Chapter Eight.

Tantalising.

A few days after the disclosure of Jane Bradly’s trouble to the vicar, he met her brother Thomas in the evening hurrying away from his house.

“Nothing amiss at home, I hope, Thomas?” he inquired.

“Nothing amiss, thank you, sir, in my home, but a great deal amiss in somebody else’s. There’s nearly been an accident this afternoon to a goods train, and it’s been owing to Jim Barnes having had too much drink; so they’ve just paid him off, and sent him about his business.”

“I’m afraid,” said the vicar, “there has been too much cause for such a strong measure. Poor James has been a sad drunken fellow, and it is a wonder they have kept him on so long.”

“So it is, indeed, sir; for it’s risking other people’s lives to have such as him about a station. I suppose they have not liked to turn him off before partly because he’s got such a lot of little ’uns to feed, and partly because it ain’t often as he’s plainly the worse for liquor when he’s at his work. But when a man’s as fond of the drink as Jim Barnes is, it ain’t possible for him to keep off it always just when it suits his interests. And then there’s another thing which makes chaps like him unfit to be trusted with having to do with the trains—who’s to be sure that he ain’t so far the worse for drink as to be confused in his head, even when he shows no signs of being regularly tipsy?”

“Who, indeed, Thomas? I am very sorry for poor James and his family; but I am sure he is not the man, while he keeps his present habits, to be trusted with work on the line, which requires a steady hand and a cool head.”

“Well, sir, I hope he’ll begin to see that himself. Now’s the time to get at him, and so I’m just going down to try what I can do with him. Jim’s never been one of my sort, but he’s not been one of the worst of the other sort neither. He’s a good-natured fellow, and has got a soft heart, and I’ve never had a spiteful word from him since I’ve knowed him.”

“Yes, Thomas, I believe that’s true of him,” said Mr Maltby; “he has been always very civil and obliging to me. But, as you know, I have tried more than once to draw him out of the slough of intemperance on to firm ground, but in vain. I trust, however, that God may bless your loving endeavours to bring him now over to the right side.”

“I trust so too, sir.”

The house where Barnes lived was in one of the worst and dirtiest parts of Crossbourne; and as some of the inhabitants, whose temperament inclined to the gloomy, declared Crossbourne to be the dirtiest town in England, the situation of Jim’s dwelling was certainly not likely to be favourable to either health or comfort. There are streets in most towns of any considerable size which persons who are fortunate enough to live in more agreeable localities are quite content with just looking down, and then passing on, marvelling, it may be, to themselves how such processes as washing and cooking can ever be carried on with the slightest prospect of success in the midst of such grimy and unsavoury surroundings. It was in such a street that James Barnes and his family existed, rather than lived; for life is too vigorous a term to be applied to the time dragged on by those who were unfortunate enough to breathe so polluted an atmosphere. There are some places which, in their very decay, remind you of better times now past and gone. It was not so with the houses in these streets; they looked rather as if originally built of poverty-stricken and dilapidated materials. And yet none of them were really old, but the blight of neglect was heavy upon them. Nearly at the bottom of one of these streets was the house inhabited by the dismissed railway porter, and to this Thomas Bradly now made his way.

Outside the front door stood a knot of women with long pipes in their mouths, bemoaning Jim’s dismissal with his wife, and suggesting some of those original grounds of consolation which, to persons in a higher walk of life, would rather aggravate than lessen the trial. Two of the youngest children of the family, divested of all superfluous clothing, were giving full play to their ill-fed limbs in the muddy gutter, dividing their time between personal assaults on each other, and splashings on the by-standers from the liquid soil in which they were revelling, being occasionally startled into a momentary silence by a violent cuff from their mother when they became more than ordinarily uproarious.

The outer door stood half-open, and disclosed a miserable scene of domestic desolation. The absence of everything that could make home really home was the conspicuous feature. There was a table, it is true; but then it was comparatively useless in its disabled state—one of the leaves hanging down, and just held on by one unbroken hinge, reminding you of a man with his arm in a sling. There were chairs also, but none of them perfect; rather suggesting by their appearance the need of caution in the use of them than the prospect of rest to those who might confide their weight to them. A shelf of crockery ware was the least unattractive object; but then every article had suffered more or less in the wars. Nothing was clean or bright, few things were whole, and fewer still in their proper places. The two or three dingy prints on the walls, originally misrepresentations in flaring colours of scriptural or other scenes, hung in various degrees of crookedness; while articles of clothing, old and new, dirtier and less dirty, were scattered about in all directions, or suspended, just where necessity or whim had tossed them. There was on the available portion of the table part of a loaf of bread, a lump of butter still half-wrapped in the dirty piece of newspaper which had left some of its letters impressed on its exposed side, a couple of herrings, a mug half-full of beer, and two or three onions. And in the midst of all this chaos, on one side of the grate, which was one-third full of expiring ashes, and two-thirds full of dust, sat James Barnes in his railway porter’s dress and cap, looking exceedingly crestfallen and unhappy.

“Good evening, Jim,” said Thomas Bradly, making his way to the fire-place, and taking a seat opposite to Barnes; “I was sorry to hear bad news.”

“Yes, bad indeed, Thomas—you’ve heard it, I see. Yes, they’ve given me the sack; and what’s to be done now, I’m sure I don’t know. Some people’s born to luck; ’tain’t my case.”

“Nay, Jim,” cried the other, “you’re out there: there’s no such thing as luck, and no one’s born to good luck. But there’s an old proverb which comes pretty near the truth, and it’s this, ‘Diligence is the mother of good luck.’ I don’t believe in luck or chance myself, but I believe in diligence, with God’s blessing. It says in the Bible, ‘The hand of the diligent maketh rich.’”

“Well, and I have been diligent,” exclaimed Jim: “I’ve never been away from my work a day scarcely. But see what a lot of children I’ve got, and most of them little ’uns; and now they’ve gone and turned me off at a moment’s notice. What do you say to that? Isn’t that hard lines?”

“It ain’t pleasant, certainly, Jim; but come, now, what’s the use of fencing about in this way? Jim Barnes, just you listen to me. There’s not a pleasanter chap in the town than yourself when you’re sober—everybody says so, from the vicar down to Tommy Tracks. Now it’s of no use to lay the blame on the wrong shoulders. You know perfectly well that if you’d have let the drink alone things would never have come to this, and you wouldn’t have been living now in such a dirty hole. But I’m not come down here, Jim, to twit you with what’s done, and can’t be undone now. If you’ve done wrong, well, there’s time to turn over a new leaf and do better; and now’s your time. You see what the drink’s brought you to; and if you was to get another place to-morrow, you wouldn’t keep it long. There’s no business as ever I heard of where the masters advertise in the papers, ‘So many drunkards wanted for such a work.’ No, no, Jim; just you think the matter over, and pray to the Lord to show you the right way. You know my ‘Surgery’ at the back of my house: you come up there to-night and have a talk with me; it’s no use trying to have it here. I think I’ll show you a door as’ll lead to better ways, and better times; and you shan’t want a good friend or two, Jim, to give you a helping hand, if you’ll only try, by God’s help, to deserve them.”

Poor Jim’s head had become bowed down on to his hands during this plain speech, and the tears began to make their way through his fingers. Then he stretched out one hand towards his visitor without lifting up his head, and said, in a half-choked voice, “Thank you, Thomas; I’ll come, that I will,—I’ll come; and thank you kindly for coming to look after me.”

And he kept his word. Just as it was getting dark a tap was heard at Bradly’s “Surgery” door, and James Barnes was admitted into a bright and cheery room—such a marvellous contrast, in its neatness, order, and cleanliness, to his own miserable dwelling. When the two men were seated, one on either side of the fire-place—which was as brilliant as Brunswick black and polishing could make it—Bradly began:—

“James Barnes, this night may be the turning-point for good and for happiness, for you and yours, both for this world and the next. I want you to sign the pledge and keep it. You’ve tried for a good long time how you can do with the drink—and a poor do it has been; now try how you can do without it. Never mind what old mates may say; never mind what such as Will Foster and his set may say; never mind what your wife may say,—she’ll come round and join you if you’re only firm,—just you sign, and then we’ll ask God to bless you, and to enable you to keep your pledge.”

“Thomas, I will,” said James Barnes, much moved; “all as you’ve said’s perfectly true—I know it. The drink’s been my curse and my ruin; it’s done me and mine nothing but harm; and I can see what doing without it has been to you and yours. Give me the pen; I’ll sign.”

The signature was made, and then, while both men knelt, Thomas Bradly poured out his heart in prayer to God for a blessing on his poor friend, and that he might truly give his heart and life to the Lord. “And now, James,” said Bradly, “I’ll find you a job to go on with, and I’ll speak to the vicar, and you and yours shan’t starve till we can set you on your feet again.”

James Barnes thanked his new friend most warmly, and was turning to the door, but still lingered. Then he came back to the fire and sat down again, and said, “Thomas, I’ve summat to tell you which I’ve been wanting to mention to you for more nor a week, and yet I ain’t had the courage to come and say it like a man.”

“Well, Jim, now’s the time.”

“Thomas,” said the other sorrowfully, “I’ve done you a wrong, but I didn’t mean to do it; it’s that drink as was at the bottom of it.”

“Well, Jim,” replied Bradly, smiling, “it can’t have been much of a wrong, I doubt, as I’ve never found it out.”

“I don’t know how that may be, Thomas, but you shall hear. You remember the morning when poor Joe was found cut to pieces on the line just below the foot-bridge?”

“Yes, Jim, I remember it well; it was the day before Christmas-day.”

“Well, Thomas, it were the day before that. I was on the platform in the evening, waiting for the half-past five o’clock train to come in from the north. It were ten minutes or more late, as most of the trains was that day. When it stopped at our station, a gent wrapped up in a lot of things, with a fur cap on his head, a pair of blue spectacles over his eyes, and a stout red scarf round his neck, jumps out of a third-class carriage like a shot, and lays hold of my arm, and takes me on one side, and says, ‘I want you to do a job for me,’ and he puts a florin into my hand; then he says, ‘Do you know Thomas Bradly?’ ‘Ay,’ says I; ‘I know him well.’ ‘Then take this bag,’ says he, ‘and this letter to his house as soon as you’re off duty. Be sure you don’t fail. You knows the man I mean; he’s got a sister Jane as lives with him.’ ‘All right,’ says I. There weren’t no more time, so he jumps back into the carriage, and nods to me, and I nods back to him, and the train were gone. It were turned six o’clock when I left the station yard, and the hands was all turning, out from the mills, so I takes the bag—it were a small carpet-bag, very shabby-looking—and the letter in my pocket. Now, I ought, by rights, to have gone with it at once to your house, and I shouldn’t have had any more trouble about it. But as I was passing the Railway Inn, I says to myself, ‘I’ll just step in and have a pint;’ but I wouldn’t take the bag in with me, as perhaps some one or other might be axing me questions about it, and it weren’t no business of theirs, so I just sets it down on the step outside, and goes in and changes my florin and gets my pint of ale. Well, I got a-gossiping with the landlady, and had another pint, and when I came out the bag were gone. I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, for I’ve often left things on benches and steps outside the publics, and never knowed ’em touched afore this; for they’re as honest a people in Crossbourne as you’ll find anywhere. Howsomever, the bag were gone; there were no mistake about that. I went round into the yard and axed the hostler, but he hadn’t seed nobody about. I looked up and down, but never a soul could I see as had a bag in his hand, so what to do I couldn’t tell. Then I thought, ‘Maybe some one’s carried it back to the station by mistake.’ So I went back, but it weren’t there. I can tell you Thomas, I were never more mad with myself in all my life; for though I haven’t been one of your sort, I’ve always respected you, and I’d rather have lost almost any one else’s things than yours. I only hope it ain’t of much consequence, as it were a very shabby bag, and didn’t seem to have much in it, for it were scarcely any weight at all.”

“Well, James, don’t fret about it,” said the other; “you meant no harm. As to the value of the bag, I know nothing more than you’ve told me, for I haven’t been expecting anything of the sort. I only trust it’ll be a warning to you, and that you’ll stick firm to your pledge, and keep on the outside of the beer-shops and publics for the future.”

“I will, Thomas; I will. But you know I told you as that gent who put the bag in my keeping gave me a letter besides. Well, I ain’t lost the letter, but I’ve really been ashamed to bring it you, as I couldn’t bring the bag too. And the devil said to me, ‘You’d better throw the letter behind the fire, and there’ll be an end of all bother;’ but I couldn’t do that, though I’ve never had the courage yet to give it you. But here it is;” and he took from his pocket a discoloured envelope, and handed it to Bradly. It was directed in a crabbed hand, with the writing sloping down to the corner—“Miss Jane Bradly, Crossbourne.”

“Stop here a minute or two, Jim,” said his friend, “and I shall be able perhaps to set your mind at ease about the bag;” and he left the room.

“Jane,” he said, addressing his sister, who was seated in her usual place by the kitchen fire, “I’ve a letter for you, and it has come in rather an odd way;” and he then repeated to her James Barnes’s story.

Much puzzled, but with no great amount of curiosity or interest, Jane took the letter from her brother’s hand. From whom could it have come? There was of course no postmark, as it had been sent by messenger; and she knew nothing of the handwriting. When she had opened it she found only one small leaf, and but very few words on that; but these words, few though they were, seemed to take her breath away, and to overwhelm her with overpowering emotion. She sat staring at the miserable scrawl as though the letters were potent with some mighty spell, and then, throwing the paper on the table by her, gave way to a passionate outburst of weeping.

“Jane, Jane dear, what’s amiss?” cried her brother in great distress. “The Lord help us! What has happened?”

She did not look up, but pushed the letter towards him, and he read as follows:—

“Dear Jane,—I am sorry now for all as I’ve done at you. Pray forgive me. You will find a letter all about it in the bag; and I’ve put your little marked Bible, and the other br—t with it, into the bag. So no more at present from yours—JH.”

Slowly the facts of the case dawned on Thomas Bradly’s mind. John Hollands was trying to make amends for the cruel wrong he had done to poor Jane, and had sent her a written statement which would wipe off the stain he had himself cast on her character; and with this he had sent Jane’s dearly-prized Bible and the companion bracelet to the one seen by Lady Morville in Jane’s hand, and given up by her to her mistress on that unhappy morning. And what of John Hollands himself? No doubt he was making the best of his way, under fear of detection and punishment, to some foreign country; and had left the bag through a feeling of remorse, that he might clear Jane’s character. Both brother and sister saw this clearly; and that the means of relief for poor Jane had been just within their grasp, but now, by the cruel carelessness of James Barnes, had slipped away from them, and perhaps for ever. Where was the bag which had in it what would set all things straight? Who could tell?

“I see it all,” said Bradly, sadly, to his sister. “It’s very trying and very tantalising; but the Lord knows best how to deal with his own.”

“O Thomas,” exclaimed his sister, “this seems almost more than I can bear!”

“I know it, I know it, Jane; and yet remember the promise, ‘He will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ Nay, cheer up, darling! ‘the Lord does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.’ He’ll never let his people be vexed a moment longer than’s good for them. I feel certain now as the bag’ll be found sooner or later. Whether we can find it or no, one thing’s certain,—the Lord knows where it is he’s got his eye upon it; and it’ll turn up just at the right time. Now, my dearest sister, just take this for your comfort. The Lord’s sent you this letter just to show you that deliverance is on the road; it’ll come, I’ll be bound, afore so very long. Just you help yourself along by the light of his promises, and by my two walking-sticks, ‘Do the next thing’—‘One step at a time.’ The next thing for you now is to wait his time in faith and patience. Remember those precious words of the psalm: ‘Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him!’” Jane dried her tears, and held out her arms to her brother, who drew her tenderly to his heart, and again bade her take comfort. “And now,” he said, “I must go to poor Jim.”

“Well, Thomas,” said Barnes, on the return of his friend, “I hope there’s nothing very bad come of my losing the bag?”

“James,” replied the other, gravely, “I can’t say that; I wish I could. The loss of the bag is a serious business to us; but we must do our best to try and find it, and you must help us.”

James looked very sad and crestfallen. “Thomas,” he said, “I wish I’d only knowed as that bag were of so much consequence. But then that’s nothing to do with it; I ought to have brought it to you at once—I know that. I’ll do my very best, however, to find it; and, come what will, I’ve had a lesson as I shan’t easily forget. The inside of the public has seen the last of me.”

“Stick to that, Jim,” said the other, “and put a prayer to it to the Lord to keep you; and that’ll do more to make up for the loss of the bag than anything you can possibly do for us. Good-night, Jim. Keep firm to your pledge, and you’ll not want friends here and above.”

“Good-night, Thomas; and the Lord bless you for your kindness!”

And now, what was to be done? It was quite clear that the bag contained the means of a triumphant establishment of Jane’s innocence with Lady Morville, and consequent freedom from all stain or slur on her character. But was it possible to find the bag? The circumstances connected with the bag’s loss were communicated to the vicar, who helped Bradly to institute every possible inquiry after it in a quiet way, for they did not wish, especially on Jane’s account, to make the matter a nine days’ wonder in Crossbourne by advertising. But all was in vain; not the faintest clue could be got by which to trace it. Of course, it might have been possible for Jane to ascertain through her brother whether John Hollands had really left Monksworthy Hall, and whether or no any of his evil practices had come to light since his departure. And, supposing such discoveries to have been made, she might have produced the letter signed “JH,” and have shown its contents to Lady Morville. But then Jane would naturally be expected to produce the bag alluded to in the letter, or, at any rate, the companion bracelet which was said to be in it; and the having to tell what would look like a roundabout story concerning its loss would not be likely to leave a thoroughly favourable impression on the mind of her late mistress.

Poor Jane! She felt that without the bracelet she could not hope to claim a full and frank acknowledgment from her ladyship that her innocence was completely vindicated. She must therefore wait, trust, and be patient.

“Light has begun to dawn on your trouble, Jane,” said the vicar; “and be sure brighter light will follow. We must do our best, and leave it to the Lord to carry out his own purposes in his own wise and gracious way. Sure I am of this, that you will find the fuller light come in due time; and, more than that, that you will see that good has all the while been working out, through this trial, to others as well as to yourself.”

“I’m sure you’re right, sir,” said Bradly; “she’ll have cause in the end even to bless the Lord for this affliction. And, after all, I don’t see why we shouldn’t try and find out Hollands’ whereabouts through some of his old companions, when he’s been a little while in foreign parts; and if we write and tell him about the loss of the bag, I don’t doubt, if he’s truly sorry for what he’s done to Jane,—and it seems likely as he is,—he’ll write her back such a letter as will clear up all with Lady Morville. But the next step is just to leave all in the Lord’s hands for the present.”

And so it was left.

Chapter Ten.

Light in the Dark Dwelling.

The day that followed the great temperance meeting was one full of excitement to the operatives of Crossbourne. Every mill and workshop resounded with the eager hum of conversation and conjecture touching the marvellous occurrence of the previous evening—the speech and conduct of William Foster. Of course a variety of distorted versions of the matter flew abroad, and were caught and carried home into the country by some who lived at a distance from the town. Among these versions was a strongly affirmed and as strongly believed account of the last night’s occurrences, which set forth how William Foster, with a picked party of his friends, had forced their way to the top of the hall, and were in the act of mounting the platform for the purpose of turning the vicar out of the chair, when a voice of unearthly loudness was heard to shout, “Forbear!”—upon which the meeting broke up in wild confusion, leaving Foster prostrated on the ground by some invisible and mysterious power, where he lay till brought back to consciousness by the joint efforts of Mr Maltby and Thomas Bradly; after which, at their earnest suggestion, he there and then signed the pledge.

Foster’s own companions, however, had not been altogether taken by surprise. For some weeks past he had been absent from his club, and from the public-house, and when questioned on the subject had given short and evasive answers. A change had been coming over him—that was clear enough; but whence it originated even those who had been the most intimate with him were at a loss to conjecture. And now on the morning after the meeting, when he walked into the mill-yard, while some looked on him with the sort of wonder with which a crowd would gape at some strange animal, the like of which they had neither seen nor heard of before, others began to assail him with gibes and taunts and coarse would-be witticisms. But Foster bore it all unmoved, never uttering a word in reply, but going on steadily with his work. As the men, however, were about to leave for their homes, after the mill had loosed, a sneering, sour-looking fellow, one Enos Wilkinson, who had gathered a little crowd about him, and was watching for Foster, whose work detained him a little later than the ordinary hands, stepped across his path, and raising his voice, cried, “Come now, Saint Foster, you’ll be bringing out a nice little book about your conversion, to edify us poor sinners who are still in heathen darkness. When do you mean to favour us with the first edition?”—“The day after you become sober and sensible, Enos,” was Foster’s reply, and he walked on, leaving his persecutors unprepared with an answer.

Two hours later, and Thomas Bradly might be seen standing outside Foster’s house, with a happy smile on his face, and a short whispered conversation going on between two parts of himself. “Now, then, Thomas, you’re in for it.” “Ay, to be sure; and in for a good thing too.” “What’ll Will Foster say? And what’ll you say, Thomas?” “Ah! Well, all that’s best left in the Lord’s hands.”

After this a loud, decided knock on Thomas’s part, and then the cautious tread of a woman inside.

“All right, missus; it’s only me, Thomas Bradly.”

No answer for a minute, and then the heavier tread of a man. Foster himself opened the door, and holding out his hand, said,—

“Come in, Thomas. You’re just the man I’ve been wanting to see.”

“And you’re just the man I’m right glad to hear say so,” was the other’s reply.

