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J'OHN DRAYTON;
A HISTORY OF THE EARLY LIFE AND DEVELOPMENT
A LIVERPOOL ENGINEER
" Every man for himself, and God for us all.'
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1851.
LONDON:
Printed bv Schulze and Co., 13, Poland Street.
JOHN DRAYTON.
CHAPTER I.
"Fall
Upon the great world's altar stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God
And gather dust, and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all "
DAVID BRUCE is saying these words half
aloud, and John Drayton's eye falls upon
them as he bashfully takes a seat by the
table. Darkly falling upon the world's
VOL. II. B
22G70GS
2 JOHN DRAYTON.
great altar stairs he too has been doing
this ; but he has not lifted up his voice
and called upon the Helper.
" What book is this, Joseph has been
giving you, John ?" said David, " you
are a favoured man to have books from
his library. I hardly think he would lend
me one. The ' Evidences ?' that is a grave
study."
And David turned over the leaves, as
if the book were new to him.
" But I daresay there are few folk like
you, reading nonsense verses from morn-
ing to night, Davie," said Mrs. Bruce ; " you
should begin to grave studies, too, at your
time of life."
" Mother, are you such a pagan ?" said
David Bruce, with a smile. " Will you call
these verses, nonsense verses ?"
JOHN DRAYTON. 3
" Well, I like some of them, I'll no
deny it," said Mrs. Bruce, " but there's
some if he kent what he means him-
self, I am sure it's more than you do,
Davie."
" It's all pretence, John," said the son,
smiling, " my mother likes nonsense verses,
quite as well as I do ; but she thinks
there is no employment so honourable as
making shirts."
" Hout, laddie," said Mrs. Bruce, as she
rose and put the shirt away, " John will
think you a foolish callant, as everybody
else does ; and now I'll leave you to
your own cracks, for I'm going up the
stairs."
" Are you beginning to study the ' Evi-
dences/ John ?" said David when his mother
B 2
4 JOHN DRAYTON.
had left them, and they were sitting face
to face, alone.
" I'll tell you what I want to know,
Mr. Bruce," said John hurriedly, " is the
Bible true ? can a man believe it and trust
to it ? It's not evidence I care for any
more than that ; but I want to know
that."
" Do you not know it, John ?"
A wistful, pitiful glance David threw
upon the young sceptic's face. Did he not
know it ? had he thrown away the child's
inheritance of faith ?
" I cannot tell whether you will be con-
vinced by that book," said David, " or if
any book will convince you ; but that
you will in some way attain to the know-
ledge, if you really wish and seek it, I
JOHN DRAYTON. 5
am sure. Have you tried the evidence of
the Bible itself, John ?"
" I think you don't understand me,
Mr. Bruce," said John with a slight im-
patience : " what good is it speaking about
the Bible, when it's the Bible itself I want
to have evidence of."
"Is it for argument's sake you speak,
John ?" said David ; " pardon me, many
do so I know ; or are you really seeking
what to believe ?"
" I am ; I don't care for argument,"
said John eagerly. " I once did, but then
I was a boy. Now now, Mr. Bruce, I
see there's something wanting in this world
that's not in man. I see there's something
wrong ; and I'd believe anything that was
likely to put it right I'd believe anything
in reason."
6 JOHN DRAYTON.
" In reason ?" said David, " but that's an
unfortunate limitation for me ; for I know
nothing about reason."
" What do you mean ? you know no-
thing about reason ?" John opened his
eyes.
" Yes, I've heard of her," said David,
with a smile, " a stout woman who lived
in the eighteenth century ; but she's dead,
John, dead these fifty years. They made
a goddess of her in yon wild demoniac
time in France ; but she's happily buried
now."
" What do you mean ?" repeated
John.
" Did you ever read the fable of Love and
Reason," said David " the poor Love could
not live within her shadow that portly
shadow of her's that shut out the sun-
JOHN DRAYTON. 7
shine; and when she covered him with
her cloak, poor boy, he died."
" You don't understand me, Mr. Bruce,"
said John.
" I think I do, and now we'll have a talk
about it; but first let us put this stout
woman out of court. Is it not a pretty
thing that she should go about with her
twelve-inch rule, and call herself a supreme
authority? but things intellectual and spi-
ritual will not be measured by twelve inches,
John. Let us have her away."
" Who is that you are going to have
away, Davie?" said Mrs. Bruce, re-entering
the room.
" We are to have a walk, John and I,
mother," said David. " By and bye I shall
come back to Tennyson ; but first we have
something to say to each other out of
doors."
