Part 2

The curate did indeed look extremely youthful. A small frame, delicate features, and a complexion like a maiden's, with smooth, fine, flaxen hair parted down the middle, gave the impression that the curate might be five or six years younger than he really was, and that a student's cap and gown would have suited him better than the dress which he wore. Notwithstanding his shy, nervous manner, however, Claudius Leyton was thoroughly the gentleman, and Ben Stone felt more awkward than he would have cared to own at his slighting observations having been overheard. The burly carpenter first made matters worse by a muttered "Beg pardon, didn't know who was there;" and suddenly becoming aware that an apology was a blunder, he said something about his old woman wanting him at home, and, in his hurry to make his escape, first dropped his stick, then, in recovering it, stumbled over the cradle which was at the side of Mrs. Franks, and awoke the baby.

The cry of the infant effected a seasonable diversion; it covered the retreat of the carpenter, and gave Persis an opportunity of soon quitting the room and carrying the child upstairs, that the curate might have an undisturbed conversation with her husband. Franks placed a chair for Mr. Leyton with more of courteous respect than he would have shown to his cousin, Sir Lacy, the lord of the manor, while Ben Stone went home and made his wife merry with the account of what had occurred, wondering, between his explosive bursts of laughter, how the curate had liked to hear himself called "a blushing boy of a parson."

No one knows how often Claudius Leyton had repeated to himself, as if the words haunted him, the exhortation to Timothy, _Let no man despise thy youth_; nor what a burden the want of self-confidence, added to natural shyness, was to the Curate of Colme. Mr. Leyton lacked neither talent nor zeal, but he was painfully aware that as yet he had not the weight and influence with his flock which every faithful pastor should have; and the young clergyman sometimes seriously contemplated wearing spectacles, although his sight was perfect, in order to take away that boyishness of appearance which marred his usefulness so much.

III.

The Curate's Visit

"I have many apologies to make, Mr. Franks, for calling so late, and on a Sunday evening," said Mr. Leyton, after nervously motioning to the school-master to take a seat opposite to him; "and I'm afraid that I've disturbed Mrs. Franks."

"You are welcome, sir, at any hour, and on any day," replied Ned, "for I am sure that you come on your Master's business. My noisy little man will be better upstairs."

"I'm anxious to consult you, Mr. Franks," said the curate, sitting forward in his chair, and speaking faintly, for his voice was weak, and two full services had almost exhausted his powers. "The proceeds of the collections to-day are, as you are probably aware, insufficient--sadly insufficient for the purpose for which they are required. It is most unfortunate that the illness of my uncle prevented his preaching himself."

Franks could not speak a flattering untruth even to soothe the evident mortification of the poor young clergyman, who had spared no pains in preparing his unsuccessful appeals. There was a little pause, which was broken by Mr. Leyton.

"My aunt, Mrs. Curtis, wrote last week about the state of the almshouses to Mrs. Lane, and I sent a letter to Sir Lacy," (Mr. Leyton was related on the mother's side to the lord of the manor, as he was on the father's to the wife of the Vicar of Colme); "these are the only large proprietors in the parish. Neither my aunt nor I have as yet received any reply."

"You are never likely to get any from our new baronet," thought Franks, who knew well that the money of Sir Lacy was far more likely to go on the race-course, than in relieving the wants of the poor. He, however, only remarked aloud, "The silver and the gold is the Lord's, sir; and, as the need is great, I trust and believe that he will send the supplies."

"The illness of Mr. Curtis prevents our being able to trouble him with anything like business," continued Mr. Leyton, "and my aunt scarcely quits his bedside. She and I have, however, been anxiously revolving what can be done; for if the almshouses be not soon put under thorough repair, not one of them will be standing next year, and their poor old inmates will have no home but the Union."

"That would fall especially hard on one like Sarah Mason," remarked Franks; "she has lived in her little cottage as wife and widow for twenty years, and her one earthly wish is to die in it. 'Twould well-nigh break her heart to be forced to turn out of the place."

