Chapter II: Part 2

"I'm sorry for them," said the miller, carelessly; "the founder should have left something to keep the wheel going."

"What is wanted is the full stream of Christian love," observed Franks. "There are scores of charities in London kept constantly working by nothing but that stream."

The miller did not look as if he had a drop of such love within him. "It is clear," thought Franks, "that I'm not in the right tack yet. Let me try him on that of conscience. Why," he continued, aloud, "there's no plainer command in the Bible than _To do good and to distribute, forget not; let us do good unto all men, and specially unto them that are of the household of faith_."

"I know something of the Bible, too," replied Bat Bell, coldly, and the twitch was more unpleasant than before. "I'm a father, and I don't forget that it's written that _He who provideth not for his own is worse than an infidel_."

"Never let that text be repeated to justify hoarding!" exclaimed Franks, with some warmth, for it flashed across his mind how the devil himself can quote Scripture. "If we are to be content with food and raiment for ourselves, shall we not be content with them also for our children, without gathering up for them gold and silver, which may only prove a snare, as has happened in thousands of cases? I am a father, too," Ned added more mildly, for he saw on the countenance of Bell that he had spoken too warmly; "I am a father, and love my little one as much as a father can love; but if thoughts of saving for him made me close my hand and heart against the claims of God's poor, I should feel, that whatever else I might leave him, I dared not expect to leave him that blessing which alone giveth true riches. I should feel that my babe was coming between my soul and my God, and that I must look for God to punish me in him. Of whatever we make our idol, the Lord is wont to make his rod."

"I've no such superstitious fears!" cried Bat Bell, rising from his seat with a gesture of impatience. Had his visitor been any one but Ned Franks, from whom he had received kindness in time of sorrow, he would have given his guest a broader hint to depart.

"Let us not talk of fear, then, neighbor," said Franks, also rising, but with no intention of yet giving up his attempt to move that cold, hard heart. "Have patience with me a few moments more, while I speak of a nobler motive,--the love of God. Look around you, Bat Bell, look at this comfortable home, where want is unknown; you were ill last winter; look at the health and strength restored you now; listen to the merry voice of your child,"--a joyous carol was heard from without,--"and then ask yourself from whom came all these blessings, the loss of any one of which would throw you into sore distress. The goods that you have you owe"--

"To hard work, the labor of my hands in the sweat of my brow," interrupted the miller.

"Who gave the hand strength and the mind reason? whose power made the stream which turns your mill? whose sunshine ripens the corn on your fields? But why speak only of earthly blessings,--we have more, far more to thank God for! We have not only bodies but souls to care for; we have not only time but eternity to live for. Can we be content to sit still and do nothing for others, when we know what God's Son hath done for us; when we think at what a price he bought our salvation; how, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor? He calls us to make no sacrifice for him that he has not first made a thousand-fold for us; and when he would teach us what charity should be, the Lord sums up all in the words, _Love one another as I have loved you_."

Ned Franks's appeal was interrupted by the door being thrown suddenly open, and little Bessy's running into the room. The white pinafore of the child, held up by one chubby hand, formed a receptacle for a number of wild flowers which she had been gathering in the lane. With her blue eyes sparkling with pleasure, the child ran up to her father.

"See, I've plucked 'em for you, every one!" she cried, emptying her pinafore on the chair from which Bat Bell had lately risen; "no,--all but this dead primrose,--it's withered and bad, it's not fit to give father!" Bessy threw the faded flower away. "I've brought you the _first_ I could find; now, I'll run and get more for myself."

Bell caught up his girl, lifted her up high, and then kissed her again and again before he set her again on the floor. Bessy nodded merrily at Ned.

"You shall have some, too," she said; "but the _first_ are always for father;" and away ran the happy child, leaving her spring flowers behind her.

And Bessy left something besides. The visit of the little one had seemed to bring sunshine with it. The hard lines on the parent's face were softened, every feature relaxed, the cold, money-making man was a parent, and a fond parent still. Franks felt that the unconscious Bessy had acted the part of a little ally; that she was helping to stir the deeply-imbedded vessel which he had been trying to move.

"Will that dear little girl enjoy her flowers less because the _first_ are always for her father?" said Franks, as soon as the sound of the pattering feet was heard no longer. "Would that God's children were more like her, bringing their gifts with readiness, with joy, and not like too many of us, offering only the withered thing, the dead thing, that which we will not miss, to him whose goodness towards us has been greater than that of any father on earth!"

Bat Bell's hand approached his pocket, though he did not actually put it in. "Ned Franks," said the miller, "I tell you honestly, that I wouldn't stand this kind of talk from any man but yourself; but I know that your practice is better than your preaching; so, as you've set your heart on getting something for these cottages, just as a matter of favor to you"--Bell stopped short; he could not make up his mind either to finish his sentence, or to draw out his purse.

