Chapter V: Part 5

"But," continued the lady, (what a terrible word was that _but_!) "I cannot offer you a situation without a clear knowledge of the cause of your leaving your last one. The information which has reached me may or may not be correct. Many innocent persons are hardly judged; some are the victims of a slander. A mistress may be injudicious, or she may be unjust to her servants."

"Oh, no, Mrs. Lowndes was not unjust, at least not in sending me away," said Norah, the large tears gathering in her downcast eyes. "She was kind and generous, and good to me, till--till"--a smothered sob closed the sentence.

"Norah, you must feel that no idle curiosity leads me to question you thus. I would give no needless pain. But will you tell me, as a friend who has your best interests much at heart, the simple truth regarding the circumstances which led to your leaving London? I cannot know how to serve you, I cannot know how to advise, without that full information which can only really satisfy me when given by yourself."

"Have I not suffered enough yet?" was the silent thought of poor Norah. "Must I tell to her, whose good opinion I prize so much, that which will make me lose that good opinion forever, and prevent her from thinking of taking such a deceitful girl into her service?" And then came the strong temptation to soften and gloss over her own fault, to lay the chief blame upon Milly, or to avoid telling of any direct falsehood, or long-carried-on scheme of deceit. Again the bark was in danger of striking against the iceberg. Again rose the silent prayer, followed by the brave resolve to be honest and truthful now, at however painful a cost.

The happy bees were humming amongst the blossoming limes, but Norah did not hear them; she did not notice how richly perfumed came the breeze from the hawthorn full in flower; there was that on her mind which shut out surrounding objects. Briefly, but as clearly and truthfully as she had told her tale to Ned Franks, she now confessed all to Mrs. Curtis, without attempting to make the slightest excuse for her fault. Norah closed her account with a deep sigh, and stood as if awaiting with humble submission the rebuke which she knew must follow.

But Mrs. Curtis uttered no word of reproach; her voice when she spoke was more kindly and cheering than it had been when she had first addressed Norah Peele on that bright evening in May.

"I am very thankful, my child, that you have made a statement so frank and truthful, one which so perfectly accords with what your last mistress has written." Mrs. Curtis drew a note from her pocket, and Norah at once recognized the familiar handwriting of Mrs. Lowndes. "Before speaking to you of the situation in my household, I thought it well to write to London, to ascertain facts from the lady whom you had served. Her reply, I own, startled me a little; I thought at first that I must give up all idea of engaging you in my service. But I consulted the vicar, and he took a different view of the question. 'The young girl,' he said, 'has no doubt committed a serious fault, but she may at this moment be sincerely repenting it; if so, let us give her an opportunity of retrieving her character here.'"

"Kind, merciful!" murmured Norah.

"'But how,' I asked, 'can we know whether she sincerely regrets her fault?' 'The surest sign of true repentance,' replied my husband, 'is _amendment_. Go and question Norah Peele; see if she now makes any fresh attempt to deceive. If she be candid and open with you, we may take it as a proof that no habits of falsehood are formed, and that, warned by the past, she is likely to become as truthful and trustworthy as her sailor uncle himself.' I have done as the vicar advised; I have tried you, Norah Peele, and you have well stood the trial. I am quite willing, if you wish to come to me, to engage you from this day week."

Then, indeed, Norah could hear how merrily the bees were humming, and feel how delicious was the scented breath of May on her cheek, and admire the glorious glow of the sinking sun! All nature seemed to brighten around her, and she thought that life might be to her again a peaceful and happy thing. Eagerly she closed with the offer of Mrs. Curtis. With a heart and a step how much lighter than what they had been an hour before, Norah retraced that gravel walk along which she had passed so sadly, and, after showing her new mistress to the gate, ran into the house to carry to her uncle and aunt her good tidings, sure of their ready sympathy in her joy as well as in her sorrow!

XX.

The Momentous Question.

"Ah! glad to see ye, Ned Franks, always glad to see ye!" cried Ben Stone, holding out both his hands to the school-master of Colme. "I sent my Bell off to afternoon church, for I said, says I, there will be Ned Franks sure to drop in and give me a bit of the news. There, take a chair, my good fellow, you're always heartily welcome."

Stone himself was reclining on a bed, and well propped up with soft cushions; a flannel dressing-gown wrapped round his large form, and a scarlet shawl over that, with a red nightcap on his head. There was an air of comfort and of neatness visible in the partly darkened room. Stone liked, as he said, "to have things look respectable-like" about him. The appearance of the sick man would have conveyed to none but a practised eye the idea of serious illness. There was no wasted cheek, no hollow eye, to tell the insidious fatal disease within. Even the voice of Ben Stone, though not perhaps as strong, sounded as jovial as ever. Franks could hardly realize, as he drew his chair near to the bed, that he who rested upon it was actually dying by inches. Ned made inquiries how the patient was feeling that afternoon.

"Not just up to felling an oak-tree, or splitting it up into planks," said the carpenter, gayly; "the doctor says I can't last till winter; but who knows? 'the greatest clerks are not always the wisest men,' as good Queen Bess once said."