"My aunt was suggesting to me that Bat Bell, the miller, is one to whom an appeal might be made. He has given nothing as yet to the cause."

"Nor is likely to give, I fear," said the sailor.

"He is rich, as I hear," observed Mr. Leyton.

"He has a thriving business at the mill, sir, and some hundred acres of land besides, which he lets to advantage. Bat Bell has but one child, for whom it is supposed that he is saving; for, if reports be true, Bat never spends one-half of what he gets, and must have put by enough of money to rebuild all the almshouses, if he choose to do so. But it is not always those who make most who are found most ready to part with their cash. If the heavily freighted vessel runs on the sandbank, the more she has in her the deeper she sinks; and if a man has passed half his life in getting, without giving, it needs a strong cable indeed, and a mighty power, to draw him off that sandbank,--the love of money."

"I have heard from my aunt something of the character of the close-fisted miller," said the curate; "yet, in our necessity, she thinks that a strong personal appeal ought to be made. The almshouses of Wild Rose Hollow can be seen from the mill; the object for which we plead is directly before the eyes of this Bell."

Franks smiled and shook his head: "Had mere pity been enough to draw him out, the money would have been forthcoming long ere this, sir," said he. "Bat Bell has seen those cottages gradually falling to pieces year after year, and has talked with the old folks in them; yet I've good reason to know that not so much as a wisp of straw for thatching has ever come from the mill. Pity isn't a cable strong enough to move a nature like that of Bat Bell."

The young minister looked perplexed, and passed his hand across his forehead.

"But, sir," continued Franks, "we know that the shortest road to every man's heart is through Heaven, and it's not for us to give up any work for God as hopeless. No doubt the lady is right; there had better be a personal appeal."

A light flush suffused the countenance of the clergyman. He avoided looking at Franks, and played uneasily with the light cane which he held as he said, speaking with evident effort, "I came to consult you about it. I am a comparative stranger here; the parishioners scarcely yet know me, and--and it's a new thing to me to ask for money. I thought that if you were to speak instead of me, Mr. Franks, the appeal would have better chance of being successful."

Full before the mind of Claudius Leyton was his late encounter with Nancy Sands, and perhaps it was also remembered by the sailor, as he simply replied, "I can but try, sir."

An expression of relief passed over the face of the youthful clergyman. His thanks were brief; but when he almost instantly rose to take leave, he held out his hand to the school-master, and his fair small fingers closed on Ned's strong sunburnt hand with a kindly pressure, which told more than his words. When the door had closed behind Mr. Leyton, Ned Franks thought, with a smile, "That poor, shy young minister will sleep more soundly to-night from knowing that he is not to be the one to board Bat Bell. A gentleman like that feels it so awkward to play the beggar, even for the holiest cause."

On hearing the outer door close, Persis returned to her husband, and the babe, who had again fallen asleep, was gently replaced in his cradle.

"Persis," said the school-master, gayly, "I'm to go and try to draw money from the miller. I believe I might as well try to draw money from the millstone. I doubt whether Bell would put down half-a-crown to-day, to save all the seven remaining almshouses from being pulled down to-morrow. But I could not refuse speaking to him, Mr. Leyton was so anxious about it."

"I wish you success," said Persis.

"Your wishes are stronger than your hopes, I take it. Bell is a thoroughly selfish man, except as regards love for his child,--sunk in the love of gold. It seems to me, wife, that we might almost divide the world into two classes,--those whose motto is 'Get, get,' and the other whose motto is 'Give, give;' those of the closed fist, and those of the open palm. The one set make money their idol; the other make money their servant. Now, we know that _the love of money is the root of all evil_; that is written in the Word of Truth; and if one sees the root in a man, what can one look for but evil fruits? Remember what our Lord himself said, _How hardly shall they who trust in riches enter the kingdom of God_!"

"But let us likewise remember what our Lord also said on the subject, dear Ned: _With man it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible._ Think of Zaccheus; he who had been covetous and an extortioner,--the publican, who had clearly made money by false accusation, or he would never have spoken of restoring it fourfold."

