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Part II

Davie's father had been a much-respected tradesman, carrying on a small business in Christchurch. Calamities of the kind that no foresight can avert came upon him; and before he had time to recover from them he took a fever and died, leaving five children, the eldest a boy of fourteen, and his affairs encumbered with debts. They were honest debts, such as come in the order of trade, and would have been cleared as he went along, but for his misfortunes. The chief creditor held a mortgage on the business and stock, which passed into his hands; the smaller claims were left—no one thought of pressing them. Kindly men felt for the widow, and hard ones said it was no use trying to draw blood from a stone. All agreed that Marriott would have done well and paid up, if he had lived. The widow gave up everything but the necessary furniture of a humble page 25dwelling—left her comfortable home, and went with her children to a lean-to, on the edge of the town.

In England, we add lean-tos to houses already built. In the colonies, they begin with a lean-to, and leave space in front to build the house, when they have prospered and can afford it. Some people never do prosper, and go on living in lean-tos.

Mrs. Marriott's had ground behind it as well as before, and a well at the back which never failed. These, with the comparatively low rent of an unpopular suburb, were her attractions to the place, since she had decided to try laundry-work. It was very different from anything she had been brought up to expect, for her father had been a substantial shopkeeper in a country town in England, and her husband's prospects were very bright when she married him. But the work could be done in her own home, with her children about her. There was a demand for it; it was highly paid, and, as a rule, very badly done in Christchurch, then; and she had the appliances her husband had bought for her own use in their happy home. There was nothing else which she could do as well, which was equally well paid; so she brought her mind to it.

But when she left the dear and pleasant home page 26of years, and came with her children to the three-roomed shed with a little wash-house at the back, her heart almost failed her. The children came running up to her, crying, 'Mother, where shall we sleep?' 'Where can we put this or that?' For a moment she turned her face away from them, leaning on the mantelpiece, and wished she could lie down and die. The battle was too great for her.

'Our things never will get in here, mother,' said George despairingly.

Then a thought came to her, like the cake baken on the coals which the angel showed to Elijah when his heart fainted.

'That's what I said to father when we went into our little cabin on board ship,' she answered, 'and he said, "Oh yes, they will,"—and so they did. This place is not home; it is only our little cabin on the voyage Home, where he has gone on first; but he would want us to put it tidy. Has the cart gone, George?'

'Yes, mother.'

'Shut the door, then, and let us kneel down together before we touch a thing, and ask God to be our Father here, and tell us what to do.'

Her burden overwhelmed her; she could not bear it any longer without help. They knelt down among the packages, and she began—

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'Our Father, which art in heaven.'

There her voice failed: she could only pour out her tears before the Lord, her children sobbing round her. But again she quieted herself, and the sound of her voice stilled their weeping, as she prayed—

'O Lord God Almighty, come to us and be our Father here. Bless us in our little cabin. Tell us our duty, and make us strong to do it. Help us to earn our daily bread. Make us faithful here, and bring us all safe Home at last, for our dear Saviour's sake. Amen.'

They rose, and the four children clung round her. Davie was not there; he had gone to Rakawahi the day before.

'We'll make it home, mother,' said George.

'We will try, dear,' she answered. 'Now open the basket, and you shall have dinner before we do anything else.'

Children's tears dry quickly. The little ones were soon laughing over the picnic meal. They had scarcely finished when an old friend looked in to see if he could be of use. With the help of his strong arms, the goods were pushed into place; and as the rooms assumed a habitable look, with the remnants of her old home arranged in them, the strong temptation which had assailed the mother to loathe the place and feel she could page 28never do anything but hate it, vanished away. She had come there, feeling as if they had nothing before them but one grinding struggle for bread; but while she prayed that load was lifted. The Lord Almighty had taken charge of it. Bread would be given them, and water would be sure.

She began to take an interest in making the best of her little place. Friends had been kind, and she had a small sum of money to lay out in fitting up her wash-house. She spared a few pence for flower-seeds, and by Christmas they had sprung up.

