the lines of care on that young face, which was all brightness the last
time she had seen it. And then, as she raised herself up, and
disengaged herself from those loving arms, her eyes fell on the old
butler, who was twisting a large red pocket-handkerchief into a rope, in
his vain efforts to restrain his emotions, which at last found vent in a
long cadence of mingled sobs and exclamations. For a moment Julia
Vivian hesitated, and then flung her arms round the neck of the old man,
who made the hall ring with a shout of thanksgiving. Then, calming
down, he said, half out loud, and half confidentially to himself, "You
know it was to be so, and so it is. We've got Miss Julia as was back
among us again; and we don't mean to part with her never again no more."
Oh, what a day of gladness was that to Amos Huntingdon! One half of the
great purpose to which he had devoted his life was now accomplished.
The banished sister had been welcomed back by his father to her earthly
home. And yet, how much still remained to be done! But, as he had
worked on in faith and trust before, so he would continue trusting,
watching, working, committing all to the wise guiding and overruling of
that loving Father whose leading hand he had hitherto sought to follow,
but never to outrun.
How bright were the faces which gathered round the dinner-table that
evening!--though even then the cloud rested in a measure on every heart;
for that poor worn face, and those wistful pitiful eyes, told of a deep
and hidden sorrow, and of an abiding humiliation, which not even the
pure love that now beamed on her from all sides could remove from the
burdened spirit of the restored wanderer. Down in the kitchen, however,
the rejoicing was unclouded, except that Harry mourned over his young
mistress's faded beauty and sad looks, and occupied a considerable
portion of his leisure time in punching an imaginary head, held firm
under his left arm, and supposed by his fellow-servants to belong to
Miss Julia's brute of a husband.
Dinner had been over rather more than an hour, when Walter, who had been
absent for a short time from the drawing-room, returned, beckoned to
Amos, and then, gently laying hold of his sister's hand, drew her
towards the door. "Come here, just for one minute," he said, with a
merry smile twinkling in his eyes. "Father will spare you just for a
minute;" and he conducted her out of the room. Oh, what a flood of joy
came into her heart with that smile of Walter's. Years had passed since
she had rejoiced in its light. What would she have given could the
frightful interval between this smile and the last she had seen before
it have been wiped clean out! To her that interval had been one
prolonged and gloomy frown. But now the three, Amos, Walter, and their
sister, made their way downstairs. Oh, it was so like a bit of childish
fun in days gone by! And now they arrived at the butler's pantry, the
door of which was fast closed. Walter knocked. "Come in," said the old
man. They entered; and all exclaimed at the sight which presented
itself. On every available projection there was placed a portion of a
candle, making in all some thirty or forty lights, which made the little
room one brilliant blaze. On the wall opposite the door were the words,
"Welcome home again," in large red and blue letters; and on another wall
the words, "Hip, hip, hooray!" in golden characters.
"O dear Harry!" cried his young mistress, her face glowing with such a
smile as no one had seen on it yet since her return, "how good and kind
of you--just like your dear old self! how came you to think of it?"
"Well, Miss Julia," was his reply, "it's this way,--Master Walter and me
talked about having a bonfire on the hill; but when we came to think it
over, we decided as it wouldn't p'r'aps be altogether the right thing,
for reasons as needn't be named on this here occasion. So I've been and
got up a little bit of an illumination all of my own self. But don't
you go for to suppose as these candles belongs to master. I'm not the
man to use his goods this way without leave. It's a pound of the best
composite as I bought out of my own wages, and you're heartily welcome
to every one on 'em."
"Thank you, dear Harry," she said, holding out her hand to him; "it is
the sweetest of welcomes. I feel that it has done me good already;
there is true love in every light."
"Just so, miss," said the old man, his face brimming over with
happiness. "And now, before we part, we must have a bit of toffee all
round, as you was used to in old times." So saying, he opened an old
drawer, which seemed abundantly furnished with sundry kinds of sweets,
and produced the toffee, which he pressed upon each of his three
visitors. "There," he said in a tone of deep satisfaction, "that's just
as it should be; and now, Miss Julia," he added, "when you want any
more, you know where to come for it."
Few happier hearts were laid on a bed that night in England than the
heart of old Harry the butler.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
TRUE SHAME VERSUS FALSE SHAME.
While Amos rejoiced greatly in the return of his sister, there was much
still to be accomplished before his great object could be fairly said to
be attained, even in her case. Nothing could be kinder than Mr
Huntingdon's treatment of his restored child; and when her little ones
joined her, it seemed as if the pent back affections of the squire were
coming forth in such a rush as would almost overwhelm his grandchildren
with a flood of indulgence. Brighter days, then, had come;
nevertheless, Amos could not help seeing much in the character and
conduct of both his sister and Walter which saddened him. Acting
himself on the highest of all principles--the constraining love of the
heavenly Master--he could not be content till the same holy motive
should have its place in the hearts of those he so dearly loved.
