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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brought Home, by Hesba Stretton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brought Home
+
+Author: Hesba Stretton
+
+Posting Date: October 14, 2012 [EBook #7358]
+Release Date: January, 2005
+First Posted: April 20, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BROUGHT HOME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Tiffany Vergon, Juliet Sutherland,
+Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BROUGHT HOME.
+
+BY
+
+HESBA STRETTON.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAPTER I.  UPTON RECTORY
+
+   CHAPTER II.  ANN HOLLAND
+
+  CHAPTER III.  WHAT WAS HER DUTY?
+
+   CHAPTER IV.  A BABY'S GRAVE
+
+    CHAPTER V.  TOWN'S TALK
+
+   CHAPTER VI.  THE RECTOR'S RETURN
+
+  CHAPTER VII.  WORSE THAN DEAD
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.  HUSBAND AND WIFE
+
+   CHAPTER IX.  SAD DAYS
+
+    CHAPTER X.  A SIN AND A SHAME
+
+   CHAPTER XI.  LOST
+
+  CHAPTER XII.  A COLONIAL CURACY
+
+ CHAPTER XIII.  SELF-SACRIFICE
+
+  CHAPTER XIV.  FAREWELLS
+
+   CHAPTER XV.  IN DESPAIR
+
+  CHAPTER XVI.  A LONG VOYAGE
+
+ CHAPTER XVII.  ALMOST SHIPWRECKED
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.  SAVED
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+UPTON RECTORY
+
+
+So quiet is the small market town of Upton, that it is difficult to
+believe in the stir and din of London, which is little more than an
+hour's journey from it. It is the terminus of the single line of rails
+branching off from the main line eight miles away, and along it three
+trains only travel each way daily. The sleepy streets have old-fashioned
+houses straggling along each side, with trees growing amongst them; and
+here and there, down the roads leading into the the country, which are
+half street, half lane, green plots of daisied grass are still to be
+found, where there were once open fields that have left a little legacy
+to the birds and children of coming generations. Half the houses are
+still largely built of wood from the forest of olden times that has now
+disappeared; and ancient bow-windows jut out over the side causeways.
+Some of the old exclusive mansions continue to boast in a breastwork of
+stone pillars linked together by chains of iron, intended as a defence
+against impertinent intruders, but more often serving as safe
+swinging-places for the young children sent to play in the streets.
+Perhaps of all times of the year the little town looks its best on a
+sunny autumn morning, with its fine film of mist, when the chestnut
+leaves are golden, and slender threads of gossamer are floating in the
+air, and heavy dews, white as the hoar-frost, glisten in the sunshine.
+But at any season Upton seems a tranquil, peaceful, out-of-the-world
+spot, having no connection with busier and more wretched places.
+
+There were not many real gentry, as the townsfolk called them, living
+near. A few retired Londoners, weary of the great city, and finding
+rents and living cheaper at Upton, had settled in trim villas, built
+beyond the boundaries of the town. But for the most part the population
+consisted of substantial trades-people and professional men, whose
+families had been represented there for several generations. As usual
+the society was broken up into very small cliques; no one household
+feeling itself exactly on the same social equality as another; even as
+far down as the laundresses and charwomen, who could tell whose husband
+or son had been before the justices, and which families had escaped that
+disgrace. The nearest approach to that equality and fraternity of which
+we all hear so much and see so little, was unfortunately to be found in
+the bar-parlor and billiard-room of the Upton Arms; but even this was
+lost as soon as the threshold was recrossed, and the boon-companions of
+the interior breathed the air of the outer world. There were several
+religious sects of considerable strength, and of very decided
+antagonistic views; any one of whose members was always ready to give
+the reason of the special creed that was in him. So, what with a variety
+of domestic circumstances, and a diversity of religious opinions, it is
+not to be wondered at that the society of Upton was broken up into very
+small circles indeed.
+
+There was one point, however, on which all the townspeople were united.
+There could be no doubt whatever as to the beauty of the old Norman
+church, lying just beyond the eastern boundary of the town; not mingling
+with its business, but standing in a solemn quiet of its own, as if to
+guard the repose of the sleepers under its shadow. The churchyard too,
+was beautiful, with its grand and dusky old yew-trees, spreading their
+broad sweeping branches like cedars, and with many a bright colored
+flower-bed lying amongst the dark green of the graves. The townspeople
+loved to stroll down to it in the twilight, with half-stirred idle
+thoughts of better things soothing away the worries and cares of the
+day. A narrow meadow of glebe-land separated the churchyard from the
+Rectory garden, a bank of flowers and turf sloping up to the house.
+Nowhere could a more pleasant, home-like dwelling be found, lightly
+covered with sweet-scented creeping plants, which climbed up to the
+highest gable, and flung down long sprays of blossom-laden branches to
+toss to and fro in the air. Many a weary, bedinned Londoner had felt
+heart-sick at the sight of its tranquillity and peace.
+
+The people of Upton, great and small, conformist or nonconformist, were
+proud of their rector. It was no unusual sight for a dozen or more
+carriages from a distance to be seen waiting at the church door for the
+close of the service, not only on a Sunday morning, when custom demands
+the observance, but even in the afternoon, when public worship is
+usually left to servant-maids. There was not a seat to be had for love
+or money, either by gentle or simple, after the reading of the Psalms
+had begun. The Dissenters themselves were accustomed to attend church
+occasionally, with a half-guilty sense, not altogether unpleasant, of
+acting against their principles. But then the rector was always on
+friendly terms with them: and made no distinction, in distributing
+Christmas charities, between the poor old folks who went to church or to
+chapel, Or, as it was said regretfully, to no place at all. He had his
+failings; but the one point on which all Upton agreed was, that their
+church and rector were the best between that town and London.
+
+It was a hard struggle with David Chantrey, this beloved rector of
+Upton, to resolve upon leaving his parish, though only for a time, when
+his physicians strenuously urged him to spend two winters, and the
+intervening summer, in Madeira. Very definitely they assured him that
+such an absence was his only chance of assuring a fair share of the
+ordinary term of human life. But it was a difficult thing to do, apart
+from the hardness of the struggle; and the difficulty just verged upon
+an impossibility. The living was not a rich one, its whole income being
+a little under L400 a year. Now, when he had provided a salary for the
+curate who must take his duty, and decided upon the smallest sum
+necessary for his own expenses, the remainder, in whatever way the sum
+was worked, was clearly quite insufficient for the maintenance of his
+young wife and child. They could not go with him; that was impossible.
+But how were they to live whilst he was away? No doubt, if his
+difficulty had been known, there were many wealthy people among his
+friends who would gladly have removed it; but not one of them even
+guessed at it. Was not Mrs. Bolton, the widow of the late archdeacon,
+and the richest woman in Upton, own aunt to the rector, David Chantrey?
+
+Next to Mr. Chantrey himself, Mrs. Bolton was the most eminent personage
+in Upton. She had settled there upon the archdeacon's death, which
+happened immediately after he had obtained the living for his wife's
+favorite nephew. For some years she had been the only lady connected
+with the rector, and had acted as his female representative. There was
+neither mansion nor cottage which she had not visited. The high were her
+associates; the low her proteges, for whose souls she labored. She was
+at the head of all charitable agencies and benevolent societies. Nothing
+could be set on foot in Upton under any other patronage. She was active,
+untiring, and not very susceptible. So early and so completely had she
+obtained the little sovereignty she had assumed, that when the rightful
+queen came there was no room for her. The rector's wife was only known
+as a pretty and pleasant-spoken young lady, who left all the parish
+affairs in Mrs. Bolton's hands.
+
+It is not to be wondered at, then, that no one guessed at David
+Chantrey's difficulty, though everybody knew the exact amount of his
+income. Neither he nor his wife hinted at it. Sophy Chantrey would have
+freely given the world, had it been hers, to accompany her husband; but
+there was no chance of that. A friend was going out on the same doleful
+search for health; and the two were to take charge of each other. But
+how to live at all while David was away? She urged that she could manage
+very well on seventy or eighty pounds a year, if she and her boy went to
+some cheap lodgings in a strange neighborhood, where nobody knew them;
+but her husband would not listen to such a plan. The worry and fret of
+his brain had grown almost to fever-height, when his aunt made a
+proposal, which he accepted in impatient haste. This was that Sophy
+should make her home at Bolton Villa for the full time of his absence;
+on condition that Charlie, a boy of seven years old, full of life and
+spirits, should be sent to school for the same term.
+
+Sophy rebelled for a little while, but in vain. In thinking of the
+eighteen long and dreary months her husband would be away, she had
+counted upon having the consolation of her child's companionship. But no
+other scheme presented itself; and she felt the sacrifice must be made
+for David's sake. A suitable school was found for Charlie; and he was
+placed in it a day or two before she had to journey down to Southampton
+with her husband. No soul on deck that day was more sorrowful than hers.
+David's hollow cheeks, and thin, stooping frame, and the feeble hand
+that clasped hers till the last moment, made the hope of ever seeing him
+again seem a mad folly. Her sick heart refused to be comforted. He was
+sanguine, and spoke almost gayly of his return; but she was filled with
+anguish. A strong persuasion seized upon her that she should see his
+face no more; and when the bitter moment of parting was over, she
+travelled back alone, heart-stricken and crushed in spirit, to her new
+home under Mrs. Bolton's roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ANN HOLLAND
+
+
+Bolton Villa was not more than a stone's throw from the rectory and the
+church. Sophy could hear the same shrieks of the martins wheeling about
+the tower, and the same wintry chant of the robins amid the ivy creeping
+up it. The familiar striking of the church clock and the chime of the
+bells rang alike through the windows of both houses. But there was no
+sound of her husband's voice and no merry shout of Charlie's, and the
+difference was appalling to her. She could not endure it.
+
+Mrs. Bolton was exceedingly proud of her villa. It had been bought
+expressly to please her by the late archdeacon, and altered under her
+own superintendence. Her tastes and wishes had been studied throughout.
+The interior was something like a diary of her life. The broad oak
+staircase was decorated with flags and banners from all the countries
+she had travelled through; souvenirs labelled with the names of every
+town she had visited, and the date of that event, lay scattered about.
+The entrance-hall, darkened by the heavy banners on the staircase, was a
+museum of curiosities collected by herself. The corners and niches were
+filled with plaster casts of famous statuary, which were supposed to
+look as fine as their marble originals in the gloom surrounding them.
+Every room was crowded with ornaments and knick-knacks, all of which had
+some association with herself. Even those apartments not seen by guests
+were no less encumbered with mementoes that had been discarded from time
+to time in favor of newer treasures. Mrs. Bolton never dared to change
+her servants, and it cannot be wondered at, that while offering a home
+to her nephew's wife, she could not extend her invitation to a
+mischievous boy of seven.
+
+But however interesting Bolton Villa might be to its mistress, it was
+not altogether a home favorable for the recovery of a bowed-down spirit,
+though Mrs. Bolton could not understand why Sophy, surrounded with so
+many blessings and with so much to be thankful for, should fall into a
+low, nervous fever shortly after she had parted with her husband and
+child. The house was quiet, fearfully quiet to Sophy. There was a
+depressing hush about it altogether different from the cheerful
+tranquillity of her own home. Very few visitors broke through its
+monotony, for Mrs. Bolton's social pinnacle was too high above her
+immediate neighbors for them to climb up to it; whilst those whose
+station was somewhat on a level with hers lived too faraway, or were too
+young and frivolous for friendly intercourse. There were formal
+dinner-parties at stated intervals, and occasionally a neighboring
+clergyman to be entertained. But these came few and far between, and
+Sophy Chantrey found herself very much alone amid the banners and
+souvenirs that banished her boy from the house.
+
+Mrs. Bolton herself was very often away. There was always something to
+be done in the parish which should by right have been Sophy's work, but
+her aunt had always discouraged any interference and David had been
+quite content to keep her to himself, as there was so able a substitute
+for her in the ordinary duties of a clergyman's wife. She had made but
+few acquaintances, and it was generally understood that Mrs. Chantrey
+was quite a cipher. No one ever expected her to become prominent in
+Upton.
+
+About half-way down the High street of Upton stood a small old-fashioned
+saddler's shop, the door of which was divided across the middle, so as
+to form two parts, the upper one always thrown open. Above the doorway,
+under a low-gabled roof, hung a cracked and mouldering sign-board,
+bearing the words "Ann Holland, Saddler." All the letters were faded,
+yet a keen eye might detect that the name "Ann" was more distinct than
+the others, as if painted at a later date. Within the shop an old
+journeyman was always to be seen, busy at his trade, and taking no heed
+of any customer coming in, unless the ringing of a bell on the lower
+half of the door remained unnoticed, when he would shamble away to call
+his mistress. In an evening after the twilight had set in, and it was
+too dark for her own ornamental stitching of the saddlery. Ann Holland
+was often to be found leaning over the half-door of her shop, and ready
+to exchange a friendly good-night, or a more lengthy conversation, with
+her townsfolk as they passed to and fro. She was a rosy, cheery-looking
+woman, still under fifty, with a pleasant voice and a friendly word for
+every one, and it was well known that she had refused several offers of
+marriage, some of them very eligible for a person of her station. There
+was not one of the townspeople she had not known from their earliest
+appearance in Upton, and she had the pedigree of all the families, high
+and low, at her finger-ends. New-comers she could only tolerate until
+they had lived respectably and paid their debts punctually for a good
+number of years. She had a kindly love of gossip, a simple real interest
+in the fortunes of all about her. There was little else for her to think
+of, for books and newspapers came seldom in her way, and were often far
+above her comprehension when they did, Upton news that would bring tears
+to her eyes or a laugh to her lips was the food her mind lived upon. Ann
+Holland was almost as general a favorite as the rector himself.
+
+It was some months after David Chantrey had gone to Madeira that Ann
+Holland was lingering late one evening over her door, watching the
+little street subside into the quietness of night. The wife of one of
+her best customers was passing by, and stopped to speak to her.
+
+"Have you happened to hear any talk of Mrs. Chantrey?" she asked. Her
+voice fell into a low and mysterious tone, and she glanced up and down
+the street lest any one should chance to be within hearing. Ann Holland
+quickly guessed there was something important to be told, and she opened
+the half door to her neighbor.
+
+"Come in, Mrs. Brown," she said; "Richard's not at home yet."
+
+She led the way into the room behind the shop, as pleasant a place as
+any in all Upton, except for the scent of the leather, which she had
+grown so used to that its absence would have seemed a loss. It was a
+kitchen spotlessly clean, with an old-fashioned polished dresser and
+shelves above it filled with pewter plates and dishes, upon which every
+gleam of firelight twinkled. A tall mahogany clock, with its head
+against the ceiling, and the round, good-humored face of a full moon
+beaming above its dial-plate, stood in one corner; while in the opposite
+one there was a corner cupboard with glass doors, filled with antique
+china cups and tea-pots, and a Chinese mandarin that never ceased to
+roll its head to and fro helplessly. Bean-pots of flowers, as Ann
+Holland called them, covered the broad window-sill; and a screen,
+adorned with fragments of old ballads, and with newspaper announcements
+of births, deaths, and marriages among Upton people, was drawn across
+the outer door, which opened into a little garden at the back of the
+house. There was a miniature parlor behind the kitchen, filled with
+furniture worked in tent stitch by Ann Holland's mother, and carefully
+covered with white dimity; but it was only entered on most important
+occasions. Even Mr. Chantrey had never yet been invited into it; for any
+event short of a solemn crisis the kitchen was considered good enough.
+
+"You haven't heard anything of Mrs. Chantrey, then?" repeated Mrs.
+Brown, still in low and important tones, as she seated herself in a
+three-cornered chair, a seat of honor rather than of ease, as one could
+not get a comfortable position without sitting sideways.
+
+"No, nothing," answered. Ann Holland; "nothing bad about Mr. Chantrey, I
+hope. Have they had any bad news of him?"
+
+Mrs. Brown was first cousin to Mrs. Bolton's butler, and was naturally
+regarded as an oracle with regard to all that went on at Bolton Villa.
+
+"Oh no, he's all right: not him, but her," she answered, almost in a
+whisper; "I can't say for certain it's true, for Cousin James purses up
+his mouth ever so when it's spoken, of; but cook swears to it, and he
+doesn't deny it, you know. I shouldn't like it to go any farther; but I
+can depend on yon, Miss Holland. A trusted woman like you must be choked
+up with secrets, I'm sure. I often and often say, Ann Holland knows some
+things, and could tell them, too, if she'd only open her lips."
+
+"You're right, Mrs. Brown," said Ann Holland, with a gratified smile;
+"you may trust me with any secret."
+
+"Well, then, they say," continued Mrs. Brown, "that Mrs. Chantrey takes
+more than is good for her. She's getting fond of it, you know; anything
+that'll excite her; and ladies, can get all sorts of things, worse for
+them a dozen times than what poor folks take. They say she doesn't know
+what she's saying often."
+
+"Dear, dear!" cried Ann Holland, in a sorrowful voice; "it can't be
+true, and Mr. Chantrey away! She's such a sweet pleasant-spoken young
+lady; I could never think it of her. He brought her here the very first
+week after they came to Upton, and she sat in that very chair you're set
+on, Mrs. Brown, and I thought her the prettiest picture I'd seen for
+many a year; and so did he, I'm sure. It can't be true, and him such a
+good man, and such a preacher as he is, with all the gentry round coming
+in their carnages to church."
+
+"Well, it mayn't be true," answered Mrs. Brown, slowly, as if the
+arguments used by Ann Holland were almost weighty enough to outbalance
+the cook's evidence; "I hope it isn't true, I'm sure. But they say at
+Bolton Villa it's a awful lonely life she do lead without Master
+Charlie, and Mrs. Bolton away so much. It 'ud give me the horrors, I
+know, to live in that house with all those white plaster men and women
+as big as life, standing everywhere about staring at you with blind
+eyes. I should want something to keep up my spirits. But I'm sure nobody
+could be sorrier than me if it turned out to be true."
+
+"Sorry!" exclaimed Ann Holland, "why, I'd cut my right hand off to
+prevent it being true. No words can tell how good Mr. Chantrey's been to
+me. Everybody knows what my poor brother is, and how he'll drink and
+drink for weeks together. Well, Mr. Chantrey's turned in here of an
+evening, and if Richard was away at the Upton Arms, he's gone after him
+into the very bar-room itself, and brought him home, just guiding him
+and handling him like a baby, poor fellow! Often and often he's promised
+to take the pledge with Richard, but he never could get him to say Yes.
+No, no! I'd go through fire and water before that should be true."