George went to work in a gentleman's house and garden, with leave to help his mother on Mondays and Saturdays, when clothes had to be fetched and returned. He sometimes had plants given to him, and the front garden became quite gay. Already, Mrs. Marriott's house was not like other lean-tos down that unfashionable road; it had a character of its own, derived from its mistress.

So had her washing. It was hard work, even harder than she expected; but week after week, when she arranged her piles of linen white as snow, daintily ironed and got up—though every bone in her body ached by Friday night, she had the pleasure of success. She knew that her page 29customers were satisfied, for more and more work came in. Nellie, the eldest girl, had left school to help her, and even the two little ones did their part; but the work became too much for the family, and yet not enough, as yet, to pay for constant help. The mother toiled on from day to day, pleading her daily prayer, 'Tell me my duty, and make me strong to do it.'

Saturday was her day for home, when everything was rubbed up and set in order; and on the Saturday morning before the Monday which would be Christmas Day, cleaning was interspersed with a great many looks down the road, to see if Davie was coming.

The kind stranger had never found his way to the house again. He had once driven down the Coxley Road seeking it, but failed to find it. He always thought that he would try again, but whenever he remembered it he happened to have something else to do, until months and years passed on, and it was too late to take up again the little link which had been forged by his meeting with Davie. The lives of two households had touched for an hour, and parted again for the rest of life. We are always forming such links and dropping them, along life's crowded way. If we tried to hold them all fast, they would strangle us; page 30enough if they are links of loving-kindness for the hour they last.

The stranger had come as an angel of mercy indeed to the boy and his mother. Sore as Davie was, he would have been much sorer still, but for that brief touch of love.

As Christmas approached, Ned had tormented him by telling him he had another card up his sleeve, to 'do' him with. Davie silently resolved that, whatever the card might be, if it were played, he would run away and never come back. He vowed heroic vengeance and defiance; and when the day came, everybody looked him up only too assiduously, and he found himself bowling along, on a glorious summer morning, his little legs dangling from the back seat, and Emmie, in the highest spirits, chattering to her father in the front. They were going in to buy good things for Christmas Day.

The Maori-heads were a wilderness of tawny gold, the sunshine glancing on them as they shook in the passing breeze. The beautiful tui-tui grass—like pampas grass, only taller and more graceful—stood guarding the streams. Skylarks poured out their song in the blue sky, and Mr. Foster grumbled at them, and said they were ruining the farmers; but he laid his head back to watch the black speck high above, and made Emmie page 31and Davie see it too, for the sake of dear old England.

As they drew near the town, they drove for miles past pleasant houses standing far back from the road in their own grounds. Girls were in the gardens, picking lilies and roses for Christmas, and currants and raspberries for Christmas pies. Here and there a sweet scent of hay came wafted from some English-grass-sown paddock.

'Christmas is awk'ard, coming just in the press,' said Mr. Foster. 'All got to go skylarking, when we ought to be pegging away.'

He took Davie to his mother's very door, and called to her, 'Brought him all right this time, you see, and I never had a better little boy. Here,' reaching down to put an envelope into her hand. 'Good day, and a merry Christmas to the young 'uns.'

He would not wish her a merry Christmas, this year; but he had brought her what she hungered for—her boy. And at first she thought him a picture of health and spirits, all rosy and joyful as he was; but there was a clutch in his clinging hold of her, a quiver in his little face, that spoke of something too deep for a child to feel. Then she remembered that this was his first home-coming to find no father—and to this poor little place.

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The linen-baskets stood waiting, and Davie was soon very busy and important, for George had extra work to do at his master's that day, and Davie took home the clothes in a hand-truck, Lily trotting along by his side to show him the way. His mother was astonished to see how his muscles had gained in strength with the ten weeks' outdoor work. She was very busy herself with her preparations for Sunday and Monday, and had little talk with him through the day. It needed a strong courage for the tired woman, with a widow's aching heart, to rouse herself to make any sort of Christmas for the children; and Davie's eager little face helped her to do it.

