spoiled my picture and my philosophical application of the stream,” said Ruth, patting my hand in a little dramatic display of acted anger. "I will not interrupt you again, Ruth."

"That bright, pure stream is polluted presently with the refuse of a paper-mill; then it grows clear again, but is never quite so pure as at first. It hurries on through the meadow, growing clearer and more beautiful as it distances the haunts of men; then a tanner bars its way, and pours lime and dye and all manner of poisonous washings into it. Here the spirit of the brook breaks down and grovels in its infamy; it hangs about the tannery, creeping here and there lazily and shamelessly with its load of guilt. One day a storm comes, and it breaks away once more into the meadow, and by woods and hills, until it is almost pure again. Other bad influences affect it in other places; but the original good in its nature, the force of the original spring away in the distant country of its youth, comes back to aid it, and at last it goes out to the sea a noble river, bearing ships into the great ocean."

"A charming picture," I said, "like one of your own watercolours; but only like Mr. Pensax when the river halts at the tanyard."

"Like Mr. Pensax in this, George-his career has been influenced by bad advice and bad associations. The paper-mill and the tanyard are his Triggs and satellites, his wicked impulses, his sins and trespasses; his escapes from these polluting influences are shown by his public gifts, his almshouses, his hospitals, his memorial windows; these are represented by the stream in the woods and meadows. May we not hope that, at last, he, too, will be free of evil influences, and will go down to the great ocean of Eternity, if not pure, stained only as the river is stained by battle and tempest; but great and true and noble at last; noble in its usefulness; and bearing to Him, who gave them, the talents increased a thousandfold?”

"You have forgiven Pensax, Ruth, and would have Mary do so," I said.

"I forgive all the world, George; Calvary has only one lesson for me."

"God bless you, my dear Ruth," I said; "you are indeed a good woman."

Ruth sat down at the piano and played to her own thoughts an extemporaneous kind of musical poem that seemed to follow the stream, wandering through meadows and by woods and mountains. It brought back to me thoughts of that picnic long ago when she leaned on my arm in the mowing grass. I saw a barge moving

slowly through hop-yards and corn-fields, through meadow-sweet, and by rushes. I saw the shadow of it down in the water among white clouds that raced it in a blue expanse of sky.

"Beg your pardon, sir; Beck's man has asked if he could speak to you a moment, sir," said Hannah, who had come into the room almost unobserved.

My wife ceased to play.

"Go on, dear, go on; I will be back in a moment," I said; but she watched me out of the room with a sad, inquiring look.

"Very sorry to disturb you, sir," said Beck's man.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Well, you see, sir, I thought I would just ask if I was likely to be fetched," said the man, who had risen respectfully from his seat and laid down a book of sermons, which was the only literature in the

"You see," I said to him, "this painful business is not through any fault of mine-nor of any one's, for that matter. In a moment of want of thought I rendered myself liable, and I will pay the money." "Yes, sir, no doubt," said the man humbly.

"But this seizure is illegal; the property here is in settlement; and, moreover, this action is a breach of faith. Kitts and Wiggles gave my lawyer a solemn promise that the action should be fairly and properly contested."

"Yes, sir; but Kitts and Wiggles is a very hard lot, sir; they can only be bound down on paper, sealed and signed," said the man. "I rely upon your keeping your own counsel with the servants," I said.

"Yes, sir; they be a bit inquisitive, but they gets nothing out of me," he said.

"You do not seem to like your business much," I said; "I thought men became used to everything in the way of their occupation."

"I believe they do, sir; this is only the fourth house as I've been in; and if I could get any work at all, sir, I'd never be put into another."

"It must indeed be a painful sort of occupation," I said.

They've only put me into very respectable houses as yet, sir; I could never stand being in a poor man's house, though some men's equal to pulling the bed from under folks."

"Ah, it is a dull room this," I said, looking round at the dark panels,

the dark corners, and the darker ivy that hung round the window and shaded it from the only gleam of light that two old elms in the back garden admitted to this lower part of the house.

"Wouldn't mind that, sir, if I'd a book or two to read ; but it ain't worth while giving me none as I'm to go this evening," said the man, with an inquiring look.

"You shall have some books," I said. been reading?"

"What is this you have

"Sermons, sir," he said. "Very good sermons, sir, but not for a poor man ; the poor wants more consideration than they gets in this world, sir."

I rang the bell, and stood as much at my ease as possible when Hannah entered.

"Bring half a dozen periodicals here out of the bookshelves, and the newspapers lying near them, Hannah.”

"Yes, sir," said the girl, looking strangely at the man, who stood submissively in the shadow of the firelight, while I shut out the fire from him with a pompous air that was quite new to her.