The two men walked into the inner room together. All was very neat, and the whole place wore an air of comfort far different from what had been its appearance in days past. But the greatest change was in Foster’s wife. Bradly, who had met her often in the street or in the shops, could hardly believe her to be the same. “Ha, ha!” said he inwardly to himself; “the Lord’s been at work here, I can see.” Yes! There was that marked change on the features which can come only from a changed heart. There was peace on that face—a peace whose tranquil light had never shone there before. There was not joy yet, but there was peace. Not, indeed, peace unmixed, for there was a shade of earth’s sadness there still; but God’s peace was there, like a lunar rainbow, beautiful in its heavenly colouring cast upon the clouds of sorrow, but not intensely bright. As she held out her hand to Bradly to give him a friendly welcome, he could see that her eyes were full of tears. “All right,” he said to himself; “the work’s begun.”

As he was seating himself on one side of the fire, his eye fell on a little, stout, shabbily-bound volume lying in a corner near some showily-ornamented books. Could it really be a Bible? “Right again,” thought Thomas; “I ain’t often mistaken about that book. The secret’s out; I see what has worked the change.”

“I’m truly glad, but almost ashamed, to see you, Thomas,” began Foster, seating himself opposite his guest. “However, I’m glad now of this opportunity of expressing my regret for the many hard and undeserved things I’ve spoken against you, both to your face and behind your back.”

“Never give it another thought, William,” cried the other. “You’ve never done me the least harm; but quite the other way. It’s as good as physic, and a deal better than some physic, to hear what other people think of us, even if it ain’t all of it quite true to the life.”

“Ah! But I did you injustice, Thomas.”

“Never mind if you did. You never said half as much evil of me as I knew of myself. But let by-gones be by-gones. You’ve made me happier than I can tell you; for I can see plainly enough as the Lord has been laying his loving hands on you and your missus.”

“You are right, Thomas; and I know it will give you real pleasure to hear how it has all come about.—So sit down, Kate, and help me out with my story.”

Ah, what a different scene was this from that sorrowful time when the poor, broken-hearted young mother leant hopelessly over the cradle of her little one thirsting for that which she knew not where to find! Now the same wife and mother sat with a smile of sweet contentment, busily plying her knitting, while her husband told the simple story of how the God of the Bible had “brought the blind by a way that they knew not.”

“You know what I have been, Thomas,” began Foster. “Well, I am not ashamed now to confess that I never was really happy, nor satisfied with my own creed. Spite of my conviction of my own superior knowledge, I could not help acknowledging to my inward self that you were right and I was wrong; at least, I saw that your creed did for you what my creed could not do for me. It was very pleasant and flattering, of course, to be looked up to as an oracle by the other members of my club, and to get their applause when I said sharp things against religion and men whose views differed from our own. But all the while I despised those very companions of mine, and their praises; and, what’s more, I despised myself.

“And another thing—I had no real happiness at home, nor poor Kate neither. I was disappointed in her—she won’t mind my saying so now—and she was disappointed in me. We had nothing to bind our hearts together but a love which wanted a stronger cement than mere similarity of tastes. Besides which—for I may as well speak out plainly now while I’m about it—it was poor satisfaction to come home and find books lying about, and scarce a spark of fire in the grate; no tea getting ready, but, instead of it, twenty good reasons why things were not all straight and comfortable. And these reasons were but a poor substitute for the comforts that were not forthcoming, and only made matters worse. And if there was neglect on her part, there was plenty of fault-finding on mine. I was sharp and unreasonable; and then we both of us lost our temper, and I was glad to seek other company, and began to care less and less for my home, and more for the public-house and for the drink which gives the inspiration to the conversation you meet with in such places.

“Sometimes things would go on a little better, but not for long. And when we got to angry words with one another, we had no higher authority than ourselves to appeal to when we would set one another right. Thomas, I see this more plainly every day now. Freethinkers—would-be atheists, like my former self—are at an immense disadvantage compared with Christians in this respect. A Christian has a recognised, infallible authority to which he can appeal—the will of his God, as set forth in the Word of his God. When he differs from a fellow-Christian, both can go to that authority, and abide by its decision. Christians will do this if they are honest men, and really love one another. We freethinkers have no such court of appeal. However, let that pass.

“Things went on as I’ve been telling you, and were getting worse. Our two hearts were getting further apart every day, and colder and colder towards each other. This went on, and the breach kept widening, till a few weeks ago. You’ll not have forgotten, I know, poor Joe Wright’s sad end. Well, it was a few days after the accident that I came home much the worse for liquor, I’m ashamed to say, and in a particularly bad temper. Things had not been pleasant at the club. One of the members had been breaking the rules; and when I pointed this out, I was met with opposition, and the determined display of an intention on the part of several others to side with the offender. Words ran high, and I spoke my mind pretty freely, and received in return such a shower of abuse as fairly staggered me. So I betook myself to the public-house, and drank glass after glass to drown my uncomfortable reflections, and then went home.

“The drink, instead of driving away my mortification, only made me more irritable; and when I got into my own house, I was ready to find fault with everything, and to vent the bitterness of my spirit on my poor little wife. But, to my surprise, she did not answer me back, far less repay my disparaging remarks with usury, which she might very well have done, and would have done a few days before. I could not help seeing, too, that she had been taking pains to make the room look tidier than usual. My supper was ready for me, my slippers set by the fender, and the arm-chair drawn up near the fire. I did not choose to make any remark on this at the time; indeed, I got all the more cross, because I was annoyed by the sense of my own injustice in being angry with her. So poor Kate had but a sad time of it that night.

“However, I had made a note in my mind of what I had seen, and I was curious to mark if this change in domestic matters would continue. To my surprise, and, I am ashamed to say, not altogether to my gratification, I found that it did continue. I was suspicious as to the motive and reason for this change, and therefore not satisfied. So I took the improvement in my poor wife’s temper and conduct very surlily; the real fact being, I now believe, that I was inwardly vexed by being forced to feel that she was showing by her behaviour to me her superiority to myself. But the change still continued, and I could detect no unworthy motive for it; so at last Kate’s loving ways and patient forbearance got the victory, and then I began to look around for the cause of this transformation. What could it have been that had made my wife so different, and my home so different?

“While I now freely confessed to her my pleasure at the improvement, and endeavoured to repay her loving attentions by coming home regularly in good time and sober, I forbore to question her as to what had made such a difference in her, and she was evidently anxious to avoid the subject. But I was resolved to find out how this new state of things had come about, and an opportunity for doing so soon presented itself. One evening there was a break-down at the mill, and I returned home earlier than usual. I was getting near the house, when I heard my wife singing, and the tune was clearly a hymn tune. The secret was discovered now. I took off my boots, and crept slowly up to the door. The singing had stopped, and all was quiet. Then I heard Kate’s voice gently reading out loud to herself, and the words she read, though I could not catch them distinctly, were manifestly not those of any book of science or amusement: I could tell that by the seriousness of the tone of her voice. The conviction then came strongly upon me that she was reading the Bible, and that this book was the cause of the great change in her. A thousand thoughts stirred in my heart. I durst not venture to look in at the window, lest she should see me, for I had not at all made up my mind what to do. So I went back a little distance, put on my boots again, and came into the house as if nothing had happened.

“I was unusually silent that night, and I saw Kate looking aside at me now and then with a half-frightened glance, as if she was afraid that I was going to change back to my old unkind ways. I watched her very narrowly, and she saw it, and was uneasy. The fact was, I wanted to get at her Bible, if she really had one, and I had not yet the courage to speak to her about it. She knew how I had talked to her against it, and made a mock at it, and I couldn’t yet humble myself enough to ask for a sight of it. I noticed, however, that she looked a little anxiously at me when I turned down the baby’s bed-clothes in the cradle to have a look at him; and as I could see no Bible anywhere about the room, it darted into my mind that she had hidden it under the clothes. So when she was gone up into the bedroom, to set things to rights upstairs, I found the book I was looking for stowed snugly away, and began to read it as eagerly as if it had been a rich man’s will leaving me all his property.”

“You weren’t far wrong there, William,” broke in Thomas Bradly; “for the gospel is our heavenly Father’s will and testament, making us his heirs; and it’s written with his own hand, and sealed with the blood of his dear Son. But go on, William.”

“I don’t doubt but you’re right,” resumed Foster. “Well, as I read the little Bible, I was quite astonished, for I saw how utterly ignorant I had been of its contents and teaching. Ah, yes; it’s one thing to know a few texts, just enough to furnish matter for censure and ridicule, and quite a different thing to read the very same book with a sincere desire to learn and understand what it has to tell us. I found it so, I can assure you. So I learnt from that humble little Bible of Kate’s what all my philosophy and all the philosophy in the world could never teach me.

“It isn’t to the point now, but I’ll tell you another time how this Bible came into Kate’s hands; for of course we had not one of our own in the house. A singular chance I should have called it a short time ago; but I’m coming more and more to your mind, Thomas, that chance is only a wrong and misleading term for the guiding hand of One whom I now hope to trust in, love, and obey, however unworthily.”

“The Lord be praised, his blessed name be praised!” cried Thomas Bradly, while the tears ran fast down his cheeks.

“Yes,” said Foster reverently, “he may well be praised, for I have indeed good reason to praise him.—So you see I had got to the bottom of the mystery at last, and that little book has become to me now worth a thousand times its own weight in gold.

“Day after day I went on reading it by stealth, and every day I wondered more and more at its marvellous suitableness to my own case. And then I began to do that which a few weeks back I should have looked upon as simply an evidence of insanity in a man of my views. I began to pray. I hardly dared make the attempt at first. It seemed to me that were I to venture to address the great Being whose existence I had denied, and whose name I had constantly blasphemed, a flash of lightning or some other sudden exertion of his power would strike me dumb. But I did venture at last to offer up an earnest cry for mercy and pardon in the name of that Saviour who invites us to offer our prayers in his name; and then it seemed as though a mountain were lifted from my heart, and blindness were removed from my eyes.

“Next day, after tea, I quietly asked Kate for the Bible. I shall never forget her look as long as I live. Fear, hope, joy followed one another like sunshine breaking through the clouds. Could I be in earnest? She did not hesitate long, for she saw that in my face which told her that she might trust me with her treasure. Then she brought out the book from its hiding-place, put it on the table by me, and throwing her arms round my neck, wept away the sorrows of years. And it may be that at that time angels looked down upon us, and shed tears of joy to see two poor penitent sinners thus ‘sitting at the feet of their Saviour, clothed, and in their right mind.’”

For a while no one spoke, for all were too deeply moved. At last Foster continued: “I knew I should have to come out on the right side openly sooner or later, but you may be sure it would be no easy matter. However, I had made up my mind: it would have to be done some time or other, so, as the Annual Temperance Meeting was soon to come off—I knew that, for Joe Wright’s party were boasting of what they meant to do—I determined to show my colours by joining your society, and you have seen the result.”

“Yes, William,” said Bradly, cheerily, “I see it, and I bless the Lord for it; and if he has made me in any way an unworthy instrument in helping to bring about this change, I can truly say that he has paid me back interest a thousandfold for any little I’ve ever done or suffered for him.”

“Then, Thomas,” said the other earnestly, “you may be pleased to know that it was your hand that gave the first blows to the nail, though, it was my dear wife that was the means of driving it home. I often thought I could easily knock down your arguments, and, though I knew you had the best of it—for you had honesty and truth on your side—yet when I went home after one of our talks, I’ve vexed myself many a time by thinking, ‘Well, now, if I’d only thought of this or that thing, I might have floored him.’ But there was one thing that always floored me, and that was ‘the logic of the life;’ I couldn’t find an answer to that. And not only so, but, as I said a little while ago, I saw that the religion of Jesus Christ made you truly happy, and I knew that my free-thinking never did that for me nor for any of my like-minded companions; so that deep down in my heart a voice was constantly saying, ‘Tommy Tracks is right.’ And now I’m sure that he is so. Thomas, I now ask your friendship and your help, as I have already asked your forgiveness.”

Bradly wrung the other’s hand with a hearty grip, and then said, “You shall have them, William. I know you’ll be all the better for an earthly friend or two, for there’ll want a deal of backing up just at first. But oh, I’m so truly thankful that you and your missus have got the best Friend of all on your side, who will never leave you nor forsake you. Yes, come what will, you can go to One now who will keep peace in your conscience, peace in your heart and peace and love in your home.”

By Foster’s request, before they parted, Thomas Bradly knelt with them and offered a prayer. Ah, what a sight! Glorious even for angels to look down upon! Those three uniting in prayer—the old disciple; the blasphemer, persecutor, and injurious; and the till late Christless wife—all now one in Jesus, bowed at his footstool, while the humble servant of the Lord poured out his heart in simple, fervent supplication and praise, as all bent head and knee in the felt presence of the unseen God.

Next Sunday Foster was at church in the morning, and was there with his wife in the evening, Mrs Bradly having undertaken to look after the baby. As for Bradly himself, his face was a sight worth seeing on that Sunday. It was always brighter than usual on the Lord’s-day; but on this particular Sabbath every line of his features shone with a glow of gladness, as though, like Moses, he had just come down from the mount. It need hardly be said that the vicar’s heart also deeply rejoiced. As for the inhabitants of Crossbourne generally, some were glad, with a spice of caution in their gladness; some shook their heads and smiled, meaning thereby to let all men know that, in case Foster should not persevere in his new career, they, at any rate, had never been over-sanguine as to the genuineness of his reformation; some simply looked grave; while the profligate and the profane gnashed their teeth with envy hatred, and malice, and exchanged vehement asseverations of “how they’d pay off the sneaking humbug of a deserter, and no mistake.”

Chapter Eleven.

A Blighted Life.

Spring had come, but the cloud still rested on poor Jane Bradly. True, her heart was lighter, for she now believed with her brother that there was deliverance at hand for her, and that the mists were beginning to melt away. She was firmly persuaded that her character would be entirely cleared. But when? How soon would the waiting-time come to an end? And what good could come out of such a trouble? Here was the trial of her faith; but she bore it patiently, and the chastening was producing in her, even now, “the peaceable fruit of righteousness.” She began to improve in health and strength, and had lost much of the look of abiding care; for the habitual peace of a mind stayed on God, and the consciousness of innocence as regarded the wrong-doing of which she had been suspected, kept her calm in the blessedness of a childlike trust.

But there was one who lived not far from her, a sister in affliction, about whose sad heart the clouds were gathering thicker and thicker. Spring, with its opening buds and rejoicing birds, brought no gladness to the spirit of Clara Maltby. She was gradually wasting away. Change of air and scene had been recommended, but she would not hear of leaving home, and clung with a distressing tenacity to her round of daily studies, shortening her brief time of exercise, and seeming anxious to goad herself into the attainment of the utmost amount of knowledge which it was possible for her to acquire, grudging every minute as lost and wasted time that was not given to study. To shine had become with her the one absorbing object; to shine, not, alas! for Christ, but for self, for the world, that she might gain the prize of human applause. So she was using the gifts with which God had endowed her, not to his glory, by laying them at the foot of the cross, and employing them as talents with which she was to occupy till the Master came, but as means whereby she might win for herself distinction, and outstrip others in the race for earthly fame. But such a strain on mind and body could not last; the overtaxed faculties would assert their claim for the much-needed rest; and so, in the early spring-time, Clara Maltby was suddenly stricken down and lay for days in a state of half-unconsciousness.

At last she rallied, in a measure; and when she was sufficiently recovered to bear conversation, she earnestly begged that she might be allowed to see Thomas Bradly, and have an opportunity of saying a few words to him in the presence of her parents, previously to her being taken from home by her mother to the seaside, to which she had been ordered by her medical man, as soon as she could bear the removal. So one evening, after his work, Bradly, with a sorrowful heart, made his way up to the vicarage, and was introduced by Mr Maltby into the inner room, where his daughter had gathered together her own special library.

The patient lay on a low couch near the fire, which burned cheerfully, and lighted up, though not with gladness, the care-smitten features of the vicar’s daughter. Close to her was a little table, on which lay a small Bible, a pile of photographs, and a few printed papers. Her writing materials occupied part of a larger table, and were flanked on either side by heaps of volumes—scientific, historical, and poetical; while beyond the books was a small but exquisitely-modelled group of wax flowers, most life-like in appearance, under a glass shade. Over the fire-place was a large water-colour drawing of Crossbourne Church, with miniatures of her father and mother, one on each side of it. On the mantelpiece was an ivory statuette, beautifully carved, the gift of a travelled friend; and other articles of taste and refinement were scattered up and down the room. But now the gentle mistress of this quiet retreat lay languid and weary, incapable of enjoying these articles of grace and beauty which surrounded her. There was a flush indeed on her cheek, but no light in the heavy eyes. She looked like a gathered flower,—fair, but drooping, because it can strike no root and find no moisture. Thomas Bradly was shocked at the change a few days had made in the poor girl since he last saw her, and could hardly restrain his tears. At the head of the couch sat Mrs Maltby, with a face sadly worn and troubled; and between her and the fire was her husband, on whose features there rested a more chastened and peaceful sorrow.

“Come, sit down, Thomas,” said Mr Maltby; “my dear child cannot rest till she has seen you, and told you something that lies on her mind. I think she will be happier when she has had this little talk; and it may be that God will bless her visit to the sea, and send her back to us in improved health. I know we shall have your prayers, and the prayers of many others, that it may be so.”

“You shall, you do have our prayers,” cried Bradly, earnestly; “the Lord’ll order it all for the best. He’s been doing wonderful things for us lately, and he means to give you and dear Miss Clara a share of his blessings.”

“Well,” replied the vicar, “we will hope and trust so, Thomas. The clouds have not gathered without a cause; but still, I believe that, as the hymn says, they will yet ‘break with blessings on our head.’—Clara, my child, it will not be wise to make this interview too long; so we will leave the talking now to yourself and Thomas Bradly.”

“Dear, kind friend,” began Miss Maltby, raising herself from her couch, and leaning herself on her mother, who came and sat by her, “I could not be satisfied to leave Crossbourne without seeing you first, as I want you to do something for me in the parish which I cannot ask my dear father to do. And I want to make a confession also to you, as it may be the means of doing some little good in the place where I have left so much undone, and as perhaps it may not please God that I should come back again to my earthly home.”

She was unable to proceed for a few moments, and Bradly dared not trust himself to speak, while the vicar and his wife found it hard to control their feelings.

“Thomas,” she at length continued, her voice gaining strength and her mind clearness under the excitement of the subject which now filled her heart and thoughts, “I want you to say something for me to my class—at least to those girls who belonged to it when I used to teach it. Say it to them in your own plain and simple way, and I trust that it may do them good.

“I want you to tell them from me that I have tried what the world and its idols are, and I have found them ‘vanity of vanities.’ Not that I have been leading what is called a wicked life; not that I have loved gay company or worldly amusements; not that I have lost sight of Christ and heaven altogether, though they have been getting further off from my sight every day; but I have been fashioning for myself an idol with my own hands, which has been shutting out heavenly things from me more and more. And now God has in mercy shattered my idol, and I trust that I can see Jesus once more as I have not seen him, oh, for so long!

“I am startled when I look back and see how far I have gone astray, and how I have let the devil cheat me with a thousand plausible falsehoods. Oh, what a useless life I have been leading! What a selfish life I have been leading! And yet I have been persuading myself that I was only cultivating the powers which God gave me. But it has not been so; it is as though I had been set to draw a picture of our Saviour, and had ability and the best of materials given me for making a beautiful likeness, and I had all the while gone on just drawing an image of myself, and had then fallen down and worshipped it.

“Tell my girls, then,—for I may never have the opportunity of telling them myself,—that there is no real happiness in such a life as mine has lately been. It is really purely for self is this struggle after distinction; God put us into this world for something far different. I know, of course, that my scholars are not any of them likely to be snared exactly in the same way that I have been. Still, they might be tempted to think what a grand thing it would be to have the advantages for getting knowledge and distinction that I have had. Ah, but what has been my life, after all? Why, like that group of wax flowers under the glass shade. Don’t they look beautiful? But you see they are not real; they have no life and no sweetness in them, and they can never make the sick and the suffering happy as real flowers do. My life, with all its advantages, and what people call accomplishments, has been as unreal, as lifeless, as scentless as those wax flowers. It has not pleased God; it has not made others happy; there has been nothing to envy in it, but oh, quite the other way: it should rather be a warning. Tell my girls so, for they have their temptations even in this direction; there is so much attention paid now to head knowledge in all ranks and classes, and such a danger of neglecting heart knowledge and Christ knowledge. Show them how it has been with me. Tell them how I feel now on looking back.

“What have I really gained by this eager pursuit after earthly fame? Nothing. I have strained body and mind in seeking it—strained them, probably, past recovery. And what have I lost in the pursuit? I have lost peace; I have lost a thousand opportunities of doing good which can never be recalled; I have lost the happy sense of Jesus’ love and presence.—Dear father, would you give me that open book?—These words just suit my life, Thomas:—

“‘Nothing but leaves! The Spirit grieves
Over a wasted life;
O’er sins indulged while conscience slept,
O’er vows and promises unkept;
And reaps from years of strife—
Nothing but leaves! Nothing but leaves!’”

She paused, and hiding her face in her mother’s breast, wept long and bitterly.

Thomas Bradly had listened with deep emotion to every word, but had not yet been able to command himself sufficiently to speak. But now he stretched his hand forward, and took up the little hymn-book from which Clara Maltby had been reading, and, as he turned over its pages, said—“I don’t doubt, dear Miss Clara, but you’ve just said the plain truth about yourself; I’ve grieved over it all, and prayed about it. But that’s all past and gone now, and the Lord means to bring good out of the evil, I can see that, and you’ll let me read you these lines out of your book, as I’m sure it ain’t going to be ‘nothing but leaves’ after all. Listen, miss, to these blessed words, for they belong to you:—

“There were ninety and nine that safely lay
In the shelter of the fold;
But one was out on the hills away,
Far-off from the gates of gold,—
Away on the mountains wild and bare,
Away from the tender Shepherd’s care.