The active work was all done by tea-time, and after tea she sat down to sew. The children gathered round her, full of rejoicing that Davie was there too.

'How was it you could not come last time, dear?' she asked.

Davie coloured up and did not tell, which made her anxious. She passed the matter over at the time; but when he was in bed, before George had followed him, she went to his side in the dark, and drew the story out, her own heart shrinking and bleeding as she heard it. Davie had forgotten all his troubles in the bliss of being at home again, but they came back in all their vividness as he told page 33his tale, and her arms held him closer and closer the while.

The story ended, and still he nestled to her, his cheek against her neck, and wished she need never put him down. She held him a long time in silence, then parted from him with a close, tremulous kiss, and he wondered to feel a tear upon her cheek.

The ice once broken, his brother and Nellie heard his troubles, and great consultations went on among the three. They went to church and school as usual on Sunday. After tea, they all gathered round their mother again, and Nellie broached the subject on their minds.

'Mother, need Davie go back to Rakawahi?'

The mother started, and pressed her hand tightly upon her heart. Davie's pleading blue eyes looked into hers.

'I could take all the clothes home, mother,' he said.

'I know you would, dear,' she answered.

There was a silence. The children heard their mother's hard breathing, and waited, afraid.

'I have been thinking of it,' she said at last, 'and I see the time has come to tell you something none of you know, but George.'

Five eager pairs of eyes were fastened on her.

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'You know—you elder ones—that your father died in debt,' she continued. 't was not his fault. He had to get things, to carry on the business, and he never lived to pay for them. There is money owed that he had not even an account for, except what he kept himself. His word was his bond, and everyone knew that. There's not one of his creditors has pressed me for the money. One of them said, "We all know what your husband was, Mrs. Marriott, and we shan't trouble you, now. Don't you be afraid." They know I have given up everything but just what we must have to go on with, and they let us alone. But they'e got the claim upon us, all the same. And if they hadn't, I know what it means to forgive debts. I should have money enough from your grandfather to pay every penny owing of your father's, and start something for ourselves beside, if other people had paid him what they owed. There were some that wouldn't, and some that couldn't. But those that couldn't—that came to him in distress, and he took what little they said they could give him then, and crossed off the rest—I know what it was to see them afterwards, dressed so as we never were — going out for excursions and holidays we never took; we couldn't afford it—and never offering to pay up a pound. And I know what my father felt, when page 35he saw his wife or children ill, and wanting things he couldn't get, because he couldn't pay for them, when those that owed him pounds and pounds that he had never crossed off seemed as if they could have anything they wanted. Would you like anyone to feel that of you?'

There was no answer, except from the little earnest faces upturned to hers.

'As long as we haven't a thing that we could do without, I shouldn't feel it,' Mrs. Marriott continued. 'But if we are prospered, and get on a little—every pleasure we took, every new thing you went out in, I should feel there were those that had a right to say, "There goes my money. I bore with their father, because I knew he would pay if he could. They're not their father's children."'

Again there was silence.

'Reach me down the Bible, George,' said Mrs. Marriott.

George obeyed. It was her father's family Bible, and the names of his brothers and sisters were written there—then his own children's—then, in David Marriott's writing, the names of the five children now looking at the page.

'You see those names—and those?' said Mrs. Marriott, laying her hand upon the first two sets. 'There's not one of them owed any man anything. They suffered by those that didn't pay page 36their debts to them, but they paid their own. Would you like to be the first lot in the book to let your father lie in his grave with debts to his name?'

'No,' broke from every child.

'I have thought of this from the day when he was laid there,' Mrs. Marriott continued. 'I couldn't say anything till I saw whether I could so much as get bread to put into your mouths without coming upon anyone to help us; but from that day I have asked Almighty God that I might pay those debts, sooner or later. And I have one debt of my own.'

