BATTLE OF LIFE

OR

What is a Christian.

BY

A. L. O. E.

AUTHORESS OF "THE WHITE BEAR'S DEN," "SHEER OFF," "THE HARTLEY BROTHERS," ETC.

London: GALL AND INGLIS, 25 PATERNOSTER SQUARE;

AND EDINBURGH.

CONTENTS.

A PILGRIM; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN DAILY WALK.

CHAPTER I. A Blessing.

CHAPTER II. No Blessing.

CHAPTER III. In the Dark.

CHAPTER IV. The Watcher.

CHAPTER V. Sickness and Sorrow.

CHAPTER VI. The Mother's Errand.

CHAPTER VII. Thinking over it.

AN HEIR OF HEAVEN; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN PRIVILEGE.

CHAPTER I. The Lonely Cot.

CHAPTER II. Treasure Found.

CHAPTER III. A Search.

CHAPTER IV. Earthly Hope.

CHAPTER V. Heavenly Hope.

A SAINT; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN CHARACTER.

CHAPTER I. The Patient Restored.

CHAPTER II. Decision.

CHAPTER III. Division.

CHAPTER IV. Sabbath Hours.

CHAPTER V. Darkness and Night.

CHAPTER VI. A Way Opened.

A CONQUEROR; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN LIFE'S STRUGGLE.

CHAPTER I. A Storm Down Below.

CHAPTER II. The Twins.

CHAPTER III. In Peril.

CHAPTER IV. The Struggle.

CHAPTER V. A Brother to the Rescue.

CHAPTER VI. Victory.

A LIGHT; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN INFLUENCE.

CHAPTER I. The Young Stepmother.

CHAPTER II. Off to the Station.

CHAPTER III. A Dinner-Party.

CHAPTER IV. Battle in the Nursery.

CHAPTER V. Silver Turned into Gold.

A THANKFUL GUEST; OR, A CHRISTIAN IN COMMUNION.

CHAPTER I. Back Again.

CHAPTER II. Neglected Duty.

CHAPTER III. A Service of Obedience.

CHAPTER IV. A Service of Hope.

CHAPTER V. A Service of Love.

CHAPTER VI. One Family.

THE

BATTLE OF LIFE.

A PILGRIM

OR,

A CHRISTIAN IN DAILY WALK.

CHAPTER I.

A Blessing.

"THERE'S no use in talking more over the matter, mother; when I says a thing—I does it!" cried John Carey, striking his fist upon the table, to give emphasis to his words. "I've told Dick Brace that as soon as I gets the thirty pounds of my uncle's legacy, I'll club it with his, and we'll start in business together, and make a good thing, I don't doubt, out of the 'Jolly Ploughboys,' now the brickmaking is begun so near to the place."

"I don't like your keeping a public, John; and I don't like your joining in anything with Dick Brace," observed Widow Carey, with an anxious shake of the head.

"He's a jolly good fellow," said John.

"He's not a God-fearing man," rejoined the widow. "I doubt there will be a blessing upon anything in which you are mixed up with him."

"I shouldn't care to have him for a brother, but he's just the fellow for a partner in business," cried John; "sharp as a fox, and merry as a cricket. You'll see we'll get on like a house on fire, mother, and I'll be able to pay your coal club for you every week, and maybe your rent too, if you don't care to have the little back-room at the 'Jolly Ploughboys.'" And John bent his tall form, and looked with a merry, kindly smile into his parent's face as he added, "There's a bribe for ye, mother!"

Mrs. Carey returned the smile; indeed it would have been hard not to have done so, so pleasant, at least to a parent's eyes, looked that fine strong young peasant, in the prime of life, with the fresh hue of health on his cheek.

There was something in the appearance of John, with his tawny hair and whiskers, broad and somewhat flat face, and bold decided manner, that made his companions sometimes call him in sport "the young lion:" but he was a very good-humoured lion, for though self-willed and sometimes hasty, there was nothing savage in the nature of the widow's only son.

Mrs. Carey smiled indeed, but she was thoroughly in earnest as she replied, "Were the sacks full of gold sovereigns instead of coals, they wouldn't be bribe enough for me; and as for taking your back parlour—let alone that I'd not choose to end my life in a public—maybe you'll want a younger companion one of these days to keep house for ye, my boy."

John threw back his head and laughed. "I've been a-thinking of that," said he. "If matters go right, and the money come in, there's Dinah Dealtry at the farm—she'd make a trim little wife."

