
B M IDM 5b2 



DAY 



GIFT OF 
Harry East Miller 




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A Night and A Day-. 



ALSO 



APPLE-TREE COURT, 



AND 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 



BY 



HESBA STRETTON 



AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

150 NASSAU STREET NEW YORK. 



L I ^ 7 c. :/ 






-•. • 



« • • 



ft? 54^^ 



A Night and A Day, 



CHAPTER I. 

There is no part of England more unsightly or 
more marred and spoiled of its original beauty than 
the Black Country, the great coal-field of South 
Staffordshire, which stretches into the neighboring 
counties. Low beds of smouldering slag lie upon 
the ground where grass and primroses once grew, 
and make the air heavy with the fumes and stench 
of gas. The tall chimneys of the forges belch out 
clouds of thick smoke, mingled with tongues of 
flame, which hang overhead, slowly drifting with 
the wind, but never passing away to leave the blue 
sky clear. The soft round outlines of the land 
have been broken up by huge stiff mounds of slack 
and shale, for which no man can find a use, that 
are thrown up round the shaft of every pit. No 

ivi81820 



4 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

leafy trees can flourish in such a soil or such an at- 
mosphere ;■. but a few pale and stunted willows grow 
down '"by thV ^d;gq of the dark and noisome pools 
l)[i!Aff:ijt J;he.baj-rj2n yaUeys.of these desolate hillocks. 
'•High? ^6\h», nit: un'lrliQ 'ttfe gibbets of olden days, 
stretch across the dreary scene, and the chains they 
support groan and creak dolefully as they wind 
slowly up and down the dark pits. No' chirping 
and twittering of birds are to be heard, nor the 
merry cries of rosy children at play ; but instead 
of these you have the deep throbbing of many forge 
hammers, which beat like the feverish yet sluggish 
pulse of Mammon. 

But upon the outskirts of this despoiled country 
the riches that lie underground run into scattered 
veins of minerals, that pierce under the green mead- 
ows and golden cornfields still smiling undisturbed 
in the sunshine. Here there is less roughness and 
ugliness and more of nature. The pitmen, when 
they come up from their dingy work, can lift their 
eyes to the clear sky above, and to the hills not far 
away clothed with leafy trees. They can cultivate 
their own little gardens, and grow southernwood 
and sweetwilliam to wear in their buttonholes on 
Sundays. In some places there is only one shaft. 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 5 

or two perhaps, sunk a mile away from any others, 
running down into some small, separated fragment 
of the great coalfield. Here the trees grow up to 
the very edge of the worthless rubble flung about 
the pit's mouth ; and the lark sings its song within 
sound of the clanking engine. There is no more 
than a scar or two on the face of the country ; and, 
like a blemish in a face we love, it grows familiar 
and dear, as years go by, to those whose home is 
beside it. 

The miners in these little isolated places are 
very different from the rough and brutal colliers of 
the Black Country. These have few pleasures but 
pigeon-flying, and stealthy dog-fighting, and low 
revels in dirty taverns. The men are little better 
than rough bull-dogs, and the women are still not 
much in advance of savages. But among the coun- 
try colliers are families of quite a different stamp. 
Their grandfathers or great-grandfathers heard 
John Wesley preach words they neither forgot 
themselves nor allowed their children to forget. 
Their grandmothers labored to learn to read amid 
all the cares of a family and the hard struggle for 
life, though they had no other books to read than 
their Bibles and the hymn-book. The families 



6 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

which sprang from them are altogether a different 
race from those of the rough and ignorant savages, 
dwelHng in dense masses, where the mines are 
thickest. 

In one of these separate coalfields, with a single 
old shaft, which had been at work longer than any 
one living could remember, there had dwelt for 
several generations one family of the name of Ha- 
zeldine. The same roof sheltered them that had 
sheltered their forefathers. All the men had work- 
ed in the pit, and some of them had died there. 
The old garden round the cottage budded and blos- 
somed year after year with the same flowers and 
fruit-trees planted by the first Hazeldine ; or so 
nearly the same that if he had come back to it he 
would have felt no shock of surprise or strangeness. 
The square hillock of shale alone had risen to such 
a height as to hide the pit's mouth ; and it was 
thinly overgrown with yellow coltsfoot since he had 
left the little house of his own building. At pres- 
ent the widow of one of his grandsons was inhabit- 
ing it, the mother of two sons who, like their fore- 
fathers, were busy all day long in the hidden gal- 
leries and foot-roads underground, which had form- 
ed a network, crossing and recrossing, and twisting 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 7 

in and out like a labyrinth wherever coal had been 
found. Judith Hazeldine spent long and silent 
days in her quiet cottage while her sons were be- 
low ; for it stood quite alone in the shadow of the 
great mound of rubbish which had gradually sepa- 
rated it from the neighboring dwellings. But when 
Reuben and Simeon came home the evening hours 
were too short for all that had to be said and done. 

The two sons had been named according to a 
custom of the Hazeldines, which ruo one had yet 
been bold enough to break through. It was half 
believed that some long-dead forefather had spoken 
a curse against the first to break it. This was to 
begin with the names of the sons of Israel, and fol- 
low them faithfully in order of their birth ; though 
it had never been known for any mother to reach 
the favorite name of Benjamin. Judith herself had 
not had more than two sons, but there had once 
been a child named Issachar, whose grave was in 
the village churchyard. 

There was another custom and an heirloom in 
the family which gave it a still higher distinction 
in the eyes of their neighbors. Old Judah Hazel- 
dine, who had been dead more than two hundred 
years, had left a favorite black-letter Bible of an- 



8 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

tique binding, and with silver clasps and silver 
corner-pieces, which was for ever to become the 
possession of any one of his descendants who, at 
the age of fifteen, could open its pages at haphazard, 
and read off aloud the chapter that chanced to lie 
beneath his eyes, without making a single blunder. 
To each generation the difficulty had become great- 
er, for the black-letter fell more and more into dis- 
use. The later descendants of Judah Hazeldine, 
who might be able to read easily enough a chapter 
in an ordinary Bible, found themselves puzzled and 
baffled by the odd and crabbed letters they were 
bound to turn into ready speech. Reuben, Judith's 
eldest son, had tried it and failed, with tears of dis- 
appointment smarting under his cast-down eyelids. 
That was seven years ago ; and it would soon be 
Simeon's turn to prove his scholarship, for he would 
be fifteen in a week or two. 

Judith had set her heart upon her younger boy 
gaining the coveted heirloom. He was the head 
scholar in the Sunday-school, and had repeated the 
whole of a long chapter at the Sunday-school anni- 
versary, in the face of all the congregation, without 
missing a single word. Her heart had been swell- 
ing with pride and pleasure as he went triumphant- 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 9 

ly forward from verse to verse, though she would 
take no notice of Reuben nudging her elbow as if 
he were putting in the full stops which were being 
left out by Simeon. Why should not the lad win 
the old black-letter Bible ? He was a better scholar 
than Reuben, though Reuben was a good son, ay, 
the best of sons. She was a very happy woman 
for a widow, she said to herself. Reuben was the 
best of sons, but Simeon was the better scholar ; 
Simeon could not fail to win the Bible. 

There was the more reason why Simeon must 
not fail to win it, as the present owner was on the 
point of emigrating, and no one knew exactly how 
to act in this unforeseen emergency. It had not 
entered the head of old Judah Hazeldine, who had 
certainly never even heard of Australia, to dream 
of any of his descendants wandering so far away 
from the ancient home. He might otherwise have 
made some provision against the difficulty. If the 
Bible went to the other side of the world would it 
ever come back to England ? There had been a 
good deal of talk up and down the country, among 
the Hazeldines, as to what ought to be done ; but 
no one could see the way clearly. Levi Hazeldine 
was not willing to give it up unless the conditions 

2 



lo A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

were fulfilled. He had won it himself more than 
thirty years ago, and had held it ever since for lack 
of any successful competitor. The only concession 
he would make was to delay his voyage for a few 
weeks until Simeon should reach the stipulated 
age, and declare himself ready for the trial. 

"It's not as I set much store by the Bible," 
said Levi sarcastically. "Why, the Bible's just 
like a bone thrown among a pack o' curs. You 
Christians are always a-snarlin' over it, and pullin' 
it about, and snatchin' a morsel off it here and an- 
other morsel there. You can always get up a dog- 
fight over the Bible. It's likely a man of sense 
like me 'ud value it !" 

Levi had been a greater traveller than any 
other of the Hazeldines, and was looked up to as a 
man of more than ordinary knowledge. He could 
read many books which were difficult to be under- 
stood by the greater number of his neighbors. He 
had been a great scholar thirty years ago, when he 
won the black-letter Bible ; and he was believed to 
be a greater scholar now. So it made his simple- 
minded kith and kin very uneasy to hear his esti- 
mate of the Bible. 

" If you set so little store by it," said Judith, 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. ii 

who was a shrewd woman, " why jiot leave the old 
Bible behind you ? We 'd pay the value of the sil- 
ver, and welcome." 

" It 's not a Bible, it 's a heirloom," answered 
the wise Levi ; " there 's a charm with it. Those that 
have got it have good luck. If your lad can win it, 
it's his, and the luck '11 go to him ; but if he can't, 
it'll stay with me, and go with me out o' the country. 
It's a great deal that I '11 stay to give him a chance." 

You may be sure that Simeon was as eager 
as Judith herself that he should win the Bible. 
The lad had been sharp enough to get for him- 
self an alphabet of old English letters, and had 
copied verse after verse diligently in their char- 
acters. But he had no idea of what chapter he 
might have to read. The usage was, to blindfold 
the candidate and lay his hand on the closed vol- 
ume, which he then opened for himself. Some fa 
miliar psalm or well-known passage from the gos- 
pels might lie before him, on some long hard chap- 
ter in Chronicles, or the still more unaccustomed 
words of a minor prophet. He felt as if it would 
almost break his heart to let the old Bible quit the 
country. 



12 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 



CHAPTER II. 

Judith Hazeldine had too deep a sense of the 
importance of the coming trial, not to signaHze it 
by making a solemn feast to all of the house of the 
Hazeldines, who were within reach of an invitation. 
There was a second event to be celebrated, but one 
of secondary consequence, as being common to all 
families and to all conditions of men. Reuben 
was to take advantage of the feast, and the family 
gathering, to marry Abby Upton, the sister of his 
favorite comrade. Abby had helped old Judith on 
baking and washing days ever since she was four- 
teen ; and it seemed hardly a change for her to be 
coming to live under the same roof, as Reuben's 
wife. 

Under the roof literally they were to live, in a 
large spare attic, with strong beams of old oak, 
black with age, forming sharp angles under the 
thatch, and with a lattice window deep set in the 
southern gable, looking out upon the garden, and 
the wood beyond, which climbed up a gentle slope, 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 13 

and traced its green branches clear against the sky. 
Reuben and Abby had both been as busy as the 
swallows under the eaves about this homely little 
nest of theirs. It was Reuben who had papered 
every small clear space in the irregular walls, with 
a paper that had a pattern of sweet peas and roses 
running all over it ; and it was he who had bought 
some pots of rare hothouse flowers for the broad 
low window sill. But it was Abby who had scrub- 
bed the floor white, and removed every speck and 
stain from the old-fashioned furniture. There had 
been a good share of deep though unspoken happi- 
ness in getting ready their future home. 

Reuben and Abby were quite conscious of the 
secondary place they were to take in the coming 
festival, and were quite content with it. Young 
men and girls can get married any day ; but to win 
the Hazeldine Bible was a rare event, and the pres- 
ent circumstances were absolutely without a paral- 
lel. The danger seemed great that the precious 
heirloom would be carried out of the kingdom, and 
carried out of it by an infidel. 

" Reuben," said Abby, with a look of awe on 
her rosy face, "folks do say as Levi Hazeldine 
does n't even believe as our Lord was born on 



14 A ALIGHT AND A DAY. 

Christmas -day. I wonder how he can think! 
There 'd never be any merry Christmases if that 
weren't true." 

" Never mind, Levi," answered Reuben fondly ; 
"he hasn't got either chick or child, or wife nei- 
ther, to make him believe in such things. It's 
mainly folks as haven't any love in them, that 
don't believe there's a good God who loves us 
every one, and who'd be lonesone in his almighty 
power if he'd no creature to be fond of and caring 
after. Why ! is n't Jesus Christ gone to prepare a 
place for us, somewhere in his father's house, just 
like me making the attic fit for you, Abby, here 
in mother's house .•* I 've been thinking of it all 
along, and it seems somehow as if I could see him 
looking all about the grand room he 's getting ready, 
to see if there's anything we'd like, that has been 
forgotten. Levi can't understand, for he's never 
loved anybody enough." 

" Reuben," whispered Abby, with her hands 
clasped about his arm, " I shall always believe like 
you ; you are so good." 

The day before the double festival had come, 
and the sun shone on one of the pleasantest morn- 
ings of the pleasant springtime. Reuben stayed 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 15 

away from his underground toil to put some finish- 
ing touches to the attic, which was to become Ab- 
by's home to-morrow. Abby herself was busy over 
her simple wedding gown ; but that was away, in 
her old home, and she could not hinder him by 
peeping through the half-open door, to see. what he 
was about Judith was deep in her preparations 
for the great dinner, to which she had invited her 
guests ; and Reuben could hear the clatter of earth- 
enware, and the beating up of eggs, and the open- 
ing and shutting of the oven-door, in the large, 
old-fashioned kitchen below. They were pleasant 
sounds ; but sweeter sounds came to his listening 
ear through the open window. There was the 
cuckoo calling from the woods, with a note softened 
and mellowed by the distance ; and the throstles 
were piping, and the blackbirds whistling nearer to 
him, in the hawthorn hedgerow round the garden. 
The low southerly breeze that fluttered the leaves 
of the Bible and hymn-book on the window sill 
brought with it the scent of lilac and gillyflowers, 
growing in the borders. Reuben Hazeldine felt as 
if he had never really known what earthly happi- 
ness was before. 

It was past noonday, and he was still busy 



1 6 A NIGHT AA^n A DAY. 

about his finishing touches, and humming little 
snatches of hymns in his low, deep voice, for he 
was a famous singer in his parish, when he sud- 
denly heard Abby's voice calling him afar off. He 
stopped, with his hand upholding a hammer, that 
was about to knock a nail into the wall, and listened 
eagerly. Yes ; that was Abby's voice, clearer and 
sweeter than the throstle's piping note. He smiled 
to himself, as he wondered how far off she might 
be ; and he neither answered nor went towards 
the open window, that he might hear her calling 
him again. Then there came a nearer and a shrill- 
er call, and his quick ear caught the ring of fear in 
it. He stretched himself half through the little 
casement in the gable, and saw her flying down the 
bank, which hid the pit mouth from him, as if she 
was in an agony of terror. But the moment she 
caught sight of him she stopped herself in her 
headlong flight, and stretched out her arms to him ; 
and he heard her crying mournfully through the 
still and sunny air. 

" Come, come quickly," she called ; " the water's 
broke out, and the pit's flooded." 

For a moment or two Reuben could not stir, 
but stood leaning through the casement, staring in 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 17 

bewilderment at Abby. Was it possible that she 
was making fun to frighten him ? But she had 
quickly turned away, and was climbing up the 
bank ; while his mother ran down the garden path, 
and was following her as swiftly as she could. 
Then he roused himself from his stupor, and hur- 
ried after them. If it was true the pit was flooded, 
how good God had been to him ! 

That was the thought his mind fastened on at 
first. God had saved him from peril, perhaps from 
death. If he had gone to work in the pit this 
morning, he might have been among those that 
were lost, if any were lost. When he reached the 
top of the bank he saw, in the sunny noonday light, 
the pit's mouth, with its black framework of chains 
and thick old timber, as he seemed never to have 
seen it before : so sharp, so distinct it stood out 
against the sky, and imprinted itself on his brain. 
A group of women and old men and children was 
already gathered about it; and the elder ones 
among the boys were peering into the shaft, down 
which the truck was being lowered as quickly as 
the little engine would work. A knot of swarthy 
men, who had just come up from underground, 
stood in the centre of the group, telling their story. 