She paused, and drew from her pocket the envelope Mr. Foster had given her.

'In your father's illness,' she said, 'Mrs. Barton lent me a pound. I have never been able to pay her; and her husband has been ill, and the children had measles, and she must want it, I know.'

She took from the envelope a one-pound note and two half-crowns.

'That must go for your boots, Davie,' she said, laying down the silver. 'This'—taking up the pound-note—'this is the first money I have had since that day, that I was not obliged to spend directly I got it, for something we couldn't go without. What shall I do with it, Davie?'

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'Pay her, mother!' exclaimed all the children.

The widow's eyes kindled. 'I knew you would say it,' she said. 'I knew you would rather do that than have Christmas presents. We can't have a merry Christmas this year, but it will be a happy one, if we pay off the first of our debts. And Davie has earned the money.'

Davie's heart swelled with mingled pride and awe.

'It is four months now since we were left,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'It is a little over ten weeks since we came here. I have never spent a penny I could help. I felt I must have black for myself, but I have not bought even that for you. Friends were kind, and sent me the things you are wearing. And already, in these ten weeks, we have earned more than we need to spend for our keep and clothes. It's the new things I have had to get in starting the laundry that have kept us back. I think we are pretty well set up now. And if we can do as well as we have in the first ten weeks, we ought to do better as we go on. I believe God has heard my prayer, and that He means to help us to pay up all we owe.'

Another pause.

'Will it take long, mother?' asked Nellie.

'That's according to how we get on,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'Some day I will tell you older ones page 38more about what there is to do, but not now. I wouldn't have brought this up on a Sunday, only we have so little quiet time, all together; and it does belong to our duty towards God and our duty towards our neighbour. But how we are to do it belongs to the week's work; and if we don't want to get like so many others, all taken up in getting money, we must keep it out of our Sundays. We won't settle, to-night, what is right to do about Davie. Leave it till to-morrow. See, it is just upon church-time, and we have not sung any hymns. Whose turn is it to stay in?'

'Mine,' said Ellen. She and George took it in turns to stay at home with the little ones on Sunday evenings, while their mother went out.

'There would be time for a short hymn,' said Mrs. Marriott.

'May we have "O God of Bethel," mother?' asked George.

For a moment she shrank before it, feeling as though her voice must fail her; but only for a moment

'Yes, dear,' she answered. 'Get the book for Lily and Tottie; the rest of us know it. We'll stand up to sing that.'

They stood round the Bible open at the family page, and sang, in their little corner of the new page 39land, the words which have been sung from generation to generation in God-fearing households in the old country.

'Our vows, our prayers, we now present
  Before Thy throne of grace:
God of out fathers, he the God
  Of their succeeding race.

Through each perplexing path of life
  Our wandering footsteps guide:
Give us each day our daily bread,
  And raiment fit provide.

O spread Thy covering wings around,
  Till all our wanderings cease,
And at our Father's loved abode
  Our souls arrive in peace.'

The widow walked to church with her two boys, and in the service that same hymn was sung. It came like a seal on their resolve.

Next day came Christmas—' Christmas Day all in the morning,' and such an early morning, exactly at midsummer! No fumbling in the dark to feel if little stockings had filled out in the night; it was all broad daylight, and the sunshine streamed over roses and strawberries in leafy gardens.

No little stockings were hung up in Davie's home; nevertheless, five happy faces gathered page 40round the cheap breakfast of porridge and treacle. Milk was scarce and dear in the towns, in those days.

Mrs. Marriott had long dreaded Christmas Day; and after poor little Davie's outpouring to her she had wept through the long night-watches, not knowing how she could ever rise and meet the children with a cheerful face again. But on the day itself she awoke with a feeling of perfect peace. The gift of gifts had come to her—Christ's peace, on this poor, dark earth. She lay thinking what it really meant, for the Lord Himself to have come and lived in a poor home, with parents who had to struggle and work hard; and that He had childish memories of His own, when He took the little children in His arms and blessed them! Surely He would be taking hers this day.

