CHAPTER VII.

Thinking over it.

WHILE his mother was putting on her bonnet before setting out on her

errand, John Carey had finished the slender meal which appeared to

leave him more hungry than before. He had watched the widow as she had

taken his father's staff from the corner to stay her feeble steps, and

it had then struck John, for the first time, how much his mother had

aged since his illness, how pale and weary she looked.

"Stay, dear mother," John had cried, with a feeling of self-reproach;

"you look so tired, I can't bear to see it. Wait, and we'll find some

one else to send."

But the widow's only reply had been a faint smile, as she had left the

cottage on her errand for her son.

"My mother has been half-killing herself for me, ungrateful dog that I

am," muttered John, his self-reproach growing stronger and stronger.

"Why, what can she have been living on all these six weeks, while I've

been lying like a log in my bed? I can see well enough in her face what

she's been a-suffering for me, without grudging, without complaining,

bearing with all my ill temper, nursing me night after night! And what

kind of a return do I make for it all? Did I not say to mother this

very morning that I wanted to speak to Dick Brace about our little

piece of business? She only sighed—I could see she was vexed; but I let

her be vexed rather, than give up what I'd set my heart on.

"I've sometimes thought," continued John Carey, still muttering to

himself, "I've sometimes thought that if I ever get well again—and now

it's like as I may—I'd turn to God, serve Him as my parents have served

Him, and begin what mother calls a pilgrim's life in good earnest.

But if I did so—ah! The first steps are those as be so hard to take!

If I did so—I must honour and obey my mother, as the Bible tells me I

should; I must give up this pleasant plan of starting in business with

Brace, I must give up the 'Jolly Ploughboys.' 'Twould be a hard pull—it

would!"

John rubbed his chin; thinking wearied him, but he could not throw the

subject off his mind.

"I might give up Dick Brace and the business, but that would not be

the worst of it. Dinah Dealtry!" thought John. "She would not look at

a mere day-labourer—she would not live in a cottage like this with my

mother!"

He glanced with something like discontent around him at the humble home

in which he had been born.

"Dinah has as good as told me that she'd ha' nothing to say to a man

who could not offer her a house of her own. If she wouldn't choose to

live with mother, mother wouldn't care to live with her; them two could

never get on together, they've such different notions and ways."

John heaved a sigh of perplexity and vexation.

"It seems as if I must choose between the two, for I can't have

both—that's clear; and I must choose between the two paths also; I know

well enough which is the right one, but—but—how thinking does make

one's head ache—and one's heart too for the matter of that!"

There are many who, like John Carey, are quite convinced that the

pilgrim's path is the right one, the only path which can end in peace;

many who are almost persuaded to try it, and who yet shrink back from

the sacrifice of what conscience tells them that they must leave

behind, if they decide on following the Lord fully in their daily walk

through life. It was from this hesitation, from this indecision, so

dangerous to the soul, that our Lord would warn His servants when He

spoke those solemn words: "If thy hand offend thee (cause to offend)

cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than

having two hands to go into hell." * Things dear as a hand or an eye

must be given up through God's helping Grace, if they keep us back from

the narrow way which leads unto life eternal.

* Mark ix. 43.

John Carey thought long, and thought sadly; his brain grew weary, his

mind confused, till at length he could do no more than simply lift up

his heart to God, and ask for His Spirit to guide him. The once strong,

self-willed man was becoming more like the little child who knows his

own weakness, and turns to a parent for help and support.

John's solitude was suddenly broken by the sound of tramping footsteps

without, and then a loud rap from some one's knuckles on the outer door

of the cottage. The latch was lifted, and Dick Brace entered with a

quick, bustling air. He threw down a newly-killed pigeon on the table,

and greeted John in a loud hearty tone, such as had not been heard for

many weeks in that sick-room.

"Ha! Old fellow, glad to see you about again, though," he added with

an oath, "you look like one who's had to swim hard for life—they've

cropt your mane, and not left much of the 'young lion' about you. I've

brought a pigeon I've shot with a new gun I've been trying—no, it's

not worth talking about," he added, with a blustering awkwardness of

manner, as John seemed about to thank him for the bird.

And Brace seated himself opposite to the invalid, looking fidgety and

somewhat embarrassed, as John might have perceived, had he not been too

busy with his own thoughts to notice the manner of his companion.

"You are just the man as I was a-wanting to see," said young Carey, his

pale face flushing with the effort of speaking; "I've something to say

to ye, Dick, and I'd better out with it at once. You see, I don't want

to deal unhandsome by you—but about that partnership we meant to set

up—"

"Of course that affair went to smash when you were robbed of your tin,"

interrupted Dick Brace; "one can't set up in business with only a

shovel, a spade, and a hammer!"

"But I was not robbed," began Carey, when again his companion cut him

short.

"Besides, I've been thinking," said Dick, "that two landlords would

be one too many for the 'Jolly Ploughboys'—a landlady would be quite

another thing; so," he added, with an awkward little laugh, "I'm going

to enter into partnership for life, and I've found Dinah Dealtry quite

willing to set up in business with me."

John's flushed face turned very pale; this was the only sign of emotion

which he gave. He let not a word escape that might betray his secret to

Dick, who, having told his tale, soon afterwards took his leave.

When Widow Carey came home, full of thankful joy, with the money, she

only thought her son unusually silent and grave—she believed that this

was because he was weary, but she did wonder not a little that his

appetite should have so suddenly left him.

When Mrs. Carey heard afterwards from the baker of Dick's engagement to

Dinah, the mother guessed what it had been that had cast a gloom over

her son. She never mentioned the girl's name to John, and it never once

passed his lips. The young man felt that his prayer for guidance had

been answered in wisdom and goodness, but he could not feel thankful

then for the blighting of earthly hopes.

But a time was coming when John Carey could not only submit, but

rejoice that he had been kept from the path that he had wished to

pursue; when he could be grateful from the bottom of his heart for the

blows which had nearly cost him his life, for the sickness which had

wasted his strength, the disappointment which had wounded his heart.

This was when, about a year afterwards, he brought a bright, happy

young bride to his home, and saw his mother's eyes beaming with

pleasure almost as great as his own; for Jane was the girl of all

others whom the pious widow would have chosen to dwell with her as the

wife of her son.

"You'll give us your blessing, mother, won't you?" asked John.

The widow took the strong hand which was held out to her, joined it to

Jane's, and pressed both to her happy heart.

"Oh! My children," she cried, "may God—your father's God—give you both

grace to go on as you have begun, walking hand in hand, as pilgrims to

a better home—cheering each other, and helping each other on the way!

Never forget that all earth can give is nothing without God's blessing;

that blessing gives peace and hope in this life, to be followed by

perfect bliss with Him in whose presence is fulness of joy, and in

whose right hand are pleasures for evermore!"

AN HEIR OF HEAVEN

OR,

A CHRISTIAN IN PRIVILEGE.

CHAPTER I.

The Lonely Cot.

LONELY was the little cottage in which dwelt Silas Mytton, the hewer

and chopper of firewood. It stood in a corner of a heath, with not

another house near it, and all the winds could sweep over it unchecked

from every quarter. It was a small patched-up place, with one little

window at the side of the door, and above it another peeping from under

the low thatched roof. The cottage had been scarcely large enough to

hold Silas, his wife, and their five children; but now Mrs. Mytton was

dead, and the eldest boy had gone to sea.

The common looked pleasant enough in the summer, when the blossoms on

the flags showed like white feathers round the patches of water, and

the heather purpled the ground, and yellow furze dotted it with gold,

and geese fed there, and donkeys browsed, and butterflies fluttered

over the honied wild-flowers.

But a very dreary place looked the common in winter, when the heath was

brown, and the blossoms dead, and the patches of water grew broader

and larger, and all around them was swamp, till sharp frost turned the

water into ice, and the north wind rushed wildly across the waste, and

covered it with snow. Mytton's cottage was then a dreary abode indeed,

for seldom did any one care to go near it, and the wind not only swept

over but through it, at least so it seemed to the dwellers therein.

There was a little thatched out-house or shed in front of the cottage,

and from thence, hour after hour, as long as daylight lasted, might be

heard the sound of chopping up wood. It was by this, that Mytton gained

his living; for, except in harvest-time, and then rarely, he never

worked as a day-labourer for any of the farmers around. Wood-chopping

seemed to come as natural to the Mytton family as flying does to birds,

or swimming to fishes. Mrs. Mytton had been chopping in the shed but

the day before she died, and on the evening after the poor woman's

funeral, when her sorrowing family returned from the churchyard, they

set to chopping again. Mytton might be seen constantly at work, with

his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows, showing his hairy freckled

arms as he steadily plied the hatchet.