3 



i8 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

Reuben thrust his way in among them, and stood 
listening in awed silence. 

" It broke out on us in the Long Spinny foot- 
path," one of them was saying, "and we ran for our 
lives. Us six were first; and there's eight or nine 
more to come. But there's old Lijah, and Simeon, 
and Abner, they '11 be cut off by the flood. They 
kept together, and the water's out betwixt them 
and the shaft. There's no chance for ever a one 
of them." 

Reuben heard as if the tidings had nothing to 
do with him. " Old Lijah, and Simeon, and Ab- 
ner !" he repeated over and over again, half aloud ; 
but he was quite unconscious that he was uttering 
their names. He seemed to see them quite plain- 
ly ; his young brother, who had been of late so 
absorbed in preparing for the great contest for the 
Hazeldine Bible ; his chosen friend Abner, who 
was to him what Jonathan had been to David ; and 
the old man, who had been like a father to the 
fatherless boys. He counted them upon his fingers, 
mechanically : " Old Lijah ; Abner ; Simeon." His 
mother shrieked aloud, with a very wild and bitter 
cry ; and Abby threw herself down on the ground 
by the mouth of the shaft, calling, " Abner, brother 



A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 19 

Abner !" A second cluster of pitmen, some cling- 
ing to the chain, without foothold, was ascending 
slowly to the light of day. Reuben's bewildered 
eye ran through the number, but none of these 
three was there. Then he shook himself, and as 
if he awoke suddenly from a dream, he seized the 
full meaning of the accident that had happened. 
The flood had separated them from their comrades, 
and had cut off all hope of escape from a terrible 
and lingering death. 

" How deep is it t'' he asked, in a hoarse harsh 
voice. 

" Not above the soles of our shoon," answered 
one of the men, " it came trickling by like a brook 
in the woods, but we felt scared like. There 's a 
heavy dip, thee knows, before you come to the 
Long Spinny .siding." 

"Not above ^the soles of our shoon!" repeated 
another of the men, " it was up to our knees. See 
thee, Reuben, look how deep I 've been ; and it 
came roaring in after us like a mill-dam. It '11 be a 
fathom high in the shaft to-night." 

A dead silence followed this last speech ; a 
silence which seemed to Reuben to continue for 
hours, so terribly significant it nvas. Yet there 



20 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

were many sounds smiting against his ear, and fill- 
ing his brain. The cry of the cuckoo seemed to 
shout loudly and mockingly at him, and the fitful 
creaking of the chain by which the truck hung 
over the dark mouth of the pit grated and jarred 
upon him. He had never felt like this before. 
Life had been so dear and sweet to him only ten 
minutes ago. Ten minutes since he had been 
singing at his happy work, and it had appeared 
only right and natural that the sun should shine so 
brightly and the birds sing so merrily as they were 
still doing. But now why could not the birds be 
still, and the sun withdraw its shining } A sudden 
darkness and calamity had fallen upon them all, 
and he shivered and trembled like a startled child. 
" I shall be bound to go," he said, looking round 
him with a gloomy and stupefied air. He was the 
first to break the silence ; and at the sound of his 
voice the women burst out into sobs and cries, and 
the men into eager speech. Abby and his mother 
clung to him, beseeching him not to risk his life. 
If Reuben had shrunk from the danger, they would 
have despised him in their hearts ; but now, as 
they read his resolution in his mournful face, and 
the few words he spoke so hoarsely, they could not 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 21 

let him go. Fresh numbers of eager, anxious men 
and women were flocking to the spot, from fields 
and woods and distant cottages, for a rumor of the 
calamity seemed to be carried by the soft southerly 
breeze. Levi Hazeldine was among them ; and 
Reuben saw his face more clearly than any other, 
a shrewd, sharp, sinister face, that had no true com- 
passion in it. Some of the women about them 
were calhng loudly to God to save those who were 
left behind in the flooded pit. Reuben freed him- 
self almost roughly and impatiently from Abby's 
clinging hands. 

" How can God save them if he has nobody to 
send ?" cried Reuben. " There is n't a man hving 
that knows the pit as I know it ; and there 's an- 
other road out of the Long Spinny siding, if they 'd 
anybody to guide them. Do n't you see that I must 
go, if there 's a bare chance of winning through to 
save them .'' How could I live in peace at home, 
and think of them starved to death down below, 
and lying there unburied } Abby, mother, can't 
you see how wicked I should be if I could leave 
them to perish, without doing all I could to save 
them r 

" But suppose I lose you both !" cried Judith, in a 



22 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

shriU, quavering voice ; " suppose thee comes back 
no more ; never ! But, O Simeon, my little lad, 
that was only a baby a little while ago ! And I 'm 
so proud of thee ! Come back, Simeon ; come 
home to thy mother !" 

" I 'm bound to go," said Reuben, stepping on 
to the truck, which hung over the shaft, while one 
of the men ran to the engine-house to lower it. 
for a few seconds he stood there, looking round 
him on the pleasant, sunny day, and on his old 
friends and neighbors gathered about him. Abby 
had fallen on the ground, and was hiding her face 
from the light ; and his mother was on her knees, 
torn between the dread of letting him go and the 
hope that he might save Simeon. Old Lijah's wife 
was crying, and blessing him amid her sobs ; while 
his comrades were crowding eagerly round to shake 
hands with him, and bid him God speed. But it 
was all over in a few moments ; and as the chain 
grated and creaked over the windlass, he glanced 
about him for the last time. 

" Take care of them," he shouted, as he felt 
himself passing out of their sight ; and a faint, 
broken cheer answered him. For a little while he 
could still see a cluster of friendly, anxious faces look- 



A NIGHT AND A DA K 23 

ing after him. " God bless you !" he called to them. 
He could hear them yet when he reached the bot- 
tom of the shaft, though the round opening above 
him was but as a very little ring of light in the 
midst of deep darkness. 

" All right ! I '11 be back in an hour, please 
God !" he shouted again, as he looked up to the 
small, bright spot overhead. Then he plunged into 
one of the yawning caverns that opened before him. 



24 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 



CHAPTER III. 

The pit was more familiar to Reuben Hazel- 
dine than the woods and lanes of the country over 
ground. It was a very ancient one ; how long it 
had been worked nobody could tell, but for genera- 
tions back there had been a small though regular 
output of coal, which had been just worth digging 
for, along the winding and narrow veins of the 
mineral. There had been no more money spent 
upon it than the absolutely necessary outlay ; and 
most of the old disused footways had been allowed 
to sink in, making little dells and dimples in the 
woods overhead, where the earliest primroses and 
violets were blooming, as Reuben threaded his 
darksome way underground. He found himself 
really more at home in these black and winding 
galleries than in the green tangle of the brushwood 
above ground, for while he was still a mere child 
his father had often taken him down the pit, to ac- 
custom him to its darkness and its perils. He 
could recollect strolling about it, holding his fa- 
ther's hand and lighted by his lamp, while he 



A NIGHT AND A DAY, 25 

learned every footway and siding, as if they had 
been the streets and thoroughfares of some town. 
He could remember, too, how his father had told 
him stories of men whose sense of comradeship 
had been so strong in them that they held their 
lives cheap in comparison with the shame of leav- 
ing their fellow-workmen or their kinsfolk in peril. 
One miserable man had been pointed out to him as 
having saved his own life at the sacrifice of an- 
other's ; and Reuben still felt the shuddering hor- 
ror and aversion with which he had regarded him 
when he was himself a boy. As he hurried along 
his rough dark road as swiftly as possible, the tones 
of his father's voice seemed to be sounding plainly 
in his ears, saying over and over again the familiar 
words : " He laid down His life for us ; and we 
ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." 
Once Reuben paused for a single instant, and said 
half aloud, " Yes, father! I'll do it." 

Before many minutes had passed he reached 
that dip in the narrow roadway, which must be 
passed through before he could gain the Long 
Spinny siding. For the last hundred yards or so 
the water had been up to his knees, and at every 
step now he felt himself sinking into it more deep- 



26 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

\y ; but, whether because the flood was rising or the 
path sloping, he could hardly tell. Yet his safety, 
his return to light and life, depended almost utterly 
on this. In no part of his course had the current 
been so strong as to show that the breach through 
which it had broken was very large. He recollected 
only a few days ago listening to the sullen murmur 
and gurgle of imprisoned waters, which had never 
sparkled in the sunlight, beating against the thin 
wall of rock left between them and the spot where 
he was at work. A single blow of his pickaxe 
would have released them. The question was 
whether it had been some small darksome tank, 
that would be soon exhausted ; or some immense 
and hidden reservoir of a hundred subterranean 
springs, which must break down the frail barrier, 
and pour itself in resistless force along the winding 
level of the pit. He could not solve this question ; 
but there was not an instant to lose. The dipping 
footpath must be trodden ; even if he could lead 
his friends back to the shaft by that other and 
longer way of which he had spoken. 

His safety-lamp, which he had fastened securely 
in the front of his cap, cast a pale glimmer of light 
upon the slowly whirling water into which he 



A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 



27 



plunged ; and the tremulous gleam which qui veered 
before him, and upon the low roof above him, ap- 
peared almost more terrible than utter darkness 
would have been. As he moved on through the 
deepening stream, he could hear louder and louder 
the gloomy sound of a torrent surging through 
a narrow outlet, as if the sluices of some great 
water-course had been opened. It was an inexpres- 
sibly mournful and threatening sound. His heart 
failed him ; and he stood still for a few seconds 
thinking. 

The flood was swirling around him, and the pale 
sinister light of his lamp fell upon the eddying waters 
before him. The roof was low, and not far from 
where he stood the reflection of his light seemed to 
show that the flood already touched it, cutting off 
his access to his friends. The chance of saving 
them was so small, would it not be wiser, was it not 
his duty, to retrace his steps while there was yet 
time } There were Abby and his mother to think 
of. Behind him lay the daylight and his pleasant 
home, and Abby so unutterably precious to him ; 
while before him was deadly risk, and a mere 
chance of making his way to his comrades. Even if 
he should succeed in joining them, it might be only 



28 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

to share their fate and die slowly of hunger, should 
the flood cut them off from the shaft, and yet not 
reach their higher place of miserable and fatal ref- 
uge. Surely it was his duty to go back while going 
back was possible. 

He did not linger more than a few seconds. 
" He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay 
down our lives for the brethren," came to him again, 
as if spoken by One who had a right to demand the 
sacrifice. With a deep drawn breath he marched 
forward into the gloomy black stream. A swift 
current of air, sweeping along the surface of the 
water, blew his hair into his eyes, and made the 
flame of his lamp quiver. If that went out he 
would be left in utter darkness. He felt a little 
bewildered too ; the long galleries and sidings, per- 
fectly familiar to him, seemed strange now that they 
were flooded and there was only a low archway of 
a foot or so visible above the water. He could 
scarcely tell whereabouts he was. The path was 
still tending downward, and the flood rising higher 
about him. Now it was breast high. A few steps 
farther on, and he could only keep his mouth above 
it by stretching himself as upright as possible. If 
his feet did not touch rising ground in half a dozen 



A NIGHT AND A DA K 29 

paces, his lamp must be put out, even if he strug- 
gled through himself in safety. To go back now 
was difficult as to go forward. But there was no 
longer any question in his mind as to going back. 
He knew that the end was near at hand, and a few 
seconds only would decide it. 

They were a few seconds of intense anxiety; 
but his feet soon felt the ground rising beneath 
them, and he knew that the victory was his own. 
A rapture of joy, such as he had never felt before, 
rushed through him. In another five minutes he 
would reach the siding, where his lost comrades 
were waiting in despair for their inevitable fate. 
He fancied he could see their faces, lit up by the 
light of their safety-lamps, turning towards him as 
he drew near to save them from death. They were 
all very dear to him ; but they had never seemed 
so dear to him as at this moment. The peril he 
had come through was so great, and he had so fully 
conquered the temptation to leave them in their 
woe, that his own love for them had deepened a 
hundred fold. In another minute or two he would 
hear their voices, and feel their hands clasping his ; 
and he would lead them by a safe way to the day- 
light, and the safety, and the life above. 



30 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

He was hurrying on breathlessly, for there was 
even now no time to lose. But presently he hesi- 
tated, and looked around him with a gesture of be- 
wilderment and an air of anxious inspection. The 
water was still knee deep, and the rough walls of 
rock and the low roof which hemmed him in would 
have appeared to any other eyes exactly the same 
as all the other galleries and passages of the old 
mine. But the difference was plain to him ; he 
had, in his hurry and perplexity, missed his way. 
This was not the Long Spinny siding, where his 
young brother and his comrades had been at work, 
and from which a safe though circuitous route led 
to the foot of the shaft where his mother and Abby 
were waiting and praying for them. It was a blind 
cutting, long ago deserted, far away from the shaft, 
and with the flood already filling up and surging 
through the roadway by which alone he could have 
returned. He was lost, and he had saved no one ! 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 31 



CHAPTER IV. 

No one stirred from the mouth of the pit. 
Reuben had promised to be back in an hour's time ; 
and though many more spectators gathered to the 
spot, not a soul could leave it. The men and boys 
still clustered about the very edge, looking down 
anxiously into the darkness below, and ready to 
catch the faintest sound. Judith Hazeldine and 
old Lijah's wife sat together, sobbing and praying; 
while Abby crouched on the ground near them, 
hiding her face from the sight of all, and from the 
mocking, garish light of the sun. " God take care 
of my Reuben," were the only words she could 
think of. She had never been down into the pit, 
and the darkness there seemed terrible to her. 
There was very little talking going on around her ; 
and those who spoke at all whispered. But she 
would not have heard them if they had talked 
loudly. She did not hear the merry sounds of a 
spring evening which filled the air, the carolling of 
the birds calling to one another from the topmost 



32 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

branches of the trees, and the bleating of the young 
lambs in the meadows, and the lowing of the cows 
as they trod slowly along the lanes towards their 
stalls. The heavy minutes dragged by, and Abby 
saw only a great darkness, and heard nothing save 
the cry of her own heart. 

But she was among the first that caught the 
sound of a shout, faint and smothered as it was 
that came up from the gloomy depths below. It 
was a little over an hour since Reuben had disap- 
peared from their sight. Yes ! Surely that was 
the shout of men saved from a terrible doom ! In 
an instant the spell that had kept the crowd silent 
was broken. The women cried and laughed in the 
same breath. The men shouted hurrah, and shook 
hands joyfully with those nearest to them. Abby 
sprang to her feet, a smile dawning through the 
look of terror and despair that still lingered on her 
face. Every eye watched the chain that slowly 
dragged up its load of rescued men. How slowly 
the old engine did its work ! and how noisily the 
chain creaked and grated ! But here they were in 
sight ; here they were in the blessed sunlight once 
more ! 

The truck stopped on a level with the shaft's 



A NIGHT AND A DA V. 33 

mouth. But now it was evident that there were 
only three persons in it ; the three that had been 
at work when the flood broke out. Where then 
was Reuben Hazeldine, the one who had taken his 
life in his hand, and gone down to save these .'* 
Silence fell again upon the crowd, which lasted 
only for an instant, yet which seemed long and 
terrible, until old Judith cried out, 

" But where 's my lad, Reuben }" she asked. 

" Reuben !" they all cried, in one breath. 

"Ay!" answered old Lijah's wife, grasping her 
husband's arm with both hands, " Reuben went 
down to seek you. Hast seen naught of him .?" 

" Nay !" he said, " we fled for our lives, and did 
not tarry. We 'scaped with the skin of our teeth 
only. There was a road none knew of save me, 
and I guided the other twain along it. Wherefore 
did Reuben come ?" 

" He thought as nobody knew of that road save 
him," sobbed his wife, "and he's down in the pit 
seeking to save you." 

Once more the silence of awe and terror fell 
upon them all. Three were saved, but one was 
lost ; and he who had been chief and foremost in 
all their hearts for the last hour, excepting in the 

5 



34 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

heart of the old woman who was clasping her hus- 
band's arm as if she could never let it go. 

" Who will go down after my lad Reuben ?" 
cried Judith, mournfully. 

