On, on flowed the stream, round and round went the mill-wheel; and even so flows the current of time, and the circle of daily occupation goes round and round. Little Bessy, the miller's child, used every afternoon to watch Ned and his little band of workers going cheerfully to their toil; for the short cut to Wild Rose Hollow was through the wooded glen. Whistling and singing, laughing and shouting, the boys came along, and often a nosegay from a cottage garden, or a garland of flowers from the hedge, was left on the way for Bessy. The almshouses she always called her cottages, and the boys who labored to repair them her workmen; and the child's day-dream, as she sported by the stream, was to build a whole village of cottages, the prettiest that ever were seen, so that every poor old woman in England might have one with a garden all brilliant with flowers.

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!"