to that sailor whom I've been a worritting and abusing ever since he
came to the village; and who yet jumped into the water and saved me,
just as I was drawn under that fearful wheel. I'll never forget the
horror;--I thought all was over with me then!"
"I'd do anything," began the clerk, but Nancy, as usual, cut him short.
"You go home, and get my pretty cuckoo-clock, the clock as was given
me on my marriage, and send it over to the Frankses with a letter,
a handsome letter; you're a scholar, and can write one as good as
a parson. And, mind you,"--a grim, strange smile came over Nancy's
features as she added,--"and mind you, don't forget to send the
weights, John Sands. Persis told the truth, and I'll never forget
it,--a clock can't get on without the weights."
John Sands did not forget to take down the clock that evening, and
to send it to the school-house, with a letter written so neatly that
it looked like copperplate. It was a fine specimen of composition
also, for the clerk could write well, though he could not speak well;
and if ever there was a man inspired by grateful joy, that man was
the husband of Nancy. He did not, however, in his letter make the
slightest allusion to his wife's late bad habits, nor to her intention
of taking the pledge; there was a feeling of delicacy on the part of
the husband that made him shrink from unnecessarily touching on so
tender a subject. But often and often did the clerk mutter to himself
on that evening, before he went to his rest, "Didn't I always say it;
she was tempted, poor dear, and went wrong, but the metal was always
good,--very good!"
XXIV.
The Blind Maiden.
We are now going to change the scene of our story, and, leaving for
a while the quiet village of Colme, with its rushing stream and
blossoming hedges, turn towards busy, bustling London.
My reader may chance to remember a slight mention made by Sands, in an
earlier chapter, of a Jew and his son, of whose conversion Persis and
Franks had been the happy instruments more than three years previously.
It is to the humble abode of the converted Jew that I will now direct
my reader's attention.
In a gloomy kitchen in a lodging-house situated in a low street of
London, a poor girl sat, not on a chair, but on a box, for scanty
indeed was the furniture in that dark, close room. The carpetless floor
was uneven, the paper on the walls half peeled away, the plaster in the
ceiling smoke-stained, cracked, and broken in several places. But it
was not the aspect of the place that distressed Sophy Claymore; had
it been adorned by rich tapestry, and pictures in gilded frames, it
would have been all the same to her as far as regarded its appearance,
for she was totally blind. Though years had passed since the heavy
affliction had come upon her, the poor young woman had never yet become
reconciled to the loss of her sight. She longed, she pined to look on
the sunbeams once more, to see the flowers, and behold again the faces
of men.
And then to Sophy Claymore poverty was a terrible trial. She had not
been accustomed to it in her childhood. Sophy, the daughter of a
worthless sharper, who had spent lavishly what he had gained wickedly,
had known more of pleasure and folly during the first fifteen years of
her life than usually falls to the lot of girls in her station. Now she
was an orphan, poor, penniless, having hardly the necessaries of life,
and owing even those necessaries to the generous kindness of a friend.
Isaacs, the converted Jew, though no relative of Sophy, had adopted her
as his own child at a time when he was better able to support her, and
would not now throw her off, though he had scarcely a crust to share
with the poor blind girl.
Then Sophy had sharp pain added to poverty and blindness. Ever since
the terrible illness which had deprived her of sight, she had been
subject to attacks of rheumatism, sometimes in her limbs, sometimes
in her head. As she sat on the box in that low-ceiled room, dreadful
shootings of pain from eye and ear and cheek made her ever and anon
start and draw in her breath, and then utter a low plaintive moan.
But it was not only these trials, sore as they were, that made poor
Sophy's blind eyes overflow with tears, and drew from her that
impatient wish that she might lie down and die. Sophy had a wounded
spirit as well as a suffering body. She had not the calm rest of
that loving faith which has so often made God's children _joyful in
tribulation_. She felt very impatient under her troubles, even though
well aware that she had partly brought them on herself. Sophy had the
fear of God in her heart; but she had as yet but little love, and
therefore could hardly keep from murmuring, though she tried hard not
to rebel.