"I do not want you to give as a matter of favor to me," cried Franks, "nor is the state of the cottages what is uppermost now in my mind. I came here, indeed, anxious to get something for _them_, but I am a hundred-fold more anxious to get something for you!" The miller raised his dusty eyebrows with surprise, but Franks went on, without giving him time to interrupt the earnest flow of his speech. "If we knew that our Lord and Master had come down again to this earth, that he was in our land, our country, our village, nay, that he was deigning to dwell in one of these cottages, which, wretched as they are, are better than the Bethlehem stable, would we not deem it the first of honors to be allowed to bring gifts to him? Would not you and I be ready to pull down our own dwellings to get beams and rafters for his, and think the best that we have, yea, _all_ that we have, too little to offer to our King? And it is all the same, Bat Bell: what we give to the poor for his sake, Christ receives as given to himself. _Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me._ Yes, my friend, I want help for the cottages, but I much more want something for _you_,--the joy of hearing at the last day the Saviour's welcome, _Come, ye blessed of my Father_."

VI.

The Return.

The fervent appeal, coming as it did from the very heart of the pleader, had stirred the stubborn hearer a little, though but a little way from his first position. Bat Bell could not help remembering that there was a reverse to the blessing, a "_Depart ye cursed_," for those of whom Christ would witness, "_Ye did it not unto me_." Bell feared that he might have lived all his life under the shadow of that curse; so, anxious to justify himself to his own conscience even more than to Franks, he took refuge in the remembrance of what he deemed a good deed.

"I can give,--I _have_ given, and largely, too," said the miller, leaning his head against the wall. "There's my nephew, Rob Gates; did I not pay fifty pounds to 'prentice him out,--_fifty pounds_," repeated the miller emphatically, "of which I have not had one penny back, though the ungrateful dog has been in business these three years?"

Upon this one act of generosity Bell always fell back when any call on his charity was made, as if he considered that the lent fifty pounds covered every claim which could be made on his purse by religion or by humanity. It always gave him an opportunity of declaiming against the ingratitude of mankind; because his nephew had not repaid his loan, all who needed aid from the miller became in his eyes covetous and thankless, if not dishonest. Bat Bell tried to believe that in hazarding fifty pounds he had already given enough to God; it would have startled him to have been told that not one farthing of the money could be reckoned as real charity. Bell had helped his nephew from _natural affection_, and from _family pride_. The miller had acted exactly as he would have acted if he had been a Turk or an Infidel,--exactly as he would have acted had he never heard the name of the Lord. Tried by this test, of how small a part of our alms, alas! will the Master be able to say, _Ye did it unto me_!

"That miserable fifty pounds," thought Ned, who had heard of it often before, and who knew too well that the miller used its loss as a perpetual argument to silence conscience, and excuse his neglect of the poor.

"You see, Ned Franks," continued the miller, "a man who has once made sacrifices for others, and has only met with ingratitude; who has spent upon a good-for-nothing scapegrace of a nephew--"

The miller suddenly stopped and started. Ned, whose back was towards the open door, only knew by the change on the face of Bell, the look of surprise that flashed across it, that a third party had unexpectedly joined them. Turning round he saw a stout young man, in a shaggy coat, with a knapsack on his shoulders, and a broad grin on his good-humored face, who advanced with both hands extended to the miller, exclaiming in a loud, hearty tone, "Here's the good-for-nothing scapegrace to answer for himself."

Bell gave his nephew a cordial welcome both with hand and voice, and Franks was so glad to see the hearty greeting, that he did not ask himself whether it were possible that the uncle's pleasure at seeing the young man might partly be owing to the hope of his now having the old debt cleared off.

"So you were giving me a pretty character, uncle," cried Rob Gates, after he had thrown himself on a chair; "well, I can't grumble at that, as you've neither seen nor heard from me for many a long year; but I never was much of a scribe, and don't trouble the postman from January to December. I don't care to write till I've something to say, so I waited till I could play the postman myself, and bring a kind of notes that are easily read, and will tell more of gratitude, duty, and that sort of thing, than reams of foolscap scribbled all over."

With a look of honest satisfaction, the young man pulled a large leathern pocket-book from his breast-pocket. His movements were watched with keen interest by the miller, as Rob opened the clasp, and then slowly drew out, one after another, unfolding and smoothing out each as he did so, ten five-pound notes of the Bank of England. He spread them with his broad, rough hands over the table, as if he took a boyish pleasure in making the greatest possible show of his wealth.

"Uncle, here's the fifty pounds which I owe you," said Rob; "you're not sorry now, I hope, that you lent a helping hand to your scapegrace of a nephew? I can't believe that a fellow ever has cause to be sorry for doing a kindness; it always in one way or other comes back."

Franks glanced at the miller, and fancied that he saw his thin lip quiver a little, and that something like moisture rose in the usually dark, cold eye. Ned could not tell what was passing in the mind of that man, as he laid his hand on one of the notes. Slowly, half reluctantly, the miller raised it, and then, as if moved by an impulse, which even his selfish nature could not withstand, Bell handed that note to the sailor, saying, "You came at a lucky time; take that,--it's for Wild Rose Hollow."

Ned stood amazed at success so far beyond all his hopes. He had indeed been led to that dwelling in a happy moment, when Bell's hard heart had been softened and touched, or, to use his own simile, "when a spring-tide had set in so strongly as to help the stranded craft off the shoal." His words of thanks were hearty, and while the miller set about preparing a meal for his hungry guest, the one-armed sailor joyously started on his homeward way.