"No one can indeed know whether you or I will be taken first," observed Ned; "but it's well to be prepared for the end, whether it comes sooner or later than we have been led to expect."

"Yes, yes, I'm not one of those as is afraid of hearing the worst," said Stone, still in the same easy manner. "Death must come one day or another to all, and it's no such great odds when we go."

"The question is certainly not _when_, but _whither_ we go," remarked Franks.

"There's the comfort of religion," said the carpenter, complacently folding his hands. "Don't we all hope to go to heaven when we die?"

"Yes, heaven's the port we all hope to land in," replied Ned Franks; "but I should just like, neighbor, for us to talk the matter over a little together; to see if you and I have embarked in the same boat, since we wish our cruise to end in the same harbor. Would you mind now telling an old friend what reason you have for thinking that you're bound for heaven?"

Ben Stone looked half perplexed, half amused, at the question. "It's not for a man to speak up for himself," he said good-humoredly; "but you and all the village know that I've not wandered far astray. I don't pretend to be such an out-and-out saint as you are," he added with a smile; "but I'm not worse than my neighbors, and I don't doubt but that we'll both land in heaven at last."

"And do you suppose that _I_ dare start in the voyage to eternity in such a cockle-shell as my own merits, all leaky and worthless!" exclaimed Ned Franks. "No, no, neighbor; I know too well that if I did so, I must go to the bottom. As when the flood was coming upon the world, there was but _one_ safe vessel, and that was the ark, so there is now but _one_ means of salvation, which God himself has provided,--_faith in the Lord Jesus Christ_. Can we fancy that in those old days of the flood there were no boats and no sailors,--that none could row, and none could swim? It's likely that there were men who had vessels, and trusted in them, and were proud of them, too,--who believed that these vessels could ride through the fiercest storm that ever blew; and that may have been the very reason why, despite of warning, these men would not fly to the ark; and so, when the flood came, they perished. _My_ only hope of heaven is in the merits and death of my Lord. I don't fear death, because I know that I've already taken refuge in the ark of salvation, which is faith in Christ, the Saviour of sinners."

"These things are too deep for me," said the carpenter. "I'm a simple, plain man, and don't puzzle my head with matters of doctrine. I never can make out what you thorough-going people consider yourselves to be. There are saints and sinners in the world, that's clear. Nancy Sands is a sinner, and you are a saint,--nay, don't stop me, I must have out my say. Now, I don't count myself much either of a saint or a sinner; I'm a plain, honest man, who don't like extremes, and I dare say that I shall do just as well as others in the end. But what puzzles me," continued the carpenter, "is that the saints will insist upon it that they are the sinners; they flare up, as you did now, at the very notion of being taken to heaven because they are good, and seem to think that they can't be safe unless they declare that they are sinful!" The invalid would have laughed aloud, had there not been a grave earnestness in the face of Franks, which checked any such unseemly mirth.

"And is not the prayer in the Litany, Have mercy upon us miserable sinners, put into every mouth?" observed Franks, who had a clear recollection of the very audible tone in which Ben had joined in that prayer when attending church-service.

"Yes, to be sure. I could say half the Litany by heart."

"What a wide difference there is," thought Ned Franks, "between saying it _by_ heart, or _from_ the heart! Do you think," he asked aloud, "that that prayer is suited for _every one_ who repeats it?"

Ben Stone hummed a little before he replied. "Well, I should say, suited better for some than for others; but there's no harm in any one saying it."

"There would be harm in any one calling himself a sinner before God if he did not _believe_ himself to be one," observed Franks. "But I've no doubt, neighbor, that if St. Paul and St. Peter had lived in these days, they'd have been able to cry from the bottom of the heart, 'Have mercy upon us, miserable sinners.'"

Ben Stone gave a look which seemed to say that he neither understood nor cared to understand how that could be. Ned Franks's feelings were much like what Mr. Curtis had described as his own. It seemed a hopeless matter to try to make any real impression upon that mass of quiet, self-complacent, good-humored insensibility. Ned had to repeat to himself, "He's a dying man, and dying without looking to the Saviour," in order to overcome his own strong inclination to give up in despair all attempt to convince or to move.

"I suppose that you'll agree," said the school-master aloud, "that Job was a saint if there ever lived one in this world; God himself declared that there was none upon earth like him; and yet, what were the words of Job? _I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes._"

"I never can make out why Job should feel that," observed Stone; "there was nothing in what the Almighty had said to him to bring him to such a confession."

"I believe that it was not so much what God had _said_, as what he had found God to _be_, that so humbled Job as to make him confess himself to be a miserable sinner. The truth is, neighbor, we think so little of our own sinfulness, because we think so little of God's holiness. The clear light of his purity does not stream into our souls, and therefore we don't mark the spots and the stains in those souls. We think sins small and trifling which in the Lord's eyes are hateful and deadly. Eve plucks a forbidden fruit, Moses loses his temper, a man of God lets himself be drawn into what we might deem a small excusable act of disobedience: it is clear enough from the punishments which followed, that a holy God did not regard these things as _trifles_, though man in his blindness might do so."

"Ah! all these examples are from the Old Testament," said Ben Stone; "as for me, I hold by the New. There's none of that terrible strictness now."