He was a hard-featured, stern-looking man, with rough grizzled chin,

and cheeks shaven but once a month, and his appearance was that of

one who had had a long struggle with want and care. Mytton's trials,

however, had rather soured than subdued him; he was a prouder man in

his cottage than Sir Marmaduke in his castle. The wood-chopper was

wont to tell his children on winter evenings how his grandfather's

grandfather had been a gentleman, and a mighty rich one too, who had

owned more acres of land in Shropshire than there were sedges round the

pool; who had kept twenty hunters in his stables, and had gone up to

London once every year in a family coach drawn by six fine grey horses.

The little Myttons, shivering in their cold cottage, used to listen

to their father's accounts of such grandeur in bygone days, much as

they would have listened to fairy stories. They knew that they neither

fared better, nor worked the less hard, because they bore the name of

some grand squire who had lived at a time which seemed to them as far

back as that of the Deluge. The fine family coach was to the young

wood-choppers much the same kind of thing as that which Cinderella's

fairy in the story made out of a pumpkin. When the tale had been told,

the cottage children went to their beds, and thought very little more

about the grandeur of olden times.

All but Amy, the eldest girl, a shy and thoughtful child, with large

forehead and earnest brown eyes, which seemed never to rest on the

objects near her, but to be looking for something beyond. As Amy's

eyes, so was her mind; in her secluded cottage home, the girl was

living in a little world of her own.

When scrubbing the tile-floor, or mending the linen, or chopping wood

(for girls as well as boys passed most of their time at this work),

Amy's thoughts were full of fancies suggested by her father's winter

tales. She was imagining the grand times come again—her father living

in a turreted castle ten times as large as Sir Marmaduke's dwelling,

and her brothers—Silas, Ned, and Joe—each mounted on a prancing white

horse with trappings of gold; and her dear mother dressed out in satin

and gems, giving out loaves every Sunday to hundreds and hundreds of

the poor. These were but foolish fancies, and Amy would have been

ashamed to have told them to any one but little May, her youngest

sister, who would open wide her blue eyes and think how delightful it

would be to ride in a carriage, and eat roast meat every day in the

week!

Amy's foolish day-dreams only lasted till the time when, at a lady's

request to her parents, she attended a village school, which was nearly

two miles from her home. Then every day the little pale girl, with her

bag on her arm, might be seen crossing the common. Amy was the quickest

and most willing of scholars, her lessons were always well learned,

she was ever ready with her answers, and the teacher regarded as her

best pupil, the thin, stunted, sickly child, who seemed to take in the

meaning of everything with her eyes.

These were very happy times for poor Amy, though the walk to and from

the school was almost too much for her strength, and wearily she

dragged her limbs along before she reached her father's cottage. Amy

was ill-clad and ill-fed, her frame had never been hardy; with her

nothing seemed to grow but her mind. At the age of twelve, which was

hers when my story opens, Amy was little taller, and scarcely as heavy,

as her sister May, who was but half that age.

Amy's happy school-days had not lasted for long. After the sudden death

of her mother, the eldest girl of Mytton could no longer be spared

from home. She must, young and fragile as she was, do the cleaning and

cooking, the washing and mending, and help with the chopping besides.

Amy never complained, and seldom cried except at night when every one

else was sleeping, but she felt her mother's loss keenly. She felt

also her own weak health, for her strength was ebbing away day by day.

Still the poor child went on with her labour as long as her small thin

fingers could work; till one day she almost fainted in the shed, and

never more was the chopper to be lifted by Amy Mytton. She did what she

could in the cottage, but that little grew less and less; a terrible

cough racked her frame; her head drooped as if its weight were too much

for her strength to support, her appetite totally failed her, and Amy

could never keep herself warm.

Mytton did not appear to see the change in his daughter, or, if he did,

it aroused his impatience, not his tenderness; indeed there was little

of tenderness in the nature of Silas Mytton.

"I wish that you would get rid of that trick of barking, child!" would

be the almost angry exclamation of the father, when disturbed by the

cough which had broken Amy's rest half through the night.

If, when he drove his bundles of wood in a donkey-cart to the town,

any one who knew poor Amy inquired after her health, "Oh! she's well

enough," he would say. Or, if he could not say that, Mytton's answer

would be, "The child's a bit pinched with the cold, but she'll be all

right in the spring."

But spring came, and Amy was not all right: the March winds seemed to

chill her slight frame, even more than the hard frosts of winter. With

a bitter spirit Mytton saw his pale, patient little girl gradually

fading away.

"If she'd common comforts, she would do well enough," he would mutter.

"If she had a rich man for her father, she'd not live in a cottage

which lets the wind in like a sieve, she'd be wrapped up in velvets and

shawls, and have a score of doctors, and they'd soon get the little one

round."

Mytton fell into the common mistake of thinking that money could do

everything, and this had the effect of filling his soul with malice and

envy towards those better off in the world than himself, as if what the

rich possessed were something taken from the poor.

Mytton had the savage feelings of a man who thinks that he has been

pushed out of a place which is his by right, and Amy learned to dread

anything recalling to her parent what his grandfather's grandfather had

been in the past, for it always put him out of humour with everything

in the present. Mytton would growl at his hard fare, abuse every one

above him in social position, or, if he were in a silent mood, hack

savagely at his wood, looking as if it were by no means the only thing

which he would willingly chop into pieces.

Amy's brothers and little sister were so much accustomed to hear her

cough, and see her feeble and sickly, that it never entered their minds

that her illness might end in death. They had never known Amy strong,

and the change in her was so gradual, that the children who were with

her day after day scarcely noticed it at all.

One March morning, however, little flaxen-haired May came to her sister

with a perplexed and rather troubled expression on her round, chubby

face.

"Amy," she said, laying her thick sun-browned fingers on the wasted

hand of her sister, "when Mrs. Gapp was here about the wood, what do

you think I heard her a-saying to her husband 'bout you?"

"What was it, dear?" asked Amy.

"She looked at you sad-like and said, (she didn't know I was

a-hearing,) 'She's not long for this world,' says she, and Gapp, he

answered nothing, but he nodded his head so gravely. Amy, what did she

mean?"

A light delicate flush rose on the pale cheek of Amy, and a strange

brightness came into her eyes. She raised them for a moment towards

the blue sky, and then turned them earnestly, not sadly, on her young

sister.

"Did she say that?" asked Amy, softly.

"What did it mean?" repeated May.

"That I may soon go—where dear another has gone," murmured Amy, folding

her thin little hands, and again glancing up at the sky.

May, child as she was, was startled at the words and the look; for the

first time it flashed across her mind that her sister must be very ill.

"You must not go—you shall not go—we can't spare you—we can't do

without you!" cried May, throwing her arms around her sister, as though

to imprison her in their tight, loving embrace.

One thought possessed the mind of the little rustic for all the rest

of that day, how could she make Amy well? The child was chidden by

her father for being hours absent from the wood-shed, "after some

mischief," as he said, when poor May had only been employing her

clumsy fingers in stitching up her own pinafore into a pillow-case,

and tearing up paper to stuff it, so that Amy's languid head—that head

which so often was aching—might have a cushion to rest on. It was with

great triumph that May carried her pillow to Amy in the evening; to

have made it all by herself was a feat, to have invented it was an

effort of genius, and the child thought that her cushion must work a

wonderful charm on her suffering sister.

"Is it not nice—does it not make you feel so comfy?" asked May, as she

placed her somewhat flat and limp paper cushion over the back of the

wooden chair upon which Amy was seated.

"It is very nice, very comfy, I shall prize it so dearly, for it is

stuffed with love," replied the sick girl, with a faint but pleasant

smile.

CHAPTER II.

Treasure Found.

ON a bright sunny morning in the beginning of April, Silas Mytton

harnessed his donkey to the cart, and led it to the shed, where he

and his two younger sons loaded the cart with the bundles of wood on

the sale of which their livelihood depended. The air was mild; Amy's

chair was dragged by May to the doorway, where the sunbeams came

streaming in; and there the little invalid sat watching her father and

her brothers, Joe, the elder of the two boys, standing in the cart to

receive the bundles that were tossed up to him, and pile the firewood

in something like order. It was always with goodwill that the boys

helped to load the wood-cart, for on the days when it went to the town,

the noise of chopping was silenced, and the axe and knife might lie

still on the block in the shed.

"Hard work they've cost us, and little enough they'll bring us!"

muttered Mytton, as the last bundle was put on the top of the rest.

He gave a blow with his stick to the patient donkey to make it move

on, and slowly the wood-cart creaked along the rough road across the

common, Silas Mytton walking beside it.

May followed it awhile with her eyes, and then ran up to her sister.

"Amy, you're better, much better!" cried the affectionate child. "I

know you'll soon be quite well."

"What makes you think so?" asked Amy.

"Oh your eyes are so bright, and you look so happy—happier than you

ever have looked since mother died, and Silas went off to sea."

