits, and these have been his ruin.”

“Poor man,” said Sir Thomas, “he used to be the laughing-stock of old Bellowen, his squire; it was very grievous to see a man throw himself away as he did. The squire would ply him with drink, and press the bottle upon him, till poor Mildman was so tipsy that he had to be taken by the servants to the vicarage. Sometimes the butler had to put him into a cart, when it was dark, and had him tumbled out like so much rubbish at his own door.”

“Really,” said Lady Oldfield, “I was surprised to hear Mr Bellowen talk about him in the way he did. He endeavoured in every possible way to get him to drink, while at the very same time he despised and abused him for drinking, and would launch out at the clergy and their self-indulgent habits.”

“Yes,” said her brother-in-law; “no one knew better what a clergyman ought to be than the squire. We may be very thankful that his charges against our order were gross exaggerations. We may congratulate ourselves that the old-fashioned drunken parson is now pretty nearly a creature of the past. Don’t you think so, Mr Oliphant?”

“I confess to you,” replied the rector, “that I was rather thinking, in connection with poor Mildman’s sad history, of those words, ‘Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.’”

“Why, surely you don’t think there is much danger in these days of many persons of our profession becoming the victims of intemperance?”

“I cannot feel so sure about that,” was the reply. “You know I hold strong views on the subject. I wish I could see more clergymen total abstainers.”

“I must say that I quite disagree with you there,” said the other; “what we want, in my view, is, not to make people total abstainers, but to give them those principles which will enable them to enjoy all lawful indulgences lawfully.”

“I should heartily concur in this view,” said Mr Oliphant, “if the indulgence in strong drink to what people consider a moderate extent were exactly on the same footing as indulgence in other things. But there is something so perilous in the very nature of alcoholic stimulants, that multitudes are lured by them to excess who would have been the last to think, on commencing to drink, that themselves could possibly become transgressors.”

“Then it is the duty of us clergymen,” said the other, “to warn people to be more on their guard against excess in this direction but not, by becoming total abstainers ourselves, to lead our flocks to suppose that there is sin in the mere taking of any amount of intoxicating liquors, however small.”

“I think,” said Mr Oliphant, very gravely, “that our duty is something beyond, and, may I say, above this. We live in a peculiarly self-indulgent age, when men are exceedingly impatient of anything like a restraint upon their appetites and inclinations. We have, besides this, the acknowledged fact that, where other sins slay their thousands, drunkenness slays its hundreds of thousands of all ages. Is it not, then, a privilege, (I always prefer to put it rather as a privilege than a duty), for us, who are to be as lights in the world, as ensamples to our flocks, to take a high stand in this matter, and show that we will deny ourselves that which has so insidiously worked the ruin of millions, that so we may perhaps win poor fallen creatures, fallen through drink, to come out of their miserable slough by crying to them, not merely ‘Come out,’ but ‘Come out and follow us!’”

Mr Oldfield did not answer; but Sir Thomas, turning to the rector, said,—

“I am sure this subject is deeply interesting to both you and myself, on our dear Frank’s account. You know my views on the subject of total abstinence. Still I feel that there may be exceptional cases, where its adoption may be wise, and I could imagine that his might be such a case.”

“I heartily agree with you,” replied Mr Oliphant.

“Oh no, my dear,” exclaimed Lady Oldfield; “I am quite sure total abstinence would never suit poor Frank; his constitution would not bear it; I appeal to you, Dr Portman, is it not so?”

“I am quite of your ladyship’s opinion,” said the doctor.

“You hear what Dr Portman says,” cried her ladyship, turning to the rector.

“I do,” was the reply; “but that does not alter my conviction. Medical men’s views have greatly changed of late years on this subject. Excuse me, Dr Portman, for thus differing from you.”

“Really,” interposed Mr Oldfield, “I think you must allow the doctor to be the best judge of the medical side of the question. What would you say if the doctor on his part were to intrude on your province, and question your statements of scriptural truth from the pulpit?”

“I should say,” answered Mr Oliphant, “in the first place, that the two cases are essentially different. My statements are drawn from an inspired volume, from an express revelation; the opinions of medical men are simply the deductions of human reason and observation, and are therefore opinions which may be altered or modified. But, further, I should say that I never require my people to receive my statements from the pulpit without question or inquiry. I refer them always to the revelation, the inspired record, and bid them search that record for themselves. Now, if the doctor can point me to any inspired medical record which lays down a particular system, and declares directly or by fair inference against total abstinence, I will at once surrender my present position; but as he will not pretend to possess any such inspired medical volume, I must still feel myself at liberty to hold different views from himself on the medical question.”

“I am well aware, my dear sir,” said Dr Portman, “that you and I shall not agree on this subject, and, of course, I must allow you to be at liberty to hold your own opinions; but it does seem to me, I must confess, very strange that you should look upon total abstinence as universally or generally desirable, when you must be aware that these views are held by so very few of the medical profession, and have only recently been adopted even by those few.”

“I am afraid,” said the rector, smiling, “that you are only entangling yourself in further difficulties. Does the recent adoption of a new course of treatment by a few prove that it ought not to be generally adopted? What, then, do you say about the change in the treatment of fever cases? I can myself remember the time when the patient was treated on the lowering system, and when every breath of air was excluded from the sick-room, doors and windows being listed lest the slightest change should take place in the stifling atmosphere of the bed-room. And now all is altered; we have the system supported by nourishments, and abundance of fresh air let in. Indeed, it is most amusing to see the change which has taken place as regards fresh air; many of us sleep with our windows open, which would have been thought certain death a few years ago. I know at this time a medical practitioner, (who, by the way, is a total abstainer, and has never given any of his patients alcoholic stimulants for the last five-and-twenty years), who, at the age of between seventy and eighty, sleeps with his window open, and is so hearty that, writing to me a few days since, he says, ‘I sometimes think what shall I do when I get to be an old man, being now only in my seventy-fourth year.’ Now, were the medical men wrong who began this change in the treatment of fever cases? or, because they were few at first, ought they to have abandoned their views, and still kept with the majority? Of course, those who adopt any great change will at first be few, especially if that change sets very strongly against persons’ tastes or prejudices.”

“I see that we must agree to differ,” said Dr Portman, laughing, and rising to take his leave.

When he was gone, Sir Thomas, who had listened very attentively to Mr Oliphant’s remarks, said,—

“I shall certainly put no hindrance in the way of Frank’s becoming a total abstainer if you can persuade him to it, and his health does not suffer by it.”

“Nor I,” said Lady Oldfield; “only don’t let him sign any pledge. I’ve a great horror of those pledges. Surely, my dear Mr Oliphant, you would not advise his signing a pledge.”

“Indeed, I should advise it most strongly,” was the reply; “both for his own sake and also for the sake of others.”

“But surely, to sign a pledge is to put things on a totally wrong foundation,” observed Mr John Oldfield; “would not you, as a minister of the gospel, prefer that he should base his total abstinence on Christian principle rather than trust to a pledge? Does not the pledge usurp the place of divine grace?”

“Not at all,” said the rector. “I would have him abstain on Christian principles, as you say; and I would not have him trust to the pledge, but I would still have him use it as a support, though not as a foundation. Perhaps an illustration will best explain my meaning. I read some years ago of a fowler who was straying on the shore after sea-birds. He was so engrossed with his sport that he utterly failed to mark the rapid incoming of the tide, and when at last he did notice it, he found to his dismay that he was completely cut off from the land. There was but one chance of life, for he could not swim. A large fragment of rock rose above the waves a few yards behind him; on to this he clambered, and placing his gun between his feet, awaited the rising of the water. In a short time the waves had risen nearly to his feet, then they covered them; and still they rose as the tide came in higher and higher, now round his ankles, next to his knees; and so they kept gradually mounting, covering his body higher and higher. He could mark their rise or fall by the brass buttons on his waistcoat; first one button disappeared, then another, then a third, then a fourth. Would the waves rise up to his mouth and choke him? His suspense was dreadful. At last he observed that the topmost button did not disappear so rapidly as the rest; the next wave, however, seemed quite to cover it, but in a few minutes it became quite uncovered; in a little while the button next below became visible, and now he was sure that the tide was ebbing, and that he was safe if only he could hold out long enough. At last the rock itself became visible, and after many hours he was able, almost spent with fatigue, to stagger to the land. Now, what saved that man? was it his gun? Surely not; it was the rock: that was his standing-ground. But was his gun, therefore, useless? Assuredly not, for it helped to steady him on the rock, though it could not take the place of the rock. Just so with the pledge; it is not the Christian abstainer’s standing-ground. Christ alone is that standing-ground. He stands by the grace of Christ; but the pledge, like the gun, helps to keep him steady on his standing-ground, the Rock of Ages.”

“Well,” said Mr Oldfield, “let us grant that there is some force in your illustration. I would further ask how it can be that Frank’s taking the pledge would be a benefit to others as well as himself?”

“For the same reason that my own signing of the pledge is beneficial,” replied the rector.

“Nay,” interposed Sir Thomas; “would not your signing the pledge do rather harm than good? Would it not rather weaken your own influence by giving people reason to think, (those I mean especially who might not know you well), that you had once been intemperate yourself, or that you were unable to keep sober, or at any rate moderate, without the help of the pledge.”

“On the contrary,” replied Mr Oliphant, “I look upon those who take the pledge as greatly encouraging others who might be inclined to hang back. It shows that the stronger are willing to fraternise with the weaker. And this is specially the case when those who are known to have never been entangled in the snares of drunkenness are willing to take the pledge as an encouragement to those who have fallen. Perhaps you will bear with me if I offer you another illustration. There is a great chasm, a raging torrent at the bottom, and a single strong plank across it. Now persons with steady heads can walk over the chasm without difficulty, along the naked plank; but there are others who shudder at the very thought, and dare not venture—their heads swim, their knees tremble, as they approach the edge. What is to be done? Why, just put a little light hand-rail from a post on either side, and let one who is strong of head walk over, resting his hand on the rail; he does not need the rail for himself but he uses it just to show how it may be a help, and so the timid and the dizzy-headed follow and feel confidence, and reach the other side in safety. Now, suppose the flood at the bottom of that chasm to be intemperance, the plank total abstinence, and the rail the pledge, and I think you will see that those who use the pledge, though they really do not need it to steady themselves, may be a great help to the weak, the timid, and the shrinking.”

“I certainly,” said Sir Thomas, “have never had the matter set before me in this light. I shall think over our conversation; and as regards poor Frank, at any rate, I feel sure that, if his health will bear it, total abstinence will be the safest, if not the best thing for him.”

Chapter Seven.

The Tempter.

Juniper Graves was under-groom at Greymoor Park. He was a very fine fellow in his own eyes. His parents had given him the name of Juniper under the impression that it meant something very striking, and would distinguish their son from the vulgar herd. What it exactly signified, or what illustrious person had ever borne it before, they would have been puzzled to say. So he rejoiced in the name of Juniper, and his language was in keeping with it. High-sounding words had ever been his passion—a passion that grew with his growth; so that his conversation was habitually spiced with phrases and expressions in which there was abundance of sound, but generally an equal lack of sense. Too full of himself to be willing to keep patiently plodding on like ordinary people, he had run through a good many trades without being master of any. Once he was a pastry-cook; at another time a painter; and then an auctioneer—which last business he held to the longest of any, as giving him full scope for exhibiting his graces of language. He had abandoned it, however, in consequence of some rather biting remarks which had come to his ears respecting the choice and suitableness of his epithets. And now he was groom at the hall, and had found it to his advantage to ingratiate himself with Frank Oldfield, by rendering him all sorts of handy services; and as there were few things which he could not do, or pretend to do, his young master viewed him with particular favour, and made more of a companion of him than was good for either. Juniper was a sly but habitual drunkard. He managed, however, so to regulate his intemperance as never to be outwardly the worse for liquor when his services were required by Sir Thomas or Lady Oldfield, or when excess was likely to bring him into trouble. When, however, the family was away from the hall, he would transgress more openly; so that his sin became a scandal in the neighbourhood, and brought upon him the severe censure of Mr Oliphant, who threatened to acquaint the squire with his conduct if he did not amend. Juniper’s pride was mortally wounded by this rebuke—he never forgot nor forgave it. For other reasons also he hated the rector. In the first place, because Mr Oliphant was a total abstainer; and further, because he suspected that it was through Mr Oliphant’s representations that he had failed in obtaining the office of postmaster at a neighbouring town, which situation he had greatly coveted, as likely to make him a person of some little importance. So he hated the rector and his family with all the venom of a little mind. No sooner had he discovered the attachment between Frank and Mary Oliphant, than he resolved to do all in his power to bring about a rupture; partly because he felt pretty sure that a closer intimacy between Frank and the Oliphants would be certain to loosen the ties which bound his young master to himself, and partly because he experienced a savage delight in the thought of wounding the rector through his daughter. He soon noticed the restraint which Frank was putting on himself in the matter of drinking beer and wine, and he resolved to break it down. He was quite sure that Mary Oliphant would never marry a drunkard. So he lost no opportunity of insinuating his own views on the subject of total abstinence, and also constantly laboured to bring his young master into contact with scenes and persons likely to lead him into free indulgence in intoxicating drinks. His success, however, was but small, till the day of the harvest-home, and then he resolved to make a great effort. He contrived to get himself appointed to the office of waiter to Frank in the second tent, and took special charge of the drinkables. The beer served out on these occasions was, by Sir Thomas’ express directions, of only a moderate strength; but Juniper had contrived to secrete a jug of the very strongest ale in a place where he could easily get at it. With this jug in hand he was constantly slipping behind his master and filling up his glass, while Frank was busily engaged in seeing that the wants of his guests were duly supplied. Excited by the heat of the day and the whole scene, the poor young man kept raising the glass to his lips, quite unconscious of the way in which his servant was keeping it filled, till at last he lost all self-control, and launched out into the wildest mirth and the most uproarious buffoonery. It was then that Juniper Graves, grinning with malicious delight, sought out Mary Oliphant, and brought her to gaze on her lover’s degradation.

“Now,” said he to himself, “I’ve done it. There’ll be no more love-making atween them two arter this, I reckon. A very preposterous plan this of mine—very preposterous.”

But great as was the triumph of Juniper at the success of his efforts on this occasion, this very success was well nigh bringing about a total defeat. For it came to Frank’s ears, by a side wind, as such things so often do, that his man had been playing him a trick, and had been filling up his glass continually with strong ale when he was not conscious of it.

“It were a burning shame, it were, to put upon the young master in that way,” he overheard a kind-hearted mother say, one of the tenant’s wives. So he taxed Juniper with it, but the man stoutly denied it.

“Dear me, sir; to think of my behaving in such a uncompromising way to any gentleman. It’s only them ill-natured folks’ prevarications. I’ll assure you, sir, I only just took care that you had a little in your glass to drink healths with, as was becoming; and I’m sure I was vexed as any one when I saw how the heat and your weakness together, sir, had combined to bring you into a state of unfortunate oblivion.”

“Well,” replied Frank, “you must look-out, Master Juniper, I can tell you. If I find you at any of your tricks again, I shall make short work with you.”

But Juniper had no intention of being foiled. He would be more wary, but not less determined. Upon two things he was thoroughly resolved—first, that Frank should not become an abstainer; and secondly, that he should not marry Mary Oliphant. He was greatly staggered, however, when he discovered that his young master, after the affair at the harvest-home, had contrived to make his peace at the rectory.

“I must bide my time,” he said to himself; “but I’ll circumscribe ’em yet, as sure as my name’s Juniper Graves.”

So he laid himself out in every possible way to please Frank, and to make himself essential to his comforts and pleasures. For a while he cautiously avoided any allusion to total abstinence, and was only careful to see that beer and spirits were always at hand, to be had by Frank at a moment’s notice. If the weather was hot, there was sure to be a jug of shandy-gaff or some other equally enticing compound ready to be produced just at the time when its contents would be most appreciated. If the weather was cold, then, in the time of greatest need, Juniper had always an extra flask of spirits to supplement what his master carried. And the crafty fellow so contrived it that Frank should feel that, while he was quite moderate in the presence of his parents and their guests, he might go a little over the border with his groom without any danger.

Things were just in this state at the time when the conversation took place at the hall, which resulted in the permission to Mr Oliphant to persuade Frank—if he could—to become a pledged abstainer. A day or two after that conversation, Frank walked over to the rectory. He found Mary busily engaged in gathering flowers to decorate the tables at a school feast. His heart, somehow or other, smote him as he looked at her bright sweet face. She was like a pure flower herself; and was there no danger that the hot breath of his own intemperance would wither out the bloom which made her look so beautiful? But he tossed away the reflection with a wave of his flowing hair, and said cheerily,—

“Cannot I share, or lighten your task, dear Mary?”

“Thank you—yes—if you would hold the basket while I gather. These autumn flowers have not quite the brightness of the summer ones, but I think I love them more, because they remind me that winter is coming, and that I must therefore prize them doubly.”

“Ah, but we should not carry winter thoughts about us before winter comes. We should look back upon the brightness, not forward to the gloom.”

“Oh, Frank,” she replied, looking earnestly at him, with entreaty in her tearful eyes, “don’t talk of looking back upon the brightness. We are meant to look forwards, not to the gloom indeed, but beyond it, to that blessed land where there shall be no gloom and no shadows.”

He was silent.

“You asked me just now, dear Frank,” she continued, “if you could lighten my task. You could do more than that—you could take a load off my heart, if you would.”

“Indeed!” he exclaimed; “tell me how.”

“And will you take it off if I tell you?”

“Surely,” he replied; but not so warmly as she would fain have had him say it.

“You remember,” she added, “the day you dined with us a long time ago, when you asked papa about becoming an abstainer?”

“Yes; I remember it well, and that my mother would not hear of it, so, as in duty bound, I gave up all thoughts of it at once.”

“Well, dear Frank, papa has been having a long talk on the very subject at the hall, and has convinced both your father and mother that total abstinence is not the objectionable thing they have hitherto thought it to be. Oh, dear Frank, there is no hindrance there then, if you still think as you once seemed to think on this subject.”

The colour came into his face, and his brow was troubled as he said,—

“Why should you distress yourself about this matter, my own dear Mary. Cannot you trust me? Cannot you believe that I will be strictly moderate? Have I not promised?”

