She kept to her resolution. So the "Oldfield Arms" was closed, to the astonishment of all the neighbours. What was the foolish woman about? Had she lost her senses? Why, the inn was doing a capital business. Sir Thomas Oldfield himself came down on purpose from Greymoor Park, when he heard what she was going to do, and tried to talk and laugh her out of it. But she was firm. The house was her own freehold, and she would neither use it herself as an inn, nor let any one else rent it for the same purpose. Of course, she was a fool in the eyes of the world, but she did not care for that; and any one who saw her bright face as she walked about her farm, would have perceived that, whether fool or no, she had the enjoyment of peace in her heart.

But the "Oldfield Arms" was not long without a tenant. The rector took it, as we have before said, and used it partly as shops, and the large public room as a reading-room. And thus it was that the "Dun Cow" remained without a rival as the dispenser of strong drink to the inhabitants of Waterland.



CHAPTER FOUR.

THE PARK.

It was a great vexation to Sir Thomas Oldfield that Mrs Barnes would neither keep the "Oldfield Arms" open herself, nor let it as a public- house to any one else. The "Dun Cow" was quite an inferior place altogether, and nothing but rebuilding it could turn it into anything like a respectable house; but it did very well for the villagers to sot in. There was a good fire, and plenty of room in its parlour, so the "Dun Cow" kept its name, and reigned alone. Sir Thomas, indeed, had no wish to see the public-houses multiplied, for he highly disapproved of drunkenness, so there was no encouragement to set up another house in a fresh place. And, indeed, though there was always custom in abundance for one such establishment, a second would, at the time of the opening of our story, have driven but a poor trade; for the example and appeals of the rector for some seventeen years as a Christian total abstainer, together with the knowledge that all the rectory household were consistent water-drinkers, had been greatly blessed in Waterland. Many had left their drunkenness; a happy change had taken place in several homes; and a flourishing total abstinence society, which included many members from other parishes and villages, held its monthly meetings in the large temperance room under the presidency of Bernard Oliphant.

Sir Thomas Oldfield hated drunkenness, and was very severe upon drunkards, under ordinary circumstances, when brought before him as a magistrate. But, on the other hand, he hated total abstinence very cordially also. He was fond of making sweeping assertions, and knocking timid opponents down with strong asseverations, which passed for excellent arguments at assize dinners, and at parties at Greymoor Park; for it is wonderful what exceedingly loose logic will satisfy even highly-educated people when employed on the side of their appetites or prejudices. Once, indeed, the squire was very considerably staggered, but he never liked a reference to be made afterwards to the occasion. He was presiding at a harvest-home given to his own tenants, and had passed from a warm eulogium on temperance and moderation to a vehement harangue against total abstinence and total abstainers. He was, however, cut short in the midst of his eloquence by a sturdy-looking labourer, who struggled forward, beer-jug in hand, and, tottering at every step, spluttered out,—

"Hooray, hooray, Sir Thomas! Here's long life to the squire—here's long life to moderation. Hooray lads, hooray! Here's three cheers for the squire and moderation. Stand fast to your principles, like me; as for them total abstainers, they haven't got a leg to stand on."

With that he tumbled forward, and, unable to recover his balance, fell flat on the ground before Sir Thomas, and lay there utterly unable to rise.

As was the squire, so had he brought up his family.

Greymoor Park was a noble property, which had come down to him through a long line of ancestors. The house stood on a rocky height, and was surrounded, but not encumbered, by noble groups of trees, from the midst of which it looked out over sloping terraced gardens, glowing with flower-beds, which enamelled the smoothest of turf, across the park from which the estate took its name. The original house was old, but while the fine bay-windows, massive porch, stately gables, and wide staircases, with their carved oak balustrades and pendants, had been preserved untouched, all such modern improvements had been added as would soften off the inconveniences of a less luxurious age. The park itself was remarkable for the size and grouping of its timber, and was well-stocked with deer. A fine sheet of water also spread itself out over an open space between the trees, so as to form a delightful variety to the view from the great bay-windows. Indeed, if the things of the present life could have made a man happy, Sir Thomas had abundant grounds for happiness in this world. Yes, in this world, but not beyond it. For Sir Thomas was just simply and thoroughly a man of the world, and a most respectable man of the world too. No man could place his finger on a blot in his character or conduct. He lived for the world, and the world applauded him. He lived to please self, and to a considerable extent he succeeded.

Lady Oldfield wished to be something higher. She knew the emptiness of the world, at least in theory. She wished to be a Christian, but was not. The glow of a pure gospel faith, caught by intercourse with true Christians, might be often found in her words, but it went no farther; as the pavement on which the rich hues of a stained glass window fall, is but a cold colourless pavement after all, so was her heart cold, worldly, colourless for God. She was careful to have her children taught religiously—the Bible lesson, the catechism, were learnt both regularly and perfectly. No child might omit its prayers night or morning, nor be absent from the daily family worship. No household was more strict in its attendance at church; and nothing brought down more speedily and severely her ladyship's displeasure than negligence to go to God's house, or irreverence or inattention during the service. Thomas, the eldest son, and heir to the baronetcy, was at present abroad with his regiment; the second son, Frank, was just one-and-twenty; the rest of the children were daughters.

Ever since the coming of Bernard Oliphant to Waterland, there had been free intercourse between the two families at the hall and the rectory; for Mr Oliphant was a distant relation of the Oldfields, and it was through Sir Thomas that he had been presented to the living. So the young people grew up together, though there was, strictly speaking, more intimacy than friendship between them, especially as the total abstinence principles of the rectory were a bar to any great cordiality on the part of the squire and his lady. On this point the baronet and his wife were entirely agreed. She was less openly severe, yet quite as determined and bitter in her opposition as he. So the two families met, and were civil, and exchanged calls, and the Oliphants dined at the hall occasionally, and the children of both houses had little gatherings and feastings together from time to time. Thus had things gone on for some years after Mr Oliphant had first shown his colours as a total abstainer; Lady Oldfield jealously watching her children, lest any of them should be corrupted by the absurd notions, as she counted them, of the rector and his wife on this subject of total abstinence. She had, however, nothing to fear on this score, as regarded her eldest son. He had never taken much to the Oliphants as a boy, and his absence from home at school and the university had kept him out of the reach of their influence till he left England with his regiment. It was otherwise with the second son, Frank, who was specially his mother's idol, and indeed almost every one else's too. From his earliest boyhood he took people's hearts by storm, and kept them. No one could see him and not love that open, generous, handsome face, with its laughing blue eyes, and setting of rich brown curling hair. No one could hear his joyous, confiding voice, and the expressions of unaffected and earnest interest with which he threw himself into every subject which fairly engaged his attention or affections, without feeling drawn with all the cords of the heart to the noble boy. There was such a thorough openness and freedom in all that he did and said, yet without recklessness and without indifference to the feelings of others. And when, through thoughtlessness or forgetfulness, as was not unfrequently the case, he happened to find himself in some awkward scrape or perplexity, he would toss back his waving hair with a half-vexed half-comical expression, which would disarm at once his mother's anger, spite of herself, and turn her severe rebuke into a mild remonstrance. Alas, that sin should ever mar such a lovely work of God! Frank loved the look of nature that lay open all around him, but not his own books. He abhorred study, and only submitted to it from a sense of duty. His father, at Lady Oldfield's urgent request, kept him at home, and engaged a private tutor for him, whose office would have been a sinecure but for the concern it gave him to find his pupil so hard to drag along the most level paths of learning. Dog's-ears disfigured Frank's books, the result simply of restless fingers; and dog's heads; executed in a masterly style, were the subjects of his pen. He loved roaming about, and there was not an old ruin within many miles round of which he did not know every crevice, nor any birds of song or prey with whose haunts and habits he was not intimately acquainted. In fishing, riding, swimming, he was an early adept, and every outdoor sport was his delight. All the dogs in the neighbourhood rejoiced in him, and every cottager's wife blessed him when he flung his bright smiles around him as he passed along. At no place was he more welcome than at the rectory, nor was there any house in which he felt so happy, not even excepting his own home. With all his wildness he felt the most sincere love and respect for Mr and Mrs Oliphant, and rejoiced in a day spent with their children. And there was one of these towards whom he was drawn with feelings of peculiar tenderness. He was not conscious of it, and would have laughed at the idea had it been suggested to him; yet it was true that when he was but just sixteen Mary Oliphant had begun to wind herself around his heart with those numberless invisible cords which would by degrees enchain him in bonds which no power on earth could break. Mary, of course, mere child as she then was, and brought up by her parents as a child should be, obedient, gentle, unobtrusive, delighted in the companionship of the lively, open-hearted boy, without a thought beyond, and heartily enjoyed many a happy ramble with him and her brothers among the woods and meadows. Frank Oldfield could not but be struck by the love and harmony which reigned in the Oliphant family. He saw the power of a religion which made itself felt without thrusting itself forward into notice. He could not but reflect sometimes, and then even his sunny brow was clouded, that he wanted a something which the children at the rectory possessed; that he wanted a great reality, without which he could not be fully happy. He saw also the bright side of total abstinence when he spent a day with the rector's family. At home there was always abundance of beer and wine upon the table, and he drank it, like others; and not only drank it, but thirsted for it, and felt as if he could not do without it. It was not so when he dined at the rectory, at their simple one o'clock meal, for he enjoyed his food, and seemed scarcely to miss the stimulant.

One day, when he was sitting at the rectory table, he said to Mr Oliphant, looking up with one of his bright smiles,—

"I wish I was a total abstainer."

"Well," said Mr Oliphant in reply, with a smile, "I wish you were; but why do you wish it just now, my dear boy?"

"Oh, I've been thinking a good deal about it lately. I see you smile, Hubert, but I really have been thinking—yes, thinking—I've been thinking that I should like to do as you all do; you're just as happy without beer and wine, and just as well too."

"And is that your only reason, dear Frank?" asked Mrs Oliphant.