Merrily Franks sped up the glen, his blithe whistle mingling with the chord of the lark that hung quivering over his head. Ben Stone, the carpenter, who had just returned from the hall, was standing at the door of his shop, on the lookout for Ned Franks.

"Why, he looks as gladsome as if he'd just come in for a fortune himself," muttered the carpenter, "and he's whistling away like a bird! But all that jollity must be put on to cover disappointment, for if he got more than a crooked four-penny bit from that miserly miller, I'm a Dutchman, that's all! Well, Ned Franks," cried the jovial carpenter aloud, "how many brass farthings has Bat Bell pulled out of his hoard to prop up the houses in Wild Rose Hollow?"

Franks waved the crisp, fluttering bank-note in reply.

"You don't mean--what--no--not a _bank-note_--a five-pound note!" exclaimed the astonished Stone, scarcely able to credit his eyes. His exclamation was echoed by his wife and two neighbors who joined him at the moment.

"It must be a toy-note," suggested Mrs. Stone.

"No," laughed Ned, "it is a good honest note of the Bank of England, worth five sovereigns of any man's money. Bat Bell was unexpectedly repaid a large loan at the very time when I was with him to ask help for Wild Rose Hollow; the first note which he touched he gave to God, and I trust that God will bless him for it," added Franks, with fervor; "it was more from him than a much larger sum would have been from another man."

"The sum's pretty large from anybody," said the carpenter, with rather a rueful face, for Bat Bell's generosity had taken him by surprise in an inconvenient way. "I hope that I'm not expected to hold to my unlucky offer; where Bell gives once, I give a hundred times; he may plump out a five-pound note and not miss it, but I've not the knack of turning deal shavings into gold."

"No, no, neighbor," cried Franks, "no one would think of holding you to such a bargain. You have not suddenly come into money like Bell, or, I've not a doubt, you'd give to the full as large as he."

"But I'm not the man to flinch from my word," said Stone; "if I can't give the money, I'll give the money's worth in work when I've time to spare; so you may count that five pounds as fairly doubled, my friend."

"That will be a lucky bank-note to you, Mr. Franks," observed the carpenter's wife; "for now that you've brought in such a sum to help the collection, I'm sure and certain that you'll be the man fixed upon to be clerk at our church, instead of John Sands."

"Instead of Sands! why, he's not going to resign the place, surely?" cried Franks.

"He'll have to give it up; he could not for shame stand up just below the reading-desk, give out the psalms, and lead the singing, as if nothing had happened," observed Ben Stone, with a shake of his head.

"Why, Sands is the most quiet, steady, sober--"

"But his wife, she's the mischief, she's the ruin of him; a man is what a woman makes him," quoth the jovial carpenter, giving a self-complacent nod towards his own partner. "Parsons, we're told, must have their own houses in subjection, and I guess the same rule holds with their clerks. All Colme is talking about it. We'll have you, our one-armed sailor, clerk as well as school-master; there's no one so fit for the place!"

VII.

Brightness and Gloom.

"So there's a chance of my being made clerk as well as school-master of Colme," said Ned Franks to himself, as he walked towards his home. "Such a breeze of good fortune is more than I ever could have hoped for. Why, there would be twenty-six pounds a year, besides what I have now, and no trifle in the way of fees! Now that I am a family man, I shall find plenty to do with the money. I shall be able to fulfil my heart's desire, to give my boy, when he's old enough to learn, a first-rate education. Little Ned shall have every advantage, bless him! There's no saying what he may turn out in time,--may be a parson, maybe a bishop, one of these days!" Franks laughed to himself, and walked on with brisker step at the thought. "Then I'll be able to insure my life, so that if anything should happen to me, my Persis shouldn't be cast adrift on the waves, or have to pull the oar herself in a heavy sea! And we'll have something to give to others. I think that I'll devote the fees for the first year, at least, to the repair of the old almshouses in Wild Rose Hollow. Persis will approve of that, I am sure. Grand news I have to carry home to wifie to-day! When I was nothing but a poor Jack-tar, and then lost my arm by an awkward accident, and thought that the storm of misfortune was throwing me back on my native shore like a battered wreck that never would float again, how little I dreamed what a prosperous gale that storm was for me! Here am I, as far from being a wreck as ever I was in my life (barring that instead of my left arm I've timber and a hook, which serve my purpose quite well), scudding along, buoyant as a cork, with the best of wives and the sweetest of babes and the happiest of homes, with teaching work, which is just to my liking, and now with the prospect in addition of being appointed Clerk of Colme, in the place of John Sands!"

But the last words, like a touch to a sleeper, broke the charm of Ned Franks's pleasant day-dream.

