CHAPTER I.

T was Saturday night, a clear, fine evening in July, and the Hilton people were beginning to draw breath after a hot, busy day. For Saturday, as everyone knows, is market day at Hilton, and about twice as much business is done on that day as during the rest of the week, when Hilton is as sleepy and lazy as most other small country

towns.

James Golding has not time yet to get breath, hardly time to wipe his hot forehead between handing the square packet of tea, and little cone of sugar to one customer, and dropping the money into the till, and turning to the next with a "Well, ma'am, and what's for you?"

James Golding's was only a small shop, and stood quite in the outskirts of Hilton, looking across the cricket-field, and away to the river; there was only himself and a boy to attend to his customers, and there was not much to be seen through the small panes of his little shop window; and yet many a farmer's gig or spring cart stops at Golding's, as it is driven out from market, rather than at Parker's, the grand grocers in the market-place, with the large plate-glass windows, and the china man with a nodding head, and the heaps of coffee, and the pyramids of sugar in the window, and the row of smart, obliging young men in white aprons. For Golding's was an old established business, his father had kept the shop before him, and the fathers and mothers of the present race of farmers and farmers' wives had dealt there, and found the things good, before Parker or plate-glass had been thought of in Hilton.

A small, sharp-faced man was James Golding, older looking than his years, which were about forty-five, his hair was growing thin on his temples, and there were lines on his forehead, and round his mouth, that told of trouble in his life. Few people, indeed, see forty years of this troublesome life without a dark cloud or two, and James Golding has not been free, as we shall hear, if we listen to those two women, who, having stowed away the various packets in their baskets, are turning home together in the fast growing dusk.

"He must be making a smart bit of money, Master Golding must," said one.

Ay, ay," was the answer; "he sticks to his business, he does, and sees to things himself, and that's the way to make money."

"I don't see, neither, why he need be working so hard, when he's only his own mouth to fill, and not a chick nor child to think for. It was a sad thing his losing his wife and child so sudden." "Yes, so I've heard tell. He felt it terrible bad, they say." "Ay, that he did, I mind it well. He weren't over young when he married, and folks did say as how he might have chosen better, for she was one of them smart ones, dressy and fond of company and that; and she made the money fly faster than Golding liked altogether. But he was terrible foolish over her, and she had her way in most things. They made no end of fuss over the baby, and it was dressed up to the skies pretty near; my lady's at the

James Golding's Boy.

Hall was nothing to it in its ribbons and laces. And then she went off to see her people, they wasn't of these parts, lived t'other side of London, or somewheres, and there she and her baby died. I never heard tell much about it, but it must have been quite sudden, and James Golding felt it terrible, and couldn't abear to hear a word of it; but it made an old man of him."

"A bad job for him," replied the other; "but there, it's always the way, them as has plenty has nobody to give it to, and poor folk like us, as find it hard to make two ends meet, have half-adozen children, and next to nothing to put in their mouths."

And then their talk turned from Golding's trouble to bad times and babies, where we will not follow it.

The little oil lamp was lighted in the shop window before the customers ceased coming. No early closing on Saturdays for the Hilton shopkeepers. What would the labourers wives have done, who only got their wages when their husbands came home from work, and then had to go to shop with them? So the shops were open later on Saturdays, and Golding's was often one of the latest. Nine was striking from St. Peter's on the Hill, when Golding at last bid the boy put up the shutters; but even then some one pushed open the door, with its little jingling bell, and came up to the counter. All the afternoon and evening a woman had been loitering about near the shop, a dirty, poor-looking woman, a regular tramp, with broken, dusty boots, and ragged bonnet pulled down low over her face. A child was with her, a little boy about three, a bright and merry little fellow, who seemed quite contented, playing about in the dust, and rolling on the grass. Through the hot afternoon this woman and child had stayed on the dusty bit of turf opposite the shop, between the road and the hedge of the cricket-field, the woman dozing, and the child playing, but Golding had been too busy to notice them. He was making up his books as the woman entered, and at the same time keeping an eye on the shop-boy, who was as much given to mischief as most boys. Gently, Tom, gently, them shutters ain't made of iron-6 and 4 is 10 and 9 is 19, 1s. 7d.-mind that glass there-carried forward £2 1s. 7d. No, my good woman, I haven't anything for you. Come be off, we're just closing."

The woman made no answer, but laid one thin, worn hand, with a wedding ring on the third finger, near James Golding's on the counter, while with the other she pushed back her ragged bonnet, and cleared the rough hair from her forehead and eyes, and stood looking at him. For a minute he did not notice her, for he was still busy reckoning, but when he had reached the bottom of the column, he turned to her again, angrily: "Come, did you hear what I said?" and then the words died away on his lips, as his There was something more than the entreaty of an eyes met hers. ordinary beggar in those eager eyes, and the misery of that haggard, worn face.

"James," said a weak, hoarse voice, and the sound seemed to break the spell that kept James Golding staring at the woman's face. "I've nothing for you," he said, coldly, and turned to his

"Have you forgotten" the woman began, but he interrupted almost fiercely, though his voice was low, lest the strange meeting should be noticed by the boy outside the window. "No," he said, "I have not forgotten that I had a wife once, but I lost her two years ago-Do you hear? She died, as far as I am concerned, and there's an end of it."