“‘Lord, thou hast here thy ninety and nine:
Are they not enough for thee?’
But the Shepherd made answer: ‘This of mine
Has wandered away from me;
And although the road be rough and steep,
I go to the desert to find my sheep.’

“And all through the mountains, thunder-riven,
And up from the rocky steep,
There rose a cry to the gate of heaven,
‘Rejoice! I have found my sheep!’
And the angels echoed around the throne,
‘Rejoice, for the Lord brings back his own!’”

“Thank you, Thomas, thank you most sincerely,” cried the sick girl, raising herself again. “Yes, I trust that these beautiful words do apply to me. Jesus has gone after me, a poor wandering and rebellious sheep, and brought me back again. Do then, kind friend, tell my dear class for me that I have found all out of Christ to be emptiness, and that there can be no true happiness here unless we are working for him.

“Of course, I might have pursued my studies innocently had I given to them leisure hours when other duties had been done, and then they would have been a delight to me, and a source of real improvement. But instead of that I made an idol of them, and they became a snare to me. I lived for them, and in them, and all else was as good as forgotten. Yes, even my Bible, that was once so precious,—it might as well have lain on the shelf, and indeed, latterly, it has seldom been anywhere else. I had no time for reading it; earthly studies absorbed every moment. But now it has become to me again truly my Bible; it has shown me, and shows me more and more plainly every day, my sin and my neglect. Ah! It is an awful thing when the struggle after this world’s honours and prizes makes us thrust aside thoughts of God and of the crown of glory. It has been so with me. I have been chasing an illuminated shadow until it has suddenly vanished, and left me in a darkness that might be felt.

“Tell my girls, then, dear friend, to take warning from me. Tell them how I mourn over my wasted life; but tell them also that I have a good hope that God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven me, and ask them to pray for me. The great lesson I want you to impress upon them from my case is just this, that no knowledge can be worth having that interferes with our following our Saviour; that no pursuit, though it may not be outwardly sinful or manifestly worldly, which unfits us in body or mind for doing our duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call us, can be innocent, for it robs Jesus of that service which we all owe to him.

“And now I am going to ask you to give these photographs, one a piece, to my girls: they will value them, I know, as the likeness of one who was once happy in being their teacher, and who hopes, should God spare her, to be their teacher again; a better instructed teacher far, I hope, because taught in the school of bitter but wholesome experience to know herself.”

These last few words, uttered with deep feeling, made it necessary for Clara to pause once more. So Thomas Bradly, seeing that her strength was well-nigh exhausted, simply expressed his hearty readiness to comply with her requests, and was rising to take his leave, when she signed him to remain.

“Just one thing more, dear friend,” she added, as soon as she was sufficiently recovered.—“Nay, dearest mother, you must let me finish what I have to say. I shall be happier and calmer when I have told all.—O Thomas! I have been on the very edge of a dreadful precipice; nay, I almost fear that I have scarcely avoided beginning the terrible fall. Finding myself unequal to the full strain which my studies imposed upon me, I began to have recourse to intoxicating stimulants, first a little, and then a little more, till at last I got to crave them, oh, how terribly! And, alas! alas! worse still. As I was ashamed to bring such things openly into my father’s house, I have employed a servant once or twice to fetch them for me, but simply as a medicine, and I have found myself scheming how I might do this to a still greater extent without detection. Oh, to what a depth have I fallen! But I see it all now; the Lord has opened my eyes. What I wanted was rest, not stimulants. And surely nothing could justify me in putting such a strain upon my mind as to make it needful to fly to such a restorative.

“I don’t ask you to mention this to my girls, nor to any one else, for it might not do good, and might be a hindrance, in a measure, to my dear father in his work; but I tell it you to ease my own heart, and that you may pray for me, and that you may hear me now, in the presence of my beloved father and mother, declare that from this time forward I renounce all such study, if God spare me, as shall unfit me for a loving service of Jesus, in my home and out of it, and that I have done with all intoxicating stimulants, the Lord helping me, now and for ever.”

“Bless the Lord!” said Bradly to himself, as, after a silent pressure of Clara Maltby’s hand, he stole out of the room. “All’s working for good, I’m sure,” he added, as he walked homewards. “We shall do grandly now. One great stone has just been struck out of our good vicar’s path. Satan’s a queer, knowing customer, but he often outwits himself; and there’s One wiser and stronger than him.”

Chapter Thirteen.

Who Owns the Ring?

“You are satisfied that we know nothing about the bag or the bracelet, I hope?” asked Foster anxiously on Bradly’s return.

“Perfectly,” was the reply; “I haven’t a doubt about it; but there’s something behind as none of us has got at yet, but it’ll come in the Lord’s own time. Wherever the bag and bracelet are, they’ll turn up some day, I’m certain of that; and it’ll be just at the right moment. And so we must be patient and look about us.—But what was it, Kate, you said was dropped along with the Bible?”

“It was this ring,” replied Mrs Foster, at the same time placing a small gold ring with a ruby in the centre on the table. The three examined it by turns. There were no letters or marks engraved anywhere on it.

“And this was dropped by the same hand which dropped the Bible?” asked Bradly.

“Yes; it rolled along the floor, and may have fallen either off the finger of the person who put her hand in at the window, or from between the leaves of the Bible.”

“And have you mentioned about this ring to any one?”

“No, not even to my husband. I’m sure William will forgive me. It was just this way: I put it into my pocket at the time, and afterwards into a secret drawer in my desk, fearing it might bring one or both of us into trouble. When this happy change came, and both William and I began to care about the Bible, I told him how I came by the book, but thought I would wait before I said anything about the ring; perhaps something would come to clear up the mystery, and it would be time enough to produce the ring when some one came forward to claim it; but no one has done so yet.”

“And you have no suspicion at all who it belongs to, or who dropped it?”

“No, none whatever.”

“Well,” continued Bradly, “I don’t think it fell out of the leaves of the Bible, as not a word is said about it in John Hollands’ letter. I’m of opinion as it slipped off accidentally from the hand of the woman as she was dropping the Bible; and since it’s clear she didn’t want it to be known who she was, if she knows where she lost her ring she won’t want to come and claim it.”

“And do you think,” asked Foster, “that she is some one living in Crossbourne or the neighbourhood?”

“Pretty certain,” replied Thomas. “There’s been some roguery or trickery about it altogether. The bag was in Crossbourne on the 23rd of last December, and your wife got the Bible that same evening. I’m firmly persuaded there’s been some hoax about it all, and I believe bag and bracelet and all’s in the town, if we only knew how to find ’em without making the matter public. If we could only get at the owner of the ring without making a noise, we might find a clue as would lead us to where the bag is.”

“I’m much of your mind,” said Foster. “I fancy that some one of poor Jim Barnes’s drunken mates has been playing a trick off on him by watching him into the Railway Inn, and running off with the bag just to vex him; and then, when he found what was in the bag, he would hide all away except the Bible, for fear of getting into a scrape. But can anything be done about the ring?”

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do if you’ll let me have it for a while,” said Bradly, with a twinkle in his eye. “I’ll get our Betsy to wear it in the mill to-morrow. You’ll see there’ll something come out of it, as sure as my name’s Thomas Bradly.”

Accordingly, next morning Betsy Bradly appeared at the mill with the ring on her little finger—a circumstance which soon drew attention, which was expressed first in looks and then in whispers, much to the quiet amusement and satisfaction of the wearer. No questions, however, were asked till the dinner hour, and then a small knot of the hands, principally of the females, gathered round her. These were some of her personal friends and acquaintances; for her character stood too high in the place for any of the less respectable sort to venture to intrude themselves upon her.

“Well, Betsy,” cried one, “you’ve got a pretty keepsake there; let’s have a look at it.”

The other’s only reply was to take off the ring and offer it for inspection. As it was passed from hand to hand, various exclamations were uttered: “Eh, it’s a bonny stone!”—“I never seed the like in all my born days!”—“It’s fit for the Queen’s crown!”—“Where did you get it, Betsy?”—“Her young man gave it her, of course!”—“Nay, you’re wrong there,” said another; “he’s got more sense than to spend his brass on such things as that,—he’s saving it up for a new clock and a dresser!”—“Come, Betsy, where did you get it?”

“You’ll never guess, so it’s no use axing,” said Betsy, laughing. “It ain’t mine; but it’ll be mine till its proper owner comes and claims it.”

“Oh, you picked it up as you was coming to the mill!”

“Ah yes!” cried another; “like enough it’s been dropped by the vicar’s lady, or by some one as has been staying at the vicarage!”

“You’re wrong there,” replied Betsy; “I didn’t find it, and nobody’s lost it exactly.”

“Well, I never!” cried several, and then there was a general move towards their different homes.

Betsy continued wearing the ring for the next day or two, and always dexterously parried any attempt to find out how she came by it. Odd stories began to fly about on the subject, and work-people from other mills came to have a look at the ring, Betsy being always ready to gratify any respectable person with a sight of it. But still she persisted in refusing to tell how it had come into her possession. At last, one afternoon, just as the mills were loosing, one of the railway clerks came up to her, and said,—

“Are you looking out for an owner to that ring you’re wearing? I’ve been told something of the sort.”

“I ain’t been exactly looking out,” was the reply; “but I shall be quite ready to give it up when I’m sure it’s the right owner as wants it.”

“Well, I’ve a shrewd guess I know whose it is,” said the young man.

“Indeed! And who may that be?”

“Oh, never mind just now; but, please, let me look at the ring.”

She took it from her finger and handed it to him. He examined it carefully, and then nodding his head, with a smile on his lips, said, “I’ll be bound I’ve had this ring in my hands before.”

“It’s yours, then?”

“Nay, it’s not mine. But do you particularly want to know whose it is?”

“Yes, I do; or, rather, my father does, for the simple truth is, it’s father as has got me to wear it; and if you can find out the proper owner, he’ll be obliged to you.”

“Just so. If you don’t mind, then, lending me the ring, I’ll soon find out if I’m right; and I’ll bring it back to your father to-morrow night, and tell him all about it.”

To this Betsy immediately assented, and the clerk went away with the ring in his charge. The following evening he and Thomas Bradly were closeted together in the “Surgery.”

“So,” said Thomas, “you can tell me, I understand, who is the owner of this ring you’ve just returned to me.”

“I think I can,” replied the other; “indeed, I feel pretty sure that I can, though, strangely enough, the owner won’t own to it.”

“How’s that?”

“I can’t say, I’m sure, but so it is.”

“Well, be so good as to tell me what you know about it.”

“I will. You know the Green Dragon,—perhaps I ought to say, you know where it is. I wish I knew as little of the inside of it as you do; it would be better for me, though I’m no drunkard, as you are aware. But, however, I go now and then into the tap-room of the Green Dragon to get a glass of ale, as it’s near my lodgings. Mrs Philips, she’s the landlady, you know. Well, she’s a bit of a fine lady, and so is her daughter. Her mother had her sent to a boarding-school, and she has got rather high notions in consequence. But she and I are very good friends, and she often tells me about her school-days. Among other things, she has been very fond of talking about the way in which the other young ladies and herself used to be bosom friends; and one afternoon, when I was with her and her mother alone in the parlour, she took a ring off her finger, and asked me to look at it, and if I didn’t admire it. And she said that one of her schoolfellows, whose parents were very wealthy, had given it to her as a birthday present a short time before she left school. The ring was the very image of the one your daughter Betsy lent me.”—So saying, he took it up from the table, on which Thomas Bradly had placed it, and held it up to the light.—“I could almost swear to the ring,” he continued, “for I’ve had Miss Philips’s ring in my hands many a time. She’s very proud of her rings, and likes to talk about them; and I had noticed that she used to wear this ring with the ruby in it over one or two others, and that it slipped off and on very easily. And I used often to ask her to show it me, partly to please her, and partly for a bit of fun. Well, now, it’s curious enough, I’ve missed that ring off her finger for several weeks past. I couldn’t help noticing that it was gone, for she always took care that I should see it when she had it on. I asked her some time back what had become of it; but she looked confused, and made some sort of excuse which seemed odd to me at the time. But when I asked her again, which was very soon after, she said she had put it by in her jewel-case, for it was rather loose, and she was afraid of its getting lost. But somehow or other I didn’t quite believe what she said, so I asked her once more, and she snapped me up so sharply that I found it was best to ask no more questions about it. However, when I heard about your daughter wearing a ring with a red stone in it, and that it was looking out for an owner, it occurred to me at once that it might be Lydia Philips’s ring—that she had dropped it by accident, and didn’t like to own that she had lost it for some reason best known to herself, and that she’d be only too glad to get it back again. So when your daughter lent it me yesterday, I took it up in the evening; and getting her by herself in the parlour, I pulled it out, and said, ‘See, Miss Lyddy, what will you give me for finding this for you?’ I expected thanks at the least; but to my great surprise she turned first very pale, and then very red; and then, taking up the ring between her finger and thumb as cautiously as if she was afraid it would bite or burn her, she said—but I didn’t believe her—‘It ain’t mine, and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.’ I tried to make her change her opinion, and told her I knew her ring as well as she knew it herself, that she must have lost it, and that I was certain this was the very ring she had showed me so often; but she only got angry, and flung the ring at me, and told me to mind my own business. So I picked up the ring off the floor, and slunk off like a dog with his tail between his legs, and I’ve brought you back the ring. But it’s the most mysterious thing to me. I can’t make it out a bit. I’m as sure now as I can be sure of anything that it’s the same ring I’ve often handled, and that it belongs to her. Her own ring is gone from her finger, and that and this are as like as two peas; but, for some reason or other, she won’t have it to be hers, so I must just leave matters as I found them.”

“Thank you for your trouble,” said Bradly, “and I’ll keep the ring till the real owner turns up; and meanwhile, my friend, just take my advice, and keep as clear of the inside of the Green Dragon as you possibly can.”

When the railway clerk had left him, Thomas Bradly sat for some minutes in deep thought, and then sought his sister. “Dear Jane,” he said, “there’s just another step we’re being guided; ’tain’t a very broad one, but I believe it’s in the right direction.” He then gave her an account of what he had just heard from his visitor.

“And what do you make of his story, Thomas?” she asked. “Do you think that the ring really belongs to Lydia Philips, and that she knows anything about the bag?”

“Yes, Jane, I do; and I’ll tell you why. I believe that she was the person who dropped the Bible in at William Foster’s window. Why she did so, of course I can’t say. But I believe the ring slipped off while she was dropping the book, and now she’s afraid to acknowledge the ring for her own. You know the Bible and the bracelet were in the same bag; so, as she knew about the Bible, it seems pretty certain she must have known about the bracelet too. If she owns to the ring, of course it’s as good as owning as she was the person who dropped the Bible. She knows quite well, you may be sure, that the ring fell into Foster’s room, and that it can only be Foster or his wife that’s produced the ring, and she’s afraid of inquiries being set on foot which may trace the missing bag and bracelet to her. So she’s content to lose her ring, and persists in saying it ain’t hers; because if she owned to it, it would raise suspicions that she or some of her people was concerned with making away with or hiding away the bag and bracelet, and that might get the Green Dragon a bad name, and spoil their custom, or even get her and her family into worse trouble. That’s just my opinion; there’s foul play, somewhere, and she knows something about it. The bag’s in the place, hid away somewhere, and she knows where, or she knows them as has had to do with getting hold of it, and keeping it for their own purposes. So we must watch and be patient. I feel convinced we’re getting nearer and nearer to the light. So let us leave it now in the Lord’s hands, and be satisfied for him to guide us step by step, one at a time. I haven’t a doubt we’ve traced the ring to its right owner, so we’ll put it by for the present, and it can come out and give its evidence when it’s wanted.”

Chapter Fourteen.

Wild Work at Crossbourne.

It was now the beginning of April; a month had passed since the temperance meeting, and James Barnes and William Foster were keeping clear of the drink and of their old ungodly companions. But it was not to be supposed that the enemies were asleep, or willing to acquiesce patiently in such a desertion from their ranks. Nevertheless, little stir was made, and open opposition seemed nearly to have died out.

“How quietly and peaceably matters are going on,” said the vicar to Thomas Bradly one morning; “I suppose the intemperate party feel they can do our cause no real harm, and so are constrained to let Foster and Barnes alone.”

“I’m not so sure about that, sir,” was Bradly’s reply. “I’m rather looking out for a breeze, for things are too quiet to last; there’s been a queerish sort of grin on the faces of Foster’s old mates when they’ve passed me lately, as makes me pretty sure there’s something in the wind as mayn’t turn out very pleasant. But I’m not afraid: we’ve got the Lord and the right on our side, and we needn’t fear what man can do unto us.”

“True, Thomas, we must leave it there; and we may be sure that all will work together for the furtherance of the good cause in the end.”

“I’ve not a doubt of it, sir; but for all that, I mean to keep a bright look-out. I’m not afraid of their trying their games with me; it’s Barnes and Foster as they mean to pay off if they can.”

That same evening James Barnes knocked at Bradly’s Surgery door, and closed it quickly after him. There was a scared look in his eyes; his dress was all disordered; and, worse still, he brought with him into the room an overpowering odour of spirits. Poor Thomas’s heart died within him. Alas! was it really so? Had the enemy gained so speedy a triumph?

“So, Jim, you’ve broken, I see,” exclaimed Bradly sorrowfully. “The Lord pardon and help you!”

“Nothing of the sort,” cried the other; “I’ve never touched a drop, Thomas, since I signed, though a good big drop has touched me.”

“What do you mean, Jim?” asked Bradly, greatly relieved at the tone of his voice. “Are you sure it’s all right? Come, sit down, and tell me all about it.”

“That I will, Thomas; it’s what I’ve come for. You’ll easily believe me when I tell you,” he continued, after taking a seat, “that they’ve been at me every road to try and get me back, badgering, chaffing, threatening, and coaxing: it’s strange what pains they’ll take as is working for the devil. But it wouldn’t act. Well, three or four nights ago, when I got home from my work, I found two bottles on my table. They was uncorked; one had got rum, and the other gin in it. Now, I won’t say as my mouth didn’t water a bit, and the evil one whispered ‘Just take a glass;’ but no, I wasn’t to be done that way, so I lifts up a prayer for strength, and just takes the bottles at once out into the road, and empties them straight into the gutter. There was some looking on as would let the enemy know. So to-night, as smooth ways wouldn’t act, they’ve been trying rough ’uns. Four of my old mates, Ned Taylor among ’em, watches when my missus went off to the shop, and slips into the kitchen where I was sitting. They’d brought a bottle of rum with them, and began to talk friendly fashion, and tried might and main to get me to drink. But I gave the same answer—I’d have none of it. Then one of them slipped behind my chair, and pinned me down into it, and Ned Taylor tried to force my mouth open, while another man held the bottle, ready to pour the rum down my throat. But just then our little Bob, seeing how roughly they were handling me, bolted out into the street, screaming, ‘They’re killing daddy! They’re killing daddy!’ So the cowardly chaps, seeing it was time to be off, took to their heels, all but Ned Taylor. He’d taken the bottle of rum from the man as held it, and he took and poured it all down my coat and waistcoat, and said, ‘If you won’t have it inside, you shall have it out;’ and then he burst out into a loud laugh, and went after the rest of them. If you examine my clothes, Thomas, you can see as I’m telling the truth. However, they’ve just been and cut their own throats, for they’ve only made me more determined than ever to stick to my tee-totalism.”

“All right, Jim,” said the other cheerfully; “they’ve outwitted themselves. I’ve an old coat and waistcoat as I’ve nearly done with, but they’ve got a good bit of wear in them yet. They’ll just about fit you, I reckon. You shall go back in them, and keep them and welcome, and we’ll make these as they’ve spoilt a present to the dunghill. I only wish all other bad habits, and more particularly them as comes through rum, brandy, and such like, could be cast away on to the same place. You did quite right, Jim, to come straight to me.”

“Ay, Thomas, I felt as it were best; for I were in a towering rage at first, and I think I should have half killed some of ’em, if I could only have got at them.”

“Ah, well, Jim, you just let all that alone. ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’ We’ll get our revenge in another way some day; we may heap coals of fire on some of their heads yet. But you leave matters now to me. I shall see Ned Taylor to-morrow myself, and give him a bit of my mind; and warn him and his mates that if they try anything of the kind on again, they’ll get themselves into trouble.”

“Thank you, Thomas, with all my heart, for your kindness: ‘a friend in need’s a friend indeed.’ But there’s just another thing as I wants to talk to you about afore I go. I meant to come up to-night about it anyhow, even if this do hadn’t happened.”

“Well, Jim, let’s hear it.”

“Do you remember Levi Sharples, Thomas?”

“What! That tall, red-haired chap, with a cast in his left eye, and a mouth as wide and ugly as an ogre’s?”

“Yes, that’s the man. You’ll remember, Thomas, he was concerned in that housebreaking job four years ago, and the police have been after him ever since.”

“To be sure, Jim, I remember him fast enough; he’s not a man one’s likely to forget. I suppose a more thorough scoundrel never set foot in Crossbourne. It was a wonderful thing how he managed to escape and keep out of prison after that burglary business. But what about him?”

“Why, Thomas, I seed him in this town the day before yesterday.”

“Surely, Jim, you must be mistaken. He durstn’t show his face in Crossbourne for the life of him.”

“No, I know that; but he’s got himself made up to look like another man,—black hair, great black whiskers, and a thick black beard, and a foreign sort of cap on his head,—and he’s lodging at the Green Dragon, and pretends as he’s an agent for some foreign house to get orders for rings, and brooches, and watches, and things of that sort.”

“But are you certain, Jim, you’re not mistaken?”