"Ay, ay," replied Ned Franks, thoughtfully; "there was a vessel sunk over hulk--over bulwarks--deep in the sand, only the masts seen above it; and yet it could be drawn out, and cleansed, and righted, and floated, and sent on with a favoring breeze, as goodly and fair as if it had never grounded upon that dangerous bank. But it was the power of the Master that did this, and the love of Christ was the mighty chain that drew the publican from his old habits and evil ways, and made the covetous man give half of his goods to the poor."

"That power still can work--that love still can constrain," said Persis.

"So let us ask for a blessing on my visit," cried Franks. "I'll be up to-morrow before sunrise, to see to the propping of old Sarah's wall, and after the morning's lessons, I'll be off to the mill. Don't you wait dinner for me, Persis; maybe I'll not manage to get back till the boys meet for lessons again."

IV.

Joyous and Free.

Ned Franks took down his cap from its peg, as soon as his merry young scholars, like a swarm of bees from the hive, had poured out from the low-browed porch of the school-house. But before he had time to start for the mill, Persis, baby in arms, was at his side, with a sandwich neatly put up in paper for her husband to eat on his way.

"No fear of my being put on half rations while wifie has charge of the stores," said Ned Franks.

He only lingered to kiss the soft little face of his babe, fragrant and sweet as a rosebud, and then set off for his visit to Bat Bell, though not very hopeful as to its result. The sun was shining brightly, the trees bursting into leaf; the lark in the blue sky, the thrush from its bough, were pouring forth songs of joy. Every sight, scent, and sound was a source of pleasure to Ned Franks.

"Those merry little fellows are piping aloft," thought he, "to cheer their mates in their nests. Well may my heart sing, too, for who has such a home, and such a mate, and such a nestling as mine? The birds carol merrily, for they cannot look forward, the pleasure of the day is enough for them; but far more cause have I to sing, for I _can_ look forward and think,--the spring-time is bright, but the harvest will be brighter; there is joy now, but the _fulness of joy_ is to come! Ay, I can look forward and upward, too, and see what the birds cannot see,--the hand that scatters the blessings over my path, the Father's hand that filleth all things with plenteousness! And even like his free bounty should be that of his children; _freely ye have received, freely give_!"

A thin, weary wayfarer was sitting on the side of the path; his patched coat, his half-worn-out shoes, and sunken cheek told of need, although the man was no beggar. Following simply the impulse of his heart, Franks pulled out his sandwich and courteously offered it to the stranger. The smile and hearty blessing with which it was received sent the one-armed school-master on his way with a heart even more joyous than it had been a few minutes before. To give is a godlike pleasure, and he who does not know what it is to do so _with delight_ has missed one of the richest luxuries which man can enjoy below.

As Ned Franks passed along the high road, he could see in a neighboring field a man engaged in sowing.

"To bury seed is not to lose seed," thought Ned, "though it seem for a while to disappear, like money which is given to the Lord, or to the poor for his sake. A man who spends all that he has on himself or his family alone seems to me like one who grinds and bakes and eats all his seed-corn. He gains some present advantage, no doubt, but he will find want and dearth in the end, for he has not sown for the future. And the man who lays by and hoards what ought to be given in charity is like one who locks up his seed-corn in a chest until it grows mouldy and worthless. It neither feeds him nor grows for him; it is worse than good for nothing. While _he that gives to the poor lends to the Lord_, and the Lord will give him rich increase, not because of the man's deserts, but because of our heavenly Father's own free bounty towards those who seek to please him."

Ned, walking on with quick, active step, overtook Ben Stone, who, carrying his basket of carpenter's tools, was proceeding at a more leisurely pace in the same direction.

"Whither bound, messmate?" cried Franks, as he came up with the burly carpenter.

"I've a job at the Hall," replied Stone; "the new baronet will be coming down to the old house one of these days, and will want to find everything right there. Where are you going, Ned Franks?"