" There's not a soul can live in the pit," answered 
old Lijah ; " it's too late now. The flood's rising, 
rising. Look here. It was halfway up to my 
knee at the foot of the shaft. If he 's not here in 
half an hour there 's no chance for him." 

" He must get out," exclaimed Simeon, so young 
yet that he could not believe in any harm coming 
to his brother Reuben. "God is bound to save 
him." 

"Hush, lad, hush!" said old Lijah. "God's 
not bound to bring him back; but let's pray to 
Him for Reuben." 

"Wouldn't it ha' been wiser-like of God Al- 
mighty if he'd kept Reuben from going on a fool's 
errand .'*" asked Levi Hazeldine with a sneer. He 
had been very silent while the crowd was waiting 
for the return of Reuben from his brave adventure ; 
but this was too good an occasion to be missed for 
impressing upon the simple folk their folly in be- 
lieving in God and trusting him. 

"Levi," answered old Lijah, "there's nobody 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 35 

here but thee that 'ud call it a fool's errand. There 
isn't a soul about that wont love Reuben Hazel- 
dine, ay, a hundred times more than if he'd saved 
himself and stayed skulking round the pit's mouth 
while there was a chance of saving his friends. I 
believe he's followed his Lord, and won a crown of 
honor by what he 's done, whether he comes out of 
the pit alive or no. It is n't every man has such a 
chance of showing how he's learned to be like the 
Lord Jesus Christ. God Almighty was too wise to 
look to thee to do such a deed as this." 

There was a faint, quickly dying laugh as Levi 
Hazeldine walked away with his head carried high, 
and with a contemptuous smile upon his face. He 
felt that the sympathy of the people was not with 
him, and that it would be useless to argue his point 
with them just then. He turned round for a last 
disdainful glance at the crowd before losing sight 
of the spot ; and clearly outlined against the eve- 
ning sky he could see them clustered about old 
Lijah, some kneeling and others standing, but all 
bareheaded ; while the old man, with face uptunred 
and uplifted hands, was evidently speaking in ear- 
nest prayer. 

" Poor fools !" sneered Levi ; " as if there was 



36 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

anybody as could hear them, or anybody as 
cared !" 

He fancied he was sorry for Reuben ; but it 
was of no use to be sorry, he said to himself. What 
could he do ? What difference would it make to 
him ? The sun would shine as brightly, and his 
food would be as savory, and his clothing would be 
as good, whether Reuben was alive or dead. It 
would not alter in the smallest degree his own ac- 
tual life. Why should he fret himself about fanci- 
ful things } about such a thing, for instance, as a 
man by his own folly and rashness throwing away 
his existence, and sacrificing all the sober reality of 
life for a mere fanatical idea of duty. If Reuben 
had only been persuaded of what he himself knew, 
that there was no God, no immortality, no life bet- 
ter than or beyond the present, then he would have 
valued his own precious existence too highly to 
treat it as a thing to be held cheap. Poor Reuben ! 

It was a dreary night in the little hamlet. The 
crowd about the pit's mouth did not separate until 
the long twilight had faded into night, and the 
birds had long ago ceased to sing from the topmost 
branches of the trees. They had lingered and lis- 
tened but no voice, however faint, had called up 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 37 

from the black depths of the pit. The long, sad 
minutes brought no new hope. Again and again 
the shaft had been sounded, and the water was 
steadily rising, slowly, but surely. Before the moon 
was to be seen in the clear cold gray of the eastern 
sky, they all knew for certain that Reuben Hazel- 
dine had met with death in the dark galleries be- 
low the green meadows and the wooded coppices 
upon which the pale and mournful light was lying. 
There was nothing more to be done but to go home 
and to mourn over the brave, unselfish. Christlike 
friend who had so lately lived among them, but 
whom they had not loved as they loved him now. 

Even Abby felt that she had not loved him as 
he deserved to be loved. She had been carried in 
a deathlike swoon to Judith Hazeldine's house, and 
laid upon the bed in the pleasant attic under the 
thatched roof which Reuben had been so fondly 
preparing for her. When she came to herself her 
eyes opened upon the almost finished work, which 
was still waiting, and must wait for ever now, for 
the last touches of his hand. There were the beau- 
tiful flowers he had bought for her on the window- 
sill, and the picture he was just about to hang upon 
the wall. Under the window was the garden where 



38 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

he worked in the long summer evenings after his 
sunless toil in the pit. His Bible and hymn-book, 
which they had read in and sung from together, 
were almost within her reach, and she stretched 
out her hand for them. All the night through she 
clasped them to her breast, or kept them under her 
cheek, while she was lying, tearless and speechless, 
on the bed, thinking of him down below, not dead 
yet perhaps, but hopelessly imprisoned and buried 
in a living grave. Why had she not known him 
better and loved him more while he was with her 1 
She had been sharp with him and trifled with him, 
and made his heart ache with her foolish contrary 
ways. Perhaps God had thought him too good for 
her, and so had taken him away to a place where 
he would be happier than with her. Yet all the 
while she seemed to see him pacing the dark pas- 
sages underground in search of his lost comrades, 
for whom he had laid down his life. 

Simeon had cried himself to sleep and was still 
sobbing in his troubled dreams ; but old Judith had 
not even lain down on her bed to rest her weary 
limbs. Her heart was too heavy for sleep. She 
had been so much bound up in Simeon, her young- 
est born, that she had somewhat neglected Reuben, 



A NIGHT AND A DA K 39 

At this very time her mind had been so fully en- 
gaged with the contest for the Hazeldine Bible, 
that she had been too ready to chide and thwart 
her elder son, and to fume at the changes he was 
making in the house for his young wife. She had 
even opposed peevish objections to his marriage, 
though Abby was a girl quite to her own liking. 
Life had not been as smooth and happy to Reuben 
as it might have been of late. Ever since he had 
lost his chance of winning the Hazeldine Bible he 
had been looked down upon as a poor scholar, 
chiefly fit for the harder and rougher work of the 
world ; while Simeon had been put forward and 
brought to the front on every occasion. But what 
a good son her firstborn had been to her ! She 
could not remember a harsh word or an unkind 
look from him, though he could not read the Bible 
aloud Hke a parson, as Simeon did. All his quiet, 
thoughtful, patient ways came back to her mind ; 
his hard work and his constant self-forgetfulness ; 
his tender care of her and his silence when she was 
blaming him. He was too good for them all, and 
God had taken him. Her thoughts brought her to 
the same point that Abby had reached. 



40 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 



CHAPTER V. 

The sun rose early, as brightly and cheerily as 
though there never had been death or sorrow on 
the face of the earth, which grew light and joyous 
under its beams. The first rays smote on Abby's 
face through the uncurtained window, and the call 
of the cuckoo seemed to shout loudly in her ear. 
But she neither saw nor heard ; she was at rest for 
a little while, gaining strength to bear fresh burdens 
of sorrow. 

It was a perfect day for a holiday — such a holi- 
day as it was to have been, when old Judith threw 
open the cottage-door and looked out on the green 
bank which hid the shaft of the pit from her sight ; 
then stretched across the narrow track, trodden 
through the broad leaves of the coltsfoot, which 
had been made by her sons' footsteps as they has- 
tened to and from their darksome labor. She 
could almost hear Reuben's voice singing, and see 
him striding along the little path. Through the 
long sombre hours of the night her trouble had 



A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 41 

been too deep for tears ; but now that she saw the 
sun shining in a cloudless sky and the dew glisten- 
ing on every leaf, and felt the soft sweet rush of 
the fresh air wafting past her with the scent of 
flowers borne upon it, a flood of tears welled up to 
her sunken eyes. " Oh, my lad ! my lad !" she 
cried out aloud, as if some ear was listening to her 
in the morning stillness. Her heart w^as aching 
very bitterly; yet after a few minutes she went 
indoors again calmly, and crept cautiously and 
silently up the steep stairs to the attic where Abby 
was lying. She had often stolen up so to wake 
Reuben and call him to his work. The girl had 
fallen asleep at last and lay locked in a profound 
slumber, with her cheek resting on Reuben's hymn- 
book. "Young folks can sleep while old folks 
break their hearts," thought Judith. Simeon too 
had forgotten his sorrow during the night, and, like 
Abby, had been wrapped up and softly lifted away 
from his misery. But the old mother had not been 
released for one instant from the stern grip of 
grief. 

Early in the morning the neighbors came 
dropping in to offer what help and comfort they 
could give ; for the business of living goes on, 

6 



42 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

though the joy of life may have passed away. Some 
of them had been eager to stay all night with 
Judith, but she had chosen rather to be left to pass 
through the first hours of her anguish quite alone. 
The large, old-fashioned house-place, with its wide 
hearth and high mantel shelf over it, looked very 
dreary in the sunlight. The preparations for the 
expected festivity, so suddenly interrupted, were 
still strewn about though the large fire had gone 
out and the oven was cold ; but all Judith's plenti- 
ful provisions were there, and it needed only to 
kindle the fire and burn fresh fagots of wood in the 
big oven for the feast still to be ready at the appoint- 
ed time. Judith aroused herself. Some of the 
invited guests, who were coming from a distance 
and would have several miles to walk, must be 
already on their way no doubt, ignorant of the 
calamity that had befallen the household. Her old, 
lifelong habits of thrift, and her strong sense of 
the duty of hospitality to her kith and kin, conquer- 
ed her new grief. The Hazeldines flocking from 
different quarters would come in weary and hungry, 
and their wants must be provided for. There were 
friendly neighbors only too glad to help, and by-and- 
by the same pleasant sounds of cooking were to be 



A NIGHT AND A DA Y. /^2> 

heard in the house as those which had reached 
Reuben's ears at his happy work the day before. 

To Simeon and Abby, two young creatures still 
strange to sorrow, it seemed monstrous to think of 
feasting or preparing a feast now Reuben was lost, 
terribly lost, in the sunless windings of the pit. 
Simeon crawled languidly away, with the slow and 
weary step of a heavy heart, to the mouth of the 
shaft, where the pitmen were gathered to hear how 
the water was going on, whether rising or falling. 
The pump had been at work all night, and the 
flood was not gaining ground. At the same time 
there was no perceptible lowering of the water in 
the shaft. 

The most experienced among the miners did 
not expect the pit to be fit for working under a 
week, and they shook their heads when Simeon 
stammered out his question, "Is there any hope of 
finding him alive i*" The water had risen too high 
in the shaft to leave any cutting unflooded. The 
lad threw himself on the ground and stretched his 
head over the edge of the deep, dark pit, where, 
many fathoms below his wistful eyes, there might 
be seen a faint glimmer in the blackness, of the 
fitful quivering of light upon the waters beneath 



44 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

which his brother lay somewhere in his vast grave. 
He had perished in seeking to save him. 

It was almost noonday before he could make up 
his mind to go back home. When he reached its 
threshold at last, he found the large old house-place 
more closely filled with guests than he had ever 
seen it before. All the Hazeldines dwelling within 
ten miles had gathered together, dressed in their 
best and gayest Sunday clothing, many of them 
with Bibles carefully wrapped up in clean handker- 
chiefs, as though they had come to a religious 
solemnity; for were they not there to hear him 
read his trial chapter.^ His mother also had care- 
fully attired herself in her best black gown and 
whitest widow's cap, and sat in the chimney corner, 
sad though tearless, ready to bid each new-comer 
welcome, and to listen to their rough but well-meant 
words of consolation. Except to her, not a word 
was spoken above a whisper. The men were all 
lingering outside the house, in the trim garden, 
while the women talked together in low undertones. 
There was no mirth, no good-humored jesting, no 
hearty, loud-spoken greeting as old friends met one 
another, such as there would have been if it had been 
Reuben's wedding-day. Most of the women were 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 45 

weeping as they whispered together about Reuben 
and Abby, and not a few of the men furtively rub- 
bed their eyes with the back of their horny hands. 
All was hushed and solemn, as if the guests had 
been summoned to a funeral. Abby was not there ; 
only one woman after another mounted silently the 
steep staircase, and came down again with redder 
eyes and a still more sorrowful face than when she 
went up to see the broken-hearted girl. 

Almost the last guest to appear was Levi 
Hazeldine. He was seen coming over the pit-bank, 
carrying under his arm the treasured black-letter 
Bible, which Simeon must win to-day, or the Hazel - 
dines must see it borne away for ever from the 
land of its first famous owner. It was a point of 
honor to win that Bible. Every Hazeldine in the 
house looked to Simeon, who had shrunk away into 
the darkest corner to hide his tear-stained face and 
swollen eyes. In the midst of their grief for 
Reuben there was a thrill of excitement and dread 
at the mere thought of the boy failing. Judith 
herself forgot for the moment her firstborn, as the 
large, heavy old volume, with its thick binding and 
silver clasps, was laid aside on a small table, to be 
opened by Simeon blindfolded after the meal was 



46 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

over. Every one felt that it would be well to have 
their feast, a funeral feast though it seemed, well 
over before the die was cast. Sorrowful men are 
hungry, however real their sorrow, especially when 
they have taken a walk of ten miles since breakfast ; 
and Judith's hospitable notions about a feast were 
well known among all her kinsfolk. There was a 
general feeling of relief when the signal was given 
to sit down to dinner. 

Judith did not sit down to the table, but Simeon 
was placed at the head of it, between old 'Lijah 
and Levi. It seemed to him as if that meal would 
never come to an end. He could not swallow a 
morsel, though all about him were urging him to 
try to taste one dainty after another. Levi Ha- 
zeldine distinguished himself above the others by 
the way in which he plied his knife and fork and 
consumed the delicacies set before him. He was 
too enhghtened and philosophical to feel very keen- 
ly any trouble that did not touch himself, and he 
felt persuaded of the folly of losing his appetite 
because all around were more or less sorrowful. 
His mind was quite at ease also about the Bible ; the 
weeping lad beside hirn would never pass through 
the trial, and he would carry the old heirloom away 



A NIGHT AND A DAY 47 

with him. He would rather have had one of more 
value than a wornout, superstitious old book of 
fables ; but, such as it was, he still felt a pride in 
possessing it. A black-letter Bible, with silver 
clasps, would be quite a curiosity wherever he might 
go ; moreover, he might sell it some day for a tidy 
little sum, when he was clear away from the Hazel- 
dines and their troublesome claims upon it. 

Old 'Lijah ate and drank but little during the 
meal, and when it was over he rose up in his place 
and laid a trembling hand upon the table before 
him, as if he was about to make a speech. There 
was a dead silence in the house, for he had been 
like a father to the two fatherless boys ; and Judith 
sat down in her rocking-chair, and covered her face 
with her hands as she listened. 

"Friends," he said, "it's a sore heart I have, 
standin' here and thinkin' of him as died for us yes- 
terday. He was like my own son to me ; he was 
for sure. But I was comforted by a vision I had of 
him in the night, in the dreams of my head upon 
my bed ; and lo ! I beheld him wanderin' and wan- 
derin' about down there in the pit, seekin' for us in 
the darkness ; and there was One beside him as he 
could n't see, with a face so shinin' it dazzled me to 



48 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

look upon him, only I knew that it was none other 
than the Lord Christ himself ; and when I looked 
back to Reuben's face I beheld it growin' brighter 
and brighter, though he could n't see who was walk- 
ing step by step beside him, until my eyes were 
dazzled to look upon him also. And I awoke just 
in the spring of the mornin', and a voice was sayin' 
softly in the chamber, as if angels were talkin' 
about it one with another, * Greater love hath no 
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends.' That's what Reuben did ; he laid down 
his life for us." 

" I call it throwing away his life like a fool," 
muttered Levi. 

"Ay, if hfe's naught but eatin' and drinkin' and 
toilin' and moilin'," said old 'Lijah ; ''but it seems 
to me as if life was love and friendship, and trustin' 
in God, and strivin' to be like the dear Lord him- 
self. I 'm a world happier than thee, Levi, all here 
bein' judges, when I sit and read quiet in my house 
a chapter about my God and heaven, than thee in 
the public house drinkin' thy money away and 
makin' thy head ache. Ay, and my wife's happier, 
and the house at home's happier for it. If they 
take God and the Bible away from poor folks, what's 



A NIGHT AND A DA V. 49 

left for them save toilin' and moilin' ? Tell me, if 
thou can !" 

"But the Bible isn't true," answered Levi. 
" Look thee ! what a blunder it all was yesterday. 
The poor lad leaving everything to risk his life in 
the pit, and all for nothing, nothing at all. Why 
did God let it be ? You'd have been the same, and 
the world 'ud have been the same, if he'd done 
naught but smoke his pipe at the pit's mouth till 
you came up safe and sound." 

"No, no," said old 'Lijah, "we should never 
have known how he loved us ; nay, and the world 
'ud never have known what love was, if God's dear 
Son had never left his home in heaven, if he'd 
never have * emptied himself of all but love,' as the 
hymn says, and laid down his life for us. I see it 
all plainer now. I tell thee, Levi, life 's not worth 
havin', for us poor folks anyhow, if there's no love 
in it. If God do n't love us, and we do n't love one 
another, there's naught but toilin' and moilin' for 
us till we die like dogs." 

" Well, well," replied Levi, " we wont argy. If 
dinner 's over, let the lad try his chance for the 
Hazeldine Bible ; a fair chance and no favor." 

There was a solemn silence, which lasted for a 
7 



50 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

minute or two. Many of the women and some of 
the older men bent down their heads and closed 
their eyes as if they were praying ; you might have 
seen poor Judith's wrinkled hands trembling, and 
her gray head shaking. But there was a gloom be- 
fore Simeon's eyes, as if a sudden night had fallen ; 
he could hear, after the silence, that some one rose 
up from the table to reach the Bible, and there was 
a hum and murmur, as of indistinct though friendly 
words of encouragement, but he could neither hear 
nor see plainly ; his head was light and giddy, and 
his heart was beating fast. He could only think 
of Reuben's failure some years ago, and the disap- 
pointment of his mother and of all the Hazeldines 
at the Bible remaining in the hands of a professed 
infidel. There was no need to blindfold his eyes, 
for he was hardly conscious of what he was doing. 
As his trembling fingers groped for the book he 
heard old 'Lijah cry, " God bless the lad," but when 
he had opened the Bible, and the bandage was re- 
moved, his eyes fell upon a page of heavy black 
characters, of which he could not make out a single 
letter. His young face flushed and then grew 
deadly pale. Where was his brother, who should 
have been beside him upholding him by his sympa- 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 51 

thy and love ? Lost ! Reuben was lost ! What 
did it signify who had the Hazeldine Bible now ? 
With a sudden loud and very bitter cry, which rang 
in every ear, he turned away and fled through the 
open door, to hide his grief in the green solitude of 
the quiet woods where he had played so often with 
his brother. 



52 A NIGHT AND A DAY 



CHAPTER VI. 

For some minutes after he had found out the 
terrible mistake he had made, Reuben Hazeldine 
felt utterly paralyzed, both in mind and body, by 
despair. He stood perfectly still, staring blankly be- 
fore him. He had lost his own life and saved no one. 
The feeble gleam of his miner's lamp showed him 
but too plainly that the cutting he had entered was 
not the Long Spinny siding, where his young 
brother and his comrades had been at work. The 
swirl and rush of the water had bewildered him. 
They could not be more than a few yards away 
from him ; but there was a barrier of solid rock 
between them, burying them apart in living graves. 
No cry of his could reach them ; no answering 
voice from them could ever pierce through the aw- 
ful silence of this great tomb which they shared 
unconsciously with him. They were so far happier 
than himself in not knowing that he too was per- 
ishing, that he had vainly sacrificed his life for 
them. On the other hand he would at least be 



A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 53 

spared the anguish of watching his comrades' slow 
and lingering death. Probably Simeon would die 
first, and then old 'Lijah, while Abner, a strong, 
full-grown man, must see them faint and fail before 
his time came. But as for Reuben, he must per- 
ish by himself, quite alone. 

Why had God allowed him to be caught in this 
snare, like some wild creature taken in a trap } He 
could not blame himself. He had not acted meanly 
or selfishly. He had obeyed the call of duty, as he 
believed ; following the footsteps of his Lord and 
Master. There had come to him a cry for help, 
and he had sprung forward to be the helper. Those 
whom he had loved dearly had been brought into 
great peril, and there had been no arm to deliver 
except his own. Surely God had looked to him to 
do this deed. Why, then, had He left him to fail 
and perish t 

There was no answer. Reuben fancied he could 
see Levi's mocking face and hear his taunting voice 
ask, " Dost thou believe in a God now V He had 
always been troubled and confused when Levi had 
called upon him to prove that there was a God, for 
he was not a clever man ready with arguments ; 
being only a collier, toiling hard day by day, he was 



54 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

not a learned man. He had only felt sure in his 
own heart that there was a God who loved him as a 
Father, a Saviour who had died for him and rose 
again for him, and a blessed heaven of rest and sin- 
lessness lying beyond this world of toil and strife. 
But he did not know how to explain his belief to a 
man who had no more perception of such things 
than the deaf have of music or the blind of sun- 
light. At this moment Levi's sneers and unbelief 
troubled him more than they had ever done. 

He could have understood God's purpose if he 
had saved the others by the loss of his own life. 
But his sacrifice had been thrown away, altogether 
wasted. He could not bear to think of them im- 
prisoned as he was, so near to him, yet so utterly 
separated from him. As soon as his limbs recov- 
ered some strength, he strode back to the lower 
level of the cutting, until he stood neck high in the 
water and dare venture no farther, with a vain hope 
to gain the entrance to the Long Spinny siding. He 
turned again and sat down on the ground, burying 
his face in his hands. Oh for the sunlight overhead, 
and the shout of the cuckoo, and the scent of the 
flowers in the garden ! What would Abby do } his 
poor girl, who would never be his dear wife now. 



A NIGHT AND A DA Y, 



55 



And his mother, who would have two sons to mourn 
over ? How could they get through life, with no 
strong arm to work for them and no thoughtful 
heart to care for them ? For if there was no God, 
there was no one to help them and comfort them. 
They were watching and waiting and praying round 
the pit's mouth at this moment. How long would 
they stay there with their breaking hearts 1 

Presently he heard his own lips whispering, al- 
most mechanically, as though it was a mere habit, 
as one speaks familiar words sometimes uncon- 
sciously. What had he been saying to himself in 
this grim silence and soHtude t " Though he slay 
me, yet will I trust in him." Why ! he had said 
it a thousand times, from his boyhood upwards. 
What ! could he indeed trust in God even now, 
when He was slaying him .? Could he still believe 
there was a heavenly Father, who loved him, yet 
saw him in his great despair, and did not stretch 
out his mighty arm and save him by some miracle } 
Had God no angel he could send to burst through 
the rocky barriers that hemmed him in } A feeling 
of deep awe came over his spirit ; and he sank on 
his knees, covering his face with his hands, as 
though some marvellous thing was about to come 



56 A NIGHT AND A DAY, 

to pass. He could hear the sullen splash of water 
running through the narrow channels of the pit ; 
but there was no other sound, all was profound 
stillness. Then, in his utmost heart, there seemed 
a still, small voice, whispering, "Did God work 
any miracle to save his own Son t Did he send to 
Christ one out of his legions of angels to take him 
down from the cross, though all the host of heaven 
would have gone gladly on that errand 1 Did Jesus 
ask the Father to do this thing t No ; when he 
cried to God, he said : * Oh, my Father ! if this cup 
may not pass away except I drink it, thy will be 
done.' And he had drunk the bitter cup to the 
dregs." 



A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 57 



CHAPTER VII. 

Reuben's very soul hushed itself to catch these 
low whisperings ; and a strange sense of peace, 
which no words can tell, took possession of him. 
Yes ; he would put his trust in God, though He 
was calling him to die, perhaps by a slow and 
lingering death. He lifted himself up from the 
ground, and looked calmly about him. How long 
he might live he did not know ; but it was certain 
his lamp would not keep alight long. He would 
spend the little time left to him in leaving some 
record of his trust in God, if his dead body should 
ever be found. He had a strong knife in his pocket, 
and his pitman's axe in his hand, which he had 
snatched up almost unawares as he entered the 
main gangway of the pit. Now he must be quick, 
and find some spot on the rocky walls of his prison, 
where he could scratch a few words of farewell to 
Abby and his other dear ones before he was left in 
darkness. 

About ten yards from the place where he had 
been standing, the deserted cutting came to a 

8 



S8 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

sudden end, and his heart leaped with a new hope- 
It had been roughly filled up with rubble and loose 
stones ; and he could remember how his father had 
told him, long ago, that it had been so blocked up 
to prevent the lads at work in the pit from straying 
away and losing themselves in the old, abandoned 
tracks. Where they might lead he could not tell ; 
but here was, at least, something to be done, and 
he set about it in eager haste. In a short time he 
had made an outlet large enough to creep through, 
and found the passage beyond still tending upward, 
and increasing in height, as if it had once been one 
of the main cuttings of the mine. It seemed a 
long time to him, as he followed its windings wist- 
fully and anxiously; but at length he stood at the 
bottom of an old disused shaft, looking up to the 
small ring of daylight overhead, which shone down 
upon him through a screen of green leaves. 

How well he knew that spot above him, so far 
out of his reach ! All around it lay a tangle of 
brushwood, just now covered with yellow catkins 
and young leaf buds, half opened to fhe sun. 
Little dingles and dells of mossy turf, strewn with 
scented bluebells, and wind-flowers, and brown ferns, 
uncurling from their winter's sleep, were hidden 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 



59 



amid the knotted bushes. How often he and Abby 
and Simeon had gone nutting in the coppice over- 
head ! He could even catch down there the even- 
song which the birds were carolling their loudest ; 
and he knew well how the young hares and rabbits, 
and the squirrels, were leaping and playing about 
the trees and grass. He stood, with upturned face, 
looking and listening till the twilight fell. His 
lamp had gone out, and he was left in darkness ; 
but his soul was delivered from the blackness and 
bitterness of despair. He drew back again under 
the roof of the old gangway, and sat down against 
the side to wait till morning. 

He could not be sure yet of deliverance. There 
was no path in the woods past the old shaft ; and it 
might be days before any one passed that way. 
But it was spring-time, when the children of the 
little hamlet would be sure to be hunting for blue- 
bells and primroses ; and some of them would 
perhaps be about the next morning, throwing 
pebbles down the shaft to hear them rattle on the 
stones at the bottom, as he and Simeon had done 
dozens of times, when he was a boy. How joy- 
fully would he catch the welcome sound ; and how 
terrified the little cowards would be, when they 



6o A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

heard a voice from the deep pit! Reuben's heart 
was no longer heavy ; and it did not seem difficult 
to trust in God. He was willing to perish, if that 
was God's will. But no miracle would be needed 
now for his deliverance ; no mighty angel need 
descend to break through the rock and set him 
free. A child at play in the woods might be his 
deliverer ; and would not God send a little child to 
his help, if it would be better for him to live than 
to die ? 

Reuben slept, hard as his bed was, and felt no 
fear on awaking. The night was long, but not 
dreary. Even the thought of Simeon and old 
'Lijah and Abner was no longer so distressing to 
him. They, too, v\^ere all under the care of God, 
who could do whatsoever he would. When the 
morning came, and the light shone again far away 
overhead, he went back to the bottom of the shaft, 
and took up his post, listening. The long, long 
hours passed slowly by, and no merry sound of 
children at play fell upon his ear ; yet his heart did 
not fail. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in 
Him," he cried, half aloud. 

Now and then Reuben caught in the hollow of 
his hand a few drops of water falling from the oozy 



A NIGHT AND A DAY, 6i 

walls of the shaft, and drank them ; but he scarcely 
felt hunger. There was a solemn gladness in his 
spirit, which he had never felt before. Whether he 
lived, he lived unto the Lord ; or whether he died, 
he died unto the Lord. Whatever befell him, life 
or death, was the will of God. 

What time it was, or how long the daylight had 
gleamed overhead, he did not know ; but at last his 
quickened ears caught the faint sound of sobs and 
cries, so faint that he almost doubted whether he 
was not mistaken. Yet it brought him fresh hope, 
and he stood out into the middle of the shaft and 
called and shouted up it loudly ; using a cry shrill 
and clear, which rang down the narrow tunnel be- 
hind him and awoke its echoes. He could hear no 
answer to them ; but he cried again as soon as the 
echoes were silent, and then the ring of light above 
him was broken by a small dark object, which he 
knew must be a head stretched over the shaft ; and 
he called as clearly as he could : " Do n't be afraid ; 
but run and tell some of the men that Reuben Ha- 
zeldine is here !" 

" Reuben 1" cried Simeon's voice. " Reuben ! 
is 't thee, my lad } Eh ! wait thee, and I '11 be back 
in a minute !" 



62 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

Simeon fled through the sunny woods, like one 
in terror pursued by some enemy ; and it was not 
many minutes before he rushed, breathless and 
speechless, into the midst of the departing guests, 
who were still lingering about Judith Hazeldine's 
sorrowful house. There had been a keen and uni- 
versal disappointment among them when he had 
turned away from his chance of winning the Hazel- 
dine Bible, and left it to be borne away to foreign 
lands. But now they all gathered about him, start- 
led and aroused by his sudden reappearance. Levi 
paused in his task of wrapping up the precious 
heirloom, which had been passing from hand to 
hand of the regretful family. Simeon, with his 
hair falling over his face, and uttering half-sobbed- 
out syllables which no one could understand, stood 
in the midst of them gesticulating and beckoning 
wildly, like one gone out of his mind. 

" Poor lad !" whispered two or three of the 
women, shrinking back into safe corners behind 
the men, " it 's crazed his brain !" 

" Reuben !" he gasped, " in the spinny ! There !" 
and he threw back his arm in the direction of 
the coppice. " Come ! Reuben ! mother ! Abby, 
come !" 



A NIGHT AND A DAY. 6^ 

If the lad was not mad, he must have met with 
Reuben's ghost. Yet it was still broad day, when 
no ghost roams abroad. What could the lad mean } 
But in a minute or two Simeon regained his breath, 
and could speak plainly, though he spoke with sobs 
and tears. 

" Reuben 's at the bottom of the old pit in the 
spinny," he cried. " Come quickly, and bring ropes 
and things. Abby, come and run to the old pit, 
where thee and me and Reuben used to play !" 

The boy did not wait another instant, but darted 
back again to hang over the low stone wall which 
guarded the mouth of the old shaft, and gaze down 
into the dark depths below, where he could not see 
his brother. He was half afraid he might have 
been deceived by his own fancy, but when he called 
again, Reuben quickly answered him. 

" Simeon, lad !" he said, " art thee saved } and 
Abner .^ and old 'Lijah } Are all of you saved .''" 

" Ay, all of us, Reuben i*" shouted Simeon, " and 
mother 's comin', and Abby ; I hear them comin' 
through the spinny." 

The tears rushed to Reuben's eyes, though he 
had not wept before. He knelt down at the bottom 
of the pit, to thank God. Every love and joy in life 



64 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

seemed to have gathered new strength ; even its 
toils and perils looked brighter than they had ever 
done. How sweet the sunlight was ! and how glad- 
some the singing of the birds ! His little attic at 
home was like a palace to him. And Abby and 
his mother and all his friends, how dear to him they 
were ! God had given them back to him, a hun- 
dred-fold more precious for the short sharp trial 
of his faith that he had passed through. There was 
no question now of God slaying him ; He was bring- 
ing him out of his living grave, and setting him to 
walk again on the earth, a better and a stronger 
man — more like Christ, who had also laid down his 
life, and who had come back from the grave, for a 
little while to comfort and bless those whom he had 
loved. 

But who could tell the joy of every heart there, 
when he was drawn up out of the* dark depths of 
the pit, and stood among them a living man ? They 
pressed round him, and whose hand was the first to 
grasp his it would be impossible to say. It was 
like a dream of great joy to most of them. All 
whom he loved were there. They marched home- 
ward with him, in a glad procession, through the 
sunny woods. The old home had never looked so 



A NIGHT AND A DA V. 65 

beautiful, nor had the flowers in the garden ever 
been so sweet. 

" Friends," said Reuben, with a choking sensa- 
tion in his throat, " before I take sup or morsel in 
my mouth, let's kneel down and let 'Lijah thank 
God for us !" 

They knelt down about the men that had been 
saved, even Levi bending his knee for the first time 
for many years ; and old 'Lijah laid his trembling 
hands on the back of a chair, and swayed to and 
fro, with heavy sobs of joy and thankfulne'ss break- 
ing from him. But for these sobs there was a deep 
silence in the little crowd. 

" Dear Lord ! thank thee ! thank thee !" was all 
that old 'Lijah could say, though he was a prayer- 
leader at the meetings held in his own cottage. 
Levi Hazeldine caught himself saying "Thank 
thee !" though he knew there was no one to thank, 
and that all had happened by chance ; yet he al- 
most wished that what these simple, ignorant folks 
believed was really true. When the short thanks- 
giving was over, old 'Lijah stood up again at the 
end of the long oak table, and asked Judith to place 
the Hazeldine Bible once more upon it. 

" Levi," he said persuasively, " though thee and 
9 



66 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

me do n't agree in most things, maybe thee '11 agree 
that Simeon hasn't had a fair chance of winnin' the 
old Bible. The lad had n't a heart for readin' while 
his brother was lost, and given up for dead. But 
now the Lord's brought back Reuben from the 
jaws of the grave, give him another try for it. The 
sun 's not gone down yet ; let him have his eyes 
blindfolded, and open the book again. And the 
Lord will bless thee, Levi ; ay ! though thou knows 
him not ; he will be with thee in yon far country, 
where thee art goin' to spend thy substance." 

" I 'm willing," answered Levi shortly. 

" Come, then, Simeon," said old 'Lijah, laying 
his hand on the boy's head, "and the Lord give 
thee seein' eyes and an understandin' heart, and 
good success in this matter. The Lord that has 
done great things for us, may he give thee this 
blessing also !" 

Faint and hungry as Reuben was, it was he who 
bound the handkerchief over the boy's eyes, and 
placed his hand on the closed Bible, whispering, 
" God bless thee, lad !" Judith and Abby stood 
behind them, their faces still pale with the past 
sorrow, though there was gladness in their eyes. 
There was no dread of failure in Simeon's heart 



i i| i i ii n iii ni r' i i | H |ii ii i i 'ii' , i — I ii in ii nn i — i|iiMlill|| ||l||l 






iC/' 



^ / 









' ^ ' I \/ \^ ^ ' 




A NIGHT AND A DA V. 67 

now ; he stood for a minute looking at the black- 
letter page before him, and then he read out the 
chapter and verse of the book upon which he had 
opened. The Hazeldines about the table found the 
place in their Bibles, and followed his voice care- 
fully. But Reuben's face flushed, and his heart beat, 
as the closing verses fell upon his ear. They were 
these : 

" / went down to the botto7ns of the mountains ; 
the earth with her bars was about me for ever ; yet 
hast Thou brought up my life from corruptio7i, O 
Lord my God. 

" When my soul fainted within me, I remejnbered 
the Lord ; and my prayer came in unto Thee, into 
Thy holy temple. 

" They that observe lying vanities forsake their 
own mercy. 

" But I will sacrifice tmto Thee with the voice of 
thanksgiving ; I will pay that that I have vowed. 
Salvation is of the Lord." 

Simeon's voice ceased, for the page was ended. 
No word had been missed, nor even stammered 
over. He could hardly believe that it was true 
that he had won the Hazeldine Bible, until Levi 
gave it a little push towards him. 



68 A NIGHT AND A DAY, 

"There, lad!" he said, "it's thine fairly. I 
didn't do better when I was thy age." 

" Levi !" said Reuben earnestly, " would God it 
spoke to you as it speaks to me ! Thou 'rt going 
far away from thy kith and kin, and thou 'rt without 
God in the world, and there's no Saviour for thee, 
thou thinkest ; and thee does n't know how glad- 
some it is to praise the Lord, nor how good it is to 
pray to him and call upon him, like young children 
calling to their fathers and mothers : but. Cousin 
Levi, will thee take a gift from all thy kinsfolk 
here, if we buy another Bible for thee to take away 
to thy far country } Maybe a day will come that 
thou 'It read it for our sakes, if not thine own." 

" Ay ! ay ! take a Bible from us, Levi !" cried 
out all the Hazeldines present. 

" As a sign and token that we wish thee well," 
added Reuben. 

"Ay! ay! God bless thee, Levi!" they cried 
out again. 

" I '11 take it and thank you kindly," said Levi, 
in a faltering voice. 

" Come again to-morrow, all of you," exclaimed 
Judith, speaking in a shrill, high-pitched tone of 
excitement, " it shall be bought by to-morrow ; and 



A NIGHT AND A DA V. 69 

Reuben shall be married, and we'll have another 
feast-day, now my son's found again." 

The sun was setting by this time, and the guests 
departed, leaving the little household to feel in qui- 
etness their great joy. Old 'Lijah and his wife 
were the last who said Good-by, and the moon was 
rising over the green coppice behind the cottage, 
when they shook hands for the last time with Reu- 
ben at the garden-gate. 

" It 's been such a night and a day as I 've never 
worn through before !" said old 'Lijah's wife. " Last 
night it was all weepin' and mournin', and every- 
thing goin' wrong; and to-night it's all joy and 
gladness and singin' praises, and everything goin' 
right !" 

"Ay, lass!" answered old 'Lijah, "there's no 
true hurt or loss to them that trust in God ; I be- 
lieve it and Reuben believes it. Things are goin' 
all right, not wrong. Isn't it written, 'All things 
work together for good to them that love God ' ? 
and again, 'Neither death nor life, nor height nor 
depth, nor any other creature shall be able to sepa- 
rate us from the love of God, which is in Christ 
Jesus our Lord.' " 



HOW 

APPLE-TKEE COURJ W^S WON 



• 1 



CHAPTER I. 

Lying behind a row of large warehouses, which 
front a somewhat busy thoroughfare in London, is 
Apple-tree Court. 

Why it was ever called Apple-tree Court no one 
could tell ; for long years ago, farther back than 
the memory of the oldest inhabitant, there had been 
no trace of a tree, nor even of a blade of grass, 
springing green in the heart of those smoky and 
blackened dwellings. The entry which leads to it 
is not more than three feet wide, but the length of 
it is the full depth of the warehouses between two 
of which it runs; a dark, low passage, where it is 
not pleasant to meet a person you do not know. 

The court contains about a dozen houses, but 



72 A NIGHT AND A DA Y, 

as each house is large enough to lodge as many as 
four families, provided they are not so luxurious as 
to require more than one, or at the utmost, two 
rooms, the population is very nearly two hundred, 
and has at times exceeded even that number. 

•The inhabitants are, however, constantly chan- 
ging; old tenants leave and new ones come in at a 
day's notice, sometimes with no notice at all; for 
the rooms are let by the week, and it is not a rare 
circumstance for a family to make a moonlight 
flitting on the last night of their tenancy to escape 
paying the weekly rent, which would be peremp- 
torily claimed the next morning. 

The oldest inhabitant of Apple-tree Court was 
a meagre old woman who had lived in its most 
miserable garret for several dreary years. She was 
so yellow and withered that one might almost 
fancy that she had been dead and buried for some 
time, and come to life again to resume her poor 
task of rag-picking in the dust-heaps collected from 
the streets. The only name she was known by, 
and which clung to her amid all the change of 
neighbors, was Old Rags and Bones ; and truly her 
tattered clothing and bony skeleton of a frame 
could scarcely claim any other title. 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 73 

The only other permanent dweller in the court 
was a spare, sallow man, with a square, hard face 
and a half-savage air which made all the children, 
and the older inhabitants also, quail a little before 
him, however bold and defiant they might be with 
other persons. The owner of the court had long 
since allowed him a room rent free, on consideration 
of his putting a stop to any moonlight flittings on 
the part of the other tenants ; and as this room was 
on the ground floor of the house nearest to the 
narrow entry, it was exceedingly difficult, not to say 
impossible, to remove any more bulky furniture 
than that which could be borne in the arms or on 
the shoulders of the fugitives, who were obliged to 
steal barefoot past his door; for he seemed to sleep 
with his ears awake to every stealthy sound, like a 
watch-dog. 

Without doubt, this man was monarch of Apple- 
tree Court. "King Jeffery," some of his subjects 
called him. Upon the whole he was popular among 
them, in spite of his keen watchfulness on behalf 
of the landlord. There was no amount of drinking, 
quarrelling, and fighting that he would not wink at, 
and, if it suited his mood, encourage. 

The court lay so far out of sight behind the 
10 



74 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

warehouses that the police troubled themselves but 
seldom with the brawls going on there. In fact, 
when two quarrelsome folks, men or women, who 
were threatening to disturb the peace of the 
thoroughfare, turned into Apple-tree Court to settle 
their differences, the police felt relieved from all 
further duty. They neither cared nor dared to 
follow them, unless in a very strong force, down the 
dark entry leading to the court. Jeffery welcomed 
such visitors, and would cheer them on in their 
combat with hearty expressions of sympathy, while 
every window and doorway was crowded with faces, 
looking on with general delight. Apple-tree Court 
was the favorite fighting-ground of all that part of 
London. 

In a yard not very far away, a mission-house 
had been established for some years, under the 
active and persevering superintendence of a man 
who was of about the same age as Jeffery. He was 
spare and sallow, like him, and had a square, deter- 
mined-looking face, which would have borne a de- 
cided resemblance to Jeffery's, but for the grave 
smile and gentle manner that had become habitual 
to him. George Lancaster, the superintendent of 
the mission, was not a rich man ; on the contrary, 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 75 

he had to work steadily for some hours a day to 
earn his own Hving and that of his son, a boy of 
about twelve. But every moment of his leisure 
time was devoted to the various works connected 
with his mission-house, especially to his ragged- 
school, to which boys and girls flocked from almost 
every slum and alley of the neighborhood, except 
Apple-tree Court. He had mothers' meetings, tem- 
perance meetings, sewing classes for boys as well 
as for girls, prayer-meetings, and a city missionary 
and Bible woman, all under his own personal su- 
perintendence. 

How he found time to organize them and keep 
them all in good order, was a mystery to less ener- 
getic and less skilful persons. But under his eye 
every agency had worked well ; and he had a power 
of attracting to himself a number of fellow-workers, 
who willingly placed themselves under his com- 
mand, and formed a little volunteer corps with him 
as their captain to wage war with the ignorance, 
misery, and sin that tyrannize over the inhabitants 
of our London courts and alleys. 

Apple-tree Court was a great grief and vexation 
of mind to George Lancaster and his fellow-work- 
ers. To pass the narrow archway and glance up its 



76 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

forbidden passage, was a daily pang, as he went to 
and fro to the mission-house. The name of Jeffery 
was often sounded in his ears by the dwellers from 
other courts, though no one now came from Apple- 
tree Court to learn to read and sew, or, better still, to 
sing and pray in his mission-house. He could not 
recollect the time when it had not been such a den 
of wickedness, and when its inhabitants had not 
been so wretched and degraded as they now were. 
But the hardest thing to bear was the fact that not 
a single child came to school, nor even to the chil- 
dren's dinner, which was given twice a week during 
the winter to the famishing little creatures. When- 
ever a. strange, pinched face presented itself, he 
never failed to ask where the child lived, but 
he never heard the answer, *' In Apple-tree Court, 
sir." 

It was impossible to leave this state of things 
alone. George Lancaster knew very well that the 
children of Apple-tree Court would be as willing 
and eager to come as any others, if they dared. He 
must get a footing in the court ; and a footing once 
got there, he must conquer it and reform it. But 
how to get in } That was the question. If all that 
he heard, or but half of it, were true, Jeffery would 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 77 

prove a stronger foe than any he had ever had a 
tussle with yet. But he believed firmly that there 
must be some way of conquering even such a man 
as Jeffery. 

He called a special and private meeting of 
about half a dozen of his most confidential fellow- 
workers, most of whom were living in the neigh- 
borhood, and asked them to consider the case care- 
fully, and to treasure up any hint that might reach 
them as to the character and habits of the man. 

But George Lancaster could not wait for this 
slow and distant chance of information as to the 
enemy. As he passed by the court at least twice a 
day, he could not resist the urgent desire to pene- 
trate into its dark recesses, and run the risk of an 
encounter with Jeffery. Accordingly one evening, 
when he was on the way to the mission-house with 
his boy, he told him to go on, and ask whoever 
might happen to be there to open the night-school 
at the proper time, if he had not come in before 
them. 

"And, Alick, my boy," he added, "if I am not 
there in about half an hour, tell James and Andrew 
to come to the end of Apple-tree Court, and if they 
hear a row they had better come on and see what 



78 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

it is.' I 'm going to look about me. Say, * God bless 
you, father.' " 

" Let me come with you, father," said the boy 
eagerly. 

"No, no, my lad," he answered, "it's my turn 
now ; it will be yours when you are older. Your 
duty is to go on to the school." 

" God bless you, father," said Alick, running on 
quickly to the mission-house with the news that 
his father had ventured into Apple-tree Court. 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 79 



CHAPTER II. 

Mr. Lancaster was just turning into the alley 
when a policeman touched him on the arm, and 
spoke in a tone of respectful remonstrance. 

*'Don't go there, sir," he said ; "you're as well 
known as the church-steeple' about here, and better 
by such like folks ; an' Jeffery 's an awful rough, 
he is indeed, sir. He '11 go stark mad if he catches 
sight of you on his ground." 

" His ground, is it ?" replied Mr. Lancaster ; 
" well, I promise you not to be seen to-night, if I 
can help it. I 'm merely going in to have a look 
round ; and I '11 be cautious. But I must get my 
foot in here, and mend the place, if possible. Why, 
it is a disgrace to us all, my man !" 

" Well, sir, so it is," agreed the policeman, " I 'm 
free to own it. But what can we do, when we 
dare n't go in in less force than four of us t There 
are nigh on two hundred folks of the rougher sort. 
I 'd leave it alone, if I was you." 

"Never!" answered Mr. Lancaster, turning 



8o A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

down the dark and narrow passage with a resolute 
step. At the farther end he stumbled over what, 
in the darkness, seemed to be a heap of rags ; but 
a low and frightened voice spoke out of the midst 
of them. 

" Who are you ?" he asked, stooping to look 
more closely at a withered and wrinkled face, only 
just visible in the gloom. 

" Nobody," was the answer ; "I'm doin' no harm. 
I'm only sitting here till I durst go past Jeffery. 
He's 'ragious to-night, and I'm scared to death at 
him. A lot of folks got away last night without 
wakin' of him, and he's fit to tear everybody to 
pieces, he is." 

" Come on," said George Lancaster, " and I '11 
see you safely past him." 

" Oh, no, no !" cried the woman ; " I '11 sit here 
till he's asleep, if he goes to sleep at all to-night. 
If you took me safe, you could n't stop with me, I 
reckon. And you couldn't take me safe, as strong 
as you think yourself. He isn't always as bad as 
this, you know. It 's because he is so aggravated 
by the folks gettin' clear off. There's times when 
he's quite mild and kind like." 

"Well," he said, " you come to a place I know of 



APPLE-TREE COURT.' 8i 

for an hour or two, where you '11 be comfortable ; 
and I '11 treat you to a supper." 

" Hush !" she answered. " Speak soft and tread 
soft, or he'll be out on us. Ay! I'll come, and 
welcome. Let's steal away quiet like, and I'll see 
how he is when I 've had a bit of supper." 

George Lancaster retraced his steps to the 
street, closely followed by the woman ; but as soon 
as they reached the brighter light of the street 
lamps, and she could see his face, she. almost sob- 
bed with disappointment. 

"Oh," she cried, "I never thought as it was 
you ! I know you, and he knows you. He 's swore 
if any on us as belong to Apple-tree Court goes to 
your place, or 's seen speakin' to you, he '11 break 
every bone in our body." 

" But, my poor creature," said George Lancaster, 
" he dare not do it. There are the police to protect 
you. Come on, and do not be afraid." 

"I durst n't," she said, stealing back into the 
darkness of the alley, while he followed her in his 
turn ; " the police can't do nothin' for us, if they 
wanted. Oh, please go away ! He might come out 
upon us any instant. Oh, go away, and never try 
to come here again !" 

11 



82 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

" I am going away," he answered ; " but I shall 
come again soon. I'm not going to leave you and 
the rest of the people here under this cruel bond- 
age and dread. Here, take this sixpence, and buy 
yourself some supper when I am gone. Poor wom- 
an, I am very sorry for you." 

His grave and pitiful voice sounded in her ears 
strangely. It was so long since she had heard any 
one speak kindly to her, that she could hardly be- 
lieve she heard aright. But the sixpence, which 
she clutched in her bony hand, seemed real enough. 

" You have known something about God .-*" said 
Mr. Lancaster inquiringly. 

" Ay ! I knew something about God when I 
were a girl," the poor creature answered, sobbing; 
" I used to think there was one then ; but it 's so 
long ago ! I do n't feel as there can be any now, 
only to curse by ; naught else." 

" Poor woman," he said once more, in his pitiful 
voice, " there is a God, and he loves you. You will 
know it again soon, when we come to teach you 
about him, in Apple-tree Court, and when you can 
come to our place, and the children flock to our 
school, no one making them afraid, as they shall 
do, God helping us !" 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 83 

" That '11 never be," said the poor rag-picker de- 
spairingly. " If that ever be, I shall be sure there 
is a God, like there was when I was young. But 
now there 's nothing in the world but fightin and 
cursin' and dyin'. Hark ! What 's that ?" 

It was no noise in the court, which lay behind 
them in darkness and silence. But the rag-picker 
trembled and shivered beside him for very fear, and 
he felt it to be of no use to talk longer with her. 

"Go and buy yourself food," he said gently; 
" but mind ! not one penny goes to the gin-palace." 

" No, no !" she answered ; " honor bright. I 
know who you are ; and I '11 not take your money 
to the gin-palace." 

As soon as she was out of sight, George Lan- 
caster advanced cautiously along the passage, and 
entered the court. All was still as a graveyard, 
except for a low suppressed hum of voices in a few 
houses. Jeffery's window was lit up, and George 
Lancaster could see him sitting by his fireside, with 
his bull-dog head slightly lowered, as if listening 
intently for the least noise. His mouth was firmly 
closed, and his eyes glowed under his shaggy eye- 
brows. It was plainly no time for arousing him, in 
any way. George Lancaster could do nothing that 



84 A NIGHT AND A DA Y, 

night but let his eyes search carefully round the 
room for some hint of Jeffery's habits, by which he 
might be approached. But there was neither book 
nor newspaper ; no rude picture on the walls, and 
no plant growing on the window-sill. The only 
things to be seen were a pack of cards, thumb- 
marked and greasy, and a large cup from which 
he had been drinking. George Lancaster went 
back no wiser than he came in. 

Yet Apple-tree Court must be conquered and 
reformed. 



AFFLE-TREE COURT, 85 



CHAPTER III. 

A SECOND council was held at the mission-house, 
and one thing was agreed upon, much against 
George Lancaster's will, though not against his 
judgment. As he was so well known by sight, and 
his appearance would instantly provoke Jeffery's 
wrath, some stranger must be chosen to lead the 
operations upon Apple-tree Court. 

There was no difficulty in meeting with a 
stranger to volunteer for the service, rough as it 
was likely to be. Two were fixed upon, who were 
not known at all in the neighborhood. They were 
workingmen, and were to go in their working 
clothes on Sunday afternoon, to open the campaign 
as wisely and discreetly as possible. If they could 
only find one family in the court who would receive 
them for a few minutes, and allow them to decorate 
their walls with a good effective picture, that would 
excite the curiosity and envy of their neighbors, it 
would be one step gained. The most attractive 
pictures were found, and the men were provided 



86 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

with a paste-pot and brush to paste them on the 
walls for the people, who, they had learned by ex- 
perience, would seldom take the trouble to do it for 
themselves, though they were glad enough to have 
it done for them. 

The two pioneers started off the next Sunday 
afternoon, while the few who were in the secret 
waited for their return in alternate hope and fear. 
It was no great distance to the court, and they 
were not kept long in suspense. Their leaders 
came back in half an hour's time, with their faces 
bruised and their coats torn, as though they had 
had to fight their way desperately out of the fray 
into which they had ventured with so much cour- 
age. Jeffery had stopped them at their very en- 
trance, to demand their business ; and after an an- 
gry altercation of a few minutes, he had set upon 
them with two or three more ruffians like himself. 
It was in vain to call for help in Apple-tree Court, 
which the police shunned, unless they were in good 
force, and it was with the utmost difficulty they 
had made their escape. One of them had seen, he 
said, a miserable scarecrow of an old woman crying 
at a garret window as she looked down helplessly 
on the battle. 



APPLE-TREE COURT, 87 

" Well," said George Lancaster, " we did not ex- 
pect to take the place as Jericho was taken. But 
God is on our side, and we must conquer. We 
cannot give it up. Let those who are willing to 
give up Apple-tree Court, lift up their hands." 

But not one hand was lifted up. Even the men 
who were bruised and beaten did not raise theirs, 
though they knew better than any one how fierce 
was the opposition that must be overcome. It was 
agreed that no further effort should be made until 
the recollection of this fruitless one had faded a 
little from Jeffery's memory ; and in the meantime, 
if any child from the court could be persuaded by 
any means to come to the school, that would be 
one step gained. 

But it proved to be impossible to coax any of 
the children to attend the school. If they came 
once, they never came again ; but were seen to 
shirk away whenever they caught sight of Mr. 
Lancaster or his fellow-workers. This was only 
adding fuel to his indignation, and his resolve to 
set them free. To leave a number of young chil- 
dren subject to the tyranny of such a man as Jef- 
fery, was not to be thought of — to say nothing of 
the poor woman to whom he had promised to bring 



88 A NIGHT AND A DA K 

help, and a proof that there was a God who loved 
her. 

The next movement was to be very different 
from the first. As the workingmen had been treat- 
ed so brutally, it was decided that this time two 
gentlemen, who came forward to offer their services, 
should enter the court and proceed boldly to Jef- 
fery's den, and make such overtures as should seem 
likely to suit him at the time. Like the other men, 
they were strangers in the neighborhood, and Mr. 
Lancaster did not offer to accompany them, to 
show them the way, lest he should be seen with 
them and tidings of it carried to Jeffery. 

The gentlemen, one of whom had been an offi- 
cer in the Crimean war, marched coolly up the 
passage and knocked sharply at Jeffery's door. It 
was opened as sharply ; but even Jeffery was a lit- 
tle thrown back by coming suddenly face to face 
with persons so different from his own people. 
They did not give him time to speak before they 
opened the conversation. 

" My good friend," began the officer. 

" No friend o' yours," interrupted Jeffery, recov- 
ering himself quickly, while a blacker scowl than 
usual settled upon his face. 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 89 

"Well, I'm a friend of yours," continued the 
officer, " and I Ve brought you some good news, if 
you will let me tell them to you." 

" Folks like you aint got no good news for folks 
like me," answered Jeffery sullenly. " If the Parlia- 
ment 's took the tax off 'bacca and beer, that 'ud be 
good news for me; but I don't reckon on ever 
hearin' news like that." 

"No, no," said the officer, "we bring you no 
news like that ; but we have something to say to 
you worth your while to hear. Come, invite us 
into your house and let us have a little sensible 
chat with you." 

" Not a foot," answered Jeffery, placing a hand 
on each door-post to bar them from going in. " You 
think you're gentlemen, and can walk in and out 
as you choose ; but not in my house and not in my 
court. I know the whole lot of you, and you 're a 
set of hypercrites. You sha' n't come cantin' and 
whinin' here. You'd better be off quick if you 
don't want a beatin', like that other pair o' men got 
some Sundays ago. I tell you you sha' n't come 
here a-preachin' and a-prayin' without you bring the 
perlice with you to take care of your precious heads ; 
so be off now, the same way as you came in." 

12 



90 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

" I shall call and see if your neighbors are in 
the same mind as yourself," said the officer, turning 
away with his comrade from Jeffery's door. 

"And I'll go with you," he said, laughing scorn- 
fully, " and we '11 see how many '11 give you a wel- 
come. You are only wasting your time, my fine 
swells." 

"Jeffery," continued the officer, with a good- 
tempered patience, "is there nothing we can give 
you, or do for you, only to get your permission to 
visit the tenants in this court } Just think a mo- 
ment. It will be to your own advantage." 

" No," replied Jeffery, with an oath ; " I 've kept 
this place clear of you all, and I mean to keep it 
clear. You like your own way, and I like my own 
way. So be off afore there's mischief. There 'd 
have been mischief afore now, but I do n't want to 
have the perlice on it ; and I know there '11 be some 
of 'em watching over such fine folks as you." 

It was of no use to stay and argue any longer. 
A knot of brutal-looking men had gathered round, 
only restrained from attacking them by the fear 
that some policemen had actually been placed at 
the entrance of the court, to come to the rescue in 
case of a fight. It was not prudent, or even possi- 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 91 

ble, to force their way through them in the attempt 
to enter any of the other dwelUngs. Disappointed 
and defeated, they returned to the street and car- 
ried the news to George Lancaster, 

How great his disappointment was, no words 
can tell. He had counted upon the frank and 
pleasant manner of the officer and his handsome 
face having considerable influence over the wretch- 
ed inmates of Apple-tree Court. But now that had 
failed, he did not know what to try next. Several 
other efforts were made, but with no better success ; 
and with this result only, that they put Jeffery and 
his ruffian companions more sharply on their guard. 



92 A NIGHT AND A DA Y, 



CHAPTER IV. 

Mr. Lancaster had only one son, at whose 
birth the mother had died. He was a fair-haired, 
sHght, delicate-looking boy of twelve — the very ap- 
ple of his father's eye. From the time he had been 
old enough to hold by his finger and trot along at 
his side, the child had gone with him day after day 
to the mission -house, and taken a part in all that 
went on there. He had heard all his father's long- 
ings and anxieties with regard to Apple-tree Court, 
and his own heart and thoughts had been busy 
about it. 

"Father," he said, "you are not going to give 
up Apple-tree Court T' 

" What more can be done T asked Mr. Lancas- 
ter despondently. " We have tried every means we 

can think of, and all have failed. What can we do 

?>> 

" I cannot bear to give it up," cried Alick eager- 
ly. There was a flush on his face, which grew 
deeper every minute, and his eyes flashed with ex- 
citement. 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 



93 



" Father," he continued, after a pause, " every- 
body says I sing splendidly." 

It was quite true. He had a singularly sweet 
and clear voice, and could lead the singing at an}' 
of the meetings in the mission-house. It was, as 
his father had taught him, one of the talents in- 
trusted to him by God to be used in His service ; 
but Mr. Lancaster was surprised to hear him speak 
boastingly of it. 

" Alick .''" he said, questioningly. 

" I 'm glad I can sing splendidly," answered the 
boy, his eyes sparkling the more. " Suppose I go 
all by myself to Apple-tree Court, and just sing for 
them ! They are sure to like it ; and I '11 sing so 
that they can hear every word, and perhaps it will 
do them as much good as a sermon." 

" No, no !" exclaimed George Lancaster. " No, 
my boy. I dare not let you do that. I cannot give 
you permission to go there, and alone. No, no." 

"It's the only thing we haven't tried," said 
Alick gravely. 

The idea took fierce possession of Mr. Lancas- 
ter's mind, though he tried his utmost to dismiss it. 
Whenever he heard his son's voice rising clear and 
sweet amid the number of other voices in the sing- 



94 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

ing of the hymns, he could not help thinking of 
Apple-tree Court, and wondering how the people 
there would be affected by it. Surely no one could 
be so wicked or cruel as to hurt a boy like Alick, 
if he were simply singing in his young, fresh, ring- 
ing notes, sweeter than the notes of wild woodland 
birds. At last he took counsel again with his most 
trusty fellow-workers, some of whom lived in the 
neighborhood of Apple-tree Court ; and they de- 
clared with one voice that even Jeffery was not bad 
enough to hurt a boy like Alick. 

Yet it was a hard struggle with George Lancas- 
ter to make up his mind to send his son, the dear- 
est and most precious possession that he owned : 
how dear and how precious he had never felt as he 
felt it now. It seemed almost ridiculous to put 
Apple-tree Court and its wretched crew of sinners 
into a balance with his boy. What was the place 
to him } He owed nothing to it, and he had done 
all that could fairly be expected from him. There 
was no need to let Alick run any risk for the sake 
of it. No need ! Alas ! there was great need. 
There were the urgent wants of two hundred souls, 
who were fast bound in misery and sin, and groan- 
ing under an intolerable bondage. There were the 



APPLE-TREE COURT, 95 

needs of little children, who were growing up like 
heathen and savages. There was the need of that 
wretched woman, who had said she would believe in 
God when she heard about Him in Apple-tree Court. 

" God spared not his own Son." Never had 
these words come home to his heart as they did 
now. Could he then withhold his boy .-* Could he 
forbid him from the loving mission he was set 
upon } Should he still keep him back from car- 
rying his message to the people of Apple-tree 
Court } It was a very hard and bitter trial for 
George Lancaster. 

"Alick," he said, one Sunday morning, in a 
trembling voice, "you may go and sing in Apple- 
tree Court this afternoon." 

"O father," he cried, "I'm so glad! They'll 
be so pleased, and they'll let me go again and 
again, till perhaps at last they will have you to 
preach there." 

" But if they should beat you, my son !" said his 
father ; " if they should hurt you and ill-treat you, 
what shall you do V 

V God will teach me what to do when the time 
comes," answered Alick confidently ; " but I '11 sing 
them my best hymns first." 



96 A NIGHT AND A DA K 



CHAPTER V. 

It was a warm sunny afternoon when Alick 
showed his fair boyish face and slight small figure 
in Apple-tree Court. As it was the hour for church 
service, and the gin-palaces were shut, most of the 
men were at home, lounging about the court, and 
playing at pitch-and-toss and marbles on the un- 
even pavement. Half-naked children were crawl- 
ing about the doorsteps, and women were lolling 
idly against the walls or leaning through the broken 
windows. Alick's heart sank a little as he saw the 
dirt and misery and degradation of the place. He 
could see Jeffery busy at a game of cards with three 
other men in his own house, the door of which was 
open, so as to command a full view of the court 
and of all who went in and out. The boy stood for 
a few moments silent, with a strange swelling in 
his throat. But it was only for a moment or two ; 
for he recollected that his father was waiting for 
him in the street, and would hear him as soon as 
he began to sing. Suddenly his voice seemed to 
spring out gladly in a sweet sound of song. 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 97 

It was so clear that it rang through the court 
and made every one hear, and so sweet that no one 
who heard could help listening. Alick had taken 
off his blue cap and stood bareheaded near to Jef- 
fery's door, his face all in a glow, and his eyes glis- 
tening partly with unshed tears. The men left off 
their games and the women their chatter, while the 
children came flocking towards him from all quar- 
ters. His heart grew lighter and braver as he sang. 
The fears he had felt when he tore his hand from 
his father's grasp and found himself alone in the 
dark alley had all vanished. Apple-tree Court was 
won. 

He had sung one song through ; and as soon as 
it was ended, without a pause, he began his last fa- 
vorite hymn, 

"Jesus loves me ; this I know." 

Every word of it could be heard distinctly ; and 
Jeffery, who had been listening before with a look 
of pleasure on his hard face, sprang up in a fury. 

" It 's another trick of those hypocrites," he 
cried ; " they 've invented a new way of cantin' and 
whinin' ; but I'll soon put a stop to this one." 

Alick had sung through the first verse and 
began the second, while the people attended in 

13 



98 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

silence, when a stone, hastily picked up by Jeffery, 
and hurled at him furiously, struck him on the fore- 
head. The fresh young voice stopped suddenly, and 
the fair-haired boy fell heavily on the pavement. For 
an instant or two there was a dead stillness ; and 
then a low cry of anger ran round the court, such 
as Jeffery had never heard before. 

As for Jeffery, he was himself struck with ter- 
ror. He had had no intention to hit so hard a blow, 
and it alarmed him to see the boy lying like one 
dead on the ground. Alick had not uttered a single 
scream or cry, but had fallen in a moment ; and it 
seemed as if his song were still ringing through 
the air. Could the boy be dead — killed } There 
were children in the court who bore ten times 
rougher usage than that. Surely he was only 
frightened, and lay still to escape another blow. 

" God forgive you, Jeffery !" cried a shrill, crack- 
ed voice from a garret window. It belonged to the 
poor old rag-picker, who had been hearkening to 
AUck's hymn, and thinking of the days when she 
was young and believed in God. Jeffery did not 
answer her with an oath, as was usual. He walked 
up to the prostrate boy and touched him carefully 
on the shoulder. 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 99 

" Come, get up," he said, " and be off, and I *11 
not hurt you again." 

But Alick did not stir. The crimson blood was 
streaming from his forehead, and his fair hair and 
face were stained with it Jeffery felt a strange 
sensation of terror and grief a^ he saw it. Once 
he had a boy of his own — the only creature that 
had ever loved him ; and it seemed to him as 
though Alick was his son come back again, and he 
had killed him ! He stooped and lifted him gently 
in his arms, carrying him out of the hot sunshine 
into his own room, while all the neighbors crowded 
round the door without daring to go in. 

"I didn't mean to do it," muttered Jeffery to 
himself, as he laid the boy down on the hard bed. 
" Poor little lad. S pose he 's dead !" 

Jeffery's heart sank and his hands trembled as 
he said these words. He was a coward, as most 
cruel people are ; and the thought of what must 
follow, if the boy was killed, filled him with dread. 
But apart from his dismay, there was a feeling of 
real sorrow and regret at work within him. More 
and more did Alick remind him of the day when 
he had looked for the last time on the white face 
and rigid form of his own dead boy, whom he had 



100 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

lost before he had sunk into such depths of wicked- 
ness. Oh, if the last ten minutes would but come 
back again ! If this boy were but standing again 
opposite his door ! He should sing now as long as 
he chose, and anything he chose, if he would but 
open his eyes once more and- look into his face. 

None of the neighbors had yet ventured over 
the door-sill ; but now the old rag-picker crept in, 
and sidled towards the bed with a broken pitcher 
of water in her hand. Jeffery took it from her and 
held it to Alick's lips, but not a drop was swallowed 
by him. Lower and lower sank his heart, and 
greater grew his terror. He could hear the crowd 
at the door murmuring that the boy was stone- 
dead. There was one frightful word. It seemed 
spoken in a whisper, but it rang in his ears. It 
was " murder." 

Just at this moment the crowd was cleft in two 
by George Lancaster, who thrust himself through 
it with a terrible pang of dread growing stronger 
every moment. He pushed Jeffery on one side and 
knelt down by his boy, remaining silent and still 
for a minute. " God help me !" Jeffery heard him 
say. Then he looked up with a face as white as 
Alick's. 



APPLE-TEEE COURT. loir 

" Send quickly," he said, " for a doctor, the 
nearest you can find." 

There were half a dozen messengers eager to 
run on this errand. Jeffery slunk away into a cor- 
ner and sat down with his elbows on his knees and 
his chin resting on his hands, looking on like one 
stupefied. But before any doctor came Alick began 
to speak in a low, bewildered tone, which could be 
heard plainly in the quiet room, where there were 
only his father, Jeffery, and the poor rag-picker. 

" Jesus loves me ; this I know," said the boy 
over and over again without ceasing, till Jeffery 
caught himself saying the words after him against 
his will. 

When the doctor came he shook his head grave- 
ly, as he examined the injury and Hstened to Alick's 
monotonous raving. As yet George Lancaster had 
asked no questions. He scarcely needed to do so ; 
for he could guess too well how it had all happened. 
The struggle within him was greater than before. 
Had he not done wrong in allowing his son to come 
alone among these ruffians } Ought he to have 
trusted them in any way.? Yet only one short 
hour before it had seemed both right and wise, 
when so many of his poor people had assured him 



102 , A 'NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

that even Jeffery would never attack a child like 
Alick. He had prayed long and earnestly before 
he could bring himself to consent. Yet now, if he 
lost his boy, what was he to do ? Must he give 
Jeffery into custody to await the result ? The doc- 
tor was already inquiring how the injury had been 
caused. What was he to say and do } 

" It were me as did it," muttered Jeffery ; " but 
I never meant it to be that bad. If he's killed, let 
me go to jail for it. I 'm sore sorry about it. If you *11 
let him be, we'll do all we can, and I'll keep the 
court as quiet as a hospital." 

" You had better keep him here for a few hours," 
said the doctor, looking round the comfortless 
room, " and give the fellow in charge at once, Mr. 
Lancaster. He deserves it." 

" No, not yet," answered George Lancaster ; " I 
must think about it. Is there any danger, doctor V 

" More danger than hope," replied the doctor ; 
"but I'll tell you more in six hours from now." 

He gave minute directions as to what must be 
done before going away. Jeffery, who had slipped 
off his heavy boots, trode softly to the side of the 
bed, and looked down on Alick, who was still say- 
ing, " Jesus loves me ; this I know." 



APPLE-TREE COURT, 103 

" What 's the little lad sayin' that for agen and 
agen ?" he asked. 

" Because he knows it is true," answered Mr. 
Lancaster. " It is true for us all, Jeffery ; as true 
for you as for him and me." 

" Not true for me," replied Jeffery, turning away 
towards the door, while his lips repeated mechan- 
ically, "Jesus loves me; this I know." He went 
out into the court and closed the door behind him. 
The crowd made way, supposing he wanted to try 
to escape. But no such thought was in Jeffery's 
head. 

" Now," he said, in a loud whisper, " whosoever 
makes the least bit of a row in this place to-day, 
I'll break every bone in his body. If a baby 
squalls, I '11 be down upon it. So clear off, every 
one of you ; and keep indoors or out in the streets. 
But no noise here, I say." 

Jeffery waited till every one had disappeared, 
either into the streets or within their own homes, 
and then he returned to his room. He felt as if 
he could not run away, however wise it might be 
to make good his escape. George Lancaster was 
sitting by his boy and speaking to him now and 
then in a quiet, soothing tone ; but Alick had nei- 



104 A NIGHT AND A DAY, 

ther recovered his consciousness nor fallen asleep. 
Not a word was spoken to Jeffery. He stole back 
to his corner again, and rested his chin upon his 
hands, staring at the white face upon his bed, and 
repeating after Alick, as often as he murmured the 
words, *' Jesus loves me ; this I know." 

It was a dreary night for both George Lancas- 
ter and Jeffery. Not a sound was to be heard in 
the court, except a stealthy footfall now and then. 
Neither of them slept. Jeffery's sharp ears were 
on the stretch all the time, catching every tone of 
Alick's voice ; and a throng of troubled thoughts 
tossed through his brain. Would they hang him if 
the boy died } And if he did not die, would Mr. 
Lancaster have him sent to jail 1 It had been one 
of his boasts that he had always got off from im- 
prisonment, however bad he had been. He would 
get three months for it, or perhaps more, as the 
boy had done nothing to provoke him. After all, 
would it not be better to break his word, and get 
off while he had the chance } 

But he lingered on and on until the gray light 
of morning dawned upon the comfortless room. 
Alick had been asleep for the last two or three 
hours, his hand lying in his father's, whose eyes 



APPLE-TREE COURT, 105 

were never turned away from him. Jeffery himselt 
had ahiiost fallen into a doze, when suddenly he 
was aroused by Alick's low voice, so low that ears 
less quick could not have caught the whisper. 

" Father," he said, "you'll forgive poor Jeffery .?" 

" It's very hard," answered his father. 

" But he didn't know what he was going to do," 
said Alick. " We must forgive him, you know ; we 
must, we must." 

" Hush ! hush ! my boy," said Mr. Lancaster, 
"you must keep quiet and go to sleep again. Yes, 
I forgive him, as God forgives me." 

Jeffery could not feel drowsy again. The tears 
that had sprung to his eyes rolled slowly down his 
face, and others came, more and more quickly, until 
he buried his face in his hands and wept bitterly, 
as he had done when his own son died. The poor 
little lad's first thought had been to forgive him ! 
He could never get over that. If he would only 
get well again, he should come and sing as often as 
he liked in the court ; ay, and his father should 
come and preach there, and nobody should hinder 
him. He dared not ask God for anything for him- 
self ; but if he prayed to him that the little lad 
might get well, perhaps he would not be offended. 

14 



io6 A NIGHT AND A DA Y. 

So Jeffery knelt down and prayed in a whisper that 
Alick might recover. When he lifted up his head 
and was about to rise from his knees, he saw George 
Lancaster standing before him, with an outstretched 
hand and a smile upon his weary face. 

" Let me pray with you, Jeffery," said George 
Lancaster. " Thank God for this ! Let us be 
friends now, we have watched all night together 
beside my boy." 

" Can you forgive me ?" he asked anxiously. 

" Fully," he said, " fully and freely, as Christ has 
forgiven me ; and as he will forgive you if you only 
ask him." 

*' I 'm a very wicked man," said Jeffery. But at 
this moment the door was opened quietly and the 
doctor entered. He laid his hand upon Alick's 
pulse and looked carefully into his peaceful face. 

" All right," he said ; " keep him quiet till after- 
noon, and then we '11 take him home. He will be 
himself again in a few days' time." 

Jeffery stood outside his door all the morning, 
hushing everybody who went in or out of the court, 
quite as much by his own subdued and solemn 
manner as by the words and gestures he used to 
enforce silence. Alick slept calmly, awaking once 



APPLE-TREE COURT. 107 

or twice with a full consciousness of where he was, 
and with a faint smile playing about his mouth as 
he looked into his father's face, who was sitting be- 
side him with a glad and thankful heart. 

" Is Apple-tree Court won yet ?" asked Alick, 
when he awoke first. Yes ; it was won. Jeffery's 
opposition was at an end. When the afternoon 
came he begged to carry Alick to the cab, which 
was waiting at the entrance of the court, and to 
ride beside the driver to Mr. Lancaster's house. 
After he had seen Alick laid in his own comforta- 
ble bed, he stood looking at him for a minute or 
two, with a dimness in his eyes and a stammer in 
his voice which made it difficult for him to speak. 

" You come again," he said at last, " and I '11 
take care nobody harms you. Come and sing to us 
again. It's like as if I heard you singing all the 
while 'Jesus loves me; this I know.' You come 
again soon." 

It was not long before Alick visited Apple-tree 
Court again, and Jeffery stood at his side to protect 
him. In a few months the character of the place 
was altogether changed. The roughest and worst 
of the tenants gradually drifted away, leaving those 
who could reconcile themselves to Jeffery's new rule ; 



io8 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

for Jeffery continued to be the king of the court. 
The old rag-picker became one of the most con- 
stant visitors at the mission-house, and believed 
there was a God still, as there had been when she 
was young. 

" It was the little lad as did it," said Jeffery one 
day to George Lancaster. " There he stood singin' 
like a little angel, and when I see him fall down 
dead, as I thought, it seemed all at once as if God 
himself could n't look over that. And I could n't 
have believed He would, if I had n't heard him say, 
all in a whisper, * Father, you '11 forgive poor Jeffery. 
He did n't know what he was going to do.' That 
made me think as maybe God could make up his 
mind to forgive me ; for He knew I did n't mean to 
do it." 

" Yes," answered Mr. Lancaster, " it was the 
same plea our Saviour urged upon the cross : * Fa- 
ther, forgive them ; for they know not what they 
do.'" 



THE WORJH op A B^BY. 



It was a bad day for the Ledburys when John 
Ledbury quarrelled with his master, Dr. Reed. 

Everybody in the country round knew Dr. Reed, 
with his compassionate, benevolent face, and his 
bald head, with its fringe of white hair. There was 
scarcely a house, perhaps not one, in a circuit of 
several miles, which he had not entered in some 
time of sickness and sorrow, and where he had not 
been made welcome as one who brought comfort 
and help. Rich and poor, mansion and cottage, 
were alike to him. He was as anxious, and as 
kind, and a trifle more sympathizing, at the bedside 
of a poor patient, as ever he was beside a rich one 
who could pay him a golden fee. " Good Doctor 
Reed," the country people called him, with one 
consent. 



no A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

Then how did it come to pass that John Led- 
bury quarrelled with such a master ? Dr. Reed 
lived in a house at the entrance of the village ; a 
small house, yet quite large enough for a man with 
neither wife nor children. But if the house was 
small the garden was unusually large, for Dr. Reed's 
hobby was a love of flowers ; and many a time he 
had worn an old hat or great-coat long after it was 
shabby, that he might spend the money upon some 
costly plant, or some improvement in his garden. 
John Ledbury filled the post of both groom and 
gardener to him, and as he had been under-garden- 
er at Lord Huntington's, of Huntington Hall, he nat- 
urally concluded that he knew a great deal more of 
the proper treatment of flowers than his master. He 
was a quietly obstinate man, with an unshaken con- 
fidence in his own cleverness and skill, and not at 
all inclined to yield his opinion to anybody's. Late 
one autumn he left out some rare plants, after 
Dr. Reed had ordered him to remove them to the 
greenhouse, and they had every one perished in a 
sudden frost. No doubt the doctor was more an- 
gry than he need have been, and spoke more sharp- 
ly than he should have done ; but John Ledbury 
did a very foolish thing when he threw up the sit- 



THE WORTH OF A BAB Y. in 

uation, with a vow never to speak to his old master 
again. 

That was a very hard winter for the Ledburys. 
John had no idea that he should remain long out 
of work, for he expected that a sober, clever man 
like himself would be snapped up immediately. 
But none of the gentry in the neighborhood wanted 
a gardener just then, and he did not wish to leave 
his own pretty cottage, which stood just at the oth- 
er end of the village from Dr. Reed's. His wife, 
Rachel, had had a baby only a few weeks before the 
quarrel, and Dr. Reed had been as attentive to her 
as if she had been Lord Huntington's lady. But 
she- had not got up her strength again, and now 
she fretted sorely over the matter, sometimes ta- 
king John's part and sometimes the good doctor's. 
It was very trying to her to have John hanging 
about the house all day, with nothing to do except 
to find fault with the way everything was done. 
But before long worse troubles than that came, for 
all their money had melted away like snow in sun- 
shine, and still nothing was to be heard of in the 
way of regular employment. Now and then Led- 
bury had a day's work in the gardens of the farm- 
ers about ; but they did not require much orna- 



112 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

mental gardening, and their own laborers were 
skilful enough for planting potatoes and beans. 
It came at last to John having to make many a 
dreary pilgrimage to the nearest town, where there 
was a pawnbroker's shop, carrying there in secret 
bundles everything that could be spared from 
home. Every day, and sometimes twice or thrice 
a day, Rachel Ledbury saw the good doctor ride 
past the cottage, with his face steadily turned away 
from it, instead of turned towards it with his kindly 
smile. Sometimes it made her feel angry, but 
oftener it made her heart ache and the tears start 
to her eyes, for she felt low and sad, and a word or 
two from him might have put her right again. As 
it was, John brought her some wonderful pills from 
the town, which were to make her quite well and 
strong again if she took plenty of them, but their 
effect was very slow indeed, and she seemed rather 
to grow worse than better. Not that there was 
much the matter with her, except care and anxiety 
and insufficient food, all resulting from John Led- 
bury's quarrel with his master. 

Six months out of work is a terrible trial, espe- 
cially through the winter, when fire and light cost 
so much, and warm clothes are needed, and good 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 113 

food is more necessary than in the summer. The 
baby had suffered least so far, for at any rate Ra- 
chel could keep it warm in her arms ; but Susie, 
who was nine years old, had to be kept from school 
because she had no shoes to put on, nor any decent 
frock to wear. She was not a child that fretted or 
complained much ; but she could not hide how the 
cold made her shiver, or how the frost brought 
chilblains on her feet. Ledbury could not shut his 
eyes upon all this ; but he had made a solemn vow 
never to speak to his old master again, and he 
would rather die than humble himself to ask to be 
taken on again. 

" Rachel/' he said one day in the spring, "you'd 
not mind about leaving the old place, would you?" 

She did shrink from it very much, for she had 
lived all her life in the village, and all her friends 
were there, only of late John's surly temper had 
driven them away from the house. Rachel was not 
altogether sorry for that, for she did not wish them 
to see how bare and empty it was getting ; and now 
perhaps it would be better to go away among stran- 
gers, than come down to beggary where everybody 
knew her, though a sob rose in her throat as she 
thought of it. 

15 



1 14 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

" Could you get work somewhere else, John ?'* 
she asked. 

'' Oh, no fear of that," he said confidently, " if 
we get away from a place where nobody knows 
nothing about flowers. There are scores of places 
where they 'd be glad of a man like me." 

"We'd better go to them, then," answered Ra- 
chel sadly. 

"Well, I ought to go first," said John, "and 
choose a place that '11 suit us. I might be away a 
week or two before I 'm settled, for I 'm rather par- 
ticular. It's not often that a man like me has to 
seek for work." 

It was the beginning of April when Ledbury 
set out to seek for work, resolved to take none but 
in some nobleman's or gentleman's grounds. He 
had had enough of gardening for a master who 
would interfere and order about his plants, and he 
was determined not to enter such a situation again. 
He did not tell any of his neighbors where he was 
going, or upon what errand. He had to leave his 
wife and children with no more than two shillings 
to provide them with food and fuel till his return ; 
but his pride was strong enough to make him cer- 
tain that in two or three days at the farthest he 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 115 

would meet with a place that would be exactly fitted 
for him. 

The baby was nearly eight months old now, 
and had learned to crow and laugh at him, and nes- 
tle in his arms with contented, cooing sounds which 
he loved to hear. Somehow or other, the faces of 
his wife and Susie seemed a continual reproach to 
him, they were so sad and dull, with no cheerful 
smiles upon them ; but the baby's face never re- 
proached him. Besides, from being at home all 
day, he had nursed it and carried it about more 
than any of his other little ones, who had all died 
very young, except Susie. So the baby was dearer 
to him than any of the others had been, and it was 
a greater trouble to part with it when he left home. 

It would have been a sharp and bitter sorrow 
to John Ledbury if he could have looked in at his 
home six days after he left it. The baby had been 
taken ill the very day he went, and had scarcely been 
out of its mother's lap since. The soft, tiny limbs 
were wasted away almost to a skeleton, and the little 
face had never once brightened into a smile, such 
as had always greeted him when he came into the 
cottage. Rachel had not dared to send for Dr. 
Reed, but had tried to doctor it herself, trying first 



ii6 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

one thing and then another recommended to her by 
the neighbors. But the baby was sinking rapidly, 
seldom opening its little eyelids, and turning away 
from any food she could give it. She began to 
think it must die like the other babies, whom even 
Dr. Reed could not save from death ; and she felt 
as if her heart would break. 

" Susie," she said, " have you ever dropped your 
courtesy to the doctor T' 

" He never looks at me, mother," answered Su- 
sie ; " he 's always looking at something else on the 
other side." 

Rachel's heart sank within her, but she could 
not give up any chance of her baby's life. 

" Susie," she said, after thinking it over a long 
time, " put on mother's shawl and boots, and run up 
to the doctor's, and tell him baby is dying, like all 
the rest. Perhaps he will come." 

Very quickly was Susie dressed and at Dr. 
Reed's house; but she was a good deal afraid of 
speaking to the doctor after all she had heard her 
father say against him. She lingered outside the 
surgery door, without courage to knock, until the 
clock of the village church chimed eight in the 
evening. Then she knocked one single timid 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 117 

knock, and Dr. Reed's pleasant voice called out 
" Come in." 

It took both Susie's hands to turn the large 
brass handle of the surgery door ; but as soon as 
she had opened it and entered with a beating heart, 
she saw the doctor s face smiling upon her from 
behind a counter, where his assistant was making 
up medicine under his directions. 

" Well, Susie," he said, in a kindly tone, which 
quite reassured the trembling child, " what are you 
come for to-night .?" 

" Oh, please, sir," she answered, "father's gone 
away to find some work, and mother says baby is 
dying, like all the rest, and perhaps you will come." 

" To be sure I '11 come," answered Dr. Reed ; 
" run home to your mother, and tell her I 'm coming 
in a minute." 

It was not many minutes before the doctor was 
standing by the chair where Rachel sat with her 
child on her lap, his kindly face looking down care- 
fully and pitifully at it. It lay quite still, stretched 
out stiffly, as if it were already dead, with its eye- 
lids closed, and its thin, wasted arms falling feebly 
by its side. Rachel took one of the tiny hands in 
hers, a hand that seemed almost ready to fall to 



ii8 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

pieces, and she looked up mournfully into the doc- 
tor's face. 

" She moans all night, sir," she said, as the little 
creature uttered a weak, plaintive cry when she 
touched its hand. 

" How long has she been ill ?" asked the doctor. 

" Six days and five nights now, sir," said Rachel, 
her voice faltering, and her tears falling upon the 
baby's hand ; " I 've never slept for her moaning. 
It goes to my very heart ; and we not able to do 
anything for her !" 

"Why did you not send for me sooner.?" he 
asked with some displeasure. 

"I daren't, sir," she answered, "you and John 
have fallen out so, and you never looked this way 
when you went past the house, and I thought you 
would n't consent to come unless John humbled 
himself ; and I did n't like to send for any other 
doctor from the town." 

" I 'd sooner all the plants in my garden had 
died," said the doctor, " than that the child should 
have been kept in pain like this." 

He took it out of her lap, and carried it to the 
table, where a candle was burning. The thin little 
eyelids opened for a moment, and the baby looked 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 119 

up at him with a faint glimmer of a smile upon its 
face. Rachel was beginning to sob hysterically, 
and he went back to her, but did not give her the 
baby again. 

"You are quite wornout," he said, "and you 
must go to bed. One of the neighbors must sit up 
with the baby to-night. Where 's John gone to .^" 

''I don't exactly know," she answered, between-^ 
her sobs; "he's looking for work, and he doesn't 
know baby 's ill. I 've been fretting so all the win- 
ter, and that's hurt her. She'd never moan in that 
way but for my fretting. It seems hard for a little 
thing to suffer like that for my fault. But I could 
not help fretting, sir, with all the best of the things 
going to the pawnshop, and Susie kept from school, 
and all of us cold and hungry. I can't sleep of 
nights for thinking of it." 

"Well you must go to bed to-night," he said, 
"or you'll be ill too." 

" I could n't leave the baby," she cried, feverish- 
ly ; " there isn't any of the neighbors I could trust. 
There 's no one like a mother, sir ; I could n't leave 
her." 

" Could you trust me, Rachel V asked Dr. Reed. 

She looked at him, holding the child so tenderly 



I20 A NIGHT AND A DA K 

and comfortably on his arm, with his face full of 
compassion and trouble for them both. She could 
scarcely believe she had understood him rightly, 
but as she did not answer, he went on speaking. 

" If you can trust me," he said, " I will sit up 
with it myself till morning, and I dare say I can 
find something to do it good. It is partly suffering 
from my fault, Rachel ; if I had looked at you as I 
used to do, you 'd have sent for me at once. Poor 
little lamb." 

" Oh, I 'd trust you with all my heart," cried 
Rachel, as he laid the baby again on her lap, and 
hurried home for the medicine that was needed. 

In an hour from that time everything was pre- 
pared for the doctor to sit up all night to nurse 
Ledbury's baby. A little bed had been made with 
a pillow on a chair near the fire, for the baby to lie 
upon, if it grew easy enough to be laid down. A 
tub had been placed ready for a bath, and the kettle 
was hung on a hook over the fire. Susie and Rachel 
were asleep in the room up stairs, where the moth- 
er could hear quickly if the doctor called her, 
through the rough boards that formed the floor. 
But before they went. Dr. Reed bade them kneel 
down with him, while he prayed aloud. 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 121 

" Lord Jesus," he said, " who hast gathered so 
many lambs into thy fold, and carried them in thy 
bosom, look down upon this little one, in thy great 
love and pity. We want it to live ; we should be 
sorely grieved if it were taken away from us. Spare 
it to us, good Lord, if it is thy will. The child is 
suffering for our sins. Oh, forgive the sins, and 
take away the suffering. 

"And, Lord, give us the same trust in thee, 
that this poor mother has in me. She is willing to 
confide her little child to me, and lie down, and 
sleep, feeling sure that I shall do all I can for it. 
Let us trust ourselves to thy love and care, know- 
ing that thou art doing all things well for us, and 
that there can be neither weariness, nor neglect, 
nor unkindness, nor want of wisdom in thee. Thou 
art watching over us, as I am about to watch over 
this helpless child. Thine arms are under us, and 
we are resting in them, as this moaning baby lies 
in mine. Ah ! Lord, we moan and suffer also, but 
thou art not wearied out with us. 

"And, Lord, give us the grace to forgive one 

another even as thou forgivest us. We have been 

nursing hard thoughts one against another in our 

hearts; hard and heavy thoughts, never thinking 

16 



122 A NIGHT AND A DAY, 

that this little lamb would have to bear part of the 
burden. 

" Remove the burden from the child, and help 
us to be more heedful, lest more sins of ours 
should be visited upon the innocent." 

An hour later everything was hushed in the 
cottage, except the low wail of the baby, which 
was still lying in the doctor's arms, as he trod soft- 
ly to and fro in the kitchen, his heart full of pity 
and anxiety for it. He had tried the medicine he 
had brought, but still it neither slept nor revived. 
What a frail, small thing it seemed, to be so full of 
suffering ! Its pitiful moaning was the only lan- 
guage it had to tell of its pain, and every sound of 
it smote upon the doctor's ear and heart. To and 
fro he walked, cradling it in his arms, and watching 
its pinched face to see the first change, either for 
death or life, that should come upon it. Overhead, 
Rachel was sleeping, for he no longer heard the 
creaking of the wooden bedstead, as she tossed 
restlessly upon it. No sound from without or with- 
in broke upon the stillness. There was nothing to 
listen to, except that low, plaintive, sobbing cry of 
the baby. 

The dawn was just stealing softly into the sky. 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 123 

when John Ledbury'turned into the village at the 
farthest end from his cottage. He was very miser- 
able, for he had been on the tramp all night, and he 
was footsore and tired. All his money was gone, 
and he had even had to ask assistance from some 
fellow-gardeners. He felt very bitter against his 
old master as he passed by the house, and looked 
up to the bedroom window, with its warm curtains 
and tight casement shutting out the east wind, 
which blew keenly through and through his old 
wornout coat. He had quite failed in finding work, 
though he had tried for it farther and farther from 
home, and offered himself on lower wages than he 
had ever taken before. There was little comfort in 
coming back with such news to Rachel and Susie, 
who would so well understand what his failure 
meant. But the baby would know nothing against 
him ; and after he had spent all his bitter feelings 
against Dr. Reed, his thoughts flew to the baby, as 
he trudged slowly and wearily along the village 
street, where every house was still closed, and only 
the farmyard cocks were beginning to crow and 
the birds to chirp under the eaves. 

He was not long in gaining his own cottage, 
and he stopped at the gate for a minute looking at 



124 A NIGHT AND A DAY, 

it, and thinking it was not worth while to wake up 
Ruchel to hear what he had got to tell. But though 
the blind was drawn across the window down stairs, 
it was quite plain there was a light inside, and a 
column of gray smoke rose up lazily into the morn- 
ing air from the chimney. Rachel was up very 
early, he thought, and how surprised she would be 
to see him, for he had not written to her since he 
left. It was Sunday morning, and he had been 
away all the week — a long week of disappointment 
and mortification. But he was obliged to face her 
sooner or later, and he would get it over and go to 
bed to rest himself. He trod quietly up the garden- 
path, and lifted the latch very noiselessly. Then 
he stood still upon the threshold, thunderstruck 
and unable to believe his own eyes. 

There was a fire burning upon the hearth and a. 
candle lit upon the table ; and it was evident they 
had not just been kindled. But instead of Rachel 
busy about the house, there was his old master, 
whom he had supposed comfortably in bed, sitting 
on the rocking-chair with the baby in his arms and 
his white head bent tenderly over it. Dr. Reed 
was growing a little deaf, and he did not hear the 
click of the latch as Ledbury opened the door ; so 



THE WORTH OF A BABY, 125 

he did not turn round and see him. John heard 
the baby moan, and saw the doctor hush it and rock 
it as patiently as Rachel herself. Was it possible 
that the baby could be ill, and Dr. Reed sitting up 
all night with it } He shut the door quickly, for 
the keen air was blowing in; and then the doctor 
turned his head and lifted up his hands to warn 
him to be as quiet as possible. John stole across 
the kitchen-floor noiselessly. 

" Master," he said, in a whisper, and forgetting 
his vow never to speak to him again, " what is it .^" 

" The baby has been ill, and is ill now," he an- 
swered, in the same low tone ; " but I am getting 
some hopes of it, John." 

*' O master !" he cried, falling on his knees before 
him and the child, with tears in his eyes, " master, 
can you ever forgive me V 

"John," said Dr. Reed, "I am to blame as well 
as you. I was too hasty. Neither of us ever 
thought how the worst of it would fall upon your 
wife and the children. Dear, dear ! To think I 've 
been a Christian man all these years and never 
learned that all our mistakes and follies and sins 
bring trouble to the little innocent creatures. Why, 
John ! the sins of the fathers cannot help bemg 



126 A NIGHT AND A DAY. 

visited on the children, and every blunder we men 
make falls on them. I have been learning that les- 
son to-night. If God were to deal with us as we 
deal with one another, we should be in a miserable 
plight." 

*' Master, forgive me," said John ; " I wish I 'd 
put those plants into the greenhouse." 

" I 'd rather all the plants in my garden had 
perished," repeated the doctor, "than that one of 
these little ones should suffer as baby has done. 
* Ye are of more value than many sparrows,' the 
Lord said ; and this child is worth more than all 
my garden. Come, John, I forgive you with all my 
heart ; and I hope better times are coming for you." 

" I cannot find any regular work," owned John, 
though he was ashamed to say it. " I 'm afeared 
times will be bad for us yet awhile, master." 

"There's your old place, if you wish to come 
back," he answered ; " I have not got any one to 
suit me yet." 

John Ledbury could not speak, for the sobs in 
his throat, which he was trying to keep down. His 
face, which was leaning over the baby, was working 
with many mingled feelings ; and just at that mo- 
ment the little child lifted up its eyes and a smile 



THE WORTH OF A BABY. 127 

came upon its face, as if it knew him, even in its 
pain. Ledbury's proud spirit was quite broken 
down. 

" Master," he said, with the tears rolHng down 
his cheeks, " I 've been an obstinate man ; but I '11 
never speak another word against you, order how 
you choose in the garden. Will the child get over 
it, master .?" 

" I think so," answered the doctor, looking care- 
fully at the small face ; " thank God ! it has got the 
turn, I believe. I feel as if I 'd spent this night as 
the Lord Jesus Christ would have done in my place, 
and it is the most blessed feeling. Christianity 
means being like Christ, each one of us, in our own 
station. We must both try to remember that, John 
Ledbury." 

It was six o'clock when Dr. Reed walked home 
through the village, tired and sleepy, but happier 
than he had been since the quarrel ; while John 
Ledbury told his wife all that had taken place be- 
tween them. He no longer felt weary and care- 
worn, and inclined to hide himself from his neigh- 
bors ; but when the church-bells rang for morning 
service, he took Susie by the hand, and, in spite of 
her shabby clothes and his own threadbare coat, he 



128 A NIGHT AND A DA V. 

went to the church to thank God for the change in 
himself and his circumstances. Dr. Reed was 
there, too, in his pew near the pulpit, but he looked 
down the aisle and smiled as John Ledbury and 
his little girl came in. Once again he caught his 
eye and smiled significantly. It was when the 
clergyman opened the Bible and read out his text : 
" Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and 
clamor and evil-speaking be put away from you, 
with all malice ; and be ye kind one to another, 
tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God 
for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." 





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