“Mistaken! Not I. I used to know him too well in my drinking days. He’ll never disguise that look of that wicked eye of his from them as knows him well; and though he’s got summat in his mouth to make him talk different, I could tell the twang of his ugly voice anywheres.”

“Well, Jim?”

“Ah, but it ain’t well, Thomas, I’m sorry to say: there’s mischief, you may be sure, when the like of him’s about. You know he used to be a great man with Will Foster’s old set; and, would you believe it, I saw him yesterday evening, when it was getting dark, standing near Foster’s house talking with him. They didn’t see me, for I was in the shadow; I’d just stooped down to fasten my boot-lace as they came up together. I’d had a message to take to William’s wife, and was coming out the back way, when I heard footsteps, and I knew Levi in a moment, as the gas lamp shone on him. I didn’t want to play spy, but I did want to know what that chap was up to. So, while their backs was towards me, I crawled behind the water-butt without making any noise, and I could catch a few words now and then, as they were not far-off from me.”

“Well, Jim, and what did you hear?”

“Why, Levi said, ‘It won’t do for me to be seen here, so let us have a meeting in some safe place.’—‘Very well,’ says William, and then they spoke so low I could only catch the words, ‘Cricketty Hall;’ but just as Levi were moving off, he said in a loud whisper, ‘All right, then—Friday night;’ and I think he mentioned the hour, but he spoke so low I couldn’t clearly mate out any more. So I’ve come to tell you, Thomas Bradly, for there’s mischief of some sort up, I’ll be bound.”

Bradly did not answer, but for a time a deep shade of anxiety settled on his features. But after a while the shadow passed away. “James,” he said earnestly, “I can’t believe as there’s anything wrong in this matter in William Foster. I can’t believe the Lord’s led him so far, in the right way, and has now left him to stray into wrong paths. I’ve watched him narrowly, and I’m certain he’s as true as steel. But I think with you as there’s mischief brewing. Though William has got a clever head, yet he’s got a soft heart along with it, and he’s not over wide-awake in some things; and I’ll be bound he’s no match for a villain like that Levi. I tell you what it is, Jim: it strikes me now, just as we’re speaking, as Levi’s being set on by some of William’s old mates to draw him out of the town to a place where they can play him some trick, or do him some harm, without being hindered or found out. I can’t explain how, of course, but that’s my thought. Now, if you’ll lend me a helping hand, I’m persuaded as we shall be able, if the Lord will, to turn the tables on these fellows in such a way as’ll effectually tie their hands and stop their tongues for many a long day to come.”

“All right, Thomas,” cried Barnes, “I’m your man; I think you’re on the right scent.”

“Very good, Jim; Cricketty Hall, and Friday night, that’s where and when the meeting’s to be. It means next Friday no doubt, for Levi Sharples won’t stay in this neighbourhood a moment longer than he can help. You may depend upon it, when these two meet at the old ruin, Levi’ll have some of their old mates not far-off, and there’ll be wild work with poor William when they’ve got the opportunity. But we’ll give ’em more company than they’ll reckon for. But now, Jim, we must be cautious how we act. Of course I could go and tell William privately what I think Levi’s up to, but I shall not do that; I want to catch that rascal in his own trap, and get him out of the country for good and all, and give the rest of them such a lesson as they’ll not soon forget. So it won’t do for you or me to be seen going out towards Cricketty Hall on Friday evening, for they are sure to set spies about, and we should spoil all. I’ll tell you how we’ll manage. I’ve been wanting a day at Foxleigh for some time, as I’ve some business of my own there. You get leave to meet me there, and I’ll pay your fare. Go by the eight a.m. train on Friday morning, and I’ll take the train that starts at dinner-time. No one’ll ever suspect us of going to Cricketty Hall that way. I shall tell the police at Foxleigh my business, and they’ll be glad enough to send some men with us when they know that Levi Sharples will be there, the man they’ve been wanting to catch. We can get round to the woods above Cricketty Hall from Foxleigh without being seen, when it begins to be dark, and can get down into the ruins without their noticing us, for they’ll never think of any one coming by that road, such a roundabout way. And mind, Jim, not a word to any one, not even to your missus. All you need tell her is, that I’ve wanted you to meet me about some business at Foxleigh, and you won’t be back till late.”

“All right, Thomas,” said Barnes; “you may depend on it I shan’t say nothing to nobody. I shall just tell my missus afore I’m setting off on the Friday morning as I’ve got a job to do for you, and she mustn’t expect me home till she sees me; and no one’ll be surprised at my turning up at the station, as they all know as I used to be porter there.”

Cricketty Hall was one of those decayed family mansions which are to be met with in many parts of England. Its original owners had been persons of importance many generations back, but their name and fame had passed away. The lands connected with the Hall had become absorbed into other properties; and the building itself had gradually crumbled down, many a neighbouring farm-house owing some of its most solid and ornamental portions to the massive ruins from which they had been borrowed or taken. Still, enough had been left to show that the place had once been a mansion of considerable pretensions. The old gateway, with its portcullis and drawbridge, was still standing, while the moat which surrounded the entire building indicated that it had been originally of very capacious dimensions. The roof and most of the walls had long since disappeared; trees grew in the centre, and spread out their branches over the space once occupied by the dormitories, while a profusion of ivy concealed many a curiously carved arch and window. From the gateway the ground sloped rapidly, affording a fine view of the neighbouring country. Behind the house was high ground, once thickly wooded, and still partially covered with trees and underwood. The Hall was about two miles distant from Crossbourne, and was well-known to most of its inhabitants, though but seldom visited, except occasionally by picnic parties in summer-time. Old tradition pronounced it to be haunted, but though such an idea was ridiculed now by everybody whenever the superstition was alluded to, yet very few persons would have liked to venture into the ruins alone after dark; and, indeed, the loneliness of the situation made it by no means a desirable place for solitary evening musings.

The ordinary way to the Hall was by a footpath leading to it out of the highroad across fields for a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile. It could also be approached by a much less frequented track, which passed along sequestered lanes out of the main road from the town of Foxleigh, the nearest town to Crossbourne by rail, and brought the traveller to it, after a walk of six miles from Foxleigh, through the overhanging wooded ground which has been mentioned as rising up in the rear of the old ruins.

The only exception to the dilapidated state of the premises was a large vaulted cellar or underground room. Its existence, however, had been well-nigh forgotten, except by a few who occasionally visited it, and kept the secret of the entrance to it to themselves.

The Friday on which the appointment between Foster and Levi Sharples was to be kept at Cricketty Hall, was one of those dismal April days which make you forget that there is any prospect of a coming summer in the chilly misery of the present. Cold showers and raw breezes made the passers through the streets of Crossbourne fold themselves together, and expose as little surface as was possible to the inclemency of the weather; so that when James Barnes and Thomas Bradly left the station by the early and mid-day trains, there were but few idlers about to notice their departure.

At length the mills loosed, and Foster hurried home, and, after a hasty tea, told his wife that an engagement would take him from home for a few hours, and that she must not be alarmed if he was a little late. Then, having put on a stout overcoat, he made his way through the higher part of the town, and past the vicarage, and was soon in the open country. It was past seven o’clock when he reached the place where the footpath leading to the old Hall met the highroad. It was still raining, though not heavily; but thick, leaden-coloured clouds brooded over the whole scene, and served to deepen the approaching darkness. It was certainly an evening not calculated to raise any one’s spirits; and the harsh wind, as it swept over the wide expanse of the treeless fields, with their stern-looking stone fences, added to the depressing influences of the hour. But Foster was a man not easily daunted by such things, and he had stridden on manfully, fully occupied by his own thoughts, till he reached the stile where the footpath to the ruins began. Here he paused, looked carefully in all directions, listened attentively without hearing sound of traveller or vehicle, and then whistled in a low tone twice. A tall figure immediately rose up from the other side of the hedge and joined him.

“Well, Levi,” said Foster, “I have kept my appointment; and now what would you have with me?”

“I’ll tell you, William,” replied his companion. “You know I’m a marked man. The police are looking out for me on account of that housebreaking job - more’s the pity I ever had anything to do with it. However, I’m a changed man now, I hope: I think I’ve given you some proof of that already, William, so you may trust me. A man wouldn’t come back and thrust his head into the lion’s mouth as I’ve done, to show his sincerity and sorrow for the past, if he hadn’t been in earnest. Now, what I want you to do is this:—You know how many Sunday afternoons you and I, and others of our old mates, have spent in card-playing in the cellar of that old Hall—the Lord forgive me for having wasted his holy day in such sin and folly! Now, I’ve a long story to tell, and I should like to tell it in that same place where you and I joined in what was sinful in our days of ignorance and darkness. I can tell you there how I was brought to see what a fool’s part I had been playing, and how I came to my right mind at last. You can give me some good advice; and I want to leave one or two little things with you to give or send to my poor old mother when I’m far away. And when we’ve had our talk out, we’ll part at the old ruin, and I shall make the best of my way out of the country, and begin a new and better life, I trust, where I’m not known. I’m sorry to have given you the trouble to come out all this way, specially on such a night as this; but I really don’t feel safe anywhere in or near Crossbourne, as the police might pop on me at any moment, and I felt sure, from what I heard of the change that has taken place in you, that you wouldn’t mind a little trouble to help an old companion out of the mire. You needn’t be afraid to come with me; I can have no possible motive to lead you into danger.”

“I’m not afraid, Levi,” said Foster quietly. “I’m ready to go with you.”

Nothing more was said by either of them till they had followed out the footpath and stood before the gateway of the old Hall. They were soon making their way cautiously amongst the fallen blocks of stone towards a turret which rose to a considerable height at the end of the ruins farthest from the gateway. “Go forward, William,” said Sharples, “while I light my lantern.” So saying, he paused to strike a match, while his companion threaded his way towards the turret. At this moment a figure, unobserved by Foster, emerged from behind a low wall, and, having exchanged a few whispered words with Levi, disappeared through an archway.

The two companions, having now gained the turret, proceeded to descend a few broken steps concealed from ordinary observation by a mass of brushwood, and reached the entrance of a spacious vault. “Stay a moment,” said Sharples; “I’ll go first and show a light.” So saying, he pushed past the other, and the next instant Foster felt himself held fast by each arm, while a handkerchief was pressed over his mouth. He was at once painfully conscious that he had been completely entrapped, and that resistance was perfectly useless, for two strong men grasped him, one on either side. But his presence of mind did not desert him, and he now had learnt where to look, in secret prayer, for that “very present help in trouble” which never fails those who seek it aright. Thus fortified, he attempted no resistance, but patiently awaited the event.

In a few minutes the handkerchief was withdrawn from his eyes, and he found himself in the presence of about a dozen men, all of whose faces were blackened. On a large stone in the centre of the vault was placed the bull’s-eye lantern which his companion had recently lighted, and which, by pouring its light fully on himself, prevented him from clearly seeing the movements of his captors. What was to come next? He was not long left in doubt.

“Saint Foster,” said Levi Sharples, who stood just behind the lantern, and spoke in a sneering, snuffling voice, “we don’t wish you any harm; but we have brought your saintship before our right worshipful court, that you may answer to the charge brought against you, of having deserted your old principles and companions, and inflicted much inconvenience and discredit on the cause of free-thought and good fellowship in Crossbourne. What say you to this charge, Saint Foster?”

Their poor victim had by this time thoroughly recovered his self-possession, and being now set at liberty—for his enemies knew that he could not escape them—answered quietly, and in a clear, unfaltering voice, “I must ask first by what authority this court is constituted; and by whose authority you are now questioning me?”

“By the authority of ‘might,’ which on the present occasion makes ‘right,’ Saint Foster,” was the reply.

“Be it so,” said Foster. “I can only reply that I have been following out my own honest convictions in the course I have lately taken. What right has any man to object to this?”

“A good deal of right, Saint Foster, since your following out your present honest convictions is a great hindrance to those who used to agree with you in your former honest convictions.”

“I am not responsible for that,” was Foster’s reply.

“Perhaps not,” continued Sharples; “nevertheless, we are met on the present agreeable occasion to see if we cannot induce you to give up those present honest convictions of yours, and join your old friends again.”

“That I neither can nor will,” said the other in a firm voice.

“That’s a pity,” said Sharples; “because if you persist in your determination, the consequences to yourself may be unpleasant. However, the court wishes to deal very leniently with you, in consideration of past services, and therefore I am commissioned to offer you a choice between two things.—Officer! Bring forward the ‘peacemaker.’”

Upon this, a man stepped forward, uncorked a bottle of spirits, and placed it on the stone in front of the lantern.

“Saint Foster,” proceeded his pretended judge, “we earnestly exhort you to lift this bottle of spirits to your lips, and, having taken a hearty swig thereof, to say after me, ‘Long life and prosperity to free-thought and good fellowship.’ If you will do this we shall be fully satisfied, and shall all part good friends.”

“And if I refuse?” asked the other.

“Oh! There’ll be no compulsion—we are not going to force you to drink. This is ‘Liberty Hall;’ only, you must submit to the alternative.”

“And what may that be?”

“Oh! Just to carry home with you a little of our ointment, as a token of our kind regards.—Officer! Bring forward the ointment.”

A general gruff titter ran round the vault as one of the men placed beside the bottle a jar with a brush in it and a bag.

“My worthy friend,” proceeded the former speaker, “that jar is full of ointment, vulgarly called tar, and that little bag contains feathers. Now, if you positively refuse to drink the toast I have just named in spirits, we shall be constrained to anoint you all over from head to foot with our ointment, and then to sprinkle you with the feathers; in so doing, we shall be affording an amusing spectacle to the inhabitants of Crossbourne, and shall be doing yourself a real kindness, by furnishing you with abundant means of ‘feathering your own nest.’”

A roar of discordant laughter followed this speech. Then there was a pause, and a deathlike silence, while all waited for Foster’s answer. For a few moments he attempted no reply; then he said, slowly and sadly: “I know it will be of no use for me to say what I think of the utter baseness of the man who has enticed me here, and now acts the part of my judge. You have me in your power, and must work your will on me, for I will never consent to drink the toast proposed to me. But I warn you that—”

At this moment a shrill whistle was heard by every one in the vault, and then the sound of shouts outside, and the tramping of feet.—“The game’s up!” cried one of the men with the blackened faces; “every one for himself!” and a rush was made for the steps. But it was too late: a strong guard of police fully armed had taken their stand at the top of the stair, and escape was impossible, for there was no other outlet from the vault. As each man emerged he was seized and handcuffed—all except Foster, whose unblackened face told at once that he was not one of the guilty party, and who was grasped warmly by the hand by Thomas Bradly and James Barnes, who now came forward.

When the vault had been searched by the constables, and they had ascertained that no one was still secreted there, the whole of the prisoners were marched into the open court and placed in a row. The sergeant, who had come with his men, then passed his lantern from face to face. There was no mistake about Sharples; his false hair and beard had become disarranged in the scuffle, and other marks of identification were immediately observed. “Levi Sharples,” said the sergeant, “you’re our prisoner—we’ve been looking out for you for a long time; you’ll have to come with us.—As for the rest of you, well, I think you won’t any of you forget this night; so you’d best get home as fast as you can and wash your faces.—Constables, take the handcuffs off ’em.”

No sooner was this done than the whole body of the conspirators vanished in a moment, while the police proceeded to carry off their prisoner. But before the officers were clear of the ruins, a strange moaning sound startled all who remained behind. “Eh! What’s that? Surely it ain’t—a—a—” exclaimed Jim Barnes, in great terror. The sergeant, who was just leaving with his men, turned back. All stood silent, and then there was distinctly heard again a deep groaning, as of one in pain. “Lend a light here, Thomas,” cried the sergeant to one of his constables. All, except those who were guarding the prisoner, proceeded in the direction from which the unearthly sounds came. “Have a care,” cried Bradly; “there’s some ugly holes hereabouts.” Picking their way carefully, they came at last to the mouth of an old well: it had been long choked up to within a few feet of the top, but still it was an awkward place to fall into.

There could now be no mistake; the groaning came from the old well, and it was a human cry of distress. “Who’s there?” cried the sergeant, throwing his light down upon a writhing figure. “It’s me—it’s Ned Taylor. Lord help me! I’ve done for myself. Oh, help me out for pity’s sake!” With great difficulty, and with terrible suffering to the poor wretch himself, they contrived at last to draw him up, and to place him with his back against a heap of fallen masonry.

“What’s to be done now?” asked the sergeant. “Leave him to us,” replied Bradly; “we’ll get him home. I see how it is: he’s one of these chaps as has been taking part in this sad business, and in his hurry to get off he has tumbled into this old well and injured himself. We’ll look after him, poor fellow; he shall be properly cared for. Good-night, sergeant, and thank you for your timely help.”

When the police had departed with their prisoner, Bradly went to the wounded man and asked him if he thought he could walk home with help; but the only reply was a groan. “He’s badly hurt, I can see,” said Thomas; “we must make a stretcher out of any suitable stuff we can find, and carry him home between us. The Lord’s been very gracious to us so far in this business, and I don’t doubt but he’ll bring good out of this evil.” So they made a litter of boughs and stray pieces of plank, and set out across the fields for Crossbourne.

“Stay a bit, Jim,” whispered Bradly to James Barnes; “lend me your lantern. Go forward now, and I’ll join you in a minute.” He was soon back again, having brought the jar of tar from the vault, about which and its purpose he had heard from Foster while the police were searching the place. “I must keep this,” he said, “in my Surgery; it’ll do capitally to give an edge to a lesson.” And it may be here said that the jar was in due time placed on a bracket in Bradly’s private room, and labelled in large red letters, “Drunkards’ Ointment,”—giving Thomas many an opportunity of speaking a forcible word against evil companionship to those who sought his help and counsel.

But to return to the party at the old Hall. Long and weary seemed that walk home, specially to the wounded man. At last they reached the town, and carried the sufferer to his miserable dwelling, with cheery words to his poor wife, and a promise from Bradly to send the doctor at once, and that he would call himself next day and see how he was going on.

Then the three friends hastened at once to Foster’s house, that they might be the first to acquaint his wife with her husband’s peril and deliverance. Never was thanksgiving prayer uttered or joined in with more fervour than that which was offered by Thomas Bradly after he had given to Kate Foster a full account of the evening’s adventure. Then all sat down to a simple supper, at which Foster was asked by Thomas Bradly to tell him how he came to be taken in by such a man as Levi Sharples.

“I don’t wonder,” began Foster, “that you should think it weak and strange in me; but you shall judge. Levi Sharples and myself used to be great friends—or rather, perhaps, I ought to say frequent companions, for I don’t think there was ever anything worth calling friendship between us. He used to profess a great respect for my opinion. He regularly attended the meetings of our club, and made smart speeches, and would come out with the vilest sentiments expressed in the vilest and foulest language, such as disgusted me even then, and makes me shudder now when I think of it. He had a ready way with him, and could trip a man up in an argument and get the laugh against him. Not that he had really read or studied much; but he had gathered a smattering on many subjects, and knew how to make a little knowledge go a great way. Most of the other members of the club were afraid of him, for he had no mercy when he chose to come down on a fellow; and if any one tried to make a stand against him for a bit, he would soon talk him down with his biting sarcasms and loud sneering voice.

“I told you that he professed to have a high opinion of myself as a debater and free-thinker. He seldom crossed me in argument, and when he did he was sure to give in in the end. I was vain enough at the time to set this down to my own superior wit and knowledge; but I am now fully persuaded that he was only pretending to have this good opinion of me that he might make use of me for his own purposes. He knew that I was a skilful workman, and earned more than average wages, and so he would often borrow a few shillings from me, which he never remembered to pay back again. But he managed to get these loans very dexterously, always mixing up a little flattery when he came to borrow.

“Often and often, I’m ashamed to say, I have wandered out with him and other members of our club in the summer, on Sunday afternoons, to Cricketty Hall; and there, down in the old vault, we have been playing cards and drinking till it was time to return. I could see plainly enough on these occasions that Levi would have been only too glad to win largely from me; but I had sense enough to keep out of his clutches, as I had noticed him managing the cards unfairly when playing with others.

“I can’t say that I felt any particular regret when he had to take himself off out of the neighbourhood. There were no ties that could really bind us together; for, indeed, how can there be any real union where the closest bond is a common hatred of that gospel which is so truly, as I am thankful to say I have myself found it, the religion of love? I scarcely missed him, and seldom thought of him, and was rather startled when, a few days ago, he made himself known to me in the twilight.

“We were alone, and I was going to pass on with a civil word; but he begged me to stop, and in such a tone of voice as rather touched me. He then reminded me that we had been companions in evil, and said that he had heard of the change that had taken place in me. He added that he was very unhappy, that he hated himself for his past wicked life, and that as I used to stand his friend formerly when he needed a helping hand, he hoped I would show that my change was a real one by my willingness to give an old mate a lift over the stile and into the same way of peace in which I professed to be walking myself. He had much to tell me and ask of me, he said; but he was afraid of being discovered by the police, spite of his disguise. Would I meet him at Cricketty Hall, he should feel safe there.

“I did not know what to say. I could not get rid of my suspicions, notwithstanding his changed tone and manner. He saw it, and said: ‘You doubt my sincerity. Well, I suppose you’ll agree that when a man’s sincerity gets into his pocket it’s pretty sure to be genuine. Now, you’ve lent me money at different times, and I never paid any of it back. I’ve reckoned it up, and it comes altogether to three pounds ten shillings. Here it is; and many thanks to you for lending it me. I’m only sorry that I was not an honest man before.’

