Part 5

"I'm one as sticks up for woman's rights," said Nancy, and she drew herself up proudly.

"So am I," observed Persis, looking down on her babe; "but I see them in a different light, perhaps, from what you do. I fancy that it is the husband's right to support, the wife's to lean; the husband's to guide, the wife's to obey; _both_ to honor, to cherish, and to love; at least, it's so with my Ned and me."

Nancy glanced at the happy wife and mother before her, and though she might not choose to imitate, she could neither pity nor despise. She only said, however, "There's no doubt but that wedlock's a yoke to most. If I'd been fastened to one who chose to pull hard one way, why I'd just have dragged the harder the t'other way, and--"

"And I am afraid that then no great progress would have been made either way," said Persis, timidly yet playfully.

Mrs. Sands gave a short, harsh laugh. "I for one could never abide to be dragged down by such clogs as what folks call duty and obedience. Why do you smile, Mrs. Franks?"

"I smiled because your words reminded me of a little fable of a clock."

"What's that? I never heard the fable," said Nancy.

Persis bent down and kissed her baby two or three times, perhaps to give herself time to collect her thoughts, and then began,--

"Once upon a time, all the upper parts of a great kitchen-clock rebelled against the weights. 'Of what use in the world they can be passes my understanding!' cried the wheel. 'Great, heavy, leaden clogs as they are, always dragging down towards earth!'

"'I'm sure that I've nothing to thank them for,' exclaimed the minute-hand, briskly; 'every one looks at me as I go travelling round and round, but who would ever care to stoop to look at the weights below?'

"'They're not fit to be seen!' added the hour-hand; 'if they could be twitched off at once, I dare be bound that I'd go as fast as you do!'

"'I'm tired to death of them!' clicked the pendulum. 'I'm certain that I don't need 'em to keep me swinging steadily backwards and forwards. I'd get on much better without 'em!'

"'They're dumb as fish!' observed the little bell inside. 'I wonder that any clock-maker in his senses ever burdened a clock with weights!'

"One day an idle boy in a fit of mischief pulled both the weights off the clock. It was not long, as you may believe, ere the different parts of the machine found out the effect of the loss.

"The wheel could not turn itself round; the pendulum grew feeble and would not swing.

"'I've come to a dead lock!' cried the minute-hand.

"'I can't get on!' groaned the hour-hand.

"And though both were pointing to twelve, the little hammer could not strike on the bell.

"'Ah,' said the key, that was hanging close by, 'I guess that the clock-maker knew what he was about when he hung on those weights.'"

When Persis Franks stopped, Mrs. Sands laughed.

"I suppose," she said, "that the moral of your fable is that wives get on better with the clogs of duty and obedience than they would do without them! But I find that _my_ hands will move fast enough, and my clapper strike readily enough without my bothering myself to please my man, much less to obey him! But you're not going away yet, Mrs. Franks?" Persis had risen as if to depart.

"I hope to see you so soon again; you are coming,--at least will you not come and take tea with us this evening? You will not wish to stay all alone."

"Oh! I'll not be alone anyhow," said Nancy, also rising from her seat; "I thought I'd look in on Mrs. Fuddles."

This made Persis press her invitation. "You've never passed an evening with me since my marriage," she said; "I'd take it so kind if you'd come."

"Humph!" said Nancy, doubtfully. An evening at the public-house was more suited to her degraded taste than one at the school-house; but she felt the advantage of being able to say to her neighbors that she had taken tea at Mrs. Franks's.

"I want you to see more of my husband," pleaded Persis.

A suspicion flashed across Nancy that there might be some design to convert her. Suddenly and almost fiercely she asked, "Franks won't be after preaching goodness and that sort of thing?"

"No, he'll not preach," answered Persis, quietly, "but he will _practise_," she added to herself. "My husband has many amusing sea-stories," said Persis aloud. "Did you ever hear of his crocodile adventure in Madagascar?"

"Well, I'll come; seven is your hour, I think, that you told me."

"Yes, we take our meal later now, as Ned goes after lessons, with his boys, to work in Wild Rose Hollow."