8 JOHN DRAYTON.
Mrs. Bruce looked a little curious for
very rarely had David anything to say
which she might not hear. " Don't tell
him any of your secrets, John," said the
old lady, " for he tells them all to his
mother."
And John in spite of himself, looked up
in honest admiration at the young radiant
face, whose owner had no secrets which his
mother might not know.
The house of Joseph Davies stood on
one of the highest elevations of the hill,
facing to the river, and its southern side.
Just below, there lay a terrace of houses,
great in comparison with this little one;
and fields wherein other small habitations
were scantily sown like seed, stretched to
some considerable extent around fields
which here and there, had slowly departing
memories about them, of having been in
JOHN DRAYTON. 9
the country once, not so very many years
ago.
The sun is down, and the darkness of
early night begins to fall over the great
extent of land and sea and sky the two
young men look out on, as they stand
together at the door. Down there, in that
confused and smoky valley lies a wilderness
of souls ; the great ignoble toiling town,
sending up voices, softened and seeming
joyous into the night. Yonder, blue-
gleaming and cold, with naked masts speck-
ing it here and there, flows the river ; too
far off to see its motion and life, you would
think it some dead monstrous serpent, with
all its hues vanishing in the lustre of chill
death. Far out at sea, the blank horizon
looks dead and colourless too, and only the
twinkling star of the lighthouse yonder, on
B 3
10 JOHN DRAYTON.
the sandy promontory of that dim line of
coast, looks like warm life among those
monotones. Out at the river's mouth are
dangerous sandbanks, and sinister white
streaks begin to curl over the leaden sea ;
but within the river it is very peaceful,
and shipmen out yonder, over the dark,
truculent waves, look out and hail the light
the light held up steadily in a stronger hand
than Hero's ; and it speaks good cheer to
them, as they fight and strain against the
wind, till to every individual soul there
comes from its shining the voice of the
Love that bears it, calling them on on
to the home and haven which wait to give
them rest.
And as it turns, to throw out its cheering
Hail, like a voice over the sea, to south and
west, and north, they catch it but by
JOHN DRAYTON. 11
glimpses; so, now shining boldly out, now
lost for a moment in the gloom, there begins
to rise upon this other soul, yearning
for haven and home, the quiet light of
peace.
" Since ever the world was," said David
Bruce, and his voice harmonized strangely
with the night, speaking out of the dark-
ness to the listener's heart, " the artist- men
created on it have been labouring after one
great end. The sculptors of old Greece, in
yon far away time ; after them the painters
of the world's middle years ; and the poets
constantly in all ages; they have had their
highest efforts always directed to one aim.
Sometimes, perhaps unconsciously, constrained
to follow the impulse within them, without
knowing what it was ; to produce a divine
man to reveal upon earth, in bodily
12 JOHN DRAYTON.
form and human proportions, a manifest
God.
" They have all been toiling after it,
John darkly, as the Hebrew prophets did,
when they were inspired with those wonder-
ful messages to the future, in which them-
selves saw only a glory, mysterious and
indistinct ; and some of them have made
very grand men beautiful, majestic but
not one of them all is divine.
" Not the magnificent Apollo, who was
worshipped once; not the Jesus, whom
Raphael painted sublime men these are,
and they might be angels; but you know
God is not there.
" And then there are the poets poets to
whom God has given power to create ; and
they, too, with human yearning, have toiled
towards this end. What have they done ?
JOHN DRAYTON. 13
There is Milton, whom you know, and who
writes not only of men and angels, but. of
the Father and the Son. Do you remem-
ber, John ? The Father and the Son in
Milton's Paradise are only men speak
only as men and never man yet has
made visible, in human garments, the
God."
"Well?".
The listener was trembling, too, with the
emotion, which made the speaker's voice
waver in the air, as if a wind blew it
about.
" It is the yearning of all of us a long-
ing inextinguishable not to be appeased,
thank God, but by the vision. To see this
man of our kindred, who is God over all,
the whole world groaneth and travaileth in
pain together until now !
14 JOHN DRAYTON.
"And once upon this soil He trod, with
human feet, and was manifest ; and in one
book He stands revealed for ever. If it is
not so, then the fisher-youth, John, and the
publican, Matthew, were greater poets than
ever breathed before. They were Gods who
could create a God, or He was the Lord
whom they saw.
" It is all as simple as if He had been
continually a child ; all so human His
slumberings, His hungerings, His tears ;
but all with such a glory about it, that,
when you look, you know that this can be
none else but God. Not a word could you
add not one is less than perfect to be
taken away. Such a prayer could
ever man have conceived that prayer ?
Do you know this wonderful story,
John?"