"I am happy, I was having such pleasant thoughts," said Amy.

"I daresay you was telling yourself a nice story, such as you used

to tell me," observed May, "about our being very rich and grand, and

wearing—oh I such fine clothes! Very different from this old thing!"

added the child, laughing, as she touched her father's fustian jacket,

which lay across Amy's knee.

The sick girl had been attempting to put a patch on one of the sleeves,

but the weight even of an old garment wearied her wasted arms, and she

had put it down on her lap.

"I was thinking of royal robes—white and shining, like those beautiful

clouds up yonder," said Amy, softly, "and crowns all glittering like

the dew on the grass, when the sun is shining upon it."

"For us to wear?" asked May.

"Yes, for us to wear," replied Amy; and again that expression of peace

and joy which, had struck her little sister before, lighted up the sick

girl's sunken features.

"Oh! Amy, I want you to tell me a story, like as you used to do," cried

May, with eager pleasure. "There's father gone away with the cart,

Joe and Davy are off to see if they can't find a bird's nest in some

hedge-row, there's no one here but you and me, and won't we be cosy

together! I'm going to make another pillow, for that one's got a bit

flat;" (rather flat it had been from the first, notwithstanding being

often beaten up by the thick little fingers that had made it.)

"Look, I'll bring the three-legged stool and sit at your feet,"

continued the child; "but first I'll run and get some paper to tear up

into bits—I know where I can find some, quite enough for a tiny pillow."

Away ran the little cottager, cheerful and blithe as the bee that was

humming over the common on that sweet morning in early spring. Her

fears for her sister had quite passed away—childhood is seldom long

burdened with cares. And the discovery of an old bag which might, with

very little trouble, be turned into a tiny pillow-case had sufficed to

make May quite happy.

The child soon returned to Amy, holding up with one hand her print

dress, so as to enable her to early in it a supply of loose pieces of

paper, which she intended to tear into fragments for stuffing, while

with the other hand she dragged the three-legged stool which was to

serve as her seat.

"I must take care that the wind does not blow all my paper away!"

cried May, as the breeze which she met at the cottage door sent some

fragments fluttering behind her. "I'll sit with my back to it—just

here; or, stay—please hold my papers for me, Amy, while I run for the

bag to put the little bits into as fast as I tear them up, or they'll

be blown all over the common."

When May returned with the bag, she found Amy eagerly looking over the

papers which had been left in her charge.

"Oh! May, darling, where did you find these?" exclaimed Amy, without

raising her eyes from her occupation, as soon as she heard the step of

her little sister.

"In the boys' room," replied May; "them papers was all turned out of

the old box that Joe made into the hen-roost; it was full of dirty old

papers that warn't no use to nobody."

"No use!" exclaimed Amy, with unwonted energy. "Oh! May, look—look—here

are leaves from a Bible, from God's own Word! I am so happy, so

thankful to get them!" And the sick girl pressed a fragment, yellow

with age, to her lips.

"I thought you'd a whole Bible of your own—what you got at the school

as a prize," said May, who did not share, nor understand the pleasure

of her sister on finding a few torn leaves.

"I gave it to Silas, 'twas my parting present, and oh! How I've longed

for a sight of a Bible since!" exclaimed Amy, whose affection for her

brother had led her to make what had been to her a sacrifice indeed.

"And now God sends me these precious papers! Let's gather out every

piece, May, that has any of the Word printed upon it."

"Not such a little scrap as this surely," said May, picking up a small

fragment that had fallen on the ground.

"Let us see what that little scrap holds," said Amy, and taking it from

May she read aloud, "'an inheritance undefiled, and that fadeth not

away, reserved in heaven for'—" *

Here the paper was torn, it contained but a part of a verse. But the

gaze of Amy rested on it with joy as she cried, "May, May, these few

words describe what we look for, long for, the Home prepared up above!"

* 1 Peter i. 4.

"I don't know what they mean," said May; "what is that long word

''heritance?'"

"It has something to do with coming into property, I think," replied

Amy. "Don't you remember what father said yesterday evening about the

great inheritance in Shropshire which some one of our name had a long

long time ago?"

"Oh! That meant the great house, with all the hundreds and thousands of

acres about it that we hear about, but never see!" laughed May.

"But we believe—we believe that there is such place," said Amy.

"I don't care much about it, for I know I shall never have it!" cried

May.

"But if you believed that you might have it, that you certainly would

have it one day, that it had been bought and was reserved—that means

kept for you, would you care then?" asked Amy, with an eagerness which

brought on a violent fit of coughing.

It was some time before she had recovered her breathing sufficiently

to enable her to go on with the conversation. As soon, however, as Amy

could speak, she continued, but in a fainter tone, "Now, May, this is

just what I believe about the inheritance in Heaven, undefiled, and

that fadeth not away. I believe that there is a bright, happy, glorious

Home which the Lord Jesus bought for us, for me, for you, with His own

precious blood, and which He is keeping for us, until He has made us

ready to enter in, and dwell there for ever."

"You mean when we die?" said May very gravely, looking full into the

pallid face of her sister; the fear which she had dismissed was rising

up again in the mind of the child.

"Oh! What is dying to a Christian! It is going home—getting

possession," cried Amy, faintly but joyfully. "His treasure is in

Heaven, and he is going to enjoy it! You should have heard, May, how

our teacher used to speak of the beautiful land above!

"'There fairer bowers than Eden bloom,

Nor sin nor sorrow see—'"

Again the cough interrupted the words of the young invalid. Amy, after

the fit was over, leaned back on her pillow in a state of exhaustion.

May ran and brought her some water; Amy drank it, and smiled.

"You must not speak, it makes you cough so," said May.

"I mayn't have much time left for speaking, darling," faltered Amy;

"and I wish so much to tell you things that may make you happy, as I

am, when God has taken me up to my Home. May, what does it matter now

to that Mytton who lived so long long ago that he was so rich and so

great, had servants and horses in plenty, and all else that money could

get! He had his inheritance, but he could not keep it, he could not

take anything with him into his grave."

"But he may have been a good man," observed May, "some rich people are

good, you know."

"If he was a real, true Christian, as I hope he was," said Amy, "then

he left his earthly inheritance for one ten million times better! See,

May, see, here is another description of it in this leaf torn from the

Bible; listen how beautiful it is:

"'The street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.

And I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are

the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the

moon to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb

is the light thereof.'" *

* Rev. xxi. 21, 22, 23.

"Who is the Lamb?" asked May, who had listened with a kind of wondering

awe.

"The Lord Jesus Christ," replied Amy, pronouncing the sacred Name with

reverence. "He is called the Lamb, because as a lamb was killed by

the Jews in the old-old times as a sacrifice for sin, so the Blessed

Saviour was killed as a Sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. He is

'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.' † That is

the wonderful history which I used to read in my Bible. May, the Lord

suffered, willingly suffered all the pain that cruel men could inflict,

that He might wash away our sins, and make us the heirs of Heaven. Was

not that wonderful love! He lay, as a Babe, in a manger, and died, as a

Man, on a cross, that we might dwell in glorious mansions and live for

ever and ever. Was not that love—oh! Such love!"

† John i. 29.

Amy closed her eyes, and May, glancing up at her sister, could see that

their lashes were moist with tears.

The little child laid her hand upon Amy's. "We will love the Lord too,"

said she.

Amy opened her eyes, and, smiling on May, softly murmured, "'We love

Him because He first loved us.' * It is so sweet to love the Lord

Jesus, and rest on His love; to serve Him now, and then see Him, as I

hope to do—very soon."

* 1 John iv. 19.

There was nothing more said on the subject at that time. May busied

herself in carefully separating every fragment of the torn Bible from

the rest of the papers which she had brought, putting "the holy words,"

as she called them, into her bag.

Amy intended to stitch them all carefully together, to keep as a

treasure, when she should have strength to sort and arrange them. In

the meantime, the few verses which she had read to May were as manna

for her soul to feed on.

In her coarse, faded black print dress, seated at the door of her

humble home, with deadly sickness upon her, the cottager's child felt

happy and rich; was she not, through redeeming love, an heir of the

kingdom of light and glory? Yea, far firmer than the mountains stands

the promise of Christ to the lowly believer, "Blessed are the poor in

spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." †

† Matt. v. 3.

CHAPTER III.

A Search.

"HOW late father is of coming back," cried Joe, as he entered the

cottage, flushed and heated, after a long ramble with his brother.

Sunburned little peasants were they, clad in coarse garments which,

with their rough wear, gave plenty of work to Amy's thin fingers.

"You've been a-clamberin' and scrambling about," observed little May.

"Joe, your smock is torn right down the side, and, David, the brim is

nigh off your straw hat—a bit o' yer hair is sticking through."