+
+"Nobody could be sorrier than me," persisted Mrs. Brown, somewhat
+offended at Ann Holland's vehemence; "I've only told you hearsay, but it
+comes direct from the cook, and Cousin James only pursed up his mouth. I
+don't say it's true or it's not true, but nobody in Upton could be
+sorrier than me if my words come correct. It can't be hidden under a
+bushel very long, Miss Holland; but I hope as much as you do that it
+isn't true."
+
+Yet there was an undertone of conviction in Mrs. Brown's manner of
+speaking that grieved Ann Holland sorely. She accompanied her departing
+guest to the door, and long after she was out of sight stood looking
+vacantly down the darkened street. There was little light or sound there
+now, except in the Upton Arms, where the windows glistened brightly, and
+the merry tinkling of a violin sounded through the open door. Her
+brother was there, she knew, and would not be home before midnight. He
+had been less manageable since Mr. Chantrey went away.
+
+She could not bear to think of Mrs. Chantrey falling into the same sin.
+The delicate, pretty, refined young lady degrading herself to the level
+of the poor drunken wretch she called her brother! Ann Holland could not
+and would not believe it; it seemed too monstrous a scandal to deserve a
+moment's anxiety. Yet when she went back into her lonely kitchen, her
+eyes were dim with tears, partly for her brother and partly for Sophy
+Chantrey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WHAT WAS HER DUTY?
+
+
+Ann Holland was a great favorite with Mrs. Bolton. The elderly,
+old-fashioned woman held firmly to all old-fashioned ways; knew her duty
+to God and her duty to her neighbor, as taught by the Church Catechism,
+and faithfully fulfilled them to the best of her power. She ordered
+herself lowly and reverently to all her betters, especially to the widow
+of an archdeacon. No new-fangled, radical notions, such as her drunken
+brother picked up, could find any encouragement from her. Mrs. Bolton
+always enjoyed an interview with her, so marked was her deference. She
+had occasionally condescended to visit Ann Holland in her kitchen, and
+sit on the projecting angle of the three-cornered chair, a favor duly
+appreciated by her delighted hostess. Mr. Chantrey ran in often, as he
+was passing by, partly because he felt a real friendship, for the
+true-hearted, struggling old maid, and partly to see after her
+good-for-nothing brother. As Ann Holland had said herself, she was ready
+to go through fire and water for the sake of these friends and patrons
+of hers, whose kindness was the brightest element in her life.
+
+After much tearful deliberation, she received upon the daring step of
+going to Bolton Villa, on an errand to Mrs. Bolton, with a vague hope
+that she might discover how false this cruel scandal was. There was a
+bridle of Mrs. Bolton's in the shop, which had been sent for a new curb,
+and she would take it home herself. Early the next afternoon, therefore.
+she clad herself in her best Sunday clothes, and made her way slowly
+along the streets toward the church. It was but slowly for she rarely
+went out on a week day, when her neighbors' shops were open; and there
+were too many attractions in the windows for even her anxiety and
+consciousness of a solemn mission to resist altogether.
+
+The church and the rectory looked so peaceful amid the trees, just
+tinged with the hues of autumn, that Ann Holland's spirits insensibly
+revived. There was little sign of life about the rectory, for no one was
+living in it at present but Mr. Warden, the clergyman who had taken Mr.
+Chantrey's duty. Ann Holland opened the church-yard gate and strolled
+pensively up among the graves to the porch, that she might rest a little
+and ponder over what she should say to Mrs. Bolton. There was not a
+grave there that she did not know; those lying under many of the grassy
+sods were as familiar to her as the men and women now in full life in
+the neighboring town. Just within sight, near the vestry window was a
+little mound covered with flowers, where she had seen a little child of
+David and Sophy Chantrey's laid to rest. A narrow path was worn up to
+it; more bare and trodden than before Mr. Chantrey had gone away. Ann
+Holland knew as well as if she had seen her, that the poor solitary
+mother had worn the grass away.
+
+The church door was open; for Mr. Warden had chosen to make the vestry
+his study, and had intimated to all the parish that there he might
+generally be found if any one among them wished to see him in any
+difficulty or sorrow. Though this was well known, no one of Mr.
+Chantrey's parishioners had gone to him for counsel; for he was a grave,
+stern, silent man, whose opinion it was difficult to guess at and
+impossible to fathom. He was unmarried, and kept no servant, except the
+housekeeper who had been left in charge of the rectory. All society he
+avoided, especially that of women. His abruptness and shyness in their
+presence was painful both to himself and them. To Mrs. Bolton, however,
+he was studiously civil, and to Sophy, his friend's wife, he would
+gladly have shown kindness and sympathy, if he had only known how. He
+often watched her tracing the narrow footworn track to her baby's grave,
+and he longed to speak some friendly words of comfort to her, but none
+came to his mind when they encountered each other. No one in Upton,
+except Ann Holland, had seen, as he had, how thin and wan her face grew;
+nor had any one noticed as soon as he had done the strangeness of her
+manner at times, the unsteadiness of her step, and the flush upon her
+face, as she now and then passed to and fro under the yew-trees. But he
+had never had the courage to speak to her at such moments; and there was
+only a mournful suspicion and dread in his heart, which he did his best
+to hide from himself.
+
+This afternoon Mrs. Bolton had sought him in the vestry, where he had
+been silently brooding over his parish and its sins and sorrows, in the
+dim, green light shining through the lattice window, which was thickly
+overgrown with ivy. Mrs. Bolton was a handsome woman still, always
+handsomely dressed, as became a wealthy archdeacon's widow. Her presence
+seemed to fill up the little vestry; and as she occupied his old,
+high-backed chair, Mr. Warden stood opposite to her, looking down
+painfully and shyly at the floor on which he stood, rather than at the
+distinguished personage who was visiting him.
+
+"I come to you," she said, in a decisive, emphatic voice, "as a
+clergyman, as well as my nephew's confidential friend. What I say to you
+must go no farther than ourselves. We have no confessional in our
+church, thank Heaven! but that which is confided to a clergyman, even to
+a curate, ought to be as sacred as a confession."
+
+"Certainly," answered Mr. Warden, with painful abruptness.
+
+"Sacred as a confession!" repeated Mrs. Bolton. "I must tell you, then,
+that I am in the greatest trouble about my nephew's wife. You know how
+ill she was last winter, after he went away. A low, nervous fever, which
+hung over her for months. She would not listen to my telling David about
+it, and, indeed, I was reluctant to distress and disturb him about a
+matter that he could not help. But she is very strange now; very strange
+and flighty. Possibly you may have observed some change in her?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, still looking down on the floor, but seeing a vision
+of Sophy pacing the beaten track to the little grave under the vestry
+window.
+
+"When she was at the worst," pursued Mrs. Bolton, "and I had the best
+advice in London for her, she was ordered to take the best wine we could
+get. I told Brown to bring out for her use some very choice port,
+purchased by the archdeacon years ago. She must have perished without
+it; but unfortunately--I speak to you as her pastor, in confidence--she
+has grown fond of it."
+
+"Fond of it?" repeated Mr. Warden.
+
+"Yes," she answered, emphatically; "I leave the cellar entirely in
+Brown's charge; a very trusty servant; and I find that Mrs. Chantrey has
+lately been in the habit of getting a great deal too much from him. But
+she will take anything she can get that will either stupefy or excite
+her. She never writes to David until her spirits are raised by
+stimulants of one kind or another. It is a temptation I cannot
+understand. I take a proper quantity, just as when the archdeacon was
+alive, and I never think of exceeding that. I need no more, and I desire
+no more. But Mrs. Chantrey grows quite excited, almost violent at times.
+It makes me more anxious than words can express."
+
+There was a long pause, Mr. Warden neither lifting his head nor opening
+his mouth. His pale face flushed a little, and his lips quivered. David
+Chantrey was his dearest friend, and an almost intolerable sense of
+shame and dread kept him silent. His wife, of whom he always spoke so
+tenderly in all his letters to him! The very spot where he was listening
+to this charge against her, David's vestry, seemed to deepen the shame
+of it, and the unutterable sorrow, if it should be true.
+
+"What would you counsel me to do?" asked Mrs. Bolton, after a time.
+"Must I write to my nephew and tell him?"
+
+"Do!" he cried, with sudden eagerness and emphasis; "do! Take the
+temptation out of her way at once. Let everything of the kind be removed
+from the house. Let no one touch it, or mention it in her presence.
+Guard her as you would guard a child from taking deadly poison."
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Bolton. "Have no wine in my house? You
+forget my station and its duties, Mr. Warden, I must give dinner parties
+occasionally; I must allow beer to my servants. It is absurd. Nobody
+could expect me to take such a step as that."
+
+"Listen to me," he said, earnestly, and with an authority quite at
+variance with his ordinary shyness. "I do not venture to hope for any
+other remedy. I have known men, ay, and women, who have not dared to
+pass close by the doors of a tavern for fear lest they should catch but
+the smell of it, and become brutes again in spite of themselves. Others
+have not dared even to think of it. If Mrs. Chantrey be falling into
+this sin, there is no other course for you to pursue than to banish it
+from your table, and, if possible, from your house. It is better for her
+to die, if needs be, than to live a drunkard."
+
+"A drunkard!" echoed Mrs. Bolton. "I am sure I never used such a word
+about Sophy. I cannot believe it possible that my nephew's wife, a
+clergyman's wife, could become a drunkard, like a woman of the lowest
+classes! And I cannot understand how you, a clergyman, could seriously
+propose so extraordinary a step. Why, there is no danger to me; nobody
+could ever suspect me of being fond of wine. I have taken it in
+moderation all my life, and I cannot believe it is my duty to give it up
+altogether at my age."
+
+"Very possibly it has never been your duty before," answered Mr. Warden,
+"and now I urge it, not for your own sake, but for hers. She has fallen
+into the snare blindfolded, and you can extricate her, though at some
+cost to yourself. I feel persuaded you can induce her to abstain, if you
+will do so yourself. You call yourself a Christian--"
+
+"I should think there can be no doubt about that," she interrupted,
+indignantly; "the archdeacon never expressed any doubt about it, and
+surely I may depend upon his judgment."
+
+"Forgive me," said Mr. Warden. "I ought to have said you are a
+Christian, and a Christian is one who follows his Lord's example."
+
+"Who drank wine himself, and blessed it," interposed Mrs. Bolton, in a
+tone of triumph.
+
+"The great law of whose life was self-sacrifice," he pursued. "If one of
+his brethren or sisters had been a drunkard, can you think of him
+filling up his own cup with wine and drinking it, as they sat side by
+side at the same table?"
+
+"I should be shocked at imagining anything so presumptuous, not to call
+it blasphemous," she said. "We can only go by the plain words of
+Scripture, which tell us that He turned water into wine, and that He
+drank wine Himself. I am not afraid of going by the plain words of
+Scripture."
+
+"But we have only fragments of His history," replied Mr. Warden, "and
+only a few verses of His teachings. Would you say that Paul had more of
+the spirit of self-sacrifice than Christ? Yet he said, 'It is good
+neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy
+brother stumbleth.' And again, 'If meat make my brother to offend, I
+will eat no flesh while the world standeth.' If the servant spoke so,
+what do you think the Master would have answered if any one had asked
+Him, 'Lord, what shall I do to save my brother from drunkenness?' It
+will be a self-denial to you; people will wonder at it, and talk about
+you; yet I say, if you would truly follow your Lord and Saviour, there
+is no choice for you. You can save a soul for whom Christ died; and is
+it possible that you can refuse to do it?"
+
+"I thought," said Mrs. Bolton, "that you would expostulate with her, and
+warn her as her pastor; and I cannot but believe that, now I have made
+it known to you, you are responsible for her--at least more responsible
+than I am. You must use your influence with her; and if she is deaf to
+reason, we have done all we could."
+
+"I cannot accept the responsibility," he answered, in a tone of pain.
+"If she were dwelling under my roof, it would be mine; but I cannot take
+your share of it. As your pastor, I place your duty before you, and you
+cannot neglect it without peril. As a snare to her soul it has become an
+accursed thing in your household; and I warn you of it most earnestly,
+beseeching you to hear in time to save yourself, and her, and David from
+misery!"
+
+"Mr. Warden," exclaimed Mrs. Bolton, "I am astonished at your
+fanaticism!"
+
+She had risen from her chair, and was about to sail out of the vestry
+with an air of outraged dignity, when Mr. Warden said, in a low tone,
+and with a heavy sigh, "See, there she is!"
+
+Mrs. Bolton paused and turned toward the window, which overlooked the
+little grave of her nephew's child, who had been very dear to herself.
+Sophy had just sunk down beside it. There was a slight strangeness and
+disorder about her appearance, which no stranger might have noticed, but
+which could not fail to strike both of them. She looked dejected and
+unhappy, and hid her face in her hands, as though she felt their gaze
+upon her. The clergyman laid his hand upon Mrs. Bolton's arm with an
+unconscious pressure, and looked earnestly into her clouded face.
+
+"Look!" he said. "In Christ's name, I implore you to save her."
+
+"I will do what I can," she answered impatiently, "but I cannot take
+your way to do it; it is irrational."
+
+"There is no other way," he said mournfully, "and I warn you of it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A BABY'S GRAVE
+
+
+Sophy Chantrey had strayed absently down to the churchyard in one of
+those fits of restlessness and nervous despondency which made it
+impossible to her to remain in the overcrowded rooms of Bolton Villa or
+in the trim flower-garden surrounding it. There was a continual vague
+sense of misery in her lot, which she had not strength enough to cast
+off; but at this moment she was not consciously mourning either for her
+lost little one or for the absence of her husband and boy. The sharpness
+and bitterness of her trouble were dulled, and her brain was confused.
+Even this was a relief from the heavy-heartedness that oppressed her at
+other times, and she felt a comparative comfort in sitting half-asleep
+by her child's grave, dreaming confusedly of happier days. She started
+almost fretfully when Ann Holland's voice broke in upon her drowsy
+languor.
+
+"Begging your pardon, Mrs. Chantrey," she said, "but I thought I might
+make bold to ask what news you've had from Mr. Chantrey in Madeira?"
+
+"David!" she answered absently; "David! Oh yes, I see. You are Miss
+Holland, and he was always fond of you. Do you remember him bringing me
+to see you just after our marriage? He is getting quite well very fast,
+thank you. It is only eight months now till he comes home; but that is a
+long time."
+
+The tears had gathered in her blue eyes, and fell one after another down
+her cheeks as she looked up pitifully into Ann Holland's kindly face.
+
+"Ah! it is a long time, my dear," she replied, sitting down beside her,
+though she had some dread of the damp grass; "but we must all of us have
+patience, you know, and hope on, hope ever. Dear, dear! to think how
+overjoyed he'll be, and how happy all the folks in Upton will be, when
+he comes back! It was hard to part with him; but when we see him again,
+strong and hearty, all that'll be forgot."
+
+"Oh, I've missed him so!" cried Sophy, with a burst of tears; "I've been
+so solitary without him or Charlie. You cannot think what it is.
+Sometimes I feel as if they were both dead, and I was doomed to live
+here without them for ever and ever. Everything seems ended. It is a
+dreadful feeling."
+
+"And then, dear love," said Ann Holland, in her quietest tones, "I know
+you just fall down on your knees, and tell God all about it. That's how
+I do when my poor brother behaves so bad, taking every penny, and
+pawning or selling all he can lay hands on, to spend in drink. But you
+know better than me, with all your learning, and music, and painting,
+and pretty manners, let alone being a clergyman's wife; and when you are
+that lonesome and sorrowful, you kneel down and tell God all about it."
+
+"No, no," sobbed Sophy, hiding her face again in her hands; "I am so
+miserable--too miserable to be good, as I used to be when David was at
+home."
+
+The almost pleasant drowsiness was over now, and a swift tide of thought
+and memory swept through her brain. The gulf on whose verge she stood
+seemed to open before her, and she looked down into it shudderingly. She
+could recollect the temptation assailing her once before, when her baby
+died; but then her husband was beside her, and his presence had saved
+her, though not even he had guessed at her danger. What could save her
+now, alone, with a perpetual weariness of spirit, and a feeling of
+physical weakness amounting to positive pain? Yet if she went but a few
+steps forward, she would sink into the gloomy depths, which for the
+moment her quickened conscience could so clearly perceive. If David
+could but be at home now! If she could but have her little son to occupy
+her time and thoughts!
+
+"Dear, dear!" said Ann Holland's low and tender voice; "nobody's too
+miserable for God not to love them. Why, a poor thing like me can love
+my brother when he's as bad as bad can be with drink. I could do
+anything for him out of pity; and it's hard to think less of Him that
+made us. Sure He knows how difficult it is to be good when we are
+miserable; and we can't tire Him out. He'll help us out of our misery if
+we keep stretching out our hands to Him. Nobody knows but Him what we've
+all got to go through. It's because you're lonesome, and fretting after
+old days. But they'll come back again, dear love and we'll all be as
+happy as happy can be. I know how you miss Mr. Chantrey, for I miss him
+badly, and what must it be for you?"
+
+Sophy lifted up her face, wet with tears, yet with a smile breaking
+through them. Ann Holland's simple words of comfort and hope had gone
+direct to her heart, and it seemed possible for her to wait patiently
+now until David came home.
+
+"You've done me good," she said, "and I shall tell David next time I
+write to him."
+
+"Dear, dear!" said Ann Holland, with a tone of surprise and pleasure in
+her voice, "couldn't I do something better for you? Couldn't I just go
+over to Master Charlie's school, and take him a cake and a little whip
+out of the shop? It would do me good, worlds of good; and he'd be glad,
+poor little fellow! Mr. Chantrey's so good to my poor brother; he'd save
+him from drink if he'd be saved, I know. I'd do anything for your sake
+or Mr. Chantrey's. But there's Mrs. Bolton coming out of the church, and
+I've a little business with her; so I'll say good-day to you now, Mrs.
+Chantrey."
+
+If at this point of her life Sophy Chantrey could have been removed from
+the daily temptations which beset her, most probably she would not have
+fallen lower into the degrading sin, which was quickly becoming a habit.