“I hardly knew what to say; however, I took the money, for I knew that it was due to me. ‘Well, will you trust me now?’ he asked. ‘Meet me, Levi, to-morrow night just after dark outside my house,’ I said, ‘and I will tell you then.’ He hesitated a little, and then said, ‘Very well,’ and left me. I was sorely puzzled, and could not tell what to think. And then at last it occurred to me that perhaps it was wrong in me to hang back. There might be a real change beginning even in such a man as Levi Sharples. The Lord had been merciful to me, and why not to him? There hadn’t been much to choose between us in badness in bygone days; and should I be right in repelling the poor man if I could be in any way the means of bringing him into the narrow way? Well, you know the rest. We met the next night; and, mercifully for me, Jim Barnes, as I find from him, overheard the appointment to meet at Cricketty Hall; and wonderfully and graciously has the Lord kept me in my trouble, and delivered me out of it.”

“But how do you suppose that Sharples got hold of that money?” asked Bradly.

“Oh,” replied the other, “I can easily understand all about that. You may depend upon it the whole matter has gone on somewhat in this way:—My old mates have been scheming how to be revenged on me ever since I left them, and showed my colours on the side of Temperance and Religion. They’ve known Levi’s whereabouts, and were aware how thick we used to be; so they’ve set him upon drawing me into the snare. I don’t doubt that they subscribed that three pound ten between them, that Levi might be able to throw dust in my eyes with it, and throw me off my guard.”

“Just so, just so; I see it all!” cried Bradly. “Eh! Haven’t they been nicely outwitted? Why, they’ve lost their money, they’ve lost the bird out of the cage, and they’ve clapped their own man in prison. Mark my words, William, we shan’t have much more trouble from them for many a long day; but if they attempt to give us any, I shall bring them out the little jar of ointment they left behind them, and bid them tell us what complaints it’s good for. Ah! Well, there’s just a few words out of the good old book as’ll crown it all. Here they are in the Twenty-seventh Psalm: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.’”

Chapter Sixteen.

Confession and Explanation.

When Edward Taylor’s accident and its cause were known in Crossbourne, the consternation caused among the enemies of religion and of the temperance cause was indescribable. Thomas Bradly made no secret of what had happened, and of how Foster’s persecutors had been outwitted: not in any revengeful spirit, but partly because he thought it better that the plain truth should be known, and so the mouths of the marvel-mongers be stopped; and partly because he felt sure that the enemy would keep pretty still when they knew that their late proceedings were blazed abroad. So he just quietly told one or two of his fellow-workmen all the particulars, without note or comment, and left the account to do its own work.

Nor could there be any doubt as to the result. Never had there been such “a heavy blow and great discouragement” to the infidel party as this. Not only was there a storm of indignation poured out upon the heads of the conspirators by the more sober-minded working-men,—for it took no very shrewd guessing to find out who had been Ned Taylor’s companions in the heartless and cruel outrage,—but even those who might have secretly applauded had the plot been successful, were eager to join in the general expressions of disgust and reprobation now that it had failed; for nothing meets with such universal and remorseless execration as unsuccessful villainy. There were also those who never lost an opportunity of chaffing the unfortunate delinquents; while, to complete their mortification and discomfiture, a rude copy of satirical verses, headed, “A Simple Lay in Praise of Tar, by one of the Feathered Tribe,” was printed and widely circulated through the town and neighbourhood. Nor was there much sympathy, under their ignominious defeat, between the members and friends of the Free-thought Club. After a few nights, spent chiefly in personalities and mutual recriminations, which well-nigh terminated in a general stand-up fight, the meetings of the club were adjourned sine die, and the institution itself fell to pieces in a few weeks, and its existence was speedily forgotten.

The heaviest weight of trouble, however, had fallen upon poor Ned Taylor. He had suffered very serious injuries by his fall into the old well, and, having utterly ruined his constitution by intemperance, was unable to rally from the shock and the wounds and bruises he had received. So he lay a miserable, groaning wreck of humanity on his wretched bed, in the comfortless kitchen of his bare and desolate home.

His old companions soon came to see him; not from any real care for himself or his sufferings, but partly to coax and partly to threaten him into silence, so that he might not reveal the names of his companions in the attempt on Foster. But Ned’s wife soon gave them to understand that her husband had already had more than enough of their company; that they needn’t trouble themselves to call again; and that she hoped, if he was spared, that he would have nothing more to say to any of them as long as he lived. So his old companions in evil, taking this “broad hint” as it was meant, left him in peace, and he had leisure to look a little into the past, and to ponder his sin and folly.

He was a man, like many others of his class, not without kindly feelings and occasional good intentions; but these last had ever been as “the morning cloud and the early dew,” and like all good resolutions repeatedly broken, had only added fresh rivets to the chains of his evil habits. And so he had plunged deeper and deeper into the mire of intemperance and ungodliness, till scarce the faintest trace of the divine image could be discerned in him.

But now his conscience woke up, and he was not left without helpers. Thomas Bradly visited him on the day after his accident, and saw that he was properly cared for. William Foster also called on him in a day or two, and assured him of his hearty forgiveness. The poor unhappy man was deeply touched at this, and, hiding his face in his hands, sobbed bitterly. He was indeed a pitiable object as he lay back on his ragged bed, partly propped up with pillows, his head bound round with a cloth, his left eye half closed, and one arm lying powerless by his side.

“William,” he said, when he could manage to get the words out, “I don’t deserve this, kindness from you of all men in the world; it cuts me to the heart, it does, for sure. I think I heard the parson say once, when he were preaching in the open-air at the market-cross one summer’s evening, summat about heaping coals of fire on a man’s head as has wronged you, by returning him good for evil. I’m sure, William, you’ve been and heaped a whole scuttleful of big coals on my head, and they’re red-hot every one on ’em.”

“Well, well,” said Foster, much touched by this confession, “it will be all right, Ned, as far as I’m concerned, and I hope you’ll soon be better.—I’ve come to learn,” he added in an undertone, and with strong emotion, “my own need of forgiveness for all I’ve done against my Saviour in days gone by, and it would be strange and wrong indeed if I couldn’t heartily forgive a fellow-sinner.”

“The Lord bless you for that word,” said the other; “and let me tell you, William, bad as I’ve been agen you and poor Jim Barnes, I’ve never liked this job; and as for that Sharples, I knew as he was the meanest rascal to treat you as he did, and I only wish as I’d had the sense and courage to keep out of the business altogether.”

“Well, you’ve learnt a lesson, Ned; and if it should please God to bring you round, you must keep clear of the old set.”

“You may depend upon that, William,” said the sick man; “I’ve had enough and to spare of them and their ways.—I’ll tell you how it all began, William, and who it was as set the thing a-going.”

“Nay, Ned,” interposed Foster hastily, “I don’t want to know; I’d rather not know. I can guess pretty well, though I saw none of their faces distinctly. They don’t want any punishment from me if I wished to give it them, for they’re getting it hot and strong from all sides already; and as for Sharples, poor wretched man, he’s got caught in his own trap as neatly as if he’d set it on purpose to catch himself.”

“Just as you please, William; I’m sure it’s very good of you to take it as you do.”

“No, Ned, don’t say so; there’s no goodness anywhere in the matter, except in that merciful God who so wonderfully watched over and protected me. I’m sure it has been worth all I’ve gone through a thousand times over, to have learnt what he has taught me in this trouble,—a lesson of trust and love. But I will come and see you again, Ned; you have had talking enough for one time.”

The vicar also called on the sufferer frequently, and was glad to find him humble, patient, and willing to receive instruction. But it was to Thomas Bradly that the poor man seemed specially drawn, and to him he felt that he could open all his heart.

“I’ve summat on my mind, Thomas, as I wants to talk to you about,” he said to Bradly one day when they were left quite alone; it was about a week after the return home of Dr and Mrs Prosser. The sick man was able to sit up in a chair by the fire, though the doctor gave no hope of any real or lasting improvement. Through the kindness of his friends his cottage had partly lost its comfortless appearance, and himself, his wife, and children had been provided with sufficient food and clothing. Yet the stamp of death was on the poor patient’s wasted features, and a racking cough tried him terribly at times. But his mind was quite clear, and he had begun to see his way to pardon and peace, though it was with but a trembling hand that his faith laid hold of the offered salvation.

“What is it that you want to tell me?” asked Bradly cheerfully.

“I’ll tell you, Thomas: I know I’m a dying man, and it’s all right it should be so; I’ve brought it upon myself, more’s the sin, and more’s the pity.”

“Nay, Ned, take heart, man; you’ll come round yet, and be spared to set a good example.”

The sick man shook his head, and then broke out into a violent fit of coughing. “It’s pulling me to pieces,” he said, when he could recover himself; “but I shall be happier if I can just tell you, Thomas, what’s on my mind. It ain’t about any of the wicked things as I’ve done, but I shall be better content when I’ve told you all about it. You remember the night as poor Joe Wright met his death on the line last December? Well, I’d summat to do with that.”

“You, Ned!”

“Nay, Thomas, I don’t mean as I’d any hand in killing him—it were his own doing; but I were mixed up with the matter in a way, and I thought I’d tell you all about it, as you’re a prudent man as won’t go talking about it; and I shall get it off my mind, for it’s been a-troubling me for months past.”

“Go on, Ned.”

“Well, then, it were that same evening, two days afore Christmas-day, I were coming home from my work; and just as I were passing the Railway Inn I sees a bag lying on the step just outside the front door of the public.”

“A what?” exclaimed Bradly, half rising from his seat. “But go on—all right,” he added, noticing the sick man’s surprise at his sudden question.

“A bag,” continued the other. “It were a shabby sort of bag, and I thought it most likely belonged to Ebenezer Potts, for I’d often seen him carrying a bag like it: you know Ebenezer’s a joiner, and he used to carry his tools with him in just such a bag. So I says to myself, ‘I’ll have a bit of fun with Ebenezer. I’ll carry off his bag, and leave it by-and-by on his own door-step when it’s dark; won’t he just be in a fuss when he comes out of the public and misses it! I shall hear such a story about it next day.’ For you know, Thomas, Eben’s a fussy sort of chap, and he’d be roaring like a town-crier after his bag. It were a foolish thing to do, but I only meant to have a bit of a game. So I carries off the bag, and turns into the Green Dragon on my way home to have a pint of ale.

“There was two or three of our set there, and one says to me, ‘What have you got there, Ned?’—‘It’s Eben Potts’s bag of tools,’ says I; ‘I found it lying on the step of the Railway Inn while he went in to get a pint. I shall leave it at his own door in a bit; but won’t he just make a fine to-do when he misses it!’—‘It’ll be grand,’ said one of them, and they all set up a laugh.—‘Let me look at the bag,’ said poor Joe Wright, who’d been staring at it. I hands it to him. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘’tain’t Eben’s bag after all.’—‘Not his bag!’ cries I, in a fright.—‘Nothing of the sort,’ says he; ‘I knows his bag quite well. Besides, just feel the weight of it; there’s no tools in this bag.’—‘Well, it did strike me,’ says I, ‘as it were very light. What’s to be done now? They’ll be after me for stealing a bag. I wonder what’s in it? Not much, I’m sure; just a few shirts and pocket-handkerchers, or some other gents’ things, I dessay.’

“‘Well,’ says another, ‘there’ll be no harm looking, and it’ll be easily done—it’s only a common padlock. Has any one got a key as’ll unlock it?’ No one of us had; so we says to the landlady’s daughter, Miss Philips, who’d been peeping in, and had got her eyes and ears open, ‘Have you got ever a bunch of keys, miss, as you could lend us?’ She takes a bunch out of her pocket, and comes in to see what we should find. ‘There’s a lump of summat in it, I can feel,’ says I, as I was trying to open the padlock. Well, one key wouldn’t do, but another would, and we opens the bag. ‘Nothing but bits of paper arter all,’ says one.—‘You stop a bit,’ says I, and I turns the bag bottom up. Two things fell out: one were a book, I think, and it must have tumbled under the table, I fancy, for none on us noticed it; we was all crowding to see what the other thing was, which were wrapped up in soft paper, and fell on the table with a hard thump. ‘Just you open it, Miss Philips,’ says Joe Wright; ‘it’s better for your lovely soft hands to do it than our rough ’uns.’—‘Go along with your nonsense, Joe,’ says she; but she takes up the little parcel and opens it; and what do you think there were in it, Thomas?” He paused; but Bradly made no answer. “Ah! You’d never guess. Why, it were a beautiful gold thing full of precious stones, such as ladies wear round their wrists.

“Well, we all stared at it as if we was stuck. ‘What’s to be done now?’ says I; ‘this’ll be getting us into trouble.’—‘Put it back, lock up the bag, and take it back to where you fetched it from.’—‘Nay,’ says I, ‘that won’t pay; they’ll lock me up for a thief.’—‘Well, what do you say yourself? I wish we’d never meddled with it, any of us; it’ll be getting us all into a scrape,’ says another of my mates.—‘Shall we bury it?’ says one.—‘Shall we drop it into a pond?’ says another.—‘Nay, it’s sure to turn up agen us if we do,’ says I. So we sat and talked about it for some time, and had one pint after another, till we was all pretty fresh. Then says I, all of a sudden, ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do, if you’ll help me, and I’ll pay for another pint all round,’ (there was just four of us altogether). ‘The express train from the north’ll be passing under the wooden bridge in the cutting a little after ten; let’s put the bracelet, as Miss Philips calls it, back into the bag, and lock it up safe, and then let’s take the bag, and one of us clamber down among the timbers of the bridge, and drop the bag plump on the top of the train. It don’t stop, don’t that train, till it gets to London; so when they finds the bag at the other end, nobody’ll know wherever it came from, ’cos it’s got no direction to it, and we shall get fairly quit of it.’

“It were a wild sort of scheme, and I should never have thought of such a thing if I hadn’t had more ale than brains in me at the time. But they all cried out as they’d join me, so we had t’other pint; and then we put back the bracelet, and stuffed in a lot of papers with it, and locked up the bag as it was afore.”

“And the book?” asked Bradly, eagerly.

“Oh, we never thought about the book; it’s never crossed my mind from that day to this. I suppose we forgot all about it, we was so taken up with the other thing. I daresay the landlady’s daughter found it under the table; and if she did, she’d be sure to keep it snug and not say anything about it, as it might have told tales.”

“Perhaps so, Ned. And what did you do next?”

“Why, we went our ways home; and Joe Wright took charge of the bag, as his house was nearest the road as leads to the cutting. We all met at poor Joe’s at half-past nine, and walked together to the wooden bridge. It were a rainy night, and the timbers of the bridge was very slippy. It was proposed for Joe to drop the bag, and he were quite willing. I was in a bit of a fright about him all the time, for he’d drunk more than any of us, and his legs and hands wasn’t over steady. Howsomever, we’d no time to lose, so Joe got over the side of the bridge, and down among the timbers, and the train came rushing on, and, as we stooped over the side, we could see as the bag fell plump on to the top of the carriage. We knowed afterwards as that were all right; for if the bag had dropped on one side, or been shook off, the police would have been sure to have found it. And then poor Joe—eh! It were awful; I can’t bear to think of it. The Lord forgive me for having had aught to do with it!—he tried to climb back, poor chap; but the great big beams was wide to grasp, and very slippy with the rain, and he weren’t used to that sort of thing, and so he lost his hold, and down he fell on to the rails, quite stunned; and, afore any on us could get at him, the stopping train were on him, and he were a dead man.”

The sick man, having thus finished his story, sank back exhausted; but, recovering himself after a while, he said, “Well, Thomas, I’ve eased my mind: you know all. If it hadn’t been for me, poor Joe’d never have come to that shocking end. I hope the Lord’ll forgive me. But you may be sure neither me nor my mates meant any harm to poor Joe.”

“That’s quite clear, Ned,” replied Bradly, gravely; “it was indeed a wild and foolish thing to do, but when the liquor’s in the wit’s out. No doubt you’ve much to repent of, but certainly you aren’t answerable as if you’d killed poor Joe. Only, see how one thing leads to another. If you’d only loved the inside of your home as much as you loved the inside of the public, you’d have kept out of the way of temptation, and have escaped a deal of misery. Well, Ned, cast this burden on the Lord. Tell him all about it, as you’ve told me; and ask him to wash away all your sins in his precious blood, and he’ll do it.”

“I will, I will, Thomas,” said the poor sufferer.

When Bradly left Ned Taylor’s house, he walked home very slowly, revolving many thoughts in his mind, and, according to his fashion, giving them expression in a talk, half out loud, to himself, as follows:— “Well, now, we’ve got another step on the road to set poor Jane straight; and yet it looks like a step, and a good long step too, back’ards. It’s all explained now what’s become of the bag and the bracelet, but we’re further off from getting them than ever. I don’t know; p’raps it’s lying at the left-luggage office in London. I’ll send up and see. But I mustn’t say anything about it at present to Jane. But, suppose it shouldn’t be there—what then? Why, we’ve lost all clue to it; we’re quite in the dark. Stop, stop, Thomas Bradly! What are you about? What are you stumbling on in that fashion for, without your two walking-sticks—‘Do the next thing,’ ‘One step at a time’? Ay, that’s it, to be sure. And the next thing’s to send to the left-luggage office in London; and the rest’s to be left with the Lord.”

So that evening Bradly spoke to one of the guards, a fellow-abstainer, and a man with whom he was on intimate terms, telling him as much of the story of the losing of the bag as was necessary, without mentioning his sister’s name, and asked him to make full inquiries in London. His friend accordingly did so without delay, but brought back the sorrowful tidings that nothing answering to the bag described was lying at the left-luggage office, or had been seen or heard of by any of the officials.

Poor Thomas! He could not help feeling a little disheartened. He had hoped, as Ned Taylor proceeded with his confession, that something was coming that would lead to the discovery of the long-lost and earnestly-desired evidence of Jane’s innocence; and now that confession only showed that the bag had been carried hopelessly out of their reach. Had it been hidden away somewhere in Crossbourne, there would have been a good hope of hunting it out; but now that it had been conveyed away to the great metropolis, and had been carried off from the railway terminus, further search and inquiry seemed absolutely useless. Of course, if an honest man had accidentally got hold of it, and found out his mistake, it was possible he might have found some clue to the rightful owner in Hollands’ letter, if he discovered that letter in the bag; but as nearly half a year had now gone by since the loss, there was no reason to suppose that the bag had fallen into the hands of any one willing, or, if willing, able to restore it. If, on the other hand, a dishonest person had got hold of it, of course the bracelet would have been broken up, or hopelessly sold away, and the bag destroyed.

It was now the beginning of June, when one evening Bradly was sitting in his arm-chair at home, with a shadow on his face, as he meditated on these things. Jane, whose quick eye marked every change in her brother’s countenance, was persuaded that there was something more than usually amiss, for the light on Bradly’s habitually cheerful face to be clouded, and gently asked the cause.

“To tell you the truth, dear Jane,” he replied, “I am troubled, spite of myself, about your matter.”

“What, Thomas! Have you heard anything fresh?”

“Yes, I have; but I wasn’t meaning to say anything about it at present to you, as I wouldn’t trouble you to no purpose, and I thought I’d wait for more light.”

“Oh, tell me, Thomas, tell me! What is it?”

“Why, the simple truth is that the bag’s been found; and yet it’s lost, and worse lost than ever.”

“O Thomas!”

“Well, Jane dear, don’t fret; I’ll tell you all about it.” He then proceeded to give her the full particulars of Ned Taylor’s story, and of the endeavour he had made, but without success, to trace the bag in London. Jane listened patiently, and did not speak when her brother had finished, but her lips moved in silent prayer.

“Thomas,” she said, quietly and sadly, “it is a sore trial of faith, but let us still trust in the Lord, and follow your favourite maxim, ‘Do the next thing.’”

“The Lord bless you, dear Jane, for your patience. You’re right; only I don’t clearly see what is the next thing.”

“Will it not be of any use to advertise?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it’s too late now,” he said; “but, while we trust the Lord, we must use all the means he puts within our reach. It is possible, of course, that an advertisement in the London papers may meet the eye of the person who has got the bag, supposing, that is to say, that an honest man took it by mistake and has kept it.” So the following advertisement was inserted for a week in the principal London papers:—

Five Pounds Reward.—A small, shabby-looking carpet-bag, was lost or stolen from the Northern Express on its arrival in London at the Saint Pancras Station, at 3 a.m. December 24th last year. Whoever will bring this bag to the clerk at the Left-Luggage Office, Saint Pancras Station, with the contents as he found them, shall receive the above reward.

Not much to the surprise, though still somewhat to the disappointment, of brother and sister, no application was made for the reward by the middle of June, and Bradly was obliged to confess to his sister that, every effort having now been made, without success, to recover the bag, he could do no more.

To his great surprise and relief, Jane heard him with a cheerful smile. “Thomas,” she said, “remember the good old saying, ‘Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity.’ You told me a while since you were convinced God was about to clear up this trouble for us, and that you could trace his guiding hand. Now, somehow or other, my faith, instead of failing, is daily growing stronger. I’m persuaded, though I can’t tell you why, that we shall have full daylight on this matter, and perhaps before long.”

“The Lord be praised for this,” exclaimed her brother. “O my dear Jane, I’ve been wrong to doubt him. Yes, when old Jacob gave up all for lost, and said, ‘All these things are against me,’ it were just the other way; the road was being made plain and straight for him—he was soon to see once more his long-lost Joseph. And so it will be now. You believe it, and I’ll believe it, and we’ll be looking out in faith and trust.”

Chapter Eighteen.

All Right.

Ernest Maltby was deeply interested in the account which Thomas Bradly gave him of the work going on in the heart of Lydia Philips.

“This is the Lord’s doing,” he said, “and is marvellous in our eyes. I am so glad that she came to you, Thomas; and equally so that you have come to me about her, for I think I know of a situation that may suit her nicely.”

“Indeed, sir; I’m truly glad of that.”