"You'll give a stitch or two, and make the old thing hold together!"

cried David, tossing the hat to Amy. "It ain't fit for a scarecrow.

That rich old Mytton, as father talks on, he'd ha' stared could he ha'

seen what his grand-grand-children would ha' come to!"

"Oh! That old Mytton, I think he was the man in the moon!" laughed Joe.

"I don't believe a word about that big carriage and six grey horses.

But I say, what's become of father, I thought he'd ha' been back afore

now."

"I hope father's sold the wood, or won't he be in a way, and won't we

catch it!" cried May.

"He was going not only to sell but to buy at the town," observed Amy.

"Father promised to get a nice new bit of print for you, May, for I

told him I'd mended and patched that frock of yours as long as I could,

but that now it's all coming to pieces, let me do what I will, it's so

old."

"I don't think as how it ever was new!" cried Joe. "You wore it at

first yourself as long back as I can remember, Amy."

"Ah! There's father coming! I can see him over the common!" exclaimed

May eagerly, for the purchase of a new frock was a great event to the

child.

"And there's no wood left in the cart, I'm glad of that," observed

David. "But sure Dobbin must be lame, he's a-going so slow. There's

father a-whacking him well; but he don't go much the faster."

The sound of Mytton's blows on the back of the patient, plodding

creature always gave pain to Amy's kindly heart. She would never have

willingly inflicted pain on any of God's creatures, least of all upon

one that had long and faithfully served her.

The children went out to meet their father, all but Amy, who was so

feeble that to rise unaided from the chair upon which she was seated

was an effort almost beyond her strength. The poor girl could tell from

the tone of Mytton's voice before he entered the cottage that he was

out of temper, and inclined to quarrel with all the world.

"Take the beast out of the cart, boys; he's not worth the thistles that

he crops! I don't believe I could get five shillings for the lazy brute

if I sold him to-morrow. And there was Sir Marmaduke, with his two

spanking bays," continued Mytton, as he crossed the threshold of his

humble little dwelling, "whirling along the highway, covering me with

his dust, and nigh driving over cart, donkey, and all; a fellow whose

grandfather was a manufacturer, and spun all his money out of sheep's

wool!" Mytton threw himself down on a seat, pulled off his felt cap,

and wiped his heated brow with his hand; a handkerchief was a thing of

which he did not boast the possession.

"Did you buy the print for me, father?" cried May, who had followed

Mytton into the cottage.

"No," the man answered sharply.

"Oh! You forgot it!" exclaimed May, in a tone of disappointment.

"I didn't forget it, I was in the shop, the fellow behind the counter

was just going to serve me, when a fine open carriage pulls up at

the door, and Sir Marmaduke flings the horses' reins to his liveried

lackey and gets out. Of course, I had to stand back to let the fine

gentleman pass, I whose ancestor kept a coach-and-six, when he, maybe,

was a-running barefoot behind it!" Mytton looked unutterable scorn as

he spoke. "He'd come to ask after the yellow satin he'd ordered for his

drawing-room curtains; yellow satin, forsooth! Every yard of it costing

as much as I'd earn in a week by my labour! I didn't choose to stand

there waiting till a sneak of a shopman had done bowing and fawning and

smiling to the great man, whose fortune had sprung up like a mushroom,

so I turned on my heel and went out. I'm as good a man as Sir Marmaduke

any day, for all his swaggering pride!"

Any one who had seen the sneer on the lip of the peasant might have

guessed, and would have guessed truly, that there was more of pride

under his blue smock, than swelled the heart of the wealthiest peer in

the land. In a savage spirit of discontent, Mytton cut a thick hunch

of bread from the loaf which Amy had spread ready for him, and a slice

from the piece of stale cheese. There was no grace said before dinner

by Mytton, indeed thanksgiving would have keen a mockery from one who

looked upon himself as wronged, because he had been born in a station

as lowly as that which the Lord of Heaven, when He came to visit earth,

had chosen for His own.

Mytton ate his bread and cheese in gloomy silence, which his daughters

were afraid to break; the two boys were lingering outside with the

donkey. Presently Joe thrust in his flaxen poll at the door, and said,

"There be a yellow post chaise coming 'cross the common."

And May ran out to look at it, either because any kind of conveyance

was a rarity in that place, or because the presence of one stern

irritable man made the cottage uncomfortable.

The thoughts of Amy had wandered far-away from the scene before her,

when they were suddenly recalled to earth by an exclamation from her

father, who was seated opposite to the open door.

"Why—the chariot is stopping here!" cried Mytton.

A bald-headed gentleman put his head out of the carriage window.

"Can you tell me, little girl, if any one of the name of Mytton lives

in this neighbourhood?" said he, addressing himself to May, who stood

with her chubby finger in her mouth, staring at instead of answering

the stranger.

"That be my father," said Joe, grinning with wonder that any one coming

in a yellow chariot should wish to see him.

"Is any one wanting me?" asked Silas, rising and going forth from his

cottage, for in that quiet spot every word spoken had been heard in the

dwelling.

Instead of replying, the gentleman opened the door of the chaise and

got out.

"I thought, from the description given me, that this must be the place,

Sharp," said he to a younger man who directly followed him.

Mytton looked a little surly, like an Englishman who feels that his

cottage is his castle, and wishes to know on what errand strangers

come, before he welcomes or admits them.

"Have you any business with me, sir?" he inquired.

"I have a little business, my good man, which can best be transacted

within doors. My name is Garway—I am from London. Can I have a little

talk with you?" asked the gentleman.

And, taking Mytton's silence for consent, he and his companion entered

the cottage, followed by Silas and the wondering group of his children.

"Pray don't disturb yourself—an invalid, I fear," said Mr. Garway,

motioning courteously to Amy, who had attempted to rise on his entrance

to offer one of the strangers her chair.

The lawyers, for such they were, then seated themselves on high wooden

stools which Mytton had made himself, and the younger man produced,

to the surprise of the children, not only a large pocket-book, but an

ink-bottle and steel pen, and pushing aside the fragments of bread and

cheese on the table, placed his writing materials upon it, evidently

preparing to take notes. This looked like business indeed.

"Can you inform me," said Mr. Garway to Silas, "whether you are in any

way, however remotely, connected with the ancient family of the Myttons

of Oaklands, in Shropshire."

The question brought the blood to the swarthy cheek of the hewer of

wood.

"My grandfather's grandfather was the owner of the finest place in that

county," said he.

The children glanced curiously at the strangers, half expecting them

to laugh at such a boast from so poor a man as their father; but they

both looked perfectly grave, and Mr. Sharp dipped his pen, and wrote

something in his book.

"From what source do you derive your information—I mean, how do you

know the fact which you assert?" inquired Mr. Garway.

"I have heard my grandfather speak about it often, when I was a boy,"

answered Silas; "he died afore I was ten years old."

Mr. Sharp set down the reply.

"But have you only oral—I mean, do you only draw upon your own memory?"

asked the lawyer. "Can you trace up the family links which connect you

with Hugh Mytton, who lived in the reign of Queen Anne? Have you any

proofs to give that you are descended from him?"

"May I be bold, sir, to ask why you put these questions?" asked Mytton,

the strong brawny fist which he was resting on the table actually

trembling with nervous excitement.

"It may be of consequence to you, my good friend, that I should know

all that you can tell me. I put these questions in no spirit of idle

curiosity. The fact is, that the last inheritor of Oaklands, in the

direct line, has died, and there is considerable difficulty in tracing

out to whom the succession legally belongs."

The little rustics stared at each other; they could not understand the

lawyer's long words, but they could see that they powerfully excited

their father. The veins in his forehead swelled, his hand trembled more

than before. A dim idea dawned on the minds of the young Myttons that

the fairy tale of the coach and six horses might turn out to be true

after all!

"Now, let me ask you again," continued Mr. Garway. "Have you any means

of proving your descent from Hugh Mytton of Oaklands?"

"I remember my grandfather telling me all about him forty years ago, as

well as if it were yesterday," stammered forth Mytton.

"Ah—you remember, but that's not quite enough. Can you tell me the

names of your grandfather's parents, when they lived, and at what

church they were married?"

Silas rubbed his brow, passed his fingers through his hair—looked first

to the right, and then to the left—but could make no reply to the

question. It was very clear that his memory could not go beyond his

grandfather, and the tales which the old man had told. He was unable to

declare, with certainty, even where his own parents had been married.

Mytton could give no distinct evidence on any point, except as to his

having heard in his childhood of the great property in Shropshire,

owned by one of his ancestors, who used to go up to London once a year

in a coach drawn by six fine grey horses.

"But have you no documents, no certificates, no family papers of any

kind?" asked Mr. Sharp, upon whose steel pen the ink had dried, while

his companion was vainly trying to draw information from Mytton.

Mytton caught at the lawyer's suggestion, as a drowning man might at a

rope.