+Until her husband's enforced absence, she had been so carefully hedged
+in by the numberless small barriers of a girl's sphere, so guided and
+managed for by those about her, that it had been hardly possible for any
+sore temptation to come near her. But now suddenly cut adrift from her
+quiet moorings, she found herself powerless to keep out of the rapid
+current which must plunge her into deep misery and vice. There had not
+been a doubt in her mind that she was not a real Christian, for she had
+freely given a sentimental faith to the Christian dogmas propounded to
+her by persons whom she held to be wiser and better than herself. In the
+same manner she had taken the customs and usages of modern life, always
+feeling satisfied to do what others of her own class and rank did. Even
+now, though she was conscious that there was some danger for herself,
+she could not realize the half of the peril in which she stood. After
+Ann Holland left her she lingered still beside the little grave in a
+tranquil but somewhat purposeless reverie. There could be no harm, she
+thought, in taking just enough to deliver her from her very worst
+moments of depression, or when she had to write cheerfully to her
+husband. That was a duty, and she must keep a stricter guard over
+herself than she had done lately. She would take exactly what her aunt
+Bolton drank, and then she could not go wrong. With this resolution she
+gathered a flower from the little grave beside her, and, turning away,
+hastened out of the churchyard.
+
+Mr. Warden had scarcely glanced through the vestry window since Mrs.
+Bolton had gone away in anger, but he was well aware of Sophy's
+lingering beside the grave. He felt crushed and unhappy. His friend
+Chantrey had solemnly committed the parish to his care, and he to the
+utmost of his power had strenuously fulfilled his duties. But what was
+he to do with this new case? Except under strong excitement his
+constitutional shyness kept him dumb, and how was he to venture to
+expostulate with his friend's wife upon such a subject? It seemed to be
+his duty to do something to prevent this lonely and sorrowful girl from
+drifting into a commonplace and degrading phase of sin. But how was he
+to begin? How could he even hint at such a suspicion? Besides, he could
+do nothing to remove her out of temptation. So long as Mrs. Bolton
+persisted in her angry refusal to follow his advice, she must be exposed
+daily to indulge an appetite which she had not the firmness to resist.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+TOWN'S TALK
+
+
+Perhaps no two persons, outside that nearest circle of kinship which
+surrounds us all, ever suffered more grief and anxiety in witnessing the
+slow but sure downfall of a fellow-being, than did Mr. Warden and Ann
+Holland while watching the gradual working of the curse that was
+destroying David Chantrey's wife.
+
+It was a miserable time for Mr. Warden. Now and then he accepted Mrs.
+Bolton's formal invitations to dine with her, and those few
+acquaintances who were considered worthy to visit at Bolton Villa. On
+the first occasion he had gone with a faint hope that she had thought
+over his advice, and resolved to act upon it. But there had been no such
+result of his solemn warning, which had been so painful to him to
+deliver. He abstained from taking wine himself, as he believed Christ
+would have done for the sake of any one so tempted to sin; but his
+example had no weight. There was a pleasant jest or two at his
+asceticism, and that was all, Sophy Chantrey took wine as the others
+did; and, in spite of her resolution, more than the others did; whilst
+Mrs. Bolton raised her eyebrows, and drew down the corners of her lips,
+with an air of rebuke. No one knew the meaning of that look except Mr.
+Warden. The other guests were only entertained by Mrs. Chantrey's fine
+flow of merry humor, and remarked how well she bore her husband's
+absence.
+
+"You saw her, Mr. Warden?" said Mrs. Bolton to him, in a low voice, when
+they reassembled in the drawing-room.
+
+"Yes," he answered, sorrowfully.
+
+"You saw how I looked at her as much as to warn her," pursued Mrs.
+Bolton. "I am sure she understood me, yet she allowed Brown to fill her
+glass again and again. What could I do more? I have spoken to her in
+private; I could not speak to her before our friends."
+
+"I have told you before," he answered, "there is only one thing you can
+do, and you refuse to do it."
+
+"It would be ridiculous to do it," she said, sharply. "I am not going to
+make myself a laughing-stock to all the world; and I cannot shut her up
+in her room, and send her meals to her like a naughty child. You ought
+to remonstrate with her."
+
+"I will," he replied, "but it will be of little use, so long as the
+temptation is there. Have you seriously and prayerfully thought of your
+own duty as a Christian, in this case? Are you quite sure you are acting
+as Christ himself would have done?"
+
+"None of us can act as He would have, done," she answered, moving from
+away him. Yet her conscience was uneasy. There was, of a truth, no doubt
+in her mind as to what the Lord would have done. Yet she could not break
+through the habits of a lifetime; no, not even to save the wife of her
+favorite nephew. She did not like to give up the hospitable custom. Her
+wines were good, bought from the archdeacon's own wine-merchant, and she
+enjoyed them herself, and liked to hear her guests praise them. No
+question as to the lawfulness of such an enjoyment had ever arisen
+before now; but now it troubled her secretly, though she was resolved
+not to give way. If Sophy Chantrey could not keep within proper limits,
+it was no fault of hers, and no one could blame her for preserving a
+harmless custom.
+
+It was not long before Mr. Warden found an opportunity of speaking to
+Sophy, though it was an agony to him to do it. A few words only were
+spoken before she knew what he meant to say, and she interrupted him
+passionately.
+
+"Oh! if David was but here!" she cried, "I could keep right then. But I
+cannot bear it; indeed, I cannot bear it. The house is so dreary, and
+there is nothing for me to think of; and then I begin to go down, down
+into such a misery you do not know anything of. I think I should go mad
+without it; and after I have taken it, I feel mad with shame. Aunt
+Bolton has told me what she said to you; and I can hardly bear to look
+either of you in the face. What shall I do?"
+
+"You must break yourself of the habit," he said pitifully; "God will
+help you, if you only keep Him in your thoughts. Promise me you will
+neither taste it, nor look at it again, and I will take the same solemn
+pledge with you now, before God."
+
+"It would be of no use," she answered, in a hopeless tone, "the instant
+I see it, I long for it; and I cannot resist the longing. I've vowed on
+my knees not to take any for a day only; and the moment I have sat down
+to dinner, I could hardly bear to wait till Brown comes around. If I
+wake in the night--and I wake so often!--I think of it the first thing.
+If I could get right away from it, perhaps there might be a chance; but
+how can I get away?"
+
+"Have you ever thought of what it must lead to?" he asked, wondering at
+the power the terrible sin had already gained over her.
+
+"Thought!" she cried, "I think of it constantly. David will hate me when
+he comes home, if I cannot conquer it before then. But what am I to do?
+I cannot write to him unless I take it. No; I cannot even pray to God,
+when I am so utterly miserable. It would be better for me to be some
+poor man's wife, and drudge for my husband and children, than to have
+nothing to do, and be so much alone. There must be some way of escaping
+from it; but I cannot find it."
+
+This way of escape--how could he find it for her? It was a question that
+occupied his thoughts day and night. There was one way, but Mrs. Bolton
+firmly persisted in closing it, and no other seemed open to her. He
+could not make known this difficulty to his friend, David Chantrey; for
+it would be a death-blow to him literally. He would hasten home from
+Madeira, at the very worst season of the year, as it was now late in
+October, The risk for him would be too great. There was no other home
+open to Sophy; and it did not seem possible to make any change in the
+conditions of that home. She must still be lonely and miserable, and
+still be exposed to daily temptations. All he could do was so little,
+that he did it without hope in the results.
+
+If possible, Ann Holland was yet more troubled than he was. By and by it
+became common town's-talk, and many a neighbor visited her with the
+purpose of gossiping about poor Mrs. Chantrey. But they found her averse
+to dwell upon the subject, as if gossip had suddenly grown distasteful
+to her. Many an hour when she was waiting for her drunken brother to
+come in from the Upton Arms, she pondered over what she could do to save
+the wife of her beloved Mr. Chantrey. She knew better than Mr. Warden,
+who had never been in close domestic contact with the sin, how terrible
+and repulsive was the degradation of it; and she was heart-sick for
+Sophy and her husband.
+
+"There's one thing I've done," she said one day to Mrs. Bolton, speaking
+to her of her brother's drunkenness; "he's never seen me drink a drop of
+it since he came home drunk the first time. I hate the very sight of it,
+or to hear people talk of the good it's done them! Why, if it did me
+worlds of good, and made my poor Richard the miserable wretch he is, I
+couldn't touch it. And he knows it; he knows I do it for his sake, and
+maybe he'll turn some day. But if he doesn't turn, I couldn't touch what
+is ruining him."
+
+"That's very well in your station, Ann," answered Mrs. Bolton, "but it
+is quite different with us. We owe a duty to society, which must be
+discharged."
+
+"Very likely, ma'am," she replied meekly; "it's my feelings I was
+speaking of, not exactly my duty. I hate the name of it; and to think of
+the thousands and thousands of folks it ruins! When you've seen anybody
+belonging to you ruined by it you'll hate it, I know. But pray God that
+may never be!"
+
+"Ann," said Mrs. Bolton, cautiously, "do you suppose any one belonging
+to me could ever drink more than is right?"
+
+"It's the town's-talk," answered Ann Holland, bursting into tears;
+"everybody knows it. Oh! Mrs. Bolton, if you can do anything to help
+her, now is the time to do it. It will get too hard to be rooted up by
+and by. I know that by my poor brother. He'll never leave it off till
+he's on his deathbed and can't get it. James Brown, your butler, ma'am,
+is always talking to him, and exciting him about what he's got charge of
+in your cellars; and they sit here talking about it for an hour at a
+time, till they go off to the Upton Arms. I hate the very sound of it."
+
+"But I must have cellars, and I must have a butler," said Mrs. Bolton,
+somewhat angrily. She was fond of Ann Holland, and liked the reverence
+she had always paid to her. But this ridiculous notion of Mr. Warden's
+seemed to have taken possession of the poor, uneducated woman's brain,
+and threatened to undermine her influence over her. She cut short her
+visit to her at this point, and returned home uncomfortable and
+disturbed, wishing she had never offered the shelter of her roof to her
+nephew's unhappy and weak-minded wife.
+
+Presently, as the dreary winter wore away, Mr. Warden began to shun the
+sight of Sophy Chantrey. All his efforts to save her, or even to check
+her rapid downfall, had proved vain; and he turned from her sin with a
+resentment tinged with disgust. But Ann Holland could feel no resentment
+or disgust. If it had been in her power she would have watched over her
+and cared for her night and day with unwearied tenderness. As far as she
+could she sought to keep alive within her all kinds of softening and
+pleasant influences. She went often to see Charlie at school, sometimes
+persuading Sophy to go with her, though more often the unhappy mother
+shrank from meeting her little son's innocent greetings and caresses.
+The terrible fits of depression which followed every indulgence of her
+craving frequently unfitted her for any exertion. She clung to Ann
+Holland's faithful friendship; but it was not near enough or strong
+enough to keep her from yielding when she was tempted.
+
+But Sophy Chantrey had not yet fallen to the lowest depths--perhaps
+never would fall. Her husband's return would save her. Ann Holland
+looked forward to it as the only hope.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE RECTOR'S RETURN
+
+
+David Chantrey's term of exile was over, and the spring had brought
+release to him. He was returning to England in stronger health and vigor
+than he had enjoyed for some years before his absence. It seemed to
+himself that he had completely regained the strength that had been his
+as a young man. He was a young man yet, he told himself--not six and
+thirty, with long years of happy work lying before him. The last
+eighteen months had been weary ones, though he could not count them as
+lost time, since they had restored him to health. The voyage home was a
+succession of almost perfectly happy days, as he dwelt beforehand upon
+the joy that awaited him. He had a packet of letters, those which had
+reached him from home during his absence; and he read them through once
+more in the long leisure hours of the voyage. Those from his friend
+Warden and his aunt which bore a recent date had certainly a rather
+unsatisfactory tone; but all of Sophy's had been brighter and more
+cheerful than he had anticipated. Every one of them longed for his
+return, that was evident. Even Warden, who did not know where his fate
+would take him to next, expressed an almost extravagant anxiety for his
+speedy presence in his own parish.
+
+He loved his parish and his people with a peculiar pride and affection.
+It was twelve years since he had gone to Upton--a young man just in
+orders, and in the full glow of a fresh enthusiasm as to his duties. He
+believed no office to be equal to that of a minister of Christ. And
+though this glow had somewhat passed away, the enthusiasm had deepened
+rather than faded with the lapse of years, His long illness and
+exclusion from his office had imparted to it a graver tone. In former
+days, perhaps, he had been too much set upon the outer ceremonials of
+religion. He had been proud of his church and the overflowing
+congregation which assembled in it week after week testifying to his
+popularity. To pass along the streets of his little town, and receive
+everywhere the tokens of respect that greeted him, had been exceedingly
+pleasant. He had bent himself to win golden opinions, after quoting the
+words of Paul, "I am made all things to all men, that by all means I
+might save some." And he had succeeded in gaining the esteem of almost
+every class of his parishioners.
+
+But during the long and lonely months of absence he had learned to love
+his people after a different fashion. There were some pleasant vices in
+his parish to which he had shut his eyes; some respectable delinquents
+with whom he had been on friendly terms, without using his privilege as
+a friend to point out their misdeeds. There was not a high tone of
+morality in his parish. Possibly he had been too anxious to please his
+people. He was going back to them with a deeper and stronger glow of
+enthusiasm concerning his duties and work among them; but with a graver
+sense of his own weakness, and a more humble knowledge of the Divine
+Father for whom he was an ambassador.
+
+His vessel reached Southampton the day before its arrival could have
+been expected, and neither Sophy nor his friend Warden was there to
+welcome him. But this was an additional pleasure; he would take them all
+by surprise in the midst of their preparations for his return. Warden
+had warned him that there would be quite a public reception of him, with
+a great concourse of his parishioners, and every demonstration of
+rejoicing. It was in his nature to enjoy this; but still he would like a
+few quiet hours with Sophy first, and these he could secure by hastening
+home by the first train. He would reach Upton early in the evening.
+
+It was an hour of intense happiness, and he felt it to his inmost soul.
+All the route was familiar to him after he had started from London; the
+streets and suburbs rushing past him swiftly, and the meadows, in the
+bright green and gold of spring, which followed them. He knew the
+populous villages, with their churches, where he was himself well known.
+Every station seemed almost like a home to him. As he drew nearer to
+Upton he leaned through, the window to catch the first glimpse of his
+own church, and the blue smoke rising from his own house; and a minute
+or two afterward, with a gladness that was half a pain, he found himself
+once more on the platform at Upton station.
+
+"I am back again," he said, shaking hands with the station-master with a
+hearty grasp that spoke something of his gladness. "Is all going on well
+among you?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Chantrey; yes, sir," he answered. "You're welcome home, sir.
+God bless you! You've been missed more than any of us thought of when
+you went away. You're needed here, sir, more than you think of."
+
+"Nothing has gone very wrong, I hope," said the rector, smiling. He had
+faithfully done his best to provide a good substitute in "Warden, but it
+was not in human nature not to feel pleased that no one could manage his
+parish as well as himself.
+
+"No, no, sir," replied the station-master, "nothing but what you'll put
+right again at once by being at home yourself. No, there's nothing very
+wrong, I may say. Upton meant to give you a welcome home to-morrow, with
+arches of flowers and music. They'll be disappointed you arrived to-day,
+I know."
+
+David Chantrey laughed, thinking of the welcome they had given him when
+he brought Sophy home as his young wife. His heart felt a new tenderness
+for her, and a throb of impatience to find her. He bade a hasty
+good-evening to the station-master, and walked off buoyantly toward the
+High street, along which his path lay. The station-master and the
+ticket-clerk watched him, and shook their heads significantly; but he
+was quite unconscious of their scrutiny. Never had the quiet little town
+seemed so lovely to him. The quaint irregular houses stood one-half of
+them in shadow, and the rest in the level rays of the May sunset; the
+chestnut-trees, with their young green leaves and their white blossoms
+lighting up each branch to the very summit of them; the hawthorn bushes
+here and there covered with snowy bloom; the children playing, and the
+swallows darting to and fro overhead; the distant shout of the cuckoo,
+and the deep low tone of the church clock just striking the hour--this
+was the threshold of home to him; the outer court, which was dearer to
+him and more completely his own than any other place in the wide world
+could ever be.
+
+No one was quick to recognize him in his somewhat foreign aspect; the
+children at their play took no notice of him. All the tradespeople were
+busy getting their shops a little in order before the shutters were put
+up. He might perhaps pass through the street as far as Bolton Villa
+without being observed, and so be sure of a perfectly quiet evening. But
+as he thought so his heart gave a great bound, for there before him was
+Sophy herself hurrying along the uneven causeway, now lost behind some
+jutting building, and then seen once more, still hastening with quick,
+unsteady steps, as if bent on some pressing errand. He did not try to
+overtake her, though he could have done so easily. He felt that their
+first meeting must not be in the street, for the tears that smarted
+under his eyelids and dimmed his sight, and the quicker throbbing of his
+pulses, warned him that such a meeting would be no common incident in
+their lives. She had been his wife for nine years, and she was far
+dearer to him now than she had been when he married her. Eighteen months
+of their life together had been lost--a great price to pay for his
+restored health. But now a long, happy union lay before them.
+
+He had not followed her for more than a minute or two when she suddenly
+turned and entered Ann Holland's little shop. Well, he could not take
+her by surprise better in any other house in Upton. Perhaps it might
+even be better than at Bolton Villa, amid its cumbrous surroundings; he
+always thought of his aunt's house with a sort of shudder. If Sophy had
+fortunately fixed upon this quiet house for paying the good old maid a
+kindly visit, there was not another place except their own home where he
+would rather receive her first greeting--that is if the drunken old
+saddler did not happen to be in. He paused to inquire from the
+journeyman, still at work in the shop; learning that Richard Holland was
+not at home, he passed impatiently to the kitchen beyond. Ann Holland
+was just closing the door of her little parlor, and David Chantrey
+approached her, hardly able to control the agitation he felt.
+
+"I saw my wife step in here," he said, holding out his hand to her, but
+attempting to pass her and to open the door before which she still
+stood. She could not speak for a moment, but she kept her post firmly in
+opposition to him.
+
+"My wife is here?" he asked, in a sharp impetuous tone.
+
+"Yes; oh yes!" cried Ann Holland; "but wait a moment, Mr. Chantrey. Oh,
+wait a little while. Don't go in and see her yet."
+
+"Why not?" he asked again, a sudden terror taking hold of him.
+
+"Sit down a minute or two, sir," she answered. "Mrs. Chantrey's ill,
+just ailing a little. She is not prepared to meet you just yet. You were
+not expected before to-morrow, and she's excited; she hardly knows what
+she's saying or doing. You'd better not speak to her or see her till
+she's recovered herself a little."
+
+"Poor Sophy!" cried David Chantrey, with a tremor in his voice; "did she
+see me coming, then? Go back to her, Miss Holland; she will want you. Is
+there nothing I can do for her? It has been a hard time for her, poor
+girl!"