Again the widow shook her head. "I hope you'll never put the ring on her finger, John. She's not a girl to make a good man happy, nor to bring up a family in the right way. There wouldn't be a blessing, I fear, on such a marriage as that."

"Mother, you're always thinking about a blessing," cried John, with a little impatience.

"Because I've always found God's blessing to be the one thing needful, my son, and I never feel myself safe in doing anything upon which I cannot ask it. We may plough and sow a field, but not a blade will grow, unless God's blessing come in the rain and the sunshine. And so it is with everything in life: we spend our money for that which is not bread, and our labour for that which satisfieth not, unless God's blessing crown all."

"I don't see that," said John, bluntly.

"Look at your Bible, my boy; Jacob left home with nothing but his staff and the blessing, and came back with his children, his flocks, and his herds. 'Twas the blessing on Joseph that brought him from prison to palace, and made all things to prosper in his hand. David was hunted like the partridge on the mountains, but the blessing brought him at last to the throne."

"Those lived in old times," cried John Carey; "but we don't look now for palaces or thrones, or, if we did, we shouldn't get 'em! What does the blessing do for us now?"

"John, John, I'm an old pilgrim, and maybe I'm getting nigh the end of my journey, so I may speak the more boldly about it. I've found the blessing like a staff to lean on all the way through; and if I hadn't grasped it, there's many and many a time I'd just have lain down, and given myself up to despair."

"I think you've had more troubles than most folk, mother," observed John, more gravely; "and if there was a blessing on dear good father, how was it that he suffered for years?"

"There was a blessing on him, yes, in his illness, and through his illness," said Mrs. Carey, fervently, while the tears started to her eyes; "no one could have been with him day and night as I was, and not have seen that there was one! Your father had peace, and hope, and joy, and patience—oh! Wonderful patience! And hard as we were put to it sometimes, God always raised up some friend to help us, and opened a way before us when it seemed as if we could not got on. God's blessing was sought by my dear husband from his youth, and I'm sure it went with him wherever he went, prospered him in his honest labour, brought him through troubles, temptations, and trials, cheered him in sickness, made his deathbed at last like the very gateway of heaven! And now he's gone where all is blessing—for ever!" Mrs. Carey closed her sentence with a little stifled sob, as she looked at an empty chair which was now never moved from its place in the corner.

"I didn't mean to make ye sad, mother," said John, laying his broad hand with rough kindliness upon the shoulder of the widow; "and I don't want to worry ye about either the public-house or the girl, but I can't look at matters just as ye do, and, ye see, about that there business with Dick Brace—I've made up my mind. Don't ye be a-vexing yourself about me—all will go right, never fear!"

Then, turning and taking down his cap from its peg, John said, in a merrier tone, "I'm going to old Justice Burns, to get him to pay me uncle's legacy as he promised he would, and then I'm off to London to buy a few things as I want, but I hope to be back soon after dark."

Mrs. Carey saw that expostulation was useless, so she made no further opposition.

"You've a long trudge before you," said she, "take your father's good staff;" and she rose to bring it from its place in the corner just behind the arm-chair.

"Leave it there, mother, I don't want it," cried "the lion." "'Tain't twenty miles to London and back; and were it forty, 'twould not be much to young limbs like mine. Only mind you've a good supper ready for me, for I'll come back hungry as—as a lion!" And nodding a good-bye to the widow, the young man quitted the cottage, whistling merrily as he walked down the hill.

Mrs. Carey watched him fondly as long as his tall form continued in view, and listened to the sound of that whistle which was so pleasant to her ears.

"God bless the lad!" said the mother. "Bless him in his work and his ways, bless his going out and his coming in, bless him now and for ever! He mayn't know the worth of the blessing now, but since my eyes first looked on my babe, there's not been a day, scarce a waking hour, but I've asked it for him from my heart. God will hear a poor mother's prayers, though I'm afraid just now that this legacy hardly comes as a blessing. My dear husband's brother never gave him so much as a shilling to help him through all his long illness, and now leaves to his son thirty pounds, money which seems likely to set the lad against the steady work by which he has gained his bread, to bring him amongst bad companions, and perhaps lead him to marry a girl whose mind is set on flirting and finery, who is not worthy of the true love of a noble-hearted fellow like John! It's a care and trouble to me the thought of this money—but, like all other cares, I must just bring it to my Lord; if pilgrims but set their faces towards Zion, God will direct all their path!"