“You have promised; and I would hope and believe that—that—” She could not go on, her tears choked her words.

“Ah, I know what you would say,” he replied passionately; “you would reproach me with my failure—my one failure, my failure under extraordinary excitement and weakness—I thought you had forgiven me that. Have I not kept my promise since then? Cannot you trust me, unless I put my hand to a formal pledge? If honour, love, religion, will not bind me, do you think that signing a pledge will do it?”

“I have not asked you to sign any pledge,” she replied sorrowfully; “though I should indeed rejoice to see you do it. I only hoped—oh, how fervently!—that you might see it to be your wisdom, your safety, to become a total abstainer. Oh, dearest Frank, you are so kind, so open, so unsuspecting, that you are specially liable to be taken off your guard, unless fortified by a strength superior to your own. Have you really sought that strength? Oh, ask God to show you your duty in this matter. It would make me so very, very happy were you to be led to renounce at once and for ever those stimulants which have ruined thousands of noble souls.”

“Dearest Mary, were this necessary, I would promise it you in a moment. But it is not necessary. I am no longer a child. I am not acting in the dark. I see what is my duty. I see that to exceed moderation is a sin. I have had my fall and my warnings, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Trust me, dear Mary—trust me without a pledge, trust me without total abstinence. You shall not have cause to blush for me again. Believe me, I love you too well.”

And with this she was forced to be content. Alas! poor Frank; he little knew the grasp which the insidious taste for strong drink had fixed upon him. He liked it once, he loved it now. And beside this he shrank from the cross, which pledged total abstinence would call upon him to take up. His engaging manners made him universally popular, and he shrank from anything that would endanger or diminish that popularity. He winced under a frown, but he withered under a sneer; still he had secret misgivings that he should fall, that he should disgrace himself; that he should forfeit Mary’s love for ever if he did not take the decided step; and more than once he half resolved to make the bold plunge, and sign the pledge, and come out nobly and show his colours like a man.

It was while this half resolve was on him that he was one evening returning home after a day’s fishing, Juniper Graves being with him. He had refused the spirit-flask which his servant held out to him more than once, alleging disinclination. At last he said,—

“I’ve been seriously thinking, Juniper, of becoming a total abstainer; and it would do you a great deal of good if you were to be one too.”

The only reply on the part of Juniper was an explosion of laughter, which seemed as if it would tear him in pieces. One outburst of merriment followed another, till he was obliged to lean against a tree for support. Frank became quite angry.

“What do you mean by making such an abominable fool of yourself;” he cried.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” laughed Graves, the tears running over in the extremity of his real or pretended amusement, “you must pardon me, sir; indeed, you must. I really couldn’t help it; it did put me so in mind of Jerry Ogden, the Methodist parson. Mr Frank and his servant Juniper, two whining, methodistical, parsimonious teetotallers! oh dear, it was rich.” And here he relapsed into another explosion.

“Methodist parson! I really don’t know what you mean, sir,” cried Frank, beginning to get fairly exasperated. “You seem to me quite to forget yourself. If you don’t know better manners, the sooner you take yourself off the better.”

“Oh, sir, I’m very sorry, but really you must excuse me; it did seem so very comical. You a total abstainer, Mr Frank, and me a-coming arter you. I think I sees you a-telling James to put the water on the table, and then you says, ‘The water stands with you, Colonel Coleman.’”

“Don’t talk so absurdly,” said Frank, amused in spite of himself at the idea of the water-party, with himself for the host. “And what has my becoming a total abstainer to do with Jerry What-do-you-call-him, the Methodist parson?”

“Oh, just this, sir. Jerry Ogden’s one of those long-faced gentlemen as turns up their eyes and their noses at us poor miserable sinners as takes a little beer to our dinners. Ah! to hear him talk you’d have fancied he was too good to breathe in the same altitude with such as me. Such lots of good advice he has for us heathens, such sighing and groaning over us poor deluded drinkers of allegorical liquors. Ah! but he’s a tidy little cask of his own hid snug out of the way. It’s just the case with them all.”

“I’m really much obliged to you,” said his master, laughing, “for comparing me to Jerry Ogden. He seems, from your account, to have been a regular hypocrite; but that does not show that total abstinence is not a good thing when people take it up honestly.”

“Bless your simplicity, sir,” said the other; “they’re all pretty much alike.”

“Now there, Juniper, I know you are wrong. Mr Oliphant has many men in his society who are thoroughly honest teetotallers, men who are truly reformed, and, more than that, thorough christians.”

“Reformed! Christians!” sneered Juniper, venomously; “a pretty likely thing indeed. You don’t know them teetotallers as well as I do, sir. ‘Oh dear, no; not a drop, not a drop: wouldn’t touch it for the world.’ But they manage to have it on the sly for all that. I’ve no faith in ’em at all. I’d rather be as I am, though I says it as shouldn’t say it, an honest fellow as gets drunk now and then, and ain’t ashamed to own it, than one of your canting teetotallers. Why, they’re such an amphibious set, there’s no knowing where to have them.”

“Amphibious?” said his master, laughing; “why, I should have thought ‘aquatic’ would have been a better word, as they profess to confine themselves to the water; unless you mean, indeed, that they are only half water animals.”

“Oh, sir,” said Graves, rather huffed, “it was only a phraseology of mine, meaning that there was no dependence to be placed on ’em.”

“Well but, Juniper, I am not speaking of hypocrites or sham teetotallers, but of the real ones. There’s Mr Oliphant and the whole family at the rectory, you’ll not pretend, I suppose, that they drink on the sly?”

“I wouldn’t by no means answer for that,” was the reply; “that depends on circumstantials. There’s many sorts of drinks as we poor ignorant creatures calls intoxicating which is quite the thing with your tip-top teetotallers. There’s champagne, that’s quite strict teetotal; then there’s cider, then there’s cherry-brandy; and if that don’t do, then there’s teetotal physic.”

“Teetotal physic! I don’t understand you.”

“Don’t you, sir? that’s like your innocence. Why, it’s just this way. There’s a lady teetotaller, and she’s a little out of sorts; so she sends a note to the doctor, and he sends back a nice bottle of stuff. It’s uncommon good and spirituous-like to smell at, but then it’s medicine, only the drugs ain’t down in what the chemists call their ‘Farming-up-here.’”

“I never heard of that before,” remarked Frank.

“No, I don’t suppose, sir, as ever you did. And then there’s the teetotal gents; they does it much more free and easy. They’ve got what the Catholics calls a ‘dispensary’ from their Pope, (and their Pope’s the doctor), to take just whatever they likes as a medicine—oh, only as a medicine; so they carries about with ’em a doctor’s superscription, which says just this: ‘Let the patient take as much beer, or wine, or spirits, as he can swallow.’”

“A pretty picture you have drawn,” laughed Frank. “I’m afraid there’s not much chance of making you an abstainer.”

“Nor you neither, Mr Frank, I hope. Why, I should be ashamed to see my cheerful, handsome young master, (you must forgive me, sir, for being so bold), turned into a sour-looking, turnip-faced, lantern-jawed, whining teetotaller.”

“Why, I thought you said just now,” said the other, “that they all take drink on the sly; if that’s the case, it can’t be total abstinence that spoils their beauty.”

Juniper looked a little at fault, but immediately replied,—

“Well, sir, at any rate total abstinence will never do for you. Why, you’ll have no peace up at the hall, especially in the shooting season, if you mean to take up with them exotic notions. Be a man, sir, and asseverate your independence. Show that you can take too much or too little as you have a mind. I wouldn’t be a slave, sir. ‘Britons never shall be slaves.’”

Here the conversation closed. The tempter had so far gained his end that he had made Frank disinclined to join himself at present to the body of stanch abstainers. He would wait and see—he preferred moderation, it was more manly, more self-reliant. Ah, there was his grievous mistake. Self-reliant! yes, but that self was blinded, cheated by Satan; it was already on the tempter’s side. So Frank put off, at any rate for the present, joining the abstainers. He was, however, very watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed he loved his own self-indulgence more. There was a constraint, however, when they met. He could not fully meet her deep truthful eyes with a steady gaze of his own. Her words would often lead him to prayer, but then he regarded iniquity in his heart—he did not wish to be taken at his prayer—he did not wish to be led into pledged abstinence, or even into undeviating moderation at all times—he wished to keep in reserve a right to fuller indulgence. Poor Mary! she was not happy; she felt there was something wrong. If she tried to draw out that something from Frank, his only reply was an assurance of ardent affection and devotion. There was no apparent evil on the surface of his life. He was regular at church, steady at home, moderate in what he drank at his father’s table and at other houses. She felt, indeed, that he had no real sympathy with her on the highest subjects, but he never refused to listen, only he turned away with evident relief from religious to other topics. Yet all this while he was getting more deeply entangled in the meshes of the net which the drink, in the skilful hands of Juniper Graves, was weaving round him. That cruel tempter was biding his time. He saw with malicious delight that the period must arrive before very long when his young master’s drinking excesses would no longer be confined to the darkness and the night, but would break out in open daylight, and then, then for his revenge.

It was now between two and three years since the harvest-home which had ended so unhappily. Frank was twenty-one and Mary Oliphant eighteen. This was in the year in which we first introduced them to our readers, the same year in which it was intended that Hubert Oliphant should join his uncle Abraham, at any rate for a time, in South Australia. For the last six months dim rumours, getting gradually more clear and decided, had found their way to the rectory that Frank Oldfield was occasionally drinking to excess. Mary grew heart-sick, and began to lose her health through anxiety and sorrow; yet there was nothing, so far, sufficiently definite to make her sure that Frank, since his promise to observe strict moderation, had ever over-passed the bounds of sobriety. He never, of course, alluded to the subject himself; and when he could not help remarking on her altered looks, he would evade any questions she put to him on the painful subject, or meet them by an appeal to her whether she could prove anything against him; and by the observation that nothing was easier than to spread rumours against a person’s character. She was thus often silenced, but never satisfied.

June had come—a bright sky remained for days with scarce a cloud; the hay-makers were everywhere busy, and the fields were fragrant with the sweet perfume of the mown grass. It was on a quiet evening that Mary was returning home from a cottage where she had been to visit a sick parishioner of her father’s. Her way lay in part through a little plantation skirting a hay-field belonging to the Greymoor estate. She had just reached the edge of the plantation, and was about to climb over a stile into a lane, when she heard loud and discordant voices, which made her blood run cold; for one of them, she could not doubt, was Frank’s.

“This way, Mr Frank, this way,” cried another voice, which she knew at once to be that of Juniper Graves.

“I tell you,” replied the first voice, thickly, “I shan’t go that way; I shall go home, I shall. Let me alone, I tell you,”—then there followed a loud imprecation.

“No, no—this way, sir—there’s Miss Mary getting over the stile; she’s waiting for you, sir, to help her over.”

“Very good, Juniper; you’re a regular brick,” said the other voice, suddenly changing to a tone of maudlin affection; “where’s my dear Mary—ah, there she is!” and the speaker staggered towards the stile. Mary saw him indistinctly through the hedge—she would have fled, but terror and misery chained her to the spot. A few moments after and Frank, in his shirt-sleeves, (he had been joining the hay-makers), made his way up to her. His face was flushed, his eyes inflamed and staring wildly, his hair disordered, and his whole appearance brutalised.

“Let me help—help—you, my beloved Mary, over shtile—ah, yes—here’s Juniper—jolly good fellow, Juniper—help her, Juniper—can’t keep shteady—for life of me.”

He clutched at her dress; but now the spell was loosed, she sprang over the stile, and cast one look back. There stood her lover, holding out his arms with an exaggerated show of tenderness, and mumbling out words of half-articulate fondness; and behind him, a smile of triumphant malice on his features, which haunted her for years, was Graves, the tempter, the destroyer of his unhappy master. She cared to see no more, but, with a cry of bitter distress, she rushed away as though some spirit of evil were close behind her, and never stopped till she had gained the rectory.

Chapter Eight.

Farewell.

There are impressions cut deeper into the heart by the sudden stroke of some special trial than any made by the continuous pressure of afflictions, however heavy; impressions which nothing in this world can efface—wounds, like the three-cornered thrust of the bayonet, which will not heal up. Such was the keen, piercing sorrow which the sight of Frank in his drunkenness had stabbed deep into the soul of Mary Oliphant. The wound it had made would never heal. Oh, miserable drink! which turns the bright, the noble, the intellectual creatures of God into worse than madmen; for the madman’s reason is gone—we pity, but we cannot blame him; but in the victim of strong drink reason is suspended but not destroyed, and in all the distortion, grimaces, reelings, babblings, ravings of the miserable wretch while his sin is on him, we see a self-inflicted insanity, and a degradation which is not a misfortune but a crime.

The day after that miserable meeting at the stile, Frank called at the rectory, the picture of wretchedness and despair. Mrs Oliphant came to him, and told him that Mary declined seeing him; indeed, that she was so utterly unnerved and ill, that she would have been unequal to an interview even had she thought it right to grant him one.

“Is there no hope for me, then?” he asked. “Have I quite sinned away even the possibility of forgiveness?”

“I cannot fully answer for Mary,” replied Mrs Oliphant; “but I should be wrong if I said anything that could lead you to suppose that she can ever again look upon you as she once did.”

“Is it really so?” he said gloomily. “Has this one transgression forfeited her love for ever? Is there no place for repentance? I do not justify myself. I do not attempt to make less of the fault. I can thoroughly understand her horror, her disgust. I loathe myself as a vile beast, and worse than a beast. But yet, can I by this one act have cut through every cord that bound her heart to mine?”

“Excuse me, dear Frank,” said the other; “but you mistake in speaking of one transgression—one act. It is because poor Mary feels, as I feel too, that this act must be only one of many acts of the like kind, though the rest may have been concealed from us, that she dare not trust her happiness in your keeping.”

“And who has any right,” he asked warmly, “to say that I am in the habit of exceeding?”

“Do you deny yourself that it is so?” she inquired, looking steadily but sorrowfully at him.

His eyes dropped before hers, and then he said,—

“I do not see that any one has a right to put such a question to me.”

“Not a right!” exclaimed Mrs Oliphant. “Have not I a right, dear Frank, as Mary’s mother, to put such a question? I know that I have no right to turn inquisitor as regards your conduct and actions in general. But oh, surely, when you know what has happened, when you remember your repeated promises, and how, alas! they have been broken; when you call to mind that Mary has expressly promised to me, and declared to you, that she will never marry a drunkard,—can you think that I, the mother whom God has appointed to guard the happiness of my darling daughter, have no right to ask you whether or no you are free from that habit which you cannot indulge in and at the same time honestly claim the hand of my beloved child?”

Frank for a long time made no answer; when he did reply, he still evaded the question.

“I have done wrong,” he said; “grievously wrong. I acknowledge it. I could ask Mary’s pardon for it on my knees, and humble myself in the dust before her. I might plead, in part excuse, or, at any rate, palliation of my fault, the heat of the weather and thirsty nature of the work I was engaged in, which led me into excess before I was aware of what I was doing. But I will not urge that. I will take every blame. I will throw myself entirely on her mercy; and surely human creatures should not be unmerciful since God is so merciful.”

“I grieve, dear Frank, to hear you speak in this way,” said Mrs Oliphant, very gravely and sadly; “you should go on your knees and humble yourself in the dust, not before poor sinners, such as I and my child are, but before Him who alone can pardon your sin. I think you are deceiving yourself. I fear so. It is not that Mary is void of pity. She does not take upon herself to condemn you—it is not her province; but that does not make her feel that she can look upon you as one who could really make her happy. Alas! it is one of the miserable things connected with the drink, that those who have become its slaves cannot be trusted. I may seem to speak harshly, but I must speak out. Your expressions of sorrow and penitence cannot secure your future moderation. You mean now what you say; but what guarantee have we that you will not again transgress?”

“My own pledged word,” replied Frank, proudly, “that henceforth I will be all that Mary would have me be.”

“Except a pledged total abstainer,” said Mrs Oliphant, quietly.

Frank remained silent for a few moments, then he said,—

“If I cannot control myself without a pledge, I shall never do so with one.”

“No, not by the pledge only, or chiefly. But it would be a help. It would be a check. It would be a something to appeal to, as being an open declaration of what you were resolved to keep to. But oh, I fear that you do not wish to put such a restraint upon yourself, as you must do, if you would really be what you would have us believe you mean to be. Were it otherwise, you would not hesitate—for Mary’s sake, for your own peace’s sake - to renounce at once, and for ever, and entirely, that drink which has already been to you, ay, and to us all, a source of so much misery. Dear Frank, I say it once for all, I never could allow my beloved child to cast in her lot for life with one of whom I have reason to fear that he is, or may become, the slave of that drink which has driven peace, and joy, and comfort out of thousands of English homes.”

“But why should you fear this of me?” persisted Frank. “Within the last three years I have fallen twice. I do not deny it. But surely two falls in that long space of time do not show a habit of excess. On each occasion I was overcome—taken off my guard. I have now learned, and thoroughly, I trust, the lesson to be watchful. I only ask for one more trial. I want to show Mary, I want to show you all, that I can still be strictly sober, strictly moderate, without total abstinence, without a pledge. And oh, do not let it be said that the mother and daughter of a minister of the gospel were less ready to pardon than their heavenly Master.”

“Oh, Frank,” cried Mrs Oliphant, “how grievously you mistake us! Pardon! Yes; what are we that we should withhold pity or pardon? But surely it is one thing to forgive, and quite another thing to entrust one’s happiness, or the happiness of one’s child, into hands which we dare not hope can steadily maintain it. I can say no more. Write to Mary, and she will answer you calmly and fully by letter, as she could not do were she to meet you now.”

Poor Frank! Why did he not renounce at once that enticing stimulant which had already worked him so much misery? Was it worth while letting so paltry an indulgence separate for ever between himself and one whom he so dearly loved? Why would he not pledge himself at once to total abstinence? There was a time when he would have done so—that time when he spoke on the subject to the rector, and made the attempt at his own home. But now a spell seemed to hold him back. He would not or could not see the necessity of relinquishing that which he had come to crave and love more than his daily food.