JOHN DRAYTON. 15
But John made no answer ; he dared not
say he did.
" To put them together the Jesus whom
Milton imagined, and the Jesus whom
Matthew saw ; or to look at Him as He
stands in the Gospel by that grave at
Bethany, and then to look at the picture
where a great master has tried to paint Him
so I fancy these are the evidences, John.
They are to me. If any other man had, in
the least degree, approached the Evangelists
in their success, I might have wavered ; but
never has mortal been able so much as to
outline the garments of the Divine Man. I
see Him here perfect, unapproachable and
yet with a human nature so true and bro-
ther-like as art dared not have given. When
I find this, I cannot linger to apologize and
defend in detail. It may strike other minds
16 JOHN DRAYTON.
differently, and I feel that it is wise and right
to build walls, true and strong, about our
citadel ; only to me these are not necessary.
I see Himself upon the battlements, and I
need no more proof; for the Book which
reveals to me a Divine Saviour must be itself
Divine."
They parted with good-nights, subdued
and low, and the poet went in with his
glowing heart to read of Him for whom the
world's blind yearning hands have groped,
and groped for ages past. Out at sea, the
nearing ship felt the river's placid waters
touch her keel, and close inshore passed by
the sentinel light, the sailors cheer, sinking
into low thanksgiving, as, close at hand, it
flashed upon his bronzed and darkened face.
In the haven, and with the home, peaceful
and blessed, waiting yonder on the shore ;
JOHN DRAYTON. 17
and so it travels, this other wayfaring soul,
towards the great light which dawns dimly,
far away, through the darkness, guarding the
joyous Life-River, which makes glad the city
of God.
He has laid the " Evidences" upon the
table in his little chamber, where he hurries
now to be alone ; and beside it, see, how his
fingers shake as he looses the handkerchief
from his mother's Bible. He remembers
how long ago he put this Bible away, and
the sad Welsh melody steals into his ear
again, like the odour of those violets within
the long-closed pages, as he thinks how, with
a great pang, the angel Faith stretched its
wings, and fled away from the boy's deceived
heart.
But he is no boy now : he purposes to
read the " Evidences," but first to read the
18 JOHN DRAYTON.
Bible, and now he has opened the briefest
Gospel and begins.
Darkly gathers the October night; wild
about these houses on the hill the wind wails
like one desolate, and far away over seas and
forests wrestles in great anguish with the
land and water with struggling ships and
men ; but within the river, calm at its moor-
ings, lies the anchored ship, safe in the curve
of the protecting shore, and the sailors sleep
in peace below her decks, and thank God
that to-morrow will see them home.
The dark hours wear on to midnight, and
Rachel Wyld wets her pillow with some silent
tears, and lies awake thinking of her brother
on the sea, and of the other, who is not her
brother, drifting over the perilous waves of
hopeless doubt and darkness ; and she speaks
their names together before God.
JOHN DRAYTON. 19
The one is in the anchored ship, dreaming
of home looking through the darkness and
the scattered lights, when he starts to the
deck for his watch, to see where home is,
and rejoice over it, and bless it in his heart ;
while the other, with great tears, is sailing
in in to the quiet waters in to the Al-
mighty arm stretched over him ; and, lifting
up his eyes, beholds the face of the Lord.
20 JOHN DRAYTON.
CHAPTER II.
" GEORGE !" cried Rachel Wyld, " George !
mother !"
Mrs. Wyld was upstairs, but at the
name came down, winged : so swiftly did
she descend the steep stairs, that her foot
caught the carpet, and she would have
fallen in the little lobby, but for the
sailor's ready arm. " Mother !" " Oh,
George, George, is it you ?"
JOHN DRAYTON. 21
And then there follows an incoherent
half hour laughing, and crying, and
asking questions but at last they become
rational and articulate; and Mrs. Wyld,
after asking a dozen times without remem-
bering the answer, understands at last that
her son came in last night that they
have had a wonderful passage and that
in three weeks they must sail again.
" Your father's away, George he's gone
to America," said Mrs. Wyld, remembering
with compunctions and relenting, that the
father had been hitherto forgotten.
" I know, mother the ship came in
a day or two before we left Halifax, and
I saw my father."
" And what did he say ? and how does
he look? and what was he going to do,
22 JOHN DRAYTON.
George?" said Mrs. Wyld, her heart
softening to him, so far away.
" He had got work I didn't see him
till after I wrote the last letter," said
George, " but he had got work, something
about the steam-boats out there, and was
to have good wages. I've got a letter
from him, mother, to you ; and he says
you're to go out directly."
