"It is clear," thought Franks, "that I'm not in the right tack yet. Let
me try him on that of conscience. Why," he continued, aloud, "there's
no plainer command in the Bible than _To do good and to distribute,
forget not; let us do good unto all men, and specially unto them that
are of the household of faith_."
"I know something of the Bible, too," replied Bat Bell, coldly, and
the twitch was more unpleasant than before. "I'm a father, and I don't
forget that it's written that _He who provideth not for his own is
worse than an infidel_."
"Never let that text be repeated to justify hoarding!" exclaimed
Franks, with some warmth, for it flashed across his mind how the devil
himself can quote Scripture. "If we are to be content with food and
raiment for ourselves, shall we not be content with them also for our
children, without gathering up for them gold and silver, which may only
prove a snare, as has happened in thousands of cases? I am a father,
too," Ned added more mildly, for he saw on the countenance of Bell
that he had spoken too warmly; "I am a father, and love my little one
as much as a father can love; but if thoughts of saving for him made
me close my hand and heart against the claims of God's poor, I should
feel, that whatever else I might leave him, I dared not expect to leave
him that blessing which alone giveth true riches. I should feel that my
babe was coming between my soul and my God, and that I must look for
God to punish me in him. Of whatever we make our idol, the Lord is wont
to make his rod."
"I've no such superstitious fears!" cried Bat Bell, rising from his
seat with a gesture of impatience. Had his visitor been any one but Ned
Franks, from whom he had received kindness in time of sorrow, he would
have given his guest a broader hint to depart.
"Let us not talk of fear, then, neighbor," said Franks, also rising,
but with no intention of yet giving up his attempt to move that cold,
hard heart. "Have patience with me a few moments more, while I speak
of a nobler motive,--the love of God. Look around you, Bat Bell, look
at this comfortable home, where want is unknown; you were ill last
winter; look at the health and strength restored you now; listen
to the merry voice of your child,"--a joyous carol was heard from
without,--"and then ask yourself from whom came all these blessings,
the loss of any one of which would throw you into sore distress. The
goods that you have you owe"--
"To hard work, the labor of my hands in the sweat of my brow,"
interrupted the miller.
"Who gave the hand strength and the mind reason? whose power made the
stream which turns your mill? whose sunshine ripens the corn on your
fields? But why speak only of earthly blessings,--we have more, far
more to thank God for! We have not only bodies but souls to care for;
we have not only time but eternity to live for. Can we be content to
sit still and do nothing for others, when we know what God's Son hath
done for us; when we think at what a price he bought our salvation;
how, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor? He calls us
to make no sacrifice for him that he has not first made a thousand-fold
for us; and when he would teach us what charity should be, the Lord
sums up all in the words, _Love one another as I have loved you_."
Ned Franks's appeal was interrupted by the door being thrown suddenly
open, and little Bessy's running into the room. The white pinafore of
the child, held up by one chubby hand, formed a receptacle for a number
of wild flowers which she had been gathering in the lane. With her blue
eyes sparkling with pleasure, the child ran up to her father.
"See, I've plucked 'em for you, every one!" she cried, emptying her
pinafore on the chair from which Bat Bell had lately risen; "no,--all
but this dead primrose,--it's withered and bad, it's not fit to give
father!" Bessy threw the faded flower away. "I've brought you the
_first_ I could find; now, I'll run and get more for myself."
Bell caught up his girl, lifted her up high, and then kissed her again
and again before he set her again on the floor. Bessy nodded merrily at
Ned.
"You shall have some, too," she said; "but the _first_ are always for
father;" and away ran the happy child, leaving her spring flowers
behind her.
And Bessy left something besides. The visit of the little one had
seemed to bring sunshine with it. The hard lines on the parent's face
were softened, every feature relaxed, the cold, money-making man was a
parent, and a fond parent still. Franks felt that the unconscious Bessy
had acted the part of a little ally; that she was helping to stir the
deeply-imbedded vessel which he had been trying to move.
"Will that dear little girl enjoy her flowers less because the _first_
are always for her father?" said Franks, as soon as the sound of the
pattering feet was heard no longer. "Would that God's children were
more like her, bringing their gifts with readiness, with joy, and not
like too many of us, offering only the withered thing, the dead thing,
that which we will not miss, to him whose goodness towards us has been
greater than that of any father on earth!"