"Shame on me!" he muttered, half aloud; "here am I rejoicing, like a shameless wrecker, in the ruin of a poor fellow who never did harm to me or mine! The proverb says, 'It's ill standing in dead men's shoes,' but this is something worse. If poor Sands has to resign the snug berth he's held with credit for the last ten years, it will be because he has the misery of having a wife who has taken to drink; her disgrace falls upon him, and because his home is wretched, he may have the very bread taken out of his mouth! Instead of feeling for him, as any man, let alone a Christian, should feel, I, who have had my cup of blessings already filled to overflowing, I am counting on his loss as my gain; because his happiness is shipwrecked, I'm looking to get my share of the spoils! Out upon me for a selfish, covetous fellow!" exclaimed the indignant tar. "That same prosperous gale that I thought so much of seems to be blowing me right on that sandbank of love of money, from which I've been warning others. I must take care to sheer off myself!"

The road along which the school-master of Colme was passing, led him by the cottage of Sands the clerk, and he glanced, as he went by, at the untidy, weed-grown garden, the window with the broken pane stuffed with rags, which told a sad tale of sorrow and neglect. The cottage was rather a large and good one, and a few years back had worn an appearance of comfort and prosperity, such as befitted the home of the respectable Clerk of Colme. Franks remembered the lines stretched out along the garden, whitened with linen hung out to dry; for Nancy Sands, a strong and active woman, had added many a pound to her husband's gains by her skill in laundry-work. Now one of the poles lay rotting on the ground; a broken, dirty cord, hanging loose from the wall, was all that remained of the lines. Families no longer cared to trust Nancy Sands with their washing, and, if report spoke truth, the poor clerk had sometimes to iron his own shirts himself, to keep up the decent appearance indispensable to one in his station.

Ned Franks had not gone many yards past the dwelling of Sands, when he saw before him the poor man himself, advancing slowly, as if there were little to attract him towards his home. The figure of the Clerk of Colme, by its peculiar stiffness and formality, was easily recognized at a distance. He always dressed in black, and so appropriate did the cloth appear to the wearer, that no one could imagine John Sands appearing in any less grave attire. Even in his best days the Clerk of Colme had seemed as if he could never look happy. The closely cropped hair, black and almost as thick as the fur of a beaver, was seen above a thin, sallow face, always so solemn and serious that it was supposed to be incapable of smiling. There had been some thought, years before the beginning of this story, of appointing John Sands as school-master at Colme; but there was not one of the scholars who would not have regarded such an appointment with exceeding dislike and disgust. The boys were certain that the old raven, as they called the clerk, must have been brought up in an undertaker's shop, and been cradled in a coffin; they believed that he had never laughed when a baby, nor played at cricket or football when a boy; indeed, a doubt was expressed as to whether the clerk had ever been a boy at all, but had not rather grown out of a Liliputian man, clad in a tiny black coat, and miniature white neck-cloth. No one was very intimate with John Sands; no one ever addressed him by his Christian name, or thought of clapping him on the shoulder, or telling him a bit of good news, or asking him to "come and share pot-luck." Yet nothing could be said against the clerk, except that he did not rule his own house well, and was thought to be henpecked by Nancy.

When the sailor (for such Franks still considered himself, and was considered by other to be, though he had not been afloat for years) saw John Sands coming towards him, he had something of a feeling of shame; it seemed to his kindly, honest nature as if he had done his neighbor wrong by even thinking of taking his place. Franks lifted his cap with a courteous "Good-day," as he was about to pass John Sands, but the clerk stood stock-still on the path, and clearly did not wish to be passed.

"Mr. Franks," he said, to the sailor, "if you could spare me a few minutes, I should like to have a quiet talk with you. The church is hard by; will you come with me into the vestry?"

Now Franks was in great haste to get home; he was impatient to tell his wife of his wondrous success with Bat Bell; besides, having given away his breakfast, he was exceedingly hungry; for, having risen at four o'clock that morning, and having eaten nothing since an early breakfast, his sharp appetite reminded him that it was long past his usual dinner-time. Franks had calculated on having just a quarter of an hour in which to satisfy hunger, and tell all his news, before his pupils would gather again for afternoon lessons. Had John Sands not been in trouble, Franks might have asked him to put off his proposed quiet talk; but the sailor was sorry for Nancy's husband, and only reminded the clerk that lessons would begin again at two, and that the school-master must be at his post.

Franks doubted whether Sands had even noticed this hint. The clerk turned back, and, at a slower pace than was pleasant to his hungry companion, proceeded towards the village church, not uttering a single word as he went. The two passed along the little walk which led to the back door which opened into the vestry. The clerk very slowly, at least so it seemed to Franks, drew the large key out of his pocket, and fitted it into the lock. The creaking door was opened, and the two men entered the little room which looked so neat, solemn, and silent, with the light from the diamond-paned window falling on its green cloth-covered table, with the heavy desk, and the big registry book upon it. It is probable that the clerk felt more at home in this place than in his own cheerless dwelling; here at least there was peace.

There were in the mind of Ned Franks very pleasant recollections connected with that vestry-room. The very chair which he now took had been occupied by his bride, when, for the last time, she had signed herself "Persis Meade;" in that place he had first called her "wife," and there, but two days ago, their first-born babe had been registered as received by baptism into the church. The clerk also seemed to have the latter event in his mind; for, as he seated himself under the window, with his back to the light, he observed, in the slow, measured tone which he always used, "Your child was christened in this church on last Saturday, Mr. Franks."