Mrs. Wyld's face grew blank, and the
work fell from the hands of Rachel. "To
go out directly !"
" He had worked a bit on the road
out," said George. " You know he can
do lots of things when he likes and he
had worked at odd things helping the car-
penter, and saved some of his passage
money. Here it is two pound he gave
JOHN DRAYTON. 23
it* to me ; and the rest of your passage
I'll pay out of my own wages, mother, if
you'U go."
" Oh, George, such a voyage ! you
couldn't bid me go."
" That's where my ship's going to Hali-
fax and with emigrants," said George ;
" and I'd make you as comfortable as ever
I could, mother. We'd all be together,
you know, for the voyage, and I could
get to sail constant out of Halifax."
" Oh, George, don't speak how could
you ? you're sailing constant out of Liver-
pool now, and we're living at peace, though
we've got to work hard. I wouldn't say
a word against your father for the world,
but you remember sure enough, you both
remember how it used to be ; and don't
you see, it would be just the same again,
24 JOHN DRAYTON.
after a bit, however good it might be at
first. Oh, George, like a good lad, don't
bid me go."
" Won't you read father's letter, mother ?"
said George.
She took it, and again her heart melted.
It was almost the first letter she had re-
ceived from him since the old bright times
long ago, when she thought him the man
of men ; and the old happy trust gra-
dually, slowly, began to waken in her heart.
He was not there, with his lordly supercilious
air, to remind her of all she had suffered
from him, and the tone of the letter was
kind. She began to think gently of him
to raise her apron to her eyes to say
" poor George !" and he had nearly got
the victory.
But all this time Rachel looked very
JOHN DRAYTON. 25
pale. Her hands had dropped together
with the work between them, and she
was eagerly watching her mother's face.
Not a change on it, but you could have
traced it in Rachel, as from burning red
to more than her natural paleness, the
colour fluctuated and changed.
" You could'nt bid us, George you
could'nt bid us," said Rachel. " Why
should we go away to a strange country,
where we know no one, to be dependent on
him ? Oh ! don't you mind how you ran
away yourself when you were a boy, because
you could'nt bear it ? And how do you
think we're to bear it, with no help and no
way to escape if he turns bad again ? Oh !
it's cruel of you, George !"
" Rachel, he's our father," said the sailor,
" and he's alone."
VOL. II. C
26 JOHN DRAYTON.
But Rachel indignantly wiped her eyes.
She had toiled for bread to him, when his
selfish pride or dissipation threw him out of
work, and had he. been in the same circum-
stances she would have done it again ; but
her whole nature revolted against the sacri-
fice required from her now.
"If he were here with us I would'nt leave
him," said Rachel ; " but he's gone away of
his own will and left us, George left us to
work hard for our living ; and I'm willing to
work hard I'm willing to be a slave for my
mother if it's needful ; but what's the use of
going away, when we're peaceable and con-
tent, and doing for ourselves, away so far
xMJ.-i fW 7 -?* ^
from him?"
" He says he's lonely, Rachel," said Mrs.
Wyld deprecatingly. " He says he's sorry
for what he used to do, and he can't bear to
JOHN DRAYTON. 27
be alone. He'd like to look at us again,
Rachel, and make us comfortable ; and it's a
fine country, and there's good wages. Your
poor father ! if I could only think he was
in earnest, and would'nt go back of his
word."
Again Rachel wiped her eyes ; she was
trembling all over with sudden anger, and
a strange impulse to resistance.
" Don't I know how it will all turn out,
mother ?" she said. " You'll go, and he'll
be kind enough for a while at first he'll be
as glad as he can be and then bit by bit
it'll come back; and then we'll fight and
try to keep it secret, and we won't be able,
and we'll be miserable, mother !"
Mrs. Wyld looked wistfully at the letter.
" I'm sure, Rachel, if I knew what was right I
wouldn't hesitate, but I can't see what to do.
c 2
28 JOHN DRAYTON.
It's all very true what you say, I dare say ;
and it's all very true what he says too ; and
I'm sure between you I don't know what
to do."
" Mother, it's your duty," said George.
" And so it is, George," said the yielding
mother, whose heart began to yearn after the
exile.
" He left us of his own will," said Rachel ;
" he did'nt think of his duty and he can
work for himself, and keep himself comfort-
able oh ! no fear of that ! If you will go
I won't resist it, mother ; but I warn you
you'll repent."
" What has come over Rachel ? " said
George.
And suddenly it flashed upon Rachel's
mind that she, too, had a selfish motive
that it would wring her own heart to go
away.