"I'm going to see if Bat Bell won't add something to the collection for the tumble-down cottages in Wild Rose Hollow. He was not at church yesterday."

Ben Stone burst out laughing, as he had a habit of doing upon the slightest occasion. "Going to ask Bat Bell for money! Going to try how much meal you can scrape off an old knife-board! ha! ha! ha! I put my shilling in the plate yesterday;"--the carpenter said this with a self-satisfied air, as one who felt conscious of having done the handsome thing;--"but I don't mind promising to double whatever you manage to squeeze out of Bat Bell; only, of course he mustn't know that I've said so."

"Don't make a rash engagement, messmate," said Ned Franks, with a smile; "I may come down upon you for some ready rhino."

"Well, and if you do," answered the good-humored carpenter, "I'll not flinch from my word. I've enough and to spare, and what one gives away, as we all know, goes to our good account in the end."

"That depends on the spirit in which we give," said Franks, more gravely, for he had good reason for suspecting that his companion held very mistaken views on the subject. "One can't keep a debtor and creditor account in heaven. We know from the Bible that a man might give all his goods to feed the poor, and yet that it might profit him nothing to do so."

"That's one of the texts as I never can make out the meaning of," said the carpenter. "To give is to give, and money is money; and why, when two men do exactly the same thing, one should have a blessing, and another none, quite passes my poor understanding."

"If one could suppose that all money given in charity could be put to a test, that only what is really offered for the Lord's sake should remain money, and all the rest be turned into withered leaves, don't you think we should have heaps of dry leaves, as in autumn, to be scattered about by the wind? Consider all that's given for mere show, all that's given from natural pity, all that's given because it would be thought strange and mean to do less than others; _none_ of that money is given to God, so we must not expect that God will accept it."

"Well, I grant ye this," said the carpenter, "if every man's almsgiving could be known only to himself and to God, there's many a one as gives now would keep his money snug in his pocket. But I'm not one of those, my good friend. I know, as we can carry nothing out of the world, that it's best to have something laid up in the bank above. But here your way divides from my way,--you go down the dell, I keep to the road. Good-day to you, Ned Franks, let me know what you get from Bat Bell; I'll be bound 'twill be nothing to ruin me. I've not much to do at the Hall to-day, but measuring and fitting, so maybe I'll be back before you return; just drop in at my shop and tell me what's your success;" and with a friendly nod and complacent smile, the carpenter went along the high road, while the school-master turned down the little wooded lane which led to the mill.

"I should have liked to have had a little longer talk with Ben Stone," thought Franks. "I'm afraid that he thinks that he is actually _buying_ God's favor, and _earning_ heaven, by the little kind acts that he does! That's a kind of error which so many people run foul of. The sunken rock of self-righteousness is, maybe, just as dangerous as the sandbank of love of money. I must have a care that I don't take to judging others, and so split on it myself. I spoke very hardly yester-evening of Bat Bell the miller, yet, when I consider what a poor wretched sinner I am, receiving so much from God, and showing my gratitude in such a poor way, I'm scarce likely to run on that rock. When one measures one's little drop of charity, and even that not pure, with the great unfathomable ocean of love of Him who gave his life-blood for us, one is far more inclined to ask forgiveness for doing so little, than to expect reward for doing so much. There's nothing that _can_ give the best of us any claim to the least of God's mercies, but the merits of Christ. That is a truth that I see the more plainly the longer I live. To attempt to hold by one's own merits would be like trying to go to sea in a bark made of gossamer threads. The gossamer web looks goodly enough when the sunbeams are glinting upon it, and the dew-drops are nestling in it, but no man in his senses would trust his life to its power to bear up his weight. It would be a madder thing still for him to trust his soul's salvation to his own merits. If any mortal had anything in himself to boast of or to trust to, that mortal was St. Paul, who was ready to spend and to be spent; who had _suffered the loss of all things_ for God,--a very different kind of self-denial from what we dare to call by that name,--and yet what was the feeling of St. Paul? Did he think thus he had earned heaven? Did he not say, _God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ_? If we were to strip ourselves of all that we have, if we were to give away health and time and life itself for God's service, we should never get beyond that verse, we should have nothing whereof to boast, nothing (out of Christ) whereon to rest."

