TWO WAYS OF FACING LIFE

BY

FLORENCE E. BURCH

LONDON

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

56 PATERNOSTER ROW AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER.

I. YOUNG GREATHEART

II. TWO WAYS OF FACING LIFE

III. COURTING SOCIETY

IV. A LESSON IN CIRCUMSPECTION

V. THE MONITOR SPEAKS IN VAIN

VI. HEROES IN BOOKS AND IN REAL LIFE

VII. MR. GREATHEART AGAIN

VIII. IN THE STABLE-YARD

IX. THE ONLY SON OF HIS MOTHER

X. A VOICE OF WARNING

XI. A PARTING WORD ABOUT AMBITION

XII. THE UNIVERSITY AND THE WORKSHOP

XIII. BUILDING

XIV. IN THE SCHOOL OF ADVERSITY

XV. NED VIGUS' SECRET

XVI. A TIMELY INTERRUPTION

XVII. ALL THINGS BECOME NEW

XVIII. A TELEGRAM

XIX. AN UNLOOKED-FOR HOLIDAY

XX. SICKNESS UNTO DEATH

XXI. THE SHINING OF THE RIVER

TWO WAYS OF FACING LIFE

CHAPTER I.

YOUNG GREATHEART.

"He feels the immortal light of Spirit live Within his breast,—but knows not that in years To come that warm and flashing ray will give The brightest rainbow through the bitterest tears." ELIZA COOK.

IN the twilight of an October evening, a lad of some seventeen years was walking briskly homeward along a road leading from the common to the small country town which was his native place.

He was a well-built lad, tall and strong, and over his shoulder was slung a basket of carpenter's tools. His features were of that homely English type which so frequently appears the very reverse of handsome until fired with an individuality of expression by the awakening of the soul within; but his eyes were clear with truthfulness and perfect health, and there was something in the merry whistle that accompanied his rapid strides which proclaimed his mind to be as sound as his body.

They were no comic ditties of the day he whistled, but wild, free scraps of old tunes learnt in schoolboy days—airs that every Briton knows—woven up in strange medley with impromptu interludes, cadences, and arias never heard before, and in all probability never to be heard again; for Joseph Adams had "music in his soul," and frequently expressed the exuberance of his spirits in extempore melody.

He was a couple of miles from home yet; but the way was down a gentle incline, which made walking no labour, although he had been at work ever since early morning. Soft, rainy breezes were rustling the dry leaves in the hedgerow, too, blowing cool and refreshing about his cheeks and hands; whilst overhead the stars were beginning to show their timid lights, in striking contrast with the dusky red of the gas lamps already visible against the dark grey distance. So he paced steadily on, enjoying the exercise in every muscle of his robust frame.

Twenty minutes' walk brought him into the street. The bustle of the day was over. Men were returning from their work, tired horses were retracing their steps to the stable, and Joseph, too, began to have thoughts of the fireside and tea. A few seconds more, and he was at the market square. It had been market-day; but the square had emptied long ago, with the exception of one or two sweet-stalls, at which a cluster of noisy youngsters were exchanging for lumps of various sticky compounds the coppers earned by running errands for buyers and sellers.

But at the further side of the market-place, a great commotion was going on, hoots and shouts and cries. And above them all, a sharp, yet feeble voice, raised in angry protest.

Joseph recognised it at once. He halted an instant, then swinging round, made straight for the spot.

A dozen or more young imps were congregated round a little old man, whose shrivelled face was scarcely visible above their heads as he turned sharply from side to side, now parrying their attacks with vigorous thrusts of the stick which he held in his right hand, now swearing and threatening in a manner the absurdity of which was rendered only too patent by the tottering uncertainty of his gait and the wavering movements of his arms. Joseph took in the situation at a glance, and strode rapidly towards the group.

The little old man, with his queer old-fashioned knee-breeches and his mania for collecting rubbish, was the butt of no little sport, which might have found a more legitimate object than the grey-haired helplessness of a nonagenarian, and Joseph had on more than one occasion been his champion.