JOHN DRAYTON. 29
A deep blush of shame covered her whole
face, bitter tears came into her eye ; it was
not anything so very bad, or unnatural
either, this feeling of her's ; and it was very
hard, she thought, to have it brought home
to her like guilt. ^loaD ;
So she commanded herself with a violent
effort, and was calm ; though never before
had such a bitter sense of injury and con-
straint overpowered the gentle religious spirit
of Rachel Wyld.
" I can work here for us both," said
Rachel, " and my mother can be comfortable
and quiet as she should be; but I know
what's waiting us yonder a constant fight
and battle, and no such thing as content ;
but if you make up your mind, mother, I
won't complain."
" Dear me, Rachel, what makes you speak
30 JOHN DRAYTON.
so ?" said Mrs. Wyld. " Mustn't you make
up your mind as well as me ? But I think
it's duty sure I do and your poor fa-
ther !"
Rachel resumed her work with a kind of
desperate energy. She saw it was decided
already.
And she must go away she, with her
young life just emerging into the sunshine
for the first time, must go to fight and
struggle again, between the tyrant, selfish
man, and his shrinking, feeble wife ; to im-
molate herself to the furies and caprices of
the one, the terrors of the other. Her heart
burned as she thought of all the details of
the sacrifice which lay before her; and she
did not see the 'duty' in it; but she re-
signed herself to the certain need.
" Mother, come down at four o'clock,
JOHN DRAYTON. 31
and see the ship," said George ; " we're to
get her into dock to-day. Will you come
too, Rachel?"
" I'm busy ; I promised this gown to be
done to-night," said Rachel.
" And now, mother, give us some dinner,
for I must be off to the ship," said
the sailor. " Come, I should be away
now. ;, &/i j | m , TJ[ g
And just then, John Drayton came in from
the foundry.
There seemed some dejection about him ;
but the home-coming of George was a plea-
sant surprise, and his brow cleared. There
was nothing said about the projected emigra-
tion. George and his mother seemed tacitly
to avoid the subject ; and the two young
men, when their meal was over, left the
house together.
32 JOHN DRAYTON.
Mrs. Wyld went bustling happily about
all the afternoon, putting everything in the
little kitchen into the perfection of order ;
the fire skilfully built up, with that more
than ordinary supply of coals, that it might
burn red and long; the grate shining like
burnished jet; the kettle already drowsily
humming by the fire ; and then she went up
stairs, and took out her shawl and bonnet,
and, with great care, dressed herself, to do
credit to her son fl9V fc^
" We'll be back by tea-time, Rachel,
George and I," said her mother, cheerfully
looking back, before she closed the door ; and
Rachel was left alone.
The clock was ticking, the kettle hum-
ming the cat added a kindred slumbrous
note, as she couched on the hearth, and
basked in the fire-light. Warmth and re-
JOHN DRAYTON. 33
pose, cheerful and quiet, were in the little
room ; and its array of old familiar things,
in that warm light, daguerrotyped themselves
on the aching heart that sat among them.
No painful image intruded itself into the
household looks of that decent, labouring,
seemly poverty ; but Rachel thought of the
dreary voyage, and the cold, strange country
far away ; and her heart died within
her.
Her work progressed very irregularly that
afternoon ; sometimes her hands dropped
in her lap, and a long fit of listless, broken
musing fell upon her; and sometimes she
i A t , j,
plied her needle with such haste and force,
that it broke, and she threw it away, and laid
down her head, and cried. Poor Rachel !
trials before she had known in plenty, but
never before had been compelled to choose ;
c 3
34 JOHN DRAYTON.
and no one knew that she stood now at the
crisis of those solemn crossing roads, and that
the happy might be, and the stern must be,
were tugging at her heart.
It was six o'clock, and her mother and
George had not yet come; but in a little
time, John Drayton's foot was in the passage,
and he entered the kitchen. She thought
he looked depressed again, as he hung up his
cap, and went to ' clean' himself. Could
George have told him ?
And now he comes in, and throws himself
on a chair before the fire. Two or three
times Rachel essays to speak, and cannot ;
and he, too, looks as if he had something to
say : at length he begins :
" I don't know why it is ; isn't it strange,
Rachel? that some little trouble will always
come in and annoy you when you've got hold
JOHN DRAYTON. 35
of a great joy ; and then, instead of being
thankful, as you ought, you fret, and think
about the trouble when it isn't a pin-point to
the blessing."