"Oh, here comes Benoni, at last!" exclaimed Sophy Claymore, hastily
drying her eyes, as a light footstep was heard on the dark wooden stair
leading down to the kitchen. Sophy had never seen the face of her
little brother, as she called the son of Isaacs; she had never met the
smile of the child; but she would sometimes say that she could _hear_
the smile in his voice; and she loved to fancy him like the picture of
a fair white-winged cherub, with a ray streaming down on his bright,
uplifted face, which she had admired when she was a child. If Sophy
could have seen Benoni as he entered the kitchen, she would have beheld
something very unlike the image in her mind; he would have appeared as
a pale, sickly boy, of about nine or ten years of age, with a Jewish
cast of feature, and very shabbily dressed. But perhaps Sophy was after
all not so much mistaken as many might have thought her, and Benoni,
seen with the eyes of the soul, might have looked much like a cherub
still. There _was_ a ray streaming down upon him, though not such as
can be seen by mortal eyes.
"Oh! have you sold them, Benoni?" cried Sophy anxiously, as she heard
her adopted brother softly enter the room.
There was not "a smile in the voice," but there was hope in it as the
boy made reply, "Not to-day, dear Sophy. People seemed all so busy
and bustling, they would not attend to me. But I hope to-morrow to
sell some of your beautiful knitted things;" and Benoni put down a
card-board box containing small cuffs and kettle-holders,--a box, alas!
just as full as when he had taken it out that morning to try to sell
something in the streets.
"I wish that the money thrown away on the wool had gone for bread!"
said Sophy, desperately. She was dreadfully disappointed at the
failure, and ready to burst into tears.
Benoni went and sat upon the box beside her, took her hand in his own,
stroked and fondled it, and looked up lovingly into her face. "Poor
sister," he said very softly, "I'm afraid you are still in sore pain; I
wish I could take it away!"
"You feel for me, Benoni, you pity me," replied Sophy, almost with a
sob; "why does not God pity too?"
"God does!" exclaimed Benoni, looking shocked at what sounded so much
like the expression of a doubt of the love of his merciful Creator.
"It does not seem like it," muttered Sophy, half aloud, "or why does
God leave us in misery like this?"
"God knows why, and we must trust him," said Benoni, simply. "Why, you
trust even _me_, dear Sophy, a poor, foolish, little boy like me, when
I lead you about in the street; you are sure that I won't bring you
into danger, or take you where you would get any harm. You just hold me
tight by the hand and walk on, and are never afraid. I think that's how
we should feel about greater things. We should let the good Lord take
us by the hand, and then not start back and feel frightened. He sees,
you know, though we cannot see, what is the best road to take us along."
"I wish that I could feel as you do," sighed Sophy. "How do you get
such comfort in religion? I scarcely ever have any."
"My comfort comes by thinking all about the Lord Jesus," said Benoni.
"I'm often getting anxious and sad, and then when I think about him,
all seems to grow sunny again."
"I also think of the Lord in his glory," observed Sophy; "but it seems
as if in the midst of all the happiness of heaven he would not care to
think about me."
"But I like best to think about the Lord when he was on earth," said
Benoni; "most of all when he was a little boy living at Nazareth with
his mother. Then I know he can understand all that I feel, and the
little things that trouble me so. Joseph was not a rich or a great
man you know; he was only a simple carpenter, and had to work for his
bread. Don't you think that Joseph may sometimes have been ill, or out
of work like my father, and that Mary may scarcely have known how to
get food to give to her husband and son?"
"Perhaps so," replied Sophy, thoughtfully, "but one can hardly fancy
it. All the pictures of the Virgin Mary that I used to see made her
look dressed like a queen, and sitting on clouds, and one can't imagine
that either she or the Holy Child could ever really want a meal."
"Ah! but one can't trust _pictures_," said Benoni; "it is very likely,
as I once heard dear Persis say, that the Lord Jesus had a hard,
struggling kind of life when he was a boy. And then he lived in a
very wicked place; we know that from the Bible. I dare say that he
often heard bad words and saw things that would grieve him; and I dare
say that bad boys would tempt him, and jeer at him, and torment him,
because he never would join them in doing anything wrong. You can't
think what a comfort it is to me to think that the Lord had such common
troubles as these."
"_In all points tempted like as we are_," repeated Sophy, the apostle's
words recurring to her mind.