He arrived just in time to see the bits of sticks and paper which the old man had gathered together in his left hand fly far and wide, as one of his tormentors caught his wrist with a sudden jerk. The old man, vociferating loudly, and describing a wide semicircle about his head with the stick, had stooped to pick them up again. But before he could do this, he was attacked from the rear, pelted with mud and belaboured with blows, whilst one youngster who possessed a switch inserted it under the edge of his cap, and with a dexterous twitch sent it flying aloft far over the heads of his comrades, by some of whom it was caught and made to play the principal part in a desperate game of ball.

"Hold there!" shouted Joseph, seizing by the arm one of the boys, who, however, with a desperate effort freed himself and rushed off in pursuit of the cap.

But at that moment, Joseph became aware of a new element, against which he had never had to contend on previous occasions. A few paces apart were four or five big lads, egging the others on and applauding with loud guffaws and laughter. But Joseph was nothing daunted.

"You'd better drop this!" he exclaimed, with a sudden snatch wresting the switch from the hand of its owner, and dealing him a smart stroke across the shoulders. "It's a shame if you can't respect white hairs!"

As he said these words, one of the big lads rushed forward and aimed a rough blow at his head. But Joseph was too quick for him, and deftly parrying the blow, sent his adversary staggering back among the group.

"At him! Give it him!" shouted the others, in expectation of a fight. But the assailant, who had more bully than real valour about him, appeared to have had enough of Joseph's fist, and contented himself with abusive language.

Meanwhile, the old man was doing his best to increase the noise of the fray, and at the same time to attract his persecutors back to him.

"I'll teach 'em to respect me," he cried, in his querulous, childish voice, raising himself up from his quest after the scattered treasures, and striking his stick menacingly upon the ground, whilst his thin hair bristled in the breeze. "Aha! 'They've' got to come to this, yet. If I was ten years younger, I'd thrash every shred o' skin off their backs; that I would. 'A' will!'" the old man added, growing still more furious, as a sudden gust reminded him of the loss of his cap. "'A' will!' I'll thrash 'em within an inch o' their lives!"

A roar of laughter greeted these threats, and a chorus of "Old Daddy David! Old Daddy David!" from those who had remained to witness the fun between Joseph and his aggressor. Whilst the rest of the crew, concluding from this triumphant chant that Joseph had abandoned their victim to his fate, came trooping back to the onset, tossing the cap in the air as they came.

On perceiving Joseph, however, they hung back.

"Bring that cap here!" shouted the latter, "or it'll be the worse for you. I'm not going to stand by and see an old man ill-treated. Bring it back at once, I say!"

But the boys had no intention of giving up the sport so readily. The cap shot merrily from one to the other, now rising high in the air, now flying far away over the open space, where it was scrimmaged and fought for until its colour, by nature black, was completely disguised by dust and dirt.

At length, as Joseph brought his menaces from the level of mere generalities to threats in which the words "schoolmaster" and "father" held prominent places, the young scamps began to consider the advisability of relinquishing the game. At the very moment when the old man, having once more possessed himself of all his scraps and sticks, was raising his head with a view to adding his weight to Joseph threats, the cap was flung back full in his face with a force which sent him staggering backwards and would have made him fall, had not Joseph caught him by the arm. As it was, all his treasures were once more scattered on the ground, to the infinite delight of his persecutors, who, having spent their ingenuity, fled from the spot with a whoop and a parting chorus of "Old Daddy David!"

During this occurrence, two figures had been crossing the square, and hearing the noise had come up to see what was going on. On ascertaining the nature of the disturbance, however, they at once turned aside to pursue their way.

"Daddy is in good hands," remarked the taller and darker of the two.

"Yes," remarked the other, a fair-haired youth of seventeen, who had his arm linked through that of his companion; "a new species of knight-errantry that!"

"One which doesn't commend itself to my taste," returned the first speaker. "When I have any surplus energy to bestow on 'redressing human wrongs,' I will devote it to the service of 'Fair Ladyes,' not to scrimmaging with small boys for the property of a doting old idiot who ought to be safe in the Union."

Joseph had been too much taken up to observe their approach, but this last remark caught his ear, and looking round, he recognised the speaker. He stood gazing after them for a moment, stung by the sneering tone in which the words were said. But quickly recollecting the old man, he set to work beating and brushing the unfortunate cap.

"Now, Daddy," he said, as he restored it to him, "you and I had better get home. Never mind about the bits and scraps," he added, as the old man went on feeling and scraping after them with his stick. "They can lie there till to-morrow. You'll be wanting to get into your corner by the fire now, and have some tea."