The light of peace was on her face when her children greeted her that morning; they all felt it.

Nor was it long before they had tokens that earthly friends were very far from forgetting them on this Christmastide. Baskets and parcels arrived at the door, with gifts to keep and gifts to eat—roast ducks all ready for table, mince-pies and strawberries. They joyfully peppered their modest bit of beef, put it away, wrapped up in muslin, and page 41all went off to church. The pudding had boiled before, and would only have to boil up again when they came back.

They had moved a long way off from old friends and neighbours, and Mrs. Marriott was glad of it. It is often said that in the colonies people can do any kind of honest work without losing position; and so they can—except taking in washing. Ladies may do their own washing, and do other people's too, for love, but not take it in for a livelihood, without being very much pitied—at least they could not in those days. Mrs. Marriott had thought of all that when she chose her occupation, and yet she made the choice. She could no longer be on equal terms with her friends in outward things, do what she might: a little more or less difference hardly signified. She had never had time or means to keep up a large circle of acquaintance, or even to become very intimate with the few valued friends she had. These had grown nearer and dearer in the time of trouble, but not near enough for love to make all things equal now. Her chief concern was not to become dependent on their kindness; and George, who had most to suffer in the change, felt just as she did. He could bring his mind to meeting his old schoolfellows as he wheeled home the clothes, but not to carrying notes to their parents, asking for page 42help either in money or in some kind of employment which would be given for the sake of helping the widow. Washing was in demand; people were glad enough to get it done. Still he and Nellie were not sorry to live away down the Coxley Road, now. They missed the river, though; and after their Christmas dinner they locked up the house, and the whole family walked to the beautiful part of the town where the Avon flows past the College buildings, under the large weeping willows said to have grown from cuttings brought from the willow that grows beside Napoleon's empty grave in St. Helena. Mrs. Marriott left the others by the riverside, and took Davie with her to Mrs. Barton's.

The mistress of the house let them in, looking pale and careworn. Her husband, a banker's clerk, was at his post again, and able to go out with the children this afternoon; but he was still far from strong.

'And how are you getting on?' she asked, when she had answered her friend's inquiries.

'Better than we could have expected, for a first beginning,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'And having a holiday to-day, I thought we would come ourselves, and bring you back what you were kind enough to lend me in my trouble,' handing her the envelope containing the pound note.

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The sudden flash across Mrs. Barton's face betrayed how glad she would be of a pound, but she drew back, exclaiming, 'Oh, my dear, I don't like to take it. You can't spare it yet, I am sure.'

'Yes, thank God I can,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'My little boy has earned it.'

Mrs. Barton laid her hand on Davie's shoulder. 'Thank you, dear,' she said, the tears coming into her eyes. Then she took his mother's hands and kissed her.

'You are the last person I ever should have thought could help me,' she said. 'God bless you! It comes just like a gift.'

Then Davie was sent into the garden, and the two women shared their griefs and comforts together.

'Oh, how you have lifted me up!' said Mrs. Barton, when they parted. 'If the Lord can help you so through your troubles, mine can't be too much for Him.'

'There is nothing too hard for Him,' said the widow; and she and Davie went their way.

When tea was over and put away, once more the children clustered round their mother—Nellie and Lily with garments of Davie's under repair in their hands; for they could not afford to play all page 44Christmas Day long, when he was near coming to rags for want of stitches in time.

'And now about you, Davie,' said Mrs. Marriott.

He was sitting on the ground at her feet, his head resting against her knee. He raised it, and looking up with his wistful eyes, said, 'I don't want to stop at home, mother.'

The mother's heart throbbed with a sudden pride, relief, and pain, all strangely mingled. Now the brave child had made up his mind to go, she longed so to keep him.

'I'm afraid that is right, Davie,' she said, laying her hand round his neck. He drew it close without speaking.

