J. Jackson Wray

“ But Adam Olliver knows it, and misreads my heart as much as one man can misread another’s. Lucy, my darling, for love of you I would barter Waverdale Hall without a sigh; I would harden my hands at the anvil, and hammer and sing as merrily as Blithe Natty, if you might brighten my cottage home! What shall I do? My proud and stately father will never permit such an unequal match but, with all his pride, he loves me dearly, and I cannot, will not, be disloyal to so great a love, and disobey his will. ”

“ In his dreams that night, he re-enacted all the scene at Adam Olliver’s garden gate; saw again the sweetest face in the world or out of it to his glamour-flooded eyes; heard again the question, “Can this be little Lucy Blyth?” Men live rapidly in dreams, time flies like a flash. Difficulties do not count in dreams, they are ignored, and so it was that Philip answered the question in a veni-vidi-vici kind of spirit, and shouted in dreamland over the garden gate, “Yes it can, and will be Lucy Fuller, by-and-bye!” ”

“ Nathan Blyth preached a most touching and effective sermon from the words, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock!” “You see,” he said, “that the Lord is outside the sinner’s heart! He dwells in the bosom of the Father, and is His glory and delight. He dwells in the angels, and fills them with His glory! He dwells in the happy saints in heaven, and their bliss is complete. He dwells in the heart of every Christian believer here, and they are happy in His love. Everybody is happy who has Jesus in his heart. He doesn’t dwell in the hearts of devils, and their misery is complete. ”

“ Farmer Houston, as the tenant of a farm which had been in the Houston family through many generations, was personally known to Squire Fuller, who accosted him by name.
“Good evening, Mr. Houston. Take a seat, but first introduce me to your friends.”
Mr. Clayton received a cold and distant bow; Nathan Blyth a scrutinising gaze, more piercing than pleasant; but that good man and true, bore him as a true man should.
“And this,” said Farmer Houston, “is one of my labourers, who has been an old and trusted servant to myself and my father for more than fifty years. His name is Adam Olliver.” ”

“ Philip’s ponderings were of a varied character as he entered the narrow lane which led to Waverdale Hall, and slowly trod the light and springy turf in silence. He felt half inclined to forgive Black Morris for unwittingly securing him the delicious interview. “She loves me,” thought he, “she loves me, I am sure; and if I can get my father’s consent, my darling Lucy will yet be mine.”
Castles in the air began to rear their gleaming but deceptive turrets, and in the delusive glamour of a lover’s Paradise, Philip approached the lodge by the gate which led through Waverdale Park. ”

“ Oh, tell me, tell me, what am I to do?”—And the girl flung herself into his arms in a paroxysm of tears.
“My poor lass!” said Nathan Blyth, stroking her hair and kissing her fair forehead. “It is as I feared. I am thankful that you have told me all about it. I can help you to bear your trouble, and we must both take it to God. Those who seek to do right and keep an honest conscience are sure to find comfort from Him. But, Lucy, my dear, you must not see him any more. It must be put a stop to, and if Master Philip will not keep away, I must go and see Squire Fuller myself. Cheer up, my darling! ”

“ I believe in my conscience that my Lucy is in all respects a prize that any man might wish to win, and I know none for whom I do not hold her to be too good. But I’d rather she mated with somebody in her own rank of life. I should say ‘No’ to Master Philip if he asked for her himself, and I should say ‘No’ to you if you were to ask for him; and if he is a sensible young man, he’ll turn his attention other where, for he may depend upon it he’ll come on a useless errand, if he comes at all. ”

“ Besides, think what would be said by those who are only too ready to impute motives and suspect evil. The fair fame of my girl is dearer to me than life. Mr. Fuller, nobody esteems Master Philip more than I; nobody can pray for his recovery more earnestly than will I. But the thing you ask is quite impossible, and can’t be done.”
“I know it all, Nathan Blyth. I feel the force of all that you have said. On the other hand, my boy is dying. Like a drowning man I am catching at a straw; and I beseech you, I who never asked a favour of a living man, I beseech you do not deny me my request. ”

“ An hour after the perpetration of the dreadful deed, Philip Fuller trod the sodden path through Thurston Wood, returning from his visit to Sir Harry Elliott’s, after a day spent in copse and covert, and still oppressed and depressed by the remembrances of his morning’s interview with his angry father. With his gun across his shoulder he was rapidly making his way homeward, when his foot struck suddenly against some object in the grass, and he fell at full length across the very spot where, just before, the gun of Bill Buckley had sped its dreadful messenger, and laid his hapless victim low. ”

“ The three good men and true knelt to offer heartfelt gratitude to God, and Adam Olliver, with tearful eyes and a heart gushing with love and praise, poured out his soul in prayer and thanksgiving, pleading for the old squire, for Philip, for God’s cause in Nestleton, until the very atmosphere seemed to be charged with the presence and power of a loving and gracious God. ”

“ Philip’s Visit to the Forge, or Love’s Young Dream.
“Love is a plant of holier birth
Than any that takes root on earth;
A flower from heaven, which ’tis a crime
To number with the things of time.
Hope in the bud is often blasted,
And beauty on the desert wasted!
And joy, a primrose, early gay,
Care’s lightest footfall treads away.
But love shall live, and live for ever,
And chance and change shall reach it never.”
Henry Neele. “CAN this be little Lucy Blyth?” said Philip Fuller to himself, as he wended his way to Waverdale Park. ”