The invitation being accepted, Persis was about to leave the place, when her eye fell on the bottle which Nancy had taken out of the cupboard. The scent which pervaded the room told that its contents must be gin.

"What avails it to keep her from the public-house," thought Persis, "if she has the poison with her at home?" Mrs. Franks's foot was on the threshold, but she suddenly turned and came back; her heart fluttered and her cheek flushed, but her resolution was taken.

"Mrs. Sands," she said rather nervously, "I see that you have a bottle of spirits in the house. Poor Walter Baynes, who is almost sinking, has been ordered strong stimulant by the doctor; it is almost necessary to keep him alive. As you happen to have gin at hand, will you, to do me a favor, let me carry that bottle to him?"

Persis was astonished at the boldness of her own request, and Nancy was scarcely less so.

"He can get it elsewhere," she said sharply.

"I should like so much, so very much, to take it to him now from you. I pass his cottage on my way."

Mrs. Sands put her stout arms a-kimbo, and Persis was alarmed at the savage expression which came over her features as she said, "Don't you think I don't guess what you're after. Some one has been slandering me to you. You think that that bottle is safer in your hands than mine."

Franks's wife, trembling, pressed her baby closer to her heart, but she did not utter any denial of the truth.

"You'd be a-wanting to get me to give up the drink, not just for to-day, but always."

"And if I could do so," said Persis, speaking with agitation, for she was nervous and frightened, "if I could persuade you to give it up for your own sake, your husband's, the father of your poor boy, should I be acting the part of an enemy or of a friend?"

Nancy Sands was silent for some moments, painful moments to Persis. She could not read that woman's heart; she did not venture to glance into her face, or she might have seen in the heart the pang of remorse, in the face the sullenness of shame. Mrs. Sands knew, felt, that she was being drawn into misery and degradation, and that Persis, the gentle, pure-minded wife, was only acting as a guardian angel might act, seeking to save a perishing soul. Anything like stern rebuke Nancy's proud spirit would not have borne; but Persis, trembling while she pleaded, with moisture glistening on her downcast lashes, did not stir up all the fierce wrath and resentment that would in a moment have silenced conscience. Suddenly, half fiercely, Nancy cried, "Take the bottle; I don't care; I can get more; the poor fellow is welcome to the gin."

Persis did not let the opportunity slip. In a minute she had possessed herself of the dangerous bottle, and after stammering thanks, to which Nancy would not listen, Mrs. Franks hurried away from the place.

"Oh, I'm so thankful that visit is over!" she exclaimed half aloud as she passed through the garden gate; "and I shall be thankful when the evening also is over. I hope, oh, I do hope, that she'll come to us sober!"

X.

A Happy Home.

Nancy did come perfectly sober, and Ned Franks kept his engagement made for him by his wife. Not a word was uttered which even the irritable Mrs. Sands, conscious of her own evil habit, could possibly twist into a reproach. On the contrary, Persis took care to thank her guest for her kindness in sending what had been valuable medicine to Baynes, and let her know how the poor sinking sufferer had seemed to revive under its effect.

Everything was done by the Frankses to make the evening pass pleasantly to their guest. Their parlor with its jars of fresh flowers, the snow-white cloth spread on the table covered with the pretty tea-service, which had been a wedding-gift to Persis, tempting bread and butter and the home-made cake for which the school-master's wife was famous,--all formed a picture of neatness and comfort. Mrs. Sands could not help contrasting Franks's cottage with her own. How different the home where holiness and love went hand in hand, from the untidy, comfortless dwelling of the drunkard!

Ned made himself exceedingly amusing; he told some of his very best stories, and Nancy, under the genial influence of pleasant society, brought out some of her own, which she related with a good deal of spirit. Persis was surprised to find that her guest could be really agreeable, and Franks, for the first time, was able to guess what could possibly have made poor John Sands take a fancy to Nancy. There was nothing to ruffle Mrs. Sands's temper, much to amuse and please her, and the buoyant cheerfulness of the one-armed sailor was infectious to every one near him.

So passed the evening till a quarter before nine, when Persis glanced at her husband. It was the time when they always had prayer and Bible-reading together.