" I don't fret, John I don't indeed ;
I ' but Rachel could not speak ; the room
was going dizzily round in those poor, full
eyes of her's, and she thought her heart would
break ; that John should call this threatened
banishment a little trouble ! i a97/
" I don't mean you, Rachel," said John,
glancing at her with a little wonder ; " I
mean myself. I don't know what trouble
you've got ; I'd do anything, I know, to keep
you from any ; but, Rachel, last night I found
I found it out." , ai) [
" Found out what, John ?",- (J i ^ a0 '3
" I found out that it's true Him" said
John, with his eyes just overbrimming, and a
36 JOHN DRAYTON.
faltering sound of emotion in his voice;
" and, Rachel, if I lived a hundred years,
I'd try every day, with God's help, to
live like a man a man that's been re-
deemed.'"
She held out her hand to him, and he
took it and grasped it, while the tears ran
over on his cheek and on hers ; then she
lifted her work again, and there was a
moment's pause.
" To think that with this this to be
thankful for," said John, " I should get
low about just a little misfortune; but I
wanted to say something to you, Rachel, and
now I ^an't ; it's that "
" Is it because we're going away ?" said
Rachel, commanding her voice, pain-
fully.
" You're going away !" He started up
JOHN DRAYTON. 37
on his chair, and looked at her in wonder.
" What do you mean ?"
This, then, was not the " little trouble ;"
it made poor Rachel calm.
" We're going to America ; my father has
sent for us, John, and my mother has made
up her mind ; she'll go."
"But you won't, Rachel? you won't; don't
say it !" cried John. " That it should have
come now ! for the foundry's to be shut up,
and I'll be out of work in a month ; but I'll
do anything ; there's bread to be made in
more places than foundries. Rachel, you
won't go ? say you won't go !"
But Rachel only shook her head, and bent
it down to hide her tears and her trembling,
painful smile.
" That's what grieved me because I
wanted to speak to you, Rachel, just now,
38 JOHN DRAYTON.
when this came I durst'nt before," said
John ; " but now, Rachel, there's work to be
got at other places. I don't care what I do ;
only just stay and try me, whether I can't
work like a man. Rachel ! what makes
you turn away ? don't go say you won't
go!"
" I would if I could, John," said Rachel,
through her tears ; " but I can't, and I
mustn't. My mother she will go ; if any-
thing could keep her, I'd try, but she's made
up her mind and I must take care of her,
John ; I must go with her, and defend her,
and work for her if it was to my last day ;
don't speak to me ; don't try to lead me
from my duty. It's hard enough as it is,
and you should rather help me than hinder
me, John."
Poor fellow ! he could not help any one
JOHN DRAYTON. 39
just then. He had laid his head down on
the little table, and covered it, and the great
Herculean frame of him was shaken with
giant sobs.
" We're not made for ourselves, John,"
said Rachel, for there was to her a strange
consolation in this grief; " we've got to think
of other people to do what's right, however
hard it. is ; and God has done more for us
than ever we'll do for any one. Don't you
remember that, John ?"
He did not remember it. "Every man
for himself" no, not here not within the
sacred circuit of Christian deeds and duties.
Every man for God, for his own home, kin,
friends, for the world ; through the first
stage John had past, but now he entered
the second, and his first lesson was
hard.
40 JOHN DRAYTON.
He could not yield; the impulse of re-
sistance was still stronger in him than it had
been in Rachel.
" Why shouldn't I go too ?" said John
suddenly lifting his head.
And Rachel's eye brightened for a mo-
ment; why shouldn't he t^sd Bit -gab
" But what would they say at home ?
John, you've not been doing right ; you've
been neglecting them ; and they would break
their hearts, if you went away."
Poor John looked blankly into the fire,
and clenched his hands. All his dreams are
vanishing together; and he thinks of his
mother pining about the neglected house, like
the Margaret of the poet's tale, and of his
father's stooping shoulders, and weak arms ;
for his father is growing old.
" I don't know ; I think my heart will
JOHN DRAYTON. 41
break," said John, slowly, as he put his hand
over his eyes.
" But hearts don't break that trust God,
and hope, and are young," said Rachel ;
" and if we're spared, we've time. Maybe
you'll come some time, John ; maybe God
will bring us back. It's all in His hand
whatever way it is ; and maybe maybe,
there will come a better time."
But as she speaks, the tears fall heavily
upon her hands ; and John Drayton's fingers
press upon his brow, as if some pain were
rending it ; and so they must part.
42 JOHN DRAYTON.
CHAPTER III.
" THERE'S one trunk to rope yet, George,"
said Mrs Wyld ; " be sure you put it on
careful ; and the car's to be here at half-past
one ; we're all ready."
They are going away ; and this afternoon
the ship is to sail.