"Oh no! that's not all; the plain truth is this, I can't help thinking that if I keep getting fonder and fonder of beer and wine, as I'm doing now, I shall get too fond of it by-and-by."

Mr Oliphant sighed, and poor Mary exclaimed,—

"Oh, Frank, don't say that."

"Ay, but it's true; don't you think, Mr Oliphant, that I should be better and safer without it?"

"I do, most sincerely, my dear boy," answered the rector; "yes, both better and safer; and specially the latter."

"I know," said Frank, "that papa and mamma are not fond of total abstinence; but then, I cannot think that they have really looked into the matter as you have."

"No, Frank, your father and mother do not see the matter in the same light as myself and I have no right to blame them, for, when I first came to Waterland, I thought nearly the same as they do. Perhaps they will take my view by-and-by."

Frank shook his head, and then went on,—

"But you do think it the best thing for young people, as well as grown- up people, to be abstainers?"

"Yes, assuredly; and I will tell you why. I will give you a little illustration. There is a beautiful picture representing what is called the 'Lorelei,' a spirit fabled to haunt some high rocks that overlook the Rhine. This spirit is represented in the picture as a beautiful female, with a sweet but melancholy expression of countenance. She kneels on the top of the rock, and is singing to a harp, which she strikes with her graceful fingers. Below is a boat with two men in it, the one old, and the other young. The boat is rapidly nearing the rocks, but both the men are utterly unconscious of their danger—the old man has ceased to hold the helm, the young man has dropped the oars, and both are fondly stretching out their hands towards the deceiving spirit, wholly entranced with her song—a few moments more and their boat will be a wreck. Now, it is because the drink is such an enticing thing, like the Lorelei spirit; because it seems to sing pleasantly to us, and makes us forget where we are; because it lures on old and young to their ruin, by robbing them of their self-control;—it is for these reasons that I think it such a happy thing to put every safeguard between ourselves and its snares."

"Yes," said Frank thoughtfully; "I know the drink is becoming a snare to me, or may become so. What shall I do? Ought I to give it up altogether?"

"It is a very difficult thing to answer that question," replied the rector. "I could hardly urge you to give up beer and wine altogether, if your father and mother positively forbid your doing so; there is no sin, of course, in the simple taking of fermented liquors, and therefore I could not advise you to go directly contrary to your parents' orders in this matter."

"There is no harm, however, in my trying to give up beer and wine, if my father and mother will allow me?"

"Certainly not, my dear boy; and may God make your way plain, and remove or overcome your difficulties."

The day after this conversation, Frank was sitting in his place at the dinner-table of the hall. The butler brought him a glass of beer. "No, thank you," he said. A little while after he filled a tumbler with water, and began to drink it.

"Frank, my boy," said his father, "are not you well? Why don't you take your beer as usual?"

"I'm quite well, thank you, papa; but I'd rather have the water."

"Well, put some port wine in it, at any rate, if you don't fancy the beer to-day."

"I'd rather have neither beer nor wine, thank you, papa."

By this time Lady Oldfield's attention was drawn to what was passing between her husband and son.

"Dear Frank," she said, "I shall not allow you to do anything so foolish as to drink water. James, hand the beer again to Master Frank."

"Indeed, dear mamma," he urged, "I mean what I say; I really should rather have water."

"Absurd!" exclaimed her ladyship angrily; "what folly has possessed you now? You know that the medical men all say that wine and beer are necessary for your health."

"I'm sure, mamma, the medical men needn't trouble themselves about my health. I'm always very well when I have plenty of air and exercise. If ever I feel unwell, it is when I've had more wine or beer than usual."

"And who, pray, has been putting these foolish notions into your head? I see how it is; I always feared it; the Oliphants have been filling your head with their extravagant notions about total abstinence. Really, my dear," she added, turning to Sir Thomas, "we must forbid Frank's going to the rectory, if they are to make our own child fly in the face of our wishes."

"Mamma," cried Frank, all on fire with excitement and indignation, "you're quite mistaken about the Oliphants; they have none of them been trying to talk me over to their own views. I began the subject myself, and asked Mr Oliphant's advice, and he told me expressly that I ought not to do what you would disapprove of."

"And why should you ask Mr Oliphant's advice? Cannot you trust your own father and mother? I am not saying a word against Mr Oliphant as a clergyman or a Christian; he preaches the gospel fully and faithfully, and works hard in his parish, but on this subject of total abstinence he holds views which neither your father nor I approve of; and, really, I must not have you tampered with in this matter."

"Well, dear mamma, I've done; I'll do as you wish. Farewell water— welcome beer and wine; James, a glass of ale."

It was two years after this that a merry company from the hall and rectory set out to explore a remarkable ruin about five miles distant from Waterland. Frank was leader of the party; he had never given his parents any more anxiety on the score of total abstinence—on the contrary, he had learned to take so freely of wine and beer, that his mother felt at times a little alarmed lest he should seriously overpass the bounds of moderation. When at the rectory, he never again alluded to the subject, but rather seemed eager to turn the conversation when any remark fell from Mr or Mrs Oliphant on the evils arising from intemperance. And now to-day he was in the highest spirits, as he rode on a sprightly little pony by the side of Mary Oliphant, who was mounted on another pony, and was looking the picture of peaceful beauty. Other young people followed, also on horseback. The day was most lovely, and an inspiriting canter along lane and over moor soon brought them to the ruin. It was a stately moss-embroidered fabric, more picturesque in its decay than it ever could have been in its completeness. Its shattered columns, solitary mullions, and pendent fragments of tracery hoary with age, and in parts half concealed by the negligent profusion of ivy, entranced the mind by their suggestive and melancholy beauty; while the huge remnant of a massive tower seemed to plead with mute dignity against the violence which had rent and marred it, and against the encroaching vegetation, which was climbing higher and higher, and enveloping its giant stones in a fantastic clothing of shrub and bramble.

Frank and his party first shut up their horses in the old refectory, closing the entrance with a hurdle, and then dispersed over the ruins. Mary had brought her drawing-pad, that she might sketch a magnificent pillar, and the remains of a transept arch which rose gracefully behind it, crowned with drooping ivy, and disclosing in the back ground, through a shattered window, the dreamy blue of the distant hills. She sat on the mutilated chapiter of a column, and was soon so wholly absorbed in her work, that she never turned her eyes to notice Frank Oldfield, who, leaning against a low archway, was busily engaged in a vigorous sketch, of which herself was the prominent object. And who could blame him? for certainly a lovelier picture, or one more full of harmonious contrast, could hardly have been found, than that presented by the sweet and graceful figure of the rector's daughter, with its surroundings of massive masonry and majestic decay. She all life, a creature of the present, and yet still more of the future, as bright with the sunshine of a hope that could never die; and they, those mouldering stones, that broken tracery, those mossy arches, sad in the desolation of the present, sadder still in the memories of an unenlightened past. Frank finished his sketch, and, holding it behind him, stole gently up to the side of Mary Oliphant.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "a most lovely little bit; and yet, I have the vanity to think that my choice of a subject has been better than your own."

"The drawing is, no doubt," she answered; "but I hardly think you can find such a picturesque group as this in any other part of the ruins."

"Let us compare, then," he said, and placed his own sketch by the side of hers.

"Oh, Frank," she cried, "how can you be so foolish?"

At the same time the colour which flushed her face, and the bright smile which lighted it, showed that the folly was not very reprehensible in her eyes.

"Is it so very foolish?" he asked, half seriously, half playfully. "Well; I wish I had shown the same kind of folly in my choice of some other things as I have in the choice of a subject."

She was about to reply, when suddenly, without any warning, a savage- looking dog dashed into the open space before them, and, making a fierce rush at Mary, caught her by the dress.

"Down, you brute, down!" shouted Frank; but the dog still retained his hold, and growled and tossed himself about savagely. Frank had no stick nor weapon of any kind in his hands, but he darted to a heap of loose stones, and snatching one up turned towards the dog. In the meantime, Mary, in extreme terror, had dropped her drawing-pad, and plucking her dress from the fierce creature's mouth, fled with all her speed across the pavement, and sprang up the projecting stones of an old archway. The dog, with a loud yell, followed her, and easily overtook her, as the ascent up which she had climbed presented a broad footing. Utterly terrified, and unconscious of what she was doing, the poor girl clambered higher and higher to escape her enemy. Frank had now turned upon the dog, and hurled one huge stone at him; it passed near, but did not touch him. Mary's terror only excited the furious animal to follow, and as she saw him close upon her again, with a wild cry she leaped right across to an old fragment of a turret which stood out by itself in an angle of the wall. The dog hesitated, but, before it could decide to follow her, another stone from Frank had struck it full in the side. With a tremendous howl it tumbled down into the court and fled. Poor Mary! she gasped for breath, and could not for a long time recover her self-possession. When at last she became more calm, soothed and encouraged by the kind voice and earnest entreaties of Frank, it was only to awake to the extreme danger of her present position. Fear had made her take a leap which she could never have dared to attempt in her calm senses. She looked across the chasm over which she had sprung, and shuddered. Could she try the leap back again? No; she dared not. In the meantime, the stones to which she was clinging began to loosen beneath her weight. She looked down, and became giddy.

"Oh, save me—save me—I shall fall!" she cried. She clutched at a strong stem of ivy which was climbing up the wall close by, and so supported herself; but it was evident that she could not long retain her hold in that constrained position, even if the stonework did not give way beneath her feet. All the party had now gathered in the open space below, and some began to climb the path by which she had mounted. Frank, in the meanwhile, was making desperate efforts to reach the poor girl.

"Hold on—hold on—dear Mary!" he cried; "a few moments, and I shall be with you; don't lose courage—keep a firm grasp on the ivy; there—I've got a landing on the top of this old arch; now, I'm only a few feet off—steady, steady—don't stir for your life—only a few moments more and I shall be at your side."