"I do love," continued Benoni, "to remember that it was when he was a
boy, not many years older than I am, that the Lord said, _Wist ye not
that I must be about my Father's business_? It showed that _doing_
God's will was in his mind then, that he was preparing when he was a
child for the great, great work,--the business of saving the world.
And perhaps the Lord had something to suffer, too, when he was a boy,
preparing him for the terrible trials that came upon him at last;
perhaps he had little crosses--like ours--before he had to take up the
great one, and many a thorn to pain him, even in his quiet home, long
before the cruel soldiers put the platted crown round his head. Now,
being hungry and having very little to eat may have just been one of
these thorns."
"But I dare say that the Lord could have covered the table with
abundance even when he was a boy, if he had chosen to do so," said
Sophy.
"But I don't suppose that he ever did choose to do that," replied
Benoni, in a very thoughtful tone, for he was a child who reflected
much. "The Lord wouldn't make bread for himself when he was a man; it
is not at all likely that he would do so when he was a boy. No, I dare
say that the Holy One tried to help Joseph, and to cheer his mother,
and told them that he was sure that their heavenly Father would never
forget them. I dare say that the Lord looked _then_ at the sparrows and
the lilies, and thought how God clothed and fed them, and then up to
the blue, blue sky, where his heavenly Father dwells, and never doubted
that Father's love, however hungry and poor he himself might be."
Benoni Isaacs expressed himself like a child, but Sophy felt that the
love and joy and peace that breathed in his simple words were not of
earth, but from above. The little one beside her was, like Samuel,
early called to listen to the word of God, and to answer in trustful
obedience, _Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth_. Sophy envied Benoni
his power of looking upwards by faith, and seeing God's love in all
things, more than she envied him the sight of his bodily eyes. The
girl and her adopted brother might be compared to travellers on a wide
ocean. With Benoni there were heavings and tossings, a gale of trouble
lifting the waves on high; but love to God was like bright sunshine on
that stormy sea, turning the foam into crests of pearls, the billows
to waves of gold. But Sophy was like one who journeys towards a frozen
north, at a time when the sun for long days is absent. All around
her was becoming dreary and chill; the ice of mistrust was gradually
gathering and thickening around her, till it seemed as if it would
hold her fast as in a prison, so that she should make no more progress
towards heaven;--never get forward, never get through to open water
and a brighter sea! There is something more terrible in this gradual
freezing round the soul than in the sudden shock of temptation. It
seems more impossible to "sheer off" from a danger like this. If we can
thus find _mistrust_ beginning to spread around us its deadly chill, if
the slightest doubt of God's love arise like a film on the water, let
us instantly turn our thoughts towards the Sun of Righteousness though
his rays may be hidden from our eyes; let us not be content to rest for
an hour where shoals of unbelief are forming around; let the very north
wind of trouble only drive us more rapidly towards the clear south,
till we feel at last the warmth of that Sun which has healing and life
in each beam.
XXV.
Honorable Scars.
"Here's father!" suddenly exclaimed Benoni, as he heard a familiar step
on the stair, and rose to meet his parent.
"Oh, may he bring us good news!" sighed Sophy. Instinctively she turned
her head in the direction of the door, longing to be able to read in
the face of her adopted parent whether he had met with success in his
quest for employment or assistance. All was darkness with Sophy; but
Benoni saw in a moment, from the heavy cloud on his father's brow,
the compressed lips, the haggard cheek, that he had met with severe
disappointment. Benjamin Isaacs almost threw to Benoni the single loaf
which he brought, as with suppressed bitterness he said, "Take it--I
got it by pledging the last of my tools."
"God has forsaken us!" muttered Sophy, putting up her hands to each
side of her head. There had been a shooting pain through it at that
moment, but a sharper pang still had pierced through the poor girl's
heart.
The one chair in the kitchen had been left for Benjamin Isaacs, but
he did not take it; he was too restless to sit down. Under a manner
usually quiet, he was a man of passions naturally fierce. These had
been kept under control, first by a habit of reserve, then by the
principles which he had adopted with the Christian religion, but now
and then they broke through restraint, and a short but vivid glimpse
was given of an impetuous, fiery spirit.
[Illustration: "Then go to the Christians," he said, mockingly, waving
me out of the shop. p. 244.]