"If that is all he has to say to me," thought the half-famished sailor, "I need scarcely have lost my dinner for it;" but he waited, with what patience he could command, for the next slow sentence which might drop from the lips of John Sands.

These two men, who had once been rival aspirants for the post of school-master at Colme, formed a singular contrast to each other,--Sands, with that primly-cut hair, which lay like a judge's black cap on his head, and his face as grave as if he were that judge pronouncing sentence; Franks, with light brown locks, which seemed to curl themselves round with very good-humor, and bright blue eyes, always ready to sparkle with fun, as well as to beam with kindness. No one could wonder at the preference felt by the boys for the one-armed sailor, though he had not half the learning of Sands. We know that _he that hath a merry heart hath a continual feast_; and where such a heart is possessed by a school-master, his boys enjoy, as it were, the crumbs of that feast. Ned Franks's inspiriting "Now, my hearties, let's to work," would set his scholars to their tasks with a cheerful energy almost as great as that with which they rushed out to play. The sailor felt that these young beings were entrusted to his care, not merely that he might teach them to be wise, but help them to be happy; and the influence which he thus gained over their affections greatly aided Franks in reaching the very highest mark of education,--that of training young immortals to be wise unto salvation, and happy because serving the Lord.

VIII.

Pleading.

"Mr. Franks, you have a happy home," said the clerk, after a little pause; and then he added, with a sigh, "so had I once."

Ned knew not what to reply; he thought that all England held no two women more unlike each other than Nancy Sands and his own sweet Persis.

"You see, Mr. Franks," continued the clerk, drooping his head, and looking on the carpet, "it was all sorrow that did it. There was not a better manager in Colme than Mrs. Sands, till--till we buried our only boy;" the poor man's voice faltered as he spoke; "and then she fancied that there was comfort in a drop. I don't mean to say she was right, but it's too common a mistake; I--I think the world's hard upon her, Mr. Franks,--she has been tempted, grievously tempted; but there's very good metal in her yet."

There was something touching to the sailor in the effort of the poor injured husband to throw a veil of indulgence over the glaring fault of his wife. Though her intemperance was ruining his comfort, and disgracing his name, and might seriously injure his worldly position, Sands's anxiety was to find some excuse for his wretched partner. For the affections of the quiet, stiff, formal man still clung to the choice of his youth.

John Sands had loved Nancy almost from his boyhood; often had he been jested about his fancy for the boisterous black-eyed girl, who cared so little for him. When Nancy had grown into a bold, self-willed woman, ready enough to receive his attentions, but trifling with his feelings, and not returning his love, Sands had seen, time after time, some rival preferred to himself, and had heard, with silent anguish, that the only girl that he had ever cared for was to be married to some one else. Yet, somehow or other, every engagement of Nancy's was broken off; perhaps few men, when it came to the point of decision, would have wished to be linked for life to Bangham's termagant daughter. So, after many long years of patient, sorrowful waiting, John at length had the wish of his heart granted, and found, as too many find, that he had chosen ill for his own peace of mind. Nancy might have made a good, hard-working wife to a man who would have ruled as well as loved her,--one who would have taught her to obey; but where she should have had a master, she found a servant; she despised Sands for his very anxiety to please her, and readiness to yield to her wishes. There was no open rupture between them; the wife ruled and the husband obeyed and never complained, till at length Nancy's indulgence in the vice of intemperance made John's misery a thing which no longer could be concealed from the world.

The clerk seemed to expect some reply. The sailor was puzzled what to say; he feared to hurt Sands by expressing any pity, and he was too sincere to express any hope. But as the dead silence became very painful, Ned broke it by saying, "I wish with all my heart I could help you."

"That's it, that's just it," said John Sands, raising his drooping head a little; "you're the only man I could have asked. You see," he continued, uneasily, "Mrs. Sands is always right, as she should be, when I'm by; she has the best of hearts; the metal is good, very good; but I can't be always beside her, and I'm called up to London to-morrow on business, which I cannot put off. I thought that perhaps, somehow, you'd look in a little, or--or take a sort of kind of care,"--the poor man looked wistfully into the face of Ned Franks; he knew not how to finish his sentence.

"Really, Mr. Sands," said the embarrassed sailor, "I do not see what I could possibly do. I'm not in high favor with your wife; any interference on my part she would certainly take amiss."

All the village knew that Nancy had done all in her power, by trying to blacken Ned's character, to prevent his being appointed school-master at Colme, and that she cordially disliked him.

"It was your wife's influence I was thinking of," said the clerk. "I know that Mrs. Sands has a high opinion of Mrs. Franks. I have myself heard her say"--He stopped short, for he could hardly have repeated the compliment to the wife in the presence of the husband, as it was that "Persis Meade was fifty times too good for that canting fellow with the wooden arm."

"I am afraid that even my wife would be unable to do anything," replied Ned.

