Margaret M. Robertson

“ To Samuel Muir it was a day never to be forgotten. Montreal is not a very great city. An hour’s walk from the heart of it, in any direction, will bring one either to the river or to fields where wild flowers grow. But his life had been town life—and a very busy one; and to sit in the mild air, amid the sweet sounds and sweeter silence of the spring time, among all these happy children, was something wonderful to him. His constant anxious care for Morely all the winter had done much to make a man of him. ”

“ But in the single minute that passed before he found himself on Deering Bridge he realised all the miserable circumstances of Morely’s fall, balanced the chances of life and death for the poor wretch, and took his own life in his hand for his sake. He knew that one more wicked deed had been added to the tavern-keeper’s catalogue of sins,—that the children’s bread had been stolen, and the father brutalised and then cast forth in the bitter cold, to live or die, it mattered little which.
“To live, it must be,” said Stephen; “at least for repentance—perhaps for a better life. He must be saved. ”

“ What one man may do to save another, Samuel Muir did for John Morely. Holidays were rare and precious to him at this time; but he devoted more than one that fell to him in going here and there with him in search of work; and when work was found, he spoke of him to the employers and to the workmen in words that none but the utterly debased could hear in vain, entreating them that they would not make the work of reform more difficult to the poor broken man by placing temptation in his way. ”

“ The hungry little lads eyed with undisguised discontent the not very savoury mess; but, fortunately, the table was laid in the corner of the room most distant from their mother’s bed, and their murmurs were unheard by her.
“Now, boys, I have something to say to you,” began Sophy, gravely. “There is not much supper; but you must be content with it. We shall be sure to have something more to-morrow. If the things don’t come to-night, I shall go myself to the village to-morrow, to see what has become of them. ”

“ When months of temptation and struggle had passed, John Morely stood—not, perhaps, with his foe beneath his feet, but still on firm ground, a man who once more had confidence in himself, and in whom other men had confidence. ”

“ Stephen Grattan had been a drunkard, and was now a reformed man. John Morely had been a drunkard, and was trying to reform. His father, though not a total abstainer, had lived and died a temperate man. But John Morely was not like his father. He had in him, the neighbours said, “the makings” of a better or a worse man than ever his father had been; and when, after his mother’s death, the young builder brought home the pretty and good Alice Lambton as his wife, a “better man” they all declared he was to be; for they believed that now he would not be in danger from his one temptation. ”

“ The cheery words of his friend gave him a ray of hope and courage for a while.
But when Stephen left him at the corner of the street, it was with a heavy heart that he took his way to the hotel from which the stage was to start. The public room into which Morely stepped was large and lofty and brilliantly lighted. There were plenty of respectable people there at that moment. There was not the same temptation here as at the low tavern at which he had so often degraded himself below the level of the beast. ”

“ I am quite unfitted for anything to-night. If I can keep quiet, I shall be better to-morrow. Give me baby, and keep the boys out a little while. Oh! I must get strong again!”
The house was quiet enough; the boys needed no bidding to stay out among the falling snow; and Sophy, having covered the window, that her mother might sleep, crept in behind the curtain to watch the snow-flakes.
Before it grew dark the earth was white as far as the eye could see; the snow fell all night too, and when Sophy opened the door in the morning, it lay on the threshold as high as her waist. ”

“ No one but Stephen Grattan and his wife, who were very kind to them in their troubles, ever knew that any accident had happened to the child.
Things went better with them for a while. John got work, and took his family to a little log-house a mile or two from the village; and Alice began to hope that the better days so much longed for were coming now. But then came sickness, and then work failed, and—there was no help for it—the husband must go in search of it, that he might get bread for his starving family. So, with heavy hearts, they bade one another good-bye. ”

“ There were bags and bundles manifold, and a great round basket of Dolly Grattan’s, well known to the little Morelys as capable of holding a great many good things, for it had been in their house before.
“I don’t know as you would speak to me, if you knew all, mother,” said Stephen at last, approaching Mrs Morely, who was sitting by the fire with her baby in her arms. “You are all alive, I see,—at least the boys are. How is baby, and my little Sophy? Why, what ails the child?”
He might well ask; for Sophy was lying limp and white across the baby’s cot. Poor little Sophy! ”

“ Whatever was said, it always ended thus: “You can do nothing of yourself; but with the Lord’s help you can do all things. Hold fast to Him. Let your cry be, ‘Lord Jesus, save, or I perish.’”
Poor Morely listened, and tried to hope. If ever he was saved from the power of his foe, the Lord must surely do it, he felt, for he could do nothing; and, in a blind, weak way, he did strive to put his trust in God.
When the time came that he was well enough to go away, Stephen would fain have gone with him, to encourage him and stand by him till he could get something to do. ”

“ Stephen spoke a few cheery words of comfort and courage to the poor broken-spirited fellow, begged him to be steadfast in his newly-begun purpose of reformation, and told him of the loving Saviour who would give him all needful help; who, if he looked to Him, would give him the grace of His Holy Spirit to enable him to overcome in the hour of temptation. Morely having thanked him heartily for his kindness, asked him to see that Smith at the provision shop sent up the flour to his wife next day, or the family would be in want of food. ”

“ Her husband had lived a drunkard’s life; and that he had not died a drunkard’s death was owing to the fact that excess had left him helpless and bedridden for years, a burden on his wife and son. To save another woman from the misery of such a life as hers had been, was a good work to help in; and she gave herself to it, in her weak, complaining way, as entirely and as successfully as did her son.
As for Sam, many things united to make this labour of love not a light one to him. He looked upon himself as a rising man, as indeed he was, in a small way. ”