'It is not only for the money,' she continued. 'Mr. Foster knew nothing about us, except by being your father's customer,—and he came and offered to take you for the summer, just out of kindness, to help us in our trouble. It wouldn't seem right to take you away, now you have learned to be some good, in the busiest time, when he mightn't get another boy.'

'Yes, mother,' said Davie. Mr. Foster's word of praise had been a great deal to him, although it made his sense of injustice all the keener.

'But couldn't we do something about Ned, mother?' asked George. He wanted to do a father's part by his little brother.

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'I have been thinking that over,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'Get the Bible, dear.'

He did so, and the children, who had no father on earth to guide them, waited to hear the Heavenly Father's word.

'There are three different places where the Lord says Himself how we are to behave to those that serve us badly,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'You shall read them to us, Davie,'

She gave him chapter and verse, and he read first, from the 5th chapter of Matthew, the passage ending, 'Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.'

'That is just exactly what you have been doing by Ned,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'He did you out of your holiday, and you did all his work for him.'

'I had to,' said Davie, opening his eyes wide.

'But you never made any fuss about having to, did you?' said his mother.

No, on reflection Davie could say that he had I not

'Then that was what Jesus told us to do, when we can't help ourselves,' said Mrs. Marriott. 'When we must be put upon, we are to take it cheerfully, for His sake. If we can help it, that mayn't always be the right way. Read on to the 44th verse.'

Davie read, 'Love your enemies, do good to page 46them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.'

'Do you think it was good for Ned to get off without being punished?' asked Mrs. Marriott.

'No!' exclaimed the two elder children, as if a new light broke upon them. Davie only looked up, puzzled.

'No, it was not,' said their mother, her needle flying, in her agitation. 'If it had been George—there, I hope, for the Lord's sake it never could have been! But if it had, I would have prayed on my knees that he might be thrashed well for it—thrashed so as he would never forget it. It would be the best thing to happen to him. And the worst—the very worst—would be to get let off. You don't do good to them that hate you by letting them prosper in wickedness—if you can help it. Look in the 18th chapter of Matthew, Davie, and see what it says there.'

Davie read the passage beginning, 'If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.'

'"Thy brother"—that would mean your equal—someone you could deal with,' said Mrs. Marriott; 'and you are not to put up with anything wrong he does, without trying to stop it. If he won't stop, it doesn't say that it is your place to punish him: you might be very kind to heathen men and page 47publicans; but you can't make a friend of him or trust him any more, unless he says he is sorry, or does something to show it We are not to punish our enemies. Over and over it says, "Avenge not yourselves." That is the Lord's work. We couldn't be trusted to do it rightly. But, all the same, we are not to sit down and encourage anyone in doing wrong, if we can help it. You can't help it, Davie. It wouldn't be a bit of use your speaking to Ned,—nor to his uncle either, unless he does something against orders that ought to be told of. If he does, you tell his uncle of it before his face—not behind his back. But I know just how Mr. Foster would feel about his going off that Saturday. He would think, "t's something between the boys, and I don't know what led up to it: I'd better let it alone." And the way Ned has gone on since, which I call worse—it's nothing to tell about at all. The only thing you can do is to go on doing your best by him, no matter what he does by you.'

'He thinks I do it because I am afraid of him,' said Davie.

'Well, so you have to be,' said Mrs. Marriott sadly. 'He has the upper hand, and he knows it, and so do you. You must just do like a girl I read of in a story. She was a witness in court, and the lawyer examining her asked her a question page 48that put her blood up so, she would have knocked him down for it rather than answered, if she could. But in a court of justice you have to answer: you must. So she just turned her face away from him, and looked up at the judge, that everyone might see she was answering to him, not to that lawyer, and said what she had to say; and it was very well for her that she did! Look away up to the Judge, Davie. It's not His will that Ned should be unkind, but we all see it clear that it is His will for you to stop there and suffer it; so, for His sake, you are going to bear it, and do more than you are compelled.'