+
+Ann Holland went back into the parlor, and he smiled as he heard her
+take the precaution of turning the key in the lock. He threw himself
+into the three-cornered chair, and sat listening to the murmur of voices
+on the other side of the door. It seemed a very peaceful home. The
+quaintness and antiqueness of the homely kitchen chimed in with his
+present feeling; he wanted no display or grandeur. This was no common
+every-day world he was in; there was a strange flavor about every
+circumstance. Impatient as he was to see Sophy, and hold her once more
+in his arms, he could not but feel a sense of comfort and tranquillity
+mingling with his more unquiet happiness. There was a fire burning
+cheerily on the hearth, though it was a May evening. Coming from a
+warmer climate, he felt chilly, and he bent over the fire, stretching
+over it his long thin hands, which told plainly their story of mere
+scholarly work and of health never very vigorous, Smiling all the time,
+with the glow of the flame on his face, with its expression of tranquil
+gladness, as of one who had long been buffeted about, but had reached
+home at last, he sat listening till the voices ceased. A profound
+silence followed, which lasted some time, before Ann Holland returned to
+him saying softly, "She is asleep."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+WORSE THAN DEAD
+
+
+Ann Holland sat down on the other side of the hearth, opposite her
+rector; but she could not lift up her eyes to his face. There was no on
+in the world whom she loved so well. His forbearance and kindness toward
+her unfortunate brother, who was the plague and shame of her life, had
+completely won for him an affection that would have astonished him if he
+could have known its devotion. This moment would have been one of
+unalloyed delight to her had there been no trouble lurking for him, of
+which he was altogether unaware. So rejoiced she was at his return that
+it seemed as if no event in her monotonous life hitherto had been so
+happy; yet she was terrified at the very thought of his coming
+wretchedness. When Sophy had fled to her with the cry that her husband
+was come, and she dared not meet him as she was, she had seen in an
+instant that she must prevent it by some means or other. The hope that
+Mr. Chantrey's return would bring about a reformation in his wife had
+grown faint in her heart, for during the last few months the sin had
+taken deeper and deeper root; and now, the day only before she expected
+him, she had not had strength to resist the temptation to it. Sophy had
+been crying hysterically, and trembling at the thought of meeting him as
+she was; and she had made Ann promise to break to him gently the
+confession she would otherwise be compelled to make herself. Ann Holland
+sat opposite to him, with downcast eyes, and a face almost heart-broken
+by the shame and sorrow she foresaw for him.
+
+"She is asleep," he said, repeating her words in a lowered voice, as if
+he was afraid of disturbing her.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"It is strange," he said, after a short pause; "strange she can sleep
+now. Has she been ill? Sophy always assured me she was quite well and
+strong. It is strange she can sleep when she knows I am here."
+
+"She was very ill and low after you went, sir," she replied; "it was
+like as if her heart was broken, parting with you and Master Charlie
+both together. Dear, dear! it might have been better for her if you'd
+been poor folks, and she'd had to work hard for you both. She'd just
+nothing to do, and nobody to turn to for comfort, poor thing. Mrs.
+Bolton meant to be kind, and was kind in her way: but she fell into a
+low fever, and the doctors all ordered her as much wine and support as
+ever she could take."
+
+"I never heard of it," said Mr. Chantrey; "they never told me."
+
+"No; they were fearful of your coming back too soon," she went, on;
+"and, thank God, you are looking quite yourself again, sir. All Upton
+will be as glad as glad can be, and the old church'll be crammed again.
+Mr. Warden's done all a man could do; but everybody said he wasn't you
+and we longed for you back again, but not too soon--no, no, not too
+soon."
+
+"But my wife," he said; "has she been ill all the time?"
+
+For a minute or two she could not find words to answer his question. She
+knew that it could not be long before he learned the truth, if not from
+her or his wife, then from Mrs. Bolton or his friend Mr. Warden. It was
+too much the common talk of the neighborhood for him to escape hearing
+of it, even if she could hope that Mrs. Chantrey would have strength of
+mind enough to cast off the sin at once. Now was the time to break it to
+him gently, with quiet and friendly hints rather than with hard words.
+But how was she to do it? How could she best soften the sorrow and
+disgrace?
+
+"Is my wife ill yet?" he demanded again, in a more agitated voice.
+
+"Not ill now," she answered, "but she's not quite herself yet. You'll
+help her, sir. You'll know how to treat her kindly and softly, and bring
+her round again. There's a deal in being mild and patient with folks.
+You know my poor brother, as fierce as a tiger, and that obstinate,
+tortures would not move him; but he's like a lamb with you, Mr.
+Chantrey. I think sometimes if he could live in the same house with you,
+if he'd been your brother, poor fellow you'd save him; for he'll do
+anything for you, short of keeping away from drink. You'll bring Mrs.
+Chantrey round, I'm sure."
+
+Mr. Chantrey smiled again, as the comparison between the drunken old
+saddler and his own fair, sweet young wife, flitted across his brain.
+Ann Holland, in her voluble flow of words, hit upon curious
+combinations. Still she had not removed his anxiety about his wife. "Was
+Sophy suffering from the effects of the low, nervous fever yet?
+
+"Yes; I'll take care of my wife," he said, glancing toward the parlor
+door; "it has been a sore trial, this long separation of ours. But it's
+over now; and she is dearer to me than ever she was."
+
+"Ay! love will do almost everything," she answered, sadly, "and I know
+you will never get tired or worn out, if it's for years and years. A
+thing like this doesn't come right all at once; but if it comes right at
+last, we have cause to be thankful. Mr. Warden has not had full
+patience; and Mrs. Bolton lost hers too soon. Neither of them knows it
+as I know it. You can't storm it away; and it's no use raving at it.
+Only love and patience can do it; and not that always. But we are bound
+to bear with them, poor things! even to death. We cannot measure God's
+patience with our measure."
+
+Ann Holland's voice trembled, and her eyes filled with tears, which
+glistened in the firelight. She could not bear to speak more plainly to
+her rector, whom she loved and reverenced so greatly. She could not
+think of him as being brought down on a level with herself, the sister
+of a known drunkard. It seemed a horrible thing to her; this sorrow
+hanging over him, of which he was so utterly unconscious. Mr. Chantrey
+had fastened his eyes upon her as if he would read her inmost thoughts.
+His voice trembled a little too, when he spoke.
+
+"What has this to do with my wife?" he asked, "for what reason have my
+aunt and Mr. Warden lost patience with her?"
+
+"Oh! it's best for me to tell you, not them," she said, the tears
+streaming down her cheeks; "it will be very hard for you to hear,
+whoever says it. Everybody knows it; and it could never be kept from
+you. But you can save her, Mr. Chantrey, if anybody can. It's best for
+me to tell you at once. She was so ill, and low, and miserable; and the
+doctors kept on ordering her wine, and things like that; and it was the
+only thing that comforted her, and kept her up; and she got to depend
+upon it to save her from loneliness and wretchedness, and now she can't
+break herself of taking it--of taking too much."
+
+"Oh! my God!" cried Mr. Chantrey. It was a cry from the very depths of
+his spirit, as by a sudden flash he saw the full meaning of Ann
+Holland's faltered words. Sophy had fled from him, conscious that she
+was in no fit state to meet him after their long separation. She was
+sleeping now the heavy sleep of excess. Was it possible that this was
+true? Could it be anything but a feverish dream that he was sitting
+there, and Ann Holland was telling him such an utterly incredible story?
+Sophy, his wife, the mother of his child!
+
+But Ann Holland's tearful face, with its expression of profound grief
+and pity, was too real for her story to be a dream. He, David Chantrey,
+the rector of Upton, whom all men looked up to and esteemed, had a wife,
+who was whispered about among them all as a victim to a vile and
+degrading sin. A strong shock of revulsion ran through his veins, which
+had been thrilling with an unquiet happiness all the day. There was an
+inexplicable, mysterious misery in it. If he had come home to find her
+dead, he could have borne to look upon her lying in her coffin, knowing
+that life could never be bright again for him; but he would have held up
+his head among his fellow-men. It would have been no shame or
+degradation either for him or her to have laid her in the tranquil
+churchyard, beside their little child, where he could have seen her
+grave through his vestry window, and gone from it to his pulpit, facing
+his congregation, sorrowful but not disgraced. He was just coming back
+to his people with higher aims, and greater resolves, determined to
+fight more strenuously against every form of evil among them; and this
+was the first gigantic sin, which met him on his own threshold and his
+own hearth.
+
+"She's so young," pleaded Ann Holland, frightened at the ashy hue that
+had spread over his face, "and she's been so lonesome. Then it was
+always easy to get it, when she felt low; for Mrs. Bolton's servants
+rule the house, and there's the best of everything in her cellars. James
+Brown says he could never refuse Mrs. Chantrey, she was so miserable,
+poor thing! But now you will take her home; and she'll have you, and
+Master Charlie. You'll save her, sir, sooner or later; never fear."
+
+"Let me go and see her," he said, in a choking voice.
+
+Ann Holland opened the door so carefully that the latch did not click or
+the hinges creak; and, shading the light with her hand, she stood beside
+him for a minute or two, as he looked down upon his sleeping wife. She
+did not dare to lift her eyes to his face; but she knew that all the
+light and glow of gladness had fled from it, and a gray look of terror
+had crept across it. He was a very different man from the one who had
+been seated on her hearth a short half-hour ago. He bade her leave him
+alone, and without a light, and she obeyed him, though reluctantly, and
+with an undefined fear of him in his wretchedness.
+
+It seemed to Mr. Chantrey as if an age had passed over him. As persons
+who are drowning see in one brief moment all the course of their past
+lives, with its most trivial circumstances, so he seemed to have looked
+into his own future, stretching before him in gloom and darkness, and
+foreseen a thousand miserable results springing from this fatal source.
+She was his wife, dearer to him than any other object in the world; but
+after she had repented and reformed, as surely she would repent and
+reform, she could never be to him again what she had been. There Was a
+faint gleam of moonlight stealing into the familiar room, and he could
+just distinguish her form lying on the white-covered sofa. With an
+overwhelming sense of wretchedness and bewilderment he fell upon his
+knees beside her, and burying his face in his hands, cried again, "Oh!
+my God!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HUSBAND AND WIFE
+
+
+How long he knelt there, Mr. Chantrey did not know. He felt cramped and
+stiff, for he did not stir from his first position; and he had uttered
+no other word of prayer. But at last Sophy moved and turned her head;
+and he lifted up his face at the sound. The moon was shining full into
+the room, and they could see one another, but not distinctly, as in
+daylight. She looked at him in dreamy silence for a few moments, and
+then she timidly stretched out her hand, and whispered, "David!"
+
+"My wife!" he answered, laying his own cold hand upon hers.
+
+For some few minutes neither of them spoke again. They gazed at one
+another as though some great gulf had opened between them, and neither
+of them could cross it. In the dim light they could only see the pallid,
+outline of each other's face, as though they had met in some strange,
+sad world. But presently he leaned over her, and kissed her.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, with a sudden loudness that rang through the quiet
+room, "you know all! You know how wicked I am. But you don't know how
+lonely and wretched I have been. I tried to break myself of it I did try
+to keep from it; but it was always there on the table when I sat down to
+my meals with Aunt Bolton; and I could always find comfort in it. Oh!
+help me! Don't cast me off; don't hate me. Help me."
+
+"I will help you," he answered, earnestly; but he could say no more. The
+mere sound of the words she spoke unnerved him.
+
+"And I have made you miserable just as you are coming home!" she went
+on. "I never meant to do that. But I was so restless, looking forward to
+to-morrow; and aunt's maid advised me to take a little, for fear I
+should be quite ill when you came. I should have been all right
+to-morrow; and I was so resolved never to touch it again, after you had
+come home. You are come back quite strong, are you? There is no more
+fear for you? Oh! I will conquer myself; I must conquer myself. If it
+had not always been in my sight, and the doctors had not ordered it, I
+should never have been so wicked. Do you forgive me? Do you think God
+will forgive me?"
+
+"Can you give it up?" he asked.
+
+"Oh! I must, I will give it up," she sobbed; "but if I do, and if you
+forgive me, it can never be the same again. You will not think the same
+of me--and people have seen me--they all talk about it--and I shall
+always be ashamed before them. I am a disgrace to you; Aunt Bolton has
+said so again and again. Then there's Charlie; I'm not fit to be his
+mother. That is quite true. However long I live, people in Upton will
+remember it, and gossip about, it. If they had let me die it would have
+been better for us all. You could have loved me then."
+
+"But I love you still," he answered, in a voice of tenderness and pity;
+"you are very dear to me. How can I ever cease to love you?"
+
+Yet as he spoke a terrible thought flashed through his mind that his
+wife might some day become to him an object of unutterable disgust. An
+image of a besotted, drunken woman always in his house, and bearing his
+name, stood out for a moment sharply and distinctly before his
+imagination. He shuddered, and paused; but almost before she could
+notice it, he went on in low and solemn tones.
+
+"Your sin does not separate you from me; you are my wife. I must help
+you and save you at whatever cost. Your soul is nearer to mine than any
+other; and what one human being can do for the soul of another, it is my
+lot to do. Do not be afraid of me, Sophy. You cannot estrange yourself
+from me; and yon cannot wear out the patience of God. He is ever waiting
+to receive back those who have wandered farthest from him. Can I refuse
+love and pity, when He freely gives them in full measure to you? Will
+Christ forsake you--He who saved Mary Magdalen? He will cast out this
+demon that has possession of you."
+
+He was replying to some of the questions which had troubled him, while
+he was kneeling at her side, before she was awake. There was no
+separation possible of their lives. If she broke away from him, or if he
+sent her away from his home, they would still be bound together by ties
+that could never be broken. Whatever depth she sank to, she was his
+wife, and he must tread step by step with her the path that ran through
+all the future. But if any one could help her, and lead her back out of
+her present bondage, it was he; and he must not fail her in any
+extremity for lack of pity and tenderness.
+
+He was about to speak again, when a loud, rough noise broke in upon the
+quiet of the house. It was nearly midnight; and Ann Holland's drunken
+brother was stumbling and staggering through his shop into the peaceful
+little kitchen, Sophy sat up and listened. They could hear his thick,
+coarse voice shouting out snatches of vulgar songs, mingled with oaths
+at his sister, who was doing her utmost to persuade him to go quietly to
+bed. His shambling step, dragging across the floor, seemed about to
+enter the darkened room where they were sitting; and Sophy caught her
+husband's arm, clinging to it with fright. It was a more bitter moment
+for Mr. Chantrey than even for her. The comparison thrust upon him was
+too terrible. His delicate, tender, beloved wife, and this coarse,
+brutal, degraded man! Was it possible that both were bound by the chains
+of the same sin?
+
+But Ann Holland succeeded before long in getting her brother out of the
+way, and releasing them from their painful imprisonment. The streets of
+Upton were hushed in utter solitude and silence as they walked through
+them, speechless and heavy-hearted; those streets which, on the morrow,
+were to have been crowded with groups of his people, eager to welcome
+him home. They passed the church, lit up with the moonlight, clear
+enough to make every grave visible; a lovely light, in which all the
+dead seemed to be sleeping restfully. He sighed heavily as he passed by.
+Sophy was clinging to him, sobbing now and then; for her agitation had
+subsided into a weak dejection, which found no relief but in tears.
+Every step they trod along the too familiar road brought a fresh pang to
+him. For thousands of memories of happy days haunted him; and a thousand
+vague fears dogged him. He dared not open his heart either to the
+memories or the fears. Nothing was possible to him, except a silent,
+continuous cry to God for help.
+
+"It is a melancholy coming home," Sophy murmured, as they stood together
+on the threshold of their aunt's house. He had not time to answer, for
+the door was opened quickly, and Mrs. Bolton hurried forward to welcome
+him. She had been expecting him for some time, for Ann Holland had sent
+word that both he and Mrs. Chantrey were at her house. One glance at his
+anxious and sorrowful face revealed to her the anguish of the last few
+hours. Sophy crept away guiltily up stairs; and she put her arm through
+his, and led him into the dining-room, where a luxurious supper was
+spread for him.
+
+"You know all about it, then?" said Mrs. Bolton, as he threw himself
+into a chair by the fireside, looking utterly bowed down and wretched.
+
+"Yes," he answered. "Oh! aunt, could you do nothing for her? Could you
+not prevent it? It is a miserable thing for a man to come back to."
+
+"I have done all I could," she replied, hesitatingly. "I have been quite
+wretched about it myself; but what could I do? I told your friend Mr.
+Warden there was nothing in reason I would refuse to do; but his ideas
+were so impracticable they could not be carried out."
+
+"What were they?" he asked.
+
+"Positively that I should abstain altogether myself," she said; "and not
+only that, but I must refuse it to my guests, and have nothing of the
+kind in my house; not even those choice wines your uncle bought, Neither
+wine for myself nor ale for my servants! It was quite out of the
+question, you know. Mr. Warden was meddlesome to the very verge of
+impertinence about it, until I was compelled to give up inviting him to
+my house. He went so far as to doubt my being a Christian! And it was of
+no use telling him I followed our Lord's example more strictly by
+drinking wine than he did by abstaining from it. He used his influence
+with Sophy to persuade her to suggest the same thing, that I would keep
+it altogether out of her sight at all times; but she soon saw how
+impossible it was for a person of my station and responsibility to do
+such a thing. I told her it was putting total abstinence above
+religion."
+
+"Did Sophy think that would save her?" asked Mr. Chantrey.
+
+"She had a fancy it would," answered Mrs. Bolton, "but only because Mr.
+Warden put it into her head. She was quite reasonable about it, poor
+girl! I proved to her that our Lord did not do it, nor some of the best
+Christians that ever lived; and she was quite convinced. Even Ann
+Holland was troublesome about it, begging me to do all kinds of
+extraordinary things--to have Charlie here was one of them, as if that
+could cure her--but I soon made her understand her position and mine. I
+am sure nobody can be more anxious than I am to do what is right. I am
+afraid it is the development of an hereditary taste in your wife, David,
+and nothing will cure it; for I have made many inquiries about her
+family, and I hear several of her relations were given to excess; so you
+may depend upon it, it is hereditary and incurable."
+
+There was little comfort for him in this speech, which was delivered in
+a satisfied and judicial tone. Sophy's sin had been present to Mrs.