“Yes; I heard yesterday from our old friend Dr Prosser that he is wanting to find just such a young woman as Lydia Philips to fill a place which is now vacant, and the appointment to which is in his hands. I will write to him about her at once, if Lydia is willing to go. Perhaps you would be good enough to call at her house as you go by, and ask her to step up and speak to me.—By the way, Thomas, have you heard anything more about the bag since poor Taylor made his confession to you? I have been so busy lately that I have quite forgotten to ask you.”

“Nothing, sir, but Lydia’s story; and that, as you see, merely confirms poor Ned’s account. We’re fast now: the bag’s been in London half a year now, or thereabouts, if it hasn’t been destroyed long ago; and, if it’s still in existence somewhere or other, we’ve nothing whatever to show us where. I’ve not liked to trouble you any more about it, but I’ve left no stone unturned. I got a friend of mine, the guard of one of the trains, to inquire at the left-luggage office at Saint Pancras; and I put an advertisement for a week together into the London papers, offering five pounds reward to any one as’d bring the bag just as it was when it was lost; but it were all of no use, and I didn’t expect as it would be, as it were taken up to London so long ago. It would have turned up months since if it had got into honest hands, and they had found our address in the bag. But I thought it best to try everything I could think of. And now me and Jane’s satisfied to leave it to the Lord to find it for us in his own way.”

“Yes,” replied the vicar, “that is your truly wise and happy course; and now you can patiently wait.—But stay; it just occurs to me, now I have been mentioning Dr Prosser, that he must have been travelling by the very train on to which the bag was dropped. It was the night of 23rd December last, was it not?”

“Yes, sir, that was the night.”

“And it was dropped on to the express train from the north to London?”

“It was, sir; but what then?”

“Why, don’t you remember what the doctor said as we were walking with him to the station the morning when he left us? Don’t you remember his saying that his luggage was put on the top of the carriage he was in, and that he was angry with the porter for his carelessness in not covering it properly?”

“Yes, sir; I think I remember it now, but other things have put it out of my head.”

“Well, Thomas, it seems to me not at all impossible that the bag was dropped on to this carriage; and you know that the train did not stop till it reached London.”

“Well, sir?”

“Might not the bag have been reckoned by the porter at London as part of the doctor’s luggage, if it was just on the top of it, and have been carried off by him?”

“Possible, sir, but I’m afraid not very likely.”

“No, perhaps not, but, as you admit, possible.”

“True, sir; but if Dr Prosser took it home, and found it had been a mistake, wouldn’t he have sent it back to the luggage office; and if so, the guard would have found it there when he inquired by my wish.”

“I’m not so sure of that, Thomas: the doctor’s head would be full of thoughts about other things, science, and other matters; and when he got home he wouldn’t trouble himself about his luggage if he’d seen it safe on the cab; he would leave it to the servants to see that it was all brought in; and if there was your bag with it as well, he would not have noticed it. And if he came upon it afterwards in the hall, he would probably think it was something that belonged to Mrs Prosser, or to one of the servants. And as for Mrs Prosser herself, she was in those days so full of meetings and schemes of all sorts away from home, that a bag like that might have stood in their hall for days and she would not have noticed it; and so, if it really got there, it might have been carried off by the servants to the lumber-room, and may be there still.”

Thomas Bradly smiled, and shook his head sorrowfully. “It’s possible enough, no doubt, sir, but I’m afraid it’s too good to be true. But is it sufficiently possible for me to do anything? Supposing the doctor took it by mistake, and it went with him to his house, and is stowed away there in some lumber-room or cupboard, from what you say neither he nor his missus will remember anything about it.”

“That’s true, Thomas; and certainly it wouldn’t be worth while your going up to London on such a mere chance or possibility; but it suggests itself to me that, if Lydia Philips would like the situation which the doctor has to offer, and he is willing to take her on my recommendation, it would be a great satisfaction to me if you would, at my expense, go with her and see her safe to London, and introduce her to Dr Prosser, and you could then take the opportunity of asking his servants about the bag. You may be quite sure that if it is in the house they will be quite aware of the fact, and where it is to be found.”

“You’ve just hit the right nail on the head, sir,” replied Bradly thoughtfully. “I’ll go with pleasure; and don’t say a word about the expenses, for I shall feel it to be a privilege to give that little trouble and money if I can only lend a helping hand in settling poor Lydia in a better place than her own home, poor thing.”

Three days after the above conversation Bradly called again at the vicarage, by Mr Maltby’s request.

“All is arranged, Thomas,” said the vicar. “Lydia Philips is to go to the situation; and as it has been vacant for some time, the doctor wants her to go up to London as soon as possible; so she is to start next Tuesday, if you can make it convenient to accompany her on that day.”

“All right, sir; I can ask off a day or two at any time, and I’ll be ready.”

“And, Thomas, I can’t help having a sort of hope, and almost expectation, that you will hear something satisfactory about the bag.”

“Thank you, sir; it’s very kind of you to say so, but I shan’t say anything to Jane about it. I don’t want to raise hopes in her, as I can’t see much like a foundation for ’em; so I shall only tell her about Lydia’s getting the situation, which she’ll be very pleased to hear, and that it’s your wish I should see her safe to London. But if I do find the bag, and all safe in it, you shall hear, sir, afore I get back.”

Tuesday evening, 6 p.m. A telegram for Reverend Ernest Maltby from London. The vicar opened it; it was signed TB, and was as follows:—“All right—I have got it—hurrah!—Tell Jane.”

An hour later found the vicar in Thomas Bradly’s comfortable kitchen, and seated by his sister.

“Jane,” he began, “I have often brought you the best of all good news, the gospel’s glad tidings; perhaps you won’t be sorry to hear a little of this world’s good news from me.”

“What is it?” she asked, turning rather pale.

“Jane, the Lord has been very good—the bag is found; your brother has got it all right.”

Poor Jane! She thought that she had risen out of the reach of all strong emotion on this subject; but it was not so. “Patience had indeed had her perfect work in her,” yet the pressure and strain of her sorrow had never really wholly left her. And now the news brought by the vicar caused a rush of joy that for a few moments was almost intolerable. But her habitual self-control did not even then desert her, and she was enabled in a little while to listen with composure to the explanation of her clergyman, while her tears now flowed freely and calmly, bringing happy relief to her gentle spirit. And then, at her request, Mr Maltby knelt by her side, and uttered a fervent thanksgiving on her behalf to Him who had at length scattered the dark clouds which had long hung over the heart of the meek and patient sufferer. And now, oh what a joy it was to feel that the heavy burden was gone; that she who had borne it would be able to show her late mistress, Lady Morville, that she was innocent of the charge laid against her, and had never swerved from the paths of uprightness in her earthly service. As she thought on these things, and bright smiles shone through her tears, the vicar was deeply touched to hear her, as she quietly bowed her head upon her hands, implore pardon of her heavenly Father for her impatience and want of faith. He waited, however, till she again turned towards him her face full of sweet peace, and then he said,—

“‘Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye do much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
With blessings on your head.’

“Yes, Jane, your trial has indeed been a sharp one; but the Lord knew that you could stand that trial. And now he has brought you out of it as gold purified in the furnace.”

“I don’t know, dear sir,” was her reply; “I can see plenty of the dross in myself, but yet I do hope and trust that the chastening has not been altogether in vain.”

“I will leave you now, Jane,” said the vicar, rising, “and I shall be delighted to hear from your brother’s own lips all about his finding the long-missing bag.”

Chapter Nineteen.

Full Satisfaction.

On the afternoon of the next day after his disclosure of the good news to Jane Bradly, the vicar received a note from herself, asking the favour, if quite convenient, of the company of himself and his sister, Miss Maltby, at a simple tea at Thomas’s house. Gladly complying with this request, the invited guests entered their host’s hospitable kitchen at half-past six o’clock, and found just himself and his family, ready to greet them.

“I’m glad to see you safe back again, Thomas,” said Mr Maltby, as he took his seat by Mrs Bradly, Jane being on his other hand.

“And right glad I am to find myself safe back again,” said the other. “London’s no place for me. I got my head so full of horses and carriages, and ladies and gentlemen, and houses of all sorts and sizes, that I could scarce get a wink of sleep last night; and as for that underground railway, why it’s like as if all the world was running away from all the rest of the world, without waiting to say ‘good-bye.’”

“And so you’ve found the bag at last?” said Miss Maltby.

“If you please, ma’am,” said Thomas, “I thought, with your leave, not meaning to be uncivil, and with the vicar’s leave, we’d just let that matter be till tea’s over, and then go right into it. None of us has looked inside the bag since I came back, not even Jane; she’s been quite content to wait and take my word for it as all’s right. I thought as I’d just tell my story in my own way, and then you’d all of you be able to see how wonderfully all has been ordered.”

“Nothing can be better than that, I’m sure; don’t you think so, Ernest?” said Miss Maltby.

“Yes,” replied her brother; “it is a privilege to be thus invited to ‘rejoice with them that do rejoice,’ as we have wept with you when you wept. So you shall tell us your story, Thomas, at your own time, for that will be the best.—And now let me know how you found Dr Prosser and his wife, and if all was right about poor Lydia Philips.”

Having replied to this question, and given due attention to the entertainment of his guests, Thomas Bradly, when tea was finished, helped his wife to remove the large table to one side, and then, having drawn forward a smaller one into the midst of the assembled company, placed on the very centre of it a bag, which he fetched out of his surgery. Certainly the article itself was not one much calculated to draw attention or excite curiosity; indeed, there was something almost burlesque in its extreme shabbiness, as it stood there the centre of attraction, or at any rate observation, to so many eyes.

“Shall we have your story now, Thomas?” said the vicar, when all were duly seated.

“You shall, sir; and you must bear with me if I try your patience by my way of telling it.

“We’d a very pleasant journey to London, and then took a cab to Dr Prosser’s. The door were opened by a boy in green, with buttons all over him; he looked summat like a young volunteer, and summat like a great big doll. I’d seen the like of him in the windows of two or three of the big clothing shops as we drove along. I couldn’t help thinking what a convenience them buttons must be; for if he didn’t mind you, you could lay hold on him by one of ’em, and if that’d come off there’d be lots more to take to. ‘Young man,’ says I, ‘is your master at home?’ He’d got his chin rather high in the air, and didn’t seem best pleased with the way in which I spoke to him. ‘Who do you mean by my master?’ says he. ‘Dr Prosser,’ says I; ‘I hope he’s your master, for certainly you don’t seem fit to be your own.’ He stares very hard at me, and then he says, ‘All right.’ So I gets out, and sees to Miss Philips and her boxes; and the doctor were very kind, and talked to me about Crossbourne, and so did the missus. She seemed quite a changed woman, so homely-like, and they both looked very happy, and were as kind as could be to poor Lydia, so she took heart at once.

“When I were ready to go, I says to Dr Prosser, ‘Doctor, may I have a word or two with your green boy?’ ‘My what?’ says the doctor, laughing. ‘Your green boy,’ says I; ‘him with the buttons.’ ‘Oh, by all means,’ he says; ‘I hope there’s nothing wrong?’ ‘Nothing at all, sir, thank you,’ I says.—‘Here, William,’ says he, ‘step into the dining-room with this gentleman; he wants to speak to you.’

“‘You don’t know who I am,’ I said to the boy when we was by ourselves. ‘No, nor don’t want to,’ says he.—‘Do you know what this is?’ I asked, holding up half-a-crown. ‘Yes, I know what that is well enough.’—‘Well, you’ve no need to be afraid of me; I’m not a policeman in plain clothes,’ says I. ‘Aren’t you?’ said he; ‘I thought you was.’—‘There, put that half-crown in your pocket,’ I said, ‘and answer me one or two civil questions.’ ‘With all the pleasure in the world,’ says he, as brisk as could be.—Then I asked him if he remembered the doctor’s coming home on Christmas-eve last year. ‘Yes, he remembered that very well.’—‘Did he bring anything with him besides his own luggage?’ He looked rather hard at me.—‘Nobody’s going to get you into trouble,’ says I, rather sharp. ‘Have you lost anything?’ he asks again very cautiously.—I told him ‘yes, I had.’ He wanted to know what it were like, but that wouldn’t do for me. So I asked my other question over again. ‘Yes, the doctor brought a bag with him as didn’t seem to belong to him; at least he hadn’t it with him when he left home.’—‘What sort of a bag?’ says I. ‘It was a small bag, and a very shabby one too.’—‘And what did you do with it?’ ‘I put it in the doctor’s study.’—‘And is it there now?’ ‘I suppose so; nobody never meddles with any of the doctor’s things.’—‘And you haven’t seen it, nor heard anything about it since?’ ‘No, I haven’t.’—‘Thank you, my boy; that’s all I want to know from you.’

“Then I asks the doctor to let me have five minutes alone with him, which he granted me most cheerfully; and I just tells him as much as were necessary to let him know what I wanted, and why I wanted it.—‘A bag,’ he said; ‘ah, I do remember something about it now; but, if I don’t mistake, there was nothing but paper in it. However, it’s pretty sure to be in my closet, and if so it will be just as I put it there, for no one goes to that closet but myself.’ So he unlocks the closet door, and comes back in a minute with a bag in his hand. ‘Is this it?’ he asks.—‘I suppose it is,’ says I, ‘for I never saw it; but we shall soon find out.’ The doctor had a key on his bunch which soon opened the padlock, and then we turned out what was inside. Paper, nothing but paper at first. I were getting in a bit of a fright; but after a bit we comes to summat hard wrapped up; and there, when we unfolded the paper, was the missing bracelet! And then we searched to the bottom, and found an envelope sealed up and directed, ‘Miss Jane Bradly;’ but what’s inside I don’t know, for of course I didn’t open it.

“We was both very glad, at least I was, you may be sure; and the doctor were very kind about it, and shook hands with me, and said he was sorry as we’d been kept out of the things so long: but I told him it were no fault of his, and it were all right, for the Lord’s hand were plainly in it; for if it had gone elsewhere we might never have seen it again. So I carried off the bag as carefully as if it had been made of solid gold, and it hasn’t been out of my sight a moment till I got it safe home.

“The doctor sent his best regards to you, sir, and the same to Miss Maltby, and so did his missus. And as I went out at the door, I just said to the green boy, ‘William, you keep a civil tongue in your head to everybody, my lad, and don’t be too proud of them buttons.’

“And now, dear friends, with your leave, I’ll open the bag again, and see what it’s got to tell us.” Having unlocked the padlock with an ordinary key, Thomas Bradly drew forth a quantity of paper, and then a small packet wrapped up in silver paper which he handed to his sister. Poor Jane’s hands trembled as she unfolded the covering, and she had some difficulty in maintaining her self-command as she drew forth the bracelet, the innocent occasion of so much trial and sorrow. It was evidently a costly article, and, though a little tarnished, looked very beautiful. As Jane held it up for inspection, tears of mingled sadness and thankfulness filled her eyes.

“Oh,” she said, “how little did I think, when I took the fellow to this bracelet into my hand at Lady Morville’s, and held it up to look at it, as I am doing now, that such a flood of sorrow would have come from such a simple act of mine! Ah, but I can see already how wonderfully the Lord has been bringing good to others out of what seemed so long to be full of nothing but evil for me.”

“You recognise the bracelet then, Jane,” asked the vicar, “as the match to the one which was found in your hand?”

“O yes, sir: the image of that bracelet has been burnt into my memory; I could never forget it; it has often haunted me in my dreams.”

While these words were being spoken, Thomas had emptied out the remaining contents of the bag on to the table, and thoroughly examined them. All that he found was the unopened envelope and a quantity of waste paper.

“This belongs to you, dear Jane,” said Bradly, giving her the letter.

She shook her head. “I cannot, Thomas,” she said. “Oh, do you open it, and read it out,” she added imploringly.

“Well, I don’t know,” replied her brother; “I feel just now more like a cry-baby than a grown man. Shall we ask our kind friend the vicar to open it and read it out for us?”

“O yes, yes,” cried Jane, “if he will be so good.”

“With pleasure, dear friends,” said Mr Maltby, and he held out his hand for the dingy-looking letter.—Little did the writer imagine, when he penned that wretched scrawl, what a value it would have in the eyes of so many interested and anxious hearers. It was as follows:—

“Dear Jane Bradly,

“I hardly know how to have the face to be a-writing to you, but I hope you’ll forgive me for all I’ve done, for I’ve behaved shameful to you, and I don’t mean to deny it. But I had better begin at the beginning. It were all of that lady’s-maid. I wish I’d never set eyes on her, that I do.

“Well, you know as we couldn’t either of us a-bear you, because you knew of our evil ways, and you was so bold as to tell us we was doing wrong. I knowed that you was right, and I wasn’t at all easy; but Georgina wouldn’t let me rest till we had got you out of the house. And so she took one of her ladyship’s bracelets and hid it away, and made her pretence to her ladyship as she couldn’t find it; and then we got you to look at it that morning as her ladyship found you with it.

“We was both very glad to get you away, and we had things all our own way for a little while, till her ladyship caught out Georgina in telling her some lies, and running her up a big bill at the mercer’s for things she’d never had. So, when Georgina got herself into trouble, she wanted to lay the blame on me; but I wasn’t going to stand that, so I complained to Sir Lionel, and Miss Georgina had to take herself off. That was about two years after you had left Monksworthy.

“When she were gone I began to get very uneasy. I didn’t feel at all comfortable about the hand I’d had in your going, and I couldn’t get what you had said to me about my bad ways out of my head day nor night. And there was another thing. Just to spite you, I got Georgina to get hold of your Bible a day or two before the bracelet was supposed to be lost. She gave it to me, and I put it in a drawer in my pantry where I kept some corks; it were a drawer I didn’t often go to, and there it were left, and I never seed it till a few weeks since, and then I was looking for something I couldn’t find, and poked your little Bible out from the back of the drawer. ‘What’s this?’ I thought; and I took it up and noticed the red-ink lines under so many of the verses. Oh, I was struck all of a heap when I read some of them. They showed me what a wicked man I had been, for they just told me what I ought to be, and what I could plainly see you was trying to be when you was living at the Hall. And they told me about the love of Jesus Christ, and that seemed to cut me to the heart most of all.

“I didn’t know what to do, I were quite miserable; and the other servants began to chaff me, so I tried to forget all about better things, and put the Bible back in the drawer. But I couldn’t let it rest there, so I kept reading it; but it didn’t give me no peace. So I ventured to kneel me down in my pantry one day and ask God to guide me, and I felt a little happier after that. But I soon saw as it wouldn’t do for me to remain any longer at the Hall, if I meant to mend my ways. I were mixed with so many of the others, I couldn’t see my way out of the bad road at all if I stayed. I know I ought to have gone straight to Sir Lionel, and told him how I had been a-cheating him; but then I should have brought my fellow-servants, and some of the tradesmen too, into the scrape, and I couldn’t see the end of it. So I made up my mind to cut and run. I know it’s wrong, but I haven’t got the courage just to confess all and face it out.

“And now, what I want to do before I leave the country, for I can’t stay in England, is to see and make amends to you, Jane, as far as I can. I have found out from one of your old friends here where you are living, and I mean to let you have this letter on my way. Sir Lionel has let me have a holiday to see my friends, and I haven’t said anything about not coming back again. But he’ll be glad enough that he’s got shut of me when he comes to find out what I’ve been—more’s the pity. I know better, and ought to be ashamed of myself; but, if I gets clear off into another country, I’ll try and make amends to them as I’ve wronged in Monksworthy. You’ll find the bracelet and the Bible along with this letter. Georgina took both bracelets, and left the one as didn’t turn up with me; for, she said, if there was any searching for it they’d never suspect me of taking it, but they might search her things.

“So now I think I have explained all; and when you get the Bible, and the bracelet, and this letter, the only favour I ask is that you will wait a month before you let her ladyship know anything about it, and that will give me time to get well out of the country.

“So you must forgive me for all the wicked things I have done—and do ask the Lord to forgive me too. I hope I shall be able to turn over a new leaf. I shan’t forget you, nor your good advice, nor what I did at you, nor the verses marked under with red-ink. So no more from your humble and penitent fellow-servant,

“JH.”

Such was the letter, which was listened to by all with breathless interest.

“And now what’s ‘the next step’?” said Thomas Bradly.

“I think your next step,” said the vicar, “will be to go yourself to Lady Morville, and lay before her this conclusive evidence of your sister’s innocence.”

“Yes; I suppose that will be right,” said Bradly. “I can explain it better than Jane could—indeed, I can see as Jane thinks so herself; and it would be too much for her, any way, to go about it herself and, besides, it’ll have a better look for me to go.”

Chapter Twenty.

Peace.

“If you please, my lady, Thomas Bradly would be glad to speak with you for a few minutes, if you could oblige him.”

“Thomas Bradly?” asked Lady Morville of the footman who brought the message; “is he one of our own people?”

“No, my lady; but he says you’ll know who he is if I mention that Jane Bradly is his sister.”

“Dear me! Yes, to be sure. Take him into the housekeeper’s room, and tell him I will be with him in a few minutes.”

“Well, Thomas,” said her ladyship, holding out her hand to him as she entered the room, “I’m very glad to see you. I needn’t ask if you are well.”

“Thank your ladyship, I’m very well; and I hope you’re the same, and Sir Lionel too.”

“Thank you. Sir Lionel is not so well just now; he has had a good deal to worry him lately. But how are all your family? We miss you still from church very much, and from the Lord’s table.—And poor Jane?”

“Well, my lady, poor Jane’s been poor Jane indeed for a long time, but she’s rich Jane now.”

“You don’t mean to say, Thomas—!” exclaimed the other in a distressed tone.

“Oh no!” interrupted Bradly; “Jane’s not left yet for the better land, though she’s walking steadily along the road to it. But the Lord has been very gracious to her, in bringing her light in her darkness. She wants for nothing now, except a kind message from your ladyship, which I hope to carry back with me.”

