HOME WORDS FOR Heart and Home from School. ELL done, Harry! I'm delighted With the progress you have made; All my cares and pains requited, We at Christmas-tide shall hear. You shall write my Christmas bills. Just look, mother! Well-I never! Roger Beckinsall's Story; or, The Milestones on the Road. was 99 66 BY EMMA MARSHALL, AUTHOR OF BETWEEN THE CLIFFS; MATTHEW FROST," ETC. CHAPTER V. HARD SERVICE. FEW days after that moonlight night, we put in to Boston, and for the next few months we went cruising about the coast of America, staying for a few days here and a few days there; and I always in attendance. At New York I went to theatres, and began the knowledge of the gay world for which I had longed. The constant change and variety kept me from feeling those qualms of conscience which, when I was always aboard the Water Witch, I could not altogether get rid of. However, the check was to come which I needed. I was to find out how bitter was the cup which I had determined to drink. It isn't my business to talk about the faults of others, so I will say little of the goings on of my master and his friend. A deal of money was made and lost by gambling; and hand in hand with cards and dice went drink and other bad things. Mr. Herbert was always a gentleman, but the other was a real rascal. He took a hatred to me, and tried to make my life as miserable as possible. I set my back up sometimes when he cursed at me if his boots were not at the right polish, or his shaving water not hot enough. "I wasn't his servant." Young Mr. Herbert did not get on much better than I did with this man, and he and his father had words about it again and again. One day Mr. Herbert said he was going to leave the Water Witch in dock, and visit several places further inland. At one of these, Weston, we put up at a large sort of inn, and the usual theatre-going and betting and gambling went on. One night young Mr. Herbert came to the door of the room where I slept, and called me. He told me he felt very ill, and he could not think what ailed him. I stayed by him till the morning, and then Mr. Herbert sent for a doctor. He ordered him to keep in bed; and indeed he could do nothing else he was sickening with small-pox. As soon as the complaint was made known, every one was struck with terror. There was no vaccination in those days, and it was a fearful thing to see a fine, handsome fellow like my young master so disfigured and puffed out by the horrid disease that no one would have known him. Mr. Herbert was in a fine way, and raved like a madman at his ill-luck. For all the people who were in the inn were SO frightened that the hotel was deserted. Mr. Herbert had to pay compensation, and the doctor and nurse as well. He used to put camphor in his mouth, and stuff cotton-wool dipped in camphor up his nose and in his ears, and just look in once a day to see his son; but he was far too scared and horrified to stay more than a minute. The nurse we got drank and snored all night, so I was not sorry when she was sent off. Years and years have gone by since this time; but, dear me! it is still so much fresher in my mind than things that happened a month ago. Only the other day my daughter Susan was quite angry with me because I forgot her Willy had the scarlet fever last March. I had no particular call to remember it, nor how old he is; and I didn't. Well, I went on nursing my dear young master. For many days they thought he was dying, and when he got the better of the fever, which set in strong as soon as the spots were well out, he was as weak as an infant. It was now that, like most of us, he to read to him from His blessed Word. I did this day by day, and many a time the tears have come into my eyes as he has said, "Ah, grannie was so fond of that chapter. O grannie, grannie! why did I ever leave her? Please God, Roger, you and I will go back to Seabourne, and we will begin a very different life-turn over a new leaf, Roger." Ah! the time when I was to see Caistor again was far off. I fought hard against the feelings of tiredness and illness I had, but they crept over me slow and sure. One evening I was lying down on a mattress I had in the corner of my young master's room, when I heard his voice calling me, and sounding more natural and less muffled-like than it had sounded for long. I tottered towards him, and he looked up at me with his beautiful big eyes; swelled as the lids were, and red and marked as his cheeks were, his eyes had their old look in them. "Poor Roger!" he said; "I should never have tempted you out here. I have sinned against you, Roger; but it is all over now, and you must forgive me. I want you to give my best love to my grandmother-you will see her again, though I never shall; and keep that bible she gave me, and tell her how you read it to me when I was dying, for I am dying, Roger. Tell her that the words I have thought most of while I lay here, far from her at home, are the words of Jesus: 'Come unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' He has given it to me, Roger; He has forgiven me." I stayed by my dear young master all that night-the last. He began to wander, and talked of beautiful flowers, and sailing down rivers, and then of the Lion's Head and the big waves, and he clung to me in terror that he would be swept off the rock and dashed into the sea. When the daylight came, I saw a change. I went to call Mr. Herbert, and sent for the doctor. I suppose this was the last effort I made. I remember nothing afterwards till I opened my eyes in a long straight room, with a lot of beds in it. I was in the ward of a hospital-the small-pox ward-for the com "Oh! the young man has been dead and buried long ago," was the answer. "You've been here close on five weeks; we thought you was dead one night. There is a letter for you, left in the care of the matron." "Will you get it, please?" I gasped. "Not I. I ain't going to toil down them steep stairs for a letter. You must wait till to-morrow morning, when the matron comes her rounds. There, I wouldn't be such a baby if I were you, to cry and take on." But the tears would come, and I lay and cried, as she said, like an infant. I was lonesome and desolate at that moment as I never was before, or, I may say since. I've gone through many a rough passage in my long life, but I think that was the roughest of all when I lay in the ward of that