"The God of the New Testament is the God of the Old," observed Franks; "the same just and holy Being who hath declared, _The soul that sinneth, it shall die_."

"You talk like a Jew," said Stone; "yet you know as well, and better than I do, that we've the gospel to look to now, and that's all mercy and love."

"The New Testament rests on the Old; it has grown out of it; it forms with it a complete whole. We cannot really accept the one without the other," replied Franks, with an animation of manner which strongly contrasted with the carpenter's stolid composure.

Ben Stone shook his tasselled cap, and half smiling observed, "The New is enough for me."

Ned Franks glanced around for something that might serve to illustrate the important truth which his companion could not, or would not, understand. He took up a cut flower which had been placed in a glass of water on the table.

"The Old Testament is the bud of the New; or rather as the green sheath enclosed the bud, so in the Old-Testament Scriptures is the precious gospel held and enclosed," he said, looking down on the flower.

"Granted, if you wish it," said the carpenter; "but now we've done with the sheath, and only the flower is left."

"Not so," cried the school-master eagerly; "look here, this is the green sheath of the bud, the green cup or calyx, as they call it, still holding and supporting the flower; less noticed, certainly, under the bright petals, but keeping them all together. What would happen, Ben Stone, were we to tear that green part away?"

"Why, the flower would of course fall to pieces."

"And if it were possible to separate New-Testament truth entirely from that contained in the Old Testament,--but it is _not_ possible," exclaimed Franks, interrupting himself in the midst of his sentence. "_The word of the Lord endureth forever!_ The Old Testament is the very support and foundation of the gospel. If we would know _who_ the Lord Jesus is, we learn, from the Old Testament, that he is _the mighty God_,[C] _whose goings forth have been from everlasting_;[D] _the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord God of Hosts_.[E] If we should know _why_ he died, again we find the gospel enclosed in the ancient Scriptures, like the bud in the sheath: _He was wounded for our transgressions; the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all_."[F]

"Still, there's ever so much in the Old Testament that does not concern us Christians at all," said the carpenter; "and though I don't pretend to have the Bible at my finger-ends, as you have, I can show you that in a moment. We have no concern whatever with all those endless sacrifices of bullocks and lambs, which the Jews were perpetually making; you might cut out of the Bible every chapter about them, and we should never miss them at all."

Franks's expressive face showed surprise at the utter ignorance betrayed by such a remark. "Why, the very _keystone_ of Gospel truth rests on the doctrine taught by those very sacrifices!" he exclaimed, bending forward in his eager earnestness. "There were two mighty lessons taught by those sacrifices, which were ordained by God himself; these lessons were, that _without shedding of blood there is no remission_,[G] and that justice would accept of one life as given _instead_ of another. No Israelite, no, not even the holy Moses, could be forgiven and accepted without a _sacrifice_ for sin, the sprinkled blood of atonement; no Christian, not even a St. Paul, can be forgiven and accepted, without a sacrifice for sin; and ours, in One of which all the burnt-offerings made by the Jews was but a type, the sacrifice, once and forever, made on the cross by Him who is _the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world_! O Ben Stone, my friend," continued the sailor, with emotion, "I believe, from my soul I believe, that _there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved_,[H] but the name of Him who died for sinners; that there is nothing that can make the soul pure, but _the blood of Christ which cleanseth from all sin_.[I] Faith in that name is the ark in which alone I dare hope for salvation, and through that blood shed for me, I have the blessed assurance of being received after death into that heaven which the Lord hath prepared for them that love him!"

Ned Franks rose hastily from his seat as he concluded the last sentence; for, after what had been uttered on a subject so solemn, he could enter on no common theme. He pressed the hand of the sick man, and, with no other form of taking leave, quitted the carpenter's cottage. The sailor sighed heavily as he passed from the darkened sick-room into the glowing sunshine without.

"How weakly I have spoken, how little have I said of what I wished to say!" he murmured to himself. "The words of my Persis are true indeed: it is only the Holy Spirit that can convince of sin. Then I know that my manner is too impetuous. I am always running the chance of offending, rather than persuading; and I don't know how to put into words the thoughts that are swelling within me like a stream that is bursting its bounds. I cannot restrain myself, when any one would put aside (as if they could be worn out by time) those Old-Testament Scriptures which our Lord himself bade us search, as testifying of him; when any look upon the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as quite a distinct thing from that required of us; when, like poor Stone, they seem to conclude that justice and holiness are confined to the Old Testament, mercy and love to the New! Ah! the truth is"--Franks quickened his steps, as if to keep pace with the current of his thoughts--"the truth is, that Satan knows that he has a terrible advantage over us, if he can but persuade us to try any way but God's way to reach the kingdom of heaven. Satan is willing that we should look on the Lord as a great example, or a great teacher, or even as a great king, if he can only keep us from acknowledging Christ as also a great sacrifice for sins, for _our_ sins; and so prevent us from throwing ourselves entirely upon his mercy and merits. To draw us back from the ark, that is Satan's chief aim; to make us believe that we do not require a Saviour. As if the Son of God would have died, had there been any less costly means of purchasing heaven for his people; as if we did not see most clearly, in his sufferings on the cross, the _holiness_ of God that abhors sin, the _justice_ of God in punishing it, joined with the boundless _mercy_ and _love_, which made God not spare even his Son, but give him freely for our salvation!"