"Mrs. Sands," said the sailor, "I don't think you'll mind our going on in our own old way; we have a little reading and prayer at this hour, and perhaps you'll like to join us."

The clerk's wife expressed no objection, though Persis fancied that her face clouded over a little. "He'll be reading at me, or praying at me," was the unspoken thought of the conscious guest.

But Nancy Sands was mistaken. The short portion of Scripture, impressively read by Franks, was about the joys of the blessed, the exquisite description of the white-robed ones rejoicing before the throne. And when the Frankses and their guest knelt down to pray, there was nothing in the words of the sailor that might not have been uttered had Nancy Sands been as lowly and pure-hearted and meek a Christian as Persis herself.

The proud sinner felt humbled and subdued. She felt as if she had been nearer to heaven on that evening than she had ever been before in her life, and yet that there was some terrible, impassable barrier shutting her out from closer approach.

"Now I must go home," she remarked in a tone of regret.

"But you will come again and take tea with us to-morrow," said Persis, after asking Ned's consent with a glance, and receiving it in a smile. "Mr. Sands will not be back till Thursday."

"Yes, I'll come; you're very kind," replied Nancy, wondering what could make her company desired by one like Franks, to whom she had shown so much rudeness, or by his wife, who was herself such a pattern of sobriety and quiet behavior.

"I'll convoy you home," said Ned Franks, taking down his cap from its peg.

"Oh, dear, no. I could find my way blindfold, and there's clear moonlight to-night."

"I'll see you safe in port," said the sailor, with quiet firmness. He remembered that the "Blue Boar" must be passed on the road.

It was a night of exquisite beauty. The softness of the breeze, the silvery light of the moon, seemed in perfect harmony with the holier feelings which had been wakened in Nancy's breast by the sight of a Christian home.

"You are very happy," she abruptly observed, as she walked by the sailor's side.

"We _are_ happy," was the brief but fervent reply.

"Perhaps clocks do go better with weights after all," muttered Nancy; a remark which to Ned sounded so odd, and so utterly foreign to their subject, that, had he not known that Nancy had had nothing stronger than his wife's good tea, he would have suspected that she had taken "a drop too much."

As Franks and his companion passed the church, the soft moonlight lay like a silvery robe on the graveyard, throwing deep shadows from the tombstones over the mossy mounds. Nancy heaved a low sigh;--in that quiet spot lay the remains of her only son.

"Life is a bitter thing," she murmured.

"It would be if this life were our all," said Franks.

The sentence was short but suggestive; Nancy knew that the world had been _her_ all; that she had thought little of, and cared less for, anything beyond the cares and pleasures of this life. She knew that what shed radiance on the home of Persis was not merely the domestic love and peace within it, but the hope of a better home beyond earth, and that such hope, like the moon, could beautify and brighten, not only the cheerful cottage, but even the silent grave.

Franks was more pleased with the quiet, subdued manner in which Nancy bade him good-night at the door of her dwelling, than he had been with her lively conversation in his own. Never had Mrs. Sands felt more disgusted with the untidy aspect of her parlor than when she entered it on that night. How unlike it was to that which she had quitted! What a different wife she had been from Persis! Nancy thought of what she heard at church about a broad way and a narrow way. She had a terrible consciousness that the broad was that which she herself was pursuing; she knew that it must--not only according to Scripture, but the natural course of events--end in destruction, and she felt more keenly than ever that _the way of transgressors is hard_.

Nancy Sands was very low in spirits,--a reaction after excitement,--and she also, no doubt, missed the stimulant to which she had been accustomed. But for Persis having carried away the gin, which had not been replaced, the clerk's unhappy wife would certainly have all at once drowned uneasy thoughts by indulging in her fatal habit. Happily, however, on this night no supply of spirits was at hand, and perfectly sober, but deeply sad, Nancy Sands retired to rest.

But the enemy, who _goeth about as a lion seeking whom he may devour_, will not lightly leave hold of a victim on whom his deadly gripe has once been laid. While the Frankses were thankful for success of their first attempt to win Nancy from her course of misery and sin, they felt how utterly unable they were in themselves to work any effectual change. Fervent were their prayers to Him who willeth not that any should perish, that he, by the might of his Spirit, would rescue the tempted one from Satan and from herself.