"There was a box holding papers somewhere," cried he.

"Yes, in our room," said Joe.

"Fetch it—bring it at once!" cried both the lawyers and Mytton,

speaking together.

"Can't, it's a hen-coop now," muttered the boy, shrinking back, alarmed

at the fierce expression on the face of his father.

"You little dog—" began the enraged man, but Mr. Garway stopped his

explosion of rage with a gesture of the hand.

"Softly, friend, let me question the boy," he said. "If the box has

been made into a hen-coop, what have you done, let me ask, with the

papers it contained?"

"I han't done nothin' with 'em," faltered Joe, giving a timid sidelong

glance at his father.

"Yes, you patched the window-pane," said little May, pointing to the

casement in which more than one pane held more of paper than of glass.

Mr. Sharp instantly rose, went up to the window, and carefully examined

the paper; then shook his head, and returned to his seat.

"It, is desirable that every fragment of old papers which the box

contained should, if possible, be recovered," observed Mr. Garway. "I

would have the strictest search made for them at once."

Off started Joe and David, almost before the sentence was finished;

they were only too glad to make their escape from the room, and their

ambitious hopes were awakened by the gentlemen evidently setting great

value upon what had seemed worthless to them.

"I has," began May, and stopt short in fear.

"You have what, little woman?" asked Sharp.

"Bits in my bag," whispered the child.

Mytton eagerly snatched the bag from her arm, and emptied its contents

on the table; turning-the bag inside out, to make sure that no scrap

should escape his notice. He turned over the soiled printed leaves with

evident disappointment.

"Only bits of an old Bible, no use at all," he muttered.

"I beg your pardon, my good man," said Mr. Garway; "it by no means

follows that an old family Bible, of which these leaves appear to have

formed a part, should be of no use to us in our search. Many persons

keep family records of births and marriages in the blank page of their

Bibles, and if this—"

"Ha! Look here!" interrupted Mr. Sharp, catching up a yellow

three-cornered morsel of paper with writing upon it, which had got

mixed up with the printed portions. "Here is '—ried June 1, 1714,'

doubtless this is part of an old record of marriage."

"If we could only discover the rest of the page from which that was

torn," cried Mr. Garway. "I should not wonder if we found that we had

got hold of the right clue at last."

Diligent search was made amongst the papers which May had put into her

bag, but not another scrap could be found to match that three-cornered

bit. The whole cottage—upstairs and downstairs—was searched;—the shed,

the yard, the dust-hole, the hen-coop, every likely and unlikely spot

was hunted over for paper, and papers were found, but the lawyers,

after examination, shook their heads at them all.

The Mytton family were in a state of violent excitement, all except one

pallid girl who sat by the window, almost unnoticed, because too feeble

to join in the search. The extreme anxiety to find a page taken from

a family Bible, a page which might possibly help to prove a right to

an earthly inheritance, sadly contrasted with the utter indifference

felt as regarded the heavenly inheritance to which God's Word skews

the believer's claim. But that indifference was not shared by Amy: the

scene of bustle around her suggested holy thoughts to her mind. While

Silas and the lawyers were eagerly peering over fragments of papers

brought by the younger Myttons, the words of a hymn, like soft, low,

music, were breathing peace into Amy's soul.

"When I can read my title clear

To mansions in the skies,

I'll bid farewell to every fear.

And wipe my weeping eyes."

CHAPTER IV.

Earthly Hope.

THE sun's red rim had just sunk over the common; evening would soon

close in, nothing had been found, save that one little scrap, which

could possibly help even a keen lawyer in finding a clue. The strangers

rose to depart, sorry to have had their trouble for nothing; the boys

were quaking at thoughts of what would follow after the gentlemen had

left; for a thunder cloud of gloom had gathered on the face of their

father, and the children could read that face too well to expect to

escape a storm.

May was standing close by Amy's chair, when, after a severe fit of

coughing, her sister bent down towards her and whispered, "May, I have

just thought of something; is not my pillow stuffed with paper?"

"Oh! Please—please don't say nothing about it!" was the anxious

whispered reply, "Father will whack me well for tearing it up into such

little bits."

"I will try not to bring you into trouble; but I think that we ought to

tell father," said Amy.

Mr. Garway had risen, and was putting on his hat, as he turned to nod

a kindly good-bye to the sick young girl. Amy, with a painful effort,

drew the pillow from under her head and said faintly, "Perhaps this had

better be looked at, it is stuffed with pieces of paper."

"Why did you not tell that before?" exclaimed Mytton with anger.

And in a moment, his rough hand had torn up poor May's work from the

top to the bottom, and scattered its contents in a little heap on the

table.

"Plenty of fragments of old manuscripts here," said Garway, whose quick

eye instantly detected the yellowish hue and the peculiar fabric of

many of the morsels of paper.

"Ah! I should not wonder if this matched our three-cornered bit," cried

Sharp, pouncing upon a tiny piece which held but three letters, "mar."

He placed the two fragments together, they fitted exactly.

Mytton uttered an exclamation of triumph.

"We must carefully search over all these bits of paper," observed

Garway, "and fit in the fragments, if we can, like pieces of a

dissected map. But this tedious work will take hours, if not days, and

we have already been here for a considerable time. We will take away

this heap of little scraps, and pursue the occupation at our leisure."

"I beg your pardon, genl'men, but not one bit of paper shall go out of

this cottage!" cried Mytton, to whom it seemed as if the fortunes of

himself and his family had all been sewn up in that pillow. "Search

here till doomsday, if you like it, but I'll not have a scrap of that

there heap taken out of my sight."

Expostulation was in vain; the hewer of wood, feverish with ambitious

hopes, would not trust his treasure to the care of the lawyers. The

hunt for yellowish scraps, which were carefully collected and put

together, went on till darkness closed in, and then the lawyers

re-entered their conveyance, and drove off to take their dinner at the

nearest inn, promising to return in an hour.

During the time of their absence, Mytton, never so much as raising

his eyes from his occupation, went on as if life depended on success,

setting one little scrap by another, and muttering savage words,

which made Amy's blood run cold, about the folly which had torn into

fragments that which might be of such priceless value. It was well for

the children that Mytton was too busy with his heap of small scraps, to

vent his anger in anything but words.

It was nearly two hours before the lawyers returned, and there they

found Mytton, just where they had left him, bending over the table, and

anxiously examining the stuffing of Mary's pillow by the dull light of

a tallow dip. The children had all gone to bed, for Amy's cough had

irritated her father, whose nerves were painfully on the strain. And

May, after many a long, weary yawn, having fallen asleep on the floor,

had been roughly wakened, and sent upstairs.

The lawyers brought clearer light and sharper intelligence to the work

before them, which was pursued till far into the night. With the help

of a little paste, all the scraps which could be made to fit into

each other were arranged into something like order. At last, nearly

half of the flyleaf of the family Bible, with its record in different

handwritings of births, marriages, and deaths, stretching over more

than a hundred and fifty years, was patched together—the rest of the

leaf had been irrecoverably lost.

The lawyers left the cottage weary and sleepy; Mytton went to his

pallet bed, weary, indeed, but so restless that he could not close an

eye till the dawn. It seemed almost as if the labouring man were never

again to enjoy a night of sound rest.

A lawsuit was commenced regarding the succession to the Mytton estate,

which, for month after month, dragged its slow length along. Other

evidence besides the mutilated fly leaf, but partly collected through

clues which it gave, was brought forward in courts of law. Mytton

awaited the conclusion of the suit with a restless impatience which

deprived him of appetite and sleep. Daily labour to earn a scanty

subsistence became intolerable to a man who hoped to find himself the

possessor of several thousands a year.

Mytton and his family almost starved while awaiting the wealth which

would, perhaps, never be theirs. Mytton twice sold part of the scanty

furniture of his home to scrape up money to take him to London, to

watch the progress of his suit. The very flesh wasted from his bones,

the poor man grew haggard and wan, and his temper more savage than

ever. From morning till night he could think of, speak of nothing

but the inheritance which he hoped for, and the same theme haunted

his dreams. And this was a man who had had placed within his reach a

heavenly inheritance beyond all price, yet who had scarcely given it a

thought! A man who had had in the Scriptures the very title deeds, as

it were, of that inheritance, and yet had not taken the trouble to read

them.

Stands he alone in his folly?

CHAPTER V.

Heavenly Hope.

THE summer flowers came, and withered away; the days grew shorter and

shorter. The swallows took their flight to warmer climes; winter was

stealing on apace, and yet the lawsuit was not ended on which hung the

succession to the Mytton estate!

Amy's feeble spark of life was growing fainter. It was a surprise to

herself that she had survived to see the winter, with increasing cares

and hardships around her. But the poor sufferer had not been left

deserted; help had been sent her in time of need. The clergyman, who

came from a considerable distance to visit the sick member of his flock

in her lonely dwelling, interested other friends in her case; many a

little comfort found its way to the cottage on the common, which Amy

gratefully received as a gift from her Father in heaven.

