Part 11

Before Ned and his "jovial crew," as he called the school-boys, had left off working in Wild Rose Hollow, just at the hour of six they always saw John Sands return from visiting the hospital of B----. The Hollow, though a little apart from the high road, yet commanded a view of it, and, punctual as the clock, with his black coat, white neck-cloth, and a narrow-brimmed hat surmounting his close-cropped black hair, the lean, stiff figure of the clerk was seen passing a certain thorn-tree which grew by the dusty highway. The boys were so much accustomed to this sight of the poor husband pursuing his silent, joyless way back to his solitary home, that he would certainly have been missed by them, had he on any day failed to appear. It was as natural to catch that glimpse of him passing the thorn-tree, as it was on Sundays to see him in his place under the reading-desk in church; whatever John Sands did, there seemed to be a kind of necessity that he should go on doing it forever.

It caused no small surprise, then, amongst the boys, when, on one evening in the latter part of May, as the clerk appeared at his usual hour, instead of passing the thorn-tree as usual, he turned off to the left from the high road, and, at the same pace, descended the narrow path which led down into Wild Rose Hollow. Any deviation from John Sands's daily course appeared as strange as if the mill-stream had suddenly taken to flowing in some new channel. The attention of the boys was even distracted from old Matthews, the cake and biscuit-man, who, with his well-known basket, had come that evening down into the Hollow to tempt the "jovial crew" to spend some of their half-pence and farthings in buying its sweet contents. Persis, who had brought her baby on that bright, warm afternoon to the Hollow, partly that she might visit old Sarah Mason, and partly that she might watch her husband and his crew at their work, looked up with an inquiring glance from the low wall on which she was seated, as John Sands came, with his long strides, towards the party.

"Why, here comes the old raven himself! What can be a-bringing him here?" cried one of the boys; "sure he's not a-going to work!" The idea of John Sands shouldering a pick-axe seemed so funny, that it set the auditors laughing.

"He's a bit red in the face,--I never seed him look like that afore,--as if he was going to smile; I fear he's been drinking like his wife!" exclaimed another boy; for anything resembling either a color or a smile on the sallow face of John Sands had never been seen in the memory of the oldest of Franks's "jovial crew."

"He's a-walking right up to old Matthews. Oh, if he ben't a-going to buy lollypops!" almost screamed a little urchin, in the excitement of surprise.

Every young eye was watching with curiosity the movements of the clerk, who went up straight to the cake and biscuit seller.

"Will you take half-a-crown for all these?" asked John Sands, pointing to the contents of the basket.

The wondering boys gathered around, while old Matthews, after a short mental calculation of the value of his sweeties and cakes, signified assent by a nod of the head.

John Sands pulled out an old black leather purse, opened it with fingers that seemed to tremble as he did so, and drew forth a half crown. He gave it into the old man's hand, and then, turning with a kind of nervous little giggle to the boys, he said,--

"There, you may have a scatter if you like it!"

So much amazement was excited by such an unaccountable act of generosity on the part of the stiff and usually melancholy man, that the boys stood staring and gaping at him for one or two seconds before they gave the donor of the sweets the loud, joyous cheer, which was instantly succeeded by a scatter and a scramble.

Meantime, John Sands strode up to Franks, who was standing by the wall with a measuring-line; the clerk took hold of Ned's one hand with both his own, and wrung it hard without uttering a word; then, to complete the astonishment of the beholders, went up to Persis, stooped down, and actually kissed the baby,--a thing which he had never been known before to do to any neighbor's child, and which he could only have done, all were persuaded, under the pressure of most unusual excitement. John Sands then turned on his heel and departed as he had come, anxious to escape from the noisy gratitude of the boys, whom he had treated for the first and last time in his life.

Had one of the jackdaws that haunted the old church-tower taken to soaring and singing like a lark, or had the ancient yew-tree been found on some morning bursting out into rose-colored blossom, it would hardly have excited more amazement than this strange conduct of John Sands, the clerk. Franks looked anxiously at his wife, and unconsciously touched his own forehead with his finger. The same thought was passing through the mind of each: "Grief has turned the poor fellow crazy." But grief had nothing to do with the matter; Sands was as sane and as sober as he had ever been in the course of his life. If his conduct appeared odd to those who had never known him but gloomy, solemn, and stiff, it was because such a (to him) strange guest had come to the poor man's heart in the shape of _joy_, that it had overturned everything before it; and Sands, in the excitement of receiving such a guest, scarcely knew what he was doing.

To explain the cause of this strange new sensation of joy to one dried up, as it were, by care and sorrow, we must relate what had occurred not an hour before, when John Sands had stood in the hospital-ward by the bedside of his suffering wife.

Interviews between them had taken place regularly on every week-day. It had seemed as if poor Sands could find little comfort in his visits to Nancy. After his long walk from Colme he would sit, silent and sad, listening to his wife's complainings and moans, or enduring her gloomy silence, which was almost harder to bear. Sands was not a man of many words, at least, words of his own,--well as his voice was known in the responses in church. He never attempted to comfort, but he felt for his suffering Nancy; and--little as he guessed that such was the case--very dear was his sympathy to her who was proving, week after week, the strength of his patient, much-enduring affection. On this particular afternoon Nancy had been more silent than usual, and Sands was thinking of rising and taking his leave at his accustomed time of departure, when his wife broke out suddenly with the exclamation,--

"I'll do it! I've made up my mind she shan't never throw that at me again!"

"Throw what, my dear?" mildly inquired the clerk.

"Bell Stone was here last Saturday," said Nancy, speaking with strong but restrained emotion. "She threw out a hint,--she did,--that it is no great thing for you that I'm getting over my accident, for that a _dead_ wife is a deal better for a man to have than a _drunken_ one!"

"My dear!" exclaimed Sands, much shocked.

"She did say it!" repeated Nancy, vehemently, "and she thought it, and all the world thinks it, and _I_ think it, too, for it's the fact, though I could have torn out her eyes when she said it!" The woman of fiery passions, weakened by illness and pain, lost all her self-command, and burst into a torrent of tears.

John Sands knew not how to soothe her passion of grief, and could only repeat, "My dear, my dear!" in a deprecating tone of distress.

"I'm not angry with her now!" cried Nancy, suddenly stopping in her weeping and drying her eyes. "The young curate came just after Stone's wife had left. I did not think much of the lad at first, but he, too, spoke what was truth, though in a different way from Bell. What he was a-saying I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Twill be hard work, but I'll do it. Then I've been thinking, oh, many and many's the time, of that evening I spent with the Frankses just afore I fell into the stream! I've been saying to myself, 'What a different home Persis gives her husband from what I've given to mine!' She has a good husband,--I'll not deny it,--but he don't deserve better of her than you do of me, John Sands, let any one deny that as can!"

"My dear!" repeated the poor clerk, in a softened tone. It was a new thing to him to have a kind word from his wife.

"Now," continued Nancy, who did not care to be interrupted, "I've lost an arm, and my right one, and it's not much as I can do now. But I'd do what I can, John Sands, and I'll _not do_ what I've done," she went on, more vehemently. "I'll _not_ go a-disgracing you, spending your money, and breaking your heart. I'll take the pledge to-morrow, and, God helping me, I'll keep it; never a drop of the poison shall pass my lips again!"

And this was the piece of good news which had sent the poor clerk on his homeward way almost dizzy with joy, so glad that he could not rest until he had got others to share it, though only by the very simple means of a scatter of sugar-plums and cakes!

But Nancy's conversation with her husband had not closed with her promise to take the pledge. There was something else on the woman's mind.

"We've done nothing yet, John Sands, to show that we're not ungrateful 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.