+Bolton for so many months, and she had grown so accustomed to analyze
+it, and argue about it, that she could not enter into the sudden and
+direful shock the discovery had been to her nephew. An antagonism had
+risen in her mind about it, not only against Mr. Warden, but against
+some faint, suppressed reproaches of conscience, which made her secretly
+cleave to the idea that this vice was hereditary, and consequently
+incurable. She was afraid also of David reproaching her. But he did not.
+He was too crushed to reason yet about his wife's fall, or what measures
+might have been taken to prevent it. Long after his aunt had left him,
+and not a sound was to be heard in the house, he sat alone, scarcely
+thinking, but with one deep, poignant, bitter sense of anguish weighing
+upon his soul. Now and then he cried to God inarticulately; that dumb,
+incoherent cry of the stricken spirit to the only Saviour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+SAD DAYS
+
+
+There was no doubt in Upton, when the people saw their rector again,
+that he knew full well the calamity that had befallen him. No one
+ventured to speak to him of it; but their very silence was a measure of
+the gravity of his trouble. His friend Warden told him more accurately
+than any one else could have done, how it had gradually come about, and
+what remonstrances he had made both to Mrs. Bolton and Sophy. Mr.
+Chantrey was impatient to get into his own house, where he could do what
+his aunt had refused to do, and where he could shield his wife from all
+temptation to yield to the craving for stimulants in any form. When they
+were at home once more, with their little son with them, filling up her
+time and thoughts, all would be well again.
+
+But he did not know the force of the habit she had fallen into. At first
+there were a few gleams of hope and thankfulness during the pleasant
+days of summer, while it was a new thing for Sophy to have her husband
+and child with her. But he could not keep her altogether from
+temptation, while they visited constantly at Bolton Villa, and the
+houses of other friends. It was in vain that he abstained himself; that
+he made himself a fanatic on the question, as all his acquaintances
+said; Sophy could not go out without being exposed to temptation, and
+she was not strong enough to resist it. Before the next spring came, the
+people of Upton spoke of her as confirmed in her miserable failing.
+There was no one but herself who could now break off this fatal habit;
+and her will had grown wretchedly feeble. The sin domineered over her,
+and she felt herself a helpless slave to it. There had been no want of
+firmness or tenderness on the part of her husband; but it had taken too
+strong a hold upon her before he came to her aid. The intolerable sense
+of humiliation which she suffered only drove her to seek to forget it by
+sinking lower into the depth of her degradation and his.
+
+A great change came over the rector of Upton. He went about among his
+parishioners, no longer gladly taking the leadership among them, and
+claiming the pre-eminence as his by right. It had been one of his most
+pleasant thoughts in former days that he was the rector of the parish,
+chosen of God, and appointed by men, to teach them truths good for
+himself and them, and to go before them, seeking out the path in which
+they should walk. But his own feet were now stumbling upon dark
+mountains. He was quickly losing his popularity among them; for whereas,
+while he was himself happy and honored, he had not seen clearly all the
+evils, and wrongs, and excesses of his parish, now he was growing, as
+they said, more fanatical and ascetic than Mr. Warden had been, who had
+won the name of a puritan among them. Why could he not leave the Upton
+Arms and the numerous smaller taverns alone, so long as the landladies
+and their daughters attended church, as they had been need to do? His
+presence at the dinner-parties of his friends was a check upon all
+hilarity; and by and by they ceased to invite him, and then, half
+ashamed to see his face, ceased to go to his church, where his sermons
+had not the smooth and flowery eloquence of former days.
+
+Probably Mr. Chantrey knew better now what was good for his people; he
+had clearer views of the snares and dangers that beset them, and the
+sorrows that lie lurking on every man's path. He saw more distinctly
+what Christ came to do; and how he did it by complete self-abnegation,
+and by descending to the level of the lowest. But he had no delight in
+standing up in his pulpit in full face of his dwindling congregation.
+Language seemed poor to him; and it had grown difficult to him to put
+his burning thoughts into words. As the bitter experience of daily life
+seared his very soul, he found that no smooth, fit expressions of his
+self-communing rose to his lips. It pained him to face his people, and
+speak to them in old, trite forms of speech, while his heart was burning
+within him; and they knew it, as they sat quiet in their pews, looking
+up to him with inquisitive or indifferent eyes.
+
+Mrs. Bolton could not escape her share of these troubles; though she
+never accused herself for a moment as having had any part in causing
+them. It was the archdeacon who had obtained the living of Upton for her
+favorite nephew; and she had settled there to be the patroness of every
+good thing in the parish. Mr. Chantrey's popularity had been a source of
+great satisfaction and self-applause to her. She had foreseen how useful
+he would be; what a shining light in this somewhat dark corner of the
+church. The increasing congregations, and the number of carriages at the
+church-door, had given her much pleasure. She had delighted in taking
+the lead, side by side with her nephew, and in being looked up to in
+Upton, as one who set an example in every good thing. But this
+unfortunate failing in her nephew's wife, developed under her roof and
+during his absence, had been a severe blow. No one directly blamed her
+for it, except the late curate, Mr. Warden, and a few extravagant,
+visionary persons, who deemed it best to abstain totally from the source
+of so much misery and poverty among their fellow-beings, and to take
+care, as far as in them lay, to place no stumbling-block in the way of
+feeble feet. But, strange to say, all the estimable people in Upton
+regarded her with less veneration since her niece had gone astray. Even
+Ann Holland was plainly less impressed and swayed by the idea of her
+goodness; and there were many others like Ann Holland. As for her
+nephew, he was gradually falling away from her in his trouble. He would
+seldom go to dine with her without Sophy; and he had urgent reasons to
+decline every invitation for her. Their conversations upon religious
+subjects, which had always tended to make her comfortably assured of her
+own state of grace, had quite ceased. David never talked to her now
+about his sermons, past or future. He was in the "wasteful wilderness"
+himself, and could not walk with her through trim alleys of the
+vineyards. Now and then there fell from him, as from his friend,
+unpractical notions of a Christian's duty; as if Christianity consisted
+more in acts of self-denial than in an accurate creed concerning
+fundamental doctrines. It was an uneasy time for Mrs. Bolton; and her
+chief consolation was found in a volume of sermons, published by the
+archdeacon, which made her feel sure that all must be right with the
+widow of such a dignitary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+A SIN AND A SHAME
+
+
+It was May again; a soft, sunny day, with spring showers falling, or
+gathering in glistening clouds in the blue sky. The bells chimed for
+morning service, as the people came up to church from the old-fashioned
+streets. They greeted one another as they met in the churchyard,
+whispering that it had been a very bad week for poor Mr. Chantrey. Every
+one knew how uncontrollable his wife had been for some time past, except
+a few strangers, who still drove in from a distance. The congregation,
+some curiously, some wistfully, gazed earnestly at him, as with a worn
+and weary face, and with bowed-down head already streaked with gray, he
+took his place in the reading-desk. Ann Holland wiped away her tears
+stealthily, lest he should see she was weeping, and guess the reason. In
+the rectory pew the young, fair-haired boy sat alone, as he had often
+done of late; for his mother was to unfit to appear in church.
+
+Mr. Chantrey read the service in a clear, steady voice, but with a tone
+of trouble in it which only a very dull ear could have missed. When he
+ascended his pulpit, and looked down with sad and sunken eyes upon his
+people, every face was lifted up to him attentively, as he gave out the
+text, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Mrs. Bolton moved uneasily in her pew,
+for she knew he was going to preach a disagreeable sermon. It was not as
+eloquent as many of his old ones; but it had a hundredfold more power.
+His hearers had often been pleased and touched before; now they were
+stirred, and made uncomfortable. Their responsibilities, as each one the
+keeper of his brother's soul, were solemnly laid before them. The
+listless, contented indifference to the sins and sorrows of their
+fellow-men was rudely shaken. Their satisfaction in their own safety was
+attacked. As clearly as words could put it, they were told that not one
+of them could go to heaven alone; that there was no solitary path of
+salvation for any foot to tread. As long as any fell because of
+temptation, they were bound, as far as in them lay, to remove every kind
+of temptation. If each one was not careful to be his brother's keeper,
+then the voice of their brother's blood would cry unto God against them.
+There was scarcely a person present who could listen to their rector's
+sermon with feelings of self-satisfaction.
+
+He left his pulpit at the close of it, troubled and exhausted. His
+little son followed him into the vestry to wait until the congregation,
+that loved to linger a little about the porch, should have dispersed.
+But hardly had he entered, than, looking out, as it was his wont to do,
+upon the grave of his other child, he saw a figure stretched across it,
+asleep. Could it possibly be his wife? Large drops of rain were
+beginning to fall upon her upturned face, but they did not rouse her
+from her heavy slumber; nor did the noise of many feet passing by along
+the churchyard path. It was a moment of unutterable shame and agony to
+him. His people saw her; they had heard of his trouble before, but now
+they saw it; and they were lingering to look at her. He must go out in
+the midst of them all, and they must see him take his miserable wife
+home.
+
+Those who were there that day will never forget the sight. His people
+made way for him, as he passed among them, still in the gown he had worn
+while preaching, with a rigid and wan face, and eyes that seemed blind
+to every object except the unhappy woman he could not save. His little
+boy was pressing close behind him, but he bade him go back into the
+church, and wait until he came for him. Then he knelt down beside his
+wife in the falling rain, and lifted her gently, calling her by her
+name, "Sophy! Sophy!" But her heavy head fell back again upon the grave,
+and he was not strong enough to raise her from it. He burst into tears,
+a passion of tears; such as men only weep in hours of extreme anguish of
+mind. Slowly his people melted away, helpless to do anything for him;
+except two or three of his most familiar friends, who stayed to assist
+him in taking the wretched wife back to her home.
+
+Ann Holland lingered unseen in the porch until all were out of sight.
+The child she loved so fondly was standing with the great door ajar,
+holding it with his small hand, and peeping out now and then. She called
+to him when all were gone, and he came out of the church gladly, yet
+with an air of concern on his round, rosy face.
+
+"My mother is ill, very ill," he said, putting his hand into hers. "I
+saw her lying on baby's grave. Couldn't anything be done for her to make
+her well? Isn't there any doctor clever enough to cure her?"
+
+"I don't know, dear," answered Ann Holland.
+
+"My father never lets me go to see her when she's worst," he went on,
+"only Sarah goes into her room, and him. She talks and laughs often, and
+yet my father says she is ill. When I am a man I shall be a doctor, and
+learn how to make her well. But it will be a long time before I am
+clever enough for that, I'm afraid. My father says she's too ill for
+anybody to come to see us; isn't it a pity?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," she answered.
+
+"She can never hear me say my hymns now," he said; "and when she's not
+so ill that my father won't let me see her, she sits crying, crying ever
+so; and if I want to play with her, or read to her, she can't bear it,
+she says. I should think there ought to be somebody to cure her, if we
+could only find out. My father scarcely ever laughs now, because she's
+so ill; and when he plays with me he only looks sad, and he speaks in a
+quiet voice as if it would make her worse. Do try, Miss Holland, and ask
+everybody that comes to your house if they don't know of some very, very
+clever doctor for my mother."
+
+"I will try," she said. "I'll do all I can. But you may run home now,
+Master Charlie, See! There's your father coming back for you."
+
+"I know I sha'n't see my mother again to-day," he answered; "good-by,
+and remember, please."
+
+She watched him running across the little meadow to his father; and then
+she turned away, and walked slowly through the street homeward. Little
+knots of the towns-people lingered still about the doorways, discussing
+their rector's troubles. Though most of them greeted her, anxious to
+hear her opinion as one who was considered on friendly terms with the
+rector's family, she evaded their questionings, and passed on to the
+solitude of her own dwelling. It had been solitary now for some days,
+for her brother had disappeared early in the week; having stripped the
+house of money, and set off on one of his vagrant tramps, of which she
+knew nothing except that he always returned penniless, and generally
+with the good clothes she provided for him exchanged for worthless rags.
+How many years it was that her life had been embittered by his
+drunkenness she could hardly reckon, so many had they been. These
+strange absences of his had at first been a severe trial to her; but of
+late years they had been a holiday time of rest, except for the
+continual anxiety she felt on his behalf. Her quaint and quiet kitchen,
+as she unlocked the door and entered it, seemed a haven of refuge, where
+she could indulge in the tears she had kept under control till now. The
+love she felt for Mr. Chantrey was so deep and true, that any sorrow of
+his must have grieved her. But she knew so well what this sorrow was!
+She knew through what long years it might last; and how hopeless it
+might grow before the end came. Looking back upon her own blighted life,
+she could foresee for him only a weary, miserable, ever-deepening
+wretchedness. The Sunday afternoon passed by slowly, and the evening
+came, The soft sunshine and spring showers of the morning were gone; and
+a sullen sweep of rain, driven by the east wind, was beating through the
+streets. A neighbor looked in to say she had seen the curate from the
+next parish pass through the town toward the church; and she thought Mr.
+Chantrey would very likely not be there. But Ann Holland had already
+decided not to go. At any moment she might hear her brother's shambling
+step draw near the door, and his fingers fumbling at the latch. She
+could not bear the neighbors to see him when he came off one of his
+vagabond tramps, dirty and ragged as he usually was. She must stay at
+home again for him; again, as she had done hundreds of times, mourning
+pitifully over him, and ready to receive him patiently, impenitent as he
+was. She went up stairs to make his bed quite ready for him; and to put
+out of his way everything that could by any chance hurt him, if he
+should stumble and fall in his drunken weakness. When she returned to
+the kitchen, she lighted a candle, and opened the old family Bible, with
+its large type, which seemed to her a more sacred book than the little
+one she used daily. But she could not read; the words passed vaguely and
+without meaning beneath her eyes. Her mind was full of the thought of
+her unhappy brother, and Mr. Chantrey's miserable wife.
+
+It was past her usual hour of going to bed before she made up the
+kitchen fire to be in readiness, lest her brother should knock her up at
+any hour during the night. At the last moment she opened the
+street-door, and stood listening for a little while, as she always did
+when he was not at home. The rain was still sweeping through the street,
+which was as silent as if the town had been deserted. The gas-lights in
+the lamps flickered with the wind, and lit up the pools and channels of
+water running down the pavements.
+
+But just as she turned to go in, her quick ear caught the sound of
+distant footsteps, growing louder as they came in her direction. It was
+the tramp of several feet, marching slowly like those of persons bearing
+a heavy burden. She waited to see who and what it could be so late this
+Sunday night; and soon, under the flickering lamps, she caught sight of
+several men, carrying among them a hurdle, with a shapeless heap upon
+it. A sudden, vague panic seized her, and she hastily retreated inside
+her house, shutting and barring the door. She said to herself she did
+not wish to see what they were carrying past. But were they going past?
+She heard them still, tramping slowly on toward her house; would they
+pass by with their burden? She put down the light, for her hand trembled
+too much to hold it; and she stood listening, her ears quickened for
+every sound, and her white face turned toward the closed and fastened
+door.
+
+A knock came upon it, which almost caused her to shriek aloud. Yet it
+was a quiet rap, and a neighbor's voice answered as she asked
+tremulously who was there. She hastened to open the door, so welcome was
+the sound of the well-known voice; but there, opposite to her, in the
+driving rain, rested the hurdle, with the confused mass lying huddled
+together upon it. The men who bore it were silent, standing with their
+faces turned toward her; all of them strangers, except the one neighbor,
+who was on her threshold.
+
+"They found him lying out in the fields near the Woodhouse farm," said
+her neighbor, in a loud whisper; "he'd strayed there, we reckon."
+
+"Is he dead?" she asked, mechanically.
+
+"Not dead, bless your heart! no!" was the answer; "we'll carry him in.
+There now! Don't take on. There's a special providence over folks like
+him; they never come to much harm, you know. Show us where to lay him."
+
+Ann Holland made way for the men to pass her, as they carried their
+burden into the quiet, pleasant kitchen. She followed with the light,
+and looked down upon him; her brother, who had played with her, and
+learned the same lessons, when they were innocent little children
+together. His gray hair was matted, and his bloated face smeared with
+dust and damp. He was barefooted and bareheaded. But as she gazed down
+upon him, and listened to his heavy struggle for breath, she cried in a
+tone of terror. "He is dying."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+LOST
+
+
+An hour later the house was comparatively quiet again. A doctor had
+been, and said nothing could be done for Richard Holland, except to let
+him die where he was undisturbed. The men who had carried him home had
+dispersed, or had adjourned to the Upton Arms, to drink, and to talk
+over this close of a drunkard's life. The news had in some way reached
+the Rectory; and now only Mr. Chantrey and Ann Holland watched beside
+him. They had laid him, as he was, on the little white-covered sofa in
+the parlor, never so soiled before. Mr. Chantrey sat gazing at the
+degraded, dying man. No deeper debasement could come to any human being;
+almost the likeness of a human being had been lost. The mire and slough
+of the ditch into which he had fallen still clung to him; for only his
+face had been hastily washed clean by his sister's hand; a face that had
+forfeited all intelligence and seemliness; a coarse, squalid, disfigured
+face. Yet Ann was not repulsed by it; her tears fell upon it; and once
+she had bent over it, and kissed it gently. Now and then she put her
+mouth close to the deafened ear, and spoke to him, calling him by fond
+names, and imploring him to give some sign that he heard, and knew her.
+But there was no sign. The heavy breathing grew more thick and labored,
+yet feebler as the time passed slowly on. David Chantrey marvelled at
+the poor sister's patience and tenderness.
+
+"Don't trouble to stay with me, sir," she said, at last, "I thought
+perhaps he'd come to himself, and you'd say a word to him. But there's
+no hope of that now."
+
+"No," he answered, "I will not go, Ann," and his-voice trembled with
+dread. "Do you think my wife could ever be as bad as this?"
+
+"God forbid!" she cried, earnestly. "God keep her from it! Oh! if she
+could but see; if she could but know! But he wasn't always like this. He
+was a kind, good-natured, clever man once. It's drinking that's ruined
+him."
+
+"I will stay with you to the end," said Mr. Chantrey; "it is fit for me.
+You are teaching me a lesson of patience, Ann. All this day I have been
+thinking if it would be possible for me to give up my wife, and send her
+away from me, to end her days apart from mine. I have been in despair;
+in the very deeps. But now; why! even if I knew she would die thus, I
+cannot forsake her."
+
+"Ay! we must have patience," she answered. "I always hoped to win him
+back again, but it was too strong for him and me. God knows how he's
+been tempted on all hands; even those that call themselves religious,
+and go to church regular as can be. He used to cry to me sometimes, and
+promise to turn over a new leaf; and then somebody perhaps that he
+looked up to would treat him at the Upton Arms. He might have been a
+good man, if he'd been left alone."