“That you shall, with all my heart, Thomas, though I don’t quite see what your meaning is. But I can tell you this: I have never felt satisfied about poor Jane’s leaving me as she did, and yet I do not see that I could have acted otherwise than I did at the time; but I have wished her back again a thousand times, you may tell her, especially as I fear there were some base means used to get her away.”

“How does your ladyship mean?”

“Why, have you not heard, Thomas, that John Hollands the butler has absconded? He left us on a pretence of visiting some of his relations, with his master’s leave, last December; and we find now that he has been robbing us for years, and cheating the trades-people, and even selling some of Sir Lionel’s choice curiosities, and putting the money into his own pocket. It is this that has worried Sir Lionel till he is quite ill. We have had, too, to make an entire change of all our servants; for we found that all of them had been, more or less, sharing in Hollands’ wickedness and deceit.”

“And was your ladyship’s own maid, Georgina, one of these?”

“O Thomas! She was worse, if possible, even than Hollands. Before he left I detected her in lying, thieving, and intemperance, besides abominable hypocrisy, and was thankful to get her out of the house.”

“Well, my lady, I’m truly sorry for all this; but perhaps it shows that poor Jane’s story may have been true after all.”

“Indeed it does; but still I have never been able to understand Jane’s conduct when I found the bracelet in her hands. If she had only produced the other bracelet, and explained in a simple way how she came by them, or if the other bracelet had been found, that might have made a difference; but it has never been seen or heard of from that day to this.”

“I can now explain all to your ladyship’s full satisfaction,” said Bradly.

“Indeed, Thomas, I shall be only too thankful, for I now know both Georgina and John Hollands to have been utterly untruthful, and I could almost as soon have doubted my own senses as Jane’s truthfulness and honesty. But appearances did certainly seem very much against her.”

“Your ladyship says nothing but the simple truth, but I can explain it all now from John Hollands’ own confession.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, my lady. On the 23rd of last December, Hollands, who was on his way abroad, stopped at our station—Crossbourne station—on the road, and left a bag and a letter for Jane in the hands of a railway porter. In that bag was the missing bracelet, the fellow to the one your ladyship saw in Jane’s hands; and a letter was in the bag too, explaining how John had joined Georgina in a plot to ruin Jane, because she had reproved them for some of their evil doings.”

“Dear me!” cried her ladyship, shocked and surprised; “is it possible? But why did you not acquaint me with this at once?”

“Well, my lady, here is the strangest part of my story. The porter, instead of bringing the bag on to us at once, left it outside a public-house, while he went in to get a drink, and when he came out again the bag was gone; and, though every inquiry and search was made after it, it only turned up a few days ago.”

“But the letter?” asked Lady Morville; “did the porter lose that too?”

“No; he brought it to us in a day or two, for he were afraid to bring it at first, because he’d lost our bag.”

“Still, Thomas, if you or Jane had brought that letter, it would, no doubt, have made all plain, and quite cleared her character.”

“Ah! But, my lady, the letter the porter brought said very little. I have it here. It only says, ‘Dear Jane, I am sorry now for all as I’ve done at you. Pray forgive me. You will find a letter all about it in the bag, and I’ve put your little marked Bible and the other br—t (that means bracelet, of course) with it into the bag. So no more at present from yours—JH.’”

“And why didn’t you bring me this letter, Thomas? I should have been quite satisfied with it.”

“Ah! My lady, it would have looked a lame sort of tale if I’d brought this letter and said as the bag and bracelet had been lost. It would have looked very much like a roundabout make-up sort of story, letter and all.”

“I see what you mean, Thomas; but now you say that the bag and its contents have been found after all. Pray, tell me all about it.”

“Well, it’s a long story, my lady; but, if you’ll have patience with me, I’ll make it as short as I can.”

Bradly then proceeded to give Lady Morville the history of the manner in which the way had been opened up little by little, and the bag found at last. He then drew from his pocket a neatly-folded packet, and handed it to her ladyship, who, having opened it, found the bracelet.

“Yes,” she said, “there can be no doubt about it—this is my missing bracelet; and that heartless creature Georgina has cruelly misled me, and, more cruelly still, ruined for a time the character of her fellow—servant. But, poor, wretched, misguided creature, her triumphing was short indeed.”

Before she could say more, Bradly placed in her hands Hollands’ letter of explanation. She read it through slowly and carefully; and then, laying it down, leaned her head on her hand, while her tears fell fast.

“O Thomas,” she said, after a while, “what a terrible trial your sister’s must have been! How can I ever make her amends for the cruel injustice I have been guilty of to her?”

“Nay, my lady,” cried Thomas, touched by her deep emotion, “you’ve done Jane no wrong; you did as you was bound to do under the circumstances. It’s all right now, and the Lord’s been bringing a wonderful deal of blessing out of this trouble. Jane’s been sharply chastened, but she’s stood the trial well, by God’s grace, and she’s come out of it purified like the fine gold. All she wants now is a kind message by me, assuring her as you are now thoroughly satisfied she was innocent of what was laid to her charge and led to her leaving your service.”

“She shall have it, Thomas, and not only by word of mouth, but in my own handwriting.”

So saying, Lady Morville rang the bell, and having ordered some refreshment for Thomas Bradly, asked him to wait while she went to her own room and wrote Jane a letter. In half an hour she returned, and, having given the letter into Bradly’s charge, said,—

“I have been talking to Sir Lionel, and he is as pleased as I am at the thorough establishment of Jane’s character; and we both wish to show our sense of her value, and our conviction that she deserves our fullest confidence, and some amends too for my mistaken judgment, by offering her the post of matron to a cottage hospital we have been building, if she feels equal to undertaking it. She will have furnished rooms, board, and firing, and thirty pounds a year, and the duties will not require much physical exertion. I shall thus have her near me, and it will be my constant endeavour to show my sense of her worth, and my sorrow for her sufferings, by doing everything in my power to make her comfortable and happy.”

“I’m sure Sir Lionel, and your ladyship more particularly, deserve our most grateful thanks for your goodness,” said Thomas Bradly. “I don’t doubt as Jane’ll be better content to be earning her own living again, though she’s not been eating the bread of idleness, and I’m sure she couldn’t start again in a happier way to herself, so I’ll tell her your most kind offer; and may the Lord reward Sir Lionel and yourself for it.”

No man in the United Kingdom journeyed homeward that day in a happier frame of mind than Thomas Bradly.

Chapter Twenty One.

Finale, at Cricketty Hall.

The letter and offer of Lady Morville poured a flood of sunshine into Jane’s heart, and helped to hasten her restoration to perfect health. Most thankfully did she accept the situation offered her by her former mistress, which restored her to an honourable position, and enabled her to earn her own living in a way suited to her abilities, experience, and strength. She wrote at once her earnest thanks, and her grateful acceptance of the proposed post, and it was arranged that she should leave her home for Monksworthy in the beginning of August. But Thomas Bradly had set his heart on having a special temperance demonstration before her departure; so it was put before Mr Maltby, and a grand temperance tea-party and open-air meeting at Cricketty Hall was announced for the second Saturday in July.

It soon got whispered about that something more than usual was to be expected in the speeches after the tea; and as every one knew that “Tommy Tracks” could get up a capital meeting, there was a good deal of attention drawn to the subject among the operatives and people generally in the town and neighbourhood. Bills of a large size had been duly posted, and small handbills left at every house; and a prayer-meeting had been held on the Wednesday evening previous, to seek a special blessing on the coming gathering, so that its promoters looked hopefully for a fine day, and were not disappointed.

Tea was to begin at 5 p.m., and the meeting as near half-past six as could be accomplished. Crossbourne human nature, like the human nature in most English manufacturing districts, had a great leaning to tea-parties and fÊtes, the latter name being sometimes preferred by the younger men as being more imposing. On the present occasion there was an abundance of interested and willing helpers, so that early in the Saturday afternoon the road to Cricketty Hall was all alive with comers and goers, more or less busy with band and tongue; while carts of many shapes and sizes were conveying the eatables and drinkables up to the old ruin. The tea-tickets had sold well, and there was evidently much expectation in the minds of the public generally.

About half-past three o’clock the Temperance and Band of Hope members came flocking into the market place, Bradly being there to keep order, with Foster and Barnes as his helpers. The last of these had charge of a small basket, which he now and then glanced at with a grin of peculiar satisfaction. Then the band mustered in full force—a genuine temperance band, which never mingled its strains of harmony with streams of alcohol. And oh, what a noble drum it boasted of!—could musical ambition mount higher than to be permitted the privilege of belabouring thundering sounds out of its parchment ends? Such clearly was the view of two of the youngest members of the Band of Hope, who were gazing with fond and awed admiration at the big drum itself and its highly favoured bearer.

Shortly before four o’clock the vicar and his sister made their appearance; and then, in a little while, the procession, with appropriate banners flying, large and small, was on its way, Mr and Miss Maltby marching at the head, and Thomas Bradly bringing up the rear. In front of the procession was the band, which struck up a lively air as all stepped forward, the drum being particularly emphatic at every turning. Just at the outskirts of the town an open carriage joined the long line: there were in it Mrs Maltby and her daughter, who had returned from the seaside a few days before, and Jane Bradly, who was not yet equal to much exertion.

On, on they marched, bright and happy, conscious that their cause was a good one, and that their enjoyment would not be marred by any excesses. The day was charming; there had been just enough rain during the preceding night to lay the dust and freshen up the vegetation, while the ardent rays of the sun were tempered from time to time by transient screens of semi-transparent clouds. As the procession neared Cricketty Hall, a cooling breeze from the west sprang up, just enough to ruffle out the banners, as they were carried proudly aloft, without distressing their bearers. Then the band, which had been silent for a while, put on the full power of lungs and muscle in one prolonged outburst of boisterous harmony; and just at five minutes to five the whole body of the walkers, old and young, was drawn up in due order in front of the ruined gateway.

It was just the right spot for such a summer’s gathering. Far away towards the south sloped the fields, disclosing on either hand many a snug farm-house amidst its ripening crops, and to the extreme east an undulating range of dim, blue, shadowy hills. Facing a spectator, as he stood with his back to the ruined gateway, was the town of Crossbourne, with its rougher features softened down by the two miles of distance; its tall chimneys giving forth lazy curls of smoke, as though pausing to rest after the ceaseless labours of a vigorous working week. The noble railway viaduct, spanning the wide valley, was rendered doubly picturesque by its nearest neighbours of houses being hidden on one side by a projecting hill; while the greater part of the old church was visible, seeming as though its weather-beaten tower were looking down half sternly, half kindly on the eager thousands, who were living, too many of them, wholly for a world whose glory and fashion were quickly passing away. And now, till a bandsman should give a trumpet-signal for tea, all the holiday-makers, both old and young, dispersed themselves among the ruins, and through the wood, and over the rising ground in the rear.

Strange contrast! Those crumbling stones, that time-worn archway, those shattered windows, that rusty portcullis, all surely, though imperceptibly, corroding under the ceaseless waste of “calm decay,” and sadly suggestive of wealth, and power, and beauty all buried in the dust of bygone days; and, on the other hand, the lusty present, full of vigour, energy, and bustling life, to be seen in the gaily-decked visitors swarming amidst the ruins in every direction, and to be heard in the loud shouts and ringing laughter of children, and of men and women too, who had sprung back into their childhood’s reckless buoyancy for a brief hour or two.

And now the shrill blast of the trumpet called the revellers to tea. This was set out in rough but picturesque form, in the centre of what had once been the great hall. New-planed planks, covered with unbleached calico, and supported on trestles, formed the tables; while the tea-making apparatus had been set up in what had originally been the kitchen, near to which there welled up a stream of the purest water.

When as many were seated as could be accommodated at once, the vicar was just about to give out the opening grace, when a young man decorated with an exceedingly yellow waistcoat, and as intensely blue a temperance bow, came hastily up to him, and whispered mysteriously in his ear. The smile with which this communication was received showed that there was nothing amiss. Having asked the assembled company to wait for a minute, Mr Maltby hastened out of the building, and quickly returned, leading in Dr and Mrs Prosser. A shout of surprised and hearty welcome greeted the entrance of the new guests.

“This is not to me,” said the vicar, “an altogether unexpected pleasure; but I would not say anything about the doctor’s coming, as, though I had invited him, he left it very doubtful whether his engagements would allow him to be here, and I had pretty well given him up. But I am sure we are all rejoiced to see him among us on this happy occasion.”—There could be no doubt of that, and the doctor and his wife being accommodated with places, grace was sung, and the tea began in earnest.

If you want thoroughly to appreciate a good tea, be in the habit of drinking nothing stronger, take a moderate walk on a bright, blowy summer’s afternoon, have a scramble with a lot of little children till all your breath is gone for the time being, and then sit down, if you are privileged to have the opportunity, in the open-air, to such a meal as was spread before the temperance holiday-makers of Crossbourne. Dr Prosser and his wife thought they had never enjoyed anything more in their lives, and looking round saw a sparkling happiness on every face, the result in part, at any rate, of partaking of that most gentle, innocent, and refreshing of stimulants—tea.

But even the most importunate tea-cup must rest at last; and so, while the first division, having been fully satisfied, gave way to a second, the band struck up a torrent of music, and in due time sat down themselves with those whom they had helped to cheer with their enlivening strains. And now the last cup of tea had been emptied, and the most persevering of the Band of Hope boys had reluctantly retired, leaving an unfinished plate of muffins master of the field.

The fragments were gathered up, the tables and trestles removed, and the trumpeter, invigorated by his inspiriting meal, poured forth a blast loud and long to recall the stragglers. It was close upon half-past six, and all began now to assemble, pouring in from all quarters into the central open space. A few chairs had been brought, and were appropriated to the ladies and speakers. Two large cake-baskets turned on their ends, with two stout planks across them, served for a table, which was placed in front of a huge fragment of a buttress, beneath which irregular masses of fallen moss-covered stone made very fairly comfortable seats for some of the more special friends and supporters; while the audience generally were seated all up and down within hearing distance, forming a most picturesque congregation, as they sat, or stood, or lay down, as proved most convenient. By the time the vicar was ready to commence the proceedings, the space all round him was rapidly filling with men and women from the town, who had not been at the tea, but were drawn by interest or curiosity to be present at the after-meeting.

All were very silent as the vicar, after the usual preliminary hymn and prayer, rose, and began as follows:—

“I make no apology, dear friends, for being about to occupy a portion of your time by addressing you this evening; but I shall not detain you long. Still, what I have to say is of deep importance to you all, and, therefore, I must ask your earnest and patient attention.

“Without further preface, then, I do earnestly desire to impress upon you all this truth, that there can be no real peace, no solid happiness in this world, unless we are consciously seeking to live to the glory of God. I look around me, and see with alarm, in these days of increased knowledge and intelligence, how entirely many thoughtful people are living without God in the world; I mean, without having any conscious communion or connection with him.

“This is so very dangerous a feature of our times, because there is at the same time a very widely spread respect for religion. Coarse abuse and reviling of religion and religious people are frowned upon now by all persons of education and refinement as vulgar and illiberal. But yet, with this respect for religion and its followers, there seems to be growing up a conviction or impression that people can be good, and happy, and profitable in their day without any religion at all. If you are religious, well and good, no one should meddle with you; and if you are consistent, all should respect you, and it would be exceedingly bad taste to quarrel with you for your opinions. But then, if you are not religious, well and good too, no one should meddle with you, and it would be very uncharitable, and in very bad taste, to quarrel with you about your creed or views. Religion, in fact, is becoming with many a matter of pure indifference—a matter of taste; you may do well with it, and you may do as well, or nearly as well, without it.

“Hence it has come to pass that there are to be found men of science and learning who never trouble themselves about religion at all. They would certainly never care to abuse it; but then they plainly think that science, and the world, and society can get on perfectly well without it.

“And what is worse still, even professedly religious people are being carried down this stream of opinion, without being fully or perhaps at all conscious whither it has been leading them. Thus, even ladies professing godliness are being entangled by the intellectual snares of the day, and are so pursuing the shadows of this world—its honours, its prizes, its mind-worship—as to become by degrees almost wholly separated from God and thoughts of him. And thus, while they do not outwardly neglect the ordinances of religion, they have ceased to meet God in them; they hear in them a pleasing sound rather than a living voice, and find themselves offering to God, when they join in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, rather a mere musical accompaniment than the intelligent melody of a heart that believes and loves.

“Oh, don’t be deceived, dear friends, any of you. You who go to the mills, or are engaged in any other manual labour, don’t think, because you may be spending your evenings and leisure in mechanics’ institutes, or in attending science classes, or in working up scientific subjects, that in these pursuits you can find real peace, without religion and without God; that religion is no matter of necessity, but only a comfortable and creditable superfluity; or that, at any rate, by using outward attendance on religious ordinances, as a sort of make-weight, you can be solidly happy while your hearts are far from God. It cannot be. You are not thus disgracing our common humanity like the drunkards and profligates, but, then, you are not fulfilling the true law of your being; you cannot be doing so while you are travelling all your lives in a circle which keeps you ever on the outside of the influence of the love and of the grace of that God who made you and that Saviour who redeemed you.

“Don’t mistake me, dear friends; I rejoice with all my heart to see progress of every kind amongst you, so long as it is real. Some people say that we ministers of the gospel are foes to education and to intellectual progress. Nay, it is not so. I will tell you what we are foes to, and unflinching foes; we are foes to all that is false and hollow, and we assert that nothing can be sound and true which puts the God who made us out of his place, and thrusts him down from his rightful throne in our hearts. Study science by all means, cultivate your intellects, elevate your tastes, refine your pursuits. But then, remember that you are, after all, not your own in any of these things, for Christ has purchased you for himself. Begin with him, and he will give you peace, and an abiding blessing upon all that you do; but never suppose that you can be really living as you ought to live,—that is, as God made you and meant you to live,—while you are feeding your intellects and starving your souls.

“And now I will only add how happy I am to meet you all here. We are about soon to part with one who is well-known to many of you,—Jane Bradly. It is partly in connection with the Lord’s wonderful dealings with her, as you will hear shortly from her brother Thomas, that we have set on foot this happy gathering. It is one cheering sign of real progress in Crossbourne that our Temperance Society and Band of Hope are so nourishing. You know the rock on which we have founded them; I mean, on love to the Lord Jesus Christ. May these societies long flourish! I trust we shall gain some members to-night; for Thomas, I know, has got the pledge-book with him. And now I have much pleasure in calling on William Foster to address you.”

When Foster rose to speak there was a deep hush, a silence that might be felt.

“If I had come to a gathering like this a year ago,” began the speaker, “it would have been as a mocker or a spy. But how different are things with me to-day! I am now one of yourselves, a total abstainer upon principle, an unfeigned believer in the Bible, and a loyal though very unworthy disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have good cause to remember these old ruins, as you all know; but you do not many of you know how I used to spend Sabbath after Sabbath here in gambling; and yet the good Lord bore with me. And it is not long since that he gave me a wonderful deliverance, not far from the spot where I now stand. But I am not going to refer any more to that, except to say, let by-gones be by-gones. I bear no ill-will to those who have shown themselves my enemies. What I want to do now, for the few minutes that I shall stand here, is just to give you my experience about the Bible.

“When I was professedly an unbeliever, I thought I knew a great deal about the Bible, and I used to lay down the law, and talk very big about this inconsistency and that inconsistency in the Scriptures, and I just read those books which supplied me with weapons of attack. But I was in utter ignorance of what the Bible really was; and had I read it from beginning to end a thousand times over,—which I never did, nor even once,—it would have been all the same, for I should not have read it in a candid spirit—I should not have wanted to know what it had to tell me.

“It’s just perfectly natural. I remember that two of our men went up to London some time ago, and they strolled together into the Kensington Museum. When they came back, we asked them what they had seen there, and what they liked best. One of them had seen a great number of rich and curiously inlaid cabinets, but he could call to mind nothing else, though he had spent hours in the place, and had been all over it upstairs and downstairs. As for the other man, he couldn’t for the life of him remember anything, but he could tell you all about the dinner they had together at a chop-house afterwards,—what meat, what vegetables, what liquor they had, and how much it cost to a penny. You see it was what their mind was set on that really engrossed their attention.

“And so it is in going through the Bible: you’ll not get a word of instruction from it, if you go in at Genesis and come out at Revelation, if you go in with an unteachable mind. God would have us ask him humbly, but not dictate to him. Or you may notice in the Bible just such things as you want to notice, and not see anything else, though it’s as plain as daylight. So it was with me, and so it has been and will be with thousands of sceptics. I just looked into a Bible now and then to find occasion for cavilling and scoffing, and I found what I wanted. But I missed all the love, and the mercy, and the promises, and the holy counsel, and never so much as knew they were there, though my eyes passed over them continually.

“But now the Bible is a new book to me altogether. I can truly say, in its own words, ‘The law of thy mouth is dearer unto me than thousands of gold and silver.’ The more I read, the more I wonder: often and often, when I come to some marvellous passage, I am constrained to stop and bow my head in astonishment and adoration. There’s nothing like studying the book itself—asking God, of course, to give one the guidance of his Holy Spirit. The more I read, the more I find verses that just as exactly fit into my own experience as if they had been penned especially in reference to the history, circumstances, character, and wants of William Foster; and no doubt they were, for that’s a most wonderful thing about the Bible, and shows that it is God’s book,—I mean that it as much suits each individual man’s case as if it had been originally written for that man only.

“I remember there was an American in our country some years ago, who said he would open any lock you could bring him; and so I believe he did, by making ingenious picks that would get into the most complicated locks. But that’s nothing to the Bible; for without any force or difficulty it comes as one universal key that will unlock every heart, and open up its most secret thoughts and feelings, and then throw light and peace into the darkest corners. This is what the Bible has been and is to me; it shows me daily more of myself, and more of Christ and his love, and more of a heaven begun on earth.