XI.

Temptation.

"Well, Franks, you're an odd chap," exclaimed Ben Stone, the jovial carpenter, as Ned, on the following afternoon, was passing his shop, going with a party of young volunteers to work in Wild Rose Hollow.

"Why, what's in the wind?" asked Ned.

"To think of your having the tigress to tea with your wife! I wonder she hasn't left marks of her teeth and claws!" The carpenter gave his merry chuckle. "But, joking apart, I don't think that Nancy is fit company for Mrs. Franks. I can't think why you should ask her; it's really encouraging vice."

Ned Franks attempted no explanation. The easy-going, self-satisfied Ben would not have understood the motives of one who, like his Master, could show kindness to sinners whilst abhorring their sin.

"If you've any idea of _converting_ Nancy," the carpenter continued, laughing at the idea as utterly absurd, "you might as well try to turn my old lathe into a lady's piano-forte! Why the woman's just passed this on her way to the 'Chequers,'"--he pointed with his thumb towards the dell,--"and if she come back sober, why, I'm a Dutchman, that's all!"

Franks was more vexed than surprised at the news. He quickened his steps, and overtook Nancy when she had almost reached the door of the "Chequers." "On with you, my lads," cried Ned to his boys, "I'll be after you in a twinkling; see if you can be sharp enough as to finish that bit of clearing before I join you." He then walked up to Nancy, and laid his hand on her arm.

"Mrs. Sands, just you come on with us, and see me and my crew at work." There was nothing in the words, but much in the manner, that conveyed an earnest warning.

"I will, presently; I must just step in here first," said Nancy, looking restless and annoyed.

"Mrs. Sands, you joined us last night in the prayer, _lead us not into temptation_; are you not steering right into the middle of it now?"

Nancy's face flushed very red; there was anger, but also some irresolution. She stood for a moment as if she could not make up her mind, when a shrill voice was heard from the open window of the tap-room, "I say, Nancy Sands, I've been wondering what has become of you. I thought as how you must have jogged up to Lunnon on a spree!"

That call from Mrs. Fuddles decided the hesitating woman. Nancy roughly pulled away her arm from Franks, and hurried up the path to the "Chequers."

"Can't save her against her will," said the sailor, sadly, as he went on his way. "I've no more power to keep her back from the whirlpool, than I have to stop that great mill-wheel with a touch of my wooden arm." Even the scene of cheerful activity into which the sailor soon entered did not entirely remove the painful impression left by the conduct of Nancy. Ned was, however, too busy to attend much to anything but what lay directly before him. The almshouses in Wild Rose Hollow were, one by one, to be put into perfect repair, gardens, buildings, and all. The funds subscribed had not been nearly sufficient to cover the expense; so but few skilled workmen could be employed; but under them, with energy and great zeal, labored the village boys, whom their one-armed teacher had enlisted to help in the work. To these young volunteers fell the simpler part of the business,--fetching and carrying, levelling ground, clearing off rubbish, and digging drains. But they needed an overseer, or, with all their good will, the merry crew might rather have marred than helped on the work. Ned's energies were therefore fully employed, and it was not till working time was over, and the little laborers had begun to scatter on their way to their various homes, that he had much time to think about Nancy.

Ned was sauntering slowly and wearily along the road, and had nearly reached the water-mill, where the clack, clack of the revolving wheel showed that the miller's day of labor did not close at sunset, when he was startled by a loud and piercing cry. It was succeeded by another and another! The first idea of the sailor was, that one of his boys, in careless play, had fallen into the mill-stream. He darted forwards, and in half a minute was in the centre of a group of lads, who, with alarm and horror, were gazing into the water, and shouting out frantically, "Stop the wheel! stop the wheel! She'll be under it; she'll be torn into pieces!"