"Oh! don't say that, Mr. Franks," cried the clerk piteously, as if his last hope were being cut away. "It's wonderful what the influence of a woman can do. Do we not all know that Mrs. Franks, and you helping her, were able to convert even a hard-hearted, unbelieving Jew! Is not the baptism of Benjamin Isaacs, and of Benoni his son, down in the register there, and was it not all from the speaking of you and your wife? If she could do so much for a Jew, don't say she can do nothing for a Christian."

Franks was touched by the earnest appeal, but could not help thinking in his heart that Benjamin Isaacs, with all his Jewish prejudices, had been a more hopeful subject than Nancy Sands. He did not, however, speak; he only shook his head to express a doubt.

"Mrs. Franks could make her way with Mrs. Sands, I feel certain of it," said the clerk, after another painful silence. "Women know how to speak to women. Could she not take the babe with her? Nancy is fond of babies." Sands's voice dropped almost to a whisper, as he added, "She'd have gone through fire and water for our boy; there was never a better mother; it was sorrow that set her wrong."

Ned could hold out no longer. "I'll ask my wife to call upon Mrs. Sands to-morrow, and to take the baby, and maybe she'll get her to return the visit," said the sailor, cheerily. "Keep up a good heart, neighbor; there may be better days in store for you yet."

There was a little sound in the clerk's throat, something between a cough and sob, and he pulled his handkerchief hastily out of his pocket, for his eyes were brimming over with tears. Franks, who hated to see a man cry, made his departure rather abruptly. "It is getting very late," he observed; "I must wish Mr. Sands good-day."

"I could not help it; I could not help striking my flag when he boarded me like that," muttered the sailor to himself, as with long strides he hurried towards his school-house. "But to think of my engaging my poor Persis to tackle a tigress, who's too much for the parson himself! But how could I say him nay? He's nigh broken-hearted, poor fellow! Certainly, if any one in the world is likely to say a word to Nancy that will help her to sheer off from the whirlpool that's drawing her in, that one is my sweet cherub of a wife."

Franks found that he was even later than he had supposed himself to be; the pupils were already thronging to school; and heated, hungry, and tired as he was, the master had almost directly to set to work. He had not even time to snatch a hasty meal. The benches were half filled with their noisy young occupants before Ned Franks took his usual place behind his high desk. He fancied that he heard a little tittering amongst the boys, for at their very last meeting he had given them a lecture upon punctuality.

"So, my lads, you think that you have caught me napping for once," cried Ned Franks, in his cheerful tone; "but I'll not be hard on any one who is a minute and three-quarters beyond time," Franks glanced at the large clock on the wall, "if he brings as good an excuse for delay as I do now. Here," he cried, waving his bank-note triumphantly, "here are five pounds given to the collection for Wild Rose Hollow, by our friend, Bat Bell, the miller."

A deafening shout arose from the boys. The miller had so long been regarded as a money-making, money-saving screw, that they cheered him at the top of their voices in his new character of a money-giving man.

"I can match your piece of good news with another," said Persis Franks, who had come into the school-room on purpose to tell her tidings to her husband. "Mr. Leyton called while you were out, to let us know that his aunt had this morning received a letter from Mrs. Lane, enclosing for the same purpose a check for ten pounds."

There was a cheer for Mrs. Lane, but not quite so uproarious, because the announcement excited less surprise.

"I'll top your story," said the smiling sailor, speaking so that all the boys might hear. "Ben Stone, the carpenter, has kindly promised to give five pounds' worth of his labor to repair the tumble-down almshouses in Wild Rose Hollow."

A very loud hurrah followed this announcement, mingled with clapping of hands. The young curate, who chanced to be passing the school at that time, paused in some surprise on hearing such a shout, and thought that the naval school-master must have a novel and curious way of educating his pupils. But Ned Franks was teaching his boys a lesson quite as important as even the multiplication-table.

"Now you see, my lads," said the sailor, raising his hands to enforce attention, "that he who cannot give much money to a charity, may give his own honest hard work. Now, I've lately read in a capital book[A] of school-boys, who, when shown how to go about it, actually built a house for themselves, that the purses of generous friends might be spared as much as possible. Now, I think that there's no one here present, but myself, that has not two hands, and on those hands ten fingers and thumbs. If any one here present wants to help to set the almshouses to rights, and is willing to give an odd hour of labor every week-day till the job is done, let him now hold up his right hand."

Instantly, above the dark cluster of boys, a number of hands--white, red, clean, and soiled--were held up.

"Or," continued Franks, "as the days are now long, if there be any one who could and would give two hours daily to serving God, by thus helping his poor, let that one now hold up both hands."

Up went all the left hands, to the sound of a cheer louder and more joyous than the first; and then all the hands were employed in clapping, as if, instead of an invitation to labor, the boys had received an invitation to a feast.[B]

"Blessings on the noble-hearted little fellows!" thought the school-master, as he looked down on that mass of bright young faces. And Persis, as she fixed her proud eyes on her husband, thought, "Ned can lead these boys wherever he will; for he never asks them to do a brave, or kind, or generous thing, without first showing them how to do it by his example!"

[A] Liefde's "Six Months amongst the Charities of Europe."