Look into the little bright kitchen now ;
it looks already damp, and disconsolate, and
cold ; and the bright, narrow oil-cloth is
JOHN DRAYTON. 43
taken up from the passage, and lies in a roll,
with twine round it, ready to be carried
away ; and straw is lying where the trim
door-mat lay ; and marks of many feet are
on the boarding of the lobby, for it is wet
out of doors; and there has been a sale.
The round table is still in the kitchen, and
so are some of the chairs, for Mrs. Taylor,
in the parlour, has bought them, and will
not remove them till their late owner is
away. But everything is gone that made
the little apartment look like home ; the
blind is taken down from the bare window ;
the fire is dying in white ashes in the grate,
and trunks stand about the littered floor.
Mrs. Wyld has got a new cloak on, and a
warm bonnet, and looks a little fluttered ;
there are misgivings in her face, but it wears
a holiday aspect too. A hackney coach is
44 JOHN DRAYTON.
engaged to take them down to the Pier, and,
spite of her terror about the voyage, a little
excitement not unpleasant makes the
good woman feel herself important, and a
personage ; and she is very anxious about
the roping of the trunks.
Beside her, on one of the few chairs,
Rachel sits, feeding, for the last time, her
little canary. The cage stands on the round
table ; and Rachel, with a sadly shaking
hand, holds between the wires that morsel
of white bread. The cage has been newly
cleaned, and there is pure water in its little
fountain ; for John is to take it home as
Rachel's last gift, and the little bird is to be
his friend.
She has on a new shawl, too, but she does
not see it : hardly has seen it, indeed, since
it was bought her eyes have been so dim ;
JOHN DRAYTON. 45
and under the shawl her heart beats dully,
with great pulsations, like sobs for poor
Rachel thinks she would rather lay down
her head and die there, than go away
thinks, but it is not so, for she is young,
and there is hope.
And John Drayton stands by the window,
sometimes suddenly turning round to look
at her, and as quickly bending his head
away. He is half desperate, poor fellow
and thinks he will leap on board after them,
and hide himself till they are far out at sea ;
or will follow them in another ship, and
reach the journey's end as soon as they do ;
or something incoherent and indistinct, pro-
curing only that they shall not part. But
always there comes over him a sudden check,
reminding him of home home where his
father grows frail, and it is his turn now
46 JOHN DRAYTON.
to work for those who have been so fondly
proud of him ; and struggle as he will, he
finds that he must submit that they must
part !
And all this while, George, with his jacket
off, is knotting the rope tightly round that
trunk, and deliberating how it will be best
to tie it; and his mother, in her new cloak,
gives him directions, and looks anxiously
on.
Half-past one : and now the coach draws
up at the door, and the trunks are lifted on,
and John carries the cage into Mrs. Taylor's
(she has taken a house a few doors up, and
is setting up an establishment of her own)
till he has seen them away ; then he will
come back for it, he says, but Mrs. Taylor
scarcely thinks he will, when she looks at his
face.
JOHN DRAYTON. 47
And all the neighbours are at their doors,
and curious children peep into the coach, and
look at Mrs. Wyld with an interest they
never felt before, as, solemnly important,
and with the misgiving growing stronger in
her face, as the faint cold wind blows in
upon her from the east, she sits in her
new cloak, and looks up at the bare win-
dows of her forsaken house. And then
Rachel, who says, " Good-bye," as the chil-
dren see by the motion of her white lips
as she passes them for they hear no sound
steps in ; and then the little hardy sailor,
George, and then poor disconsolate John ;
and down the steep street they go solemnly
away ; over the great sea, into infinity for
that is what the children think as they look
after them, slowly going down the hill.
And now they have reached the pier, and
48 JOHN DRAYTON.
leave the coach; and vaguely wondering
whether all those careless bystanders know
that she is going to America, Mrs. Wyld
again feels the cold breath of the east wind
in her face, and trembles and speaks of it
to George and George laughs; and strangely,
Rachel and John, each in their secret thoughts,
record the laugh, and remember it years after
as the very climax sound of pain : it jars so
harshly on their strained spirits now.
And now they go down the steps, and
enter the boat, and are rowed away over the
cold blue weltering waters to the ship lying
yonder, girded for its battle with the wind
and the sea. As they draw near its high
side, breasting up from the water like a
tower, many heads appear to them between
the decks ; and the crowd comforts the fal-
tering heart of Mrs. Wyld. An emigrant-
JOHN DRAYTON. 49
ship, freighted with sad hearts broken for-
tunes men foiled in the wrestle with the
unseen arms of Fate ; and all are going
hence, far from the native mother, to brave
another fall in a strange land.