A few days before Christmas, when the wide common looked like an almost

unbroken sheet of snow, the rough and little used cart-track across

it being entirely hidden from view, little May sat on her low wooden

stool at the feet of her sister. The poor child looked thinner and more

thoughtful than she had done in the spring, when this story opened.

There was no sound of wood-chopping from the shed, which was itself

falling into decay.

Mytton had now gone, as he often went, to the nearest public-house

to get a sight of the papers, for the tedious suit was apparently

at length drawing near to its close. The boys did not care to work

unless their father's eye were upon them; they had run off to amuse

themselves, no one exactly knew where. They had little to tempt them to

stay near the cottage; the last bit of bread that was in it had been

finished at breakfast.

"Oh! Amy," sighed poor May, "I wish—I wish we'd never heard of that

Mytton estate, that those men in black coats had never come near

our cottage, or found these scraps in your pillow! Looking for that

inheritance, as father calls it, has been plague and worry to us ever

since, and if he don't get it at last, 'twill drive him right out of

his wits!"

"I fear that disappointment now would nigh break his heart!" murmured

Amy.

"But if he does get it, won't it make him happy, oh! So very, very

happy!" cried May.

"I don't know—I hope so; but one can't be quite sure with anything

earthly," said Amy.

May looked surprised at the doubt. "I'm sure that it will, if father

only gets the inheritance," she cried; "but 'tis so very long a-coming,

I'm afraid it will never be his."

"I believe that I shall enter into mine first," said Amy very faintly,

and her lips formed the words to which she had hardly strength to give

breath, "far better—far better—undefiled and that fadeth not away!"

There was something in the countenance of Amy, sweet and placid as it

was, that alarmed May, she could scarcely tell why. The child rose

hastily and ran to the door, she felt more anxious than she had ever

before been for her father's return.

Scarcely had May opened the door, when Mytton's shadow fell on the

threshold; she had not heard his footsteps on the deep snow. The face

of Silas was pale with excitement, even his lips were bloodless, and

wild eagerness was in his eyes. He clutched in his hand a telegram

paper, having met the bearer in the way. May saw at once that great

tidings had arrived, but scarcely knew whether Mytton's strange manner

betokened the excess of despair or of joy.

She was not long left in doubt!

With the loud exclamation, "I have it!" The inheritor of Mytton strode

into the cottage up to the place where Amy was seated.

Perhaps she had heard the exclamation of triumph, for there was a smile

on her lips, but it might have been left there by a thought of deeper,

sweeter joy than any that his tidings could give. Amy's expectations

had been realised, she had entered on her inheritance of life, and

peace, and bliss!

Very often in succeeding years did May Mytton think on the doubt

expressed by her dying sister as to whether the possession of an estate

would make their father happy. It certainly never did so. The chopper

of faggots, uneducated, unfitted to mix in the society of those now his

equals, proud and shy, afraid of ridicule, and painfully conscious that

his rustic manner must expose him to it, was more miserable in his fine

old mansion than he had been in his lonely cottage.

The conduct of Joe and David planted his pillow with thorns. They were

sent to a fashionable school, where they learned, indeed, much that

gentlemen's sons are expected to know, but with it, acquired habits of

reckless extravagance and folly. The boys thought themselves far more

of gentlemen than their uneducated father could be, and Mytton bitterly

felt that they did so. They wasted his money, despised his control,

embittered his life by their excesses, and at last disgraced themselves

in the sight of the world. To Mytton and his two younger sons, the

inheritance so eagerly desired had brought sorrow, disappointment, and

shame!

It was not so with May, or with Silas her eldest brother. They never

set their hearts upon riches, nor chose their portion here. They made

use of the wealth which they inherited as a trust confided to them by

their heavenly Master, most enjoyed when most laid out to His glory.

For Amy's short life of suffering had not been spent in vain: the Bible

which she had given, the words which she had spoken, had been of far

more avail in ennobling the two who loved her best, than all the broad

acres of Mytton.

May, amidst many family trials, pursued her course of usefulness

in humble faith, cheered by the hope of rejoining her sister, and

rejoicing with her for ever, in that bright inheritance above which the

Lord hath prepared for them that love Him!

A SAINT

OR,

A CHRISTIAN IN CHARACTER.

CHAPTER I.

The Patient Restored.

"I'M glad that you'll have your husband back again to-day, Mrs.

Laver, and I hope that such a long time spent in the hospital will

have set him up for good," said Mrs. Batten, the fishmonger's stout

good-humoured wife, as she took up the little parcel of snuff which she

had just been purchasing at Mrs. Laver's counter.

"It is time he was back indeed. I've had the shop on my hands these ten

weeks, or rather, I may say, these six months, for Martin was, I may

say, good for nothing long before he took to his bed," replied Mrs.

Laver.

She was a thin care-worn woman, about thirty years of age, who had in

her youth been good-looking; but the lines on the forehead, and at the

corners of the lips, showed the trace of trouble, and perhaps also of

temper. Mrs. Laver's manner of speaking was snappish and short, giving

an impression, even to strangers, that her life was full of worries,

and that she had not much patience to enable her to bear them. Mrs.

Laver's dress was decidedly shabby, and was by no means improved by

her attempt to make it look gay. Fringe, that did not match her gown

in colour, had been sewn on to hide the patches; Mrs. Laver had stuck

faded roses into her brown-black lace-cap, and dangling gaudy gilt

drops were hanging down from her ears. The tobacconist's wife had a

trick of jerking her head when anything annoyed her, which set these

earrings quivering and shaking as if in anger or scorn. Altogether,

with her sharp grey eyes, and tightly-drawn lips, Mrs. Laver looked a

person with whom few would care to be very closely acquainted.

"Certainly it's hard upon a woman to have charge of a tobacconist's

shop," observed the fishmonger's wife, glancing at the window, which

was darkened with bundles of meerschaums, and boxes of cheap cigars,

labels of "Government manillas," and "fine old shag," with pipes whose

bowls were fashioned into all kinds of fanciful shapes to attract

apprentice boys, and other juvenile customers. Mingled with these,

prints and ballads, of a very low description, helped to block up the

panes.

Mrs. Laver shrugged her shoulders at the observation; she quite agreed

that her lot was a hard one.

"I'm sure," she said, "that if any one knew the moiling and toiling

I've had, what with looking after the shop, and keeping things tidy

and respectable like, minding the child, and—ah! You little brat!"

exclaimed Mrs. Laver, interrupting her complaint, to make a sudden dash

at her little girl, a child of about two years of age, who, having been

placed by her mother on the counter, had stretched out her hand to the

jar of snuff left upon it.

"You're always in mischief, you are!"

There was a sharp slap, and then a low sobbing cry; little Annie was

not likely soon to forget the maternal lesson against meddling with

goods on the counter.

"Poor little soul," said Mrs. Batten, glancing with pity at the child,

whose cheek, usually pale, was reddened by the mother's blow, and wet

with the tears running down. "How like she is to her father, to be

sure! She does not look over strong either. You'll bring her with you

to Greenwich to-morrow, and your husband too, I suppose."

"Yes, a breath of fresh air on the river would do any one good who had

to live in this poky little street! Hold your noise, will you!"

These last words were addressed by Mrs. Laver to Annie, and accompanied

by a violent shaking of the little girl's arm, which set the mother's

earrings quivering.

"If you go on whining like that, I'll give you to the black man, I

will, instead of taking you with me to Greenwich!"

Mrs. Batten had just succeeded in fumbling a lozenge out of her pocket,

and whether from the effects of the sweet, the threat, or the shaking,

Annie was soon quiet enough, though her cheeks still glistened with the

tears which her mother had not wiped away.

"We start at two, don't forget," said Mrs. Batten; "if to-morrow is as

fine as to-day, the steamer is like to be crowded."

"The more the merrier," replied Ann Laver, the frown passing away from

her brow, though its furrow always remained there: "a bit of a spree

will brighten up my man; he had got so gloomy and moping-like when his

illness was coming on, that I did not know what to make of him. He's

fond of the river, I know. Good-day to you, Mrs. Batten. We'll be down

at the wharf before two."

"Good-bye, little one," said the fishmonger's wife, as she quitted the

shop, nodding and smiling at Annie, who, still perched on the counter,

watched her with wistful eyes.

The sweet little face of the child was again very pale, with its

habitual expression of patience and thought. Annie did not look like a

light-hearted child. One might have fancied, as she sat with her large

blue eyes fixed on the jars and pipes and papers in the window, that

a good deal was passing through her infant mind, and that not of a

cheerful description.