“I must use it,” he said to himself; “but there is no reason why I should abuse it.”

He wrote to Mary and told her so. He told her that he was now fully alive to his own weakness, and that she might depend on his watchfulness and moderation, imploring her to give him one, and but one, more trial. He would watch, he would strive, he would pray to be strictly moderate. She should never have cause to reproach him again.

She replied:—

“Dear Frank,—It would be cruelty in me were I to hold out any hope to you that I can ever again be more to you than one who must always take a deep interest in your welfare, and must feel truly grateful to you for having saved her life. That you mean now to be all that you promise, I do not doubt; but that you really will be so, I dare not hope. You have been seen by me twice in such a condition as made me shrink from you with terror and disgust. Were we to be married, and you should be betrayed into excess, the first time, you would be overwhelmed; the second time, you would be ashamed and pained; the third time, you would feel it, but not very acutely. You would get used, by degrees, to my witnessing such degradation; it would be killing me, but it would be making less and less impression upon you. I dare not run the terrible risk. I dare not join myself to you in a bond which could never be severed, however aggravated might be my misery and your sin. Oh, Frank, my heart is well nigh broken! I have loved you, and do love you still. Let us be one in heaven, though we never can be so here. Pray, oh, pray for grace to resist your temptation! Ask to be made a true follower of the Lord Jesus, and you will be guided aright, and we shall meet then in that bright land where all shall rejoice together who have, by grace, fought the fight and won the victory here.—Sincerely yours, Mary Oliphant.”

Frank read this letter over and over again, and groaned in the fulness of his distress. She had not asked him to become an abstainer. Was it because she felt that it was hopeless? He knew it to be so. He knew that if he signed the pledge he should only add a broken vow to his other sins. He felt that, dearly as he loved Mary, he could not forego all intoxicating drinks even for her sake. He dared not pray that he might be able to abstain, for he felt that he should not really wish for the accomplishment of such a prayer. Habitual indulgence had taken all the stiffness out of his will. And yet the thought of losing Mary was utter misery. He leaned his head on his hands, and gazed for a long time on her letter. At last there came a thought into his mind. All might not yet be lost. There was still one way of escape. He rose up comforted, and thrusting the letter into his pocket, sought out his mother. He found her alone. She looked at him with deep anxiety and pitying love, as well she might, when she marked the gloom that had settled down on his once happy face. Alas she knew its cause too well. She knew that he was on the downward path of intemperance, and she knew how rapid was the descent. She was well aware that his sinful excess had been the cause of the breaking off of his engagement with the rector’s daughter. Oh, how her heart ached for him. She would have given all she possessed to see him what he once was. She was prepared for any sacrifice, if only he could be reclaimed before it should be too late.

“Dearest mother,” he said, throwing himself down beside her, clasping her knees, and looking up imploringly into her face, “I’m a miserable creature, on the road to ruin, body and soul, unless something comes to stop me.”

“Oh, my boy, my boy!” cried his mother, bursting into tears; “do not say so. You have gone astray; but so have we all, one way or other. There is hope for you if you return. Surely the evil habit cannot be already so strong upon you that you cannot summon strength and resolution to break through it.”

“Oh, you do not, you cannot know what a helpless creature I am!” was his reply. “When once I begin to taste, every good resolution melts away in a moment.”

“Then give up such things, and abstain altogether, my beloved Frank, if that be the case,” said Lady Oldfield.

“I cannot,” he replied bitterly. “I cannot keep from them, they must be kept from me, and then I should have some chance.”

“But, my dear boy, how can that always be? You cannot expect your father to banish beer and wine from his table, and to refuse to set them before his guests. You cannot expect that he should debar himself the moderate use of these things because you have, unhappily, learned to take them immoderately.”

“No. I cannot, of course. I cannot, and I do not expect it, and therefore I am come to put before you, my dearest mother, what I believe will be my only chance. You know that Hubert Oliphant is going to join his Uncle Abraham in South Australia. He sails in October. He is going by a total abstinence ship, which will not therefore carry any intoxicating drinks. Will you and my dear father consent to my going with Hubert? My unhappy taste would be broken through by the time the voyage was over, as I should never so much as see beer, or wine, or spirits; and the fresh sea-air would be a better tonic than porter, wine, or ale; so that you would have no need to fear about my health.”

Lady Oldfield did not reply for several minutes. She was, at first, utterly confounded at such a proposal from the son whom she idolised, and she was on the point of at once scouting the idea as altogether wild and out of the question. But a few moments’ reflection made her pause. Terrible as was the thought of the separation, the prospect of her son’s becoming a confirmed drunkard was more terrible still. This plan, if carried out, might result in Frank’s return to habitual sobriety. Ought she therefore to refuse her sanction absolutely and at once? At last she said,—

“And who, my dearest boy, has put such a strange thought into your head? And how long do you mean to remain away? And what are you to do when you reach Australia?”

“No one has suggested the thing to me,” he replied. “It came into my mind as I was thinking over all the misery the drink has brought on me of late. If I could go with Hubert, you know what a friend and support I should have in him. I might remain in the colony two or three years, and then come back again, please God, a thoroughly sober man; and then perhaps dear Mary would relent, and give me back my old place in her heart again.”

Lady Oldfield drew him close to her, and clasping her arms round him, wept long and bitterly.

“Oh, my boy, my Frank!” she exclaimed; “how shall I bear to part with you? Yet it may be that this is God’s doing; that he has put this into your heart; and if so, if it should be for your deliverance from your unhappy habit, I dare not say ‘No.’ But I cannot tell what your father will say. I will put the matter before him, however, and I am sure he will do what is wise and right.”

Sir Thomas did not refuse his consent. He had felt so keenly the disgrace which his son’s increasing excesses were bringing upon the family, that, sorely as he grieved over the thoughts of parting with Frank, he was willing that he should join Hubert Oliphant in his voyage, hoping that the high character and Christian example of the rector’s son might be of benefit to his poor unhappy and erring child. Frank’s countenance brightened when he had obtained his father’s consent, and he at once made known his purpose to Hubert Oliphant, and asked his advice and help, begging him also to intercede for him with Mary that she would allow him to hope that, if he returned thoroughly reformed, she would consent to their engagement being renewed. Hubert, as well as his father, had felt the deepest pity for Frank, in spite of his grievous falls, specially when they remembered how, but for his own mother’s opposition, he might now have been one of their little temperance band, standing firm, happy himself, and helping to make others happy. They therefore gladly encouraged him to carry out his purpose, promising that Hubert should introduce him to his Uncle Abraham, who might find for him, while he remained in the colony, some employment suitable to his station, where Hubert and his uncle could support and strengthen him by companionship and counsel. And would Mary hold out any hopes? Poor Mary, she loved him still. Oh, how dearly! Could she refuse him all encouragement? No. But she dared not promise unconditionally to be to him as in former days. She would not renew the engagement now; but she would wait and see the issue of his present plans.

Thus matters stood, when the last week came that Frank and Hubert would spend in their English homes. Mary and Frank had met once or twice since his voyage had been decided on, but it was in the presence of others. These were sorrowful meetings, yet there was the glow of a subdued hope, to make them not altogether dark to those who, but for the miserable tyranny of the drink, might now have been bright with happy anticipations of the future.

And now it was a sweet autumn evening, when every sight and sound was plaintive with the foreshadowings of a coming winter—the sunset hues, the lights and shadows, the first decaying leaves, the notes of birds, the hum of insects. Everything was very still as Mary again trod the little path from the cottage of the poor woman whom she had been visiting on the evening of Frank’s last sad fall. She had nearly reached the stile, her eyes bent on the ground, and her heart full of sorrowful memories and forebodings, when she was startled by hearing the sound of passionate sobbings. She raised her eyes. Kneeling by the stile, his head buried in his hands, was Frank Oldfield; his whole frame shook with the violence of his emotion, and she could hear her own name murmured again and again in the agony of his self-reproach or prayer. How sadly beautiful he looked! And oh, how her heart overflowed with pitying tenderness towards him.

“Frank,” she said; but she could add no more.

He started up, for he had not heard her light tread. His hair was wildly tossed back, his eyes filled with tears, his lips quivering.

“You here, Mary,” he gasped. “I little thought of this. I little thought to meet you here. I came to take a parting look at the spot where I had seen you last as my own. Here it was that I sinned and fooled away my happiness, and here I would pour out the bitterness of my fruitless sorrow.”

“Not fruitless sorrow, I trust, dear Frank,” she said gently. “It cannot be fruitless, if it be a genuine sorrow for sin. Oh, perhaps there is hope before us yet!”

“Do you say so, Mary? Do you bid me hope? Well, I will live on that hope. I ask no promise from you, I do not expect it. I am glad that we have met here, after all. Here you have seen both my degradation and my sorrow.”

“Yes, Frank, and I am glad, too; it will connect this sad spot with brighter memories. God bless you. I shall never cease to pray for you, come what will. May that comfort you, and may you—may you,—” her tears choked her voice.

“Oh, one word more,” he said imploringly, as, having accepted his arm in climbing the stile, she now relinquished it, and was turning from him—“One word more—one word of parting! Oh, one word such as once might have been!”

His hands were stretched towards her. They might never meet again. She hesitated for an instant. Then for one moment they were pressed heart to heart, and lip to lip—but for one moment, and then,— “Farewell,” “Farewell.”

Chapter Nine.

Young Decision.

One week later, and three men might be seen walking briskly along a by-street in Liverpool towards the docks. These were Hubert Oliphant, Frank Oldfield, and Captain Merryweather, commander of the barque Sabrina, bound for South Australia. The vessel was to sail next day, and the young men were going with the captain to make some final arrangements about their cabins. Hubert looked bright and happy, poor Frank subdued and sad. The captain was a thorough and hearty-looking sailor, brown as a coffee-berry from exposure to weather; with abundance of bushy beard and whiskers; broad-shouldered, tall, and upright. It was now the middle of October, just three days after the flight of Samuel Johnson from Langhurst, as recorded in the opening of our story. As the captain and his two companions turned the corner of the street they came upon a group which arrested their attention at once.

Standing not far from the door of a public-house was a lad of about fourteen years of age. He looked worn and hungry, yet he had not at all the appearance of a beggar. He was evidently strange to the place, and looked about him with an air of perplexity, which made it clear that he was in the midst of unfamiliar and uncongenial scenes. Three or four sailors were looking hard at him, as they lounged about the public-house door, and were making their comments to one another.

“A queer-looking craft,” said one. “Never sailed in these waters afore, I reckon.”

“Don’t look sea-worthy,” said another.

“Started a timber or two, I calculate,” remarked a third.

“Halloa! messmate,” shouted another, whose good-humoured face was unhappily flushed by drink, “don’t lie-to there in that fashion, but make sail, and come to an anchor on this bench.”

The lad did not answer, but stood gazing at the sailors in a state of utter bewilderment.

“Have you carried away your jawing-tackle, my hearty?” asked the man who had last addressed him.

“I can’t make head nor tail of what you say,” was the boy’s reply.

“Well, what’s amiss with you, then? Can you compass that?”

“Ay,” was the reply; “I understand that well enough. There’s plenty amiss with me, for I’ve had nothing to eat or drink since yesterday, and I haven’t brass to buy anything with.”

“Ah, I see. I suppose you mean by that foreign lingo that you haven’t a shot in your locker, and you want a bit of summut to stow away in your hold.”

“I mean,” replied the lad, rather sulkily, “that I’m almost starved to death.”

“Well, it’s no odds,” cried the other. “I can’t quite make you out; but I see you’ve hoisted signals of distress: there, sit you down. Landlord, a glass of grog, hot, and sweet, and strong. Here, take a pull at that till the grog comes.”

He handed to him a pewter-pot as he spoke.

The boy pushed it from him with a look of disgust.

“I can’t touch it,” he said. “If you’ll give me a mouthful of meat instead, I’ll thank you; and with all my heart too.”

“Meat!” exclaimed the sailor, in astonishment, “what’s the young lubber dreaming about? Come, don’t be a fool; drink the ale, and you shall have some bread and cheese when you’ve finished your grog.”

“Jack,” expostulated one of his companions, “let the poor lad alone; he hasn’t a mind for the drink, perhaps he ain’t used to it, and it’ll only make him top heavy. You can see he wants ballast; he’ll be over on his beam-ends the first squall if he takes the ale and grog aboard.”

“Avast, avast, Tom,” said the other, who was just sufficiently intoxicated to be obstinate, and determined to have his own way. “If I take him in tow, he must obey sailing orders. Grog first, and bread and cheese afterwards; that’s what I say.”

“And I’d die afore I’d touch a drop of the drink,” said the poor boy, setting his teeth firmly. “I’ve seen enough, and more nor enough, of misery from the drink; and I’d starve to skin and bone afore I’d touch a drop of it.”

“Bravo, my lad, bravo!” cried Captain Merryweather, who had listened to the conversation with the greatest interest. “Come hither, my poor boy; you shall have a good meal, and something better than the grog to wash it down with.”

“Oh, never heed Jack, captain,” cried one of the other sailors; “he’s half-seas over just now, and doesn’t know which way he’s steering. I’ll see that the poor lad has something to eat.”

“Thank you kindly, my man,” replied the captain; “but he shall go with me, if he will.”

“Ay, sir,” said the boy thankfully, “I’ll go with you, for I’m sure you speak gradely.”

The whole party soon reached a temperance hotel, and here the captain ordered his young companion a substantial breakfast.

“Stay here, my lad,” he said, “till I come back; I want to have a word with you. I am going with these gentlemen to the docks, but I shall be back again in half an hour. By the way, what’s your name, my boy?”

A deep flush came over the other’s face at this question. He stared at Captain Merryweather, and did not answer.

“I want to know your name.”

“My name? Ah, well—I don’t—you see—”

“Why, surely you haven’t forgotten your own name? What do they call you?”

“Poor fellow!” said Hubert; “his hunger has confused his brain. He’ll be better when he has had his breakfast.”

But the boy had now recovered himself, and replied,—

“I ax your pardon, captain; my name’s Jacob Poole.”

“Well, Jacob, you just wait here half an hour, and I shall have something to say to you when I come back, which may suit us both.”

When Captain Merryweather returned he found the boy looking out of the window at the streams of people going to and from the docks. His head was resting on his two hands, and it appeared to the captain that he had been weeping.

“Jacob,” he cried, but there was no answer.

“Jacob Poole,” again cried the captain, in a louder voice. The other turned round hastily, his face again flushed and troubled.

“Well, Jacob,” said the captain, sitting down, “I suppose you’re a teetotaller, from what I saw and heard to-day.”

“Yes, to the back-bone,” was the reply.

“Well, so am I. Now will you mind telling me, Jacob, what has brought you to Liverpool. I am not asking questions just for curiosity, but I’ve taken a liking to you, and want to be your friend, for you don’t seem to have many friends here.”

Jacob hesitated; at last he said,—

“Captain, you’re just right. I’ve no friends here, nor am like to have. I can’t tell you all about myself, but there’s nothing wrong about me, if you’ll take my word for it. I’m not a thief nor a vagabond.”

“Well, I do believe you,” said the other; “there’s truth in your face and on your tongue. I flatter myself I know a rogue when I see one. Will you tell me, at any rate, what you mean to do in Liverpool?”

“That’s easier asked nor answered,” replied Jacob. “Captain, I don’t mind telling you this much—I’ve just run away to Liverpool to get out of the reach of the drink. I am ready to do any honest work, if I can get it, but that don’t seem to be so easy.”

“Exactly so,” said Captain Merryweather. “Now, what do you say, then, to going a voyage to Australia with me? I’m in want of a cabin-boy, and I think you’d suit me. I’ll feed and clothe you, and I’ll find you a situation over in Australia if you conduct yourself well on board ship; or, if you like to keep with me, I’ll give you on the return voyage what wages are right.”

The boy’s eyes sparkled with delight. He sprang from his seat, grasped the captain’s hand warmly between his own, and cried,—

“Captain, I’ll go with you to the end of the world and back again, wage or no wage.”

“I sail to-morrow,” said the other; “shall you be ready?”

“Ready this moment,” was the answer. “I have nothing of my own but what I stand in.”

“Come along then with me,” said his kind friend; “I’ll see you properly rigged out, and you shall go on board with me at once.”

They had not long left the hotel, and were passing along a back street on their way to the outfitter’s, when a man came hastily out of a low public-house, and ran rather roughly against Captain Merryweather.

“Halloa, my friend,” cried the sailor, “have a care; you should keep a brighter look-out. You’ve run me down, and might have carried away a spar or two.”

The man looked round, and muttered something.

“I’m sorry to see you coming out of such a place, my man,” added the captain.

“Well, but I’m not drunk,” said the other.

“Perhaps not, but you’re just on the right tack to get drunk. Come, tell me what you’ve had.”

“I’ve only had seventeen pints of ale and three pennorth of gin.”

“Is it possible?” exclaimed the captain, half out loud, as the man walked off with a tolerably steady step. “He says he’s not drunk after taking all that stuff aboard. Jacob, you seem as if you knew something of him.”

“Ay, captain,” said Jacob, who had slunk behind the captain when he saw the man. “I do, for sure; but you must excuse my telling you who he is, or where he comes from.”

“He’s not a good friend or companion for any one, I should think,” said the captain.

“He’s no friend of mine,” answered Jacob; “he’s too fond of the drink. And yet he’s called to be a sober man by many, ’cos he brings some of his wage home on the pay-night. Yet I’ve heard him say myself how he’s often spent a sovereign in drink between Saturday night and Monday morning.”

“And what do you suppose has brought him here?”

“I can’t tell, unless the mayster he works for has sent him over on count of summat. It’s more like, however, as he’s come to see his sister as lives somewhere in these parts.”

“And you’d rather he didn’t know you are here, I suppose?”

“Just so, captain. There’s them, perhaps, as’d be arter me if he were to tell ’em as he’d see’d me here; but I don’t think as he did see me; he were half fuddled: but he never gets fairly drunk.”

“Well, Jacob, I don’t wish to pry into your own private concerns. I’ll take it for granted that you’re dealing honestly by me.”