CHAPTER II.

No Blessing.

"WHAT an odd view mother takes of life!" thought John, as he went whistling along the road towards the house of Justice Burns, to whom his uncle had been butler, and in whose hands he had left his savings. "Mother always seems to feel as if she were on a journey, with her staff in her hand, and her bundle on her back, though she has bided these thirty years in that little cottage where I was born. She's always a-thinking of getting on to another world, and perhaps since father has gone there that's natural enough, for he was the light of her eyes. But I take it this world is a very good world, and I'm in no hurry to leave it. I mean to settle down and thrive in that little public-house which is to be let at such a bargain, drive a good business, make plenty of money, and then ask little Dinah to come and share my home. A lucky legacy that of my uncle's, and come at a lucky time. Mother may say what she likes, there's nothing better in life than a little hard cash—except a great deal of it!" And John Carey laughed gaily to himself as he pulled the bell at the Justice's door.

"What do you want here?" asked the liveried servant who answered the bell.

"I want to see Justice Burns. I'm the nephew of his late butler, and he has money of mine in his hands."

"Ah! You're the nephew of poor old Carey, are you?" said the footman, relaxing into an easy sociable manner. "Come in and sit down in the hall. You can't see master yet, for he's taking his breakfast."

As John entered the hall, he might have guessed that a meal was going on in the house, from the very savoury scent which proceeded out of the dining-room.

"Breakfast! Why it's nigh noonday!" cried honest John, who had already taken his dinner, "It's plain the Justice ain't up with the lark."

"You wouldn't be up with the lark neither, if you had such nights as he has," said the servant, who was inclined for a gossip. "The Justice is a martyr to gout—suffers misery, he does, and makes every one about him miserable too, I suppose to keep him company."

"I should say his gout doesn't take away his appetite," observed John, glancing at a steaming dish which the butler was carrying in at that moment to his master.

The footman shrugged his shoulders. "There's the mischief," said he. "The more the Justice suffers, the more he eats; the more he eats, the more he suffers; but he can't do without his turtle and venison, his sauces and wines. Doctor and cook, he keeps both of them at work. I'd not have such legs as he has for ten thousand pounds a year; they're swelled as big as two, and he can hardly get up from his chair; we've to wheel him from one room to another."

"'Twould have been better, maybe, for the Justice if he'd had to follow the plough at sunrise, and get a good appetite for his bread and cheese," observed John, glancing down with some satisfaction at his own active powerful limbs, that had never suffered from an hour's disease.

"Oh! I often say that it would have been a good thing for him, if he'd had to work hard for his bread, clip hedges or break stones on the road," said the talkative footman. "But there's his bell, I must answer it at once, for he's mighty easily put out when a fit of the gout is upon him."

"Well, maybe hard cash, even a great deal of it, is not always a blessing," was the thought which John Carey had leisure to turn well over in his mind during the half-hour which he had to wait while the Justice was eating and drinking in misery and pain, wasting on gluttonous indulgence that money for which he would one day have to render a strict account.

At last the Justice was ready to see John Carey in the study. The young countryman, as he trod the Turkey-carpet of that luxurious room, looked with mingled pity and contempt on the owner of so much wealth, bolstered up with cushions, and swathed in flannels, with the peevishness of suffering written upon his red bloated face. John could not help thinking of the cheerful patience of his own father during sickness, and the thankful pleasure with which he had received every little comfort, as a direct gift from his God.

"What's this you want—your uncle's legacy? I don't know why he should have bothered me with a petty matter like this," said the Justice peevishly, when John had explained his business.

"Thirty pounds—is that the sum? Yes, I remember; I was writing out a cheque for it last night when I was taken so ill that I could scarcely hold the pen in my fingers."

The Justice looked as if it were a labour and pain to him now to open the desk before him with his swollen gouty hands, and he had hardly taken out the cheque when his servant ushered in the doctor.

"There—go, they'll cash it for you in Argyll Street; I can't be plagued with business," said the Justice hastily, motioning to John to quit his presence.

Young Carey hurriedly put the cheque into his pocket-book and left the house, feeling that he would not change places with that wretched Dives, who lived but for self, even if there were no danger of the "place of torment" succeeding the state of luxury of him who fared sumptuously every day.

"I'm thirsty, and I've a long trudge before me," said John to himself. "I'll just step into the little inn yonder, and refresh myself with a tumbler of beer."

