AN ELDER BROTHER

BY

EGLANTON THORNE

Author of "The Old Worcester Jug," "Worthy of his Name," etc.

London

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

56 PATERNOSTER ROW AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD

BUTLER & TANNER, THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, FROME, AND LONDON.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. OLD BETTS

II. A NEIGHBOUR

III. LITTLE MARGERY'S LOSS

IV. MICHAEL MAKES A GOOD BARGAIN

V. UNRIGHTEOUS GAIN

VI. AN UNWELCOME ENCOUNTER

VII. IN THE GRIP OF PAIN

VIII. THE BURDEN MAKES ITSELF FELT

IX. RESTITUTION

X. MICHAEL FINDS A FRIEND

XI. MUTUAL CONFESSION

XII. MICHAEL'S HOUSE BECOMES A HOME

AN ELDER BROTHER

CHAPTER I

OLD BETTS

THERE are persons for whom no shop has a greater attraction than a second-hand book-shop. It may be that they have a passion for collecting the old and rare, and love to turn over the well-thumbed, dusty volumes, in the hope of lighting upon a treasure in the form of a first edition, or a work long out of print. Or they may be drawn merely by a desire to acquire cheaply the coveted book which their poverty will not permit them to purchase fresh from the publisher. Whatever the nature of the attraction, the shop of Michael Betts, which stood a few years ago at the corner of a narrow, quiet street in Bloomsbury, had for such individuals, an irresistible fascination.

It was a small shop, but it had a high reputation of its kind, and its importance was not to be measured by its size. It lay several feet below the level of the street, and a flight of stone steps led down to the door. Every available inch of space within the shop was occupied by books. They crowded the shelves which lined the shop from floor to ceiling; they filled the storey above, and a great part of the tiny room at the back of the shop in which Michael took his meals; they overflowed into the street, and stood on a bench before the window, and were piled at the side of each step which led up to the pavement. They were books of all sorts and conditions, of various tongues and various styles.

Michael knew them perhaps as well as it was possible for a man to know such a mixed multitude. He was not a scholarly man, having received, indeed, but the most ordinary education; but in his leisure hours, he had managed to acquaint himself with most of the classics of our mother tongue. For the rest, by virtue of close observation, and, where possible, a little judicious skimming or dipping, he contrived to discover the nature of most books that came into his hands, and to pretty accurately determine their worth.

Michael Betts struck most persons as being an elderly man, though he was not so old as he appeared. Some of his customers were wont to describe him as "Old Betts." He did not feel himself to be old, however, and once when he happened to overhear some one so describe him, the term struck him as singularly inappropriate.

He was a man about the middle height, but inclined to stoop. His smooth, beardless face, surmounted by thick, wiry, iron-grey hair, which curled about his brows, was broad and of the German type. Its hue was pallid, rather as the result of the confined life he led in the close, ill-lighted shop, than from positive ill-health. His dark, deep-sunken eyes had often a dreamy, absent expression, but grew keen at the call of business, for Michael Betts was a shrewd man of business, and made few mistakes either in buying or selling.

He had kept that corner shop for nearly thirty years, and though his business had steadily grown during that period, he had managed it without assistance. It might be that he would have done better had he not attempted to carry it on single-handed. He was a young man when he started the business, but now that he was on the borderland of old age he might have found the help of a youth of much service. But Michael judged otherwise. He "was not fond of boys," he said. He felt that he had not the patience to train one.

He could not bear to have his nice, orderly, methodical ways upset by a careless youth. Moreover, from living constantly alone, he had become of such a reserved, suspicious, even secretive disposition, that the very thought of having any one constantly with him in the shop was hateful to him. For his shop was his all. He had no life behind or beyond it. He had no one to love him, or whom he could love. Even his books he did not love as they should be loved. Though he lived in them and with them, as well as by them, he prized them chiefly for the sake of what they brought him. But he did not care that another hand should meddle with them. Rather than that, he preferred to adhere to his old-fashioned plan, so behind the day, of locking his shop when he was called out on business, and affixing to the door a notice of the hour at which he might be expected to return.