“You may be sure of that, captain. I’ll never deceive you. I haven’t done anything to disgrace myself; but I wish to get gradely out of the reach of such chaps as yon fellow you’ve just spoke to. I’ve had weary work with the drink, and I wishes to make a fresh start, and to forget as I ever had any belonging me. So it’s just what’ll suit me gradely to go with you over to Australia; and you must excuse me if I make mistakes at first; but I’ll do my best, and I can’t say anything beyond that.”

By this time they had reached the outfitter’s, where the captain saw Jacob duly rigged out and furnished with all things needful for the voyage. They had left the shop and were on their way to the docks, when a tall sailor-looking man crossed over to them. His face was bronzed from exposure, but was careworn and sad, and bore unmistakable marks of free indulgence in strong drinks.

“Merryweather, how are you, my friend?” he cried, coming up and shaking the captain warmly by the hand.

“Ah, Thomson, is that you?” said the other, returning the grasp. “I was very sorry indeed to hear of your misfortune.”

“A bad business—a shocking business,” said his friend, shaking his head despondingly. “Not a spar saved. Three poor fellows drowned. And all my papers and goods gone to the bottom.”

“Yes, I heard something of it, and I was truly grieved. How did it happen?”

“Why, I’ll tell you how it was. I don’t know what it is, Merryweather, but you’re a very lucky fellow. Some men seem born to luck: it hasn’t been so with me. It’s all gone wrong ever since I left Australia. We’d fair weather and a good run till we were fairly round the Horn; but one forenoon the glass began to fall, and I saw there was heavy weather coming. After a bit it came on to blow a regular gale. The sea got up in no time, and I had to order all hands up to reef topsails. We were rather short-handed, for I could hardly get men when I started, for love or money. Well, would you believe it?—half a dozen of the fellows were below so drunk that they couldn’t stand.”

“Ah, I feared,” said Captain Merryweather, “that the drink had something to do with your troubles. But how did they manage to get so tipsy?”

“Oh, they contrived to get at one of the spirit-casks. They bored a hole in it with a gimlet, and sucked the rum out through a straw. There was nothing for it but to send up the steward, and Jim, my cabin-boy, along with the others who were on deck. But poor Jim was but a clumsy hand at it; and as they were lying out on the yard, the poor fellow lost his hold, and was gone in a moment. I never caught one look at him after he fell. Ay, but that wasn’t all. About a week after, I was wanting the steward one morning to fetch me something out of the lazarette; so I called him over and over again. He came at last, but so tipsy that I could make nothing of him; and I had to start him off to the steerage, and take on another man in his place. He’d been helping himself to the spirits. It was very vexing, you’ll allow; for he was quite a handy chap, and I got on very poorly afterwards without him. I don’t know how you manage, but you seem always to get steady men.”

“Yes,” said Captain Merryweather; “because I neither take the drink myself nor have it on board.”

“Ay, but I can never get on without my glass of grog,” said the other.

“Then I’m afraid you’ll never get your men to do without it. There’s nothing like example—‘example’s better than precept.’”

“I believe you’re right. But you haven’t heard the end of my misfortunes, nor the worst either. It was a little foggy as we were getting into the Channel, and I’d given, of course, strict orders to keep a good look-out; so two of our sharpest fellows went forward when it began to get dark, and I had a steady man at the wheel. I’d been on deck myself a good many hours; so I just turned in to get a wink of sleep, leaving the first mate in charge. I don’t know how long I’d slept, for I was very weary, when all in a moment there came a dreadful crash, and I knew we were run into. I was out and on deck like a shot; but the sea was pouring in like a mill-stream, and I’d only just time to see the men all safe in the Condor—the ship that ran into us—and get on board myself, before the poor Elizabeth went down head foremost. It’s very strange. I hadn’t been off the deck ten minutes, and that was the first time I’d gone below for the last sixteen hours. It’s just like my luck. The captain of the Condor says we were to blame; and our first mate says their men were to blame. I can’t tell how it was. It was rather thick at the time; but we ought to have seen one another’s lights. Some one sung out on the other ship; but it was too late then, and our two poor fellows who were forward looking out were both lost. It’s very strange; don’t you think so?”

“It’s very sad,” replied the other; “and I’m heartily sorry for it. It’s a bad job anyhow; and yet, to tell you the honest truth, I’m not so very much surprised, for I suspect that the drink was at the bottom of it.”

“No, no; you’re quite mistaken there. I never saw either the mate or the man at the wheel, or any of the men who were then on deck, drunk, or anything like it, during the whole voyage.”

“That may be,” said the other; “but I did not say it was drunkenness, but the drink, that I thought was at the bottom of it. The men may have been the worse for drink without being drunk.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“No, I see you don’t; that’s the worst of it. Very few people do see it, or understand it; but it’s true. A man’s the worse for drink when he’s taken so much as makes him less fit to do his work, whatever it may be. You’ll think it rather strange, perhaps, in me to say so; but I do say it, because I believe it, that more accidents arise from the drink than from drunkenness, or from moderate drinking, as it is called, than from drunkenness.”

“How so?”

“Why, thus. A man may take just enough to confuse him, or to make him careless, or to destroy his coolness and self-possession, without being in the least drunk; or he may have taken enough to make him drowsy, and so unfit to do work that wants special attention and watchfulness.”

“I see what you mean,” said the other.

“Perhaps you’d all been drinking an extra glass when you found yourselves so near home.”

“Why, yes. To tell you the truth, we had all of us a little more than usual that night; and yet I’ll defy any man to say that we were not all perfectly sober.”

“But yet, in my way of looking at it,” said Captain Merryweather, “you were the worse for liquor, because less able to have your wits about you. And that’s surely a very serious thing to look at for ourselves, and our employers too; for if we’ve taken just enough to make us less up to our work, we’re the worse for drink, though no man can say we’re drunk. Take my advice, Thomson, and keep clear of the grog altogether, and then you’ll find your luck come back again. You’ll find it better for head, heart, and pocket, take my word for it.”

“I believe you’re right. I’ll think of what you’ve said,” was the reply; and they parted.

“Jacob, my lad,” said Captain Merryweather, as they walked along, “did you hear what Captain Thomson said?”

“Ay, captain; and what you said too. And I’m sure you spoke nothing but the real truth.”

“Well, you just mark that, Jacob. There are scores of accidents and crimes from drunkenness, and they get known, and talked about, and punished; but there are hundreds which come from moderate drinking, or from the drink itself, which are never traced. Ships run foul of one another, trains come into collision, houses get set on fire; and the drink is at the bottom of most of it, I believe, because people get put off their balance, and ain’t themselves, and so get careless, or confused, or excited, and then mischief follows. And yet no one can say they’re drunk; and where are you to draw the line? A man’s the worse for drink long before he’s anything like intoxicated; for it is in the very nature of the drink to fly at once to a man’s brain. Ah, give me the man or lad, Jacob, that takes none. His head is clear, his hand’s steady, his eye is quick. He’s sure not to have taken too much, because he has taken none at all.—But here we are. There lies my good ship, the barque Sabrina. You shall come on board with me at once, and see your quarters.”

Chapter Ten.

Outward Bound.

Six weeks had elapsed since the barque Sabrina had left the port of Liverpool. She was stealing along swiftly before a seven knot breeze on the quarter, with studding-sails set. It was intensely hot, for they had crossed the line only a few days since. Captain Merryweather had proved himself all that a captain should be—a thorough sailor, equal to any emergency; a firm but considerate commander; an interesting and lively companion, ever evenly cheerful, and watchful to make all around him comfortable and happy. Hubert Oliphant was full of spirits—happy himself, and anxious to make others the same; a keen observer of every natural phenomenon, and admirer of the varied beauties of ocean and sky; and, better still, with a heart ready to feel the bounty and love of God in everything bright, lovely, and grand. Poor Frank had become less sad; but his sorrow still lay heavy on his spirits. Yet there was hope for him to cling to; and he was rejoicing in the subduing of his evil habit, which was thus far broken through by his forced abstinence. Alas! he did not realise that a smouldering fire and an extinct one are very different things. He was sanguine and self-confident; he fancied that his resolution had gained in firmness, whereas it had only rested quiet, no test or strain having been applied to it; and, worst of all, he did not feel the need of seeking in prayer that grace from above which would have given strength to his weakness and nerve to his good resolves. And yet who could see him and not love him? There was a bright, reckless generosity in every look, word, and movement, which took the affections by storm, and chained the judgment. Jacob Poole had become his devoted admirer. Day by day, as he passed near him, and saw his sunny smile and heard his animated words, the young cabin-boy seemed more and more drawn to him by a sort of fascination. Jacob was very happy. The captain was a most kind and indulgent master, and he felt it a privilege to do his very best to please him. But his greatest happiness was to listen—when he could do so without neglecting his duty—to the conversations between Frank, Hubert, and the captain, as they sat at meals round the cuddy-table, or occasionally when in fair weather they stood together on the poop-deck; and it was Frank’s voice and words that had a special charm for him. Frank saw it partly, and often took occasion to have some talk with Jacob in his own cheery way; and so bound the boy still closer to him.

It was six weeks, as we have said, since the Sabrina left Liverpool. The day was drawing to a close; in a little while the daylight would melt suddenly into night. Not a cloud was in the sky: a fiery glow, mingled with crimson, lit up the sea and heavens for a while, and, speedily fading away, dissolved, through a faint airy glimmer of palest yellow, into clear moonlight. How lovely was the calm!—a calm that rested not only on the sea, but also on the spirits of the voyagers, as the vessel slipped through the waters, gently bending over every now and then as the wind slightly freshened, and almost dipping her studding-sail boom into the sea, which glittered in one long pathway of quivering moonbeams, while every little wave, as far as the eye could reach, threw up a crest of silver. The captain stood near the binnacle. He was giving a lesson in steering to Jacob Poole, who felt very proud at taking his place at the wheel for the first time, and grasped the spokes with a firm hand, keeping his eye steadily on the compass. Frank and Hubert stood near, enjoying the lovely evening, and watching Captain Merryweather and the boy.

“Steady, my lad, steady,” said the captain; “keep her head just south and by east. A firm hand, a steady eye, and a sound heart; there’s no good without them.”

“You’ll soon make a good sailor of him, captain,” said Hubert.

“Ay, I hope so,” was the reply. “He’s got the best guarantee for the firm hand and the steady eye in his total abstinence; and I hope he has the sound heart too.”

“You look, captain, as if total abstinence had thriven with you. Have you always been a total abstainer?” asked Frank.

A shade of deep sadness came over the captain’s face as he answered,—

“No, Mr Oldfield; but it’s many years now since I was driven into it.”

“Driven!” exclaimed Frank, laughing; “you do not look a likely subject to be driven into anything.”

“Ay, sir; but there are two sorts of driving—body-driving and heart-driving. Mine was heart-driving.”

“I should very much like to hear how it was that you were driven into becoming an abstainer,” said Hubert; “if it will not be asking too much.”

“Not at all, sir; and perhaps it may do you all good to hear it, though it’s a very sad story.—Steady, Jacob, steady; keep her full.—It may help to keep you firm when you get to Australia. You’ll find plenty of drinking traps there.”

“I’m not afraid,” said Frank. “But by all means let us have your story. We are all attention.”

Hubert sighed; he wished that Frank were not so confident.

“Ay,” said the captain, gazing dreamily across the water; “I think I see her now—my poor dear mother. She was a good mother to me. That’s one of God’s best gifts in this rough world of ours, Mr Oliphant. I’ve known many a man—and I’m one of them—that’s owed everything to a good mother. Well, my poor mother was a sailor’s wife; a better sailor, they say, than my father never stepped a plank. He’d one fault, however, when she married him, and only one; so folks like to put it. That fault was, that he took too much grog aboard; but only now and then. So my poor mother smiled when it was talked about in courting time, and they were married. My father was the owner of a small coasting-vessel, and of course was often away from home for weeks and sometimes for months together. A sister and myself were the only children; she was two years the oldest. My father used to be very fond of his children when he came home, and would bring us some present or other in his pocket, and a new gown, or cap, or bonnet for my mother. Yet somehow—I could hardly understand it then—she was oftener in tears than in smiles when he stayed ashore. I know how it was now: he’d learned to love the drink more and more; and she, poor thing, had got her eyes opened to the sin and misery it was bringing with it. He was often away at nights now. We children saw but little of him; and yet, when he was at home and sober, a kinder father, a better husband, a nobler-looking man wasn’t to be seen anywhere. Well, you may be sure things didn’t mend as time went on. My mother had hard work to make the stores hold out, for her allowance grew less as we children grew bigger. Only one good thing came of all this: when all this trouble blew on my poor mother like a hurricane, she shortened sail, and ran before the gale right into the heavenly port; or, as you’ll understand me better, she took her sins and her cares to her Saviour, and found peace there. At last my sister grew up into a fine young woman, and I into a stout, healthy lad.—Steady, Jacob, steady; mind your helm.—My father didn’t improve with age. He was not sober as often as he used to be; indeed, when he was on shore he was very rarely sober, and when he did stay an hour or two at home he was cross and snappish. His fine temper and manly bearing were gone; for the drink, you may be sure, leaves its mark upon its slaves. Just as it is with a man who has often been put in irons for bad conduct; you’d know him by his walk even when he’s at liberty—he’s not like a man that has always been free. Ah, my poor mother! it was hard times for her. She talked to my father, but he only swore at her. I shall never forget his first oath to her; it seemed to crush the light out of her heart. However bad he’d been before, he had always been gentle to her. But he was getting past that. She tried again to reason with him when he was sober. He was sulky at first; then he flew into a passion. And once he struck her. Yes; and I saw it, and I couldn’t bear it. I was flying at him like a tiger, when my dear mother flung her arms round me, and chained me to the spot. My father never forgot that. He seemed from that day to have lost all love for me; and I must own that I had little left for him. My mother loved him still, and so did my sister; but they left off talking to him about his drunkenness. It was of no use; they prayed for him instead.—Steady, Jacob; luff a bit, my lad; luff you can.”

“And did this make you an abstainer?” asked Hubert.

“No, sir; so far from it, that I was just beginning to like my grog when I could get it. I didn’t see the evil of the drink then; I didn’t see how the habit keeps winding its little cords round and round a man, till what begins as thin as a log-line, becomes in the end as thick as a hawser. My mother trembled for me, I knew; I saw her look at me with tears in her eyes many a time, when I came home talkative and excited, though not exactly tipsy. I could see she was sick at heart. But I hadn’t learned my lesson yet; I was to have a terrible teacher.

“There was a young man who began to visit at our cottage when my sister was just about twenty. They used to call him—well, that don’t matter; better his name should never be spoken by me. He was a fisherman, as likely a lad as you’d see anywhere; and he’d one boast that few could make, he had never been tipsy in his life; he was proud of it; he had got his measure, he said, and he never went beyond it. He laughed at teetotallers; they were such a sneaking, helpless lot, he said—why couldn’t they take what was good for them, and stop there when they’d had enough; surely a man ought to be master of his own appetites—he was, he said; he could stop when he pleased. However, to make a long story short, he took a great fancy to my dear sister, and she soon returned it. Our cottage was near the sea, but on a hill-side some hundred feet or more above the beach. High ground rose behind it and sheltered it from the north and east winds. It had a glorious view of the ocean, and one of the loveliest little gardens that any cottage could boast of. The young man I spoke of would often sit with my sister in the little porch, when the roses and jessamine were in full flower all over it; and I used to think, as I looked at them, that a handsomer couple could never be made man and wife. Well, it was agreed that they should wait a few months till he was fully prepared to give her a home. My father just then was ashore, and took to the young man amazingly; he must have him spend many an evening at our cottage, and you may be sure that the grog didn’t remain in the cupboard. My father had a great many yarns to spin, and liked a good listener; and as listening and talking are both dry work, one glass followed another till the young man’s eyes began to sparkle, and my poor sister’s to fill with tears; still, he always maintained, when she talked gently to him about it next day, that he knew well what he was about, that he never overstepped his mark, and that she might trust him. Ah, it was easy to talk; but it was very plain that his mark began to be set glass after glass higher than it used to be. At last, one night she couldn’t hold any longer, and implored him to stop as he was filling another tumbler. Upon this my father burst out into a furious passion, and swore that, as he could find no peace at home, he’d go where he could find it,—that was to the public-house, of course. Out they both of them went, and we saw no more of them that night, you may be sure; and my mother and sister almost cried their hearts out. It was some days after this before my sister’s lover ventured to show his face at our place, and then he didn’t dare to meet her eye. She said very little to him; it was plain she was beginning to lose all hope; and she had reason too, for when the demon of drink gets a firm hold, Mr Oldfield, he’ll not let go, if he can help it, till he’s strangled every drop of good out of a man. But I mustn’t be too long; there isn’t much left to tell, however.—Steady, Jacob, my lad; keep her full.—You may suppose that we hadn’t much more of my father’s company, or of the young man’s either; they found the public-house more to their mind; and so it went on night after night. Little was said about the wedding, and my sister never alluded to it even to us. At last October came. It was one lovely moonlight night, just such a night as this, quiet and peaceful. My father was to set out on one of his cruises next morning, and was expecting the mate to bring round his little vessel, and anchor her in the roads off the shore, in sight of our cottage. He had come home pretty sober to tea, bringing my sister’s lover with him. After tea there were several things he had to settle with my mother; so, while they were making their arrangements, my sister and the young man had an earnest talk together. I didn’t mean to listen, but I could overhear that he was urging her to fix an early day for the wedding, with many promises of amendment and sobriety, which the poor girl listened to with a half-unwilling ear, and yet her heart couldn’t say, ‘No.’ At last my father cried, ‘Come, my lad, we’ll just go up to the top of the hill, and see if we can make out the Peggy. She ought to be coming round by this time.’

“‘Oh, father,’ cried my sister, ‘don’t go out again to-night.’

“‘Nonsense!’ he said, roughly; ‘do you think I’m a baby, that can’t take care of myself?’

“My mother said nothing; my sister looked at her lover with an imploring glance. I shall never forget it; there was both entreaty and despair in her eyes. He hesitated a moment, but my father was already out of the door, and loudly calling on him to follow.

“‘I’ll be back again in a few minutes,’ he said; ‘it won’t do to cross your father to-night.’