Ned had now descended to the bottom of a beautiful little dell, through which gushed a rapid stream of water, turning the large wheel of Bell's mill. The wheel was, however, at this time still, and its monotonous clack did not mingle with the gurgle of the brook and the song of the birds. Franks had many delightful associations connected with that wooded dell; for there stood the cottage in which Persis, as a maiden, had dwelt with her aged grandfather; it was there that he had wooed and won her; from that little ivy-mantled nest he had, three years before, taken his bride to church. The cottage had now other inhabitants, but Franks could not pass the spot without stooping to pluck a violet to carry back to his wife.

"I'll give this to Persis," he said to himself; "she'll like a flower from the old home, though, thank God, I believe that she has never regretted leaving it for the new one. This much I can answer for, leastways, that every day since that happy one on which God gave her to me has made me prize his gift more dearly."

V.

An Appeal.

Bat Bell was a particular man, regular and precise in all his ways, who had, as it were, stiffened into his own mould, especially since the death of his wife, and who did not choose, as he often said, "to be put out for nobody." Bell hated a visitor at work-time, and he was so keen after making money that his work-time began early and ended late. He hated a visitor at meal-time, probably because he did not wish any one to share his meal. Franks was aware of this, and tried so to time his visit to the mill that he should catch Bell in that half-hour of rest which usually followed his early dinner.

"He'll be playing with his Bessy," thought Franks, "and there's nothing on earth that softens and opens a man's heart like hearing the voice of his own little child, or dancing it on his knee." Such was the conclusion to which the school-master came after his four weeks' experience of the feelings of a father.

Franks, however, found little Bessy, not with her parent, but amusing herself in the lane close by the mill. She ran up to him with open arms, and held up her little face for a kiss, for Ned was a prime favorite with every child who knew him, and, during her mother's last illness, Bessy had spent a week at a time under the care of the Franks. She was a plump, rosy-cheeked, merry little girl, of about five years of age.

"Is father at home, my little lass?" asked Ned.

"Yes; father's in there," replied Bessy, nodding in the direction of the door of the cottage attached to the mill; "but he lets me be here to look for the flowers."

"Mind you don't go near the water, little one," said Franks; "keep to the primroses under the hedge;" and, smiling a good-by to the child, he proceeded to the dwelling of her father.

Bat Bell was alone in his parlor, seated on his high-backed wooden chair before the solid deal table, on which appeared the remains of some bread and cheese, and the empty pewter pot which had held his beer. Bell was a tall, bony man, naturally of rather a dark complexion, but skin, hair, and dress were all powdered with the flour which showed what was his daily occupation, his shaggy black brows especially having formed a resting-place for the white dust, as the thatched eaves of a dwelling for snow.

"Good-day to you, Ned Franks, glad to see you; what brings you this way?" asked the miller, holding out his bony, whitened hand to his visitor, with as much of a smile on his face as the stiffness of the leathery skin would allow.

Franks was not one to approach any subject in a round about way; if there was any difficulty before him, he usually took what he called "a header" into the very middle of it. He did not say he had just looked in to see an old friend, or to ask if little Bessy would come and look at his baby, or utter any remark about the weather, or express any hope that business was brisk; he said what he had come to say the moment after he had taken a seat.

"I've called, neighbor, to talk to you about the almshouses yonder in Wild Rose Hollow;" through the window towards which Ned glanced as he spoke, the chimney of the nearest one could be seen. "I was up at Sarah Mason's early this morning, to try what I could do for her wall; but no patching of mine can make the place fit for a human being to live in, let alone a rheumatic old woman. You know well the state of the cottages; something must be done for them without much delay, or the old hulks will soon fall to pieces."