Chapter II: Consultation

ON the evening of that day, Ned Franks, the one-armed sailor, came, as he often did after his work of teaching was over at the school, to take tea with his sister, Bessy Peele, and her son.

A blazing fire threw its red glow round the cottage kitchen, and the kettle sang merrily on the hob.

"Any news, Bessy?" asked the sailor in a cheerful tone, as he hung up his straw hat on a peg on the wall.

"News, why yes," answered Bessy, tossing a note to her brother across the deal-table at which she was cutting the loaf. "The carrier brought this to-day from the town. There's Norah all agog to go to the workhouse!"

"To the workhouse," repeated Ned, with a merry laugh. "She's not likely to go there, I hope, while she has two hands and I have one that can work to keep her out of it."

"Just read her note—oh! that's not the one—but you'd better read both; the matron's will show you the whole matter. It's the most ridiculous notion as ever I heard of in all my born days." And with an angry toss of the head, Bessy went off to the kettle to fill her black tea-pot, while Ned read to himself Norah's note.

"Dear Mother,—Mistress says I may have the time, and she will pay herself for my coach, if you, or some other respectable woman, will go to the workhouse with me on Friday, but I must not go by miself. Do, do agree, dear mother. I cannot be happy till I have seen poor Sophy. Your dutiful child, Norah." And there was added, on a blotted line below, "if you can't go with me, p'raps my dear teacher wood."

"Well, Bessy, are you going?" quietly asked Ned Franks as he laid down the note.

"Going!" repeated Bessy, in her shrillest tone. "I must come to a pretty pass indeed afore I darken the door of a workhouse. I think the girl's gone crazed. As if I could give up half-a-day to go dancing over the country, and in middle of winter too. If it had been for a summer treat, a pic-nic, or fair, or something like that, 'twould have been a different matter. But to visit a pauper in a workhouse!" Bessy banged down the kettle on the hob, and carried the steaming tea-pot to the table.

"Now to my mind," said Ned, "'tis better to visit a messmate in trouble, whether in palace or poorhouse, whether weather be fair or foul, than to go on any mere pleasure cruise. She's a true-hearted lass, little Norah, not to turn her back on a friend."

"Why, uncle," exclaimed Dan, speaking with his mouth full, and that twinkle in his small black eyes, which gave a weasel-like slyness to his face, "to think of you, of all men living, standing up for Sophy Puller. Why the very first thing that you said when you heard of her doings was, that she was no true friend to our Norah."

"A sly, deceitful, dishonest, good-for-nothing minx," exclaimed Bessy, "who would have got my girl into all sorts of mischief. A workhouse is too good for the like of her, a great deal too good say I;" and Mrs. Peele poured out the tea with an air of virtuous indignation.

Ned Franks could not help thinking of the proverb, "they who live in glass-houses should not throw stones." His half-sister's own notions of truth and honesty were little more strict than those of poor Sophy, while she had not had the excuse of having been brought up by a worthless parent. How far more easy it is to condemn sin in others, than to subdue it in ourselves! Ned Franks was very silent during the meal. The idea of a young, misguided creature, suffering and blind in a workhouse, filled his kindly heart with such compassion as the good Samaritan felt for the wounded man by the way-side. Franks wished with all his soul that he could carry comfort to the poor girl, but felt that the task was not a suitable one for a young man like himself.

"Uncle Ned, what are you thinking of? you're as dumb as a fish," cried Dan at last, missing the usual lively flow of the sailor's conversation.

Ned took no notice of the remark, but said, turning towards Bessy Peele; "who is the teacher whom Norah mentions in her note?"

"Oh! don't you know?" cried Dan; "'tis Persis Meade, who goes every Sunday to teach the Bible-class of girls."

"I know her by name and sight," said the sailor, "but I do not know where she lives."

"In the little dell, near the mill-stream," cried Dan, "taking care of her silly old grand-dad, the old man who goes tottering to church with a crutch, and who has lived so long that he's lost all his hair, his teeth, and his wits." Dan laughed, as if the infirmities of age were any subject for laughter, till silenced by the stern glance of his uncle's reproving eye.

"Persis Meade was nursery governess at Mrs. Lane's," said Bessy, "and a deal they thought of her there; I wonder she ever left them to slave away as sick-nurse to a doited old man, as had never been partic'lar kind to her. But when her aunt Lizzy married, and old Meade was left all alone, Persis came to his cottage, and set up as needlewoman, though I don't know as how she had any special turn that way. The gentry about here employ her. She makes all the dresses for the Lanes; but if I'd been she, I'd have stayed where I was, and let the silly old man go to the workhouse. He needs as much looking after as a baby, and his childish babble is worse than the clack of a mill. Persis Meade was a deal better off at the Lanes; I say 'twas folly to leave them."

"Maybe 'twill not prove so in the end," observed Franks; "there's a blessing in the wake of the command, honour thy father and mother. Do you think," he added, "that Miss Meade would take care of our Norah on Friday?"

"I'll not ask her," cried Bessy, with something like a snort.

"If you don't mind it, I will," said the sailor. "I'll walk over early before school opens, and send Norah a line by post; she'll get it on Friday morning in time to walk over and join Miss Meade at the end of the lane, where the coach would pick them both up."

"'Tis not very likely that a woman as has two mouths to feed with her needle will give up half-a-day, and take a coach to B— to go hunting out a blind pauper."

"I'll make the coach easy for the matter of that," observed Franks, with a smile. "Norah shall have enough of ready rhino to pay for both."

"I'm sure that you might do something better with your money," exclaimed Bessy, who always thought that she had first claim to whatever her brother could spare.

"I hope you remember, uncle, that to-morrow is New-year's day," cried Dan, with a knowing wink of the eye.

"That there awkward boy broke my clothes' horse yesterday," sighed Bessy, "and I'm sure I don't know which way to turn for money to buy a new one."

"If Dan broke it yesterday, let him mend it to-day," laughed Ned, who understood the hint well, but did not choose to take it, "He and I, we can muster three hands between us. No need of money when a little labour will serve the turn. I'll give you a lesson, Dan, in the carpentering line; take that as a New-year's gift if you will."