“Now I would just advise and urge you all to take up this blessed book in a humble and teachable spirit, and you’ll find it to be to you what God in his mercy has made it to me. And I’ll tell you how to deal with difficulties, and hard places, and so on. Now, mind, I’m only just giving you a leaf out of my own experience. I’m not setting myself up as a teacher. I’m not saying a word to disparage God’s ministers, for they are specially appointed by him to study, and unfold, and expound the Word; and I can only say with sincere thankfulness that I come home with new light on the Bible from every sermon which I hear from our earnest and deeply taught clergyman. But, as regards our own private reading, just let me say, if you come to a hard place, read it again; and if you don’t understand it then, read it again; and if you don’t understand it then, why, read somewhere else in the book, and you’ll find that the more you study the Word throughout, the more one passage will throw light upon another, the more your mind and heart will expand and embrace and understand truths which were wholly hidden or only imperfectly seen before. This, at any rate, is my own happy experience, and my dear wife’s also. May God make it the experience of every one of you.”

He sat down again amidst the profoundest silence, and then all joined heartily in the hymn beginning,—

“Holy Bible, book divine,
Precious treasure, thou art mine.”

The vicar then called upon James Barnes to speak.

“Well, I don’t know,” began Jim, starting up, and plunging headlong into his address; “I don’t feel at all fit to stand up in such a company as this, and yet I’ve got summat to say, and it’s a good deal to the point too, I think. At our last public temperance meeting, the first I’d the pleasure of speaking at, we had a noisy set of fellows trying to put me down, and now we’re all as quiet as lambs.

“Well, William Foster’s just been giving you his experience about the Bible, and I can say amen to all he’s been a-saying; I mean this, that the good book’s been doing for him and me just what he says. It’s been and made a changed man of him, there’s no doubt about that. He’s been a kind friend to me, and he’s been a kind friend to many as has often had nothing but hard words for him. I like to see a man live up to what he professes.

“Perhaps you’ll say, ‘Jim, why don’t you set us an example?’ Well, I’m trying, and I hopes to do better by-and-by. But there’s no mistake about William. He aren’t like a chap I heard talk of the other day. A friend of mine were very much taken up with him.—‘Eh! You should hear him talk,’ he says. ‘You never heard a man talk like him; he’d talk a parrot dumb, he would.’—‘Very likely,’ says I; ‘but does he practise what he preaches?’—‘Why, they reckon not,’ says my friend. Now that sort don’t suit me; and it oughtn’t to suit any of us, I’m sure. We temperance people aren’t like that.

“Ah! It’s a fine thing is this temperance, if you only get hold of it by the Bible end. See what it’s been and done for me and mine. Look at my wife Polly there, sitting on that big stone—(Nay, Polly, ’tain’t no use your shaking your head and winking; I must have it out)—just look at her: you wouldn’t believe as she’s the same woman if you’d only seen her at our old house a year ago. I can scarce believe myself as she’s the same sometimes. I has to make her stand at the other end of the room now and then to get a long view of her, to be sure she’s the same. She’s like a new pin now, bright and clean, with the head fixed on in the right place.

“Ah! You may laugh, friends, but it’s nothing but the plain truth. There’s a deal of difference in pins. You just take up a new one, as shines all over like silver, and it’ll stand hard work, and it’s just as if it were all of a piece—that’s like my wife now. But you get hold of an old yaller crooked pin, with point bent down to scratch you, and when you try to make use of it, the head’s in the wrong place, it’s got slipped down, and the thick end of the pin runs into your finger, and makes you holler out—that’s like what my wife was. But she’s not a bit like that now; she’s like the new pin, bless her; and it’s been Tommy Tracks—I begs his pardon—it’s been Mr Thomas Bradly, and the Bible, and the temperance pledge as has been and gone and done it all.

“And then there’s the children. Why, they used to have scarce a whole suit of clothes between ’em, and that were made of nearly as many odd pieces and patches as there’s days in the year. And as for boots, why, when they’d got to go anywheres, one on ’em, on an errand, and wanted to look a bit respectable, he were forced to put on the only pair of boots as had got any soles to ’em, and that pair belonged to the middlemost, but they fitted the eldest middlin’ well, as they let in plenty of air at the toes. And what’s the case now? Why, on a Saturday night you can see a whole row of boots standing two and two by the cupboard door, and they shines so bright with blacking, the cat’s fit to wear herself out by setting up her back and spitting at her own likeness in ’em. It’s the gospel and temperance as has done this.

“But that ain’t all. I’ve knowed two of our lads fight over a dirty crust as they’d picked out of the gutter, for their mother hadn’t got nothing for them to eat,—how could she, poor thing, when the money had all gone down my throat? It’s very different now. We’ve good bread and butter too on our table every day, with an onion or two, or a red herring to give it a relish, and now and then a rasher of bacon, or a bit of fresh meat; and before so very long I’ve good hopes as we shall have a pig of our own. Eh! Won’t that be jolly for the children? I told ’em I thought of getting one soon. Says our little Tom, ‘Daddy, how do they make the pig into bacon?’ ‘They rub it with salt,’ says I. Next day, at dinner-time, I watched him put by a little salt into a small bag, and next day too, and so on for a week. So at last I says, ‘What’s that for, Tommy?’ ‘Daddy,’ says he, ‘I’m keeping it for the new pig. Eh! Won’t I rub it into him, and make bacon of him, as soon as he comes?’

“But I ax your pardon, friends, for telling you all this.—‘Go on,’ do you say? Well, I’ll go on just for a bit. So you see what a blessing the giving up the drink has been to me and my family. And, what’s better still, it’s left room for the gospel to enter. It couldn’t get in when the strong drink blocked up the road. I’m not going to boast; I should get a tumble, I know, if I did that. It ain’t no goodness of mine, I’m well aware of that. It’s the Lord’s doing, and his blessing on Thomas Bradly’s kindness and care for a poor, wretched, ruined sinner like me. But here’s the fact: we has the Bible out now every night in our house, and I reads some of the blessed book out loud, and then we all kneels us down and has a prayer; and we goes to church on Sundays, and it’s like a little heaven below. Rather different that from what it used to be on the Sabbath-day, when I were singing and drinking with a lot of fellows, and it were all good fellowship one minute, and perhaps a kick into the street or a black eye the next. Ay, and there’s many of the old lot as knows the change, and what the Lord’s done for me, and they’re very mad, some on ’em; but that don’t matter, so long as they don’t make a madman of me.

“But just a word or two for you boys and girls of the Band of Hope afore I sit down.—Now, I’ve brought with me, by Mr Bradly’s leave, something to show you.” So saying, he beckoned to a young man, who handed him a small basket. He opened it, and produced a small jar with a brush in it. A half-suppressed murmur of merriment ran through the crowd. “Ah! You know what this is, I see,” continued James Barnes. “’Tain’t the first time as this has made its appearance in Cricketty Hall. Now, I’m not going to say anything ill-natured about it. As William Foster has said, ‘let by-gones be by-gones.’ It’s very good of him to say so, and I only mean to give you a word or two on the subject. This little jar has got tar in it, and tar’s a very wholesome and useful thing in its proper place. Now, a few months ago them as shall be nameless meant to daub William all over with this, and feather him afterwards, because he wouldn’t break his pledge. A cowardly lot they was to deal so with one man against a dozen of ’em; but that’s neither here nor there. I only want you, boys and girls, to take example by William, and stick to your pledge through thick and thin. See how the Lord protected him, and how his worst enemy were caught in his own trap. He were just winding a cord round his own legs when he thought he’d got William’s feet fast in the snare. Now, boys and girls, when you’re tempted to break the pledge, just think of this jar of tar, and offer up a prayer to be kept firm. ’Twouldn’t be a bad thing—specially if you’re much in the way of temptation—just to get a jar like this of your own, and hang it up in the wash-house, and put some good fresh tar in it, and, just before you go to your work of a morning, take a good long sniff at the tar—it’s a fine healthy smell is tar—and maybe it’ll be a help to you the whole day. There, I’ve done.”

And he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, amid the hearty cheers and laughter of his hearers.

The vicar then introduced Dr Prosser, remarking that he was sure that those who had heard him lecture last April would be delighted to listen to his voice again. The doctor, who was vociferously cheered, stood forward and said:—

“I have the greatest pleasure in being with you, dear friends, to-day. I have heard a great deal of what has been going on from your excellent vicar, and have now listened with the deepest interest to the characteristic speeches which have just been made. I shall be glad now to say a few words, and to add my testimony to the importance of certain truths which need enforcing in our day. Thomas Bradly is to follow me, and I feel sure that his homely eloquence and plain practical good sense will be a fit termination to this most truly interesting meeting.

“What I would now urge upon you all is this,—the unspeakable importance in these days of grasping realities instead of hunting shadows. I have been, I fear, till lately, more or less of a shadow-hunter myself. I used to sympathise with the cry,—

“‘For names and creeds let senseless bigots fight—
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.’

“But I don’t think this now. We men of science are too apt to deal with abstractions, and to follow out favourite theories, till we are in danger of forgetting that we have hearts and souls as well as heads; that, as has been beautifully said, ‘The heart has its arguments as well as the understanding;’ and that, as God’s Word tells us, ‘The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’ I am more and more strongly persuaded of this every day. We are living in times of immense energy and surprising intellectual activity, but, at the same time, are surrounded with unrealities or half-realities. We want something to grasp that will never deceive us, never fly from us. Anything—like mere vague generalities will never satisfy beings constituted as you and I are; and thus it is that we cannot do without something real in our religion, something definite. We want to come into real communion with a personal Being, whom we can consciously, though spiritually, approach, love, and reverence. We want a real person such as ourselves, and yet infinitely above ourselves; and such an one we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour—one who is like us as man, yet infinitely above us as God—one who can smile on us, because he is human, and can watch over us, guide us, and bear with us, because he is divine.

“Be sure of this, dear friends,—and I am speaking to you now as persons of intelligence, who can thoughtfully weigh what I say,—science can never be true science, knowledge can never be real knowledge which sets aside the God who is the fountain of all truth and every kind of truth. If we are to learn anything aright and thoroughly, we must learn it as believers in Him in whom ‘we live, and move, and have our being,’ who has given us all our faculties, and placed us in the midst of that universe all of whose laws are of his own imposing and maintaining. Depend upon it, you cannot acquire any sound and useful knowledge aright, if you try and keep up an independence of that God who is the author and upholder of all things physical and spiritual. At the Cross we must learn the only way of peace for our souls; and, in dependence on the grace and wisdom of Him who is in every sense the Light of the world, we must seek to make real advance in every field of knowledge, content to know and feel our own ignorance, and thankful to gain light in all our investigations from Him who can at the same time baffle the searchings of the wisest, and unfold to the humble yet patient and persevering inquirer treasures of knowledge and wisdom otherwise unattained and unattainable. In a word, as the whole universe belongs to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and was made by him what it is, if we would pursue any branch of knowledge, any science whatever, with the truest and fullest prospect of success, we must do it as Christians, as in dependence on Him ‘in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’

“This, I am well aware, is not the tendency of the age, which is rather to seek knowledge apart from God, and to treat science and religion as distant and cold acquaintances, instead of loving and inseparable friends.—But now I gladly give way to my old friend Thomas Bradly, who has, I know, something to tell us which will do us good, if we will only carry it away with us.”

“Yes,” said Bradly, slowly and thoughtfully, as he took the speaker’s place, by the vicar’s invitation, “it is true, dear friends, that I have something of moment to say to you. This has truly been a happy day to me so far. I rejoice in the presence of so many dear friends; and it is indeed kind of Dr Prosser to be at the trouble to come among us, and give us those words of weighty counsel which we have just heard. I have listened to the other speeches also with very great satisfaction. I think we’re got on the right foundation, and we only wants to stick there.

“Well now, dear friends, I’ve got something to show you here. Look at this little book; it ain’t got much outward show about it, but it’s got the old-fashioned words of God’s truth inside. It was my mother’s Bible afore she were married, and a blessed book it were to her, and to her children too. I think I can see her now, sitting of a summer’s evening, after the day’s work were done, under an old apple tree, on a seat as my father had made for her. She would get us children round her, and be so happy with her little Bible, reading out its beautiful stories to us, and telling us of the love of Jesus. She always read the Bible to us with a smile, unless we’d any of us been doing anything wrong, and then she read to us what the Bible tells us about sin, and she looked grave indeed then.

“Well, when she died, the little book were left to our Jane—her mother wished it so—and Jane prized it more than gold, and used to mark her favourite verses with a line of red-ink under ’em; it were her way, and helped to bring the passages she wished particularly to remember more quickly to her eye. But the Lord was ordering and overruling this marking for his own special purposes. Look at the book again; you can many of you see the red lines.

“Now, it’s some years ago as me and mine was living a long way off from here. Jane were in service at a great house, and the butler and lady’s-maid, who hated the truth and poor Jane, because she loved it and stood up for it, managed to take away her character in the eyes of her mistress; but the Lord has graciously opened her mistress’s eyes at last, and that cloud is passed away for ever. I only mention this just to bring in this little book. The butler, to vex poor Jane, had taken away her Bible from her before he took away her character; but what happened? Why, when she had left the place, he goes to his drawer and takes out the Bible when he were looking for summat else; for he’d quite forgot as he’d hid it there. He sees the red lines, and reads the verses over them, and they make him think, and he’s brought to repentance.

“The little book’s beginning to do great things. He wants to restore the book, and make amends to Jane, does the butler; but he’s been such a rogue, he’s obliged to take himself away into foreign parts somewhere. But I don’t doubt but what he’ll come right in the end; the Word’ll not let him alone till it’s brought him to the foot of the cross. As he’s on his way abroad, he leaves the Bible at the station here to be taken to our house; but it manages to get lost on the way, and turns up at last in the tap-room of a public-house. Now, just mark this. If the Bible had come straight to our house, it would have helped to clear Jane’s character with her mistress, and no more; but there were other work for it to do. The publican’s daughter gets hold of it, and sees the red lines. She sees the verses above ’em, and they pricks her conscience. She don’t like this, and she resolves to get rid of the book. Yes, yes; but the little book has taken good aim at her heart, and shot two or three arrows into it, and she can’t get ’em out; it’s been doing its work, or rather the Lord’s work. So she takes it with her in the dark, and drops it into William Foster’s house, of all places in Crossbourne.

“Just fancy any one leaving a Bible in that house ten months ago. But it came at the very nick of time. William’s wife were in great trouble, and she’d tried a great many sticks to lean upon, but they’d all snapped like glass when she leaned her weight on ’em—she found nothing as’d ease the burden of an aching heart. It were just at the right time, then, as the little Bible fell into her room. She took it up, noticed the red lines, and some precious promises they was scored under, and by degrees she found peace.—Eh, but William must know nothing of this; how he would scoff if he found his wife reading the Bible!—But what’s this? William finds his missus quite a changed woman; she’s twice the wife to him she was, and his home ain’t like the same place. What’s the secret of this change? He don’t like to ask; but he watches, and he finds the worn old Bible hidden in the baby’s cradle. He reads it secretly; he prays over it; the scales fall from his eyes; he becomes a changed man; he comes out boldly and nobly for Christ; he and his wife rejoice together in the Lord.

“But the little homely book hadn’t quite done its work yet. Foster one night asks me to help him in a little trouble which the words of the book had got him into. Strange that, isn’t it? No, ’tain’t strange; ’cos there’s deep things, wonderful things, and terrible things in that blessed book; but then there’s light too to help you past these deep pits, if you’ll only use the Word as God’s lamp. I takes up the Bible to help William to a bright text or two, and I sees my mother’s name in the cover. Here was our long-lost Bible; its work so far were done, and now it’s got back to its rightful owner. But after we’d got it back we’d some time to wait; but waiting-times are blessed times for true Christians. At last the full evidence, of which Jane’s Bible were one little link, came up, and my dear sister’s character were cleared of every spot and stain as had been cast upon it by her fellow-servants.

“Now, what I want you to notice, dear friends, is just this—how wonderfully the Lord has worked in this matter. If my dear sister had not suffered in the first instance from the tongue of the slanderer, that blessed book’d never have done all this good, as far as we can see. The butler wouldn’t have been convinced of sin; the publican’s daughter wouldn’t have been brought to repentance and praise; William and his wife wouldn’t have been made happy and rejoicing believers. And indeed, though I can’t explain all now, neither, as far as we can tell, would Jim Barnes have been what he now is, with his missus like a new pin, nor would poor Ned Taylor have died a humble penitent. All these precious fruits have growed and ripened out of the loss of my dear sister’s Bible. And she herself—well, it’s been a sore trial, but it’s yielded already the peaceable fruit of righteousness. She’s lost nothing in the end but a little dross, and her sorrow has helped to bring joy to many.

“Now, I ask you all to cling to the grand old book; to use it as a sword and a lamp,—a sword against your spiritual enemies, and a lamp to guide you to heaven. We’ve heard a good deal just now of the special dangers of our own times, how people are getting wise above what’s written. Ah! But ‘the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.’ Dr Prosser’s a man of science, and you’ve heard his experience. You see he finds he can’t get on without the old-fashioned gospel. A religion without a regular creed’s no use at all. He’s found out as religion without a real human and divine Saviour’s only moonshine; nay, it’s no shine at all; it’s just darkness, and nothing else. There’s a striking verse in the prophet Jeremiah as just suits these days. It’s this, and I’m reading it out of Jane’s Bible. You’ll find it in Jeremiah, the eighth chapter and the ninth verse: ‘The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?’ Well, but do you cling to the old Bible—there’s nothing like it. There’s many a showy life just now as looks well enough outside; but if you want a life as’ll wear well you must fashion it by God’s Word.

“Now, afore I sits down, I’m just a-going to tell you about Dick Trundle’s house-warming.—Dick were one of them chaps as are always for making a bit of a show, and making it cost as little as possible. He were a hard-working man, and didn’t spend much in drink, so he managed to get a little money together, and he puts up half-a-dozen houses. The end one were bigger than the rest, and had a bow-window to it.—Well, Dick were a bachelor, and had an old housekeeper to do for him. When his new houses were built, and he were just ready to go into his own, he resolves to have a house-warming, and he invites me and three other chaps to tea and supper with him. We’d some of us noticed as he’d been sending a lot of things to the house for days past.—When the right day was come, we goes to the front door, ’cos it looked more civil, and we knocks. Dick himself comes to the door, and says through the keyhole, ‘I must ask you to go round, for the door sticks, and I can’t open it.’ So we goes round.—There were a very handsome clock in the passage, in a grand mahogany case. ‘Seven o’clock!’ says I, looking at it; ‘surely we can’t be so late.’ ‘Oh no,’ says he, ‘the clock stands. I got it dirt cheap, but there’s something amiss with the works. But it’s a capital clock, they tell me, entirely on a new principle.’—We was to have tea in the best parlour. ‘Dear me,’ says one of my mates, ‘what a smell of gas!’ ‘Yes,’ says Dick; ‘ain’t them beautiful gas-fittings? I got ’em second-hand for an old song, but I’m afraid they leak a bit.’—We should have been pretty comfortable at tea, only the window wouldn’t shut properly, and there came in such a draught as set us all sneezing. ‘I’m sorry,’ says Dick, ‘as you’re inconvenienced by that draught; it’s the builder’s fault. Of course I took the lowest estimate for these houses, and the rascal’s been and put me in green wood; but the carpenter shall set it all right to-morrow.’—But the worst of all was, the gas escaped so fast it had to be turned off at the meter. ‘Ah!’ says he, ‘that won’t matter for to-night, for I’ve bought a famous lamp, a new patent. I got it very reasonable, because the man who wanted to part with it were giving up housekeeping and going abroad.’ So we had the lamp in, and a splendid looking thing it were; but I thought I saw a crack in the middle, only I didn’t like to say so. Well, all of a sudden, just in the middle of the supper, the lamp falls right in two among the dishes, and the oil all pours out over my neighbour’s clothes. Such a scene there was! I tried to keep from laughing, but I couldn’t stop, though I almost choked myself.—Dick, you may be sure, weren’t best pleased. It were a bad job altogether; so we bade good-night as soon as it were civil to do so. But I shall never forget Dick Trundle’s house-warming, nor the lesson it taught me.

“What we want, dear friends, is, not what’s new, cheap, and showy, but what’s solid, and substantial, and thoroughly well made. Will it wear well? That’s the question after all. Dick’s fine things was just got up for show; they’d no wear in ’em—they was cheap and worthless. Now there’s a deal of religion going in our day as is like Dick Trundle’s house and purchases; it’s quite new, it makes a great show, it looks very fine, till you come to search a little closer into it. But it ain’t according to the old Bible make: it don’t get beyond the head; it can’t satisfy the heart. What we want is a religion that’s real—just the religion of the gospel, as puts Jesus Christ and his work first and foremost. If you haven’t got that, you’ve got nothing as you can depend on it’ll fail you when you most want it. It may be called very wide, and very intelligent, and very enlightened, but it won’t act in the day of trouble, and when the conscience gets uneasy.

“Well, now, we’ve got a happy company here to-night; we’re many of us total abstainers on principle and most of us, I hope, Bible Christians on principle, after the old fashion; for, if we haven’t Christ and his Word for our foundation, we haven’t got that as’ll stand the test. No, friends, take the word of Tommy Tracks—and you’ve got what’ll confirm what I say all round you in this meeting to-night—the life as is begun, continued, and ended in the fear of God, and with the Bible for its guide, and Jesus for its example, is the life that’s just what you and I were meant to live by the God who made us and redeemed us, and it’s plainly and unmistakably the life that wears best.”