“Ah, those few minutes! She went to the door. It was a most lovely night; there was a flood of moonlight poured out upon land and sea. All that God had made was as beautiful as if sin had never spoiled it. Just a little to the right of our cottage the ground rose up suddenly, and sloped up about a quarter of a mile to the top of a high cliff, from the edge of which was a sheer descent, almost unbroken, to the beach, of several hundred feet. It was a favourite spot of observation, for vessels could be seen miles off.

“My sister watched her father and lover in the clear moonlight to the top. There they stood for about half an hour, and then they turned. But which way? Home? It seemed so at first—the young man was plainly hesitating. At last he yielded to my father’s persuasion, and both disappeared over the farther side of the high ground. My unhappy sister, with a wild cry of distress, came back into the cottage, and threw herself sobbing into a chair.

“‘Oh, mother, mother!’ she cried, ‘they’re off again—they’re gone to the public-house; father’ll be the death of him, body and soul.’

“My mother made no answer. She could not speak. She had no comfort to offer. She knew that my wretched father was the tempter. She knew that there was nothing but misery before her child.

“Oh, what a weary night that was! We sat for hours waiting, listening. At last we heard the sound of voices—two voices were shouting out snatches of sea-songs with drunken vehemence. We didn’t need any one to tell us whose voices they were. My sister started up and rushed out. I followed her, and so did my mother. We could see now my father and the young man, sharp and clear in the moonlight, arm in arm at the top of the cliff. They were waving their arms about and shouting, as they swayed and staggered to and fro. Then they went forward towards the edge, and tried to steady themselves as they looked in the direction of the sea.

“‘They’ll be over!’ shrieked my sister; ‘oh, let us try and save them!’

“My mother sank senseless on the ground. For a moment my sister seemed as if she would do the same. Then she and I rushed together towards the cliff at the top of our speed. We could just see the two poor miserable drunkards staggering about for a little while, but then a sinking in the ground, as we hurried on, hid them from our sight. A few minutes more and we were on the slope at the top, but where were they? They were gone—where? I dared not let my sister go forward, but I could hardly hold her, till at last she sank down in a swoon. And then I made my way to the top of the cliff, and my blood seemed to freeze in my veins as I looked over. There they were on the rocks below, some hundred and fifty feet down. I shouted for help; some of the neighbours had seen us running, and now came to my relief. I left a kind woman with my unhappy sister, and hurried with some fishermen the nearest way to the beach. It was sickening work climbing to the place on to which my miserable father and his companion had pitched in their fall. Alas! they were both dead when we reached them, and frightfully mangled. I can hardly bear to go on,” and the captain’s voice faltered, “and yet I must complete my story. We made a sort of large hammock, wrapped them in it, and by the help of some poles carried them up to our cottage. It was terrible work. My sister did not shed a tear for days, indeed I scarcely ever saw her shed a tear at all; but she pined away, and a few short months closed her sad life.”

The captain paused, and it was long before any one broke the silence. At last Hubert asked,—

“And your mother?”

“Ah, my mother—well, she did not die. She mourned over her daughter; but I can’t say that she seemed to feel my father’s loss so much, and I think I can tell you why,” he added, looking very earnestly at the two young men. “Mark this, young gentlemen, and you Jacob, too—there’s this curse about the drink, when it’s got its footing in a home it eats out all warm affections. I don’t think my mother had much love left for my father in her heart when he died. His drunkenness had nearly stamped out the last spark.”

“It’s a sad story indeed,” said Frank, thoughtfully.

“Ay; and only one among many such sad stories,” said the captain.

“And so you were led after this to become a total abstainer?”

“Yes; it was on the day of my sister’s funeral. I came back to the cottage after the service was over with my heart full of sorrowful thoughts. My mother sat in her chair by the fire; her Bible was open before her, her head was bowed down, her hands clasped, and her lips moving in prayer. I heard them utter my own name.

“‘Mother,’ I said, springing forward, and throwing my arms round her, ‘please God, and with his help, I’ll never touch another drop of the drink from this day.’

“‘God bless you, my son,’ she said, with sobs. ‘I’ve prayed him scores of times that my son might be preserved from living a drunkard’s life, and dying a drunkard’s death. I believe he’s heard me. I know he has, and I’ll trust him to make you truly his child, and then we shall meet in glory.’ From that day to this not a drop of intoxicating liquor has ever passed my lips. But it’s time to turn in; we shan’t sleep the less sound because we’re not indebted to the grog for a nightcap.”

For some days after the captain had told his story, Frank Oldfield’s manner was subdued and less buoyant than usual—something like a misgiving about his own ability to resist temptation, mingled with sad memories of the past. But his spirits soon recovered their usual brightness.

It was on a cloudless day, when scarcely a breath of air puffed out the sails, and the dog-vane drooped lazily, as if desponding at having nothing to do, that Hubert was looking listlessly over the stern, marking how the wide expanse of the sea was heaving and swelling like a vast carpet of silk upraised and then drawn down again by some giant hand. Suddenly he cried out,—

“What’s that cutting its way behind us, just below the surface of the water?”

“A shark, most likely,” said the mate, coming up. “Ay, sure enough it is,” he added, looking over the stern. “Many a poor fellow has lost his life or his limbs by their ugly teeth. We’ll bait a hook for him.”

This was soon done. A large piece of rusty pork was stuck upon a hook attached to the end of a stout chain, the chain being fastened to a strong rope. All was now excitement on board. The captain, Hubert, Frank, and Jacob Poole looked over at the monster, whose dorsal fin just appeared above the water. He did not, however, seem to be in any hurry to take the bait, but kept swimming near it, and now and then knocked it with his nose.

“Just look at the water,” cried Frank; “why, it’s all alive with little fish. I never saw anything like it.”

Indeed, it was an extraordinary sight. All round the vessel, and as deep down in the water as the eye could penetrate, the ocean was swarming with millions upon millions of little fishes, so that their countless multitudes completely changed the colour of the sea. Jacob Poole, who was standing close by the captain, now sprang into the boat which hung over the stern to get a better look at the shark and his minute companions.

“Have a care,” shouted the captain, “or you’ll be over, if you don’t mind.”

It was too late; for just as Jacob was endeavouring to steady himself in the boat, a sudden roll of the ship threw him completely off his balance. He tried to save himself by catching at a rope near him, but missed it, and fell right over the boat’s side into the sea below.

All was instantly confusion and dismay, for every one on board knew that Jacob was no swimmer. Happily the ship was moving very sluggishly through the water, so one of the quarter-boats was instantly lowered from the davits. But long before it could row to the rescue help had come from another quarter. For one moment Hubert and his friend stood looking on transfixed with dismay, then, without an instant’s hesitation, Frank sprang upon the taffrail, and plunged headlong into the sea. He was a capital swimmer, and soon reached poor Jacob. But now a cry of horror arose from those on board.

“The shark! the shark!”

The creature had disappeared at the moment of the cabin-boy’s fall, the sudden and violent splash having completely scared him away for the instant; but scarcely had Frank reached the drowning lad, and raised him in the water, than the huge monster began to make towards them. They were so short a distance from the vessel that those on board could plainly see the movements of the great fish as he glided up to them.

“Splash about with all your might, for Heaven’s sake,” roared out the captain.

“All right,” cried young Oldfield with perfect coolness, and at the same time making a violent commotion in the water all round him, which had the effect of daunting their enemy for the time. And now the quarter-boat was lowered, and reached them in a few vigorous strokes.

“Pull for your lives, my lads,” shouted the mate, who was steering. “Here we are—steady—ship oars. Now then, Tom Davies, lay hold on ’em—in with ’em quick—there’s the shark again. Jack, you slap away at the water with your oar. Ay, my friend, we’ve puzzled you this time—a near shave, though. Now then, all right. Give way, my lads. Jacob, my boy, you’ve baulked Johnny shark of his dinner this once.”

They were soon alongside, and on deck, and were greeted by a lusty “Hurrah!” from captain and crew.

“Nobly done, nobly done, Mr Oldfield!” cried the captain, with tears in his eyes, and shaking Frank warmly by the hand. Hubert was also earnest in his thanks and congratulations. As for poor Jacob, when he had somewhat recovered from the utter bewilderment into which his unfortunate plunge had thrown him, he came up close to his rescuer and said,—

“Mr Oldfield, I can’t thank you as I should, but I shan’t forget as you’ve saved my life.”

“All right, Jacob,” said Frank, laughing; “you’ll do the same for me when I want it, I don’t doubt. But you have to thank our kind friends, the mate and his crew, as much as me, or we should have been pretty sure to have been both of us food for the fishes by this time.”

And so it was that the cabin-boy’s attachment to Frank Oldfield became a passion—a love which many waters could not quench—a love that was wonderful, passing the love of women. Each day increased it. And now his one earnest desire was to serve Frank on shore in some capacity, that he might be always near him. Day by day, as the voyage drew to its close, he was scheming in his head how to bring about what he so ardently desired; and the way was opened for him.

It was in the middle of January, the height of the Australian summer, that the Sabrina came in sight of Kangaroo Island, and in a little while was running along the coast, the range of hills which form a background to the city of Adelaide being visible in the distance. And now all heads, and tongues, and hands were busy, for in a few hours, if the tide should serve for their passing the bar, they would be safe in Port Adelaide.

“Well, Jacob; my lad,” said Captain Merryweather to the cabin-boy, as he stood looking rather sadly and dreamily at the land, “you don’t look very bright. I thought you’d be mad after a run ashore. Here comes the pilot; he’ll soon let us know whether we can get into port before next tide.”

When the pilot had taken charge of the ship, and it was found that there was water enough for them to cross the bar at once, the captain again called Jacob to him into the cuddy, where he was sitting with Hubert and Frank.

“I see, Jacob, my boy,” he said, “that there’s something on your mind, and I think I half know what it is. Now, I’m a plain straightforward sailor, and don’t care to go beating about the bush, so I’ll speak out plainly. You’ve been a good lad, and pleased me well, and if you’ve a mind to go home with me, I’ve the mind, on my part, to take you. But then I see Mr Oldfield here has taken a fancy to you, and thinks you might be willing to take service with him. Ah, I see it in your eyes, my lad—that settles it. I promised before we sailed that I’d find you a good situation out here, and I believe I’ve done it. Mr Oldfield, Jacob’s your man.”

Poor Jacob; the tears filled his eyes—his chest heaved—he crushed his cap out of all shape between his fingers—then he spoke, at first with difficulty, and then in a husky voice,—

“Oh, captain, I’m afraid you’ll think I’m very ungrateful. I don’t know which way to turn. You’ve been very good to me, and I couldn’t for shame leave you. I’d be proud to serve you to the last day of my life. But you seem to have fathomed my heart. I wish one half of me could go back with you, and the other half stay with Mr Oldfield. But I’ll just leave it with yourselves to settle; only you mustn’t think, captain, as I’ve forgotten all your kindness. I’m not that sort of chap.”

“Not a bit, my lad, not a bit,” replied the captain, cheerily; “I understand you perfectly. I want to do the best for you; and I don’t think I can do better than launch you straight off, and let Mr Oldfield take you in tow; and if I’m spared to come another voyage here, and you should be unsettled, or want to go home again, why, I shall be right glad to have you, and to give you your wages too.” And so it was settled, much to the satisfaction of Frank and the happiness of Jacob.

Chapter Eleven.

Abraham Oliphant.

“And so you’re my nephew Hubert,” said a tall, middle-aged gentleman, who had come on board as soon as the Sabrina reached the port, and was now shaking Hubert warmly by the hand. “A hearty welcome to South Australia. Ah, I see; this is Mr Oldfield. My brother wrote to me about you. You’re heartily welcome too, my young friend, for so I suppose I may call you. Well, you’ve come at a warm time of the year, and I hope we shall be able to give you a warm reception. And how did you leave your dear father, Hubert? You’re very like him; the sight of your face brings back old times to me. And how are your brothers and sister? All well? That’s right. Thank God for it. And now just put a few things together while I speak to the captain. I’ll see that your baggage is cleared and sent up all right after you. My dog-cart’s waiting, and will take your friend and yourself and what things you may want for a few days.”

The speaker’s manner was that of a man of good birth and education, with the peculiar tone of independence which characterises the old colonist. Hubert and Frank both felt at their ease with him at once.

It was arranged that Jacob Poole should remain with Captain Merryweather for a few days, and should then join his new master in Adelaide. After a very hearty leave-taking with the captain, the young men and Mr Abraham Oliphant were soon on shore.

There was no railway from the port to the city in those days, but travellers were conveyed by coaches and port-carts, unless they were driven in some friend’s carriage or other vehicle. Driving tandem was much the fashion, and it was in this way that Hubert and Frank were making their first journey inland.

“Now, my dear Hubert, and Mr Oldfield, jump in there; give me your bags; now we’re all right;” and away they started.

The first mile or two of their journey was not particularly inviting. They passed through Albert Town, and through a flat country along a very dusty road, trees being few and far between. A mile farther on and they saw a group of natives coming towards them with at least half-a-dozen ragged looking dogs at their heels. The men were lounging along in a lordly sort of way, entirely at their ease; one old fellow, with a grizzly white beard and hair, leaning all his weight on the shoulders of a poor woman, whom he was using as a walking-stick. The other women were all heavily-laden, some with wood, and others with burdens of various sorts, their lords and masters condescending to carry nothing but a couple of light wooden spears, a waddy, or native club, and a boomerang.

“Poor creatures!” exclaimed Hubert; “what miserable specimens of humanity; indeed, they hardly look human at all.”

“Ah,” said his uncle, “there are some who are only too glad to declare that these poor creatures are only brutes, that they have no souls. I’ve heard a man say he’d as soon shoot a native as a dingo; that is, a wild dog.”

“But you don’t think so, dear uncle?”

“Think so! no indeed. Their intellects are sharp enough in some things. Yes; it is very easy to take from them their lands, their kangaroo, and their emu, and then talk about their having no souls, just to excuse ourselves from doing anything for them in return. Why, those very men who will talk the most disparagingly of them, do not hesitate to make use of them; ay, and trust them too. They will employ them as shepherds, and even as mounted policemen. But let us stop a moment, and hear what they have to say.”

He drew up, and the natives stopped also, grinning from ear to ear. They were very dark, a dusky olive colour; the older ones were hideously ugly, and yet it was impossible not to be taken with the excessive good humour of their laughing faces.

“What name you?” cried the foremost to Mr Oliphant.

“Abraham,” was the reply.

“Ah, very good Abraham,” rejoined the native; “you give me copper, me call you gentleman.”

“Them you piccaninnies?” asked one of the women, pointing to Hubert and Frank.

“No,” said Mr Oliphant; “there—there are some coppers for you; you must do me some work for them when you come to my sit-down.”

“Gammon,” cried the black addressed; “me plenty lazy.”

“A sensible fellow,” cried Frank laughing, as they drove on; “he knows how to look after his own interests, clearly enough; surely such as these cannot be past teaching.”

“No indeed,” said the other; “we teach them evil fast enough; they learn our vices besides their own. You may be sure they drink when they can. Ah, that curse of drunkenness! Did you think you had run away from it when you left England? Happy for you, Hubert, that you’re an abstainer; and I suppose, Mr Oldfield, that you are one too.”

“Not a pledged one,” said Frank, colouring deeply, “but one in practice, I hope, nevertheless.”

“Well, I tell you honestly that you’ll find neither beer, wine, or spirits in my house. To everything else you are both heartily welcome.—Ah, that’s not so pleasant,” he exclaimed suddenly.

“Is there anything amiss?” asked Hubert.

“Oh, nothing serious!” was the reply; “only a little disagreeable; but we may perhaps escape it. We’ll pull up for a moment. There; just look on a few hundred yards.”

Ahead of them some little distance, in the centre of the road, a whirling current of air was making the dust revolve in a rapidly enlarging circle. As this circle widened it increased in substance, till at last it became a furious earth-spout, gathering sticks and leaves, and even larger things, into its vortex, and rising higher and higher in the air till it became a vast black moving column, making a strange rustling noise as it approached. Then it left the direct road, and rushed along near them, rising higher and higher in the air, and becoming less and less dense, till its base completely disappeared, and the column spent itself in a fine streak of sand some hundred feet or more above their heads.

“A pleasant escape,” said Mr Oliphant; “we shouldn’t have gained either in good looks or comfort if we had got into the thick of it.”

“I should think not indeed,” said Frank. “Do people often get into these whirlwinds, or earth-spouts, or whatever they should be called?”

“Sometimes they do,” said the other, “and then the results are anything but agreeable. I have seen men go into them white—white jacket, white waistcoat, white trousers, white hat, and come out one universal brown—brown jacket, waistcoat, trousers, hat, eyebrows, whiskers, all brown.”

“Anything but pleasant indeed,” said Hubert. “But do they ever do serious mischief?”

“Not very serious, as far as I know,” replied his uncle. “Once I knew of a pastry-cook’s man who was caught in one of these whirlwinds; he had a tray of tarts on his head, and the wind caught the tray, and whirled it off, tarts and all. But here we are at the ‘Half-way house;’ people commonly can’t go many miles here without the drink. They fancy that, because we live in a country which is very hot in summer, we want more to drink; but it’s just the reverse. Drink very little of anything in the specially hot days, and you’ll not feel the want of it.”

And now, after a further drive of three or four miles, the outskirts of the city of Adelaide were nearly reached, and the distant hills became more plainly visible.

“We shall cross the river by the ford at the back of the jail,” said Mr Oliphant, “for there’s very little water in the river now.”

“And is this the river Torrens?” asked Hubert, with a slight tone of incredulity in his voice.

“You may well ask,” replied his uncle, laughing. “Torrens is certainly an unfortunate name, for it leads a stranger naturally to look for a deep and impetuous stream. Some gentleman from Melbourne, when he first saw it, was highly incensed and disgusted, and exclaimed, ‘Is this crack in the earth your river Torrens?’”

“But I suppose,” inquired Frank, “it is not always as shallow as now?”