John found in the "White Hart," Sam Soames, a man with whom he had but a slight acquaintance, "the less the better," as Mrs. Carey often had said. No one who looked at Sam as he sat with his elbows rubbing through his sleeves, with his battered hat, dirty shirt, and poverty-stricken aspect, would have guessed that he was a skilled workman, who could win two guineas a week. Sam had earned a great deal of money in his time, but as fast as he made it, the gold seemed to slip through his fingers. It might be said of him in the forcible language of Scripture, "he earneth wages to put into a bag with holes." *

* Haggai i. 6.

Never had John's father, through all his long sickness, when he had no power to earn a shilling, known the actual want which was staring in the face of this man, who had no one to blame but himself that he was not one of the most thriving workmen in the town where he lived. Money had come—and had gone—a blessing was not upon it!

John Carey was of a kindly, sociable temper, such as scarcely suited his nickname of "young lion." Worthless as he knew Sam Soames to be, he pitied his wretched condition, and was willing to do him a kindness. He treated Soames to beer, and while the two men drank together, John chatted freely with his companion over his own affairs. Carey told Soames of the legacy which had been left by his uncle, and of the cheque for thirty pounds which he was going to get cashed in London. In his openness of heart, the "young lion" told him moreover of his own plan of partnership with Brace, and invited Sam to come and look in on him sometimes when he should be landlord of the "Jolly Ploughboys." This Sam Soames very readily promised to do, hoping, no doubt, that his easy-tempered friend would not be hard upon him when the time for reckoning should come.

"It was too bad in me to talk about my good-luck to that poor ruined fellow," thought honest John, as, after paying for what he and his companion had taken, he started off on his long walk to London; "it was like making a hungry dog look in through the window at a well-filled larder, when he has not so much as a bone to grind between his jaws. Well, well, if Sam Soames had my thirty pounds to-day, there would not be thirty pence of it left by Sunday. He's one of them chaps that no one can help; hard cash—much or little of it—would be no blessing to him."

And with this reflection John dismissed the subject from his mind, and took to whistling again.

The "young lion" was scarcely at all tired by his ten miles' walk to London. He was puzzled, however, to find his way through its labyrinth of streets, crossing each other in every direction, and found the noise and bustle of the mighty city very distracting.

"I've heard of some one who said that he'd rather hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak," muttered John to himself, "and I'm much of his mind. I'd think a fortune dearly earned if I'd to go moiling and toiling all my days in a racket like this. But different folk have different tastes; maybe there are some who like it, and would rather see carriages rolling along, than a field of fine wheat bending as the wind blows across it. I'm not one of that sort—that's all."

John had some trouble in finding Argyll Street, and it was an hour later than he expected when he reached the bank at last. The young peasant felt a little shy on entering the large room in which were so many clerks at their desks.

"Here be a lot of fine gentlemen," thought John, "who have nothing to do from morning till night but count up money, and shovel out gold. How tired one would get of the clink of it, and the endless summing and reckoning! I'd rather by far sow beans!"

John's rough jacket and hob-nailed shoes seemed to himself out of place in the bank. Anything like transacting business was new to him, and the "young lion" looked awkward and shy as he advanced, cap in hand, to the front of one of the desks, behind which stood a clerk, who appeared to John to be a very fine gentleman indeed.

The clerk inquired what was his business.

"I want to get this here cheque cashed," said John, pulling his pocket-book from his breast-pocket, and then fumbling in it to find his valuable paper. It was some little time before he could lay his strong clumsy fingers upon it, and put it down on the desk.

"Who gave you this?" asked the clerk.

"Justice Burns, it's for thirty pounds; you see my uncle, he left me a legacy, and—"

The man of business cut the speech of the countryman short.

"This cheque is of no use," he said, pushing it back towards John, "there is no signature on it."

Carey stared in blank amazement, first at the speaker, then at the cheque. What the clerk had said was true enough; the gouty Justice in drawing out the cheque had forgotten to sign his name.

John rubbed his heated forehead, and looked perplexed. "What's to be done?" said he.

"You must take back the cheque and get it signed, of course," said the clerk; "as it is, it is of no more use than blank paper." And having thus summarily dismissed the business, the clerk turned away to attend to a gentleman who had just entered the office.

"This ben't the First of April, or I should have thought the Justice had chosen to play me a trick," thought John, as, somewhat mortified and provoked, he replaced the cheque in his pocket-book, and then quitted the bank.