[C] Isaiah ix. 6.

[D] Micah v. 2.

[E] Zechariah xiii. 7.

[F] Isaiah liii. 5, 6.

[G] Hebrews ix. 22.

[H] Acts iv. 12.

[I] 1 John ii. 7.

XXI.

An Old Letter.

"Well, Bell, my dear," said the carpenter, as his wife returned from afternoon service, "tell me what you've heard to-day, and I'll tell you what I've heard."

"Mr. Leyton preached as usual," replied Mrs. Stone, as she unloosed the red strings of her bonnet. "I think he's getting less shy, and more earnest. His text was, '_If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us._'"

"Why, that would ha' done for the text of the sermon I've had all to myself," said Ben Stone.

"Sermon,--what do you mean?" asked his wife, pausing in the act of taking off her shawl.

"There's Ned Franks been here, and--talk of earnestness--he's earnest with a vengeance! There was nothing would content him but that I should own myself to be a downright, miserable sinner; and he threw out something more than a hint, that I'm like to come to the same end as those who wouldn't go into the ark, and so were drowned in the flood."

"I wish that Ned Franks would mind his own business," exclaimed Mrs. Stone, indignantly. "I'm sure that he, and every one knows that there's not a better man in the parish than you are; it would be well if, with all his fine talking, Mr. Franks were but half so good!"

"Softly, softly, my dear," said Ben Stone, amused and pleased at her warm defence. "Ned Franks is a capital fellow; a brave, noble-hearted man."

"Let him be what he likes," exclaimed Mrs. Stone, angrily pulling off her boots. "If he comes here a worritting and lecturing you, I shall shut the door upon him!"

"His visit was certainly very unlike that which the young curate paid me. Mr. Leyton, with his gentle way and soft voice, spoke of my trials and my hope; and said that a true Christian is not afraid even of death. Then says I, 'Sir, I'm never afraid of death;' so, of course, he takes it for granted that I'm a true Christian, and all right, and goes away quite pleased and happy. But as for Ned Franks,"--Ben Stone gave his little chuckling laugh, though it sounded less merry than usual,--"he'll take nothing for granted, except that I _must_ be a sinner. He leans forward and looks right into your eyes, as if he meant to read you through and through, and let you see right into his soul also. I can just fancy," continued the sick carpenter, laughing again, "what sort of a sailor he was when he served the queen,--how he'd stick by his colors, and go slap-bang at an enemy!"

"But you're no enemy," cried Mrs. Stone, "neither his nor any one else's, and I'll not let him go slap-bang at you! Let him preach away as much as he likes to that wretched Nancy Sands whom he pulled out of the mill-stream!"

"There's not much chance of _her_ deceiving herself, and saying that she has no sin," observed Stone.

"It was small kindness to her husband to save her," continued the carpenter's wife; "Sands has little cause to thank Ned. The poor clerk is growing thinner every day, and looked at church this afternoon as if he was going to be hanged. He knows that when Nancy comes out of hospital she'll be at her old tricks again, drinking him out of house and home; far better for _him_ if all had been over at once! I couldn't help giving her a bit o' my mind about that, when I went to see her yesterday!"

"You did!" exclaimed Stone, in amused surprise; "how did she take it? If Nancy returned you a bit o' _her_ mind," he continued, with a laugh, "I guess you'd the worst of the exchange. You never were a match for Nancy, my dear."

"She said nothing, but looked as if she could have eaten me," replied Mrs. Stone.

"Her accident must have pulled her down a bit, if she'd not something sharper than a look to fling at you," observed Ben. "You and she used to go at it like poker and tongs, but Nancy could hit hardest and longest; she'd a tongue like a mill-wheel if once you set it a-going. But put the kettle on the fire, my dear, and lets have a drop of good tea. In the evening I'll do what I've been intending to do for these many years past,--look over that box of old things belonging to my poor mother, whom I lost when I was a little chap but nine years of age. I want to sort 'em,--put by what I mean to keep, and burn what's of use to no one. Ned Franks himself would say it was right for a sick man to put his house in order."

The task of looking over the contents of that old box, which had been stowed away in a cupboard for a great length of time, was one which the carpenter had put off from day to day, and year to year, perhaps because--till illness came--he had led a busy, active life, or more probably because his cheerful, easy nature disliked any occupation that might awaken melancholy thoughts. And who but is saddened by turning over memorials of one loved and lost, even though, as in the case of Stone, forty or fifty years may have elapsed since the friend departed. This Sunday evening, as twilight came on, Ben Stone fulfilled the long-deferred task. His wife brought the old box,--a deal one covered with faded paper,--and placed it on a chair close to his bed, that he might examine its contents with ease. She lighted a candle and put it on the table beside her husband, and then sat down with some little curiosity to see her mother-in-law's hoarded treasures, but a secret conviction that the box would hold nothing but "old-fashioned rubbish."