"Man at least has forsaken us!" he exclaimed, with but
half-suppressed passion. "I went first to Elkanah da Costa, him under
whom I worked as a journeyman for years. There he was in his shop,
surrounded by the silver and the gold and the gems that are dear to him
as his soul. I told him of my difficulties; how anxious I am to find
work, even if my wages be much reduced. He knows _how_ I work,--many
of the glittering jewels in his cases had been set by these hands.
'I don't see you, Benjamin Isaacs, in the synagogue now,' he drawled
forth; he who cares less for religion, be it in Christian or Hebrew,
than for the lightest grain of gold dust that falls from the graver!
'No,' I replied; 'for these three years and more I have attended a
Christian church.' 'Then go to the Christians,' he said, mockingly,
waving me out of the shop. 'You will at least give me a certificate of
character,' I began. He cut me short with, 'Go to the Christians for
_that_,' with a sneer on his face which made the blood mount to mine;
and I turned my back on that place with its glittering wealth--forever!
"I had not walked many paces from the shop," continued Benjamin Isaacs,
"when whom should I come upon suddenly, on turning a corner of the
street, but my near blood relation, my cousin Reuben. He and I had
played when children together, shared the same meals, read out of the
same book, slept in the same room at night. I had written to Reuben
after my conversion, but I had received no reply. I did not doubt
that he would be angry at my having left our common faith; but he is
under obligation to me,--deep obligation,--and I scarcely thought that
even religious differences would entirely break the threefold tie of
gratitude, friendship, and blood."
Benjamin Isaacs paused, knit his dark brows, and pressed his lips
tightly together. Benoni thought of that which is written, _Brother
shall rise up against brother_, and silently thanked God that he and
his father, at least, had at the same time given themselves to the
Lord. Isaacs continued his narration; it seemed a relief to him thus to
pour out the bitterness of his spirit in words,--
"'Reuben,' said I, and held out my hand; he drew back, and looked as if
he would as lief have grasped a viper. 'Turncoat, dog of a Christian!'
he hissed forth, and passed me with a gesture, which, had I _not_ been
a Christian, would have made me strike him to the pavement, and stamp
upon him as he lay there!" The dark eyes of Isaacs seemed to flash fire
as he said this, and intuitively he clenched his thin hand.
"O father, dear, then you'll have your scars to show!" cried Benoni.
The soft, sweet voice of the boy sounded to Sophy like music after a
storm.
"Scars! what do you mean?" asked Isaacs.
"Ned Franks said that what we have to suffer for Christ, because we are
his faithful soldiers, will be to us at last like the scars left by
wounds got in battle."
There was something soothing in the idea to one who was at the moment
smarting from persecution borne for righteousness' sake. The furrows on
Isaacs' brow smoothed down; he seated himself wearily on the chair, and
drew his little boy towards him.
"You seem to have a good memory, Benoni, for everything done or said by
your good friend the sailor, though you were so young when we left the
village of Colme."
"We had such happy days there," said Benoni; "the happiest days in all
my life, when you and I lodged in the pretty cottage with old Mr.
Meade and dear Persis, and every evening Ned Franks came to court her
for his wife. He used to take me on his knee, and tell me stories, and
I think of them now so often,--most of all at night when I can't get to
sleep; it seems as if they brought those dear old times back again."
Benoni, in that gloomy London kitchen, could not repress a little sigh.
As memory may have recalled to Adam the sights and sounds of Eden, so
she pictured to Benoni the cottage mantled with creepers, buried in its
green wooded dell, with the gurgle of the stream and the clack of the
mill and the happy voice of Persis singing hymns at her grandfather's
door.
"And what was it that Franks said about wounds and scars?" asked Isaacs.