It was perilous work indeed; and all who beheld him held their breath as he made his way towards where the object of their deep anxiety was crouched. Now he was clinging to a rough projecting stone, now swinging by a rusty bar, now grasping ivy or brambles, and every now and then slipping as the old masonry gave way beneath his feet. At last, with immense exertion, he gained a ledge a little below where the terrified girl was perched, half lying, half crouching. Here he had firm standing-ground. Placing his hand gently upon her, he bade her slide down towards him, assuring her that she would have a firm footing on the ledge. She obeyed at once, feeling his strong arm bearing her up and guiding her. Another moment, and she stood beside him. But now, how were they to descend? She dared not attempt to leap back to the spot from whence she had sprung in her terror, and there was no regular descent from the slab on which they were perched, but only a few projecting stones down the perpendicular face of the wall, and these at wide intervals.

"There's no way but a roundabout climb down by the ivy," said Frank at last. "Trust to me, dear Mary, and do exactly what I tell you. I will go first, and do you place hand and foot just as I bid you. There—put your foot in that crevice—now take firm hold of that branch; there—now the other foot—now the next step a little to the right, the good ivy makes a noble ladder—now we're nearly landed; there—be careful not to slip on that round stone—one step more, and now we're safe. Oh, thank God, you're safe!"

He clasped her to his heart; she knew that heart was hers; she could not resent that loving embrace; it was but for a moment. He released her, and was turning to the friends who were gathering and pressing round, when a heavy stone, loosened in their descent, fell on his outstretched arm, and struck him to the ground.

Mary sprang towards him with a cry of deep distress.

"Frank, dear Frank—you're hurt—you're dreadfully hurt, I'm sure."

"No, no; not much, I hope," he said, springing up, but looking very pale. "It's an awkward blow rather, but don't distress yourself—we'll make the best of our way home at once—just one of you see to the horses."

He spoke with effort, for he was evidently in great pain. Mary's heart ached for him, but exhaustion and anxiety quite deprived her of the power of speaking or thinking collectively.

The horses were speedily brought. Frank held out his uninjured arm to help Mary Oliphant to mount her pony.

"I'm so very, very sorry," she said, "to have caused this disaster, and spoiled our happy day through my foolish timidity."

"Nay, nay; you must not blame yourself," said Frank. "I am sure we all feel for you. It was that rascal of a dog that did the mischief, but I gave him such a mark of my respect as I don't think he'll part with for a long time."

Poor Frank, he tried to be cheerful; but it was plain to all that he must be suffering severely. They were soon on their way home, but a cloud rested on their spirits. Few words were said till they reached the spot where the roads to the hall and the rectory parted. Then Frank turned to Mary and said, with a look full of tenderness, rendered doubly touching by his almost ghastly paleness,—

"Farewell; I hope you'll be none the worse, dear Mary, for your fright. I shall send over to-morrow to inquire how you are. It was a happy escape."

"Good-bye, good-bye!" she cried; "a thousand thanks for your noble and timely rescue! Oh, I hope—I hope—"

She could not say more, but burst into tears.

"All right—never fear for me!" he cried cheerily as he rode off, leaving Mary and a groom to make their way to Waterland, while himself and the rest of the party hastened on to Greymoor Park.

They had not far to ride, but Frank was evidently anxious to reach home as speedily as possible. With clenched teeth and knit brow, he urged on his pony to a gallop. Soon they reached the lodge; a few moments more and they had passed along the drive and gained the grand entrance. Lady Oldfield had just returned from a drive, and was standing on the top step.

"You're early home," she remarked. "Dear Frank, I hope there's nothing amiss," she added, noticing the downcast looks of the whole party.

Her son did not answer, but, dismounting with difficulty, began to walk up the steps. She observed with dismay that he tottered as he approached her. Could he have been drinking so freely as to be unable to walk steadily? Her heart died within her. The next moment he staggered forward, and fainted in her arms.



CHAPTER FIVE.

GOOD RESOLUTIONS.

"What—what is this?" cried Lady Oldfield in bitter distress. "Frank— my child—my beloved boy—oh, open your eyes—look at me—speak—what has happened? Oh, he's dying, he's dying—James—Richard—carry him up to his room. One of you tell Tomkins to ride off immediately for Dr Portman. Thomas, fetch me some brandy—quick—quick!"

They carried him in a state of complete insensibility to his room, and laid him on the bed. His mother stood over him, bathing his temples with eau-de-cologne, and weeping bitterly. The brandy was brought; they raised him, and poured a little through his blanched lips; slowly he began to revive; his lips moved. Lady Oldfield stooped her ear close to his face, and caught the murmured word, "Mary."

"Oh, thank God," she exclaimed, "that he is not dead! Does any one know how this has happened?"

"I believe, my lady," replied one of the servants, "that Mr Frank was hit by a big stone which fell on him from the top of the ruins. I heard Juniper Graves say as much."

"Ay, my lady," said another; "it were a mercy it didn't kill Mr Frank outright."

The object of their care began now to come more to himself. He tried to rise, but fell back with a groan.

"What can I do for you, my poor boy?" asked his mother; "the doctor will be here soon, but can we do anything for you now? Where is your pain?"

"I fear my left arm is broken," he whispered; "the pain is terrible."

"Take some more brandy," said his mother.

He took it, and was able to sit up. Then with great difficulty they undressed him, and he lay on the bed pale and motionless till the doctor arrived. On examination, it was found that the arm was terribly bruised, but not broken. There were, however, other injuries also, though not of a serious character, which Frank had sustained in his perilous climbing to the rescue of Mary Oliphant. Fever came on, aggravated by the brandy injudiciously administered. For some days it was doubtful what would be the issue; but at last, to the great joy of Sir Thomas and his wife, the turning-point was passed, and Dr Portman pronounced their child out of danger—all he needed now was good nursing, sea-air, and proper nourishment. During the ravings of the fever his mind was often rambling on the scene in the ruins—at one time he would be chiding the dog, at another he would be urging Mary to cling firmly to the ivy; and there was a tone of tenderness in these appeals which convinced Lady Oldfield that her son's heart was given to the rector's daughter. This was confirmed by a conversation which she had with him at the sea-side, where he was gone to recruit his strength. There he opened his whole heart to her, and confessed the depth of his attachment to her whose life he had so gallantly saved. Lady Oldfield was at first pained; she would not have preferred such an alliance for her son. But, on further reflection, the prospect was not so displeasing to her. Mary Oliphant was not inferior to her son in birth, and would have, when she came of age, a good fortune which had been left her by a wealthy aunt. Frank's love for beer and wine, and even spirits, had grown so much of late, that his mother had begun to feel very anxious about him on that score. She had no wish that he should become a total abstainer; indeed she was, at this very time, giving him, by the doctor's orders, as much porter and wine as he could bear; but she thought that Mary's total abstinence might act as a check upon him to keep him within the bounds of strict moderation. She knew, too, that Mary was a genuine Christian, and she sincerely believed that true religion in a wife was the only solid foundation of domestic happiness. Before, therefore, they returned to Greymoor Park, Frank had his mother's hearty consent, subject to Sir Thomas's approval, to his engaging himself to Mary Oliphant.

And what were Mary's own feelings on the subject? Poor girl, she had never realised before that day of peril and rescue that she felt, or could feel, more than a half friendly, half sisterly liking for Frank Oldfield. She had always admired his open generous disposition, and had been happy in his society; but they had been so many years companions, that she had never thought of looking upon him as one likely to form an attachment to herself. But now there could be no doubt on the subject. What passed in the old ruin had convinced her that his heart was given to her; and more than this, that her own heart was given to him. And now his sufferings and illness, brought on him through his exertions to save her from destruction, had called out her love for him into full consciousness. Yet with that consciousness there came a deep sense of pain. It had taken her so by surprise; her heart was given before she had had time to reflect whether she ought to have given it. Could she be happy with him? was he a real Christian? did he love the same Saviour she loved herself? Oh, these thoughts pressed heavily upon her spirit, but she spread out her cares first before her heavenly Father, and then with full childlike openness before her earthly parent—that loving mother from whom she had never had a single concealment.

Mrs Oliphant sighed when her daughter had poured out her anxieties and difficulties.

"Oh, mamma—dearest mamma!" cried Mary, "what ought I to do? I am sure he loves me, and I know that he will tell me so, for he is the very last person to keep back what he feels. What would you and dear papa wish me to do, should he declare his affection? I could not honestly say that my heart is indifferent to him, and yet I should not dare to encourage him to look forward to a time when we shall be one on earth, unless I can trust too that we shall be one hereafter in heaven."

"My precious child," replied her mother, "you know our doubts and our fears. You know that Frank has acknowledged to increasing fondness for intoxicating drinks. You know that his poor mother will rather encourage that taste. And oh, if you should marry, and he should become a drunkard—a confirmed drunkard—oh, surely he will bring misery on my beloved child, and her father's and mother's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."

"Dearest mamma, you have only to say that you are convinced that I cannot be happy with him, or that you and dear papa consider that I ought to relinquish all thoughts about him, and I will at once endeavour to banish him from my heart."

"No, my child. Your affections, it is clear, have already become entangled, and therefore we are not in the same position to advise you as if your heart were free to give or to withhold. Had it been otherwise, we should have urged you to pause before you allowed any thoughts about Frank to lodge in your heart, or perhaps to be prepared to give a decided refusal, in case of his making a declaration of his attachment."

"But you do not think him quite hopeless, dear mamma? Remember how anxious he seemed at one time to become a total abstainer. And might not I influence him to take the decided step, when I should have a right to do so with which no one could interfere?"

"It might be so, my darling. God will direct. But only promise me one thing—should Frank ask you to engage yourself to him, and you should discover that he is becoming the slave of intemperance before the time arrives when you are both old enough to marry, promise me that in that case you will break off the engagement."

"I promise you, dearest mamma, that, cost what struggle it may, I will never marry a drunkard."