The late Mrs. Stone had not been an orderly woman, or perhaps death had taken her by surprise, so that she had left her things in confusion,--such was the silent reflection of her son's wife, as Ben went slowly over the contents of the box. They were a strange medley. There were two gilt lockets, a nutmeg-grater, an old tooth-brush and silver thimble, a collar, an unfinished bit of embroidery, a sampler, several skeins of silk and cotton of various colors in a tangled mass together, fragments of gimp and tape, a red leather pocket-book much the worse for wear, a prayer-book without a cover, and a padlock without a key. There were also heaps of papers, recipes for cures, and recipes for dishes, old patterns, old letters, old bills, a jumble of all sorts of things which it was scarcely matter of wonder that no one had cared to reduce into order.

"You may use all these receipted bills to light the fire with, my dear," said Ben Stone; "they at least can be useful to nobody. But I'll keep this old bit of an Almanac,--1815! Well, well; how time passes! It seems strange to look back to the days when this Almanac was a new one!"

"I think that this may go into the fire too," said Mrs. Stone, who had been vainly trying to unravel a silken tangle.

"Ah! here's something curious," observed Ben, as he drew out an old letter, written on very coarse paper, in a very round, childish hand, a letter which had been fastened with a big red wafer pressed down with a button, and which was soiled with many a blot.

"Here is, I suppose, the very first letter as ever I wrote. I didn't remember that I had ever written to my mother. She died--poor, dear soul!--the week after I first went to school."

Mrs. Stone was of course interested, as any good wife would have been, in the first specimen of her husband's handwriting. She pushed the candle nearer to him, and read over his shoulder, as she might have done at the distance of half the length of the room, the school-boy's big, blotted scrawl.

"Dear Mother, I hope your well. I am ill my head is so bad pleas get me home _quick_ QUICK your dutiful son B. S."

Mrs. Stone smiled, but her husband looked grave. Strange old recollections, and those by no means of a pleasing nature, were brought back to his mind by the sight of that--till now--forgotten letter to his mother. Ben put up his hand to his forehead, and pushed up the nightcap from his temples.

"Yes, yes," he muttered to himself, "I remember writing that letter as if it were but yesterday; I remember the very button which I used to press down the wafer. I was very wretched on first going to school,--the boys bullied me, and I could not bear regular work; so to get my poor mother to take me home, I wrote that letter with a big falsehood in it. It was the first,--the only note as ever I sent her, and it was full of lies! Strange that that should turn up now!"

"There's nothing to take to heart in such an old matter as that," observed Mrs. Stone, struck by the unusual gravity of her husband, who generally turned everything into a jest. "Nobody thinks of raking up what they've done wrong forty or fifty years back."

"Tut, I should not care a toss of a straw about it," replied Stone, "had I told the falsehood to any one but my mother, and that just a few days before I lost her. I'd never an opportunity of telling her that I'd deceived her, or of asking her to forgive me, for I did not go home till she lay in her coffin. To think of that vile bit of paper turning up against me now!" Ben doubled the note, and, tearing it into pieces, threw the fragments on the floor.

It may be a matter of surprise that a sin of childhood should have in the slightest degree ruffled the easy conscience of such a man as Ben Stone. He had thought very little indeed of sinning against God, but his natural affections made him feel pain at having sinned against a sick mother. Perhaps the words of Franks had not been so utterly unheeded as they had seemed at first to be, and had served to rouse a suspicion, confirmed by the school-boy's letter, that there might be many a forgotten fault of the highly respectable man that would "turn up against him" some day; faults for which forgiveness had never been granted or asked. Be that as it may, Stone suddenly found out that he was tired and sleepy, and bade his wife shut up the box and take it away. The evening was getting on; it was time for him to take his night-draught, and go quietly to rest.

Though the night-draught was taken and the pillows carefully beaten up and sleep soon closed the invalid's eyes, it was not quiet rest. A confused medley of thoughts shaped themselves into dreams, which took their color from what had occurred during the day. Ben Stone in his sleep was still looking over and examining things of the past; his whole room appeared to be filled up with boxes, one piled on another, and there seemed to be a necessity for him to open and put them all into order. This was in itself an oppressive feeling to the dreamer; but the oppression became much greater when he found that each box was filled to overflowing with bills,--old, forgotten bills,--and that not one of them was receipted; not one had ever been paid. Stone had a dim idea that all these debts were connected with unforgiven sin, from that falsehood contained in his first letter to the last "idle word" which had fallen from his lips. As box after box was emptied, and every unpaid bill thrown down in despair, the white paper seemed to turn into foam, a sea was rising around him, and it appeared to Stone as if his numberless debts would drown him at last. Ned Franks was by the side of the dreamer, helping him to look over his boxes, and saying, every now and then, in an earnest, anxious tone, "Ben Stone, if you don't pay, you are a ruined man!--if you don't pay, you are ruined forever!" So strong was the impression left on the dreamer's mind, that he awoke with the words on his lips, "If you don't pay, you are ruined forever!"