Bat Bell's hand approached his pocket, though he did not actually put
it in. "Ned Franks," said the miller, "I tell you honestly, that I
wouldn't stand this kind of talk from any man but yourself; but I know
that your practice is better than your preaching; so, as you've set
your heart on getting something for these cottages, just as a matter
of favor to you"--Bell stopped short; he could not make up his mind
either to finish his sentence, or to draw out his purse.
"I do not want you to give as a matter of favor to me," cried Franks,
"nor is the state of the cottages what is uppermost now in my mind.
I came here, indeed, anxious to get something for _them_, but I am a
hundred-fold more anxious to get something for you!" The miller raised
his dusty eyebrows with surprise, but Franks went on, without giving
him time to interrupt the earnest flow of his speech. "If we knew that
our Lord and Master had come down again to this earth, that he was in
our land, our country, our village, nay, that he was deigning to dwell
in one of these cottages, which, wretched as they are, are better than
the Bethlehem stable, would we not deem it the first of honors to be
allowed to bring gifts to him? Would not you and I be ready to pull
down our own dwellings to get beams and rafters for his, and think the
best that we have, yea, _all_ that we have, too little to offer to our
King? And it is all the same, Bat Bell: what we give to the poor for
his sake, Christ receives as given to himself. _Inasmuch as ye did
it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye did it unto me._ Yes, my
friend, I want help for the cottages, but I much more want something
for _you_,--the joy of hearing at the last day the Saviour's welcome,
_Come, ye blessed of my Father_."
VI.
The Return.
The fervent appeal, coming as it did from the very heart of the
pleader, had stirred the stubborn hearer a little, though but a little
way from his first position. Bat Bell could not help remembering that
there was a reverse to the blessing, a "_Depart ye cursed_," for those
of whom Christ would witness, "_Ye did it not unto me_." Bell feared
that he might have lived all his life under the shadow of that curse;
so, anxious to justify himself to his own conscience even more than to
Franks, he took refuge in the remembrance of what he deemed a good deed.
"I can give,--I _have_ given, and largely, too," said the miller,
leaning his head against the wall. "There's my nephew, Rob Gates; did I
not pay fifty pounds to 'prentice him out,--_fifty pounds_," repeated
the miller emphatically, "of which I have not had one penny back,
though the ungrateful dog has been in business these three years?"
Upon this one act of generosity Bell always fell back when any call on
his charity was made, as if he considered that the lent fifty pounds
covered every claim which could be made on his purse by religion or
by humanity. It always gave him an opportunity of declaiming against
the ingratitude of mankind; because his nephew had not repaid his
loan, all who needed aid from the miller became in his eyes covetous
and thankless, if not dishonest. Bat Bell tried to believe that in
hazarding fifty pounds he had already given enough to God; it would
have startled him to have been told that not one farthing of the
money could be reckoned as real charity. Bell had helped his nephew
from _natural affection_, and from _family pride_. The miller had
acted exactly as he would have acted if he had been a Turk or an
Infidel,--exactly as he would have acted had he never heard the name of
the Lord. Tried by this test, of how small a part of our alms, alas!
will the Master be able to say, _Ye did it unto me_!
"That miserable fifty pounds," thought Ned, who had heard of it often
before, and who knew too well that the miller used its loss as a
perpetual argument to silence conscience, and excuse his neglect of the
poor.
"You see, Ned Franks," continued the miller, "a man who has once made
sacrifices for others, and has only met with ingratitude; who has spent
upon a good-for-nothing scapegrace of a nephew--"
The miller suddenly stopped and started. Ned, whose back was towards
the open door, only knew by the change on the face of Bell, the look of
surprise that flashed across it, that a third party had unexpectedly
joined them. Turning round he saw a stout young man, in a shaggy coat,
with a knapsack on his shoulders, and a broad grin on his good-humored
face, who advanced with both hands extended to the miller, exclaiming
in a loud, hearty tone, "Here's the good-for-nothing scapegrace to
answer for himself."
[Illustration: "Here's the good-for-nothing scapegrace to answer for
himself." p. 58.]