Early one gloomy afternoon in November, Michael was busy at the back of the shop, sorting, as well as he could in the dim light, a newly-acquired purchase. He looked round as the bell which hung at the door gave a little tinkle announcing the entrance of a customer; but though he looked he could not at once discern who it was who entered with such a light tread, and strange, irregular movements. He had to move to the other side of a high pile of books ere he perceived his customer, and then he was very much surprised. Such a pretty, dainty, wee one he had never seen in his shop before.

A little girl of six or seven years stood there alone, making a bright, fair spot in the midst of the gloom and dust and piles of dingy volumes. She wore a little serge cloak of a soft green shade, lined with pink silk, and a tiny, close-fitting velvet hood of the same green hue covered her golden locks, which, however, escaped from it wherever they could, hanging in ringlets down her cheeks and over her little shoulders. With her rosebud mouth, soft liquid blue eyes, and fair pink and white complexion, she was the sweetest picture imaginable; but she was a bewildering vision to Michael Betts. He stood looking at her in amazement, quite at a loss how to address her.

She, in her turn, regarded him gravely for a few moments; but she showed no sign of embarrassment. When she spoke, it was with the simple, unconscious dignity of childhood.

"Are you old Mr. Betts?"

"My name is Betts, certainly," replied Michael; "I don't know about the old. Can I do anything for you, missy?"

"Yes. I want a 'Pilgrim's Progress,' if you please. Noel and I want to have one for our very own. On Sundays, we are allowed to have mother's, which is a beautiful one, with such lovely pictures in it; but she will not let us have it in the nursery during the week, and we really must have one, for, you see, we like to play at being Christian and Faithful, and we want the book in order to know exactly what they do and say. We each like being Christian best, so we take it in turns. That is the fairest way, I think, don't you?"

"I can't say, I am sure, my dear," said Betts, looking very puzzled. "Do you wish me to see if I have a 'Pilgrim's Progress'?"

"Yes, please," said the child eagerly, with brightening face. "Father said he'd no doubt you would have one you could let us have for a shilling. He said he would see about it, but he generally forgets when he says that, so I thought I had better come myself. I have the shilling here," she added, fumbling in her glove. "It's in two sixpences: one sixpence is mine, and the other is Noel's."

"And who is your father, little missy?" asked Michael.

"Why, father is father, of course," said the wee girl, as if she considered the question rather unnecessary; adding, however, after a moment's reflection, "but perhaps you would call him Professor Lavers."

"Ah, to be sure," said Michael, nodding his head. He knew Professor Lavers well. He was one of his best customers. But it was difficult to think of the elderly, worn-looking professor as the father of this sweet little maiden.

"Father is a very learned man," said the child, nodding her head sagaciously; "mother says so. That's why they call him Professor. My name is Margery, you know, and Noel's is Noel. Noel means Christmas in French, and mother called him that because he was born on Christmas Day."

"Is Noel older than you?" asked Michael, who was beginning to feel interested in the child's frank confidences.

"Oh no. He is a year younger; but he's nearly as big as I am. That's because he is a boy. Mother says boys ought to be big. What lots and lots of books you have, Mr. Betts! My father has a great many books; but not nearly so many as you have."

"No. I've got another room full of them upstairs, little missy."

"Have you?" said Margery, in an awestruck voice. "And have you read them every one, Mr. Betts?"

"Oh dear no," said Betts, smiling as he shook his head; "life wouldn't be long enough for that, missy. But I think I know something about most of them, though."

"Do you?" Margery looked at him in wonder. "How clever you must be! It takes me such a time to find out what is in a book. But then you are very, very old. You have had a great many years to do it in."

"Humph!" said Betts, pushing his fingers through his thick, grizzly hair, and hardly knowing what to make of this remark.

"Can you read Greek, Mr. Betts?" asked Margery eagerly. "My father can read Greek—can you?"

"No, miss, that I can't," said Michael, looking as if he did not quite like to own his inferiority; "but now, about this book you want. I believe I have a 'Pilgrim's Progress' somewhere, if only I can lay my hand on it. Ah, I think I know where it is."