“No indeed,” said the other; “I’ve seen it many a time a real Torrens. When it comes rushing down, swollen by numberless little streams from the hills, it will carry almost everything before it. Bridges, and strong ones too, it has swept away, and you may judge both of its violence and of the height to which it rises at such times, when I tell you that, when a flood has subsided, you may sometimes look up and see a dead horse sticking in the fork of a tree which had for a time been nearly under water. And I’ve often thought that the drink is like this stream; people will scarce credit at first that it can do so much mischief—it’s only a little drop, or a glass or two, but the drop becomes a stream, and the glass a mighty river, and down goes all before it, money, home, love, character, peace, everything. But see, that’s the jail on our left now. If there were more total abstainers, we shouldn’t want such a costly building, nor so many policemen, as we do now. Here, as in the old country, the drink is at the bottom of nine-tenths of the crime. And now we’re just coming up to the top of Hindley Street. Look down it; it’s a busy street; you can see right away through Rundle Street, which is a continuation of it, to the Park Lands beyond. Now, just take a fact about the drinking habits of this colony. You’ll suppose, of course, that this street wants lighting at night. Well; how is this done? We have no gas as yet; no doubt we shall have it by-and-by. Well, then, look along each side of the street, and you’ll see ordinary lamps projecting from houses at tolerably regular intervals. These houses are all public-houses. Every publican is bound by law to keep a lamp burning outside his house every dark night; and these lamps light the street very creditably. I use the word ‘creditably’ simply in reference to the lighting; doesn’t that speak volumes?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Hubert; “I fear it tells of abundant crime and misery.”

“It does. But we mustn’t dwell on the dark side now, for I want this to be a bright day for us all. You see we’ve some nice shops in Hindley Street.”

“Yes,” said Frank; “but what a remarkable variety of style in the houses; there are no two of them, scarcely, alike in size, shape, or height. They remind me rather of a class of boys in our dame school at home, where big and little boys, tidy and ragged, stand side by side in one long row.”

“You are rather severe upon us,” said Mr Oliphant laughing; “but we are gradually improving; there is, however, plenty of room yet for improvement, I allow.”

And now they turned into King William Street, and drew up at the front of a large store.

“This is my business place,” said the merchant; “but I shall not ask you to look at it now; we must be off again immediately for my country residence among the hills. Here, James, give the horses a little water; now then, let us start again.”

A few minutes more and they were rapidly crossing the Park Lands.

“These are gum trees, I suppose?” asked Hubert.

“Yes, they are,” said his uncle; “but not worth much, either for timber, ornament, or shade. You wouldn’t get much relief from the heat under the poor shadow of their tassel-like foliage.”

“What a very strange noise!” exclaimed Frank; “it seems as if a number of stocking-looms were at work in the air.”

“See now,” said Mr Oliphant, “the force of habit. I’m so used to the sound, that I was utterly unconscious of it. It is made by the cicada, an insect very common in this country. And now, where do you suppose we’re coming to? This little village or township before us is Norwood, and then comes Kensington. I’ve no doubt it will strike you as one of the oddest things in this colony, till you get used to it, though, of course, it isn’t peculiar to this colony, how places are made close neighbours here, which are very widely separated in the old country, from which they are borrowed.”

“But why not retain the native names?” asked Hubert.

“Ah, why not, indeed? What can be more musical in sound than Yatala, Aldinga, Kooringa, Onkaparinga. But then, we could not always find native names enough; and, besides this, the Englishman likes to keep the old country before him, by giving his place some dear familiar name that sounds like home.”

In about another half hour they reached their destination among the hills.

“The Rocks,” as Mr Abraham Oliphant’s place was called, was situated on a hill-side, high above the valley, but on a moderate slope. A stout post-and-rail fence surrounded the estate, and one of a more compact nature enclosed the more private grounds. The house was large, and covered a considerable surface, as there were no rooms above the basement floor. The front windows commanded a magnificent view of the city of Adelaide, with its surrounding lands, suburbs, and neighbouring villages, and of the sea in the extreme distance. At the back was a remarkable group of rocks, from which the estate took its name; these leaned on the hill-side, and were encased in a setting of wild shrubs and creeping plants of extraordinary beauty. A stream of purest spring water perpetually flowed through a wide cleft in these rocks, and afforded a deliciously cool supply, which never failed in the hottest summer. The house was surrounded by a wide verandah, which, like the building itself, was roofed with shingles, and up the posts and along the edge of which there climbed a profusion of the multiflora rose. The garden sloped away from the house, and contained an abundance of both flowers and fruits. There was the aloe, and more than one kind of cactus, growing freely in the open air, with many other plants which would need the hothouse or greenhouse in a colder climate. Fig-trees, vines, standard peach, and nectarine trees were in great abundance, while a fence of the sharp Kangaroo Island acacia effectually kept all inquisitive cattle at a respectful distance. The inside of the house was tastefully but not unduly furnished, ancient and modern articles being ranged side by side in happy fraternity; for a thorough colonist suits his own taste, and is tolerably independent of fashion.

“Welcome once more to Australia!” exclaimed Mr Oliphant to his young companions; “and more especially welcome to ‘the Rocks.’ Come in: here, let me introduce you to my eldest daughter and youngest son—Jane and Thomas, here’s your cousin Hubert; and here’s his friend, Mr Frank Oldfield; you must give them a hearty welcome.”

All parties were soon at their ease together. A sumptuous dinner-tea was soon spread on the table of the dining-room—the windows of which apartment commanded a view, across the valley, of the city and distant sea.

Mr Oliphant was a widower, with two daughters and four sons. Jane had taken her mother’s place; the two eldest sons were married, and settled in other parts of the colony; the third son lived with his younger sister at a sheep-station about twenty-five miles up the country; the youngest son, Thomas, a boy about fifteen years old, was still at home, and rode in daily to the collegiate school, returning in the evening.

“You’ll meet your other cousins before long, I hope,” said his uncle to Hubert. “They know, of course, that you are coming; and when I send them word that you are actually come, we shall have them riding in at an early day. I suppose you’re used to riding yourself? Ah, that’s right; then you’re pretty independent. Horseflesh is cheap enough here, but it isn’t always of the choicest quality; however, I can furnish you with what you’ll want in that way. All your cousins ride, of course, by a sort of colonial instinct. An Australian and his horse almost grow together like a centaur.”

“And do you ride much, Cousin Jane?” asked Hubert.

“Oh, never mind the ‘cousin;’ you must drop it at once,” said Mr Oliphant. “It’s Jane, and you’re Hubert. But I beg Jane’s pardon for smothering her answer.”

“Oh yes, Hubert,” replied his cousin; “I ride, as a matter of course; we should never get over much ground, especially in the hot weather, if we walked as much as people seem to do in England. But I have not yet heard how you left my dear aunt and uncle. Seeing you seems half like seeing them; I’ve heard so much of them.”

“I suppose you hardly venture out kangaroo-hunting, Miss Oliphant?” asked Frank.

“I have done so once or twice in the north,” she replied; “but the kangaroo is not fond of so many white faces near his haunts, so he has retired from these parts altogether.”

“And you find you can all stand total abstinence here?” asked Hubert of his uncle.

“Stand it!” exclaimed Mr Oliphant; “I should think so. Why, my dear nephew, it don’t need standing; it’s the drink I couldn’t stand. You should see the whole lot of us when we meet at one of our great family gatherings. Well, it’s not quite the thing perhaps for a father to say—and yet I fancy it’s not very far from the truth—that you’ll not see a stouter, a better grown—Jane, shall I say handsomer?—I certainly may say a healthier, family anywhere; and not one of us is indebted to any alcoholic stimulant for our good looks.”

“You have always, then, been an abstainer since you came to the colony?” asked Frank.

“No, I have not; more’s the pity,” was the reply; “but only one or two of my children remember the day when I first became an abstainer. From the oldest to the youngest they have been brought up without fermented stimulants, and abhor the very sight of them.”

“And might I ask,” inquired Frank, “what led to the change in your case, if the question is not an intrusive one?”

“Oh, by all means; I’ve nothing to conceal in the matter,” said Mr Oliphant; “the story is a very simple one. But come, you must make a good tea; listening is often as hungry work as talking. Well, the circumstances were just these: when I was left a widower, more than fourteen years ago, Jane was about twelve years old and Thomas only six months; I was then a moderate drinker, as it is called—that is to say, I never got drunk; but I’m sure if any one had asked me to define ‘moderation,’ I should have been sorely puzzled to do so; and I am quite certain that I often exceeded the bounds of moderation, not in the eyes of my fellow-creatures, but in the eyes of my Creator—ay, and in my own eyes too, for I often felt heated and excited by what I drank, so as to wish that I had taken a glass or two less,—yet all this time I never overstepped the bounds, so as to lose my self-control. At this time I kept a capital cellar—I mean a cellar largely stocked with choice wines and spirits. I did not live then at ‘the Rocks,’ but in a house on the skirts of the city. You may be sure that I needed a good nurse to look after so many growing children who had just lost their dear mother, and I was happy enough to light upon a treasure of a woman—she was clean, civil, active, faithful, honest, forbearing, and full of love to the children; in a word, all that I could desire her to be. She took an immense deal of care off my hands, and I could have trusted her with everything I had. Months passed by, and I began to give large dinner-parties—for I was rather famous for my wines. Besides this, I was always having friends dropping in, happy to take a glass. All went on well—so it seemed—till one afternoon a maid came running into my sitting-room and cried out, ‘Oh, sir, nurse is so very ill; what must we do?’ I hurried up-stairs. There was the poor woman, sure enough, in a very miserable state. I couldn’t make it out at all.

“‘Send for a doctor at once!’ I cried. In a little while the doctor came. I waited most anxiously for his report. At last he came down, and the door was closed on us.

“‘Well, doctor,’ I cried, in great anxiety; ‘nothing very serious, I hope? I can ill afford to lose such a faithful creature.’

“I saw a curious smile on his face, which rather nettled me, as I thought it very ill-timed. At last he fairly burst out into a laugh, and exclaimed, ‘There’s nothing the matter with the woman, only she’s drunk.’

“‘Drunk!’ I exclaimed with horror; ‘impossible!’

“‘Ay, but it’s both possible and true too,’ said the doctor; ‘she’ll be all right, you’ll see, in a few hours.’

“And so she was. I then spoke out plainly and kindly to her. Oh, I shall never forget her misery and shame. She made no attempt to deny her fault, or even excuse it; she was heart-broken; she said she must go at once. I urged her to stay, and to turn over a new leaf. I promised to overlook what had passed, and told her that she might soon regain her former place in my esteem and confidence. But I could not keep her; she could not bear to remain, much as she loved the children; she must go elsewhere and hide her disgrace.

“‘But how came you to contract such a habit?’ said I. And then she told me that she began by finishing what was left in the glasses of my friends and myself after dinner; then, as I never locked up the cellaret—the thirst becoming stronger and stronger—she helped herself from the bottles, till at last she had become a confirmed drunkard. I pitied her deeply, as you may well understand; and would have kept her on, but nothing would induce her to stay. However, I had learned a lesson, and had made up my mind: I was determined that thenceforward no one should ever sow the first seeds of drunkenness in my house, or have any countenance in drinking from my example. The very morning the unhappy woman left, I made a vigorous onslaught on the drink.

“‘Fetch up the cellar!’ I cried; and the cellar was forthwith fetched up. Beer barrels, wine bottles and spirit-bottles, dozens of pale ale and bitter beer, were soon dragged into light.

“‘Now, fetch me the kitchen-poker!’ I shouted; it was brought me, and I commenced such a smashing as I should think has never been witnessed before, nor is likely to be witnessed again. Right and left, and all round me, the yard was flooded with malt liquors, spirits and wines. Then I knocked out the bungs of the casks, and joined their contents to the flood. You may suppose there was some little staring at all this, but it mattered nothing to me. I was resolved that what had ruined my poor nurse should never ruin any one else at my cost, or in my house; so from that day to this no alcoholic stimulant has passed my lips; nor been given by me to man, woman, or child; nor, please God, ever shall be.—Now, my dear young friends, you have had the history of what first led me to become a total abstainer.”

There was a silence for several minutes, which was at last broken by Hubert’s asking,—

“And what became of the unhappy woman, dear uncle?”

“Ah! don’t ask me. She went from bad to worse while she remained in the colony. For so it commonly is with drunkards, but most of all with female drunkards. I’ve known—and I thank God for it—many a reformed male drunkard; but when women take decidedly to drinking, it is very rare indeed to see them cured—at least, that has been my experience. I got poor nurse away with a friend of mine who was going in a temperance ship to England, hoping that the habit might be broken off during the voyage. But, alas! she broke out again soon after reaching home, and died at last a miserable death in a workhouse. But I see you look rather fagged, Mr Oldfield. Shall we take a turn in the garden before it gets dark, and then perhaps you’ll like a little music?”

And now we must leave Abraham Oliphant and Australia for a while, and return to Langhurst, and some of the earlier characters of our story.

Chapter Twelve.

An Explosion in the Pit.

“No letter yet from our Sammul,” cried Betty, wearily and sadly, as she came from the mill on a dreary night in the November after her brother’s sudden departure. “I thought as how he’d have been sure to write to me. Well, I suppose we must make ourselves content till he’s got over the sea. But oh, it’ll be weary work till we’ve heard summat from him.”

“Hush, hush, there’s a good bairn,” said her mother, though the tears were all the while running down her own cheeks as she spoke; “don’t take on so; you’ll drive your fayther clean crazy. He’s down in the mouth enough already. Come, don’t fret in that fashion, Thomas; Sammul’ll come back afore long: you’ve been crouching down by the hearth-stone long enough. If you’ll be guided by me, you’ll just take a drop of good ale, it’ll liven you up a bit; you want summat of the sort, or you’ll shrivel up till you’ve nothing but skin on your bones.”

“Ale!” cried Thomas, indignantly; “ale’ll not make me better—ale won’t make me forget—ale won’t bring back our Sammul, it’s driven him far enough away.”

“Well,” said his wife, soothingly, “you must go your own way; only, if you keep a-fretting of that fashion, you’ll not be able to do your work gradely, and then we shall all have to starve, and that’ll be worse for you still.”

“Better starve,” replied her husband moodily, “nor ruin body and soul with the drink; I’ll have no more of it.”

“Well, you can please yourself;” replied Alice, “so long as you don’t take me with you. But I must have my drop of beer and my pipe, I can’t live without ’em; and so you may rest content with that; it’s the truth, it is for sure.”

“Mother,” said Betty, mournfully, “can you really talk in that fashion to fayther, when you know how the drink’s been the cause of all the misery in our house, till it’s driven our poor Sammul away to crouch him down on other folk’s hearth-stones in foreign parts? I should have thought we might all have learnt a lesson by this time.”

“It’s no use talking, child,” replied her mother; “you go your way, and take your fayther with you if he’s a mind, but don’t think to come over me with your talk; I’m not a babe, I can take care of myself. The drink’s good enough in moderation, and I’m going to be moderate. But lads and wenches is so proud now-a-days that mothers has to hearken and childer does the teaching.”

Poor Betty! she sighed, and said no more. Johnson also saw that it was no use reasoning with his wife. Her appetite for the drink was unquenchable. It was clear that she loved it better than husband, children, home, conscience, soul. Alas! poor Thomas’s was a heavy burden indeed. Could he only have been sure that his son was alive and well, he could have borne his troubles better; but now he seemed crushed to the very earth. And yet, strange as it might seem, he did not feel tempted to fly to the drink again for consolation; he rather shrank from the very sight and thought of it. Ah, there were many prayers being offered up for him; unseen hands were guiding him, and in his home was the daily presence of one who was indeed a help and comfort to him. He clung to Betty now, and she to him, with a peculiar tenderness. Her heart was full of the warm glow of unselfish love, and his was learning to expand and unfold under the influence of her bright example. Theirs was a common sorrow and a common hope, as far as Samuel was concerned. Why had he not written to them from Liverpool, or from whatever port he had sailed from? That he had gone beyond the sea, they were both firmly convinced. Betty, of course, had her own special sorrow. She could not forget that terrible night—she could not forget the knife and the blood—though she was still fully persuaded that her brother had not laid violent hands on himself. But oh, if he would only write, what a load of misery would be taken off both their hearts; yet no letter came. November wore away, December came and went, the new year began, still there was no news of Samuel. Ned Brierley did all he could to console the unhappy father and daughter, and with some success. He was very urgent with Thomas to sign the pledge, and thus openly join himself to the little band of total abstainers, and Thomas had pretty nearly made up his mind to do so. He had hesitated, not so much because he dreaded the sneers and jeers of his companions—he had become callous to those—but he shrank from encountering the daily, wearing, gnawing trial of his wife’s taunts and reproaches; for the restless uneasiness of a conscience not yet quite seared into utter insensibility made the unhappy woman doubly bitter in her attacks upon abstinence and abstainers. And thus matters were when February opened.

It was on a clear frosty evening in the beginning of that month that Betty was returning from the mill. They were running short time that week, and she was coming home about an hour earlier than usual. The ground was hard and crisp, and the setting sun sank a misty red, while a greyish-yellow tint overspread the whole horizon. Betty toiled slowly and listlessly up the hill, the old weight still on her heart. She had nearly reached her home, when a sound fearfully loud and awful, like the discharge of the cannon of two conflicting armies underground in one vast but muffled roar, made her heart almost stand still with terror. The next instant a huge body of sulphurous smoke leaped high into the air from one of the pit-mouths. In a moment the dreadful cry arose, “The pit’s fired!”

The next minute men, women, and children poured out from houses and cottages, horror and dismay on every face. Near two hundred men and boys were down that pit; scarce a house but had one or more below. Oh, who could adequately describe the dreadful scene of misery, wailing; and confusion which followed!

Betty knew that her father was down, and she felt that in him all she had to cling to on earth was now, perhaps, torn from her for ever. Men and women rushed past her towards the pit’s mouth.

“Lord help us,” groaned one poor mother; “our Thomas and Matthew’s down.”

“Fayther’s there too,” wailed Betty. “Oh, the Lord keep him, and bring him up safe.”

“Where’s our Bill?—oh, have you seen anything of our Bill?” shrieked another poor distracted mother.

Then came crowds of men, with overlookers and policemen. Then a hasty consultation was held as to what must be done.