+
+"Let us pray together for him and ourselves," said Mr. Chantrey,
+kneeling down once again by the little couch, as he had knelt the night
+of his return home. Ann still held her brother's head upon her arm, and
+her bowed face nearly rested upon it. But all words failed David
+Chantrey. "Father!" he cried, "Father!" There was nothing more that he
+could say. It was the single, despairing call of a soul that was full of
+trouble; that was "laid in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps."
+But the bewildered brain of the dying man caught the cry, and he
+muttered it over to himself; "Father! father! where is he?"
+
+"It's God, our Father who art in heaven," said Ann Holland, uttering the
+words very slowly and distinctly in his ear; "try to think of Him, and
+pray to Him. He'll hear you, even now."
+
+"Father!" he muttered again, "why! he'd be ashamed of his boy."
+
+"It's God," she said, keeping down her sobs, "you've no other father.
+Think of Him: God, who loves you."
+
+"He'd be ashamed of me," repeated the dying man.
+
+For a minute or two he kept on whispering to himself words they could
+not hear, except the one word "shame." Then all was still. The miserable
+end had come; and neither love nor patience could avail him anything on
+this side the grave. He had gone as a drunkard into the presence of his
+Judge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A COLONIAL CURACY
+
+
+The death of Richard Holland might have had a salutary effect upon Sophy
+Chantrey, if it had not been for the shock of learning how deeply she
+had disgraced herself and her husband in the sight of his people. She
+felt that she could never again face those who had seen her on that
+Sunday morning. She shut herself up in her room, refusing to admit any
+one, except the servant who waited upon her, and steadily set herself
+against any communication with the world outside. Even her husband she
+would hardly speak to; and her child she would not see. The strain and
+stress of her remorse was more than she could bear. Before the week was
+gone, she had fled for forgetfulness to the vice which bound her in so
+heavy a chain. All the cunning of her nature, so strangely perverted,
+was put into action to procure a supply of the stimulants she craved;
+and she escaped from her misery for a little while by losing herself in
+suicidal lethargy and stupefaction.
+
+Mr. Chantrey himself felt it to be impossible to meet the gaze of his
+usual congregation; he shrank even from walking through the streets of
+his own town, while his shame was fresh upon him. He exchanged duties
+with fellow-clergymen, and so evaded the immediate difficulty. But he
+knew that this could not go on for long. He could not conscientiously
+retain a position such as he held, if he had not the moral and mental
+strength necessary for the discharge of its obligations. Strength of all
+kinds seemed to fail him. His physical vitality was low; the health he
+had gained in Madeira had been too severely taxed since his return. He
+had fought bravely against the mental feebleness that was creeping
+gradually over him with a paralyzing languor; but he knew he could not
+bear the conflict much longer. Everything was telling against him. He
+would fain have proved to his people that a man can live out a noble,
+useful, Christ-like life, under crushing sorrows, and shame that was
+worse than sorrow. But it was not in him to do it. He found himself
+feeble and crippled, in the very thick of life's battle; and it appeared
+to him that his position as rector of the parish rendered his feebleness
+tenfold disastrous.
+
+But this decay of power came slowly, though surely. By the close of his
+second winter in England he felt within himself that he must quit his
+country again, if he wished to live only a few years longer. There had
+been no bright sunny spot of gladness for him, no gleam of hope
+throughout the whole winter. He had been compelled to send his boy away
+again to school, to shield him from seeing the disgrace of his mother.
+His friends had almost ceased to come to his house, and he had no heart
+to go to theirs. It was only now and then that he accepted his aunt's
+invitations to dine alone with her.
+
+"Aunt," he said one evening, when they two were alone together in her
+fantastic drawing-room, "I have resigned my living."
+
+"Resigned your living!" she repeated, in utter amazement, "resigned
+Upton Rectory!"
+
+She could hardly pronounce the words; and she gazed at him with an air
+of bewilderment which brought a smile to his careworn face.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "life has grown intolerable to me here."
+
+"And what do you mean to do?" she asked.
+
+"I am going out to my friend Warden," he replied, "who has a charge in
+New Zealand; he promises me a curacy under him, if I can get nothing
+better. But I am sure of a charge of my own very soon."
+
+"A curate to Warden! a curate in New Zealand!" ejaculated Mrs. Bolton.
+"David, are you mad?"
+
+"Not mad, but in most sober sadness," he said. "Life is impossible to me
+here, and under my circumstances; and I wish to live a few years longer
+for Sophy's sake, and my boy's. New Zealand is the very place for me."
+
+"But you can go away again for a year or two," said his aunt, "and come
+back when your health is restored. The bishop will give you permission
+readily. You must not give up your living because your health fails."
+
+"The bishop has my resignation, and my reasons for it," answered Mr.
+Chantrey, "and ho has accepted it kindly and regretfully, he says; but
+he fully approves of it. All there is to be done now is to sell our
+household goods, and sail for a new home, in a new world."
+
+"And Sophy?" gasped Mrs. Bolton; "what do you mean to do with her? Where
+shall you leave her?"
+
+"She must come with me," he said; "I shall never leave her again. It
+will be a new chance for her: and with God's help she may yet conquer.
+Even if she cannot, it will be easier for me to bear my burden among
+strangers than here, where every one knows all about us. A missionary
+curate in New Zealand will be a very different personage from the rector
+of Upton."
+
+He looked at his aunt with a smile, and an expression of hope, such as
+had not lit up his gray face for many a month. This new life opening
+before him, with all its social disadvantages, and many privations,
+would give his wife such an opportunity for recovery as the
+conventionalities of society at home could not furnish. Hope had visited
+him again, and he cherished it as a most welcome visitant.
+
+"Good Heavens!" cried Mrs. Bolton, lost in astonishment, "David, you
+must not throw yourself away in this manner! I will see the bishop
+myself, and recall to his memory his old friendship for the archdeacon.
+He cannot have promised the living yet to any one. What would become of
+me, here in Upton, settled as I am, with a stranger in the rectory? Why
+did you not ask my advice before taking such a rash step?"
+
+"Because I should not have followed your advice," he answered. "I
+settled the whole matter in my own mind before I broached it even to
+Warden. It is the only chance for us both. I am a broken, defeated man."
+
+"Oh, my boy!" she exclaimed, with tears in her eyes, "I cannot consent
+to your going away. You have always been my favorite nephew; and I could
+not endure to see a stranger in your place. It is all Sophy's fault. And
+why should you sacrifice your life, and Charlie's, for her? Let some
+place at a distance be found for her; no one will blame you, and you
+will not suffer so much from the disgrace, if you do not witness it.
+Only stay in Upton, and all I have shall be yours. It will be a happy
+place to you again, if you will only wait patiently for brighter days."
+
+"No," he said, sorrowfully; "it has been a pleasant place to me, but it
+can never be so again. I must go for Sophy's sake. There is no hope for
+her here; there is hope for her among new scenes and fresh influences. I
+have spoken to her about it, and she is eager to go; she feels that
+there would be a chance for her. To turn away from my purpose now would
+be to doom her to her sin without hope of deliverance. It would be
+impossible for me to do that."
+
+It was a terrible blow to Mrs. Bolton. She foresaw endless
+mortifications and heartburnings for herself in the presence, and under
+the rule, of a strange rector at Upton, over whom she would have no more
+authority or influence than any other parishioner. Besides, she was
+really fond of her nephew, and anxious to make his life smooth and
+agreeable to him. No one could be blind to the fact that his health was
+giving way again, and she thought with some apprehension of the life of
+hardship and poverty he was choosing. That he should throw away all that
+was desirable and advantageous for the sake of his wife, who was merely
+a trouble and dishonor to him, was an infatuation that she could not
+understand. He pointed out to her that he was also losing his influence
+over his people, and she maintained that even this was no reason why he
+should give up a suitable living and a pleasant rectory. At last, angry
+with him, and apprehensive for her future position in the parish, she
+refused to listen any longer to his representations, and spent the few
+weeks that intervened before their departure in a state of offended
+estrangement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+SELF-SACRIFICE
+
+
+All Upton was thrown into a ferment by the unexpected news that their
+rector had resigned his living, and was about to emigrate to New
+Zealand. At first it was declared too strange to be true. Then in a few
+of the lower class taverns it was said to be too good to be true; but in
+the Upton Arms, where the landlady considered it her duty to be regular
+at church, and even the landlord thought it the thing to go there pretty
+often, a civil amount of regret was expressed. It was the fault of his
+wife, said most of the respectable parishioners, who unfortunately did
+not know when she had had enough of a good thing. Even those who were in
+the same plight with herself threw a stone at poor Sophy when they heard
+that their pleasant-spoken, affable, popular rector, as he used to be,
+was about to flee his country. Very few sympathized with him. He was
+taking an unheard-of, preposterous, fanatical course. How could a man in
+his senses give up a living of L400 a year, with a pretty rectory and
+glebe-land, for a colonial curacy?
+
+But there was one person who heard the news, and brooded over it
+silently, with very different feelings. The last few months had been
+very tranquil ones for Ann Holland. The one anxiety of her quiet life
+had been removed, and after the first sorrow was passed she had found
+her home a very peaceful place without her brother. Her old neighbors
+could come in now to take tea with her without any dread of being rudely
+disturbed. The business did not suffer; it was rather increasing, and
+she had had some thoughts of employing a second journeyman. But to hear
+that Mr. Chantrey was going to leave Upton, and that very soon she
+should see neither him nor Charlie, who made her house so merry whenever
+he ran in, was as great a blow to her as to Mrs. Bolton.
+
+Ann Holland had been born in the house she lived in, and had never dwelt
+anywhere else. All her world lay within the compass of a few miles from
+it, among the farm-houses where her business or her early friendships
+had made her acquainted with the inhabitants. The people of Upton only
+were her fellow-countrymen; all others were foreigners, and to her,
+lawful objects of mistrust. Every other land save her own seemed a
+strange and perilous place. Of New Zealand she had not even any vague
+ideas, for it was nothing but a name to her. She had far clearer views
+of heaven, of that other world into which she had seen so many of her
+childhood's friends pass away. To lie down upon her bed and die would
+have been a familiar journey to her compared with that strange voyage
+across boundless seas to a country of which she knew nothing but the
+name.
+
+Yet they were going--Mr. Chantrey, with his failing health; Mrs.
+Chantrey, a victim to a miserable vice; and Charlie, the young,
+inexperienced boy. What a helpless set! She tried to picture them
+passing through the discomforts and dangers of a savage life, as she
+supposed it to be; Mr. Chantrey ill, poor, friendless, and homeless.
+Upon her screen were the announcements of his coming to the living, of
+his marriage, the birth of both children, and the death of one. She read
+them over word for word, with eyes fast filling and growing dim with
+tears. Very soon there would be another column in the newspaper telling
+of his resignation and departure--perhaps shortly afterward of his
+death. He would die in that far-off country, with no one to care for him
+or nurse him except his unhappy wife. She could not bear to think of it.
+She must go with them.
+
+But how could she ever bear to quit Upton? All her own people were
+buried in the churchyard there, and she kept their graves green with
+turf, and their headstones free from moss. She had no memories or
+associations anywhere else, and she clung to all such memories and
+cherished them fondly. There was no one in Upton who knew the pedigrees
+of every family as she did. Even her household goods, old and quaint as
+they were, had a halo from the light of other days about them. How many
+persons, dead and gone now, had she seen sit opposite to her in that old
+arm-chair! How often had childish faces looked laughingly at themselves
+in her pewter plates? Her mother's chairs and sofa, worked in
+tent-stitch, which only saw the daylight twice a year--what would become
+of them, and what common uses would they be put to in any other house?
+Her heart failed her when she thought of leaving these things. It was
+not, moreover, simply leaving them, as she would have to do when she
+died, but she must see them sold and scattered before her eyes, and
+behold the vacant places empty and forlorn, without their old
+belongings. Could she bear to be so uprooted?
+
+"Sir," she said one evening, when Mr. Chantrey, worn out with the
+conflict of his own parting with his people, was sitting depressed and
+silent by her fireside, "Mr. Chantrey, are you thinking of taking out a
+servant with you?"
+
+"No," he answered; "the cost would be too much. You forget we are going
+to be poor folks out yonder, Ann. Don't you remember telling me it might
+have been better for my wife if she had had to work hard for Charlie and
+me?"
+
+"That was long ago," she replied; "it's different now. Who's to mind you
+if you are ill? and who's to see Master Charlie kept nice, like a
+gentleman's son? I've been thinking it would break my heart to sit at
+home thinking of you all. There is nothing to keep me here, now my poor
+brother's gone. Take me with you, sir."
+
+"No, no!" he exclaimed, vehemently--so vehemently that she knew how his
+heart leaped at the thought of it; "you must not sacrifice yourself for
+us. What! give up this pleasant home of yours, and all your old
+friends?! No; it cannot be."
+
+"There'd be trouble in it," she said; "but it would be a harder trouble
+to think of you in foreign parts, with none but savages about you, and
+no roof over your head, and wild beasts marauding about."
+
+"Not so bad as that," he interrupted, smiling so cheerfully that her own
+face brightened. "There are no wild beasts, and not many natives, and I
+shall have a home of my own somewhere."
+
+"I could never sleep at nights," she went on, "or eat my bread in
+comfort, for wondering about you. I don't want to be a cost to you; and
+when I've sold all, I shall have a little sum of money in hand that will
+keep me a year or two after my passage is paid. I'm not too old for work
+yet. If it's too bad a place for me to go to, what must it be for you?
+And you're not as strong as you ought to be, sir. If anything should
+happen to you out there, you'd like to know I was with them you love,
+taking care of them."
+
+"It would be a greater comfort than I can tell," said Mr. Chantrey, in a
+tremulous voice. "Now and then the thought crosses my mind that I might
+die yonder; and what would become of Sophy and Charlie, left so
+desolate? There's Warden; but he is too austere and harsh, good as he
+is. But, Ann, I ought not to let you come."
+
+"There's no duty to keep me at home," she answered. "If my poor brother
+was alive, I could never forsake him, you know; but that is all over
+now. And I could have patience with her, poor lady! Aye, I'd have
+patience for her own sake as well as yours. She could never try me as
+I've been tried. And I've great hopes of her. Maybe if James, poor
+fellow, could have broken off all his old ways, and begun again fresh,
+turning over a new leaf where folks hadn't seen the old one, he might
+have been saved. I've great hopes of Mrs. Chantrey; and nobody could
+help her as I could. It seems almost as if our blessed Lord laid this
+thing before me, and asked me to do it for his sake. Sure if he asked me
+to go all round the world for him, I couldn't say no. To go to New
+Zealand with folks I love will be nothing to him leaving heaven, with
+his Father and the holy angels there, to live and work like a poor man
+in this world, and to die on the cross at the end of all."
+
+Her voice fell into its lowest and tenderest key as she spoke these last
+words, and the tears stood in her eyes, as if the thought of Christ's
+life, so long familiar, had started into a new meaning for her. The
+opportunity for copying Him more literally than she had ever done before
+was granted to her, and her spirit sprang forward eagerly to seize it.
+Mr. Chantrey sat silent, yet with a lighter heart than he had had for
+months. He felt that if Ann Holland went out with them half his load
+would be gone. There was a brighter hope for Sophy, and there would be a
+sure friend for his boy, whatever his own fate might be. Yet he shrank
+from accepting such a sacrifice, and could only see the selfishness of
+doing so at the first moment.
+
+"You must take another week to think of it," he said.
+
+But when the week was ended Ann Holland was more confirmed in her wish
+than before. The news that she was going out with Mr. Chantrey's family
+caused as great a stir in the town as that of the rector's resignation.
+The Hollands had always been saddlers in Upton, and all the true old
+Upton people had faithfully adhered to them, never being tempted away by
+interlopers from London or other places, who professed to do better work
+at lower prices. To be sure the last male Holland was gone, but every
+one knew that his only share in the business for many years had been the
+spending of the money it brought in. That Ann Holland should give up her
+good trade and go out as servant to the Chantreys--for so it was
+represented by the news-bearers--was an unheard-of, incredible thing.
+Many were the remonstrances she had to listen to, and to answer as best
+she could.
+
+It was a bitter day for Ann Holland when she saw her treasured household
+furniture sold by auction and scattered to the four winds. Many of her
+old neighbors bought for themselves some mementoes of the place they
+knew so well, but the bulk of the larger articles were sold without
+sentiment or feeling. It was a pang to part with each one of them, as
+they were carried off to some strange or hostile house to be put to
+common uses. The bare walls and empty rooms that were left, which she
+had never seen bare and empty before, seemed terribly new, yet familiar
+to her. She wandered through them for a few minutes, loitering in each
+one as she thought of all that had happened to her during her monotonous
+life; and then, with a sorrowful yet brave heart, she walked along the
+street to the rectory, which was already dismantled and bare like the
+home she had just left.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+FAREWELLS
+
+
+During these busy weeks Mrs. Bolton had looked on in almost sullen
+silence, except when now and then she had broken out into a passionate
+invective of her nephew's madness. He had never been indifferent to the
+luxuries and refinements that give a charm to life, and her nature could
+not comprehend how all these were poisoned at their source for him. He
+was eager to exchange them for a chance of a true home, however lowly
+that home might be. He would willingly have gone to the wilds of
+Siberia, if by so doing he could secure his wife's reformation An almost
+feverish haste possessed him. To carry her away from Upton, from
+England, and to enter upon a quite new career in a strange place, and to
+accomplish this plan quickly, absorbed him nearly to the exclusion of
+any other thought. Mrs. Bolton felt herself very much neglected and
+greatly aggrieved. Her plans were frustrated and her comforts
+threatened, yet her nephew hardly seemed to think of her--he for whom
+she had done so much, who would not have been even rector of Upton but
+for the late archdeacon.
+
+Yet she relented a little from her displeasure as the day for parting
+came. She was as fond of him and his boy as her nature would allow.
+Sophy had never been otherwise than an object of her jealousy, and now
+she positively detested her. But when Mr. Chantrey came on the last
+evening to sit an hour or two with her, and she saw, as with
+newly-opened eyes, his care-worn face and wearied, feeble frame, her
+heart quite melted toward him.
+
+"Remember," she said, eagerly, "you can come back again whenever yon
+choose, as soon as you grow sure how useless this mad scheme is. I wish
+I could have persuaded you to keep on your living, but yon are too
+wilful. You are welcome to draw upon me for funds to return at any time,
+and I shall supply them gladly, and give you a home here. If yon find
+your expectations fail, promise me to come back."