Very still was the room when Stone opened his eyes with a start, relieved to find that he had, after all, been but dreaming. One feeble night-light was making "darkness visible" in the chamber, where no other object could distinctly be seen. Even so faint a light had Stone's conscience hitherto thrown upon spiritual things, as different from the clear radiance of Truth as the night-light from the sun. The sinner had not known his sinfulness because his light had been too dim to enable him to see it.

As Ben Stone lay silent and still on his pillow, the breeze bore to him, more distinctly than he ever before had heard it in his cottage, the sound of the church clock striking ONE. For once Stone felt something solemn in the sound; he felt that time was being meted out to him, that his remaining hours might be few, and that he _was not prepared_ for eternity.

Then Stone thought of Ned Franks. The sailor was not afraid of death, but his reason for not fearing it was something utterly different from the easy reliance on his own goodness which the carpenter knew to have been his own. Ned Franks had shrunk from the idea of his safety depending on his merits. On what then _did_ it depend? The invalid, with a dawning perception that he himself might not be quite as secure as he had lately thought himself to be, felt desirous to know more clearly what was Franks's hope of salvation; and when, in the morning, Mrs. Stone was preparing her husband's breakfast, he asked her to stop the sailor when next he should pass their door, and ask him to step in and see him.

XXII.

Peace from Above.

"You went off in such haste yesterday that we'd not time to have out half our say," said Ben Stone to Ned Franks, as, called in by the carpenter's wife, he walked up to the patient's bedside.

Franks smiled, agreeably surprised to find that Stone wished to renew such a conversation.

"Take a chair, my good friend, and sit down. Bell, you needn't stop in for me. I know Franks won't grudge me a half-hour for once, even on a week day."

Mrs. Stone soon quitted the cottage, but not till she had warned her visitor with raised finger and shake of the head, "Don't you bother my husband about anything to make his mind uneasy."

When she had closed the door behind her, Ben Stone turned to Franks, and said, "I was looking over old papers, yesterday, which reminded me of my boyhood, and I suppose it's that which has brought back to me a bit of rhyme which I learned from my mother, and which has been running in my brain all this day, though it had gone clean out of my memory for years,--

"'There's not a sin that I commit,
Or wicked word I say,
But in Thy dreadful book 'tis writ
Against the judgment-day.'

"Now, do you suppose," said Stone, with an effort to speak in his usual careless tone, "that God keeps an account like that, as a creditor with his debtors, and that when folks die there are all the old bills, as it were, brought up, even debts that they'd clean forgotten?"

"Yes, assuredly, _unless all those debts have been paid_."

"That's the very nail that I want you to hit," cried the carpenter. "How are we to make sure that the debts _are_ all paid,--I mean, that God has forgiven us outright? Are you sure that _your_ debts are all paid?"

"Yes, thank God!" cried the sailor; "my debts were paid, every one of them, when my Saviour died on Calvary. Does not St. Paul say that Christ blotted out _the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross_?"

"Were every one's sins blotted out then?" asked Stone.

"The sins of all who have living _faith_ in the Lord."

"Ah! _faith_; that's what you're always talking about, and I can never quite make out what it means."

"It simply means that we believe from the heart that the Son of God _died for us_," said Ned Franks.

"Is that all?" exclaimed Stone, in surprise. "Why, a poor wretch like Nancy Sands might believe that as well as yourself!"

"And if poor Nancy does believe that _from the heart_, her sins, be they few or many, _are_ forgiven her for the sake of Him who bore the punishment for them all."

"That's a dangerous doctrine, a very dangerous doctrine," said the carpenter, shaking his head; "you wouldn't put Nancy, I hope, on the same footing as yourself or as me?"

"The ark of Salvation is as open to Nancy as to us," replied Franks; "and if any of us reach God's heaven, it can only be in that ark."

"I don't understand what you mean," said Ben Stone. "Would you put bad and good all together?"

"Perhaps I can explain myself best by referring to Noah's ark," replied Franks. "God made known that a deluge was coming on the earth, and that the only way of escaping it was by going into an ark which Noah was commanded to prepare. It is clear that those who were _saved_ were those who _believed_. It was _faith_ in God's word that made Noah and his family enter the ark; they were saved because they were _in it_, and not, as I tried to explain yesterday, because of their merits as sailors or swimmers. It is clear, also, that they could not be _half_ saved by the ark, and _half_ by their own boats or rafts. So, if we trust our souls to Christ, we must do so _entirely_; we must give up all notion of saving ourselves, and own that our hopes of forgiveness and heaven rest on _nothing but his mercy and merits_. We own ourselves, indeed, to be miserable sinners, but we are able to take our firm stand on the Gospel doctrine that _Christ died for sinners_,--for that is our ark."

"I'm afraid that people who make sure of being saved by faith will lead very careless lives," said the carpenter, who could not get over his repugnance to being classed with Nancy Sands.

"They can only be saved by living, true faith," replied Franks. "Merely to say that we believe is nothing; nay, a cold conviction that the Bible is true, is nothing,--_the devils also believe and tremble_."

"How are you to know true faith from false faith?" asked Ben, with rather a sarcastic smile, as if he thought he had driven Ned Franks into a corner.