It was but a few days after the above conversation that Frank Oldfield called at the rectory. It was the first time that he and Mary had met since the day of their memorable adventure. He was looking pale, and carried his arm in a sling, but his open look and bright smile were unchanged.

"I carry about with me, you see, dear Mary," he said, "my apology for not having sooner called to inquire after you. I hope you were not seriously the worse for your fright and your climb?"

"Oh no," she replied earnestly; "only so grieved when I found what you had suffered in saving me. How shall I ever thank you enough for sacrificing yourself as you did for me?"

"Well," he answered with a smile, "I suppose I ought to say that you have nothing to thank me for. And yet I do think that I may accept of some thanks—and, to tell the truth, I have just come over to suggest the best way in which the thanks may be given."

Mary did not answer, but looked down; and, spite of herself, her tears would fall fast.

"Dear Mary," he said, "the plainest and shortest way is the one that suits me best. I want you to give me your heart—you have had mine long ago, and I think you know it."

She did not speak.

"Oh, Mary, dearest Mary, can I be mistaken? Cannot you—do not you love me?"

"Frank," she replied, in a low and tearful voice, "it would be affectation in me to make a show of concealing my love to you. I do love you. I never knew it till that day; but since then I have known that my heart is yours."

She said this so sadly, that he asked half seriously, half playfully,—

"Would you then wish to have it back again?"

"No, dear Frank; I cannot wish that."

"Then one day—if we are spared—you will be my own loving wife?"

There was no reply, but only a burst of tears.

"Mary, dearest Mary, what am I to understand? Do your parents object to your engaging yourself to me? Oh, surely it is not so?"

"No, Frank; they have not objected—not exactly—but—"

She hesitated and looked down.

"Oh, why then not give me a plain 'Yes' at once? You own that your heart is mine—you know that my heart is yours—why not then promise to be mine altogether?"

"It is true, dear Frank," she replied slowly, "that my heart is yours—I cannot take it back if I would—but it may be my duty not to give my hand with it."

"Your duty! Oh, Mary, what a cold, cruel speech! Why your duty?"

"Well," she replied, "the plain truth is best, and best when soonest spoken. You must know, dear Frank, how we all here feel about the sin and misery caused by strong drink. And you must know—oh, forgive me for saying it, but I must say it, I must be open with you now on this subject—you must know that we have reason to fear that your own liking for beer and wine and such things has been, for the last year or two, on the increase. And oh, we fear—we fear that, however unconsciously, you may be on the downward road to—to—"

She could not finish her sentence.

Frank hung down his head, and turned half away, the colour flushing up to the top of his fair forehead. He tried to speak, but could not for a while. At last, in a husky voice, he whispered,—

"And so you will give me up to perish, body and soul, and to go down hill with all my might and main?"

"No, Frank," she answered, having now regained her composure; "no; I have no wish to give you up to sin and ruin. It will rest with yourself. I cannot promise absolutely that I will be yours. It will depend upon—upon—upon what you are yourself when the time comes that we might marry."

"And you have promised your mother—"

"I have promised—oh, Frank, dear Frank, pardon me if I wound you by plain, rough words, but they must be spoken—I have promised that I will never be the wife of a drunkard."

He bowed his head on his hand, and there was a long and painful silence. Poor Mary, her heart bled for him, as she saw the tears forcing their way between his thin, pale fingers.

"Mary," he said at last, "you must be mine; I cannot live without you. Trust me; you shall have no cause to be ashamed of me. I know—I feel that I have been in great danger of sliding into intemperate habits; but you shall see me and hear of me henceforth as strictly moderate. I solemnly promise you this; and on the very day that makes us one, I will be one with you in total abstinence also. Dearest, will this satisfy you?"

"Yes, dear Frank; I have no right to ask more, if you can be strictly moderate; but oh, do not trust in your own strength. Pray for help, dear Frank, and then you will be able to conquer."

"Oh, of course," he said hastily; "but never fear, I give you my solemn promise that you shall never see nor hear of any excess in me."

And did he keep his resolution? Yes; for a while. But, alas! how little do those in circumstances like his really appreciate the awful difficulties which beset those who are struggling to maintain strict moderation. This makes drunkenness such a fearful and exceptional sin,—

"The bow well bent, and smart the spring, Vice seems already slain."

The resolution is firmly set; the man walks forth strong as a rock in his determination. He begins to drink; his rock is but a piece of ice after all, but he knows it not; it is beginning to melt with the warmth of the first glass; he is cheered and encouraged by the second glass, and his resolution seems to himself stronger than ever, while in very truth it is only melting faster and faster. At last he is over the border of moderation before he conceives that he had so much as approached it. Then, alas! the word "moderation" stands for an unknown quantity, easy to use but hard to define, since one man's moderation may be another man's excess, and to-day's moderation may be an excess to- morrow.

Poor Frank was never more in earnest than when he promised Mary Oliphant that he would observe strict moderation. He had everything to induce him to keep his word—his love for Mary; his desire to please his own parents, who had begun to tremble for him; his own self-respect. So he left the rectory strong as a lion in his own estimation, yet not without a sort of misgiving underlying his conviction of his own firmness; but he would not listen to that misgiving for a moment.

"I mean to be what I have promised, and I will be," he said to himself. "Mary shall see that, easy and self-indulgent as I have been, I can be rigid as iron when I have the will to be so."

Poor Frank! he did not knew his own weakness; he did not know that his was not a will of iron, but was like a foot once badly sprained, which has lost its firm and unfaltering tread. Happy would it have been for him had he sought a strength higher than his own—the strength from above.

For several weeks he kept strictly to his purpose. He limited himself to so much beer and wine, and never exceeded. He became proud of his firmness, forgetting that there had been nothing to test the stamina of his resolution.

At last the annual harvest-home came round. It was a season of great festivity at Greymoor Park. Sir Thomas, as we have said, wished all his tenants and labourers to be sober, and spoke to that effect on these occasions; at the same time he was equally anxious that both meat and drink should be dealt out with no niggard hand. So men and women took as much as they liked, and the squire was very careful to make no very strict inquiries as to the state of any of his work-people on the following day; and if any case of intemperance on these occasions came to his knowledge afterwards, as commonly happened, it was winked at, unless of a very gross and open character.

"Poor fellows," said the good-natured landlord, "it's only once in a year that they get such a feast, and I must not be too strict with them. There's many a good fellow gets a little too much on these days, who is an excellent steady workman and father all the rest of the year. It's drunkenness—the habit of drunkenness—that is such a sin and scandal."

So everything was done to make the harvest-home a day of feasting and mirth.

On the present occasion the weather was as bright and propitious as could be desired. A blazing sun poured down his heat from a cloudless sky; scarce a breath of wind stirred the flag which, in honour of the day, floated above the entrance of the hall. Two large tents were spread out by the borders of the ornamental water, in full view of the hall windows. A band, hired for the occasion, poured forth a torrent of fierce music. Children decked in blue ribbons and ears of corn ran in and out of the tents, getting in everybody's way; but as everybody was just then in the best of humours, it was of no consequence. Visitors began to arrive in picturesque groups, strolling through the trees towards the tents. Hot footmen were rushing wildly about, carrying all sorts of eatables and drinkables. Tables creaked and plates clattered. Then, just about one o'clock, came the squire and his lady, followed by many friends, among whom were Mr and Mrs Oliphant; while Frank, looking supremely happy, with his sunny face all life and playfulness, came last, with Mary on his arm. Usually the Oliphants had kept away from these harvest-homes, for they were not conducted to the rector's satisfaction, but to-day they had a special reason for coming. Frank had been over to the rectory with an urgent request from his father that Mr Oliphant would be present. He might do good by appearing among them, and Frank wanted Mary to see how he could use his influence in keeping order and sobriety. There were loud cheers, pleasant smiles, and hearty greetings as the party from the hall entered the tents, where all things were as bright and beautiful as banners, mottoes, and ears of corn arranged in all sorts of appropriate devices could make them. The tenants dined in one tent, the labourers and their wives in the other. Sir Thomas and Lady Oldfield presided in the former, and Frank took the head of the table in the latter. Mr and Mrs Oliphant and Mary sat near the baronet.

The two tents were separated by several yards from one another, so that while the guests were all partaking of dinner at the same time, the hum of voices, the clatter of knives and forks, the braying of the brass instruments which were performing in the space between the two parties, and the necessary attention to the wants of the visitors, quite prevented those presiding in the principal tent from hearing what was passing in the other. It was the intention of the squire, after all had been satisfied, to gather both companies together in the open park, and address them before they separated to join in the various amusements provided for them.

The guests in the chief tent had just concluded their dinner, and those at the upper table, where the party from the hall had been sitting, were dispersing and making their way into the open air, when a burst of cheers and shrieks of laughter from the other tent made Sir Thomas remark, with a slight cloud on his face,—

"Our friends over there seem very merry."

Then came louder cheers and louder laughter. Mary's heart died within her, she hardly knew why. She hurried out of the tent, when she was met by Juniper Graves, the groom, a man from whom she shrank with special dislike, for reasons which will shortly be explained.

"Come here, miss," he cried, with a malicious grin; "here's Mr Frank making such capital fun; he'll send us all into fits afore he's done! I never seed anything like it—it's quite bacchanalian!"

Under other circumstances Mary would have hurried away at once, but the name of Frank acted like a spell. She peeped in at the tent-door where the labourers were dining, and almost sank to the ground at the sight she beheld.

Standing on a chair at the head of the table, his face flushed a deep red, his beautiful hair tossed back and his eyes flashing with excitement, a bottle flourishing in his right hand, was Frank Oldfield, roaring out, amidst cheers and shouts of applause, a boisterous, roystering comic song. Mary was shrinking back in horror when she saw Juniper Graves glide behind his young master's chair, and fill his glass from a jug which he held in his hand. Frank saw the act, caught up the glass, and drained it in a moment. Then launching out into his song again, he swayed himself backwards and forwards, evidently being in danger of falling but for the help of the groom, who held out his arm to steady him. Mary tottered back out of the tent, but not till her eyes had met those of her lover. Oh! it sickened her to think of so pure and holy a thing as love in connection with such a face as that.