Bell gave his nephew a cordial welcome both with hand and voice, and
Franks was so glad to see the hearty greeting, that he did not ask
himself whether it were possible that the uncle's pleasure at seeing
the young man might partly be owing to the hope of his now having the
old debt cleared off.
"So you were giving me a pretty character, uncle," cried Rob Gates,
after he had thrown himself on a chair; "well, I can't grumble at that,
as you've neither seen nor heard from me for many a long year; but I
never was much of a scribe, and don't trouble the postman from January
to December. I don't care to write till I've something to say, so I
waited till I could play the postman myself, and bring a kind of notes
that are easily read, and will tell more of gratitude, duty, and that
sort of thing, than reams of foolscap scribbled all over."
With a look of honest satisfaction, the young man pulled a large
leathern pocket-book from his breast-pocket. His movements were watched
with keen interest by the miller, as Rob opened the clasp, and then
slowly drew out, one after another, unfolding and smoothing out each as
he did so, ten five-pound notes of the Bank of England. He spread them
with his broad, rough hands over the table, as if he took a boyish
pleasure in making the greatest possible show of his wealth.
"Uncle, here's the fifty pounds which I owe you," said Rob; "you're not
sorry now, I hope, that you lent a helping hand to your scapegrace of
a nephew? I can't believe that a fellow ever has cause to be sorry for
doing a kindness; it always in one way or other comes back."
Franks glanced at the miller, and fancied that he saw his thin lip
quiver a little, and that something like moisture rose in the usually
dark, cold eye. Ned could not tell what was passing in the mind of that
man, as he laid his hand on one of the notes. Slowly, half reluctantly,
the miller raised it, and then, as if moved by an impulse, which even
his selfish nature could not withstand, Bell handed that note to the
sailor, saying, "You came at a lucky time; take that,--it's for Wild
Rose Hollow."
Ned stood amazed at success so far beyond all his hopes. He had indeed
been led to that dwelling in a happy moment, when Bell's hard heart
had been softened and touched, or, to use his own simile, "when a
spring-tide had set in so strongly as to help the stranded craft off
the shoal." His words of thanks were hearty, and while the miller set
about preparing a meal for his hungry guest, the one-armed sailor
joyously started on his homeward way.
Merrily Franks sped up the glen, his blithe whistle mingling with the
chord of the lark that hung quivering over his head. Ben Stone, the
carpenter, who had just returned from the hall, was standing at the
door of his shop, on the lookout for Ned Franks.
"Why, he looks as gladsome as if he'd just come in for a fortune
himself," muttered the carpenter, "and he's whistling away like a bird!
But all that jollity must be put on to cover disappointment, for if he
got more than a crooked four-penny bit from that miserly miller, I'm
a Dutchman, that's all! Well, Ned Franks," cried the jovial carpenter
aloud, "how many brass farthings has Bat Bell pulled out of his hoard
to prop up the houses in Wild Rose Hollow?"
Franks waved the crisp, fluttering bank-note in reply.
"You don't mean--what--no--not a _bank-note_--a five-pound note!"
exclaimed the astonished Stone, scarcely able to credit his eyes. His
exclamation was echoed by his wife and two neighbors who joined him at
the moment.
"It must be a toy-note," suggested Mrs. Stone.
"No," laughed Ned, "it is a good honest note of the Bank of England,
worth five sovereigns of any man's money. Bat Bell was unexpectedly
repaid a large loan at the very time when I was with him to ask help
for Wild Rose Hollow; the first note which he touched he gave to God,
and I trust that God will bless him for it," added Franks, with fervor;
"it was more from him than a much larger sum would have been from
another man."
"The sum's pretty large from anybody," said the carpenter, with rather
a rueful face, for Bat Bell's generosity had taken him by surprise
in an inconvenient way. "I hope that I'm not expected to hold to my
unlucky offer; where Bell gives once, I give a hundred times; he may
plump out a five-pound note and not miss it, but I've not the knack of
turning deal shavings into gold."
"No, no, neighbor," cried Franks, "no one would think of holding you to
such a bargain. You have not suddenly come into money like Bell, or,
I've not a doubt, you'd give to the full as large as he."
"But I'm not the man to flinch from my word," said Stone; "if I can't
give the money, I'll give the money's worth in work when I've time to
spare; so you may count that five pounds as fairly doubled, my friend."
"That will be a lucky bank-note to you, Mr. Franks," observed the
carpenter's wife; "for now that you've brought in such a sum to help
the collection, I'm sure and certain that you'll be the man fixed upon
to be clerk at our church, instead of John Sands."
"Instead of Sands! why, he's not going to resign the place, surely?"
cried Franks.
"He'll have to give it up; he could not for shame stand up just below
the reading-desk, give out the psalms, and lead the singing, as if
nothing had happened," observed Ben Stone, with a shake of his head.
"Why, Sands is the most quiet, steady, sober--"
"But his wife, she's the mischief, she's the ruin of him; a man
is what a woman makes him," quoth the jovial carpenter, giving a
self-complacent nod towards his own partner. "Parsons, we're told, must
have their own houses in subjection, and I guess the same rule holds
with their clerks. All Colme is talking about it. We'll have you, our
one-armed sailor, clerk as well as school-master; there's no one so fit
for the place!"
VII.
Brightness and Gloom.
"So there's a chance of my being made clerk as well as school-master
of Colme," said Ned Franks to himself, as he walked towards his home.
"Such a breeze of good fortune is more than I ever could have hoped
for. Why, there would be twenty-six pounds a year, besides what I have
now, and no trifle in the way of fees! Now that I am a family man,
I shall find plenty to do with the money. I shall be able to fulfil
my heart's desire, to give my boy, when he's old enough to learn, a
first-rate education. Little Ned shall have every advantage, bless him!
There's no saying what he may turn out in time,--may be a parson,
maybe a bishop, one of these days!" Franks laughed to himself, and
walked on with brisker step at the thought. "Then I'll be able to
insure my life, so that if anything should happen to me, my Persis
shouldn't be cast adrift on the waves, or have to pull the oar herself
in a heavy sea! And we'll have something to give to others. I think
that I'll devote the fees for the first year, at least, to the repair
of the old almshouses in Wild Rose Hollow. Persis will approve of that,
I am sure. Grand news I have to carry home to wifie to-day! When I
was nothing but a poor Jack-tar, and then lost my arm by an awkward
accident, and thought that the storm of misfortune was throwing me back
on my native shore like a battered wreck that never would float again,
how little I dreamed what a prosperous gale that storm was for me! Here
am I, as far from being a wreck as ever I was in my life (barring that
instead of my left arm I've timber and a hook, which serve my purpose
quite well), scudding along, buoyant as a cork, with the best of wives
and the sweetest of babes and the happiest of homes, with teaching
work, which is just to my liking, and now with the prospect in
addition of being appointed Clerk of Colme, in the place of John Sands!"
But the last words, like a touch to a sleeper, broke the charm of Ned
Franks's pleasant day-dream.
"Shame on me!" he muttered, half aloud; "here am I rejoicing, like a
shameless wrecker, in the ruin of a poor fellow who never did harm to
me or mine! The proverb says, 'It's ill standing in dead men's shoes,'
but this is something worse. If poor Sands has to resign the snug berth
he's held with credit for the last ten years, it will be because he
has the misery of having a wife who has taken to drink; her disgrace
falls upon him, and because his home is wretched, he may have the very
bread taken out of his mouth! Instead of feeling for him, as any man,
let alone a Christian, should feel, I, who have had my cup of blessings
already filled to overflowing, I am counting on his loss as my gain;
because his happiness is shipwrecked, I'm looking to get my share of
the spoils! Out upon me for a selfish, covetous fellow!" exclaimed the
indignant tar. "That same prosperous gale that I thought so much of
seems to be blowing me right on that sandbank of love of money, from
which I've been warning others. I must take care to sheer off myself!"
The road along which the school-master of Colme was passing, led him
by the cottage of Sands the clerk, and he glanced, as he went by, at
the untidy, weed-grown garden, the window with the broken pane stuffed
with rags, which told a sad tale of sorrow and neglect. The cottage
was rather a large and good one, and a few years back had worn an
appearance of comfort and prosperity, such as befitted the home of the
respectable Clerk of Colme. Franks remembered the lines stretched out
along the garden, whitened with linen hung out to dry; for Nancy Sands,
a strong and active woman, had added many a pound to her husband's
gains by her skill in laundry-work. Now one of the poles lay rotting
on the ground; a broken, dirty cord, hanging loose from the wall, was
all that remained of the lines. Families no longer cared to trust Nancy
Sands with their washing, and, if report spoke truth, the poor clerk
had sometimes to iron his own shirts himself, to keep up the decent
appearance indispensable to one in his station.