“ He insisted, in his gratitude, that I should stay all night, and so it happened that when Bill Buckley, the housebreaker, saw me, he fell on the stairs like a dead man, shrieking, ‘Black Morris’s ghost!’ And now, mother,” said he, as he concluded his stirring recital, “I’m back again to be a comfort and a help to you; and never again, by God’s help, to cause you a sigh or a tear.” ”

“ AT the turn of the road where Nathan Blyth’s forge and homestead stood were three cottages, tenanted by farm labourers and their families. In one of these lay sick unto death the mother of a household of small children; and Lucy Blyth, whose heart was full of tenderness and all kindly charities, used to go every day to succour the poor invalid, and to tend and nurse the hapless babes who were soon to be left motherless and alone. Not only as an angel of mercy did the fair girl go on this loving errand, but as a Gospel messenger, and in winsome ways she led the ailing woman to the Cross. ”

“ Pondering how she could help forward this worthy scheme, she made her way, one evening, to pay a visit to the ailing wife of Piggy Morris. Lucy’s piety was a very cheerful and attractive type. Those who think that religion must necessarily tinge the life with melancholy, and wrap its possessor in a veil of gloom, would have felt inclined to question the genuineness of her profession, and to doubt as to whether she had “the root of the matter” within her. Her bright eyes were seldom dim with other tears than those of sympathy and joy ”

“ Satan is in the heart. He has no right to it; but he has got it, and has become king of it. His commands are wicked, but they are obeyed. His counsels are deadly, but they are followed. That strong man armed holds his ill-gotten goods, and the world and the flesh help him to keep the house which he has stolen from the Lord Jesus. The devil fills it with bad company, with selfishness, with wicked thoughts and lusts, with worldliness and pleasure. It is like a great warehouse, or an overcrowded inn, and there’s no room for Jesus. He stands knocking and asking, that loving Saviour! ”

“ THE nearest neighbour to Nathan Blyth was an old farm labourer called Adam Olliver, who for forty years and more, as man and boy, had toiled and moiled on Gregory Houston’s farm. He had now reached an age at which he was unequal to prolonged and heavy labour, and so he spent his time in cutting and trimming the farmer’s hedges—his thoughtful master giving him to understand that though his wages were to be continued as usual, he was at full liberty to work when it pleased him, and to rest when he chose. ”

“ At the evening meeting the squire of Waverdale again took the place of honour, and delighted all his hearers with the simple relation of his religious experience, and his grateful references to the Methodist influences which had been brought to bear on himself and son. “As for good old Adam Olliver,” quoth the squire, “he is one of Nature’s noblemen. No, that won’t do either, for our grand old friend is in the highest sense a patriarch in holiness and grace. My debt to him is greater than he knows; greater than he will ever know until the light of eternity flashes on the doings of time. ”

“ Near the little wych gate of the churchyard a spacious and open green affords a pleasant playground for the chubby children, of whom Nestleton Magna provides quite a notable supply, a gossipping place for the village rustics in the evening hours, and pasturage for two or three cows, a donkey or two, and, last not least, a flock of geese, whose solemn-looking gander oft disputes possession of the field with the aforesaid chubby children, who flee motherward before it in undisguised alarm. ”

“ The squire’s suspicious nature was instantly aroused. [Pg 60] Laying down his book he rose from his seat, and stretching out his hand in solemn earnest, he said,—
“Son Philip, you will not be other than a gentleman? You will not sully your father’s name? You will not dim the honour of an ancestry which has held its own with the noblest through a hundred generations? You will not grieve your father by a base and unworthy deed? In the day you do, you’ll”—here the firm lip quivered—“you’ll break his heart!” ”

“ Waxing indignant at this gratuitous and cowardly attack, he turned to expostulate with the lawless batch of wastrels, when a well-aimed brickbat from the hand of Black Morris struck him on the cheek, and, after drawing a stream of blood, fell into the body of the gig. Mr. Clayton, maintaining his presence of mind, brought down his whip upon the withers of the startled pony, which broke into a gallop, and bore him through the village with the crimson token of the outrage still wet upon his face. ”

“ The attractive little girl and the merry geniality of Blithe Natty had induced him when he was barely in his teens to take his rides almost constantly in the direction of the Forge, and fruits and flowers and pony rides, as far as Lucy was concerned, were the order of the day. Who can say that love’s subtle magic did not weave its unseen [Pg 29] but potent spell around those two young hearts in those early days of mirthful childhood? At any rate, Philip’s heart responded at once to the sound of Lucy’s name, and now her superadded charms of face and feature fairly took him captive. ”

“ If it be asked why I have presented my pictures in fictitious frames, my answer is, that I was bound to follow my natural bent, and to allow my pen to pursue the lines most congenial to the hand that wielded it; that, of all kinds of literature, fiction is the most attractive, and as it is utterly useless to try to prevent its perusal, wisdom and religion, too, suggest that it should be provided of so pure a quality, and with so definitely a moral and religious bias, that it may not only do no harm but some good to the reader, who would otherwise go further and fare worse. ”

“ She is the Lady Bountiful of the village, for though her resources may be small, as far as money is concerned, that is more than compensated for by the energy of her character, her untiring self-sacrifice, and the magic of her sympathy is felt in every house in Nestleton where sickness or sorrow has found a place. I tell you she is the good genius of the village, which could far better spare Squire Fuller than Lucy Blyth. ”

“ Sinner! He does not dwell in your heart, and you are ripening for the same ruin. You are hastening to that dark place where the doors can never be opened inward to admit Him, or outward to release you from the terrors of the second death. ”