"How do you know a real fire from a painted one?" asked Ned.

"Well, it does not need much wit to tell the one from the other, if the painting were ever so clear," replied Stone; "the real fire warms us, of course; it aint a thing only to be looked at."

"And so real faith warms the heart, fills it with a glow of grateful love towards Him who gave himself for us. And that love makes us loathe and detest sin, because it is displeasing to our Lord,--the one thing which he hates. True faith and sin are just as much opposed to each other as fire and water. You said just now that you were afraid that people would live very careless lives if they hoped to be saved by faith. Do you find it to be so in your experience of men, Ben Stone? Those who are the most active in good works, the most steady in conduct, the best husbands, parents, neighbors, are they not the very people who have no hope of heaven but in the great Sacrifice for sin?"

"I can't deny that," answered Ben Stone, who knew that Ned Franks himself had a standard of duty that made his own appear but a low one. "But I can't see how that should be."

"Because every man _that hath that hope_ in Christ, _purifieth himself even as he is pure_;[J] because true faith is a gift of God's Holy Spirit, and it must be followed by two others,--the love of Christ and that _holiness without which no man shall see the Lord_.[K] As a good man once said, 'We come to Christ just as we are, but not to remain as we have been.' When we are once in the ark, Stone, it will lift us above the waters of wilful sin, as well as the waves of destruction; none serve God like those who have received the assurance,--'Go in peace; thy sins are forgiven thee.'"

The conversation was here interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Leyton. Franks respectfully rose, and gave up his chair to the young clergyman, and, at his request, brought the large Bible, which always occupied a conspicuous place in Ben's home. Very few words were exchanged, but Franks felt that the portion of Scripture selected by the curate was peculiarly well suited to deepen any impression which the late conversation might have left. It was the fifty-first psalm which Mr. Leyton read, almost without comment, by the sick-bed of one just beginning to have his eyes opened to the truth that he, too, had need to cry, _Have mercy upon me, O Lord! Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me!_

The eyes of Ben Stone were never again to be utterly closed to that truth; as life's day waned, a better light dawned on the invalid's soul.

[J] 1 John iii. 3.

[K] Hebrews xii. 10.

XXIII.

The Wife's Resolve.

On, on flowed the stream, round and round went the mill-wheel; and even so flows the current of time, and the circle of daily occupation goes round and round. Little Bessy, the miller's child, used every afternoon to watch Ned and his little band of workers going cheerfully to their toil; for the short cut to Wild Rose Hollow was through the wooded glen. Whistling and singing, laughing and shouting, the boys came along, and often a nosegay from a cottage garden, or a garland of flowers from the hedge, was left on the way for Bessy. The almshouses she always called _her_ cottages, and the boys who labored to repair them _her_ workmen; and the child's day-dream, as she sported by the stream, was to build a whole village of cottages, the prettiest that ever were seen, so that every poor old woman in England might have one with a garden all brilliant with flowers.

Before Ned and his "jovial crew," as he called the school-boys, had left off working in Wild Rose Hollow, just at the hour of six they always saw John Sands return from visiting the hospital of B----. The Hollow, though a little apart from the high road, yet commanded a view of it, and, punctual as the clock, with his black coat, white neck-cloth, and a narrow-brimmed hat surmounting his close-cropped black hair, the lean, stiff figure of the clerk was seen passing a certain thorn-tree which grew by the dusty highway. The boys were so much accustomed to this sight of the poor husband pursuing his silent, joyless way back to his solitary home, that he would certainly have been missed by them, had he on any day failed to appear. It was as natural to catch that glimpse of him passing the thorn-tree, as it was on Sundays to see him in his place under the reading-desk in church; whatever John Sands did, there seemed to be a kind of necessity that he should go on doing it forever.

It caused no small surprise, then, amongst the boys, when, on one evening in the latter part of May, as the clerk appeared at his usual hour, instead of passing the thorn-tree as usual, he turned off to the left from the high road, and, at the same pace, descended the narrow path which led down into Wild Rose Hollow. Any deviation from John Sands's daily course appeared as strange as if the mill-stream had suddenly taken to flowing in some new channel. The attention of the boys was even distracted from old Matthews, the cake and biscuit-man, who, with his well-known basket, had come that evening down into the Hollow to tempt the "jovial crew" to spend some of their half-pence and farthings in buying its sweet contents. Persis, who had brought her baby on that bright, warm afternoon to the Hollow, partly that she might visit old Sarah Mason, and partly that she might watch her husband and his crew at their work, looked up with an inquiring glance from the low wall on which she was seated, as John Sands came, with his long strides, towards the party.

"Why, here comes the old raven himself! What can be a-bringing him here?" cried one of the boys; "sure he's not a-going to work!" The idea of John Sands shouldering a pick-axe seemed so funny, that it set the auditors laughing.

"He's a bit red in the face,--I never seed him look like that afore,--as if he was going to smile; I fear he's been drinking like his wife!" exclaimed another boy; for anything resembling either a color or a smile on the sallow face of John Sands had never been seen in the memory of the oldest of Franks's "jovial crew."

