Chapter XV: Two Years Later

TWO years later Dixtown appeared just the same to a casual observer as on the day when we closed our last chapter. The sun shone as brightly, the birds sang as gaily, the myrtles, fuchsias, and fig-trees flourished as luxuriantly, and the bay looked as placid. Nevertheless, some changes had taken place: one old-established shop had ceased to be; one new shop had been opened; and some of the inhabitants had been laid in their last resting-place in the pretty cemetery on the hill side.

Mother Crampton was one of these; she had finished her course with joy, and had passed up quietly and trustfully, depending on no righteousness of her own, but on the finished work of her Saviour, to the home prepared for her, among the mansions of the blest. She had no long illness; she worked to within a week of her decease, when she was compelled to take to her bed. She was tended by loving ones to whom she had so often ministered—Annie, Tom, Mrs. Jones, ay, even Miss Pringle on her crutches, were with her, each vying with the other in giving her some token of their respect and love.

After her death, her home passed into the hands of a respectable fisherman, but the shop was abandoned, for his wife had too large a family of children to be able to attend to it. This necessitated Annie's finding another means of disposing of her boxes, and in her distress, Miss Pringle helped her.

The spinster's recovery had been tedious, and no perfect cure was effected: she would never be able to walk again without her crutches. The illness had borne ripe fruit; it had softened the hard lines in her character. The change came very gradually, there was so much leaven to purge out; but the heart of stone can be turned to flesh when under the sanctifying influence of true religion; and Miss Pringle's formal service of God had merged into vital Christianity.

Tom soon mastered the baking business in all its details; he lost no old customers, but gained many new ones, for the Dixtown people said that his bread was, if anything, superior to Miss Pringle's; and as the story of her affliction, and her generous behaviour spread, several came to the shop by way of encouragement. When Tom became so essential to the spinster, she offered to give notice to her lodgers to find new apartments, as the only way of procuring him a more comfortable bedroom. The lad refused to accept a change on these terms, for he enjoyed spending part of every evening with Mr. Newton and his daughter; they were too good friends of his to be thus summarily dismissed.

But after Mother Crampton died, and Annie's difficulties about disposing of her boxes arose, Tom went to his mistress and suggested that she should rent the adjoining cottage, and instal her lodgers in it.

Miss Pringle offered no objection; Annie had been so good to her that she was glad to have it in her power to make some return. She not only took the cottage, but spent a little money in making necessary alterations, which is the best proof we can urge of the great change that had taken place in her character.

The first year of Annie's attempt at shop-keeping had just closed. It had been a profitable one; in addition to her boxes, she sold anemones, sea-weed, fossils, shells, and ferns. She and Tom had studied natural history with Mr. Newton, until they learned to search after, and distinguish the rare specimens which abounded everywhere on the beautiful coast.

Mr. Newton was in much better health, and with renewed strength, his eyesight was partially restored; he was able to serve customers, prepare boxes, and even read a few pages of a large-printed book.

So soon as Annie and her father were established in their new quarters, Tom exchanged his hole under the staircase for the large room they had occupied, so that he, too, was materially benefited, but yet retained his best friends near at hand.

"Any prawns wanted. Prawns to sell," cried Mrs. Gillies, walking up the street one bright October morning, and entering Miss Pringle's shop. "Good day!" she said, on perceiving the spinster busily dusting her shelves. "Is Tom too busy to speak to me for a few moments?"

"Oh, no!" answered Miss Pringle, in a cheerful tone, for she could be bright now, could smile, and sometimes laugh heartily. "He's just taken the bread out of the oven."

Tom entered the shop at this moment. He was now in his seventeenth year, and had grown into a tall, handsome lad.

"I've a message from granny," said Mrs. Gillies. "She want to see you if you can come over on Tuesday. She's not been well the last few days. I wish she'd give up her cottage and live with us. She's too old to be left, and there's room now that Harry and Will are gone, and Sally's so soon to be married. Persuade her to come."

"Yes, I will, mother. Isn't she a happy old woman now? I like to think of her."

"Yes, that she is, and it's your doing, Tom," answered his mother. "You've done a deal, my boy, for many of us," she added, emphatically.

"It was Miss Annie's book that made me think first," said Tom; "but after all, we must thank God."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Gillies. "I, for my part, am glad things have changed with us. I do thank God for it, and I'm sure your father does. I hope I shall live to see all my children Christians before I die. I feel plenty on my conscience sometimes, Miss Pringle, when I think of my past wickedness, and how often I've been a bad mother. I wish—oh how I do wish—I'd loved God all my life."

"So do I; we've all a deal to grieve over," added the spinster.

"We're more ready to tie than untie knots," remarked Tom.

"But how blessed it is for us all to know God forgives us in Christ, and accepts our feeble efforts to live nobler and better lives," said Miss Pringle.

The conversation was interrupted here by the postman entering with a letter, which he gave to Tom.

The boy started when he read it, and turned very pale.

"It's from Dick, mother; he's sentenced to be transported for ten years, with hard labour."

"He's young enough to have such a sentence!" exclaimed Mrs. Gillies. "He's not nineteen, Tom."

"No, mother."

"It's very, very sad," remarked Miss Pringle. "Dick is associated with a great deal of sorrow and much joy. I feel something like Jacob must have felt when the angel left him. 'Contented now upon my thigh to halt till life's short journey end.'"

"I wish—how I do wish—I could see him," said Tom. "It's too far to go—he's in London. Good-bye, mother, I must be off to my work."

But before Tom returned to the day's duties, he retired to his room to think. He was appalled at the news he had just received. Though he knew that his former friend was running a downward course, this was too dreadful to realise.

From the moment that Dick fled through the fields on that night when Annie surprised him with Miss Pringle's wooden box, he had thrown off the mask he had assumed, and became thoroughly reckless. He was several times confined in the county prison for petty thefts; and when his father at last refused to admit him at home, he joined a strolling party, and ultimately united himself to a band of desperate house-breakers, who made him their tool. Now that he was quitting his native land for so many years as a common felon, his thoughts reverted to his former companion, and he could not leave England without sending him a few words of farewell.

Tom read his letter again, and then fell on his knees and wept and prayed—not because he was better than Dick, but because, through the mercy of God, he had been awakened to a sense of sin. He went about his work with a heavy heart, for he was haunted by the remembrance of Dick. He could neither read with, nor be taught by, Mr. Newton that evening—he could only speak of the contents of the letter he had received in the morning.

After he bade farewell for the night to Mr. Newton, he turned to Annie, and said, in a broken voice, "Miss Annie, Dick's letter has brought back all my past life, and how much I owe to you for giving me a helping hand. I never shall forget the Sunday when you gave me 'Come to Jesus,' and I read,—

"'Habit will fasten strong chains around you, which will be harder to burst asunder every day. While you wait, Satan works. He is busy tying knots. You are his prisoner, and he is making more and more secure the cords which bind you. Whenever you sin, he ties another knot.'"