“ They never said to each other that the times were hard.
There were no more suppers or breakfasts of thin gruel at the little log-house on the hill. In a few days after his first memorable visit, Stephen Grattan was there again, and again Farmer Jackson’s oxen called forth the wonder and admiration of the little Morelys. For Stephen, as he took great pains to explain to Mrs Morely, had taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by the return of the farmer’s empty sled, to bring up the barrel of flour and the bag of meal that ought to have been sent up the very night her husband went away. ”

“ They read on slowly and gravely, Sophy reading each verse again, except when it was John’s turn, till they came to the eighth, “For He said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.”
“And of course he came out of him,” exclaimed Sophy. “For Jesus can do anything—yes, anything. Think of the most difficult thing in the world—Jesus could do it, as easy as I can do this.” ”

“ But being, as has been said, vain and, in a small way, ambitious, it did come into his mind that to have such a man as this Morely living in his house—a man who could not be trusted to take care of himself, a man who in his best days was only, as he thought, a common workman, earning daily wages by the labour of his hand,—if did come into his mind that all this would not help him in his upward social way. ”

“ Having given up his own room for the garret, he now gave up his garret—a matter of greater self-denial—to share his own room with Morely, that the garret might be made a place for evening work. He purchased, at the price of some self-denial in the way of outward adornment, a set of tools for the finer sort of cabinet-work; and in the long winter evenings applied himself to learn to use them, that his friend might have something to do in teaching him.
It would take long to tell all the ways in which this young man carried on the labour of love he had undertaken. ”

“ I can see the little green patch of vegetables, and the cornfield, and the roof of Healy’s house beyond, and the blue smoke rising up so straight and still, and on the other side the prairie, and the gleam of the lake-water far away. ”

“ And he did eat it, every drop.
“I feel better,” he said, with a grateful sigh.
“I expect so,” said Dolly, briefly, as she removed the basin. It was Mrs Grattan’s acknowledged “object in life,” her recognised “mission,” to provide her husband with “something good to eat.” In the old days, when Stephen’s reformation was new, she had many a time satisfied herself with a crust, that he might have food to strengthen him to resist the old fierce craving for stimulants, and thus doing, she helped, more than she knew, God’s work of grace in him. ”

“ But many a “tempted poor soul” in Littleton and elsewhere has his feet upon a rock and a new song in his mouth because of Stephen’s labours in his behalf; and if ever a man had the apostle’s prayer for the Ephesians answered in his experience, he has; for he is “strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might.”
He is an old man now, whose “work of faith and labour of love” is almost over ”

“ In the single glimpse of sunshine that flashed forth, how dazzling the earth looked! The fields around, the valleys beneath, the river, the pond, and the hills beyond, all were white.
“How beautiful!” she repeated many times. ”

“ It does not seem possible that the house can stand against this dreadful wind much longer.”
“It is much stronger now than when we came, mother dear,” said Sophy; “it must have fallen long ago if the wind could blow it down. Go to bed again, mother, and I will bring your tea and take baby, and you shall rest.”
Mrs Morely had no choice but to lay down again. She was trembling with cold and nervous excitement, quite unable to sit up; and again Sophy was left to the guidance of their affairs, both within and without the house. ”

“ Morely’s expenses must be paid to Montreal, and, indeed, in Montreal till he could get employment; and the children must in the meantime be cared for as well; and therefore Stephen’s leather must be purchased piece by piece as before; and how could he ever compete with the cheap shoe-shops that had taken away some of his customers already? His face took an anxious look, and so did Dolly’s, till she caught sight of the wrinkles on her husband’s forehead, and then she thought best to brighten up immediately. ”

“ By the utmost economy they had been able, during the last five years, to buy and pay for the little house in which they lived; but they had nothing laid up for the future; and now that Littleton was growing to be a place of some importance, as the new railway was nearly completed to it, there were new shops of all kinds to be opened in it, and Stephen’s business would be interfered with; for he could not make good boots and shoes as cheaply as other people could buy and sell poor ones, and his custom was dropping off. It would all come right in the end, he told Dolly ”

“ We had a hard time, but no harder than people generally have who go to a new country. Stephen kept up good courage, and stuck to his work; and I helped him all I could; and if I was sometimes a little discouraged and homesick, he never guessed it. And I never was much of either; for I was busy always, and there was my babies—” Dolly’s voice broke into a shrill wail as she spoke the word, and she sat with her face hidden a little while before she could go on again. ”

“ His strength will be made perfect in your weakness. If you’re His, He’ll keep you, and no mistake. Give all the rest up, and hang on to the Lord in simple faith. You can never do this thing of yourself ”

“ When his time was out, he stayed on as a journeyman in the same place; but he fell into bad hands, I suppose, for it began to come out through the neighbours, who saw him there sometimes, that he wasn’t doing as he ought to do; and when my father heard from them that they had seen him more than once the worse for liquor, he would let him have nothing more to say to me.
“You will scarcely understand just how it seemed to our folks. There was hardly a man who tasted liquor in all our town in those days. To have been betrayed into taking too much just once would have been to lose one’s character ”

“ The only face that had a shadow on it was Stephen’s; and that only came when he thought no one was looking at him. He was in a great hurry to get away, too, it seemed.
“For the roads are awful; and you may be thankful, little Sophy, that you hadn’t to go to Littleton to-night. I started to bring the things on a hand-sled, but would never have got through the drifts if it hadn’t a’ been for Farmer Jackson and his oxen. ”