Though Mrs. Laver was fond of her only child, there was not much

tenderness in her manner towards her. Mrs. Laver would have been

indignant had any one charged her with cruelty, above all towards her

daughter; but the harsh word, the hasty slap, the angry threat with

which Annie was familiar, had much the same effect on the poor little

girl that a blight has on the tender green leaves of the spring. Annie

loved her mother, but scarcely as much as she feared her. The little

one wanted more of the sunshine of smiles.

She had pined wearily for her father, and the two first nights after

Martin Laver had gone to the hospital, his child had cried herself to

sleep, "'Cause Daddy's away, and I can't have his bye-bye kiss," as she

sobbed.

CHAPTER II.

Decision.

VERY quiet and very dull sat Annie on the counter, staring gravely at

the window. She could not clamber down from the counter, and she dared

neither play with anything on it, nor ask to be set down on the floor

by her mother, who was putting things in order on a shelf, with her

back towards the little girl. Suddenly Annie uttered a cry of delight,

stretched out her hands, and in her eagerness to get down from her

perch would have fallen off the counter, had she not been caught in the

arms of her father, who fondly pressed her to his heart.

"Ah! Martin, is that you? I did not look for your coming till the

evening," cried Mrs. Laver, turning round, and then giving her husband

a welcome that was not unkindly, though she shewed none of the

rapturous delight of the child, who clung to her father's neck, and

buried her face on his shoulder.

Martin Laver was a tall, fine-looking man, and until his illness had

possessed more activity and strength than most men; but his eyes were

now sunken, his face looked sickly, and he slightly stooped from

weakness.

"Put that monkey down, she'll tire you," said Ann.

Martin smiled, and, shaking his head, pressed his little one to him

more closely. He however took a seat, and sat down in the shop, leaning

his arm upon the counter. It was such a pleasure to him to feel the

soft little hands of his child again stroking his face, and playing

with his whiskers, and then the sweet infant lips pressed to his cheek.

In the conversation between husband and wife which followed, Ann took

by far the larger share. She told all the gossip of the neighbourhood,

while Martin sat listening, or perhaps scarcely listening, with a

thoughtful, and somewhat anxious look on his face.

Ann expected a great deal of credit from her husband for the way in

which she had conducted the business during his absence.

"I cleaned that window with my own ten fingers," she observed, "and

that's not what every woman would have done, you may take my word for

that."

The expected praise was heartily given.

"And I've arranged it too, with a pretty bit of taste; those picture

ballads attract the passersby, as fly-papers catch flies, specially the

one about the murder."

"Ah! That reminds me of what I had resolved on," said Martin, rising

from his seat.

After setting down Annie on the counter, he went up to the window, took

down the papers, and examined them, one after the other, dividing them

into two sets as he did so. Martin then replaced the larger number in

the window, but four of the ballads he laid down on the counter with

the words, "You had better use these to light the fire, my dear."

"Light the fire! My patience," exclaimed Mrs. Laver, her earrings

glancing and twinkling with the jerk of her head. "Why, each of those

may bring us a penny, and I'm not so flush of cash as to use them for

lighting fires. Take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care

of themselves."

"With me this is no mere matter of money," said Martin. "I want to tell

you, dear wife, all that is now on my mind. I've been thoughtless and

careless enough in times past, but my eyes have been opened of late,

and I intend, God helping me, to lead from henceforth the life of a

Christian man."

Martin spoke with some effort, for he knew that his words would rouse a

bitter feeling of opposition in his self-willed and worldly wife.

"As a matter of conscience," continued the husband, "I have resolved

that nothing immoral or profane shall ever again be seen in my shop."

"Hoity, toity! Fiddlety dee! Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" exclaimed

Mrs. Laver, in a tone that frightened Annie, and made her stretch out

her hands to her father. "I thought that, in the hospital, you'd have

got rid of all that stuff and nonsense."

"In the hospital I hope that I have got clearer views both of a

Christian's hopes and a Christian's duties than I ever had before,"

began Martin.

But his wife would not let him finish his sentence.

"Put back those pictures, I say, and don't let us have any more of this

sort of thing, which will only keep us in perpetual hot water!" she

exclaimed. "Put them back, or I'll do it myself," and she advanced as

if to take them.

Martin was a poor man, but he knew that God had placed him in the

position of master in his own little home. He did not choose to bandy

words with his wife, but he gave his answer in his action.

Quickly and firmly, he put the four ballads together, and tore

them across, then laid down the halves on the counter. There was a

resolution shewn by his manner and look, that for a moment overawed as

well as surprised Ann Laver. No man is likely really to lose his hold

over the affections of his wife, by letting her see that her influence

cannot turn him from what he knows to be right. The husband who wins

his spouse's respect is most likely to keep her love.

Customers now entering the shop, Martin took his place behind the

counter and served them, while Mrs. Laver carried off Annie to the

little back parlour. The woman was sullen and out of temper; she

foresaw that struggle which must take place, sooner or later, in every

home, where two who are not agreed on the most important of subjects,

are coupled together as man and wife.

"There will be no peace her; I can see that well enough," muttered Ann

to herself. "He'll be pulling one way, I pulling the other; but let

him drag his very life out, he'll never get me to follow him in his

methodistical ways!"

The jerk which followed this resolution was more defiant than usual.

"There will be no peace here!" How often had that painful thought

crossed the mind of Martin, as he had lain in the hospital ward,

silently resolving, at whatever cost, fully to follow the Lord.

Feeling too weak in health to be able to battle against a woman's

violent will, yearning for the quiet, and comfort, and love, which can

make even a humble home such a holy and happy place, Martin had looked

forward with something like dread to the constant domestic struggle

which was likely to follow any attempt on his part to lead a consistent

life. Laver could better, far better, have borne even persecution from

without, than the constant jarring with the woman whom he loved, which

seemed likely to embitter his life. It was as one who girds himself

and prepares for a painful conflict, that Martin, on returning to his

home, resolved from the very first to confess his principles openly,

to take his stand on the ground of conscience; and while acting with

consideration and gentleness towards his wife, never to yield to her a

single point where his duty to God was in question.

Martin had not, however, much opposition to encounter on that day of

his return, which chanced to be the last of the week. Perhaps Ann's

heart, for she had a heart, had warmed towards the husband of her

youth, who had suffered so patiently and long; perhaps the sight

of that pale sunken cheek roused a feeling of pity within her. Ann

kept truce on the first evening, and gave only a look of careless

indifference when Martin asked aloud a blessing at his meal, with his

Annie's little hands tenderly folded within his own.

Annie was very unwilling to quit her father when Mrs. Laver, in her

quick sharp manner, told her that it was time to come to bed, for that

she could not keep her eyes open. Those blue eyes filled with tears,

little arms were clasped round Martin's neck, and he only prevented the

child from bursting out crying, by a promise to come in a little while,

and give her a good-night kiss. Mrs. Laver carried Annie upstairs, and

Martin was left alone with his thoughts.

"That child is as a piece of my heart, dearer than my life!" reflected

the parent. "Helpless and weak as she is, able to do little more than

lisp my name, that very helplessness and weakness only serve to make

her more dear! She can, at least, cling to me—and love. How gracious

is God to compare His own tenderness to that of a parent! 'Like as a

father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.'

And all that God requires of us is just what a parent requires of a

child, faith, love, and obedience."

There was a proof of love and obedience which Martin knew it to be his

bounden duty to give; but he, like many other fathers of families,

especially those who are married to worldly wives, felt it to be a duty

very difficult to perform. For some little time before going to the

hospital, Martin had found the comfort of private prayer, but he had

never yet ventured to propose family prayer to his wife. Martin knew

that it would be well to begin the custom on that night; delay would

not only be wrong, but would increase the difficulties before him.

Laver reproached himself for the repugnance which he felt to entering

upon the subject to Ann. Were they not one in the sight of God and

of man? Should they not be one in their hopes and their actions? But

Martin knew too well that, in all that regarded religion, he and his

wife were not one, but severed by a great gulf.

For several minutes he stood irresolute beside the little crib in

which Annie lay asleep, before he could summon up resolution to say to

her mother, "Wife, let us thank God for His mercies, and ask for His

blessing, together."

Without waiting for a reply, Martin instantly knelt down, and though

Ann remained standing, she was perfectly quiet while her husband

offered up a short but very earnest prayer for herself, himself, and

their child.

To speak was at first an effort, but courage and joy came with prayer,

and Martin rose from his knees like one who has had a burden rolled

from his heart.

"Thank God, I have made a beginning!" thought the husband.

"Where will this end?" thought the wife.

CHAPTER III.

Division.

AS Martin Laver was still weak from recent illness, he slept till

a later hour than usual on the Sunday morning. It would have been

pleasant to him to have begun his home-life again with a day of rest,

had he not more than suspected that, from the opposing views of his

wife, Sunday, of all days in the week, was most likely to prove a day

of conflict.