[B] I wish that the united energies of the children of every school in Britain, whether for the rich or the poor, could thus be enlisted in some good work. Masters and mistresses would find the beneficial effect in the minds of their pupils. Even Ragged Schools might have a collecting box for farthings; or children's sympathies might be enlisted in behalf of some charity near them. Working _together_ for God promotes union, and it is a blessed thing for the young to learn to delight in such work.

IX.

The Invitation.

"Was it a shame in me, my darling, to bring you into this engagement about Nancy Sands?" asked Ned at a later hour of the day, when, seated at a comfortable meal, he made up for lost time by attacking the food with a vigor which amused his wife, who did not know of his having given away his sandwich to the wayfaring man.

"Nay, I think that it would have been a shame had we refused to do what we could for poor Mr. Sands in his trouble. Besides there is nothing very formidable in paying a morning visit to Nancy," added Persis, with a smile; "she has always been rather civil to me. I remember that when I lived in the dell, before my marriage, when my poor old grandfather was ill, Nancy once brought me some broth of her own making, to keep up his strength, as she said."

"Perhaps what her husband told me is true; there may be good metal in her after all, though I own that I don't like the ring of it. He ought to know her best; but I'm not very hopeful about Nancy Sands," said Franks, pushing back his empty plate; "you see, wifie, when once a _woman_ takes to the glass, they say that there's not a chance of her ever getting rid of the habit."

"I never like to hear that said," observed Persis. "Why should a woman, any more than a man, be beyond reach of God's mercy and grace? A woman has often strong, deep affections, and especially shrinks from dragging down her family to misery and ruin."

"But when she is once right in the middle of the whirlpool, can she help being sucked in?" said the sailor, gravely. "Intemperance is like a whirlpool, wifie. Round about it, at some distance from the centre, it looks not much more than a ripple of the sea; the careless pilot might venture upon it, and, unless he keep a sharp lookout at his bearings, scarcely guesses what a strong current is drawing him in, closer and closer, to the down-whirl of waters. Let him sheer off at once, and he is safe; if he slacken sail, and let the vessel drift, why, he's lost,--he comes to a point where he _can't_ get her off, let him strain every muscle as he may. And it's just so with the drinking. A man feels sick, or a woman feels sad; a drop of something will warm and cheer them, they think; and I don't say but that it may often do so, and that spirits may be used as medicine, and be found a good gift of God. But when the 'drop' comes to be taken pretty often; when there is less of water and more of spirits mixed together; when the man (or woman) begins to relish the glass, and think that he can't do without it,--then's the time to sheer off! Don't let him wait till the habit begins to draw him in as with the grasp of a giant, till he finds that the ship won't answer the helm, that he's getting into the wild whirl and will soon be carried whither he would not; let him fix his quantity, measure it, and not go one oar's breadth beyond it; or, if he has not the firmness for that, let him, at any cost, give up the drink altogether, neither taste, nor touch, nor look at it, lest he be engulfed in the treacherous Maelstrom, and soul and body perish together!"

"O Ned," exclaimed Persis, "how fearful it is to think what multitudes are lost in that whirlpool! God grant that poor Nancy be rescued in time!"

"We'll not forget her in our prayers," said Ned Franks.

On the following day John Sands started for London, with a heavy, anxious heart, only lightened by the thought that the sailor was certain to keep his word. Sands lingered at the door of his home, with his carpet-bag in his hand, turning half round in a hesitating manner, as if he fancied that something might have been forgotten.

"I suppose that you've left your papers behind, or maybe your purse," said Nancy, who stood on the threshold to see her husband start on his journey.

"No, it's not that, my dear," half stammered the clerk; "it's that I'm not just easy in mind leaving you here all alone."

"I don't care three farthings for being alone," cried the ungracious wife; "I can find occupation enough, and amusement enough, if I choose."

"That's it, that's just it; I wanted you to promise, dear,--while I'm away, just while I'm away, you understand,--that you--you won't step over to the 'Chequers.'"

"I'll not promise that to you, nor to nobody," said Nancy, with a toss of her head and a snort of disdain; "a pretty pass it's come to, indeed, if I mayn't go and have a gossip with a friend. Mrs. Fuddles of the 'Chequers,' was my school-fellow; you know that as well as I do."

John Sands drew a heavy sigh, and wished from the bottom of his heart that Mrs. Fuddles and the "Chequers" were somewhere at the other side of the world, instead of down in the dell, just beyond the mill. He felt, however, that there was no use in his saying anything more; so Sands set off on his walk to the nearest station, and Nancy stood at the door watching him, as long as the prim figure dressed in black remained within sight. Then she went back into her parlor and sat down, resting her hands on her knees, and gazing with a fixed, dull, joyless stare on the opposite wall. Nancy felt very desolate at that moment, for she had parted with the only being in all the world who really loved her. Mrs. Sands knew that she was already "the talk of the village;" that her neighbors, who had once looked on her as "a thriving, well-to-do woman," now regarded her with contempt; she knew that she was lowered in the eyes of all; and, though she would not have owned that she was so, Nancy was lowered in her own. She scorned, she despised herself for the very vice to which she clung so strongly. She could not bear to be alone with her thoughts; she must drown them in the fiery poison which was already consuming her credit, her happiness, and her peace. Nancy rose, walked up to the cupboard, and took out of it a bottle and a glass. Just as she had pulled out the cork from the former, she heard a soft tap at the door.