+
+"And bring Sophy with me?" he asked, with almost a smile.
+
+"No, no," she answered, shrinking involuntarily from the idea of having
+her in her house. "Oh, my poor boy! what can yon do?"
+
+"I can only bear the burden sin lays upon me," he said. "It is not
+permitted to us to shake off the iniquities of others. All of us, more
+or less, must share in the sufferings of Christ, bearing our portion of
+the sins of the world, which he bore, even unto death. I am ready to
+die, if that will save my poor Sophy from her sin.
+
+"But all that makes a Christian life so miserable!" exclaimed Mrs.
+Bolton.
+
+"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, then are we of all men
+most miserable," he answered.
+
+"And you would teach that we must give up everything," she cried, "all
+advantages, and blessings, and innocent indulgences, and pleasures of
+every kind?"
+
+"If the sins or temptations of those about call for such a sacrifice, we
+must give them up, every one," he replied; "they are no longer blessings
+or innocent indulgences. If God calls upon us to make some sacrifice,
+and we refuse to do it, do you think he will yield like some weak
+parent, who will suffer his child to run the risk of serious injury
+rather than give him present pain? The whole law of our life is
+sacrifice, as it was the law of Christ's life. It is possible that some
+small self-denial at the right moment may spare us some costly expiation
+later on. Christianity must perish if it loses sight of this law."
+
+Mrs. Bolton did not answer him. Was he thinking of her own refusal to
+remove temptation out of the way of his wife when she first began to
+fall into her fatal habit? He was not in reality thinking of her at all,
+but her conscience pricked her, though her pride kept her silent. It was
+such an unheard-of course for a person in her station, that none but
+fanatics could expect her to take it. Quixotic, irrational, eccentric,
+visionary, were words that flitted incoherently through her brain; but
+her tongue refused to utter them. Was Christ then so prudent, so
+cautious, so anxious to secure innocent indulgences and to grasp worldly
+advantages? Could she think of Him making life easy and comfortable to
+Himself while hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of unhappy souls were
+hurrying each year into misery and ruin?
+
+There was not much conversation between her and her nephew; for as a
+parting draws very near, our memories refuse to serve us, and we forget
+to say the many, many things we may perhaps never again have any season
+for saying. They bade one another farewell tenderly and sorrowfully; and
+he went out, under the tranquil, starry sky, to wander once more beside
+the grave of his little child, and under the old gray walls of his
+church. He had not known till now how hard the trial would be. Up to
+this time he had been kept incessantly occupied with the numberless
+arrangements necessary for so great a change; but these were all
+completed. He had said farewell to his people; but the aching of his own
+great personal grief and shame had prevented him from feeling that
+separation too forcibly. But the stir and excitement were over for the
+hour. Here there were no cold, curious eyes fastened upon him; no fear
+of any harsh voice putting into words of untimely lamentation the
+unacknowledged reason of his departure. The beloved familiar places, so
+quiet yet so full of associations to him, had full power over his
+spirit; and he could not resist them. The very ivy-leaves rustling
+against the tower, and the low, sleepy chirp of the little birds
+disturbed by his tread, were dear to him. What, then, was the church
+itself, every lineament of which he knew as well as if they were the
+features of a friend? It was a beautiful old church; but if it had been
+the homeliest and barest building ever erected, he must still have
+mourned over the pulpit, where he had taught his people; the pews, where
+their listening faces were lifted up to him; the little vestry, where he
+had spent so many peaceful hours. And the small mound, blooming with
+flowers, under which his child slept, how much power had that over him!
+He paced restlessly up and down beneath the solemn yew-trees, his heart
+breaking over them all. To-morrow by this time he would have left them
+far behind him; and never more would his eyes behold them, or his feet
+tread the path he had so often trod. They seemed to cry to him like
+living, sentient things. To and fro he wandered, while the silent stars
+and the waning moon, lying low in the sky above the church, looked down
+upon him with a pale and mournful light. At last the morning came; and
+he remembered that to-day he must quit them all, and sail for a far-off
+country.
+
+The vessel Mr. Chantrey had chosen for the long voyage was a merchant
+ship, sailing for Melbourne, under a captain who had been an early
+friend of his own, and who knew the reason for his leaving England. No
+other cabin passengers had taken berths on board her, though there were
+a few emigrants in the steerage. Captain Scott, himself a water-drinker,
+had arranged that no intoxicating beverages, in any form, should appear
+in the saloon. The steward was strictly forbidden to supply them to any
+person except Mr. Chantrey himself. This enforced abstinence, the
+complete change of scene, and the fresh sea-breezes during the
+protracted voyage, he reckoned upon as the best means of restoring his
+wife to health of body and mind. Ann Holland, too, would watch over her
+as vigilantly and patiently as himself; and Charlie would be always at
+hand to amuse her with his boyish chatter. A bright hope was already
+dawning upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+IN DESPAIR
+
+
+It was early in June when they set sail; and as the vessel floated down
+the Channel somewhat slowly against the western wind Ann Holland spent
+most of her time on deck, watching, often with dim eyes, the coasts of
+England, as they glided past her. She could still hardly realize the
+change that had torn her so completely away from her old life. It made
+her brain swim to think of Upton, and the old neighbors going about the
+streets on their daily business, and the church-clock striking out the
+hours; and the sun rising and setting, and the days passing by, and she
+not there. It felt all a dream to her; an odd, inexplicable, endless
+dream, which never could become as real as the old days had been. Her
+thoughts were all busy with the past, recalling faces and events long
+ago forgotten; she scarcely ever looked on to the end of the voyage. The
+sea was calm, and the soft wind sang low among the rigging, while point
+after point along the shores stole by, and were lost to sight almost
+unheeded, though she could not turn her steadfast, sorrowful gaze from
+them till she could see them no more. Yet when Mr. Chantrey, reproaching
+himself for bringing her, asked her if she repented, she was always
+ready to say heartily that she would not go back, and leave them, for
+the world.
+
+Charlie alone of them all was quite happy in the change. For the last
+nine months he had been constantly at school; seldom going home, and
+then but for a day or two, when his mother was at her best. The boy
+found himself all at once set free from school restraints, restored to
+his father and mother, who had no one else to interest them; and with
+all the delights of a ship and a voyage added to his other joys. He was
+wild with happiness. There was not one thing left him to wish for; for
+even his mother's nervous state of health could not cast any gloom upon
+his gladness. He had grown accustomed to think of her as a confirmed
+invalid; and when she came on deck he would sit quietly beside her for a
+little while, and lower his clear young voice in speaking to her,
+without feeling that his short-lived self-control damped his pleasure.
+But she was not often there long enough to test his devotion too
+greatly.
+
+Sophy Chantrey was passing through a season of intense misery, both of
+mind and body; more bitter even than the wretchedness she had felt when
+she could indulge the craving that had taken so deep a hold upon her.
+There was nothing voluntary in her abstinence, and consequently neither
+pleasure nor pride in being able to exercise self-command. Her health
+was greatly enfeebled; and her mind had been weakened almost to
+childishness. She felt as if her husband was treating her cruelly; yet
+she could see keenly that it was she who had brought ruin upon his
+future prospects, as well as those of her boy. She had never been able
+to sink into utter indifference; and she could not forget, strive as she
+would, all the happy past, and the unutterably wretched present. Here,
+on board ship, there was no chance for her to procure the narcotics,
+with which she had lulled her self-reproaches formerly. Her longing for
+such stimulants amounted almost to delirium. She could not sleep for
+want of them; and all day long she thought of them, and cried for them,
+until her husband and Ann Holland could scarcely persevere in refusing
+them to her. It seemed to them at times as if she must lose her reason,
+the little that remained to her, and become insane, unless they yielded
+to her vehement entreaties. Even when, after the first week was gone,
+and the craving was in some measure deadened, her spirits did not rally.
+She would lie still on deck when her husband carried her there, or on
+the narrow berth in their cabin, with eyes closed, and hands listlessly
+folded, an image of despair.
+
+"Sophy!" he cried one day, when she had not stirred, or raised her
+eyelids for hours; "Sophy, do you wish to kill me?"
+
+"I have killed you," she muttered, still without moving, or looking at
+him.
+
+"Sophy," he answered, "you are dreaming Look up, and see me here alive,
+beside you Life lies before us yet; for you and me together."
+
+"No," she said, "don't I know it is death to you to be tied to me as you
+are? I am a curse to you, and you hate and loathe me, as I do myself.
+But we cannot get rid of each other, you and me. Oh! if I could but die,
+and set you free!"
+
+"I do not hate you," he answered, tenderly; "you are still very dear to
+me. I do not wish to be free from you."
+
+"Then you ought," she cried, with sudden passion; "you ought to hate
+that which degrades and shames you. I am dragging you down to ruin; you
+and Charlie. Do you think I do not know it? Oh! if I could but die.
+Perhaps I may live for many, many years yet; live to be an old woman, a
+drunken old wretch! Think what it will be to live for years and years
+with a lost creature like me. It is death, and worse than death, for
+you."
+
+"But why should you be lost?" he asked; "have you never thought of One
+who came to seek and to save that which is lost?"
+
+"Yes; He found me once," she said, in tones of despair, "He found me
+once; but I strayed away again, wilfully, in spite of His love, and all
+He had done for me. I knew what He had done, and how He loved me; yet I
+went away from Him wilfully. I chose ruin; and now He leaves me to my
+choice."
+
+"This is the delusion of a sick brain," he answered; "you have no power
+to think rightly of our Lord. Listen to what I can tell you about Him,
+and His love for you."
+
+"No," she interrupted; "none of you others know, you people who have
+never fallen like me. You do not know what it is to feel yourselves
+given up and sold to sin. You and Ann Holland think you can save me by
+keeping temptation out of my way; but I know that as soon as it comes
+again I shall be as weak as water against it."
+
+"Have you no wish to be saved, then?" he asked, his heart sinking within
+him at her hopeless words.
+
+"Wish to be saved!" she repeated; "did the rich man in torments wish to
+be saved? He only asked for one drop of water to cool his tongue but for
+a moment. He knew he could not be saved, and he did not pray for it."
+
+"Do you think that I have no wish for your salvation?" he asked. "Am I
+leaving you in your sin? Have I done nothing, given up nothing, to
+secure it? Has Ann Holland given up nothing?"
+
+"Oh! you have," she cried. "You are doing all you can for me, but it is
+useless."
+
+"Christ has done more," he said. "His love for you passes ours
+infinitely. Then if you have not wearied out ours, can you possibly
+exhaust his? He can stoop to you in all your misery and sinfulness, if
+you will but stretch out your hand toward Him. There is no sin He will
+not forgive, and none He cannot conquer, if you will but rouse yourself
+to work with Him. Against your own will He cannot save you."
+
+"I will try," she murmured.
+
+Yet time after time the same subject, almost in the same words, was
+renewed. Sophy's enfeebled brain could not long retain the thought of a
+divine love and power, which was ceaselessly though secretly striving to
+reclaim her. There was no opportunity for her to exert her own will, for
+she could not be tempted in her present circumstances, and the strength
+gained by such an exertion was impossible to her. Again and again, with
+untiring patience, did Mr. Chantrey give ear to her despairing
+utterances, and meet them with soothing arguments. But often he felt
+himself on the verge of despair, doubtful of the truths he was trying so
+earnestly to implant again in her heart. In the smooth happy days of
+old, both of them had believed them. But now he asked himself, Does God
+indeed care? Does He see and know? Is He near at hand, and not afar off?
+
+Their vessel had entered the tropical seas, and a profound unbroken
+monotony reigned around them. They had not sighted land since the shores
+of England had sunk below the horizon. A waste of waters encircled them,
+and a dead calm prevailed. Through the sultry and hazy atmosphere no
+rain fell in cooling showers. Day after day the sea was of perfect
+stillness, and an oppressive silence, as of death, brooded over the low,
+regular heaving of the waters. The dry torrid heat was exhausting, and
+the ship with its idle sails made but little way across the quiet sea.
+Mr. Chantrey's weakened frame suffered greatly, and even Ann Holland's
+brave and cheery spirit almost sank into despondency.
+
+"If it hadn't been for Mrs. Chantrey," she thought mournfully, "we
+should all have been at Upton now, as happy as the day's long. The
+summer's at its height there, and the harvest is being gathered in. How
+cool it would be under the chestnut-trees, or under the church walls!
+Mr. Chantrey's sinking, plain enough, and what is to become of us if he
+should die before we get to that foreign land? Dear, dear! whoever would
+go to sea if they could get only a place to lay their heads on land?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A LONG VOYAGE
+
+
+It was a dreary and monotonous time. After the sun had gone down, red
+and sullen, through the haze, and when the ship left a long track of
+phosphorescent light sparkling behind it, Mr. Chantrey would pace up and
+down the deck, as he had often walked to and fro in the churchyard paths
+in the starlight. He had many things to think of. For his wife his hope
+was strengthening; a dim star shone before him in the future. Her brain
+was gradually regaining clearness, and her mind strength. Something of
+the old buoyancy and elasticity was returning to her, for she would play
+sometimes with her child merrily, and her laugh was like music to him.
+But how would it be in the hour of temptation, which must come? She said
+her craving for stimulants was passing away; but how would she bear
+being again able to procure them? He would watch over her and guard her
+as long as he lived, but what would become of her if he should die?
+
+This last question was becoming every day more and more urgent. The
+exhausting oppressive heat and the protracted voyage were sapping his
+strength, and he knew it. The fresh sweet sea-breezes on which he had
+reckoned had failed him, and he was consciously nearer death than when
+he left England. He longed eagerly for life and health, that he might
+see his wife and child in happier circumstances before he died. To leave
+them thus seemed intolerable to him. What was he to do with his boy? He
+could not leave him in the care of a mother not yet delivered from the
+bondage of such a fatal sin. Yet to separate him harshly from her would
+almost certainly doom her to continue in it. If life might be spared to
+him only a few years longer, he would probably see her once more a
+fitting guardian for their child. The growing hope for her, the dim
+dread for himself--these two held alternate sway over him as he paced to
+and fro under the southern skies.
+
+Captain Scott, his friend, urged upon him that there was one remedy open
+to him, and only one on board the ship. The long stress and strain upon
+his physical as well as his mental health had weakened him until his
+strength was slowly ebbing away; his heart beat feebly, and his whole
+system had fallen under a nervous depression. Now was the time when, as
+a medicine, the alcohol, which was poison and death to his wife, would
+prove restoration to him. Could he but keep up his vital powers until
+the voyage was ended, all would be well with him. His life might be
+prolonged for those few years he so ardently desired. He could still
+watch over his wife, and protect his child during boyhood, and die in
+peace--young perhaps, but having accomplished what he had set his mind
+upon. But Sophy? How could she bear this unexpected temptation? He did
+not suppose he could effectually conceal it from her, for of late she
+had clung to him like a child, following him about humbly and meekly,
+with a touching dependence upon him, striving to catch his eye and to
+smile faintly when he looked at her, as a child might do who was seeking
+to win forgiveness. She was very feeble and delicate still, her appetite
+was as dainty as his own, and the heat oppressed her almost as much as
+himself. Yet that which might save him would certainly destroy her.
+
+Day after day the debate with Captain Scott was resumed. But there was
+no real debate in his own mind. He would gladly take the remedy if he
+could do so with safety to his wife, but not for a thousand lives would
+he endanger her soul. Not for the certainty of prolonging his own years
+would he take from her the merest chance of overcoming her sin. To do it
+for an uncertainty was impossible.
+
+There was hope for him still, if the vessel could but get past these
+sultry seas into a cooler climate. One good fresh sea-breeze would do
+him more good than any stimulant, and they were slowly gliding to
+latitudes where they might meet them at any hour. Once out of the
+tropics, and around the Cape of Good Hope, there would be no fear of
+exhausting heat in the air they breathed. All his languor would be gone
+and the rest of the voyage would bring health and vigor to his fevered
+frame. Only let them double the Cape, and a new life in a new world lay
+before them.
+
+His brain felt confused and delirious at times, but he knew it so well
+that he grew used to sit down silently in the bow of the ship, and let
+the dizzy dreams pass over him, careful not to alarm his wife or Ann
+Holland. Cool visions of the pleasant English home he had quitted for
+ever; the shadows and the calm of his church, where the sunshine slanted
+in through narrow windows made green with ivy-leaves; the rustling of
+leaves in the elm-trees on his lawn in the soft low wind of a summer's
+evening; the deep grassy glades of thick woods, where he had loved to
+walk; the murmuring and tinkling of hidden brooks--all these flitted
+across his clouded mind as he sat speechless, with his throbbing head
+resting upon his hands. Often his wife crouched beside him, herself
+silent, thinking sadly how he was brooding over all the wrong and injury
+she had done him, yet fearing in her humiliation to ask him if it were
+so. Her repentance was very deep and real, her love for him very true.
+Yet she dreaded the hour when she must face temptation again. She could
+not even bear to think of it.
+
+But shortly after they had passed the southern tropic, as they neared
+the Cape, the climate changed suddenly, with so swift an alteration that
+from sultry heat of a torrid summer they plunged almost directly into
+the biting cold of winter. As they doubled the Cape a strong north-west
+gale met them, with icy cold in its blast. The ropes were frozen, and
+the sails grew stiff with hoar-frost. Rough seas rolled about them,
+tossing the vessel like a toy upon their waves. The change was too
+sudden and too great. All the passengers were ill, and David Chantrey
+lay down in his low, narrow berth, knowing well that no hope was left to
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+ALMOST SHIPWRECKED
+
+
+Sophy Chantrey was left alone to nurse her dying husband, for Ann
+Holland was lying ill in her own cabin, ignorant of his extremity.
+Captain Scott came down for a minute or two, but he could not stay
+beside him. His presence was sorely needed on deck, yet he lingered
+awhile, looking sorrowfully at his friend. Sophy watched him with a
+clearer and keener glance in her blue eyes than he had ever yet seen in
+them.
+
+"What is the matter with him?" she asked, following him to the cabin
+door.
+
+"As near dying as possible," he answered, gruffly. He believed that a
+good life had been sacrificed to a bad one, and he could not bring
+himself to speak softly to the woman who was the cause of it.
+
+"Dying!" she cried. There was no color to fade from her face, but the
+light died from her eyes, and the word faltered on her lips.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "dying."
+
+"Sophy, come to me," called her husband, in feeble tones.