“Who’ll volunteer to go down with me and send the poor fellows up?” cries the overlooker. Three men come forward, and step with him into the tub; not a word do they say, but they look quite calm and self-possessed—they have a work to do, and they will do it. And now the women are clustered round on the pit-bank in haggard expectation, the very picture of woe, some wild in their cries, others rocking themselves to and fro to still, if it may be, their misery; and others bowed down to the earth, the very image of mute despair. And now the wheels rapidly revolve, the rope runs swiftly, at last it slackens speed. The tub reaches the top—two ghastly forms are lifted from it—the women, with straining eyes, pressing forward to look. Oh, what a sight! the fiery stream has scorched the faces and limbs of the poor men almost out of knowledge. Again the tub descends, again other sufferers are raised, and still the same sad work continues hour after hour, far into the night. Some of those brought up are quite dead, poor blackened corpses; others still live, and are borne home, moaning piteously. From the limbs of many the skin peels with a touch. Some, less terribly injured, run and leap like madmen when they reach the open fresh air; some come up utterly blinded. And oh, what a vale of tears is that village of Langhurst the livelong night! Some call in vain for fathers, husbands, brothers; they have not yet been found. Some wring their hands over bodies which can never live again till the resurrection morning; some lovingly tend those who lie racked with agony on their beds, every limb writhing with fiery anguish; while some poor victims are so scorched and blackened that none can be found to claim them—one can only be known by his watch-chain, so completely is he burnt out of all remembrance. And what of poor Johnson? Hour after hour Betty and her mother watched near the pit’s mouth, sick with sorrow and suspense, pressing forward as each fresh tub-load landed its miserable burden, still to be disappointed; while the wailings, the cries, the tears of those who claimed the dead, the dying, the scorched, on every fresh arrival, only added fuel to their burning grief. At last, about midnight, three men were brought up and laid on the bank, all apparently lifeless.

“Oh, there’s fayther!”

“Oh, there’s Thomas!” burst from the lips of Betty and her mother.

“Oh, take him home, take him home, live or dead,” entreated Betty.

He was placed accordingly on a shutter, and carried by four men to his home. There they laid the body down on the couch, and left it alone with the mother and daughter. Alice wrung her hands in the bitterest distress.

“Oh, he’s dead, he’s dead; he’ll never speak to us any more.”

“Mother, hush!” said Betty, softly; “he’s not dead, I can see his lips move and his breast heave. Maybe the Lord’ll be merciful to us, and spare him. O Father in heaven,” she cried, throwing herself on her knees, “do hear us, and spare poor fayther, for Jesus’ sake.”

The sufferer uttered a deep groan.

“Ay, ay, Betty,” cried her mother, “the Lord be praised, there’s life in him yet. Run to old Jenny’s, and ask her to come and help us. Her master’s all right; she’ll be glad to give a helping hand to a neighbour in trouble.”

But there was no need to send for assistance, for in a minute after, the cottage was filled with women, eager to use both hands and tongues in the sufferer’s service. They carried him to his bed, and gently removed his clothes from him, though not without great difficulty, for he was fearfully burnt; and the act of taking off his clothing caused him great agony, as the skin came away with some of his inner garments. At last he was made as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances, till the doctor should come and dress his burns. Betty sat watching him, while her mother and the other women gathered round the fire below, with their pipes and their drink, trying to drown sorrow. She, poor girl, knew where to seek a better consolation; she sought, and found it. At last her mother’s step was again on the stairs; she came up unsteadily, and with flushed face approached the bed where her husband lay. She had a mug of spirits in her hand.

“I’ll give him a drop of this,” she said thickly; “it’ll put life into him in no time.”

“Oh, mother,” cried Betty, “you mustn’t do it; it’s wrong, you’ll be the death of him.”

But Alice would not heed her. She put some of the spirits in a spoon to the poor sufferer’s lips. She was astonished to find him perfectly conscious, for he closed his mouth tightly, and shook his scarred face from side to side.

“He won’t have it, mother,” said Betty, earnestly.

“Give me a drink of cold water,” said the poor man in a low voice. Betty fetched it him. “Ay, that’s it; I want nothing stronger.”

Alice slipped down again to her companions below, but her daughter remained in the chamber.

It was a desolate room, as desolate as poverty and drink could make it; and now it looked doubly desolate, as the scorched figure of the old collier lay motionless on the low, comfortless, curtainless bed. A dip in an old wine bottle standing on a box threw a gloomy light on the disfigured features, which looked almost unearthly in the clear moonlight which struggled with the miserable twinkling of the feeble candle, and fell just across the bed. Betty sat gazing at her father, full of anxious and sorrowful thoughts. How solemn the contrast between the stillness of that sick-chamber and the Babel of eager tongues in the house below! She felt unspeakably wretched, and yet there was a sense of rebuke in her conscience, for she knew how great a mercy it was that her father’s life was spared. She sighed deeply, and then, suddenly rising quietly, she lifted the lid of the box, and brought out a well-worn Bible. She was not much of a scholar, but she could make out a verse or a passage in the Holy Book with a little pains. She had put her mark against favourite passages, and now she turned to some of these.

“‘Come, unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”

She paused on each word, uttering it half aloud, as she travelled carefully from one line to another.

“Ah, that’s what I want,” she said to herself, but in an audible whisper. “It means, Come to Jesus, I know.”

She turned over several more leaves, and then she read again, and rather louder,—

“‘Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, through Christ Jesus.’

“Oh yes, I must do so myself; I must tell the Lord all my trouble; my heart’ll be lighter, when I’ve told it all to him.”

She stopped, and put the book aside, resting her head on her hands. She was startled by hearing her father say,—

“It’s very good. Read on, Betty, my lass.”

“Oh, fayther, I didn’t think you could hear me! What shall I read?”

“Read about some poor sinner like me, that got his sins pardoned by Jesus Christ.”

“I can’t justly say where it is, fayther; but I know there’s one place where it tells of a sinful man as had his sins pardoned by Jesus Christ, even when he hung upon the cross. I know well it was when the Lord were a-dying. Ah, here it is;” and she read,—

“‘And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering, rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.’”

“Do you think, Betty,” asked Johnson very earnestly, “I should go to be with Jesus, if I were to die now? Oh, if this pain’s so bad, what must hell-fire be?”

“Fayther,” replied his daughter quietly, “the Lord’s spared you for summat. I prayed him to spare you, and he’ll not cast you off now as he’s heard my prayer. If you take him at his word, he’ll not tell you as you’re mistaken—he’ll not say he hasn’t pardon in his heart for you.”

“I believe it, I will believe it,” said the poor man, the tears running down his cheeks. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner, for Jesus Christ’s sake,”—there was a pause; then, after a while, he added, “I think as he’ll hear me, Betty.”

“I am sure he will,” she answered; “but you must lie still, fayther, or maybe you’ll do yourself harm. The doctor’ll be here just now.”

It was a night of darkness and terror, yet even on that sad night there was glorious light which man’s eye could not see, for there was joy in the presence of the angels of God over at least one penitent sinner in Langhurst. But how full of gloom to most! Many had been cut off in the midst of their sins, and those who mourned their loss sorrowed as those who have no hope. Two of poor Johnson’s persecutors were suddenly snatched away in their impenitence and hardness of heart, a third was crippled for life. Yet the drink kept firm hold of its victims—the very night of the explosion the “George” gathered a golden harvest. Death in its ghastliest forms only seemed to whet the thirst for the drink. At one house, while the blackened corpse lay in its clothes on the outside of the bed, preparatory to its being laid out, the dead man’s widow and her female helpers sat refreshing themselves, and driving away care, with large potations of tea, made palatable with rum, and that so near the corpse that any one of the party could have touched it without rising from her seat.

The shock caused by the explosion was a terrible one, but its stunning effects passed away, only to leave the most who felt that shock harder and more indifferent than ever. Yet in one house that awful blow was found to be a messenger of mercy. Thomas Johnson rose from his bed of pain a changed and penitent man. Oh, what a happy day it was to Ned Brierley and his little band of stanch Christian abstainers, when Thomas came forward, as he soon did, and manfully signed the pledge, as resolved henceforth to be, with God’s help, consistent and uncompromising in his entire renunciation of all intoxicating drinks!

Chapter Thirteen.

Midnight Darkness.

When Thomas Johnson signed the pledge, a storm of persecution broke upon him which would have rather staggered an ordinary man; but, as we have said before, Thomas was no ordinary character, but one of those men who are born to do good service under whatever banner they may range themselves. He had long served in Satan’s army, and had worked well for him. But now he had chosen another Captain, even the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and he was prepared to throw all the energy and decision of his character into his work for his new and heavenly Master, and to endure hardness as a good soldier of the Captain of his salvation. For he had need indeed to count the cost. He might have done anything else he pleased, except give up the drink and turn real Christian, and no one would have quarrelled with him. He might have turned his wife and daughter out to starve in the streets, and his old boon-companions would have forgotten all about it over a pot of beer. But to sign the pledge?—this was indeed unpardonable. And why? Because the drunkard cannot afford to let a fellow-victim escape: he has himself lost peace, hope, character, home, happiness, and is drinking his soul into hell, and every fellow-drunkard reformed and removed from his side makes his conscience more bare, and exposed to the glare of that eternal wrath which he tries to shut out from his consciousness, and partly succeeds, as he gathers about him those like-minded with himself. So every petty insult and annoyance was heaped upon Johnson by his former companions: they ridiculed his principles, they questioned his sincerity, they scoffed at the idea of his continuing firm, they attributed all sorts of base motives to him. He was often sorely provoked, but he acted upon the advice of that holy man who tells us that, when people throw mud at us, our wisdom is to leave it to dry, when it will fall off of itself, and not to smear our clothes by trying of ourselves to wipe it off. He had hearty helpers in Ned Brierley and his family; Ned himself being a special support, for the persecutors were all afraid of him. But his chief earthly comforter was Betty. Oh, how she rejoiced in her father’s conversion and in his signing the pledge! Oh, if Samuel would only write, how happy she should be! She would write back and tell him of the great and blessed change wrought by grace in their father, and maybe he would come back again to them when he heard it. But he came not, he wrote not; and this was the bitterest sorrow to both Betty and her father. Johnson knew that his own sin had driven his son away, and he tried therefore to take the trial patiently, as from the hand of a Father who was chastening him in love. Betty longed for her brother’s return, or at least to hear from him, with a sickening intensity, which grew day by day; for though she was really convinced that he had not destroyed himself, yet dreadful misgivings would cross her mind from time to time. The knife, with its discoloured blade, was still in her possession, and the mystery about it remained entirely unexplained. But she too prayed for patience, and God gave it to her; for hers was the simple prayer of a loving, trusting, and believing heart. Perhaps, however, the sorest trial to both Johnson and his daughter was the conduct of Alice. She was bitterly incensed at her husband’s signing the pledge. No foul language was too bad for him; and as for Betty, she could hardly give her a civil word. They both, however, bore it patiently. At one time she would be furious, at another moodily silent and sulky for days. But what made the miserable woman most outrageous was the fact that her husband would not trust her with any money, but put his wages into the hands of Betty, to purchase what was wanted for the family, and to pay off old scores. She was therefore at her wits’ end how to get the drink, for the drink she would have. Johnson, with his characteristic decision, had gone round to the different publicans in Langhurst and the neighbourhood, taking Ned Brierley with him as witness, and had plainly given them to understand that he would pay for no more drink on his wife’s account. He then came home and told her what he had done, when he was alone with her and Betty. Poor miserable woman! She became perfectly livid with passion, and was about to pour out her rage in a torrent of furious abuse, when Johnson rose from his seat, and looking her steadily in the face, said in a moderately loud and very determined voice,—

“Alice, sit you down and hearken to me.”

There was something in his manner which forced her to obey. She dropped into a chair by the fire, and burst into a hurricane of tears. He let her spend herself, and then, himself sitting down, he said,—

“Alice, you’ve known me long enough to be sure that I’m not the sort of man to be turned from my purpose. You and I have lived together many years now, and all on ’em’s been spent in the service of the devil. I’m not laying the blame more on you nor on myself. I’ve been the worse, it may be, of the two. But I can’t go on as I have done. The Lord has been very merciful to me, or I shouldn’t be here now. I’ve served the old lad too long by the half, and I mean now to serve a better Mayster, and to serve him gradely too, if he’ll only help me—and our Betty says she’s sure he will, for the Book says so. Now, if I’m to be a gradely servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, I must be an honest man—I must pay my way if I can; but I can’t pay at all if my brass is to go for the drink—and you know, Alice, you can’t deny it, that you’d spend the brass in drink if I gave it yourself. But, more nor that, if I’d as much brass as’d fill the coal-pit, shaft and all, I’d not give my consent to any on it’s going for the drink. I know that you can do without the drink if you’ve a mind. I know you’ll be all the better by being without it. I know, and you know yourself, that it’s swallowed up the clothes from your own back, and starved and beggared us all. If you’ll give it up, and live without it like a Christian woman should, you’ll never have an afterthought; and as soon as I see that you can be trusted with the brass, I’ll give it you again with all my heart. Come, Alice, there’s a good wench; you mustn’t think me hard. I’ve been a hard husband, and fayther too, for years, but I must be different now; and I’ll try and do my duty by you all, and folks may just say what they please.”

Alice did not reply a word; her passion had cooled, and she sat rocking herself backwards and forwards, with her apron to her eyes, sobbing bitterly. She knew her husband too well to think of deliberately attempting to make him change his purpose, yet she was equally resolved that the drink she would and must have. At last she said, with many tears,—

“Well, Thomas, you must please yourself. I know well, to my cost, that I might as well try and turn the hills wrong side out as turn you from what you’ve set your heart on. But you know all the while that I can’t do without my little drop of drink. Well, it makes no odds whether I starve to death or die for want of the drink—there’ll be short work with me one road or the other; and then you and Betty can fill up my place with some of them teetottal chaps you’re both so fond on, when I’m in the ground.”

Johnson made no reply, but shortly after left for his work, as he was in the night-shift that week.

Alice sat for a long time turning over in her mind what steps to take in order to get the means for satisfying her miserable appetite. She had no money; she knew that none of the publicans would trust her any longer; and as for pawning any articles, she had pawned already everything that she dared lay her hands on. Her only hope now was in Betty; she would speak her fair, and see if she could not so work upon her feelings as to induce her to give her part of her own wages.

“Betty,” she said, softly and sadly, “you’re all the wenches I have; ay, and all the childer too, for our Sammul’s as good as dead and gone, we shall never see him no more—ah, he was a good lad to his poor mother; he’d never have grudged her the brass to buy a drop of drink. You’ll not do as your father’s doing—break your old mother’s heart, and let her waste and die out for want of a drop of drink.”

“Mother,” replied Betty very quietly, but with a great deal of her father’s decision in her manner, “I can’t go against what fayther’s made me promise. I’ve worked for you ever since I were a little wench scarce higher nor the table; and I’ll work for you and fayther still, and you shall neither on you want meat nor drink while I’ve an arm to work with; but I can’t give you the brass yourself ’cos it’ll only go into the publican’s pocket, and we’ve nothing to spare for him.”

“You might have plenty to spare if you’d a mind,” said her mother, gloomily.

“No, mother; all fayther’s brass, and all my brass too, ’ll have to go to pay old debts for many a long week to come.”

“Ah, but you might have as much brass as you liked, if you’d only go the right way to work.”

“As much brass as I like. I can’t tell what you mean, mother; you must be dreaming, I think.”

“I’m not dreaming,” said Alice. “There’s Widow Reeves, she’s no better wage nor you, and yet she’s always got brass to spare for gin and baccy.”

“Widow Reeves! mother—yes, but it’s other folks’ brass, and not her own.”

“Well, but she manages to get the brass anyhow,” said her mother coolly.

“I know she does, mother, and she’s the talk of the whole village. She’s in debt to every shop for miles round, and never pays nowt to nobody.”

“Maybe she don’t,” said Alice carelessly, “but she’s always brass to spare in her pocket, and so might you.”

“I couldn’t do it,” cried Betty vehemently, “I couldn’t do it, mother. It’s a sin and a shame of Widow Reeves—she takes her brass for a bit to the last new shop as turns up, and then runs up a long score, and leaves without paying.”

“Well, that’s her concern, not mine,” said the other; “I’m not saying as it’s just right; you needn’t do as she does—but you’re not bound to pay all up at once, you might hold back a little each now and then, and you’d have summat to spare for your poor old mother.”

“But I’ve promised fayther, and he trusts me.”

“Promised fayther!—you need say nowt to your fayther about it—he’ll never be none the wiser.”

“O mother, mother, how can you talk so, after all as is come and gone! How can you ask me to cheat my own poor fayther, as is so changed? he’s trying gradely to get to heaven, and to bring you along with him too, and you’re wanting to pull us all back. Mother, mother, how can you do it? How can you ask me to go agen fayther when he leaves all to me? You’re acting the devil’s part, mother, when you ’tice your own child to do wrong. Oh, it’s cruel, it’s cruel, when you know, if I were to deceive fayther it’d break his heart. But it’s the drink that’s been speaking. Oh, the cursed drink! that can pluck a mother’s heart out of her bosom, and make her the tempter of her own child! I must leave you, mother, now. I durstn’t stay. I might say summat as I shouldn’t, for I am your child still. But oh, mother, pray God to forgive you for what you’ve said to me this night; and may the Lord indeed forgive you, as I pray that I may have grace to do myself.” So saying, she hastily threw her handkerchief over her head and left the cottage.

And what were Alice Johnson’s thoughts when she was left alone? She sat still by the fire, and never moved for a long time. Darkness, midnight darkness, a horror of darkness, was settling down on her soul. She had no false support now from the drink, and so her physical state added to her utter depression. Conscience began to speak as it had never spoken before; and then came pressing on her the horrible craving, which she had no means now of gratifying. The past and the future fastened upon her soul like the fiery fangs of two fearful snakes. She saw the wasted past—her children neglected; her home desolate, empty, foul, comfortless; her husband and herself wasting life in the indulgence of their common sin, living without God in the world;—she saw herself the cause, in part at least, of her son’s flight; she remembered how she had ever set herself against his joining the band of total abstainers;—and now she beheld herself about the vilest thing on earth—a mother deliberately tempting her daughter to deceive her father, that herself might gratify her craving for the drink. Oh, how she loathed herself! oh, what a horror crept over her soul! Could she really be so utterly vile? could she really have sunk so low? And then came up before her the yet more fearful future: her husband no longer a companion with her in her sin—she must sin alone; her daughter alienated from her by her own act; and then the drink, for which she had sold herself body and soul, she must be without it, she must crave and not be satisfied—the thought was intolerable, it was madness. But there was a farther future; there was in the far distance the blackness of darkness for ever, yet rendered visible by the glare of a coming hell. Evening thickened round her, but she sat on. The air all about her seemed crowded with spirits of evil; her misery became deeper and deeper; she did not, she could not repent—and what then?