"I hope you are right, sir, about my going; they never told me how long I'd have to stay; but somehow I thought as it would not be for long," said the man.

"My lawyer assured me that you would go this evening,” I said. "Yes, sir; thank you, sir; thank you, miss," he said, as Hannah laid down the papers and periodicals.

"There, now make yourself as comfortable as you can," I said, "and ring for anything you want."

"Thank you, sir," said Beck's man; and I returned to my wife. Evening came, and night; Beck's man was still in the breakfastroom. I kept my promise to Ruth.

"I knew it, George," she said, with the tears in her eyes; "I have known it all day long."

"My poor child," I said, "how could you know it ?"

"This once occurred at the Deanery, George; I did not know it at the time; but Mary told me afterwards, and that was one of the reasons for her attachment to Pensax; he came to the Dean and put down upon his table five thousand pounds in five bags of gold. Oh, my poor, dear father, no one knew how great his troubles were!"

"You must not cry, Ruth; we, too, have had greater sorrows than this-grief for the dead; a mere incident such as this in our battle with the living must not daunt and depress us. All will be well presently."

VOL. VII., N.S. 1871.

UU

"Can we not borrow the money?" she asked. "My pictures; sell them, George; sell anything."

"Do not excite yourself, dear; I will see my lawyer the very first thing in the morning, and have the matter settled in some way."

Going to bed that night I remember that we passed the breakfastroom as if it really did contain a ghost, or as if a murder had been freshly done there. Ruth shuddered, and hurried by. Beck's man had not gone to bed. He was still reading the papers. The light of his candle gleamed beneath the door. I caught the infection of my wife's evident horror of the room. We double-locked our chamber, and said our prayers at greater length than usual. Awake half the night, we pretended to be asleep; and Ruth's breath came and went quick and fast when Beck's man came upstairs. We could hear his creaking boots. He paused for a moment near our door, and then my wife started up in terror; but the poor man only stopped to creep up his own staircase with additional precaution. Noticing the creaking of his boots, he had paused on the stairs to take them off. I confess that my own heart beat wildly for a moment; my mind was upset, as you will readily understand. To make the jar of it greater, I had been reading De Quincey's thrilling and awful "Postscript" a week previously, and the Williams' murders flashed across my thoughts for a moment. But Beck's man sought his own room. We heard the door close and the lock fall. Would to Heaven this had been the last night of our listening for that soulcrushing sound of the enemy's footsteps!

CHAPTER XXII.

WHY THEY CALLED HIM BECK'S MAN.

ANOTHER day and another passed like the first. My lawyer said we must learn to bear with Beck's man. On no account must we pay the money, even if we had it. The law must take its course. Kitts and Wiggles were wrong, and Kitts and Wiggles would suffer for what they had done. Kitts and Wiggles said their instructions were imperative from Oswald's executors. A few days more would bring relief, and we must bear our misfortune bravely. The jovial-looking whist player came down to "The Cottage" and told Ruth all this himself, and it comforted her greatly. He even made her laugh by his anecdotes of Goldsmith and Sheridan, who put liveries on their

bailiffs and made them wait at table. The whole thing, in his hands, became an elaborate joke, especially after a bottle of the Deanery port. I tried to keep up the humour when he had gone, but it was like a man who was dying of starvation trying to make epicurean jests. Nevertheless, I began to take a special interest in Beck's man, with whom I had frequent conversations. My wife had never seen him, but she pitied him heartily when I repeated the conversation I had had with him.

"I am going to ask you a very great favour," he said, on the second or third day of his visit.

"I'd give anything for a pipe, sir, if it might be allowed."

"Certainly, yes, by all means," I said; "smoke."

"I've got no pipe nor tobacco, sir," he said; "I comed away in

such a hurry I brought nothing with me."

"Where did you come from?"

"Drury Lane, sir; that's where I lodges."

"You are a bachelor, then?"

"No, sir," said the man, smiling somewhat sadly; "I'm married, and have five children."

"Indeed!"

"Five little ones, sir."

"How old?"

"The youngest six months, and the oldest six years."

"And are they in lodgings with you?"

"Yes, sir, in two rooms; and my wife that ill she could hardly speak when I comed away."

"How sad! Dear me ! And you have heard nothing of them for several days?"

"No, sir; and they don't know where I am, no more than the dead; and I only left them two shillings."

The poor man's voice trembled as he spoke.

"It a'most drives me mad, sir, to think on it; but what's a man to do?"

And here, I thought, he is obliged to sit doing nothing, with this knowledge of the misery of his wife and children gnawing at his very heartstrings.

"I'd been out of work ten weeks afore Beck took me up."