Chapter VII: "Lead us not into temptation."

E— was now becoming completely emptied of visitors. Every lodging put up its hopeless label—"To let"—in the reading-room no one thought it worth while to attend; the shore was left to the fishermen, and scarcely a bonnet was seen in the streets!

Walter worked busily and well at his new occupation. He had really a taste for carving, and every article that he made was an improvement upon the last. It was a great pleasure to him to hear Nelly admire his elegant sticks and beautiful boxes, and suggest little alterations and amendments.

But still there could be no sale for anything that he made until the season when visitors should return, and with the long dreary winter and bleak spring before him, Walter began seriously to consider whether he should not leave E—, and seek for employment elsewhere. In vain he tried to persuade himself that he was wanted in the shop; Viner's business was so small that he could well manage it himself. The scanty gains were hardly sufficient for the bare support of three; were Walter in another situation, he might increase the little store.

Very dear had his quiet home become to Villa's adopted son, he could hardly bear to leave it; and as he found by inquiry that there was little hope of obtaining employment near E—, he knew that to seek it, he must go to some distance, and be separated, perhaps for many years, from those whom he most loved upon earth.

The thought of this lay like a weight upon his heart, and often made him sigh heavily as he sat at his work. As yet he had not spoken on the subject either to Viner or Nelly, but he knew that the time was come when it would be necessary for him to do so.

Three days after the funeral of poor Ned, Mrs. Winter entered the little gate; Viner was alone in the shop at the time, but the sound of her voice drew Nelly and Walter from the parlour, where they had both been engaged in their work. "You have just come from our poor neighbour's," said Viner. "How is Mrs. Goldie this morning?"

"Oh! Poor soul, I have scarcely left her since that terrible day! She's breaking, she's breaking fast—she will never hold up her head again!"

"Oh! Hers has been indeed a heavy trial!" murmured Nelly.

"Most heavy," said her neighbour, "and she's quite sinking under it. I've known mothers in sorrow for their children before now, but never in sorrow like hers! There are many who receive deep wounds in the heart, but its sin that puts poison on the edge! This poor creature is always reproaching herself, always weeping over the wrong that she did to her child, though I am sure that she was but too fond a mother."

"'Oh! Had I known that his days were to be so few,' she cries; and then bursts into an agony of grief, and refuses to receive any comfort."

"Oh! Do you not speak to her of the Saviour?" cried Nelly.

"I have spoken, and our worthy clergyman has spoken; for, strange enough, Goldie sent for him. But it seems as if religion rather added to her pain; for when she hears of the mercy and goodness of God, she sobs out, 'Why did my poor boy never know Him!'"

"And Goldie," said Viner, "how does he bear up?"

"He looks much as usual, perhaps a little thinner; but he does not give way like his wife. I think that his heart is hardened by selfishness; and yet it has its warm corner too. He certainly has done a great deal for his children, has given them all that he could, except the best thing of all!"

"I am sure that he must feel this blow," said Nelly.

"He neither speaks about Ned, nor will hear others speak; he cannot bear his wife's grief, so keeps out of her way; he scarcely sees her from morning till night—she'll not trouble him long, poor thing!"

"I had trusted that affliction would have drawn him near to God," said Viner.

Mrs. Winter shook her head. "People may talk about great changes," she said, "but depend upon it, when a man has gone on for sixty years thinking of nothing but getting on in the world, it's as easy to raise the dead as to make him turn to religion! We know that there have been miracles, but we do not dare to expect them; and it would have been a miracle indeed had that man's heart been raised from the world! I fancy that Goldie has more trouble in his family before him, at least if it is true what is said about Mat. After the way in which he has brought up his sons, he must expect to reap as he has sowed."

Viner never encouraged gossip, therefore asked his neighbour no question that might lead her to continue the subject. She turned suddenly towards Walter and said, "I'm forgetting the thing that I came for—I bring you a message from Goldie. I think that he feels grateful—at least as grateful as such a man can feel—for your attempt to save his poor boy. He wishes you to stop over and see him; I hope that he is going to do something good for you, Walter."