Sorrow had subdued and softened in Julia the less amiable features in
her character; while all that Amos had done and suffered and was still
doing for herself and her children could not but draw out her heart to
him. But yet, while she loved and respected Amos, she just simply
dearly loved Walter; towards him the deeper and tenderer feelings of her
heart went forth. And Walter himself--though Amos was the object of his
warmest admiration, and, in a certain sense, of his imitation--was far
from adopting the standard and motives of his brother. To do simply
what his conscience told him to be right, when such a course would cut
the prejudices of his gay worldly friends across the grain, was a thing
he was by no means prepared for; and here he had his sister's sympathy.
Not that she openly advocated a worldly and compromising line of
conduct--for indeed she was too glad to leave for a while argument and
outspoken opinions to others--but she made him feel in her private
conversations with him that the world and its ways and maxims were still
her own guide and standard.
Amos could see this more or less, and he deeply deplored it; but he
trusted still that prayer, patience, and perseverance would yet bring
his beloved brother and restored sister to look at duty and wisdom in
the light of God's Word. And Walter gave him at times much
encouragement. He could no longer despise Amos, nor pride himself in
his own superiority to him. The beauty of his elder brother's
character, the nobleness of his aims, the singleness of eye that was
manifest in him, his unselfishness and patience, these traits had won
the unfeigned admiration of Walter, an admiration which he was too
generous not to acknowledge. But yet, all the while, he rather fretted
under Amos's rigid consistency, remarking to his sister that really it
was a bit of a bondage to have to be always so very good, and that one
must not be so over-particular if one was to get on with people who were
not yet exactly angels. But still, he was vexed with himself when he
had made such observations, and resolved in his heart to be more
circumspect for the future.
When Julia Vivian had been some weeks in her old home, Walter exclaimed
one morning as they were sitting at breakfast, "What do you think?
Gregson is getting up a raffle for his beautiful mare Rosebud."
"Indeed," said his father, "how comes that? I thought the young man had
only had her a short time."
"Why, father," replied Walter, "I imagine the fact is that Gregson's
purse is getting worn into a hole or two."
"I understood," remarked Miss Huntingdon, "that his father was a very
wealthy man, and allowed his son, as you used to put it, no end of
money."
"True, aunt; but I think he has been betting and losing pretty heavily
lately, and finds he must pull up a bit."
"And so he is going to part with his mare by raffle," said the squire;
"pray what does he want for her?"
"Oh, a hundred guineas--and very cheap, too. Will you put in, father?"
"Not I, my boy; I cannot say that I am very fond of these raffles."
"Well, Amos," said Walter, turning to his brother, "what does your
worship say?"
Amos shook his head.
"Nay, don't be ill-natured," said the other. "It's a guinea a ticket:
I'll take one, and you can take one, and if I win I'll pay you back your
guinea, for then I shall get a horse worth a hundred guineas for two
guineas; and if _you_ win, you can either keep the mare or hand her over
to me, and I will pay you back your guinea."
"And suppose we neither of us win?" asked Amos.
"Oh, then," replied his brother, "we shall have done a good-natured
thing by giving Gregson a helping hand out of his difficulties, for it
will take a good deal of hunting up to get a hundred names for the
raffle."
"But, my boy," said the squire, "remember there's some one else to be
considered in the matter. I can't undertake to keep two horses for you;
you have your own pony already."
"All right, father; there'll be no difficulty there. I can sell my own
pony, and Rosebud won't eat more nor take up more room than poor Punch;
and I shall put a few sovereigns into my own pocket too by selling my
own pony."
"That is to say, if you are the winner, my boy; but there will be
ninety-nine chances to one against that."
"Oh yes, I know that, father; but `nothing venture, nothing win,' says
the proverb.--Well, Amos, what do you say? will you be one?"
"I cannot," said his brother gravely.
"Oh, why not?" asked his sister; "it will be so nice for dear Walter to
have that beautiful creature for his own."
"I do not approve of raffles, and cannot therefore take part in one,"
replied Amos.
"Why, surely," she exclaimed, "there can be no harm in them."
"I cannot agree with you there, dear Julia," he said. "I believe
raffles to be utterly wrong in principle, and so there must be harm in
them. They are just simply a mild form of gambling, and nothing got by
them can be got fairly and strictly honestly."
"Eh! that's strong indeed," cried Walter.
"Not too strong," said his brother. "There are but three ways of
getting anything from another person's possession honestly: you must
either earn it, as a man gets money from his master by working for it;
or you must give a fair equivalent for it, either so much money as it is
marketably worth, or something in exchange which will be worth as much
to the person from whom you are getting the thing as the thing he is
parting with is worth to him; or you must have it as a free gift from
its owner. Now a raffle fulfils none of these conditions. Take the
case of this mare Rosebud. Suppose you pay your guinea, and prove the
successful person. You have not earned Rosebud, for you have not given
a hundred guineas' worth of labour for her. You have not given a fair
equivalent, such as an equally good horse or something else of the same
value, nor an equivalent in money, for you have given only a guinea for
what is worth a hundred guineas. Nor have you received her as a free
gift."
"I quite agree with you, Amos," said his father; "you have put it very
clearly. I think these raffles, in which you risk your little in the
hope of getting some one else's much, are thoroughly unwholesome and
dangerous in principle, and are calculated to encourage a taste for more
serious gambling."
"But stop there, please, dear father," said Walter. "When a man gives
his guinea for what is worth one hundred guineas, or when a man bets say
one to ten, if he wins, does not the loser make a free gift to him?
There is no compulsion. He stakes his bigger sum willingly, and loses
it willingly."
"Nay, not so," said Amos. "He is not willing to lose his larger sum; he
makes no out-and-out gift of it. In laying his larger sum against your
smaller, he does so because he is persuaded or fully expects that he
shall get your money and not lose his own."
"I quite agree with you," said Mr Huntingdon again.
Walter looked discomfited, and not best pleased. Then Miss Huntingdon
said, in her clear gentle voice, "Surely dear Amos is right. If the
principle of gambling is in the raffle, though in a seemingly more
innocent form, how can it be otherwise than perilous and wrong to engage
in such things? Oh, there is such a terrible fascination in this
venturing one's little in the hope of making it much, not by honest work
of hand or brain, nor by giving an equivalent, nor by receiving it as
the free-will loving gift of one who gladly does us a kindness. What
this fascination may lead to is to be seen in that terrible paradise of
the gambler, Monaco, on the shore of the lovely Mediterranean. I have
lately heard a most thrilling account of what is to be seen in that
fearfully attractive palace of despair. Lovely gardens are there,
ravishing music, an exquisite salon where the entranced players meet to
throw away fortune, peace, and hope. At first you might imagine you
were in a church, so still and serious are the deluded mammon-
worshippers. And what follows? I will mention but one case; it is a
well-attested one. Two young Russian ladies, wealthy heiresses, entered
the gaming-hall. For a while they looked on with indifference; then
with some little interest; then the spell began to work. The
fascination drew them on; they sat down, they played. At first they
won; then they lost. Then they staked larger and larger sums in the
vain hope of recovering the gold which was rapidly slipping away from
their possession. But they played on. Loss followed loss; they still
went on playing. Then they staked the last money they had, and lost.
Bankrupt and heart-broken, they betook themselves to the cliffs that
overhang the Mediterranean, and, hand in hand, plunged into the sea and
were lost. Oh, can that be innocent which in any degree tends to
encourage this thirst for getting gain not in the paths of honest
industry, but in a way which God cannot and does not bless?"
She paused. Walter hung down his head, while his features worked
uneasily. Then he slowly raised his face, and said, "I suppose I'm
wrong; but then, what is to be done? Gregson will ask me about it, and
what am I to say? `Brother Amos disapproves of raffles;' will that do?
I can just fancy I can see him and Saunders holding their sides and
shaking like a pair of pepper-boxes. No, it won't do; we can't _always_
be doing just what's right. If Amos don't go in for the raffle, I think
I must, unless I wish to be laughed at till they've jeered all the
spirit out of me."
Amos made no answer, nor did Miss Huntingdon; but as Walter looked
towards her, with no very happy expression of countenance, she quietly
laid one hand across the other. He saw it and coloured, and then, with
a disdainful toss of the head, hurried away. But the arrow had hit its
mark. As Miss Huntingdon was about to prepare for bed, she heard a low
voice outside her door saying, "May a naughty boy come in?" and Walter
was admitted. The tears were in his eyes as he kissed his aunt and sat
down. "I am waiting for the rod," he said, half mournfully and half
playfully. "I deserve it, I know. I was wrong. I was unkind to Amos.
I behaved like a cowardly sneak. Now, dear auntie, for a moral hero
that isn't like me."
"Dear boy," said his aunt, placing her hands lovingly on his head, "you
were wrong, I know; but you are right now, and I think you mean to keep
so. I have a beautiful instance here of moral courage, just to the
point; I was reading about it a few minutes ago.
"A young man once called on a most earnest and experienced minister of
the gospel, Dr Spencer of Brooklyn, New York, about his difficulties in
his earthly calling. He was salesman in a dry-goods store, and was
required by his employer to do things which he felt not to be right.
For instance, he must learn to judge by the appearance of any woman who
entered the store, by her dress, her manner, her look, the tone of her
voice, whether she had much knowledge of the article she wished to
purchase; and if she had not, he must put the price higher, as high as
he thought she could be induced to pay. With one class of customers he
must _always_ begin by asking a half or a third more than the regular
price; and if any objection was made, he was to say, `We have never sold
it any cheaper,' or, `You cannot buy that quality of goods any lower in
the city.' In fact, a very large portion of the service expected of him
was just to lie for the purpose of cheating. When he expressed his
doubts about this being right, his employer laughed at him. `Everybody
does it,' he said; `You can't be a merchant without it. All is fair in
trade. You are too green.'--`I know I am too green,' the young man said
to the minister sorrowfully; `for I was brought up in the country, and
don't know much of the world. My mother is a poor widow, but I don't
believe _she_ would think it right for me to do such things.'--`And do
_you_ think it right?' asked the minister.--`No; but my employer is a
church member, and yet I believe it would make my old mother very bad if
she knew I was doing such things every day.'--`Well, then,' said the
good pastor, `take your mother's way, and refuse his.'--`I shall lose my
place then.'--`Well, lose your place; don't hesitate a moment; tell your
employer you will do all that you honestly can, but that you were not
engaged to deceive, to cheat, to lie.'--`If I should say that, he would
tell me to be off.'--`Very well; _be_ off, then.'--`I have no other
place to go to, and he knows it.'--`No matter; go anywhere, do
anything--dig potatoes, black boots, sweep the streets for a living,
sooner than yield for one hour to such temptation.'--`But if I leave
that place so soon, it will make my old mother feel very bad; she will
think that I am getting unsteady; she will be afraid that I am going to
ruin.'--`Not a bit of it; tell her just the truth, and you will fill her
old heart with joy. She will thank God that she has got such a son, and
she will send up into heaven another prayer for you, which I would
rather have than all the gold of Ophir. Now, go back to your store, and
do all your duties most faithfully and punctually without lying. If
your employer is not a fool, he will like you the better for it, and
prize you the more, for he will at once see that he has got one clerk on
whose truthfulness he can depend. But if the man is as silly as he is
unconscientious, he will probably dismiss you before long. After that,
you may be sure that God will open a way for you somewhere.'--The young
man took Dr Spencer's advice, and lost his place, but soon found
another, and afterwards became an eminent and prosperous merchant, while
his old employer became bankrupt in about seven years after he left him,
and had to toil on in disgraceful poverty. Dr Spencer adds, `I
attribute this young man's integrity, conversion, and salvation to his
old mother, as he always fondly called her.'
"Now, dear Walter, you were saying, I think, when we were discussing the
raffle, that we cannot always be doing just what is right, and that
Gregson and Saunders would make great fun of you if you were to refuse
to put down your name because Amos thinks it wrong to raffle. Does not
that young American's case show very plainly that we _ought_ to aim at
always doing right? And is it not better to please a dear Christian old
mother, or a dear Christian brother like Amos, than to be smiled upon by
a dishonest master, or by such companions as Saunders or Gregson? You
see, the young man acted with true moral courage when he braved the
sneers and displeasure of his unscrupulous employer; and he found his
reward in the approval of God, his conscience, and his dear old mother."
Walter made no reply, but kept his eyes fixed on the ground. Then he
rose, flung his arms round his aunt's neck, kissed her half a dozen
times very warmly, and, whispering in her ear, "Pray for me, dear
auntie," hastily left the room. Oh, how Miss Huntingdon rejoiced at
these few simple and touching words, both on Walter's own account and
also on Amos's. She was sure now that her beloved nephew was feeling
his way into the narrow path, and would be all right on the road before
long.
A few days later, while Miss Huntingdon, Julia, and Amos were writing
their letters a little before luncheon time, Walter opened the door and
looked in with a comical expression on his face. "Are you all _very_
busy?" he asked. Having received a reply in the negative, he advanced
to the fire, crouched down by his aunt, hid his face in her lap, and
then, looking up at her with a smile, said, "I've come to make an
announcement and a confession. First and foremost, the raffle has come
to grief, partly, I suppose, because Walter Huntingdon, junior, Esquire
of Flixworth Manor, in the county of Hertfordshire, has refused to put
down his name or have anything to do with it. There--what does the
present company think of this important announcement?"
Amos and his aunt replied by loving smiles; Julia kept her eyes fixed on
some work she had taken up.
"My next announcement," continued Walter, "is of equal interest and
importance. The great firm of Huntingdon, Gregson, and Saunders has
dissolved partnership. What do you say to that?"
Amos left his place at the table, and kneeling down close to his brother
drew him warmly to him, his tears falling fast all the while as he
whispered, "Dear, dear Walter, how happy you have made me!"
"Do you want to hear all about it?" asked the other. "Would you like to
hear my confession?"
"By all means, dear boy," said his aunt, placing a fond hand on the head
of each of the brothers. Julia left her place and crouched down close
to Walter, so that her aunt's hands could include herself in their
gentle pressure.