Ned Franks had not gone many yards past the dwelling of Sands, when
he saw before him the poor man himself, advancing slowly, as if there
were little to attract him towards his home. The figure of the Clerk of
Colme, by its peculiar stiffness and formality, was easily recognized
at a distance. He always dressed in black, and so appropriate did
the cloth appear to the wearer, that no one could imagine John Sands
appearing in any less grave attire. Even in his best days the Clerk of
Colme had seemed as if he could never look happy. The closely cropped
hair, black and almost as thick as the fur of a beaver, was seen above
a thin, sallow face, always so solemn and serious that it was supposed
to be incapable of smiling. There had been some thought, years before
the beginning of this story, of appointing John Sands as school-master
at Colme; but there was not one of the scholars who would not have
regarded such an appointment with exceeding dislike and disgust. The
boys were certain that the old raven, as they called the clerk, must
have been brought up in an undertaker's shop, and been cradled in a
coffin; they believed that he had never laughed when a baby, nor played
at cricket or football when a boy; indeed, a doubt was expressed as
to whether the clerk had ever been a boy at all, but had not rather
grown out of a Liliputian man, clad in a tiny black coat, and miniature
white neck-cloth. No one was very intimate with John Sands; no one
ever addressed him by his Christian name, or thought of clapping him
on the shoulder, or telling him a bit of good news, or asking him to
"come and share pot-luck." Yet nothing could be said against the clerk,
except that he did not rule his own house well, and was thought to be
henpecked by Nancy.
When the sailor (for such Franks still considered himself, and was
considered by other to be, though he had not been afloat for years) saw
John Sands coming towards him, he had something of a feeling of shame;
it seemed to his kindly, honest nature as if he had done his neighbor
wrong by even thinking of taking his place. Franks lifted his cap with
a courteous "Good-day," as he was about to pass John Sands, but the
clerk stood stock-still on the path, and clearly did not wish to be
passed.
"Mr. Franks," he said, to the sailor, "if you could spare me a few
minutes, I should like to have a quiet talk with you. The church is
hard by; will you come with me into the vestry?"
Now Franks was in great haste to get home; he was impatient to tell
his wife of his wondrous success with Bat Bell; besides, having given
away his breakfast, he was exceedingly hungry; for, having risen at
four o'clock that morning, and having eaten nothing since an early
breakfast, his sharp appetite reminded him that it was long past his
usual dinner-time. Franks had calculated on having just a quarter of
an hour in which to satisfy hunger, and tell all his news, before his
pupils would gather again for afternoon lessons. Had John Sands not
been in trouble, Franks might have asked him to put off his proposed
quiet talk; but the sailor was sorry for Nancy's husband, and only
reminded the clerk that lessons would begin again at two, and that the
school-master must be at his post.
Franks doubted whether Sands had even noticed this hint. The clerk
turned back, and, at a slower pace than was pleasant to his hungry
companion, proceeded towards the village church, not uttering a single
word as he went. The two passed along the little walk which led to
the back door which opened into the vestry. The clerk very slowly, at
least so it seemed to Franks, drew the large key out of his pocket,
and fitted it into the lock. The creaking door was opened, and the two
men entered the little room which looked so neat, solemn, and silent,
with the light from the diamond-paned window falling on its green
cloth-covered table, with the heavy desk, and the big registry book
upon it. It is probable that the clerk felt more at home in this place
than in his own cheerless dwelling; here at least there was peace.
There were in the mind of Ned Franks very pleasant recollections
connected with that vestry-room. The very chair which he now took had
been occupied by his bride, when, for the last time, she had signed
herself "Persis Meade;" in that place he had first called her "wife,"
and there, but two days ago, their first-born babe had been registered
as received by baptism into the church. The clerk also seemed to have
the latter event in his mind; for, as he seated himself under the
window, with his back to the light, he observed, in the slow, measured
tone which he always used, "Your child was christened in this church on
last Saturday, Mr. Franks."