The shutters of Goldie's shop, which had been put up before the funeral, had been again taken down, and except that one bright young face was seen there no more, the place looked much as usual. Walter found Goldie in the back parlour—his poor wife had never left her bed. Of how much comfort and ease that parlour told, with its nice furniture, carpet, little mirror above the mantelpiece, and framed portraits of the three sons hung on the wall! Yet to Walter's eye there was something deeply sad in the place, where comfort might be, but happiness was not.

Goldie received the youth kindly. Whatever remembrances the sight of Walter must have brought to the mind of the bereaved father, he showed little emotion on meeting, his voice might be somewhat tremulous, that was all—there were no tears nor signs of deep sorrow.

"I owe you something, Binning," he said, holding out his hand, "and I am not the man to forget it. You must be making a poor thing of it at Viner's, I should say—perhaps you are beginning to look at for something better?"

He stopped, as if for an answer; Walter made no reply, but listened eagerly to what was to follow.

"Mine is a large business," said Goldie, a little proudly, "and besides that, I have a house and lodgings to let, as you know, at the other end of the town. I shall want assistance in the shop, especially now that Mrs. Goldie is ill, and—" he paused, for he would not allude to the son whom he had lost—"and I should be happy, Binning, to take you in, with a handsome salary now, and a prospect of future partnership if we find that we suit one another."

The heart of Walter leaped with delight! The prospect of comfort, independence, without separation from his friends, seemed so much more than he had ever dared to hope, that his first feeling was one of unmixed joy! The second, however, was of difficulty and doubt, and Goldie read it in the changing expression of his face.

"Well, what do you say to it?" cried the fruiterer rather impatiently. "Is not my offer a fair one?"

"Most kind, most generous, and I shall accept it with gratitude, if I may only be assured that in serving the shop I shall never be required to do anything against my conscience."

"Your conscience! Oh! That is some of Viner's cant—that won't do with me," cried Goldie. "If you live with me, you must do as I do, and have none of your nonsense about Sunday. You had better understand that clearly from the first, and put your conscience in your pocket, like a sensible man."

"Then I'm afraid—"

"Don't make a foolish decision in a hurry, that you will be sorry for all your life. There's a customer just come in, I see, I must go to the shop to attend to him. Remain here, and think over the offer that I have made; you'll never have such another chance of getting on well in the world."

Walter sat alone in Goldie's back parlour, buried in deep anxious thought, drawn in opposite directions by two strong powers—duty on one side, inclination on the other. There were so many reasons for accepting Goldie's kindness: he would be independent, he could help his friends, he would see them every day—perhaps he might even do some spiritual good in the house of this irreligious man. But to all this conscience had but one answer. If he who asks the Almighty to lead him not into temptation, wilfully, with his eyes open, throws himself into it, how dare he hope for the protection of Heaven?

Should he deliberately agree to disregard God's commandment, how could he ask or expect that a blessing should attend him? Nelly's favourite text seemed to ring in his ears—"The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow thereto."

When Goldie returned from his customer, he found Walter with his mind quite made up. Gratefully, but firmly, the youth declined his offer, and Viner's adopted son returned to his humble home, not, perhaps, without some feeling of regret, but with a comfortable consciousness in his mind that, however foolish man might think his decision, he had acted wisely in the sight of Heaven.

And let me pause one moment to entreat my reader, before he takes any important step in life, thus to make conscience his first counsellor and friend. Providence may place us in situations of temptation, and then we have every encouragement to struggle on bravely, putting our trust in the promised aid of Him who is able to make us more than conquerors. But let us beware how we place ourselves in such, confiding in our own power to resist evil.

"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall;" let him avoid the place and the society that may draw him into sin; and never forget that the prayer put into the mouths of all by One who knew our weakness and our proneness to err, was:

"LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION."