It Is Never Too Late to Mend

Five minutes more Mr. Eden had placed in Mr. Lacy's hands a list of prisoners to whom a free pardon ought now to be extended, some having suffered a somewhat shorter period but a greater weight of misery than the judges had contemplated in their several sentences; and others being so shaken and depressed by separate confinement pushed to excess that their life and reason now stood in peril for want of open air, abundant light, and free intercourse with their species. At the head of these was poor Strutt, an old man crushed to clay by separate confinement recklessly applied. So alarming was this man's torpor to Mr. Eden that after trying in vain to interest him in the garden, that observer ventured on a very strong measure. He had learned from Strutt that he could play the fiddle; what does he do but runs and fetches his own violin into the garden, tunes it, and plays some most inspiriting, rollicking old English tunes to him! A spark came into the fishy eye of Strutt. At the third tune the old fellow's fingers began to work impatiently. Mr. Eden broke off directly, put fiddle and bow into Strutt's hand, and ran off to the prison again to arrest melancholy, despair, lunacy, stagnation, mortification, putrefaction, by every art that philosophy and mother-wit could suggest to Christianity.

This determined man had collected his teaching mechanics again, and he had them all into the prison the moment Hawes was out. He could not get the cranks condemned as monsters—the day was not yet come for that; so he got them condemned as liars, and in their place tasks of rational and productive labor were set to most of the prisoners, and London written to for six more trades and arts.

A copy of the prison-rules was cut into eight portions and eight female prisoners set to compose each her portion. Copies to be printed on the morrow and put up in every cell, according to the wise provision of Rule 10, defied by the late jailer for an obvious reason. Thus in an hour after the body of Hawes had passed through that gate a firm and adroit hand was wiping his gloomy soul out of the cells as we wipe a blotch of ink off a written page.

Care, too, was taken every prisoner should know the late jailer was gone forever. This was done to give the wretches a happy night. Ejaculations of thanksgiving burst from the cells every now and then; by some mysterious means the immured seemed to share the joyful tidings with their fellows, and one pulse of hope and triumph to beat and thrill through all the life that wasted and withered there encased in stone; and until sunset the faint notes of a fiddle struggled from the garden into the temple of silence and gloom, and astounded every ear.

The merry tunes as Strutt played them sounded like dirges, but they enlivened him as they sighed forth. They stirred his senses, and through his senses his mind, and through his mind his body, and so the anthropologist made a fiddle help save a life, which fact no mortal man will believe whose habit it is to chatter blindfold about man and investigate the “crustaceonidunculae.”

The cranks being condemned, rational industry restored, and the law reseated on the throne a manslaughtering dunce had usurped, the champion of human nature went home to drink his tea and write the plot of his sermon.

He had won a great battle and felt his victory. He showed it, too, in his own way. On the evening of this great day his voice was remarkably gentle and winning, and a celestial light seemed to dwell in his eyes; no word of exultation, nor even of self-congratulation; and he made no direct mention of the prison all the evening. His talk was about Susan's affairs, and he paid his warm thanks to her and her aunt for all they had done for him. “You have been true friends, true allies,” said he; “what do I not owe you! you have supported me in a bitter struggle, and now that the day is won I can find no words to thank you as I ought.”

Both these honest women colored and glistened with pleasure, but they were too modest to be ready with praise or to bandy compliments.

“As for you, Susan, it was a masterstroke your venturing into my den.”

“Oh! we turn bold when a body is ill, don't we, aunt?”

“I am not shy for one at the best of times,” remarked the latter.

“Under Heaven you saved my life, at least I think so, Susan, for the medicinal power of soothing influences is immense, I am sure it is apt to be underrated; and then it was you who flew to Malvern and dragged Gulson to me at the crisis of my fate; dear little true-hearted friend, I am sorry to think I can never repay you.”

“You forget, Mr. Eden,” said Susan, almost in a whisper, “I was paid beforehand.”

I wish I could convey the native grace and gentle dignity of gratitude with which the farmer's daughter murmured these four words, like a duchess acknowledging a kindness.

“Eh?” inquired Mr. Eden, “oh! ah! I forgot,” said he naively. “No! that is nonsense, Susan. You have still an immense Cr. against my name; but I know a way—Mrs. Davies, for as simple as I sit here you see in me the ecclesiastic that shall unite this young lady to an honest man, who, report says, loves her very dearly; so I mean to square our little account.”

“That is fair, Susan; what do you say?”

“La, aunt! why I shouldn't look upon it as a marriage at all if any clergyman but Mr. Eden said the words.”

“That is right,” laughed Mr. Eden, “always set some little man above some great thing, and then you will always be—a woman. I must write the plot of my sermon, ladies, but you can talk to me all the same.”

He wrote and purred every now and then to the women, who purred to each other and now and then to him. Neither Hawes nor any other irritation rankled in his heart, or even stuck fast in his memory. He had two sermons to prepare for Sunday next, and he threw his mind into them as he had into the battle he had just won. “Hoc agebat.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

His reverence in the late battle showed himself a strategist, and won without bringing up his reserves; if he had failed with Mr. Lacy he had another arrow behind in his quiver. He had been twice to the mayor and claimed a coroner's jury to sit on a suicide. The mayor had consented and the preliminary steps had been taken.

The morning after the jailer's dismissal the inquest was held. Mr. Eden, Evans, Fry and others were examined, and the case came out as clear as the day and black as the night.

When twelve honest Englishmen, men of plain sense, not men of system, men taken from the public not from public offices, sat in a circle with the corpse of a countryman at their knees, fiebat lux; 'twas as though twelve suns had burst into a dust-hole.

“Manslaughter!” cried they, and they sent their spokesman to the mayor and said yet more light must be let into this dusthole, and the mayor said, “Ay and it shall, too. I will write to London and demand more light.” And the men of the public went to their own homes and told their wives and children and neighbors what cruelties and villainies they had unearthed, and their hearers, being men and women of that people, which is a god in intellect and in heart compared with the criticasters that try to misguide it with their shallow guesses and cant and with the clerks that execute it in other men's names, cried out, “See now! What is the use our building courts of law or prisons unless they are to be open unto us. Shut us out—keep walls and closed gate between us and our servants—and what comes of our courts of law and our prisons? Why they turn nests of villainy in less than no time.”

The twelve honest Englishmen had hardly left the jail an hour, crying “manslaughter!” and crying “shame!” when all in a moment “TOMB!” fell a single heavy stroke of the great prison bell. The heart of the prison leaped, and then grew cold—a long chill pause, then “TOMB!” again. The jurymen had told most of his fellow-sufferers how Josephs was driven into his grave—and now—

“TOMB!” the remorseless iron tongue crashed out one by one the last sad, stern monosyllables of this sorrowfulest of human tales.

They put him in his coffin (“TOMB!”) a boy of sixteen, who would be alive now but that caitiffs, whom God confound on earth, made life an impossibility to him (“TOMB!”), and that Shallows and Woodcocks, whom God confound on earth, and unconscientious non-inspecting inspectors, flunkeys, humbugs, hirelings, whom God confound on earth (“TOMB!”), left these scoundrels month after month and year after year unwatched, though largely paid by the queen and the people to watch them (“TOMB!”). Look on your work, hirelings, and listen to that bell, which would not be tolling now if you had been men of brains and scruples instead of sordid hirelings. The priest was on his knees, praying for help from heaven to go through the last sad office with composure, for he feared his own heart when he should come to say “ashes to ashes” and “dust to dust” over this hapless boy, that ought to be in life still. And still the great bell tolled, and many of the prisoners were invited kindly in a whisper to come into the chapel; but Fry could not be spared and Hodges fiercely refused. And now the bell stopped, and as it stopped, the voice of the priest arose, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

A deep and sad gloom was upon all as the last sad offices were done for this poor young creature cut short by foul play in the midst of them. And for all he could do the priest's voice trembled often, and a heavy sigh mingled more than once with the holy words.

What is that? “THIS OUR BROTHER!”—a thief our brother?—ay! the priest made no mistake, those were the words; pause on them. Two great characters contradicted each other to the face over dead Josephs. Unholy State said, “Here is the carcass of a thief whom I and society honestly believe to be of no more importance than a dog—so it has unfortunately got killed between us, no matter how; take this carcass and bury it,” said unholy State. Holy Church took the poor abused remains with reverence, prayed over them as she prays over the just, and laid them in the earth, calling them “this our brother.” Judge now which is all in the wrong, unholy State or holy Church—for both cannot be right.

Now while the grave is being filled in, judge, women of England and America, between these two—unholy State and holy Church. The earth contains no better judges of this doubt than you. Judge and I will bow to your verdict with a reverence I know male cliques too well to feel for them in a case where the great capacious heart alone can enlighten the clever, little, narrow, shallow brain.

Thus in the nineteenth century—in a kind-hearted nation—under the most humane sovereign the world has ever witnessed on an earthly throne—holy Church in vain denouncing the miserable sinners that slay the thief their brother—Edward Josephs has been done to death in the queen's name—in the name of England—and in the name of the law.

But each of these great insulted names has its sworn defenders, its honored and paid defenders. It is not for us to suppose that men so high in honor will lay aside themselves and turn curs.

Ere I close this long story, let us hope I shall be able to relate with what zeal and honor statesmen disowned and punished wholesale manslaughter done in the name of the State; and with what zeal and horror judges disowned and punished wholesale manslaughter done in their name; and so, in all good men's eyes, washed off the blood with which a hireling had bespattered the state ermine and the snow-white robe of law.

For the present, the account between Josephs and the law stands thus:—Josephs has committed the smallest theft imaginable. He has stolen food. For this the law, professing to punish him with certain months' imprisonment, has inflicted capital punishment; has overtasked, crucified, starved—overtasked, starved, crucified—robbed him of light, of sleep, of hope, of life; has destroyed his body, and perhaps his soul. Sum total—1st page of account—

Josephs a larcenist and a corpse. The law a liar and a felon.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

JOSEPHS has dropped out of our story. Mr. Hawes has got himself kicked out of our story. The other prisoners, of whom casual mention has been made, were never in our story, any more than the boy Xury in “Robinson Crusoe.” There remains to us in the prison Mr. Eden and Robinson, a saint and a thief.

My readers have seen how the saint has saved the thief's life. They shall guess awhile how on earth Susan Merton can be affected by that circumstance. They have seen a set of bipeds acting on the notion that all prisoners are incurable: they have seen a thief, thus despaired of, driven toward despair, and almost made incurable through being thought so. Then they have seen this supposed incurable fall into the hands of a Christian that held “it is never too late to mend;” and generally I think that, feebly as my pen has drawn so great a character, they can calculate, by what Mr. Eden has already done, what he will do while I am with Susan and George; what love, what eloquence, what ingenuity he will move to save this wandering sheep, to turn this thief honest and teach him how to be honest yet not starve.

I will ask my reader to bear in mind, that the good and wise priest has no longer his hands tied by a jailer in the interest of the foul fiend. But then, against all this, is to be set the slippery heart of a thief, a thief almost from his cradle. Here are great antagonist forces and they will be in daily almost hourly collision for months to come. In life nothing stands still; all this will work goodward or badward. I must leave it to work.

CHAPTER XXIX.

MR. EDEN'S health improved so visibly that Susan Merton announced her immediate return to her father. It was a fixed idea in this young lady's mind that she and Mrs. Davies had no business in the house of a saint upon earth, as she called Mr. Eden, except as nurses.

The parting of attached friends has always a touch of sadness needless to dwell on at this time. Enough that these two parted as brother and young sister, and a spiritual adviser and advised, with warm expressions of Christian amity, and an agreement on Susan's part to write for advice and sympathy whenever needed.

On her arrival at Grassmere Farm there was Mr. Meadows to greet her. “Well, that is attentive!” cried Susan. There was also a stranger to her, a Mr. Clinton.

As nothing remarkable occurred this evening, we may as well explain this Mr. Clinton. He was a speculator, and above all a setter on foot of rotten speculations, and a keeper on foot a little while of lame ones. No man exceeded him in the art of rose-tinting bad paper or parchment. He was sanguine and fluent. His mind had two eyes, an eagle's and a bat's; with the first he looked at the “pros,” and with the second at the “cons” of a spec.

He was an old acquaintance of Meadows, and had come thirty miles out of the way to show him how to make 100 per cent without the shadow of a risk. Meadows declined to violate the laws of Nature, but, said he, “If you like to stay a day or two I will introduce you to one or two who have money to fling away.” And he introduced him to Mr. Merton. Now that worthy had a fair stock of latent cupidity, and Mr. Clinton was the man to tempt it.

In a very few conversations he convinced the farmer that there were a hundred ways of making money, all of them quicker than the slow process of farming and the unpleasant process of denying one's self superfluities and growing saved pennies into pounds.

“What do you think, John,” said Merton one day to Meadows, “I have got a few hundreds loose. I'm half minded to try and turn them into thousands for my girl's sake. Mr. Clinton makes it clear, don't you think?”

“Well, I don't know,” was the reply. “I have no experience in that sort of thing, but it certainly looks well the way he puts it.”

In short, Meadows did not discourage his friend from co-operating with Mr. Clinton; for his own part he spoke him fair, and expressed openly a favorable opinion of his talent and his various projects, and always found some excuse or other for not risking a halfpenny with him.

CHAPTER XXX.

ONE day Mr. Meadows walked into the post-office of Farnborough and said to Jefferies, the postmaster, “A word with you in private, Mr. Jefferies.”

“Certainly, Mr. Meadows—come to my back parlor, sir; a fine day, Mr. Meadows, but I think we shall have a shower or two.”

“Shouldn't wonder. Do you know this five-pound note?”

“Can't say I do.”

“Why it has passed through your hands?”

“Has it? well a good many of them pass through my hands in the course of the year. I wish a few of 'em would stop on the road.”

“This one did. It stuck to your fingers, as the phrase goes.”

“I don't know what you mean, sir,” said Jefferies haughtily.

“You stole it,” explained Meadows quietly.

“Take care,” cried Jefferies in a loud quaver—“Take care what you say! I'll have my action of defamation against you double quick if you dare to say such a thing of me.”

“So be it. You will want witnesses. Defamation is no defamation you know till the scandal is published. Call in your lodger.”

“Ugh!”

“And call your wife!” cried Meadows, raising his voice in turn.

“Heaven forbid! Don't speak so loud, for goodness' sake!”

“Hold your tongue then and don't waste my time with your gammon,” said Meadows sternly. Then resuming his former manner he went on in the tone of calm explanation. “One or two in this neighborhood lost money coming through the post. I said to myself, 'Jefferies is a man that often talks of his conscience—he will be the thief'—so I baited six traps for you, and you took five. This note came over from Ireland; you remember it now?”

“I am ruined! I am ruined!”

“You changed it at Evans' the grocer's; you had four sovereigns and silver for it. The other baits were a note and two sovereigns and two half sovereigns. You spared one sovereign, the rest you nailed. They were all marked by Lawyer Crawley. They have been traced from your hand, and lie locked up ready for next assizes. Good-morning, Mr. Jefferies.”

Jefferies turned a cold jelly where he sat—and Meadows walked out, primed Crawley, and sent him to stroll in sight of the post-office.

Soon a quavering voice called Crawley into the post-office. “Come into my back parlor, sir. Oh! Mr. Crawley, can nothing be done? No one knows my misfortune but you and Mr. Meadows. It is not for my own sake, sir, but my wife's. If she knew I had been tempted so far astray, she would never hold up her head again. Sir, if you and Mr. Meadows will let me off this once, I will take an oath on my bended knees never to offend again.”

“What good will that do me?” asked Crawley contemptuously.

“Ah!” cried Jefferies, a light breaking in, “will money make it right? I'll sell the coat off my back.”

“Humph! If it was only me—but Mr. Meadows has such a sense of public duty, and yet—hum!—I know a way to influence him just now.”

“Oh, sir! do pray use your influence with him.”

“What will you do for me if I succeed?”

“Do for you?—cut myself in pieces to serve you.”

“Well, Jefferies, I'm undertaking a difficult task—to turn such a man as Meadows, but I will try it and I think I shall succeed; but I must have terms. Every letter that comes here from Australia you must bring to me with your own hands directly.”

“I will, sir, I will.”

“I shall keep it an hour or two perhaps, not more; and I shall take no money out of it.”

“I will do it, sir, and with pleasure. It is the least I can do for you.”

“And you must find me 10 pounds.” The little rogue must do a bit on his own account.

“I must pinch to get it,” said Jefferies ruefully.

“Pinch then,” replied Crawley coolly; “and let me have it directly.”

“You shall—you shall—before the day is out.”

“And you must never let Meadows know I took this money of you.”

“No, sir, I won't! is that all?”

“That is all.”

“Then I am very grateful, sir, and I won't fail, you may depend.”

Thus the two battledores played with this poor little undetected one, whom his respectability no less than his roguery placed at their mercy.

CHAPTER XXXI.

WHENEVER Mr. Meadows could do Mr. Levi an ill turn he did; and vice versa. They hated one another like men who differ about baptism. Susan sprinkled dewdrops of charity on each in turn.

Levi listened to her with infinite pleasure. “Your voice,” said he, “is low and melodious like the voice of my own people in the East.” And then she secretly quoted the New Testament to him, having first ascertained that he had never read it; and he wondered where on earth this simple girl had picked up so deep a wisdom and so lofty and self-denying a morality.

Meadows listened to her with respect from another cause; but the ill offices that kept passing between the two men counteracted her transitory influence and fed fat the ancient grudge.

CHAPTER XXXII.

“WILL FIELDING is in the town; I'm to arrest him as agreed last night?”

“Hum! no!”

“Why I have got the judgment in my pocket and the constable at the public hard by.”

“Never mind! he was saucy to me in the market yesterday—I was angry and—but anger is a snare. What shall I gain by locking him up just now? let him go.”

“Well, sir, your will is law,” said Crawley obsequiously but sadly.

“Now to business of more importance.”

“At your service, sir.”

But the business of more importance was interrupted by a sudden knock at the outside door of Mr. Meadows' study.

“Well!”

A young lady to see you.

“A young lady?” inquired Meadows with no very amiable air, “I am engaged—do you know who it is?”

“It is Farmer Merton's daughter, David says.”

“Miss Merton!” cried Meadows, with a marvelous change of manner. “Show her up directly. Crawley, run into the passage, quick, man—and wait for signals.” He bundled Crawley out, shut the secret door, threw open both the others, and welcomed Susan warmly at the threshold. “Well, this is good of you, Miss Merton, to come and shine in upon me in my own house.”

“I have brought your book back!” replied Susan, coloring a little; “that was my errand, that is,” said she, “that was partly my errand.” She hesitated a moment—“I am going to Mr. Levi.” Meadows' countenance fell. “And I wouldn't go to him without coming to you; because what I have to say to him I must say to you as well. Mr. Meadows, do let me persuade you out of this bitter feeling against the poor old man. Oh! I know you will say he is worse than you are; so he is, a little; but then consider he has more excuse than you; he has never been taught how wicked it is not to forgive. You know it—but don't practice it.”

Meadows looked at the simple-minded enthusiast, and his cold eye deepened in color as it dwelt on her, and his voice dropped into the low and modulated tone which no other human creature but this ever heard from him. “Human nature is very revengeful. Few of us are like you. It is my misfortune that I have not oftener a lesson from you; perhaps you might charm away this unchristian spirit that makes me unworthy to be your—your friend.”

“Oh no! no!” cried Susan, “if I thought so should I be here?”

“Your voice and your face do make me at peace with all the world, Susan—I beg your pardon—Miss Merton.”

“And why not Susan?” said the young lady kindly.

“Well! Susan is a very inviting name.”

“La! Mr. Meadows,” cried Susan, arching her brows, “why, it is a frightful name—it is so old-fashioned; nobody is christened Susan nowadays.”

“It is a name for everything that is good and gentle and lovely—” A moment more and passion would have melted all the icy barriers prudence and craft had reared round this deep heart. His voice was trembling, his cheek flushing; but he was saved by—an enemy. “Susan!” cried a threatening voice at the door, and there stood William Fielding with a look to match.

Rage burned in Meadows' heart. He said bruskly, “Come in,” and seizing a slip of paper he wrote five words on it, and taking out a book flung it into the passage to Crawley. He then turned toward W. Fielding, who by this time had walked up to Susan. Was on the other side of the screen.

“Was told you had gone in here,” said William quietly, “so I came after you.”

“Now that was very attentive of you,” replied Susan ironically. “It is so nice to have a sensible young man like you following forever at one's heels—like a dog.”

A world of quiet scorn embellished this little remark.

William's reply was happier than usual. “The sheep find the dog often in their way, but they are all the safer for him.”

“Well, I'm sure,” cried Susan, her scorn giving way to anger.

Mr. Meadows put in: “I must trouble you to treat Miss Merton with proper respect when you speak to her in my house.”

“Who respects her more than I?” retorted William; “but you see, Mr. Meadows, sheep are no match for wolves when the dog is away—so the dog is here.”

“I see the dog is here and by his own invitation; all I say is that if the dog is to stay here he must behave like a man.”

William gasped at this hit; he didn't trust himself to answer Meadows; in fact, a blow of his fist seemed to him the only sufficient answer—he turned to Susan. “Susan, do you remember poor George's last words to me? with a tear in his eye and his hand in mine. Well, I keep my promise to him—I keep my eye upon such as I think capable of undermining my brother. This man is a schemer, Susan, and you are too simple to fathom him.”

The look of surprise crafty Meadows put on here, and William Fielding's implied compliment to his own superior sagacity struck Susan as infinitely ludicrous, and she looked at Meadows and laughed like a peal of bells. Of course he looked at her and laughed with her. At this all young Fielding's self-restraint went to the winds, and he went on—“But sooner than that, I'll twist as good a man's neck as ever schemed in Jack Meadows' shoes!”

At this defiance Meadows wheeled round on William Fielding and confronted him with his stalwart person and eyes glowing with gloomy wrath. Susan screamed with terror at William's insulting words and at the attitude of the two men, and she made a step to throw herself between them if necessary; but before words could end in blows a tap at the study door caused a diversion, and a cringing sort of voice said “May I come in?”

“Of course you may,” shouted Meadows; “the place is public. Anybody walks into my room to-day, friend or foe. Don't ask my leave—come in, man, whoever you are—Mr. Crawley; well, I didn't expect a call from you any more than from this one.”

“Now don't you be angry, sir. I had a good reason for intruding on you this once. Jackson!” Jackson stepped forward and touched William Fielding on the shoulder.

“You must come along with me,” said he.

“What for?” inquired Fielding.

“You are arrested on this judgment,” explained Crawley, letting the document peep a moment from his waistcoat pocket. William threw himself into an attitude of defense. His first impulse was to knock the officer down and run into another county, but the next moment he saw the folly and injustice of this and another sentiment overpowered the honest simple fellow—shame. He covered his face with both his hands and groaned aloud with the sense of humiliation.

“Oh! my poor William!” cried Susan. “Oh! Mr. Meadows, can nothing be done?”

“Why, Miss Merton,” said Meadows, looking down, “you can't expect me to do anything for him. If it was his brother now, Lawyer Crawley shouldn't ever take him out of my house.”

Susan flushed all over. “That I am sure you would, Mr. Meadows,” cried she (for feeling obscured grammar). “Now see, dear William, how your temper and unworthy suspicions alienate our friends; but father shan't let you lie in prison. Mr. Meadows, will you lend me a sheet of paper?”

She sat down, pen in hand, in generous excitement. While she wrote Mr. Meadows addressed Crawley. “And now a word with you, Mr. Crawley. You and I meet on business now and then, but we are not on visiting terms that I know of. How come you to walk into my house with a constable at your back?”

“Well, sir, I did it for the best,” said Crawley apologetically. “Our man came in here, and the street door was open, and I said, 'He is a friend of Mr. Meadows, perhaps it would be more delicate to all parties to take him indoors than in the open street.'”

“Oh, yes!” cried William, “it is bitter enough as it is, but that would have been worse—thank you for arresting me here—and now take me away and let me hide from all the world.”

“Fools!” said a firm voice behind the screen.

“Fools!” At this word and a new voice Susan started up from the table and William turned his face from the wall. Meadows did more. “Another!” cried he in utter amazement; “why my house is an inn. Ah!”

While speaking he had run round the screen and come plump upon Isaac Levi seated in a chair and looking up in his face with stern composure. His exclamation brought the others round after him and a group of excited faces encircled this old man seated sternly composed.

“Fools!” repeated he, “these tricks were stale before England was a nation. Which of you two has the judgment?”

“I, sir,” said Crawley, at a look from Meadows.

“The amount?”

“A hundred and six thirteen four.”

“Here is the money. Give me the document.”

“Here, sir.” Levi read it. “This action was taken on a bill of exchange. I must have that too.”

“Here it is, sir. Would you like an acknowledgment, Mr. Levi,” said Crawley obsequiously.

“No! foolish man. Are not these sufficient vouchers? You are free, sir,” said Crawley to William with an air of cheerful congratulation.

“Am I? Then I advise you to get out of my way, for my fingers do itch to fling you headforemost down the stairs.”

On this hint out wriggled Mr. Crawley with a semicircle of bows to the company. Constable touched his frontlock and went straight away as if he was going through the opposite wall of the house. Meadows pointed after him with his finger and said to Levi, “You see the road—get out of my house.”

The old man never moved from his chair, to which he had returned after paying William's debts. “It is not your house,” said he coolly.

The other stared. “No matter,” replied Meadows sharply, “it is mine till my mortgage is paid off.”

“I am here to pay it.”

“Ah!”

“Principal and interest calculated up to twelve o'clock this eleventh day of March. It wants five minutes to twelve. I offer you principal and interest—eight hundred and twenty-two pounds fourteen shillings and fivepence three farthings before these witnesses—and demand the title deeds.”

Meadows hung his head, but he was not a man to waste words in mere scolding. He took the blow with forced calmness as who should say, “This is your turn—the next is mine.”

“Miss Merton,” said he, almost in a whisper, “I never had the honor to receive you here before and I never shall again. How long do you give me to move my things?”

“Can you not guess?” inquired the other with a shade of curiosity.

“Why, of course you will put me to all the inconvenience you can. Come, now, am I to move all my furniture and effects out of this great house in twenty-four hours?”

“I give you more than that.”

“How kind! What, you give me a week perhaps?” asked Meadows incredulously.

“More than that, you fool! Don't you see that it is on next Lady-day you will be turned into the street. Aha! woman-worshiper, on Lady-day! A tooth for a tooth!” And the old man ground his teeth, which were white as ivory, and his fist clinched itself, while his eye glittered, and he swelled out from the chair, and literally bristled with hate—“A tooth for a tooth!”

“Oh, Mr. Levi,” said Susan sorrowfully, “how soon you have forgotten my last lesson!”

Meadows for a moment felt a chill of fear at the punctiliousness of revenge in this Oriental whom he had made his enemy. To this succeeded the old hate multiplied by ten; but he made a monstrous effort and drove it from his face down into the recesses of his heart. “Well,” said he, “may you enjoy this house as I have done this last twelvemonth!”

“That does you credit, good Mr. Meadows,” cried simple Susan, missing his meaning. Meadows continued in the same tone, “And I must make shift with the one you vacate on Lady-day.”

“Solomon teach me to outwit this dog.”

“Come, Mr. Levi, I have visited Mr. Meadows and now I am going to your house.”

“You shall be welcome, kindly welcome,” said the old man with large and flowing courtesy.

“And will you show me,” said Susan very tenderly, “where Leah used to sit?”

“Ah!”

“And where Rachel and Sarah loved to play?”

“Ah me! Ah me! Ah me! Yes! I could not show another these holy places, but I will show you.”

“And will you forget awhile this unhappy quarrel and listen to my words?”

“Surely I shall listen to you; for even now your voice is to my ear like the wind sighing among the cedars of Lebanon, and the wave that plays at night upon the sands of Galilee.”

“'Tis but the frail voice of a foolish woman, who loves and respects you, and yet,” said Susan, her color mantling with enthusiasm, “with it I can speak you words more beautiful than Lebanon's cedars or Galilee's shore. Ay, old man, words that make the stars brighter and the sons of the morning rejoice. I will not tell you whence I had them, but you shall say surely they never came from earth, selfish, cruel, revengeful earth, these words that drop on our hot passions like the dew, and speak of trespasses forgiven, and peace and goodwill among men.”

Oh! magic of a lovely voice speaking the truths of Heaven! How still the room was as these goodly words rang in it from a pure heart. Three men there had all been raging with anger and hate; now a calming music fell like oil upon these human waves, and stilled them.

The men drooped their heads, and held their breath to make sure the balmy sounds had ceased. Then Levi answered in a tone gentle, firm, and low (very different from his last), “Susanna, bitterness fades from my heart as you speak; but experience remains.” He turned to Meadows, “When I wander forth at Lady-day she shall still be watched over though I be far away. My eye shall be here, and my hand shall still be so over you all,” and raising his thin hand, he held it high up, the nails pointing downward. It looked just like a hawk hovering over its prey. “I will say no bitterer word than that to-day;” and in fact he delivered this without apparent heat or malice.

“Come, then, with me, Susanna—a goodly name, it comes to you from the despised people. Come like peace to my dwelling, Susanna—you know not this world's wiles as I do, but you can teach me the higher wisdom that controls the folly of passion and purifies the soul.”

The pair were gone, and William and Meadows were left alone. The latter looked sadly and gloomily at the door by which Susan had gone out. He was in a sort of torpor. He was not conscious of William's presence.

Now the said William had a misgiving; in the country a man's roof is sacred; he had affronted Meadows under his own roof, and then Mr. Levi had come and affronted him there, too. William began to doubt whether this was not a little hard, moreover he thought he had seen Meadows brush his eye hastily with the back of his hand as Susan retired. He came toward Meadows with his old sulky, honest, hang-the-head manner, and said, “Mr. Meadows, seems to me we have been a little hard upon you in your own house, and I am not quite easy about my share on't.” Meadows shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly.

“Well, sir—I am not the Almighty to read folk's hearts—least of all such a one as yours—but if I have done you wrong I ask your pardon. Come, sir, if you don't mean to undermine my brother with the girl you can give me your hand, and I can give you mine—and there 'tis.”

Meadows wished this young man away, and seeing that the best way to get rid of him was to give him his hand, he turned round, and, scarcely looking toward him, gave him his hand. William shook it and went away with something that sounded like a sigh. Meadows saw him out, and locked the door impatiently; then he flung himself into a chair and laid his beating temples on the cold table; then he started up and walked wildly to and fro the room. The man was torn this way and that with rage, love and remorse.

“What shall I do?” thus ran his thoughts. “That angel is my only refuge, and yet to win her I shall have to walk through dirt and shame and every sin that is. I see crimes ahead; such a heap of crimes, my flesh creeps at the number of them. Why not be like her, why not be the greatest saint that ever lived, instead of one more villain added to so many? Let me tear this terrible love out of my heart and die. Oh! if some one would but take me by the scurf of the neck and drag me to some other country a million miles away, where I might never see my tempter again till this madness is out of me. Susan, you are an angel, but you will plunge me to hell.”

Now it happened while he was thus raving and suffering the preliminary pangs of wrong-doing that his old servant knocked at the outside of the door and thrust a letter through the trap; the letter was from a country gentleman, one Mr. Chester, for whom he had done business. Mr. Chester wrote from Lancashire. He informed Meadows he had succeeded to a very large property in that county—it had been shockingly mismanaged by his predecessor; he wanted a capable man's advice, and moreover all the estates thereabouts were compelled to be surveyed and valued this year, which he deplored, but since so it was he would be surveyed and valued by none but John Meadows.

“Come by return of post,” added this hasty squire, “and I'll introduce you to half the landed proprietors in this county.”

Meadows read this and seizing a pen wrote thus:

“DEAR SIR—Yours received this day at 1 p.m., and will start for your house at 6 P.M.”

He threw himself on his horse and rode to his mother's house. “Mother, I am turned out of my house.”

“Why, John, you don't say so?”

“I must go into the new house I have built outside the town.”

“What, the one you thought to let to Mr. James?”

“The same. I have got only a fortnight to move all my things. Will you do me a kindness now, will you see them put into the new house?”

“Me, John! why I should be afraid something would go wrong.”

“Well, it isn't fair of me to put this trouble on you at your age; but read this letter—there is fifteen hundred pounds waiting for me in the North.”

The old woman put on her spectacles and read the letter slowly. “Go, John! go by all means! I will see all your things moved into the new house—don't let them be a hindrance; you go. Your old mother will take care your things are not hurt moving, nor you wronged in the way of expense.”

“Thank you, mother! thank you! they say there is no friend like a mother, and I dare say they are not far wrong.”

“No such friend but God—none such but God!” said the old woman with great emphasis and looking Meadows in the face with a searching eye.

“Well, then, here are the keys of the new house, and here are my keys. I am off tonight, so good-by, mother. God bless you!”

He had just turned to go, when by an unusual impulse he turned, took the old woman in his hands, almost lifted her off the ground, for she weighed light, and gave her a hasty kiss on the cheek; then he set her down and strode out of the house about his business.

When curious Hannah ran in the next moment she found the old lady in silent agitation. “Oh, dear! What is the matter, Dame Meadows?”

“Nothing at all, silly girl.”

“Nothing! And look at you all of a tremble.”

“He took me up all in a moment and kissed me. I dare say it is five-and-twenty years since he kissed me last. He was a curly-headed lad then.”

So this had set the poor old thing trembling. She soon recovered her firmness and that very evening Hannah and she slept in John's house, and the next day set to and began to move his furniture and prepare his new house for him.