He drew forward his library steps, mounted them, and after a brief search amongst the books on an upper shelf came down with one in his hand, which he dusted carefully ere he showed it to Margery.

"Here's the book you want, missy," he said, bending down to her as he held it open. "The back's a bit shabby; but the reading is all right. And there are pictures, too."

"Oh, how lovely!" exclaimed Margery, in delighted tones. "I do love books with pictures, don't you? Ah, there is poor Christian with his burden on his back. Oh, weren't you glad, Mr. Betts, when his burden fell off?"

"I glad?" said Mr. Betts, looking puzzled. "I don't understand you."

He had once read the "Pilgrim's Progress," wading through it with difficulty, many years ago; but had found it a book he "could make nothing of."

"When you read about it, I mean," said Margery. "But p'raps it's so long ago that you have forgotten. Mother says the burden means sin, and every one has that burden to carry till Jesus takes it away. Have you lost your burden, Mr. Betts?"

"My burden?" repeated Betts, more puzzled than ever.

"Yes—your burden of sin. You're a sinner, aren't you?"

"Indeed, miss, you're under a mistake," said Michael stiffly. "I know there are plenty of sinners in London; but I am not to be counted amongst them. I can honestly say that I never did anything wrong in my life."

Margery stood looking at him, her blue eyes opened to their widest extent, expressing the utmost wonder.

"Oh, Mr. Betts! Never in all your life! And you have lived so many years! What a very, very good man you must be! Why, I am always doing naughty things, though I do try to be good. And I thought everybody did wrong things sometimes. But never in all your life—"

"Well, here's the book, little missy, if you like to take it," said Michael, finding her remarks embarrassing, and wishing to put an end to them. "The price is one shilling and fourpence."

"But I have only a shilling," said Margery, giving him her two sixpences; "that won't be enough, will it?"

"That'll do, thank you, miss. Any day that you're passing you may bring me the fourpence."

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Betts!" said Margery, delighted. "I won't forget. How pleased Noel will be! But I must go now, or nurse will be angry. I expect she will say it was naughty of me to come alone. Good-bye, Mr. Betts."

"Good day, missy."

He opened the door for her, and she passed out, shaking back her sunny curls. But when she was half-way up the steps she suddenly stopped, stood in thought for a moment, and then turned back.

"Mr. Betts," she said, thrusting her pretty head inside the door again.

"Well, missy?"

"I can't understand about your never doing wrong. Mother says Jesus died for sinful people, and I thought that every one had sinned. But if you've never done wrong, then Jesus can't have died for you. It's very strange."

"Is it, miss?" said Michael, with a grim smile. "Well, don't you trouble your pretty self about me. It's all right. There's some things, you know, that little folks can't understand."

"Oh, there are, I know, lots. I'm always finding that out. But it's horrid not to be able to understand. Well, good-bye."

She ran off again, and was quickly out of sight.

"What a little chatterbox!" said Michael to himself; "what an extraordinary child! But why should they stuff her head with those old-fashioned theological ideas? I suppose she was right in a sense about my being a sinner. These old theologians would say so, at any rate. And in church, people confess themselves miserable sinners, but not one in a hundred means it. Anyhow, I'm sure of this, that if there was no one worse than me in the world to-day, it would be a very different world from what it is. So that is Professor Lavers' little girl. I wonder if she'll remember the fourpence."

CHAPTER II

A NEIGHBOUR

THOUGH for many years, Michael Betts had lived in loneliness, his life had not always been so lonely. As a young man, he had had his widowed mother to care for, and a brother, some ten years younger than himself, had shared their home. There had been other children who had passed away in infancy. Only these two, the eldest and the youngest, remained, and the mother loved them passionately, if not wisely.

It was perhaps not strange that between brothers so widely parted by years, there should be no very close bond of sympathy. But the distinction between them was more marked than that which mere age would effect. Their characters were wholly different. The disposition of the elder brother had always been serious, his behaviour correct, his words and ways prudent and cautious beyond his years. The bearing of the other afforded a great contrast. Frank from boyhood was distinguished by wild spirits; he was restless and reckless in his ways, bent upon pleasure and regardless of its cost, and disposed to chaff his grave, prudent brother.