The first sight which greeted the eyes of Martin, after he had come

downstairs in the morning, was that of Ann Laver arranging the pipes

and cigars in the window.

"Nay, Ann, no need to take that trouble," said her husband. "I'll put

up the shutters again. I've asked God's forgiveness for having so

often broken the Fourth Commandment, and His help to keep it better

in future. From this time forth, we will neither buy nor sell upon

Sundays."

Ann's short truce with her husband was over, and her passion burst

forth the more violently from having for a while been kept under

control.

"I tell you what, Martin, I'm not going to have more of this nonsense!"

cried the woman, turning fiercely round on her husband. "We've hard

enough work as it is to keep soul and body together, while we do as

other folk do. Sunday's our best day for business, and, if you're such

an idiot as to put up your shutters to please the parson, you'd better

give up shop-keeping at once, and take to begging, or throw yourself

and your wretched family upon the mercy of the parish!"

"I do not think so," replied Martin, calmly. "I believe that no one

is the worse in the end for obeying the Word of God in a simple,

straightforward way. 'The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He

addeth no sorrow with it.' * But were it not so, had we only the choice

of a poorhouse with that blessing, or a palace without it, we should be

fools indeed did we choose the latter. 'What is a man profited, if he

shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man

give in exchange for his soul?'" †

* Prov. x. 22. † Matt. xvi. 26.

"I hope you don't mean to set up for a saint!" cried Ann, with a

scornful jerk of the head.

"I wish to be a real Christian," replied Martin "and the one is the

same as the other."

"What stuff you are talking!" cried Ann, with impatience. "Of course we

are Christians, not heathens, though we don't pretend to be saints."

"Saint, which means holy, is the Bible name for all God's servants,"

replied Martin, leaning against the counter as he spoke. "You will find

the word Christian, I think, but three times in all the Scripture, that

of Saint more than forty or fifty; St. Paul's description of all the

Lord's people in Rome was 'beloved of God, called to be saints.'" †

† Rom. i. 7.

"I am no saint, and I don't want to be one," said Ann Laver, with

scorn; "but I know that I'm a baptised Christian, and that is enough

for me!"

"Simon had but lately been baptised," observed Laver, "when St. Peter,

the apostle, said to him, 'Thou hast neither part nor lot in this

matter, because his heart was not right in the sight of God.' ‡ Oh!

Dear wife, suffer me to speak for a few minutes freely on those things

on which our salvation depends. God asks for our hearts, He will accept

nothing less, and He accepts these hearts that, by His Spirit, He may

make them holy."

‡ Acts viii. 21.

Ann would not hear her husband to the end.

"How you veer and change about!" she exclaimed. "Before you went to the

hospital, it was all—'What must I do to be saved?' And now you are all

for holiness as the way to get to Heaven."

"No, never, not the way!" exclaimed Martin, with such energy that his

wife stared at him in surprise. "Christ is the Way, the only Way, it

is His blood that cleanseth from all sin. * But, as some good man has

said, 'He does not save us in our sins, but from our sins.'

* 1 John i. 7.

"'If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature'; † he that comes to

the Saviour in faith, seeks to follow the Saviour in that 'holiness

without which no man shall see the Lord!'" ‡

† 2 Cor. v. 17. ‡ Heb. xii. 14.

Ann Laver had never come to the Saviour, nor felt her need of being

saved; she was one of the many who choose their own way, and do their

own will, and yet expect, somehow or other, to get to Heaven in the

end. She was like a person with bandaged eyes walking towards the edge

of a precipice, and the attempt to unbandage her eyes, or stop her

on her perilous course, only roused her pride and her anger. It is

needless to repeat the bitter things which she said to him whose love

had made him speak the truth which she hated to hear. After a violent

burst of temper, Mrs. Laver, slamming the door behind her, retired into

the back parlour, where Annie had good reason to know that something

had put her mother thoroughly out of temper.

With a heavy sigh, Martin Laver went to put up his shutters again. He

was so weak from his recent illness, that he had to pause more than

once, even when making so slight an exertion. Six months before he

would have lifted ten times the weight of a shutter with ease. It was

sad to feel the once strongly-knit arms so feeble; but it was not this

sense of weakness, nor the fear of approaching poverty, that drew that

deep sigh from Laver's heart. It was the burden of that cross which is

wont to press more or less heavily upon all who would follow Christ

fully—that cross of which the Blessed Master knew the weight day by

day, and which He bids all His servants take up.

"Because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the

world, therefore the world hateth you," * the Lord once said to His

disciples, and through His Word He says so still. Persecution has been

the portion of God's saints not only in times when fire and sword were

used to destroy them, but when hatred could be shewn only in sneers and

taunts, that do not endanger life, but deprive it of earthly enjoyment.

* John xv. 19.

While Laver was replacing the shutters, he thought of Christian in

"Pilgrim's Progress," and how hard his wife tried to stop him when he

would flee from the wrath to come.

"He had to bear her taunts and revilings," thought Laver; "what a hard

struggle it must have cost Christian to leave all that had once been

most dear. How different would his pilgrimage have been, had he and

his wife been of one heart and one mind, and gone through all their

trials together! But though his wife would not go one step with him,

she followed at last in his track. Doubtless he had prayed for her

very, very often, and God answered his prayer, though not till after

Christian had left this earth and its sorrows behind him. Perhaps it

may be thus with us; my poor Ann may remember my words, when I am no

more here to speak them."

Martin raised his hand to his brow, for a faintness was coming over

him. "God help me to be so careful in my daily conduct, to keep my lips

and my life so pure, that my wife must own, however unwillingly, that

in trying to be a better Christian, I am also a better husband, father,

and friend. When she taunts me with being a saint, may I have grace to

become one indeed, that, at least, she may never think me a hypocrite,

saying one thing and doing another."

Ann would scarcely speak to her husband during all the time of

breakfast, but she missed no opportunity of speaking at him, addressing

herself to their child.

"Ah! You want more butter to your bread, do you?" she cried, pushing

towards Annie a slice which she had just cut from the loaf. "Your

father takes good care that we shan't have butter, and it will soon

come, I suppose, to doing without the bread too!"

Ann glanced angrily towards the darkened shop as she spoke.

Annie held out her little foot to her mother, one of her tiny shoes

needed repair, and the cotton sock appeared through a hole in the

leather.

"So you want new shoes, little brat!" cried Ann. "I only wish you may

get them! You'll have to run barefoot about the streets soon, and what

will you do then, I wonder!"

"Ask Daddy carry me!" lisped the little child, as she calmly went on

with her meal, undisturbed by fears for the future.

Even Ann could scarcely help smiling at the unexpected reply.

And Martin, as he stooped to kiss his little one, thought, "if she can

so quietly trust her father, shall I not trust mine, who is the Giver

of all good things?"

"I suppose you'll be going to some prayer-meeting or other?" said Ann,

abruptly, to her husband, as soon as the uncomfortable meal was ended.

"I am going to church," replied Martin, and he could not forbear

adding, "I wish we could go there together."

"Oh! I'm no saint, whatever you may be!" exclaimed Ann, with a jerk of

the head. "I'm going to Greenwich with the Battens and their set—a lark

on the river is a deal more to my taste than all your preaching and

praying. I shall pay for my trip with my last Sunday's earnings, which

I've kept for the purpose," she added, to give a keener sting to her

taunt.

"I should be the last to wish to deprive you of any harmless pleasure,"

said her husband; "but if you spend the Lord's day in such an

excursion, it will be without my consent."

"Your consent, indeed, I never asked for it!" exclaimed the rebellious

wife to him whom she had vowed before God to obey. "You go your way,

I will go mine; with your leave or without your leave, I'm off to

Greenwich by two."

The husband and wife were, indeed, walking on different paths, such

as must conduct to different ends. "Broad is the way that leadeth to

destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is

the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life." * These are

our Lord's own words; but how few act as if they believed them to be

true!

* Matt. vii. 13, 14.

Crowds press along the broad way, careless and disobedient, yet hoping

that, after all, peace and rest and Heaven will be theirs at the end!

"Ye shall not surely die" † is the Devil's whisper still, and, like

Eve, we are too ready to listen. But let those who would continue in

their sins remember that God hath declared in His word that "the end

of these things is death," ‡ and that they who are His servants indeed

have their fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

† Gen. iii. 4. ‡ Rom. vi. 21.

CHAPTER IV.

Sabbath Hours.

MARTIN found the time spent in church a time of refreshing, and

returned to his home in a quiet, tranquil mood, better able to bear and

to forbear, with the charity which hopeth and endureth all things. It

grieved him, however, to see his wife dressed in as flaunting a style

as their narrow means would allow, and his child also decked out in

tawdry finery, wearing a faded red sash, and a blue bead necklace round

her neck.