Franks saw a form struggling under the water, and one red hand raised above it. He had no time to distinguish more, not even an instant to pull off his coat, before plunging into the stream, lest the poor wretch, dragged on by the force of the current, should be crushed by the ponderous wheel. Ned was a bold and skilful swimmer, but he was a maimed man, and encumbered with his clothes; and, though he had not paused to reckon chances before dashing in to the aid of a drowning woman, he felt, when he was once in the water, that he was quite as likely to share an awful fate as to succeed in saving her from it. The rush of the stream was terrible. Never had the struggling swimmer found himself in greater danger. The cries and shouts of the boys on the bank, who were far more anxious for the safety of their beloved teacher than for that of the intoxicated Nancy, the terrible clack of that merciless wheel, for weeks afterwards haunted the memory of Ned Franks.

He reached the woman, he entangled his iron hook in her clothes,--for his right hand, his only hand, could not be spared from swimming,--and wrenched her back by main force from her awful position close under the wheel. By desperate efforts Franks succeeded in struggling back near enough to the bank to be caught by a dozen eager young hands, and, gasping, choking, almost exhausted, he and his still shrieking burden were drawn up to a place of safety. Ned could scarcely distinguish, through the dull, booming sound in his ears, the exclamations of horror around him, "Her arm! oh, it's smashed, smashed to bits!"

A fearful appearance was indeed presented by Nancy; her dripping, clotted, tangled black hair hung over a face now pale as that of a corpse, and the sight of her arm, mangled and crushed, shocked and sickened the bystanders. "What shall we do,--where shall we take her?" was the question passed around, for her hurts were evidently too fearful for village treatment. Nancy herself answered the question, for, though she had fallen intoxicated into the stream, the sudden plunge, the terrible shock, had effectually sobered the miserable woman.

"The hospital,--the hospital!" she gasped.

Every one knew that there was one in the town but a few miles distant. There was a cry of "Bring a shutter from the 'Chequers,'" when the sound of wheels was heard, and Mr. Leyton, the curate, in a small open carriage, drove rapidly down the dell. The clergyman knew from the cries and shouts of the crowd, that something terrible must have occurred.

"Lift her in here, gently,--gently. I'll take her to the hospital at once," exclaimed the kind-hearted curate. A blanket brought from the "Chequers" was hastily wrapped round the dripping woman, and the carriage was driven off at speed, that its fainting occupant might be placed as quickly as possible under a surgeon's skilful hands.

It was not till the chaise had disappeared from his view, that Ned Franks had leisure to think of himself. He felt sick and faint, and thankfully took the glass of hot brandy and water that was brought to him by one of his boys, but he declined the offer of the miller to come in and warm and dry himself at his fire, and change his dripping clothes.

"Thanks to you all the same, Bat Bell, but a quick walk home will heat my blood, and Persis will soon set all to rights with me," said the sailor, as he shook the drops from his curly brown hair. "I've got no real hurt, thank God! I wish we could say as much for poor Nancy. Sands will have a sad coming home to-morrow when he hears of this dreadful accident."

"No man can say but that it serves her right," was the observation of Ben Stone, when he heard of what had happened to Nancy. "She was walking into something worse than a mill-stream with her eyes wide open; Providence stopped her, when man could not stop her. There are worse evils than a plunge into a mill-stream, or even a broken arm."

Franks rose the next morning before sunrise, that he might have time to go to the town for news of Nancy before his scholars met. All during the night the frightful scene of the preceding evening had disturbed him in his sleep, and he had repeatedly awoke with a start, fancying that he was dragging the shrieking Nancy from under the wheel.

Persis anxiously awaited her husband's return from the hospital. "Have you seen Nancy?" she eagerly asked, as, tired and heated with his long walk, Ned re-entered the school-house.

Franks shook his head sadly. "The poor arm has been taken off," he replied; "they could not save it. She has passed a very bad night, but there are good hopes that she may recover. Poor Sands,--poor fellow! 'twill be a terrible blow to him!"

"And yet, dear Ned, who knows but that a blessing may come even out of this grievous trial? In the hospital poor Nancy may be broken of her sad habit; she will have time for thought, for prayer. Oh, how can we be thankful enough that she was not suddenly summoned, when in a state of intoxication, to appear in the presence of her God!"

XII.

Ice Below.