"I don't ask anything for myself," the woman's weary, hopeless voice went on, "God knows I've no right to ask anything of you, but it's the child-poor little boy-your boy, James Golding, your boy! have pity on him!"

Golding's face was white and set, and his voice came hoarsely from his shut teeth. "If you don't go off this minute with that brat of yours, I'll have the constable to turn you out. And don't let me ever see your face again."

"It isn't likely," the woman said, as she took the child's hand, "as you'll ever be troubled with me again; but the child, oh! James Golding, the child! God have mercy on it, if you wont!" "4 and 5 is 9 and 6 is 15."

James Golding was back at his books again, and, as the boy came in from putting up the shutters, he met the ragged woman and child going out into the dark street. The woman's shawl caught on the sugar-cask at the door, and tore, but she did not seem to notice it, passing on into the night without a look back, and his master was busy still with his books and took no heed. But the figures were dancing and swimming before Golding's eyes, and he shut the book with a bang, saying to himself that he was tired and must do it another time.

The shop boy bid him Good night, and ran off whistling down the street, and James Golding locked the door after him and turned into the little back-parlour where his solitary supper was set ready for him. It was all very nice and comfortable, but the room seemed hot and stifling to him, and he opened the little casement and looked out into his garden behind. There were heavy clouds coming up, and he said to himself that a storm was coming, and even as he thought it, a low rumbling sound of thunder in the distance, and the first heavy drops of rain showed that he had said true. It came on quickly, heavy peals of thunder, bright, dazzling flashes of lightning and pouring rain, a storm that made one glad to be under a good shelter, as Golding was. His supper was waiting for him, and his pipe lay ready filled on the shelf, and upstairs his bed was inviting him to rest after his hard working day, but he did not seem inclined for either, but sat watching the storm, and, forgetting the comforts and shelter he enjoyed, his mind followed two homeless, shelterless wanderers, going on with weary feet and drenched clothes, and in spite of himself he heard the voice of a tired little child crying in the storm, and he heard again the woman's despairing voice-"It's the child! God have mercy on it if you won't!"

The storm was passing, and James Golding got up and shook himself, as if to shake off his oppressive fancies, and spoke aloud, "I swore I'd done with them, and I'd well nigh forgotten them, and I won't be worried with them now;" and he turned to his supper

and went up to bed, and soon fell asleep and dreamt of old days when he was the happiest and proudest man in Hilton, with his little boy in his arms, and his pretty wife, and his happy home, and he woke with a start, fancying he heard a child crying, and turned over saying, "I've done with them for ever," and went to sleep again.

A hard man was James Golding, but he had borne a great deal, and the cold touch of trouble had frozen, not broken, his heart. He had idolized his wife and baby with all the love of a narrow nature; they had been his one thought and hope in this world and the next. His very love and faith in God seemed only part of his love and faith in them, and his kindness to his fellow-men was only the overflowing of his exceeding kindness to his wife and baby.

5

When then one day, as he was thinking of the delight of his wife's return from a visit to her parents to the home that was so lonely without her, he received a letter from her father, full of shame and anger, against his daughter, saying how she had been false to her husband, and sinned against God, and how she had left her father's house, taking the baby with her; Golding's faith, his love, his peace of mind, crumbled to dust, and his life was ruined; words of comfort and sympathy were added, but what good were they to his crushed heart. In the bright morning of that day the neighbours saw James Golding creep out white and dazed, and blinking, like one dazzled in the sun, and with his own hands put up the shutters.

'Anything wrong?" asked one, passing by. "Yes," was the answer; 66

my wife and child are dead."

CHAPTER II.

ST. PETER'S on the Hill was a small, plain church at the unfashionable end of Hilton. It had been built when St. Margaret's could no longer pretend to hold all the town, and had been divided into a separate parish, and was now independent of St. Margaret's altogether, and had schools and clergymen of its own. Mr. Percy was the name of the incumbent, and he was much liked. A plain, kind-hearted man, with free sympathy for all troubles, great or small, from the man who had lost his fortune to the child who had broken its doll. He had not many rich people in his parish, for at St. Margaret's were to be found the fashionables of Hilton, and little St. Peter's had a poorer class of worshippers, who, I am sure, praised God no less heartily that they worked hard all the week. It was to St. Peter's that James Golding went every Sunday. He had been one of the first to go there when it was consecrated three years before, and his wife was at his side then. His baby was baptised there, and Golding still went on attending regularly at the morning and evening service after his trouble fell on him.

Mr. Percy had noticed the change in Golding, caused, as he supposed, by his intense sorrow at his wife's death, and he tried to lead the man to speak of his grief, and so lighten the load that lay on his heart. He spoke to him of not sorrowing as one without hope, of the pleasant memory of his peaceful married life, of the troubles and sorrows his wife had escaped, of the safe haven she and her baby had found free from the trials of this transitory life, and of the hope of meeting them both again in heaven; and he never guessed how his kindly meant words only sent a new sting into the man's sick heart. But when he found that all his attempts at comfort were met by respectful silence, and only added to Golding's gloom, he gave them up, commending him to a better Comforter. He would not quite let him go, however, but tried to win his friendship, though he could not gain his confidence. He tried to interest him in parochial matters, invited him to join the choir, where his bass voice was very useful, and often consulted him and talked over matters with him, till Golding was called Mr. Percy's right hand man.