An hour later Betty returned from Ned Brierley’s. Where was Alice? Betty looked for her, but she was nowhere to be found; she called her, but there was no answer. She concluded that she had gone into a neighbour’s, and sat down waiting for her till she grew weary: her heart was softened towards her; she would pray for her, she would try still to win her back from the bondage of Satan; she was her mother still. Hour after hour passed, but still her mother did not come. Betty took a light, and went up into the chamber to fetch her Bible. Something unusual near the door caught her eye—with a scream of terror she darted forward. Oh, what a sight! her miserable mother was hanging behind the door from a beam! Betty’s repeated screams brought in the neighbours; they found the wretched woman quite dead. She had sinned away her day of grace; and was gone to give in her account of body, soul, time, talents, utterly wasted, and of her life taken by her own hands; and all—all under the tyranny of the demon of drink.

Chapter Fourteen.

Plotting.

When Betty’s cries of horror brought the neighbours round her, they found the poor girl lying insensible by the corpse of her mother, which was still suspended by the beam behind the door. They cut down the wretched creature, and tried everything to restore her to consciousness; but life was fled—the day of trial was over. Johnson returned from the pit, from whence he was summoned, to find his wife dead, destroyed by her own hand; and Betty utterly prostrate on her bed with the terrible and agonising shock.

Oh, drink, drink! most heartless of all fiendish destroyers, thou dost kill thy victims with a smile, plucking away from them every stay and support that keeps them from the pit of destruction; robbing them of every comfort, while hugging them in an embrace which promises delight, and yet crushes out the life-blood both of body and soul; making merriment in the eye and on the tongue, while home, love, character, and peace are melting and vanishing away. Wretched Alice! she might have been a happy mother, a happy wife, with her children loving, honouring, and blessing her; but she had sold herself for the drink, and a life of shame and a death of despair were her miserable reward.

Poor Johnson’s life was now a very weary one. He had hope indeed to cheer him—a better than any earthly hope, a hope full of immortality. Still he was but a beginner in the Christian life, and had hard work to struggle on through the gloom towards the guiding light through the deep shadows of earth that were thickening around him. Betty tried to cheer him; but, poor girl, she needed cheering herself. Her brother’s flight; the uncertainty as to what had really become of him; the hope deferred of hearing from him which made her heart sick; and now the dreadful death of her unhappy mother, and that, too, so immediately following on their last miserable conversation;—all these sorrows combined weighed down her spirit to the very dust. She longed to flee away and be at rest; but she could not escape into forgetfulness, and she would not fly from duty. So a dark cloud hung over that home, and it was soon to be darker still. Ned Brierley was appointed manager of a colliery in Wales, at a place a hundred miles or more from Langhurst, and a few months after Alice Johnson’s death he removed to his new situation, with all his family. A night or two before he left he called upon Johnson.

“Well, my lad,” he said, taking a seat near the fire, “I reckon you and I mayn’t meet again for many a long day. But if you’re coming our side at any time, we shall be right glad to see you, and Betty too, and give you a hearty total abstainer’s welcome.”

“I’m afraid,” said Betty, “that fayther nor me’s not like to be travelling your road. I’m sure I’m glad you’re a-going to better yourselves, for you desarve it; but it’ll be the worse for us.”

“Ay,” said Johnson despondingly; “first one prop’s taken away, and then another; and after a bit the roof’ll fall in, and make an end on us.”

“Nay, nay, man,” said his friend reprovingly, “it’s not come to that yet. You forget the best of all Friends, the Lord Jesus Christ. He ever liveth; and hasn’t he said, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee?’”

“That’s true,” replied the other; “but I can’t always feel it. He’s helped me afore now, and I know as he’ll help me again—but I can’t always trust him as I should.”

“Ah, but you must trust him,” said Brierley earnestly; “you must stick firm to your Saviour. And you must stick firm to your pledge, Thomas—promise me that.”

“Yes; by God’s help, so I will,” was the reply; “only I see I shall have hard work. But it’s no odds, they can’t make me break if I’m resolved that I won’t.”

“No, fayther,” said his daughter; “and they can’t go the breadth of a thread further nor the Lord permits.”

“That’s true, Betty, my lass,” said Ned; “so cheer up, Thomas. I feel sure—I can’t tell you why, but I do feel sure—that the Lord’ll bring back your Sammul again. He’ll turn up some day, take my word for it. So don’t lose heart, Thomas; but remember how the blessed Book says, ‘Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.’”

“God bless you,” said Johnson, squeezing Ned’s hand hard; “you’re a gradely comforter.”

And so they parted.

It was not long, however, before Thomas’s patience was tried to the uttermost. His enemies let him alone for a short time after his wife’s death—for there is a measure of rugged consideration even among profligates and drunkards. But a storm had been brewing, and it fell at last when Ned Brierley had been gone from Langhurst about a month. A desperate effort was made to get Johnson back to join his old companions at the “George,” and when this utterly failed, every spiteful thing that malice could suggest and ingenuity effect was practised on the unfortunate collier, and in a measure upon Betty also. But, like the wind in the fable, this storm only made Johnson wrap himself round more firmly in the folds of his own strong resolution, rendered doubly strong by prayer. Such a thought as yielding never crossed his mind. His only anxiety was how best to bear the cross laid on him. There were, of course, other abstainers in Langhurst besides the Brierleys, and these backed him up, so that by degrees his tormentors began to let him alone, and gave him a space for breathing, but they never ceased to have an eye towards him for mischief.

The month of October had now come, when one evening, as Johnson and Betty were sitting at tea after their day’s work, there was a knock at the door, and immediately afterwards a respectable-looking man entered, and asked,—

“Does not Thomas Johnson live here?”

“Yes; he does,” was Johnson’s reply.

“And I suppose, then, you’re Thomas Johnson yourself?” said the stranger.

“I reckon you’re not so far wrong,” was the answer.

“Ah, well; so it is for sure,” broke out Betty. “Why, you’re the teetottal chap as came a-lecturing when me and our poor Sammul signed the pledge.”

“Sit ye down, sit ye down,” cried her father; “you’re welcome to our house, though it is but a sorrowful one.”

“I think, my friend,” said the stranger, “that you are one of us now.”

“You may well say now,” replied the other, “for when you was here afore, you’d a gone out of the door a deal quicker nor you came in; but, I bless the Lord, things are changed now.”

“Yes, indeed,” said the other, “it is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes; though, indeed, he does work such wonderful things that we’ve daily cause to bless and praise him. Well, my friend—for we are friends, I see, in the best of bonds now—I have not long to stay now, but I just want to ask you one thing. I should like to have a total abstinence meeting next month in Langhurst. Will you say a word for us? We want some working man who has been rescued, through God’s mercy, from the chains of the drink, to stand up and tell, in a simple, straightforward way, what he once was, and what God has done for him as a pledged abstainer; and I judge, from what I hear, that you’re just the man we want.”

Johnson paused for a while.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head; “I don’t know. I’m not so sure it’ll do at all.”

“Oh, fayther,” cried Betty, “you must do what the gentleman axes you. It may do good to some poor creatures, and lead ’em to sign. It’s only a small candle-end as the Lord’s given such as we are, but we must light it, and let it shine.”

“Well,” said her father, slowly, “maybe I oughtn’t to say ‘No;’ and yet you may be sure, if it gets talked on in the village, it’s little peace as I shall have.”

“Well, my friend,” said the stranger, “of course I don’t wish to bring you into trouble. Still this is one of the ways in which you may take up a cross nobly for your Saviour, and he’ll give the strength to carry it.”

“Say no more,” replied Johnson; “if the Lord spares me, they shall hear a gradely tale from me.”

It was soon noised abroad in Langhurst that Thomas Johnson was to give an account of himself as a reformed man and a total abstainer, at a meeting to be held in the village in the following month of November.

His old companions were half mad with rage and vexation. What could be done? They were determined that he should be served out in some way, and that he should be prevented from appearing at the meeting. Come what would, he should not stand up and triumph in his teetotalism on the platform—that they were quite resolved on. Some scheme or plan must be devised to hinder it. And fortune seemed to favour them.

A short time after it became generally known that Johnson was to speak, a young lad might be seen hurrying home in his coal-pit-clothes to a low, dirty-looking cottage that stood on the outskirts of the village.

“Mother,” cried the boy, as soon as he reached the house and could recover his breath, “where’s fayther?”

“He’s not come home yet,” said the mother; “but what ails you, John?”

“Why, mother,” said the boy, with trembling voice, “fayther gave me a shilling to get change just as we was leaving the pit-bank, and I dropped it somewhere as I were coming down the lane. I’m almost sure Ben Taylor’s lad found it, and picked it up; but when I axed him if he hadn’t got it, he said ‘No,’ and told me he’d knock my head against the wall if I didn’t hold my noise. I see’d fayther go by at the lane end, but he didn’t see me. He’ll thrash the life out of me if he finds I’ve lost the shilling.—I’ve run for my life, but he’ll be here directly. You must make it right, mother—you must.”

“Ay, ay, lad; I’ll speak to your fayther. He shan’t beat you. Just keep out of the road till he’s cooled down a bit. Eh! here he comes for sure, and a lot of his mates with him. There—just creep under the couch-chair, lad. They’ll not tarry so long. Fayther’ll be off to the ‘George’ as soon as he’s had his tea.”

So the poor boy crept under the couch, the hanging drapery effectually hiding him from the view of any who might come in. Another moment, and Will Jones the father entered the house with half-a-dozen companions.

“Well, and what’s up now?” asked the wife, as the men seated themselves—some on chairs, and one or two on the couch.

“Never you heed, Martha,” said her husband; “but just clap to the door, and take yourself off to Molly Grundy’s, or anywhere else you’ve a mind.”

“I can tell you I shall do nothing of the sort,” was the reply. “A likely thing, indeed, as I’m to take myself off and leave my own hearth-stone while a parcel of chaps is turning the house out of the windows. If you’re up to that sort of game, or if you want to be talking anything as decent folk shouldn’t hear, you’d better be off to the ‘George.’ It’s the fittest place for such work.”

“Eh! don’t vex Martha,” said one of the men. “She’ll promise not to split, I’ll answer for it. Won’t you, Martha?”

“Eh, for sure,” said Martha, “if you’re bound to have your talk here, you needn’t be afraid of me; only I hope you’re not going to do anything as’ll bring us into trouble.”

“Never fear,” said her husband; “there, sit you down and mend your stockings, and the less you heed us the less you’ll have to afterthink.”

The men then began to talk together in a loudish whisper.

“Tommy Jacky’ll be making a fine tale about you and me,” said Jones. “Eh, what a sighing and groaning there will be; and then we shall see in the papers, ‘Mr Johnson finished his speech amidst loud applause.’”

“Eh, but we must put a stopper in his mouth,” said another.

“But how must we do it?” asked a third. “Thomas is not the chap to be scared out of what he’s made up his mind to.”

“No,” remarked another; “and there’s many a one as’d stand by him if we were to try anything strong.”

“Can’t we shame him at the meeting?” asked another.

“Nay,” said Jones, “he’s gradely. You couldn’t shame him by telling folks what he was; and all as knows him knows as he’s kept his teetottal strict enough.”

“I have it!” cried a man, the expression of whose face was a sad mixture of sensuality, shrewdness, and malice. “I’ll just tell you what we’ll do. You know how people keeps saying—‘What a changed man Johnson is! how respectable and clean he looks! how tidy he’s dressed when he goes to church on a Sunday!—you’ve only to look in his face to see he’s a changed man.’ Now, I’ll just tell you what we’ll do, if you’ve a mind to stand by me and give me a help. It’ll do him no harm in the end, and’ll just take a little of the conceit out on him. And won’t it just spoil their sport at the meeting!”

“Tell us what it is, man,” cried all the others eagerly.

“Well, you know the water-butt at the back of Thomas’s house. Well, you can reach the windows of the chamber by standing on the butt. The window’s not hard to open, for I’ve often seen Alice throw it up; and I’m sure it’s not fastened. Now, just suppose we waits till the night afore the meeting; that’ll be the twenty-second—there’ll be no moon then. Thomas won’t be in the night-shift that week. I know he sleeps sound, for I’ve heard their Betty say as it were the only thing as kept ’em up, that they slept both on ’em so well. Suppose, then, as we gets a goodish-sized furze bush or two, and goes round to the back about two o’clock in the morning. We must have a rope or two; then we must take off our clogs, and climb up by the water-butt. The one as goes up first must have a dark lantern. Well, then, we must creep quietly in, and just lap a rope loosely round the bed till we’re all ready. Then we’ll just tighten the rope so that he can’t move, and I’ll scratch his sweet face all over with the furze; and one of you chaps must have some gunpowder and lamp-black ready to rub it well into his face where it’s been scratched. You must stuff a clout into his mouth if he offers to holler. We can do it all in two minutes by the help of the lantern. The light’ll dazzle him so as he’ll not be able to make any on us out; and then we must slip out of the window and be off afore he’s had time to wriggle himself out of the ropes. Eh, won’t he be a lovely pictur next day!—his best friends, as they say, won’t know him. Won’t he just look purty at the meeting! There’s a model teetottaller for you! Do you think he’ll have the face to say then, ‘You’ve heard, ladies and gentlemen, what I once was; you see what I am now?’ Oh, what a rare game it’ll be!”

This proposition was received by the rest of the company with roars of laughter and the fullest approbation.

“It’ll be first-rate,” said Jones, “if we can only manage it.”

“Surely,” said another, “he’ll never dare show his face out of the door.”

“Ah, but,” suggested one, “what about Betty? She’s sure to wake and spoil it all. It’s too risky, with her sleeping close by.”

“No,” said another man, “it’ll just be all right. Betty’ll be off at Rochdale visiting her aunt. Our Mary heard Fanny Higson and Betty talking it over at the mill a day or two since. ‘So you’ll not be at the meeting?’ says Fanny. ‘Why not?’ says Betty. ‘’Cos you’ll be off at your aunt’s at Rochdale,’ says Fanny. ‘Ah, but I’m bound to be back for the meeting, and hear fayther tell his tale,’ says Betty. ‘I’ll be back some time in the forenoon, to see as fayther has his Sunday shirt and shoes, and his clothes all right, and time enough to dress myself for the meeting. Old Jenny’ll see to fayther while I’m off. It’ll be all right if I’m at home some time in the forenoon.’ So you see, mates, it couldn’t be better; as the parson says, it’s quite a providence.”

“Well, what say you?” cried Will Jones. “Shall we strike hands on it?”

All at once shook hands, vowing to serve out poor Johnson.

“Ay,” exclaimed one, “we must get the chap as takes photographs to come over on purpose. Eh, what a rare cart-der-wissit Tommy’ll make arter the scratching. You must lay in a lot on ’em, Will, and sell ’em for sixpence a piece. You’ll make your fortune by it, man.”

“Martha,” said Jones, turning to his wife, “mind, not a word to any living soul about what we’ve been saying.”

“I’ve said I won’t tell,” replied his wife; “and in course I won’t. But I’m sure you might find summat better to do nor scratching a poor fellow’s face as has done you no harm. I’m not fond of your teetottal chaps; but Tommy’s a quiet, decent sort of man, and their Betty’s as tidy a wench as you’ll meet with anywhere; and I think it’s a shame to bring ’em any more trouble, for they’ve had more nor their share as it is. It’d be a rare and good thing if some of you chaps’d follow Tommy’s example. There’d be more peace in the house, and more brass in the pocket at the week end.”

“Hold your noise, and mind your own business,” shouted her husband, fiercely. “You just blab a word of what we’ve been saying, and see how I’ll sarve you out.—Come, mates, let’s be off to the ‘George;’ we shall find better company there.”

So saying, he strode savagely out of the cottage, followed by his companions. When they were fairly gone, the poor boy slipped from his hiding-place.

“Johnny,” said his mother, “if you’ll do what your mother bids you, I’ll give your fayther the change for the shilling out of my own pocket, and he’ll never know as you lost it.”

“Well, mother, I’ll do it if I can.”

“You’ve heard what your fayther and t’other chaps were saying?”

“Yes, mother; every word on’t.”

“Well, John, I promised I wouldn’t let out a word of it myself; but I didn’t say that you shouldn’t.”

“Eh, mother, if I split, fayther’ll break every bone in my body.”

“But how’s your fayther to know anything about it? He knows nothing of your being under the couch-chair. I can swear as I haven’t opened my lips to any one out of the house, nor to any one as has come into it. You just slip down now to Thomas’s, and tell their Betty you wants to speak with her by herself. Tell her she mustn’t say a word to any one. She’s a good wench. She’s sharp enough, too; she’ll keep it all snug. She were very good to me when our Moses were down with the fever, and I mustn’t let her get into this trouble when I can lend her a helping hand to get her out.”

“But, mother,” said her son, “what am I to tell Betty?”

“Why, just tell her all you’ve heard, and how you were under the couch-chair, and how I promised myself as I wouldn’t split. Tell her she must make no din about it, but just keep her fayther out of the way. He may go off to his brother Dick’s, and come home in the morn, and who’s to say as he’s heard anything about the scratching.”

“Well, mother,” said John, “I’ll do as you say. Betty’s a good wench; she’s given me many a kind word, and many a butter cake too, and I’d not like to see her fretting if I could help it.”

“There’s a good lad,” said his mother; “be off at once. Fayther’s safe in the ‘George.’ It’ll be pretty dark in the lane. You can go in at the back, and you’re pretty sure to find Betty at home. Be sharp, and I’ll keep your tea for you till you come back again.”

Chapter Fifteen.

Flitting.