"My child," said her father, to whom she had hurried, pale, and ready to sink at every step, "what has happened? what is the matter? Are you ill?"

"Oh, take me home, take me home," she cried, in a terrified whisper. The noise of the band prevented others from hearing her words of distress, and she was hidden from the rest of the company by a fold of the tent.

"But what shall I say to Sir Thomas?" asked her father.

"Say nothing now, dear papa; let us get away from this—this dreadful place—as quickly as we can. Send over a note, and say you took me home because I was ill, as indeed I am—ill in body, sick to death in heart. Dearest mamma, come with us; let us slip away at once."

So they made their way home swiftly and sadly—sadly, for the rector and his wife had both now guessed the cause of their child's trouble; they had heard something of the uproar, with sorrowful misgivings that Frank was the guilty cause.

Unhappy Mary! When they reached home she threw herself into her loving mother's arms, and poured out all her grief. A messenger was at once dispatched to the hall with a note of apology for their abrupt departure. It was, however, needless. The messenger brought back word that, when the people had been gathered for the address, Frank Oldfield had staggered forwards towards his father so hopelessly intoxicated, that he had to be led away home between two of the servants. Sir Thomas said a few hasty words to the assembled tenants and work-people, expressing his great regret at his son's state, but excusing it on the ground of his weakness after his illness, so that the great heat of the weather had caused what he had taken to have an unusually powerful effect upon him. In reply to Mr Oliphant's note, the squire made the same excuse for his son, and trusted that Miss Oliphant would not take to heart what had happened under such exceptional circumstances. But Mary could not pass the matter over so lightly. She could not wipe out from her memory that scene in the tent. She pressed her hand tightly over her eyes, and shuddered as she thought of Frank standing there, wild, coarse, debased, brutalised, a thing to make rude and vulgar merriment; while the man, the gentleman, and the Christian had been demonised out of that fair form by the drink. Oh, what bitter tears she shed that night as she lay awake, racked with thoughts of the past and despairing of the future. The next day came a penitential letter from Frank; he threw himself on her pity—he had been overcome—he abhorred himself for it—he saw his own weakness now—he would pray for strength as she had urged him to do—surely she would not cast him off for one offence—he had been most strictly moderate up to that unhappy day—he implored her forgiveness—he asked her to try him only once more—he loved her so dearly, so passionately, that her rejection would be death to him.

What could she say? She was but a poor erring sinner herself and should she at once shut the door of pity upon him? He had fallen indeed, but he might be taught such a lesson by that fall as he might never forget. Once more—she would try him once more, if her parents thought her right in doing so. And could they say nay?—they felt they could not. Little as they really hoped for any permanent improvement, they considered that they should be hardly right in dissuading their child from giving the poor penitent another trial.

So Mary wrote back a loving earnest letter, imploring Frank to seek his strength to keep his resolution in prayer. Again they met; again it was sunshine; but, to poor Mary's heart, sunshine through a cloud.



CHAPTER SIX.

A DISCUSSION.

It was about a month after the harvest-home, so full of sad memories for all at the hall and rectory, that Mr Oliphant was seated one afternoon in the drawing-room of Greymoor Park. The company assembled consisted of the baronet and Lady Oldfield; the baronet's brother, Reverend John Oldfield; Dr Portman, the medical man; and Bernard Oliphant.

Mr John Oldfield had been telling the news of his part of the county to his brother and sister-in-law.

"You'll be sorry to hear," he continued, "that poor Mildman's dead."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the rector. "I'm very sorry. Was there any change in him before his death?"

"No, I fear not. His has been a very sad case. I remember him well when he was vicar of Sapton. A brighter and more loving Christian and pastor I never knew, but somehow or other he got into drinking habits, and these have been his ruin."

"Poor man," said Sir Thomas, "he used to be the laughing-stock of old Bellowen, his squire; it was very grievous to see a man throw himself away as he did. The squire would ply him with drink, and press the bottle upon him, till poor Mildman was so tipsy that he had to be taken by the servants to the vicarage. Sometimes the butler had to put him into a cart, when it was dark, and had him tumbled out like so much rubbish at his own door."

"Really," said Lady Oldfield, "I was surprised to hear Mr Bellowen talk about him in the way he did. He endeavoured in every possible way to get him to drink, while at the very same time he despised and abused him for drinking, and would launch out at the clergy and their self- indulgent habits."

"Yes," said her brother-in-law; "no one knew better what a clergyman ought to be than the squire. We may be very thankful that his charges against our order were gross exaggerations. We may congratulate ourselves that the old-fashioned drunken parson is now pretty nearly a creature of the past. Don't you think so, Mr Oliphant?"

"I confess to you," replied the rector, "that I was rather thinking, in connection with poor Mildman's sad history, of those words, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.'"

"Why, surely you don't think there is much danger in these days of many persons of our profession becoming the victims of intemperance?"

"I cannot feel so sure about that," was the reply. "You know I hold strong views on the subject. I wish I could see more clergymen total abstainers."

"I must say that I quite disagree with you there," said the other; "what we want, in my view, is, not to make people total abstainers, but to give them those principles which will enable them to enjoy all lawful indulgences lawfully."

"I should heartily concur in this view," said Mr Oliphant, "if the indulgence in strong drink to what people consider a moderate extent were exactly on the same footing as indulgence in other things. But there is something so perilous in the very nature of alcoholic stimulants, that multitudes are lured by them to excess who would have been the last to think, on commencing to drink, that themselves could possibly become transgressors."

"Then it is the duty of us clergymen," said the other, "to warn people to be more on their guard against excess in this direction but not, by becoming total abstainers ourselves, to lead our flocks to suppose that there is sin in the mere taking of any amount of intoxicating liquors, however small."

"I think," said Mr Oliphant, very gravely, "that our duty is something beyond, and, may I say, above this. We live in a peculiarly self- indulgent age, when men are exceedingly impatient of anything like a restraint upon their appetites and inclinations. We have, besides this, the acknowledged fact that, where other sins slay their thousands, drunkenness slays its hundreds of thousands of all ages. Is it not, then, a privilege, (I always prefer to put it rather as a privilege than a duty), for us, who are to be as lights in the world, as ensamples to our flocks, to take a high stand in this matter, and show that we will deny ourselves that which has so insidiously worked the ruin of millions, that so we may perhaps win poor fallen creatures, fallen through drink, to come out of their miserable slough by crying to them, not merely 'Come out,' but 'Come out and follow us!'"

Mr Oldfield did not answer; but Sir Thomas, turning to the rector, said,—

"I am sure this subject is deeply interesting to both you and myself, on our dear Frank's account. You know my views on the subject of total abstinence. Still I feel that there may be exceptional cases, where its adoption may be wise, and I could imagine that his might be such a case."

"I heartily agree with you," replied Mr Oliphant.

"Oh no, my dear," exclaimed Lady Oldfield; "I am quite sure total abstinence would never suit poor Frank; his constitution would not bear it; I appeal to you, Dr Portman, is it not so?"

"I am quite of your ladyship's opinion," said the doctor.

"You hear what Dr Portman says," cried her ladyship, turning to the rector.

"I do," was the reply; "but that does not alter my conviction. Medical men's views have greatly changed of late years on this subject. Excuse me, Dr Portman, for thus differing from you."

"Really," interposed Mr Oldfield, "I think you must allow the doctor to be the best judge of the medical side of the question. What would you say if the doctor on his part were to intrude on your province, and question your statements of scriptural truth from the pulpit?"

"I should say," answered Mr Oliphant, "in the first place, that the two cases are essentially different. My statements are drawn from an inspired volume, from an express revelation; the opinions of medical men are simply the deductions of human reason and observation, and are therefore opinions which may be altered or modified. But, further, I should say that I never require my people to receive my statements from the pulpit without question or inquiry. I refer them always to the revelation, the inspired record, and bid them search that record for themselves. Now, if the doctor can point me to any inspired medical record which lays down a particular system, and declares directly or by fair inference against total abstinence, I will at once surrender my present position; but as he will not pretend to possess any such inspired medical volume, I must still feel myself at liberty to hold different views from himself on the medical question."

"I am well aware, my dear sir," said Dr Portman, "that you and I shall not agree on this subject, and, of course, I must allow you to be at liberty to hold your own opinions; but it does seem to me, I must confess, very strange that you should look upon total abstinence as universally or generally desirable, when you must be aware that these views are held by so very few of the medical profession, and have only recently been adopted even by those few."

"I am afraid," said the rector, smiling, "that you are only entangling yourself in further difficulties. Does the recent adoption of a new course of treatment by a few prove that it ought not to be generally adopted? What, then, do you say about the change in the treatment of fever cases? I can myself remember the time when the patient was treated on the lowering system, and when every breath of air was excluded from the sick-room, doors and windows being listed lest the slightest change should take place in the stifling atmosphere of the bed-room. And now all is altered; we have the system supported by nourishments, and abundance of fresh air let in. Indeed, it is most amusing to see the change which has taken place as regards fresh air; many of us sleep with our windows open, which would have been thought certain death a few years ago. I know at this time a medical practitioner, (who, by the way, is a total abstainer, and has never given any of his patients alcoholic stimulants for the last five-and- twenty years), who, at the age of between seventy and eighty, sleeps with his window open, and is so hearty that, writing to me a few days since, he says, 'I sometimes think what shall I do when I get to be an old man, being now only in my seventy-fourth year.' Now, were the medical men wrong who began this change in the treatment of fever cases? or, because they were few at first, ought they to have abandoned their views, and still kept with the majority? Of course, those who adopt any great change will at first be few, especially if that change sets very strongly against persons' tastes or prejudices."

"I see that we must agree to differ," said Dr Portman, laughing, and rising to take his leave.

When he was gone, Sir Thomas, who had listened very attentively to Mr Oliphant's remarks, said,—

"I shall certainly put no hindrance in the way of Frank's becoming a total abstainer if you can persuade him to it, and his health does not suffer by it."

"Nor I," said Lady Oldfield; "only don't let him sign any pledge. I've a great horror of those pledges. Surely, my dear Mr Oliphant, you would not advise his signing a pledge."

"Indeed, I should advise it most strongly," was the reply; "both for his own sake and also for the sake of others."

"But surely, to sign a pledge is to put things on a totally wrong foundation," observed Mr John Oldfield; "would not you, as a minister of the gospel, prefer that he should base his total abstinence on Christian principle rather than trust to a pledge? Does not the pledge usurp the place of divine grace?"

"Not at all," said the rector. "I would have him abstain on Christian principles, as you say; and I would not have him trust to the pledge, but I would still have him use it as a support, though not as a foundation. Perhaps an illustration will best explain my meaning. I read some years ago of a fowler who was straying on the shore after sea- birds. He was so engrossed with his sport that he utterly failed to mark the rapid incoming of the tide, and when at last he did notice it, he found to his dismay that he was completely cut off from the land. There was but one chance of life, for he could not swim. A large fragment of rock rose above the waves a few yards behind him; on to this he clambered, and placing his gun between his feet, awaited the rising of the water. In a short time the waves had risen nearly to his feet, then they covered them; and still they rose as the tide came in higher and higher, now round his ankles, next to his knees; and so they kept gradually mounting, covering his body higher and higher. He could mark their rise or fall by the brass buttons on his waistcoat; first one button disappeared, then another, then a third, then a fourth. Would the waves rise up to his mouth and choke him? His suspense was dreadful. At last he observed that the topmost button did not disappear so rapidly as the rest; the next wave, however, seemed quite to cover it, but in a few minutes it became quite uncovered; in a little while the button next below became visible, and now he was sure that the tide was ebbing, and that he was safe if only he could hold out long enough. At last the rock itself became visible, and after many hours he was able, almost spent with fatigue, to stagger to the land. Now, what saved that man? was it his gun? Surely not; it was the rock: that was his standing-ground. But was his gun, therefore, useless? Assuredly not, for it helped to steady him on the rock, though it could not take the place of the rock. Just so with the pledge; it is not the Christian abstainer's standing-ground. Christ alone is that standing-ground. He stands by the grace of Christ; but the pledge, like the gun, helps to keep him steady on his standing-ground, the Rock of Ages."

"Well," said Mr Oldfield, "let us grant that there is some force in your illustration. I would further ask how it can be that Frank's taking the pledge would be a benefit to others as well as himself?"

"For the same reason that my own signing of the pledge is beneficial," replied the rector.

"Nay," interposed Sir Thomas; "would not your signing the pledge do rather harm than good? Would it not rather weaken your own influence by giving people reason to think, (those I mean especially who might not know you well), that you had once been intemperate yourself, or that you were unable to keep sober, or at any rate moderate, without the help of the pledge."

"On the contrary," replied Mr Oliphant, "I look upon those who take the pledge as greatly encouraging others who might be inclined to hang back. It shows that the stronger are willing to fraternise with the weaker. And this is specially the case when those who are known to have never been entangled in the snares of drunkenness are willing to take the pledge as an encouragement to those who have fallen. Perhaps you will bear with me if I offer you another illustration. There is a great chasm, a raging torrent at the bottom, and a single strong plank across it. Now persons with steady heads can walk over the chasm without difficulty, along the naked plank; but there are others who shudder at the very thought, and dare not venture—their heads swim, their knees tremble, as they approach the edge. What is to be done? Why, just put a little light hand-rail from a post on either side, and let one who is strong of head walk over, resting his hand on the rail; he does not need the rail for himself but he uses it just to show how it may be a help, and so the timid and the dizzy-headed follow and feel confidence, and reach the other side in safety. Now, suppose the flood at the bottom of that chasm to be intemperance, the plank total abstinence, and the rail the pledge, and I think you will see that those who use the pledge, though they really do not need it to steady themselves, may be a great help to the weak, the timid, and the shrinking."

"I certainly," said Sir Thomas, "have never had the matter set before me in this light. I shall think over our conversation; and as regards poor Frank, at any rate, I feel sure that, if his health will bear it, total abstinence will be the safest, if not the best thing for him."



CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE TEMPTER.

Juniper Graves was under-groom at Greymoor Park. He was a very fine fellow in his own eyes. His parents had given him the name of Juniper under the impression that it meant something very striking, and would distinguish their son from the vulgar herd. What it exactly signified, or what illustrious person had ever borne it before, they would have been puzzled to say. So he rejoiced in the name of Juniper, and his language was in keeping with it. High-sounding words had ever been his passion—a passion that grew with his growth; so that his conversation was habitually spiced with phrases and expressions in which there was abundance of sound, but generally an equal lack of sense. Too full of himself to be willing to keep patiently plodding on like ordinary people, he had run through a good many trades without being master of any. Once he was a pastry-cook; at another time a painter; and then an auctioneer—which last business he held to the longest of any, as giving him full scope for exhibiting his graces of language. He had abandoned it, however, in consequence of some rather biting remarks which had come to his ears respecting the choice and suitableness of his epithets. And now he was groom at the hall, and had found it to his advantage to ingratiate himself with Frank Oldfield, by rendering him all sorts of handy services; and as there were few things which he could not do, or pretend to do, his young master viewed him with particular favour, and made more of a companion of him than was good for either. Juniper was a sly but habitual drunkard. He managed, however, so to regulate his intemperance as never to be outwardly the worse for liquor when his services were required by Sir Thomas or Lady Oldfield, or when excess was likely to bring him into trouble. When, however, the family was away from the hall, he would transgress more openly; so that his sin became a scandal in the neighbourhood, and brought upon him the severe censure of Mr Oliphant, who threatened to acquaint the squire with his conduct if he did not amend. Juniper's pride was mortally wounded by this rebuke—he never forgot nor forgave it. For other reasons also he hated the rector. In the first place, because Mr Oliphant was a total abstainer; and further, because he suspected that it was through Mr Oliphant's representations that he had failed in obtaining the office of postmaster at a neighbouring town, which situation he had greatly coveted, as likely to make him a person of some little importance. So he hated the rector and his family with all the venom of a little mind. No sooner had he discovered the attachment between Frank and Mary Oliphant, than he resolved to do all in his power to bring about a rupture; partly because he felt pretty sure that a closer intimacy between Frank and the Oliphants would be certain to loosen the ties which bound his young master to himself, and partly because he experienced a savage delight in the thought of wounding the rector through his daughter. He soon noticed the restraint which Frank was putting on himself in the matter of drinking beer and wine, and he resolved to break it down. He was quite sure that Mary Oliphant would never marry a drunkard. So he lost no opportunity of insinuating his own views on the subject of total abstinence, and also constantly laboured to bring his young master into contact with scenes and persons likely to lead him into free indulgence in intoxicating drinks. His success, however, was but small, till the day of the harvest-home, and then he resolved to make a great effort. He contrived to get himself appointed to the office of waiter to Frank in the second tent, and took special charge of the drinkables. The beer served out on these occasions was, by Sir Thomas' express directions, of only a moderate strength; but Juniper had contrived to secrete a jug of the very strongest ale in a place where he could easily get at it. With this jug in hand he was constantly slipping behind his master and filling up his glass, while Frank was busily engaged in seeing that the wants of his guests were duly supplied. Excited by the heat of the day and the whole scene, the poor young man kept raising the glass to his lips, quite unconscious of the way in which his servant was keeping it filled, till at last he lost all self-control, and launched out into the wildest mirth and the most uproarious buffoonery. It was then that Juniper Graves, grinning with malicious delight, sought out Mary Oliphant, and brought her to gaze on her lover's degradation.

"Now," said he to himself, "I've done it. There'll be no more love- making atween them two arter this, I reckon. A very preposterous plan this of mine—very preposterous."

But great as was the triumph of Juniper at the success of his efforts on this occasion, this very success was well nigh bringing about a total defeat. For it came to Frank's ears, by a side wind, as such things so often do, that his man had been playing him a trick, and had been filling up his glass continually with strong ale when he was not conscious of it.

"It were a burning shame, it were, to put upon the young master in that way," he overheard a kind-hearted mother say, one of the tenant's wives. So he taxed Juniper with it, but the man stoutly denied it.

"Dear me, sir; to think of my behaving in such a uncompromising way to any gentleman. It's only them ill-natured folks' prevarications. I'll assure you, sir, I only just took care that you had a little in your glass to drink healths with, as was becoming; and I'm sure I was vexed as any one when I saw how the heat and your weakness together, sir, had combined to bring you into a state of unfortunate oblivion."

"Well," replied Frank, "you must look-out, Master Juniper, I can tell you. If I find you at any of your tricks again, I shall make short work with you."

But Juniper had no intention of being foiled. He would be more wary, but not less determined. Upon two things he was thoroughly resolved— first, that Frank should not become an abstainer; and secondly, that he should not marry Mary Oliphant. He was greatly staggered, however, when he discovered that his young master, after the affair at the harvest- home, had contrived to make his peace at the rectory.

"I must bide my time," he said to himself; "but I'll circumscribe 'em yet, as sure as my name's Juniper Graves."

So he laid himself out in every possible way to please Frank, and to make himself essential to his comforts and pleasures. For a while he cautiously avoided any allusion to total abstinence, and was only careful to see that beer and spirits were always at hand, to be had by Frank at a moment's notice. If the weather was hot, there was sure to be a jug of shandy-gaff or some other equally enticing compound ready to be produced just at the time when its contents would be most appreciated. If the weather was cold, then, in the time of greatest need, Juniper had always an extra flask of spirits to supplement what his master carried. And the crafty fellow so contrived it that Frank should feel that, while he was quite moderate in the presence of his parents and their guests, he might go a little over the border with his groom without any danger.

Things were just in this state at the time when the conversation took place at the hall, which resulted in the permission to Mr Oliphant to persuade Frank—if he could—to become a pledged abstainer. A day or two after that conversation, Frank walked over to the rectory. He found Mary busily engaged in gathering flowers to decorate the tables at a school feast. His heart, somehow or other, smote him as he looked at her bright sweet face. She was like a pure flower herself; and was there no danger that the hot breath of his own intemperance would wither out the bloom which made her look so beautiful? But he tossed away the reflection with a wave of his flowing hair, and said cheerily,—

"Cannot I share, or lighten your task, dear Mary?"

"Thank you—yes—if you would hold the basket while I gather. These autumn flowers have not quite the brightness of the summer ones, but I think I love them more, because they remind me that winter is coming, and that I must therefore prize them doubly."

"Ah, but we should not carry winter thoughts about us before winter comes. We should look back upon the brightness, not forward to the gloom."

"Oh, Frank," she replied, looking earnestly at him, with entreaty in her tearful eyes, "don't talk of looking back upon the brightness. We are meant to look forwards, not to the gloom indeed, but beyond it, to that blessed land where there shall be no gloom and no shadows."

He was silent.

"You asked me just now, dear Frank," she continued, "if you could lighten my task. You could do more than that—you could take a load off my heart, if you would."

"Indeed!" he exclaimed; "tell me how."

"And will you take it off if I tell you?"

"Surely," he replied; but not so warmly as she would fain have had him say it.

"You remember," she added, "the day you dined with us a long time ago, when you asked papa about becoming an abstainer?"

"Yes; I remember it well, and that my mother would not hear of it, so, as in duty bound, I gave up all thoughts of it at once."

"Well, dear Frank, papa has been having a long talk on the very subject at the hall, and has convinced both your father and mother that total abstinence is not the objectionable thing they have hitherto thought it to be. Oh, dear Frank, there is no hindrance there then, if you still think as you once seemed to think on this subject."

The colour came into his face, and his brow was troubled as he said,—

"Why should you distress yourself about this matter, my own dear Mary. Cannot you trust me? Cannot you believe that I will be strictly moderate? Have I not promised?"

"You have promised; and I would hope and believe that—that—" She could not go on, her tears choked her words.

"Ah, I know what you would say," he replied passionately; "you would reproach me with my failure—my one failure, my failure under extraordinary excitement and weakness—I thought you had forgiven me that. Have I not kept my promise since then? Cannot you trust me, unless I put my hand to a formal pledge? If honour, love, religion, will not bind me, do you think that signing a pledge will do it?"

"I have not asked you to sign any pledge," she replied sorrowfully; "though I should indeed rejoice to see you do it. I only hoped—oh, how fervently!—that you might see it to be your wisdom, your safety, to become a total abstainer. Oh, dearest Frank, you are so kind, so open, so unsuspecting, that you are specially liable to be taken off your guard, unless fortified by a strength superior to your own. Have you really sought that strength? Oh, ask God to show you your duty in this matter. It would make me so very, very happy were you to be led to renounce at once and for ever those stimulants which have ruined thousands of noble souls."

"Dearest Mary, were this necessary, I would promise it you in a moment. But it is not necessary. I am no longer a child. I am not acting in the dark. I see what is my duty. I see that to exceed moderation is a sin. I have had my fall and my warnings, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Trust me, dear Mary—trust me without a pledge, trust me without total abstinence. You shall not have cause to blush for me again. Believe me, I love you too well."

And with this she was forced to be content. Alas! poor Frank; he little knew the grasp which the insidious taste for strong drink had fixed upon him. He liked it once, he loved it now. And beside this he shrank from the cross, which pledged total abstinence would call upon him to take up. His engaging manners made him universally popular, and he shrank from anything that would endanger or diminish that popularity. He winced under a frown, but he withered under a sneer; still he had secret misgivings that he should fall, that he should disgrace himself; that he should forfeit Mary's love for ever if he did not take the decided step; and more than once he half resolved to make the bold plunge, and sign the pledge, and come out nobly and show his colours like a man.

It was while this half resolve was on him that he was one evening returning home after a day's fishing, Juniper Graves being with him. He had refused the spirit-flask which his servant held out to him more than once, alleging disinclination. At last he said,—

"I've been seriously thinking, Juniper, of becoming a total abstainer; and it would do you a great deal of good if you were to be one too."

The only reply on the part of Juniper was an explosion of laughter, which seemed as if it would tear him in pieces. One outburst of merriment followed another, till he was obliged to lean against a tree for support. Frank became quite angry.

"What do you mean by making such an abominable fool of yourself;" he cried.

"Oh dear, oh dear," laughed Graves, the tears running over in the extremity of his real or pretended amusement, "you must pardon me, sir; indeed, you must. I really couldn't help it; it did put me so in mind of Jerry Ogden, the Methodist parson. Mr Frank and his servant Juniper, two whining, methodistical, parsimonious teetotallers! oh dear, it was rich." And here he relapsed into another explosion.

"Methodist parson! I really don't know what you mean, sir," cried Frank, beginning to get fairly exasperated. "You seem to me quite to forget yourself. If you don't know better manners, the sooner you take yourself off the better."

"Oh, sir, I'm very sorry, but really you must excuse me; it did seem so very comical. You a total abstainer, Mr Frank, and me a-coming arter you. I think I sees you a-telling James to put the water on the table, and then you says, 'The water stands with you, Colonel Coleman.'"

"Don't talk so absurdly," said Frank, amused in spite of himself at the idea of the water-party, with himself for the host. "And what has my becoming a total abstainer to do with Jerry What-do-you-call-him, the Methodist parson?"

"Oh, just this, sir. Jerry Ogden's one of those long-faced gentlemen as turns up their eyes and their noses at us poor miserable sinners as takes a little beer to our dinners. Ah! to hear him talk you'd have fancied he was too good to breathe in the same altitude with such as me. Such lots of good advice he has for us heathens, such sighing and groaning over us poor deluded drinkers of allegorical liquors. Ah! but he's a tidy little cask of his own hid snug out of the way. It's just the case with them all."

"I'm really much obliged to you," said his master, laughing, "for comparing me to Jerry Ogden. He seems, from your account, to have been a regular hypocrite; but that does not show that total abstinence is not a good thing when people take it up honestly."

"Bless your simplicity, sir," said the other; "they're all pretty much alike."

"Now there, Juniper, I know you are wrong. Mr Oliphant has many men in his society who are thoroughly honest teetotallers, men who are truly reformed, and, more than that, thorough christians."

"Reformed! Christians!" sneered Juniper, venomously; "a pretty likely thing indeed. You don't know them teetotallers as well as I do, sir. 'Oh dear, no; not a drop, not a drop: wouldn't touch it for the world.' But they manage to have it on the sly for all that. I've no faith in 'em at all. I'd rather be as I am, though I says it as shouldn't say it, an honest fellow as gets drunk now and then, and ain't ashamed to own it, than one of your canting teetotallers. Why, they're such an amphibious set, there's no knowing where to have them."

"Amphibious?" said his master, laughing; "why, I should have thought 'aquatic' would have been a better word, as they profess to confine themselves to the water; unless you mean, indeed, that they are only half water animals."

"Oh, sir," said Graves, rather huffed, "it was only a phraseology of mine, meaning that there was no dependence to be placed on 'em."

"Well but, Juniper, I am not speaking of hypocrites or sham teetotallers, but of the real ones. There's Mr Oliphant and the whole family at the rectory, you'll not pretend, I suppose, that they drink on the sly?"

"I wouldn't by no means answer for that," was the reply; "that depends on circumstantials. There's many sorts of drinks as we poor ignorant creatures calls intoxicating which is quite the thing with your tip-top teetotallers. There's champagne, that's quite strict teetotal; then there's cider, then there's cherry-brandy; and if that don't do, then there's teetotal physic."

"Teetotal physic! I don't understand you."

"Don't you, sir? that's like your innocence. Why, it's just this way. There's a lady teetotaller, and she's a little out of sorts; so she sends a note to the doctor, and he sends back a nice bottle of stuff. It's uncommon good and spirituous-like to smell at, but then it's medicine, only the drugs ain't down in what the chemists call their 'Farming-up-here.'"

"I never heard of that before," remarked Frank.

"No, I don't suppose, sir, as ever you did. And then there's the teetotal gents; they does it much more free and easy. They've got what the Catholics calls a 'dispensary' from their Pope, (and their Pope's the doctor), to take just whatever they likes as a medicine—oh, only as a medicine; so they carries about with 'em a doctor's superscription, which says just this: 'Let the patient take as much beer, or wine, or spirits, as he can swallow.'"

"A pretty picture you have drawn," laughed Frank. "I'm afraid there's not much chance of making you an abstainer."

"Nor you neither, Mr Frank, I hope. Why, I should be ashamed to see my cheerful, handsome young master, (you must forgive me, sir, for being so bold), turned into a sour-looking, turnip-faced, lantern-jawed, whining teetotaller."

"Why, I thought you said just now," said the other, "that they all take drink on the sly; if that's the case, it can't be total abstinence that spoils their beauty."

Juniper looked a little at fault, but immediately replied,—

"Well, sir, at any rate total abstinence will never do for you. Why, you'll have no peace up at the hall, especially in the shooting season, if you mean to take up with them exotic notions. Be a man, sir, and asseverate your independence. Show that you can take too much or too little as you have a mind. I wouldn't be a slave, sir. 'Britons never shall be slaves.'"

Here the conversation closed. The tempter had so far gained his end that he had made Frank disinclined to join himself at present to the body of stanch abstainers. He would wait and see—he preferred moderation, it was more manly, more self-reliant. Ah, there was his grievous mistake. Self-reliant! yes, but that self was blinded, cheated by Satan; it was already on the tempter's side. So Frank put off, at any rate for the present, joining the abstainers. He was, however, very watchful over himself never openly to transgress. He loved Mary, and could not bear the thoughts of losing her, but in very deed he loved his own self-indulgence more. There was a constraint, however, when they met. He could not fully meet her deep truthful eyes with a steady gaze of his own. Her words would often lead him to prayer, but then he regarded iniquity in his heart—he did not wish to be taken at his prayer—he did not wish to be led into pledged abstinence, or even into undeviating moderation at all times—he wished to keep in reserve a right to fuller indulgence. Poor Mary! she was not happy; she felt there was something wrong. If she tried to draw out that something from Frank, his only reply was an assurance of ardent affection and devotion. There was no apparent evil on the surface of his life. He was regular at church, steady at home, moderate in what he drank at his father's table and at other houses. She felt, indeed, that he had no real sympathy with her on the highest subjects, but he never refused to listen, only he turned away with evident relief from religious to other topics. Yet all this while he was getting more deeply entangled in the meshes of the net which the drink, in the skilful hands of Juniper Graves, was weaving round him. That cruel tempter was biding his time. He saw with malicious delight that the period must arrive before very long when his young master's drinking excesses would no longer be confined to the darkness and the night, but would break out in open daylight, and then, then for his revenge.

It was now between two and three years since the harvest-home which had ended so unhappily. Frank was twenty-one and Mary Oliphant eighteen. This was in the year in which we first introduced them to our readers, the same year in which it was intended that Hubert Oliphant should join his uncle Abraham, at any rate for a time, in South Australia. For the last six months dim rumours, getting gradually more clear and decided, had found their way to the rectory that Frank Oldfield was occasionally drinking to excess. Mary grew heart-sick, and began to lose her health through anxiety and sorrow; yet there was nothing, so far, sufficiently definite to make her sure that Frank, since his promise to observe strict moderation, had ever over-passed the bounds of sobriety. He never, of course, alluded to the subject himself; and when he could not help remarking on her altered looks, he would evade any questions she put to him on the painful subject, or meet them by an appeal to her whether she could prove anything against him; and by the observation that nothing was easier than to spread rumours against a person's character. She was thus often silenced, but never satisfied.

June had come—a bright sky remained for days with scarce a cloud; the hay-makers were everywhere busy, and the fields were fragrant with the sweet perfume of the mown grass. It was on a quiet evening that Mary was returning home from a cottage where she had been to visit a sick parishioner of her father's. Her way lay in part through a little plantation skirting a hay-field belonging to the Greymoor estate. She had just reached the edge of the plantation, and was about to climb over a stile into a lane, when she heard loud and discordant voices, which made her blood run cold; for one of them, she could not doubt, was Frank's.

"This way, Mr Frank, this way," cried another voice, which she knew at once to be that of Juniper Graves.

"I tell you," replied the first voice, thickly, "I shan't go that way; I shall go home, I shall. Let me alone, I tell you,"—then there followed a loud imprecation.

"No, no—this way, sir—there's Miss Mary getting over the stile; she's waiting for you, sir, to help her over."

"Very good, Juniper; you're a regular brick," said the other voice, suddenly changing to a tone of maudlin affection; "where's my dear Mary—ah, there she is!" and the speaker staggered towards the stile. Mary saw him indistinctly through the hedge—she would have fled, but terror and misery chained her to the spot. A few moments after and Frank, in his shirt-sleeves, (he had been joining the hay-makers), made his way up to her. His face was flushed, his eyes inflamed and staring wildly, his hair disordered, and his whole appearance brutalised.

"Let me help—help—you, my beloved Mary, over shtile—ah, yes—here's Juniper—jolly good fellow, Juniper—help her, Juniper—can't keep shteady—for life of me."

He clutched at her dress; but now the spell was loosed, she sprang over the stile, and cast one look back. There stood her lover, holding out his arms with an exaggerated show of tenderness, and mumbling out words of half-articulate fondness; and behind him, a smile of triumphant malice on his features, which haunted her for years, was Graves, the tempter, the destroyer of his unhappy master. She cared to see no more, but, with a cry of bitter distress, she rushed away as though some spirit of evil were close behind her, and never stopped till she had gained the rectory.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

FAREWELL.

There are impressions cut deeper into the heart by the sudden stroke of some special trial than any made by the continuous pressure of afflictions, however heavy; impressions which nothing in this world can efface—wounds, like the three-cornered thrust of the bayonet, which will not heal up. Such was the keen, piercing sorrow which the sight of Frank in his drunkenness had stabbed deep into the soul of Mary Oliphant. The wound it had made would never heal. Oh, miserable drink! which turns the bright, the noble, the intellectual creatures of God into worse than madmen; for the madman's reason is gone—we pity, but we cannot blame him; but in the victim of strong drink reason is suspended but not destroyed, and in all the distortion, grimaces, reelings, babblings, ravings of the miserable wretch while his sin is on him, we see a self-inflicted insanity, and a degradation which is not a misfortune but a crime.

The day after that miserable meeting at the stile, Frank called at the rectory, the picture of wretchedness and despair. Mrs Oliphant came to him, and told him that Mary declined seeing him; indeed, that she was so utterly unnerved and ill, that she would have been unequal to an interview even had she thought it right to grant him one.

"Is there no hope for me, then?" he asked. "Have I quite sinned away even the possibility of forgiveness?"

"I cannot fully answer for Mary," replied Mrs Oliphant; "but I should be wrong if I said anything that could lead you to suppose that she can ever again look upon you as she once did."

"Is it really so?" he said gloomily. "Has this one transgression forfeited her love for ever? Is there no place for repentance? I do not justify myself. I do not attempt to make less of the fault. I can thoroughly understand her horror, her disgust. I loathe myself as a vile beast, and worse than a beast. But yet, can I by this one act have cut through every cord that bound her heart to mine?"

"Excuse me, dear Frank," said the other; "but you mistake in speaking of one transgression—one act. It is because poor Mary feels, as I feel too, that this act must be only one of many acts of the like kind, though the rest may have been concealed from us, that she dare not trust her happiness in your keeping."

"And who has any right," he asked warmly, "to say that I am in the habit of exceeding?"

"Do you deny yourself that it is so?" she inquired, looking steadily but sorrowfully at him.

His eyes dropped before hers, and then he said,—

"I do not see that any one has a right to put such a question to me."

"Not a right!" exclaimed Mrs Oliphant. "Have not I a right, dear Frank, as Mary's mother, to put such a question? I know that I have no right to turn inquisitor as regards your conduct and actions in general. But oh, surely, when you know what has happened, when you remember your repeated promises, and how, alas! they have been broken; when you call to mind that Mary has expressly promised to me, and declared to you, that she will never marry a drunkard,—can you think that I, the mother whom God has appointed to guard the happiness of my darling daughter, have no right to ask you whether or no you are free from that habit which you cannot indulge in and at the same time honestly claim the hand of my beloved child?"

Frank for a long time made no answer; when he did reply, he still evaded the question.

"I have done wrong," he said; "grievously wrong. I acknowledge it. I could ask Mary's pardon for it on my knees, and humble myself in the dust before her. I might plead, in part excuse, or, at any rate, palliation of my fault, the heat of the weather and thirsty nature of the work I was engaged in, which led me into excess before I was aware of what I was doing. But I will not urge that. I will take every blame. I will throw myself entirely on her mercy; and surely human creatures should not be unmerciful since God is so merciful."

"I grieve, dear Frank, to hear you speak in this way," said Mrs Oliphant, very gravely and sadly; "you should go on your knees and humble yourself in the dust, not before poor sinners, such as I and my child are, but before Him who alone can pardon your sin. I think you are deceiving yourself. I fear so. It is not that Mary is void of pity. She does not take upon herself to condemn you—it is not her province; but that does not make her feel that she can look upon you as one who could really make her happy. Alas! it is one of the miserable things connected with the drink, that those who have become its slaves cannot be trusted. I may seem to speak harshly, but I must speak out. Your expressions of sorrow and penitence cannot secure your future moderation. You mean now what you say; but what guarantee have we that you will not again transgress?"

"My own pledged word," replied Frank, proudly, "that henceforth I will be all that Mary would have me be."

"Except a pledged total abstainer," said Mrs Oliphant, quietly.

Frank remained silent for a few moments, then he said,—

"If I cannot control myself without a pledge, I shall never do so with one."

"No, not by the pledge only, or chiefly. But it would be a help. It would be a check. It would be a something to appeal to, as being an open declaration of what you were resolved to keep to. But oh, I fear that you do not wish to put such a restraint upon yourself, as you must do, if you would really be what you would have us believe you mean to be. Were it otherwise, you would not hesitate—for Mary's sake, for your own peace's sake—to renounce at once, and for ever, and entirely, that drink which has already been to you, ay, and to us all, a source of so much misery. Dear Frank, I say it once for all, I never could allow my beloved child to cast in her lot for life with one of whom I have reason to fear that he is, or may become, the slave of that drink which has driven peace, and joy, and comfort out of thousands of English homes."

"But why should you fear this of me?" persisted Frank. "Within the last three years I have fallen twice. I do not deny it. But surely two falls in that long space of time do not show a habit of excess. On each occasion I was overcome—taken off my guard. I have now learned, and thoroughly, I trust, the lesson to be watchful. I only ask for one more trial. I want to show Mary, I want to show you all, that I can still be strictly sober, strictly moderate, without total abstinence, without a pledge. And oh, do not let it be said that the mother and daughter of a minister of the gospel were less ready to pardon than their heavenly Master."

"Oh, Frank," cried Mrs Oliphant, "how grievously you mistake us! Pardon! Yes; what are we that we should withhold pity or pardon? But surely it is one thing to forgive, and quite another thing to entrust one's happiness, or the happiness of one's child, into hands which we dare not hope can steadily maintain it. I can say no more. Write to Mary, and she will answer you calmly and fully by letter, as she could not do were she to meet you now."