"He's a-walking right up to old Matthews. Oh, if he ben't a-going to buy lollypops!" almost screamed a little urchin, in the excitement of surprise.

Every young eye was watching with curiosity the movements of the clerk, who went up straight to the cake and biscuit seller.

"Will you take half-a-crown for all these?" asked John Sands, pointing to the contents of the basket.

The wondering boys gathered around, while old Matthews, after a short mental calculation of the value of his sweeties and cakes, signified assent by a nod of the head.

John Sands pulled out an old black leather purse, opened it with fingers that seemed to tremble as he did so, and drew forth a half crown. He gave it into the old man's hand, and then, turning with a kind of nervous little giggle to the boys, he said,--

"There, you may have a scatter if you like it!"

So much amazement was excited by such an unaccountable act of generosity on the part of the stiff and usually melancholy man, that the boys stood staring and gaping at him for one or two seconds before they gave the donor of the sweets the loud, joyous cheer, which was instantly succeeded by a scatter and a scramble.

Meantime, John Sands strode up to Franks, who was standing by the wall with a measuring-line; the clerk took hold of Ned's one hand with both his own, and wrung it hard without uttering a word; then, to complete the astonishment of the beholders, went up to Persis, stooped down, and actually kissed the baby,--a thing which he had never been known before to do to any neighbor's child, and which he could only have done, all were persuaded, under the pressure of most unusual excitement. John Sands then turned on his heel and departed as he had come, anxious to escape from the noisy gratitude of the boys, whom he had treated for the first and last time in his life.

Had one of the jackdaws that haunted the old church-tower taken to soaring and singing like a lark, or had the ancient yew-tree been found on some morning bursting out into rose-colored blossom, it would hardly have excited more amazement than this strange conduct of John Sands, the clerk. Franks looked anxiously at his wife, and unconsciously touched his own forehead with his finger. The same thought was passing through the mind of each: "Grief has turned the poor fellow crazy." But grief had nothing to do with the matter; Sands was as sane and as sober as he had ever been in the course of his life. If his conduct appeared odd to those who had never known him but gloomy, solemn, and stiff, it was because such a (to him) strange guest had come to the poor man's heart in the shape of _joy_, that it had overturned everything before it; and Sands, in the excitement of receiving such a guest, scarcely knew what he was doing.

To explain the cause of this strange new sensation of joy to one dried up, as it were, by care and sorrow, we must relate what had occurred not an hour before, when John Sands had stood in the hospital-ward by the bedside of his suffering wife.

Interviews between them had taken place regularly on every week-day. It had seemed as if poor Sands could find little comfort in his visits to Nancy. After his long walk from Colme he would sit, silent and sad, listening to his wife's complainings and moans, or enduring her gloomy silence, which was almost harder to bear. Sands was not a man of many words, at least, words of his own,--well as his voice was known in the responses in church. He never attempted to comfort, but he felt for his suffering Nancy; and--little as he guessed that such was the case--very dear was his sympathy to her who was proving, week after week, the strength of his patient, much-enduring affection. On this particular afternoon Nancy had been more silent than usual, and Sands was thinking of rising and taking his leave at his accustomed time of departure, when his wife broke out suddenly with the exclamation,--

"I'll do it! I've made up my mind she shan't never throw that at me again!"

"Throw what, my dear?" mildly inquired the clerk.

"Bell Stone was here last Saturday," said Nancy, speaking with strong but restrained emotion. "She threw out a hint,--she did,--that it is no great thing for you that I'm getting over my accident, for that a _dead_ wife is a deal better for a man to have than a _drunken_ one!"

"My dear!" exclaimed Sands, much shocked.

"She did say it!" repeated Nancy, vehemently, "and she thought it, and all the world thinks it, and _I_ think it, too, for it's the fact, though I could have torn out her eyes when she said it!" The woman of fiery passions, weakened by illness and pain, lost all her self-command, and burst into a torrent of tears.

John Sands knew not how to soothe her passion of grief, and could only repeat, "My dear, my dear!" in a deprecating tone of distress.

"I'm not angry with her now!" cried Nancy, suddenly stopping in her weeping and drying her eyes. "The young curate came just after Stone's wife had left. I did not think much of the lad at first, but he, too, spoke what was truth, though in a different way from Bell. What he was a-saying I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Twill be hard work, but I'll do it. Then I've been thinking, oh, many and many's the time, of that evening I spent with the Frankses just afore I fell into the stream! I've been saying to myself, 'What a different home Persis gives her husband from what I've given to mine!' She has a good husband,--I'll not deny it,--but he don't deserve better of her than you do of me, John Sands, let any one deny that as can!"

"My dear!" repeated the poor clerk, in a softened tone. It was a new thing to him to have a kind word from his wife.

"Now," continued Nancy, who did not care to be interrupted, "I've lost an arm, and my right one, and it's not much as I can do now. But I'd do what I can, John Sands, and I'll _not do_ what I've done," she went on, more vehemently. "I'll _not_ go a-disgracing you, spending your money, and breaking your heart. I'll take the pledge to-morrow, and, God helping me, I'll keep it; never a drop of the poison shall pass my lips again!"