"Why, Mrs. Franks, who would have thought of seeing you! and you've brought the baby!" exclaimed Nancy, her face relaxing into an expression of something like pleasure; for she was gratified by the unexpected visit of one whose character stood so high in the village, at a time when her own had so grievously sunk.

Persis took the seat which was offered to her, and listened complacently to the praise of her beautiful boy, and when she marked the shade of sadness in Nancy's tone as she said, "Oh! I know what a mother feels with her first-born babe in her arms," she was glad that she had come on her errand of kindness to the lonely and tempted woman.

"I did not think as you'd have walked as far as this, Mrs. Franks, leastways carrying the child, for you're not over strong," said Mrs. Sands. "You've not been here for a long time; we met oftener when you were Persis Meade."

"Yes, you came to see me in the dell. I remember well your kindness in bringing broth to my poor old grandfather; excellent broth it was; I've no doubt that it did him good."

This little acknowledgment of a single act of past kindness had more effect in thawing the heart of Nancy Sands than Persis could have expected. Nancy's pride would have rebelled at the idea of Franks's wife conferring any favor upon her, but her owning herself to be the obliged party set Mrs. Sands at once at her ease. She liked to talk over past days, happy days as she now thought them, when her own poor boy was living. No one who had only seen Nancy Sands on that morning, sitting chatting with Persis Franks, would have thought of her as the "tigress" whose temper, especially when she was under the influence of drink, made her the terror of her neighbors.

"I'm glad of your visit," she observed after a while; "I was feeling a bit dull all alone."

"I hope that you will return my visit," said Persis; "could you not come over this evening at seven to tea?"

"I suppose your man's out?" said Nancy, shortly. "I warrant you he'd not care to see me."

"Oh, no, my clear husband will be at home; he knew that I was going to invite you. I never do anything without his consent."

"Humph!" grunted Nancy; "that's what I call slavery. I take it a wife's not like a red Indian, tied to a stake."

"No," replied Persis, smiling; "rather like a vine fastened to a supporting, sheltering wall."

"I'm none of your creepers!" cried Nancy, with a saucy toss of the head. "I'm a standard for the matter of that, and don't want to lean upon nobody;" and certainly she did not look like anything that needs a prop, with those stout, strong arms, bared to the elbows, and a red face which might once have been handsome, but which now looked only coarse. "I suppose," continued Mrs. Sands, "that you're one of them meek ones as have old-fashioned notions about wedlock and its duties."

"Very old ones," replied Persis, gently swaying herself to and fro, to rock to slumber the soft little burden so tenderly folded in her arms; "as old, or more so, as the days of Abraham and Sarah."

"I'm one as sticks up for woman's rights," said Nancy, and she drew herself up proudly.

"So am I," observed Persis, looking down on her babe; "but I see them in a different light, perhaps, from what you do. I fancy that it is the husband's right to support, the wife's to lean; the husband's to guide, the wife's to obey; _both_ to honor, to cherish, and to love; at least, it's so with my Ned and me."

Nancy glanced at the happy wife and mother before her, and though she might not choose to imitate, she could neither pity nor despise. She only said, however, "There's no doubt but that wedlock's a yoke to most. If I'd been fastened to one who chose to pull hard one way, why I'd just have dragged the harder the t'other way, and--"

"And I am afraid that then no great progress would have been made either way," said Persis, timidly yet playfully.

Mrs. Sands gave a short, harsh laugh. "I for one could never abide to be dragged down by such clogs as what folks call duty and obedience. Why do you smile, Mrs. Franks?"

"I smiled because your words reminded me of a little fable of a clock."

"What's that? I never heard the fable," said Nancy.

Persis bent down and kissed her baby two or three times, perhaps to give herself time to collect her thoughts, and then began,--

"Once upon a time, all the upper parts of a great kitchen-clock rebelled against the weights. 'Of what use in the world they can be passes my understanding!' cried the wheel. 'Great, heavy, leaden clogs as they are, always dragging down towards earth!'

"'I'm sure that I've nothing to thank them for,' exclaimed the minute-hand, briskly; 'every one looks at me as I go travelling round and round, but who would ever care to stoop to look at the weights below?'

"'They're not fit to be seen!' added the hour-hand; 'if they could be twitched off at once, I dare be bound that I'd go as fast as you do!'

"'I'm tired to death of them!' clicked the pendulum. 'I'm certain that I don't need 'em to keep me swinging steadily backwards and forwards. I'd get on much better without 'em!'

"'They're dumb as fish!' observed the little bell inside. 'I wonder that any clock-maker in his senses ever burdened a clock with weights!'

"One day an idle boy in a fit of mischief pulled both the weights off the clock. It was not long, as you may believe, ere the different parts of the machine found out the effect of the loss.