But Daddy David was set upon recovering his treasures.

"It has taken me ever since the forenoon to collect them," he said. "And d'ye think I'll go home without 'em 'cause those blackguardly little chaps don't know what's due to white hairs!" he cried, striking his stick on the ground. "Not I! I'll stop here till midnight, but I'll take 'em home; that a' will!" And he returned to his quest.

Finding that he was bent upon securing them, and determined not to leave him to the risk of meeting those boys again, Joseph good-naturedly assisted him to pick them up, and forthwith proceeded to pilot him across the square to the turning where he lived. Then wishing him "good-night," he left him on the doorstep alternately invoking blessings on the head of his deliverer, and all sorts of evils—possible and absurd—upon the hearths and homes of those who had so far forgotten the respect they owed to his advanced years.

"Funny they can't let him alone," Joseph said to himself as he turned away. "Not much to be wondered at, though, all things considered. He's an odd little fellow; and that is such a queer craze of his—always scraping up those useless scraps of rubbish."

But here his reflections were brought to an abrupt termination. Coming up the street towards him was the very same young fellow who had uttered the disparaging remark about his knight-errantry. He was about a year or so Joseph's senior, just at that age when youths are regarded as young men by nobody but themselves. Like the latter, he was tall and well-built, but of slighter stature, and with a tinge of darker blood in his veins. A glance by broad daylight, however, would have sufficed to tell that they were related, though further scrutiny would have revealed the fact that fortune had smiled very unfairly on the two branches of the old stock which the youths represented.

Neville Adams was first cousin to Joseph. But his father having inherited a little house property in his right of "eldest son," and having besides married a wife with money, had risen from the position of a working carpenter to that of master builder, whilst his brother Joseph—whose only son is the hero of our story—still continued to take wages of him.

Riches do not always prove a blessing, especially when they are not the direct result of personal exertion. Benjamin Adams was getting on in the world; making money fast, people said. He had given his children high-sounding names, Neville and Wilhelmina, and sent them to a good school when they entered their teens. Later on, he had built his own house, his brother Joseph working at it with the other men; and now it was furnished in the newest style, and Mrs. Adams held up her head and began to seek well-to-do acquaintances. But the old tie of brotherhood was forgotten; and if Neville had more polished manners than Joseph, he lacked something of the latter's honesty and candour; whilst twelve-year-old Ruth promised to be of a far sweeter disposition than her cousin Mina, though the latter could play the piano brilliantly and paint on satin.

The salutations between the two lads was a very fair index of the terms they were on, as well as of their difference of character. Joseph's "good-night" was frank and hearty, Neville's refined and affected. But neither attempted to stop and speak, for Neville had acquaintances who would not care to associate with Joseph, and the latter had been schooled accordingly.

It gave him little more than a passing thought just then, however, for a hundred yards or so more brought him within sight of home, and in a few minutes, he was entering the keeping-room, where his father was already seated at his tea.

His mother was anxiously waiting to welcome him back to the cosy fireside.

"You're late, Joseph," she said, glancing up admiringly at his tall form, as he swung his basket of tools from his shoulder and passed through to the kitchen with it.

"So would you be, if you'd been fighting Daddy David's battles," responded Joseph, who was washing his hands under the tap. "Young scamps!" he added, as he returned. "I gave one of them something to remember."

"You can't do any good, Joseph," said his mother. "You cannot always be at Daddy's elbow."

"But when I am, I guess I won't see him knocked about," rejoined the lad, with spirit, as he helped himself to bread and butter. "You wouldn't feel very proud of me if I did, eh! mother?"

"'I' shouldn't," cried Ruth, gazing up at her brother with evident reverence, very pretty to see. "You're like Mr. Greatheart, Joey."

"That's why you're not afraid of lions when I'm by, eh?" said Joseph, glancing over his cup with a mischievous look.

Thereby "hung a tale." Ruth was foolishly timid of dogs, and the last time they were out together, Joseph had made her go right up to a big farmyard dog with whom he was on particularly good terms, and pat his shaggy head. But it had been a very painful exercise of courage, and the little girl was rather tender on the subject. However, Joseph was too kind to tease, so he went on with his tea.

"They'll find themselves on the wrong side when Mr. Girling comes down on there," he remarked presently.

"What's that?" inquired his father, looking up from his paper.

"Only that I mean to report the names of one or two," replied Joseph; "and if Mr. Girling doesn't cane them soundly, he's not the man I take him for. If I were schoolmaster, I know I wouldn't teach my boys astronomy and botany, and leave them ignorant of their duty with respect to the aged."

"You had much better not interfere, Joseph," said his mother, fearful lest her boy should bring trouble on his own head. "You've done your duty by the old man, and no good ever comes of meddling."

"Not with other people's business," returned Joseph; "but it seems to me 'this' is my business, mother. I never was the one to stand by and see even a toad hacked to pieces; and do you think I can see that helpless old man tormented? Not I! I'll get some of them soundly flogged for their pains."

"You'll only make enemies," expostulated Mrs. Adams.

"What! Amongst those little chaps?" laughed Joseph. "Small harm 'that' will do me."

"The thing is," remarked his father, "Mr. Girling won't cane them. Corporal punishment gets a schoolmaster into difficulties."

"They 'do' use it, though," said Joseph, thinking of his own school days; "and if Mr. Girling has a spark of right feeling, he won't hold back for fear of a summons from any of 'their' parents."

"Well! You will do no harm, if you do no good," rejoined his father, returning to his paper; and there the matter dropped.

But Joseph had not forgotten it. When tea was finished, he took up a journal to read. But after turning it over for a few minutes, he got up, saying, "I suppose I can run down to Mr. Girling's, father. I want him to know of it at once."

Mr. Adams just looked up to nod permission and bid him not be long; and Joseph, taking his cap, slipped out.

A momentary shade of disappointment crossed Ruth's face, for he often helped her with her lessons in the evening, and played draughts when the books were done with. But Mr. Greatheart was a great hero in her estimation, and she had become almost as deeply interested in the proposed flogging of those boys as Joseph himself; so she got her books and set patiently to work by herself.

CHAPTER II.

TWO WAYS OF FACING LIFE.

"Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait." LONGFELLOW.

TO Joseph's infinite satisfaction, Mr. Girling was at home, and he was at once ushered into a little back room, where the latter, seated before a table covered with volumes of all shapes and sizes, was poring over his studies.

Mr. Girling was unmistakeably a book-worm; a single glance sufficed to ascertain that. A hard frown knit his brow, as he bent over the paper before him, and so absorbed was he that he seemed hardly to remark Joseph's entrance. He simply looked quickly up, as the lad obeyed his "Come in," nodding towards a chair with the words, "Sit down a minute," and returned to his task, frowning more intently than ever as he ran over the words half aloud.

It was Greek he was translating, and Joseph smiled involuntarily as the unintelligible sounds caught his ear. But the smile died away almost immediately. The schoolmaster's face was so sallow and careworn, so lined and furrowed, that it looked more like the countenance of a man of fifty, than that of one who was barely thirty-five. Joseph decided very peremptorily in his own mind that the bargain was not worth the price.

"Better far have a sound digestion," he said to himself, "than such tightly-packed brains."

And Joseph was right in a certain degree. But he was ignorant of the motive that prompted such unremitting toil. Mr. Girling's salary was very small, and a widowed mother and an invalid sister were dependent on his exertions; so the noble fellow was wearing away his own life in the endeavour to fit himself to secure greater comfort for them.

After a short space of time during which Mr. Girling appeared to Joseph to have consulted half the books on the table, he raised his head, and throwing himself back in his chair in a manner which plainly told how weary he was, prepared to learn the object of Joseph's visit. But the frown vanished in an instant,—he kept that for his books,—and the kindliest light imaginable shone in his grey eyes as he looked at the fresh young face before him.

"Have you come for a Greek lesson, Joseph?" he asked, with a smile, passing one hand behind his back, which evidently ached with continuous stooping forward.

Joseph shook his head. "Greek wouldn't be of much use to 'me,' sir," he answered.

"Probably not," rejoined the schoolmaster; "though I know more than one lad your age who is learning it."

"I can read my carpenter's rule without it," said Joseph.

"Just so; but that isn't all that life consists in."

"There'll be more carpenter's rule than Greek in mine, I fancy," returned Joseph. "I've done with school, and chosen my trade."