+
+She left the captain, and returned at once to his side. The low berth
+was almost on the floor, and she had to kneel to bring her face nearer
+to his. It was night, and the only light was the dim glimmer of an
+oil-lamp, which the captain had hung to the ceiling, and which swung to
+and fro with the lurching of the ship. The wind was whistling shrilly
+among the rigging, and every plank and board in the vessel groaned and
+creaked under the beating of the waves. Now and then her feet were
+ankle-deep in water, and she dreaded to see it sweep over the low berth.
+In the rare intervals of the storm she could hear the hurried movements
+overhead, and the shouts of the sailors as they called to one another
+from the rigging. But vaguely she heard, and saw, and felt. Her
+husband's face, white and haggard and thin, with his gray hair and his
+eyes sunken with unshed tears, was all that she could distinctly
+realize.
+
+"Sophy," he said, "do not leave me again."
+
+He held out his hand, and she laid hers into it, shuddering as she felt
+its chilly grasp. Her head fell on to the pillow beside his, and her
+lips, close to his ear, spoke to him through sobs.
+
+"Is there nothing that can be done?" she cried. "It is I who have killed
+you. Must you really die for my sin, and leave us?"
+
+"I think I must die," he said, touching her head softly with his feeble
+hand. "I would live for you if I could--for you and my poor boy. Sophy,
+promise me while I can hear you, while you can speak to me, promise me
+you will never fall into this sin again."
+
+"How can I?" she cried. "I have killed you, and now who will care?"
+
+"God will care," he said, faintly, "and I shall care; wherever I may be
+I shall care. Promise me, my darling, my poor girl!"
+
+"I promise you," she answered, with a deep sob.
+
+"You will never let yourself enter into temptation?"
+
+"Never!" she cried.
+
+"Never taste it; never look at it; never think of it, if possible.
+Promise," he whispered again.
+
+"Never!" she sobbed; "never! Oh, live, and you shall see me conquer. God
+will help me to conquer, and you will help me. Do not leave us. O God,
+do not let him die!"
+
+But he did not hear her. A faintness and numbness that seemed like
+death, which had been creeping languidly through his veins for some
+time, darkened his eyes and sealed his lips. He could not see her, and
+her voice sounded far away. She called again and again upon him, but
+there was no answer. The deep roar of the storm on the other side of the
+frail wooden walls thundered continuously, and the groan of the
+straining planks grated upon her ear as she listened intently for one or
+more word from him. Was she then alone with him, dying? Was there no
+help, nothing that could be at least attempted for his help? Through the
+uproar and tumult she caught the sound of some one stirring in the
+saloon. She sprang to the door, and met Captain Scott on the point of
+opening it.
+
+"Come," said she frantic with terror; "he is dead already."
+
+The captain bent over the dying man, and with the promptitude of one to
+whom time was of the utmost value passed his hand rapidly over his
+benumbed and paralyzed body.
+
+"No, not dead," he exclaimed; "but he's sinking fast, and there's only
+one remedy. You can leave him to die, or you can save him, Mrs.
+Chantrey. There is no one else to nurse him, and every moment is
+precious to me. Here's a brandy-flask. Give him some at once; force a
+few drops through his teeth, and watch the effect it has upon him. As he
+swallows it give him a little more every few minutes. Watch him
+carefully; it will be life or death with him. If I can get down again
+I'll come in to see you, but I am badly wanted on deck this moment.
+There's enough there, but not too much, remember. Get him warm, if
+possible. God bless you, Mrs. Chantrey."
+
+He had been busily heaping rugs and blankets upon his friend's
+insensible form; and now, with a hearty grasp of the hand, and an
+earnest glance into her face, he hurried away, leaving Sophy alone once
+more.
+
+A shudder of terror ran through her, and she called to him not to leave
+her; but he did not hear. She stood in the middle of the cabin, looking
+around as if for help, but there was none. The craving, which had been
+starved within her by the forced abstinence of the last few weeks, awoke
+again with insufferable fierceness. She was cold herself, chilled to the
+very heart; her misery of body and soul were extreme. The dim light and
+the ceaseless roar of the storm oppressed her. The very scent of the
+brandy seemed to intoxicate her, and steal away her resolution. If she
+took but a very little of it, she reasoned with herself, she would be
+better fitted for the long, exhausting task of watching her husband. How
+would she have strength to stand over him through the cold, dark hours
+of the night, feeble and worn out as she already felt herself? For his
+sake, then, she must taste it; she would take but a very little. The
+captain had said there was not more than enough; but surely he would
+give her more, to save her husband's life. Only a little, just to stay
+the intolerable craving.
+
+Sophy poured out a small, portion into the little horn belonging to the
+flask. The strong spirituous scent excited her. How warm, and strong,
+and useful it would make her to her husband in his extremity! Yet still
+she hesitated. Suppose she could not resist the temptation to take more,
+and yet more, until she lost her consciousness, and left him to perish
+with cold and faintness? She knew how often she had resolved to take but
+a taste, enough to drive away the painful dejection of the passing hour;
+and how fatally her resolution had failed her, when once she had
+yielded. If she should fail now, if the temptation conquered her, there
+was no shadow of a hope for him. When she came to her senses again he
+would be dead.
+
+Why did not somebody come to her help? Where was Ann Holland, that she
+should be away just at the very moment when her presence was most
+desirable and most necessary? How could Captain Scott think of trusting
+her with poison? How could she do battle with so close and subtle a
+tempter? So long a battle, too; though all the dreary hours of the
+storm! Only a little while ago she had made a solemn promise never to
+fall into this sin, never to enter into temptation. But she had been
+thrust into temptation unawares, in an instant, with no one to help her,
+and no time to gather strength for resistance. Even David himself could
+not blame her if she broke her promise. It should be only a taste; it
+could not be more than that, for the flask was not full; and now she
+came to think of it she could not get on deck to ask the captain for
+more, because the hatches were closed. That would save her from taking
+too much. She would keep the thought before her that every drop she
+swallowed was taken from her dying husband, for whom there was barely
+enough. She could only taste it, and she did it for his sake, not her
+own.
+
+She lifted the little horn to her lips; but before tasting the
+stimulant, she glanced round, as she had often done before, to see if
+any one was looking at her; a stealthy cunning movement, born of the
+sense of shame she had never quite lost. Every nerve was quivering with
+excitement, and her heart was beating quickly. But her glance fell upon
+her husband's face turned toward her, yet with no watchful, reproachful
+eyes fastened upon her. The eyelids half closed; the pallid, hollow
+cheeks; the head fallen back upon the pillow, looked like death. Was he
+then gone from her already? Had she suffered his flickering life to die
+out altogether, while she had been dallying with temptation? With a wild
+and very bitter cry Sophy Chantrey sprang to his side, and forced a few
+drops of the eau-de-vie between his clenched teeth. Again and again,
+patiently, she repeated her efforts, watching eagerly for the least sign
+of returning animation. Every thought of herself was gone now; she
+became absorbed between alternate hope and dread. He was alive still;
+slowly the death-like pallor was passing away, faint tokens of returning
+circulation tingled through his benumbed veins. The beating of his heart
+was stronger, and his hands seemed less icily cold. But so slowly, and
+with so many intermissions, did the change creep on, that she did not
+dare to assure herself that he was reviving. Now and then the scent made
+her feel sick with terror; for she knew that his life depended upon her
+unceasing attention, and the tempter was still beside her, though thrust
+back for the time by her newly-awakened will. "I will not let him die!"
+she cried to herself; yet she was inwardly fearful of failing in her
+resolution, and leaving him to die. Would the daylight never come? Would
+the storm never cease?
+
+It was raging more wildly than ever; and Captain Scott found it
+impossible to go below, even though his friend was probably dying. Sophy
+was left absolutely alone. It seemed to her like an eternity, as she
+knelt beside her husband, desperately, fighting against sin, and
+intently watching for some sure sign of life in him. He was not dead,
+that was almost all she knew. The night was dark still, and very lonely.
+There was no one who saw her, none to care for her; and her misery was
+very great.
+
+Was there none who cared? A still small voice in her own soul, long
+unheard, but speaking clearly through the din of the storm around and
+within her, asked, "Does not Christ care? He who came to seek and to
+save that which was lost? He whom God sent into the world to be the
+Captain of salvation, and to suffer being tempted, that He might be able
+to succor all those who are tempted?" For a moment she listened
+breathlessly as if some new thing had been said to her. Christ really
+cared for her; really knew her extremity in this dire temptation; was
+ready with His help, if she would but have it. Could it be true? If He
+were beside her, witnessing her temptation and her struggling, seeing
+and entering into all the bitterness of the passing hours, why! then
+such a presence and such a sympathy were a thousand times greater and
+better than if all the world beside had been by to cheer her. Why had
+she never realized this before? He knew; God knew; she was not alone,
+because the Father Himself was with her.
+
+She had no time to pray consciously, in so many words of set speech; but
+her whole heart was full of prayer and hope. The terror of temptation
+was gone; nay, for the time, the temptation itself was gone, for she was
+lifted up far above it. She could use the powerful remedy on which her
+husband's life depended with no danger to herself. Her thoughts ran
+busily forward into a blissful future. How happy they would all be
+again! How diligently she would guard herself! Her life henceforth
+should be spent as under the eye of God.
+
+At last the morning dawned, and a gray light stole even through the
+darkened portholes--a faint light, but sufficient for her to see her
+husband's face more clearly. His heart beat under her hand with more
+vigor, and the color had come back to his lips. She could see now how
+every drop he swallowed brought, a more healthy hue to his face. He had
+attempted to speak more than once, but she laid her hand on his mouth to
+enforce silence until his strength was more equal to the effort. At last
+he whispered earnestly that she could not refuse to listen.
+
+"Sophy," he said, "is it safe for you?"
+
+"Yes," she answered; "God has made it safe for me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+SAVED
+
+
+The gale off the Cape of Good Hope was weathered at last, and the vessel
+sailed into smoother seas. The bitterness of the cold was over, and only
+fresh invigorating breezes swept across the water. Nothing could have
+been more helpful toward Mr. Chantrey's recovery, except his new freedom
+from sorrow. His trouble had passed away like the storm. He could not
+but trust that the same strength which had been given to his wife in her
+hour of fiercest temptation would be still granted to her in ordinary
+trials, from which he could not always shield her. Sophy herself was
+full of hope. She felt her will, so long enslaved, regaining its former
+freedom, and her brain recovering its old clearness. The pleasures and
+duties of life had once more a charm for her. It was as though some
+madness and delusion had passed away, and she was once more in her right
+mind.
+
+The voyage between Australia and New Zealand, taken in a crowded and
+comfortless steamer, was a severe testing time for her. It lasted for
+several days, and she could not be kept from the influence of the
+drinking customs of those on board. But she never quitted the side
+either of her husband or Ann Holland. In New Zealand, where no one knew
+the story of her past life, except Mr. Warden, it was more easy to face
+the future, and to carry out the reformation begun in her. They were
+poor, far poorer than she had ever expected to be, and she had harder
+work than she had been accustomed to do; but such exertions were
+beneficial to her. Ann Holland, as a matter of course, lived with them
+in their little home, from which Mr. Chantrey was often absent while
+visiting the distant portions of his large parish, which extended over
+many miles. But Ann was not left to do all the drudgery of the household
+unaided. Sophy Chantrey would take her share in her every duty, and
+seldom sat down to sew or write unless Ann was ready to rest also. The
+old want of something to do could never revisit her; the old sense of
+loneliness could not come back. There was her boy to teach, and her
+simple, homely neighbors to associate with. The customs and
+conventionalities of English life had no force here, and she was free to
+act as she pleased. As the years passed by, David Chantrey lost forever
+a secret lurking dread lest his wife's sin should be only biding its
+time. He could go away in peace, and return home gladly, having almost
+forgotten the reason of his exchanging the pleasant rectory of Upton for
+the hard work of a colonial living.
+
+From time to time letters reached them from Mrs. Bolton, complaining
+bitterly of the changes introduced by the new rector, whose customs and
+opinions constantly clashed with her own. She found herself put on one
+side, and quietly neglected in all questions concerning the parish;
+while her influence gradually died away. Again and again she urged her
+nephew to return to England, promising that she would make him her heir,
+and procure for him a living as valuable as the one he had resigned. She
+could not understand that to a man like David Chantrey the calm happy
+consciousness of days well spent, and the grateful remembrance of a
+terrible sorrow having been removed, were better than anything earth
+could give. The old pride he had once felt in his social position and
+personal popularity could never lift up its crest again. He had gone
+down to the Valley of Humiliation, and there, to his surprise, he found
+"that the air was pleasant, and that here a man shall be free from the
+noise and hurryings of this life, and shall not be let and hindered in
+his contemplation, as in other places he is apt to be." His laborious
+simple life suited him, and no entreaties or promises of Mrs. Bolton
+could recall him to England.
+
+Eight tranquil years had passed by when Sophy Chantrey detected in her
+husband a degree of preoccupation and reticence that had long been
+unusual to him. For a few days he kept the secret; but at last, just as
+she began to feel she could bear his reserve no longer he spoke out.
+
+"Sophy," he said, "I have had some letters from England."
+
+"From Aunt Bolton?" she asked, with a faint undertone of vexation in her
+voice, for Mrs. Bolton's letters always revived bitter memories in her
+mind.
+
+"No," he answered, holding out to her a large bulky packet; "they are
+from the bishop--our English bishop, you know--just a few lines; and
+from the Upton people. It seems that the living is about to be vacant
+again, for Seymour has had a very good one presented to him in the
+north; and the parishioners have petitioned the bishop, and petitioned
+me to accept the charge again. See, here are hundreds of signatures, and
+the churchwardens tell me every man and woman in the parish would have
+signed if there had been room. The bishop speaks very kindly about it,
+too, and they want my answer by the mail going out next week."
+
+"And what will you say?" asked Sophy breathlessly.
+
+"It is for you to say," he answered; "you must decide. Could you go back
+happily, Sophy? As for me, I never loved, or shall love, any place like
+Upton. I dream of it often. Yet I could not return to it at any great
+cost to you, be sure of that. You must answer the question. We have been
+very happy together here, all of us; and you and I have been truer
+Christians than perhaps we could ever have been if we had stayed at
+home. If you decide to settle here, I for one will never regret it."
+
+"Would it be safe for me to go back?" she faltered.
+
+"As safe for you as for me," he answered emphatically; "do not be afraid
+of that. A sin conquered and uprooted, as yours has been, is less likely
+to overcome us than some new temptation. I have no fear of that."
+
+For the next few days Sophy Chantrey went through her daily work as in a
+dream. There were many things to weigh and consider, and her husband
+left her to herself, acting as if he had dismissed the subject
+altogether from his mind. For herself she shrank from returning among
+the people who had known her in her worst days, and whose curious
+suspicious eyes would be always watching her, and bringing to her mind
+sad recollections. She knew well that all her life long there would be
+the memory of her sin kept alive in the hearts of her husband's
+parishioners if he went back as rector of Upton. Yet she could not
+resolve to banish him from the place he loved so well, and the people
+who were so eager to have him with them again as their pastor. There was
+nothing to be dreaded on account of his health, which was fully
+reestablished. There was her boy, too, who was growing old enough to
+require better teaching than they could secure for him in the colony.
+Ann Holland would be overjoyed to think of seeing Upton again, and to
+return to her old friends and townsfolk. No; they must not be doomed to
+continual exile for her sake. She must take up the cross that lay before
+her, from which she had so long escaped, and be willing to bear the
+penalty of her transgressions, learning that no sins, though forgiven,
+can be blotted out as far as their consequences are concerned--can never
+be, through endless years, as though they had never been.
+
+"We must go home to Upton," she said to her husband the evening before
+the mail left for England. "I have considered everything, and we must
+go."
+
+"Willingly, Sophy? Gladly?" he asked, looking keenly into her face, so
+changed from when he had seen it first. What lines there were upon it
+which ought not to have been there so early, he knew well. How different
+it was from the fair fresh face of his young wife when they first went
+home to Upton Rectory. Yet he loved her better now than then.
+
+"Willingly, though not gladly yet," she answered; "but do not argue with
+me. Do not try to persuade me against my own decision. You all came out
+for my sake, and I am bent upon returning for yours. In time I shall be
+as glad that I returned as you are that you came out, though I am not
+glad now. I shall be a standing lesson to the people of Upton."
+
+"But I do not wish my wife to be a lesson," he said fondly. Yet he could
+not urge her to alter her decision. The old home and the old church,
+which he had diligently tried to forget, thrust themselves as freshly
+and imperiously upon his memory as if he had left them but yesterday. He
+had not known how great his sacrifice had been when he had given them up
+in his misery. Ann Holland and his boy shared his delight, and before
+they sailed for home Sophy herself found that she could take very real
+pleasure in their new prospects.
+
+Mrs. Bolton did not live to welcome them back to Upton. The last few
+years had been years of vexation and loneliness to her, and there had
+been no one to care for her and to help her to bear her troubles. She
+had been ailing for some time, and the trying changes of the spring
+hastened her death before her favorite nephew could reach England. The
+hired nurses who attended her through her last illness heard her often
+muttering to herself, as if her enfeebled brain was possessed by one
+idea, "If any will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his
+cross daily, and follow Me." The words haunted her, and once she said,
+in an awed voice and with a look of pain, "He that taketh not up his
+cross and followeth after Me, is not worthy of Me." "Not worthy of me!"
+she repeated, mournfully, "not worthy of me!"
+
+The rector of Upton and his wife have dwelt among their own people again
+for some years. Though the story is still sometimes told of Mrs.
+Chantrey's sin, the life she leads among them is a better lesson than
+perhaps it could have been had she never fallen. They see in her one who
+has not merely been tempted, but who has conquered and escaped from the
+tyranny of a vice shamefully common among us. There is hope for the
+feeblest and the most degraded when they hear of her, or when they learn
+the story from her own lips. For if by the sorrowful confession she can
+help any one, she does not shrink from making it, with tears often, but
+with a profound thankfulness for the deliverance wrought out for her by
+those who made themselves "fellow-workers with God."
+
+Ann Holland found her shop and pleasant kitchen transformed into a
+fashionable draper's establishment, with plate glass windows down to the
+pavement. But she did not need a home. David and Sophy Chantrey would
+not have parted from her if the old house had not been gone. A few of
+her old-fashioned goods she managed to gather together again, to furnish
+her own room at the rectory, and among them was the screen containing
+the newspaper records of events at Upton. One long column gives a
+high-flown description of the rector's return to his old parish, and Ann
+feels a glow of pleasant pride at seeing her own name there in print.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brought Home, by Hesba Stretton
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