"You know that Ned Franks had served the queen, and had been in more
than one battle; yet he told me that he had never so much as received a
scratch in fight, and that he half envied the fellows that carried away
some marks that they'd been in the struggle; for that though wounds
may be sore at the time, an old soldier or sailor likes afterwards to
look at his scars. Franks said, that if the bright angels in heaven,
who have nothing but peace, happiness, and love, could envy us poor
mortals anything, it must be the opportunity of giving up something
and suffering something for the sake of the Lord Jesus, who suffered
so much for us. The angels may have the harps of gold and the crowns
of life, but they can't have the victor's _scars_, for no one has ever
hated or persecuted them for righteousness' sake. Sometimes," continued
the boy, nestling closer to his father, and speaking on, because he
felt that his simple words were giving comfort,--"sometimes I like to
think of all the Lord's faithful soldiers marching in glory before him,
when all their trials and battles are over, and when everything which
they have borne for him will be remembered. There will be Joseph,--he
got his scar when he was thrown into prison; Daniel, his in the den
of lions; the three brave Jews, in the burning, fiery furnace. And
then there will be the scars of those who have been reviled and spoken
against and laughed at because they would serve the Lord; scars of
those who have lost money for Christ, who have given up Sunday gains,
or wouldn't take bribes, or get gold in any bad way, and so were
sometimes hungry and poor while they lived upon earth. And sometimes
it has seemed to me," continued Benoni, "that even if I _could_ get
so easily through life as never to have a hard word or want a comfort
because I served the Saviour, I would _rather_ have some little scars
to show,--not because they would make me deserve anything as a reward
from my King, but because they would be like _marks_ to prove how
dearly I had loved him."
"Ay, ay," said Isaacs, calmly and even cheerfully, "_Blessed are they
which are persecuted for righteousness' sake_. It is the Master himself
who bade his wounded servants _rejoice and leap for joy_. If we have
never received so much as a scratch in the long struggle against the
world, the flesh, and the devil, it looks as if our fighting had been
but a sham,--that we had kept out of the fire, and thought a great deal
more of our own comfort than of the honor of our Leader. He bore shame
and loss for us; we should welcome shame and loss for him." The thought
was taking from Isaacs all the venom that had been rankling in his
wounded spirit.
"Such sorrows are blessings and honors," cried Benoni, and his pale
face brightened as he said it.
"But what are sorrows," thought poor Sophy, "that come upon us, not
because we have followed the Lord, but because we have wandered from
him?" She had listened to the preceding conversation in silence,
bitterly conscious that the wounds which festered in her heart were
not those received in Christian warfare, but rather, in part at least,
the consequences of her early folly and neglect of religion. Sophy
knew too well how entirely her mind had been set on the world. A gay
ribbon or dress, a gaudy bead necklace, a Sunday "lark," or a dance,
had been more to her silly, sinful heart than all the truths contained
in the Bible. She had not given up one folly for the sake of her Lord;
she had not through sense of duty ever renounced the smallest gain;
her dangerous pleasures had been torn from her,--not yielded up of
her own free will; she had clutched them as long as she could; she
had been made poor, desolate, and blind; but this had been because
her waywardness had rendered chastisements needful, not because her
faithfulness to God had led her into persecution or trouble. And yet
Sophy was far more disposed to repine than were Isaacs and his son; she
was more tempted to distrust God's love, though her very afflictions
were a token of it. Sophy had been a wandering sheep, straying upon the
mountains of sin and folly, now near to the brink of the precipice, now
close to the den of the lion who lurketh in wait for souls to destroy
them. She would not then hear the voice of the Shepherd: she chose her
own dangerous path. When her friend, Norah Peele, under the influence
of her uncle, had begun to try in earnest to lead a new life, Sophy had
done all in her power to hinder and keep her back; had first laughed at
her good resolutions, and then quarrelled with Norah because she could
not be persuaded to break them. It was in mercy indeed that sorrow and
sickness had been sent to Sophy, like the rough sheep-dog after the
straying lamb to frighten or drag it back to the fold; Sophy, if left
to herself, must have been lost forever. It is not always that trials
are blessings, but such they had been to her. Sophy had been suddenly
checked in her mad career, shut out by blindness from many temptations
which she had never been able to resist,--love of dress, of flattery,
of folly,--temptations which were drawing her farther and farther away
from her God. Sophy in her misery had learned to pray, but she had not
yet learned to praise; as a penitent she was sincere, but as a believer
she was weak. She reverenced the Lord as her king, had hope in him
as her Saviour; but she did not cling to him with rejoicing trust as
the Friend, the loving Friend who bids us cast all our care upon him,
because he careth for us.
"Shall we never go back to Colme, father?" asked Benoni, after along
interval of silence, during which the boy's thoughts had been wandering
back to what he considered the pleasantest spot upon earth.