Again a sense of awe filled Davie's heart. George bent over the Bible, and turning the leaves, read, "Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above.'

'Ah! and look on a little farther, George,' said Mrs. Marriott.

'I know!' exclaimed Nellie; and she repeated reverently, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

'Do you think that Ned loves his mother like you love me, Davie?' said Mrs. Marriott, laying her caressing hand again upon his neck.

'No, I know he doesn't,' said Davie energetically. 'She whacks him when he hasn't done anything.'

'That is what Ned says,' said Mrs. Marriott page 49correctly, 'but we can tell, by his saying it, that he can't feel the same as you do about your home. He didn't know what he did to you. Poor Ned!'

'Ah!' Something between a pitying groan and a triumphant sigh broke from the children.

'Davie wouldn't change with him, would you, old man?' said George.

For answer, Davie proudly drew his mother's hand close round his neck again.

'No, yours are not the worst sort of troubles, after all,' she said fondly. 'You are not the first that has had something to put up with, Davie, and you won't be the last. Many a hard word I have heard said to your father; and he felt them, too; but he would only give a civil answer, and afterwards look round at me in his sly way, and say, "It'll all rub off when it's dry."'

Davie's little face brightened wonderfully, for he remembered his Sunday clothes. His father's name brought to mind the object he worked for, and he asked, 'Will my money always go to pay the debts, mother?'

'That will depend on how we prosper, Davie,' she answered. 'I hope it will, as long as you earn it. But you are only to stay for the summer, you know. You must go to school again in winter, and work hard enough to make up for lost time, or you page 50will be sorry for it all your life. That's three things I have settled with myself. We are not obliged to pay this money by any particular time, and we won't work for it so as to hurt your future, or hurt our health, or forget our God. And out of every pound we earn, above what I pay out for help, and the rent, we will take sixpence for God. Perhaps we can do a little more after this year; but that we will do from the first, if He prospers us beyond what we must spend, to keep going.'

'Do you really think we can do it, mother?' asked George. He could see the difficulties better than the younger children did.

'I can only tell you what someone else did, George,' said his mother. 'I told you the other side, last night. Now hear this. There was a young man left our town owing debts that came to over nine pounds, all together. Some of it was to my father. He had been a bad-living young fellow, and your grandfather said it was what we might have expected. But by and by the Lord changed his heart; and then he remembered the money he owed. I don't know what he was earning then, but I know at one time he had only eighteen shillings a week, and a wife and four children to keep. And yet he saved up nine pounds. It took him years to do it. And he came back and paid up every debt; and then he preached page 51in the market-place, and all the town turned out to hear him. If he could do that out of his money, we can pay our debts, in times like these, out here, if our health and strength are spared to us, and God prospers us. At any rate, we'll try.'

There was a chorus of 'Yes, mother.'

Then Mrs. Marriott said they must have a story before Tottie went to bed, and George read, from one of the dear old shabby books she had kept, the delightful story of 'The Kind Man who Killed his Neighbour'—of course, with kindness.

Next morning, a happy little boy went jogging out of the town on the top of the coach that passed through the Rakawahi. The clothes in his bundle were all mended, and the wounds in his heart bound up with ointment that was healing and tonic also in its qualities. He had a reason for enduring hardness; he worked for the honour of his father's name. And he was going to try if he could kill Ned.

In this, I am sorry to say, he never succeeded. Ned's ill-will would sometimes appear to have had a death-blow, but it always came to life again. Before the end of the summer, however, Mr. Foster had quite made up his mind which of the two boys was the better worth keeping through the winter, and he offered that Davie should stay on, going to school at Rakawahi. His mother consented, on page 52condition that he came home for Sunday once a month. Ned came back the following summer; after that, he went 'for good.' We will hope it was so, and that he came to a good end after all. If he did, I am sure he had what was equivalent to sundry good thrashings first. As Luther says, 'Hard heads need sound knocks.'