hospital. My eyes were so bad, that when the letter was brought I could not see to read it, though I tried and tried till the tears ran out of my eyes. The nurse couldn't read; she was an ignorant woman, very different to what one hears tell of now, when real gentry-whatever they may do in America-in England nurse the sick and dying. There was a parcel with the letter, dear young Mr. Herbert's Bible; and that did me good only to look at. By degrees my sight came back a little, and I could spell out the letter. It was short enough; just to say that Mr. Herbert was gone to Boston, that he should stay there a week or two, and he would give me a passage in the Water Witch when all fear of infection was over. He told me to write to him at the hotel there, and say when I was well. He enclosed a five-pound note, and that was all. Not a word about his son, though I heard he yet in such terror of the dreadful complaint of which he died, that he scarcely dare go to the funeral. I was a long time getting well; and then at last the day came when I was able to leave the hospital. I felt sick with loneliness in that strange land. I went slowly down the street of the town, and I remember there was a big looking-glass in one of the stores, and what I saw in it I shall never forget. A poor emaciated youth in clothes ever so much too big for him, and his face all over red scars and blotches. It was a minute or two before I could take in that this miserable-looking object was Roger Beckinsall! I asked my way to the burying-ground where my dear young master lay; and I found it in the heart of the city, with iron railings round it. There was a stone put up, a grand stone, covering over the grave, and my dear young master's name and age, and all the great folk he belonged to in this world set forth in it. Ah! he was the child of one greater than the kings of the earth, and I fell down on my knees and prayed and prayed to meet him again, and trust in the same blessed Saviour, who was his hope in death. But, deary me! death is a grand mystery when it comes for the young and strong and beautiful; for the old it is so different, just like the natural decay we see every year in the shrubs and trees; and, blessed be God! there is a spring for us poor old withered ones, as well as for the trees. I left my dear master's grave with a feeling that we should meet again, and I have it now. Yes I, old and bent and infirm, I shall meet him--whom I see before me now straight as an arrow, and with a face like a spring daywhere there are no more partings, and, best of all, no more sin. I had five pounds in my pocket. I had to give gratuities to the nurses at the hospital, and that took one of my five pounds. With the rest I was to make my way to Boston. Those that go about now-a-days in railway carriages have no idea what it was when there was no such thing, especially for the poor. After jogging along in all sorts of conveyances for three days, I found myself once more in the city of Boston, and made On inquiring for Mr. Herbert, I was told he was gone, had been gone for a month, and was believed to have sailed in his yacht for Europe. Two letters addressed to him were waiting for him, but he had left no address. One was that which I had written a week before from the hospital; and now I knew I was indeed deserted. A hard time followed. I spent several days in looking about for work, and at last I got employment at a boot and shoe maker's, and was paid just enough to keep myself, and no more. So this was the end of all my fine dreams; instead of sitting in the little workshop at Seabourne, with the scent of the lavender bush by the window coming in, and the bees humming, and sometimes the waves chiming in the distance, I was mewed up in a close back shop, where the smell of the leather half poisoned me, and no one spoke a kind or civil word from month's end to month's end. On Sundays I used to go down to the shipping and look at the masts, and wonder when I should get over that great ocean again; but I had no money saved to pay my passage, and though I had written twice to my father, I had got no answer. He was angry, I thought, and would not forgive me. Well, I must wait, and I must bear it. my own story. Self-will, pride, discontent; he drew such a picture of the son who' wandered far away from his home, and this is what touched me to the heart. He said so much about the love of the Father never changing one bit, that sin and wilful dis obedience grieved Him, but they did not separate us from His love. I listened with the tears running down my cheeks, and when the service was over I could hardly stagger out. I was walking away, all destitute-like and miserable, when I felt a hand on my shoulder, it was the minister. "My poor boy," said he, " can I help you? can I comfort you?" Ah! but he was one of the right sort. He took me to his pretty, neat little home, and gave me a good wholesome dinner; and then, while his wife put away the dinner things and cleared up the place, he took me out into a little bit of a garden behind, and there I told him all that had happened to me, and how he had seemed to know all about me. Well, this was another milestone in the journey of my life, and I may well call it Bethel. Many things have grown dark that I have thought bright, and I have had disappointments and crosses like the rest; but ever since that day I settled well in my mind that God does all things in love; that He will see us even when we are a great way off, and nobody else would so much as look at us; and that He will hold out His arm and forgive us before we can well get out the words "Father, I have sinned." (To be continued.) Just when I was at the lowest pitch, God's hand saved me from despair. I wandered one Sunday some way out of the town, and came to a little roadside chapel, where, as I saw people going in, I followed. That day there was a preacher who got up and told me The Pharisee and the Publican. BY THE REV. HENRY THOMPSON, M.A., VICAR OF ALDEBURGH, SUFFOLK. the man that he will not listen. he went to a man whose conscience was in a deadly slumber. David would perhaps have denied that his sin was so great as it was represented, if Nathan had begun by rebuking it. So God taught the prophet to wrap up the sword of the Spirit in a story. The consequence was, the king pronounced upon the case himself in the Name |