The two could not understand each other. Michael, conscious of his own rectitude, was keenly alive to his brother's faults, and disposed to think the very worst of him. He was vexed with his mother when she persistently found excuses for Frank's failings, and reiterated her fond belief that he "meant no harm," and would "come right some day."

Whilst she lived to keep peace in the home, there was no open breach between the brothers. Unhappily, she passed away ere Frank had fully attained to manhood. His mother's death was a grief to Michael. He had loved her truly, in spite of a sense of her incapacity and wrong-headedness on many points, notably on those which concerned her younger son. Sometimes it had almost seemed as if she loved Frank, in spite of all his faults, better than the son whose meritoriousness had ever been apparent.

Yet Michael meant well by his brother when their mother's death left them together. He had promised her when she lay dying that he would be as a father to Frank; and he intended to keep that promise. He would do his duty by Frank; he would care for him and look after his interests as an elder brother should. To be sure, he expected that Frank would respond as he should to his fraternal kindness, and show a fitting sense of what the bond between them entailed upon him. But such an expectation was most vain. Frank was what he had always been.

Shortly after his mother's death, Michael, who had been saving money carefully for years, whilst working diligently and acquiring business experience, was able to take the corner house and open a book-shop on his own account. He counted on Frank's assistance in working it. He thought the business would provide a future for his young brother as well as for himself. But it was a disastrous experiment he was now undertaking. Frank had little inclination to work steadily as his brother's assistant. His careless, irregular ways tried Michael's patience beyond endurance. He reproached his brother bitterly; but his rebukes only elicited insolence and defiance.

Frank left his brother in anger, and found a situation for himself elsewhere. He did not keep it long, however. From idle, he fell into sinful courses. Lower and lower he drifted, till Michael saw him only when he came to beg for relief from the starvation to which his profligacy had reduced him. Michael dreaded his appearance. He could not bear that any of his customers should know that such a disreputable man was his brother.

But he never refused Frank food or a night's lodging, till after one of these brief visitations he missed a valuable classic, and was convinced that his brother had stolen it. Then he vowed that he would do nothing more for Frank. If his brother dared to come near him again, thinking to lay thievish hands on his goods, he would give him in charge. No one could say that he had failed in his duty towards his brother. No, he had kept his promise to his mother as far as it was in his power to keep it. He could do no more. Frank must reap as he had sown.

Michael never had occasion to put his threat into execution. His brother, perhaps, divined too well what he might expect. However that might be, Michael saw his face no more, and was thankful not to see it. As years passed on and he heard no more of Frank, he was able to persuade himself that his brother was dead. And as this conviction deepened within him, it became easier and easier to banish from his mind the thought of his unhappy brother.

His business absorbed his whole attention. It prospered, and year by year he was able to lay by money. This result he found most satisfactory. Gradually, but surely, the love of gain became the chief passion of his soul. His own wants were few and simple, and he had no one besides himself on whom to spend money, so his savings grew apace, and he hugged to his heart the knowledge that he was making a nice little sum. He never asked himself what good the money was to do, or for whom he was saving it. He forgot that he was growing old, and that a time must soon come when he would have to leave all that he possessed. He loved to think that he was growing rich; never suspecting how miserably poor he was in all that makes the true wealth of human life.

It was rarely now that Michael gave a thought to his unhappy brother; but on the evening of the day which had surprised him by bringing such a quaint little customer to his shop, he found his mind strangely disposed to revert to his own early days. It was a most unusual thing for him to speak with a little child. He could not remember when he had done so before. Had he been asked if he liked children, he would have answered the question decidedly in the negative. He certainly detested the boys of the neighbourhood, who were wont to annoy him by hanging about his shop of an evening, and laying their careless fingers on his books, and who had very objectionable ways of retaliating when he reproved them. But a fair, dainty, blue-eyed, childlike Margery was quite another thing. Her sweet, rosy face, shaded by drooping curls, rose again and again before his mental vision, and her childish voice repeated itself in his ears as he sat patching and mending some of the shabbier of his books.