But now they have to part; and John
Drayton, whose parched lips cleave together,
and who has no farewell to say, eagerly
reaches up from the little, rocking boat, to
hear Rachel's last words as she leans over
the high bulwark of the ship. But the
snort of that little steamer, hurrying up to
carry the far voyager away, drowns the
broken voice of Rachel, and he only knows
that she bids him remember and hope.
" Heave yo !" and now George Wyld is
at the capstan, loud in the chorus as the
anchor rises by the vessel's side ; and now
VOL. II. D
50 JOHN DRAYTON.
the little racing spirit is harnessed to her
bows, and they are gone.
Speeding out along that blue, cold high-
way, swiftly and silent, till at length they
pass the unlighted tower, down yonder at
the Rock, and out of the home-river, are
lost beyond, in the blank horizon line that
I <JCKJ jU'JJ {C.7ZUIJU IJ KJUJV tfJSII
joins the sea and sky.
He is standing on the pier looking at
it thinking he can see a flutter of sail out
of the dim, ghostly clouds, or a mast
striking up into their gloom till hours
after they have passed out into the sea ;
and now when the slow night begins to
gather sullenly down upon the river and
its gleaming banks, and the little steamers
plying on it, move about like fireflies, each
with its skeleton outline, and its coloured
lights, poor John desolately turns away.
S? c
JOHN DRAYTON. 51
There is no such thing as home in Liver-
pool now ; and wearily he plods along,
before he goes to his lodging, up the hill
to the old street to get Rachel's canary,
and carry it with him to his unknown,
dull roottf" ' rno ^ 9 fr ^ ** uo bos ,&
... . -i j f ffB LJ c,r(t et' Art v.uu
He has other troubles, too, poor fellow!
for the foundry is to close' in a week.
Mr. Hardman and Mr. Power are about
to dissolve partnership ; for Mr. Hardman
is very rich, and means to retire, it is said,
and his son is going to be a gentleman.
The common opinion does v ifito Jkld that
this will be a very hard, laborious business
for young Mr. Hardman, but David Bruce
does, and thinks it impossible. And David
Bruce, though he smiles still, is "out of
work," too, and does not know where to
turn for employment, for there is always
D 2
52 JOHN DRAYTON.
an over stock of clerks " in the market," as
the mercantile people say ; and there is no
such thing as a poet known or employed
in Liverpool, so that the sky at present in
this matter of employment, is very much
darker for David than it is for John.
Mr. Power, without Mr. Hardman, is not
rich enough to carry on such a great
establishment, and no one with sufficient
capital has yet been heard of to join him ;
so for the last few months, bands of work-
men, who could, have been going down by
the steamer to Glasgow ; where iron-boats,
the victorious children of the Clyde, are
always building ; and where the Scotch-
men, who most of them come from that
prolific mother, expect to get work among
their friends.
Bui all the engineers have not friends
JOHN DRAYTON. 53
or hopes in Glasgow, and the work is very
slack in Liverpool. It is a very painful
matter for these unemployed men, and
John Drayton does not know what to
do.
Another Saturday night he receives
wages at the foundry, and yet another
week's work, by special favour of Edward
Cooper, the foreman, remains for John ;
but after that Cooper, too, will be unem-
ployed, and every man must shift f Qr him-
self.
John has not been at home for many
weeks, and his heart has upbraided him
often ; so now, on this November Satur-
day, he takes his lonely way to the river.
In a little bundle in his hand he carries
his Sunday dress, to wear at church to-
morrow, and his great-coat is on to protect
54 JOHN DRAYTON.
him against the cold wind to-night. How
it blows! whistling keen up among the
bare cordage of the little river steamer.
He shudders as he thinks how it will roar
through the full sails out at sea.
It is a long road, that road to Upton long,
and dark, and solitary ; and his mother is
not standing at the door as she used to be,
to look for him for they have been disap-
pointed so often, those poor old solitary
people, that they cease to watch now on the
Saturday nightsiii ifaiora
But a faint light is gleaming from the
window, through the plants and the little
muslin curtain ; and there is his father sadly
failed, and with wrapt-up rheumatic arms,
and a long wheezing cough, sitting in the
easy chair by the fire. John sees that there
is a pillow in the chair at the old man's
JOHN DRAYTON. 55
back, and that his hand shakes sadly, as he
lays down the exhausted pipe.
And his mother stands before the fire,
stirring the gruel that simmers on it, and
speaking as nurses speak to invalids, sooth-
ing down the little irritations of the old
man, almost as she would soothe a child.
The room looks just as it used to do,
except that a certain air of poverty has
crept, some way, into its neatness. The
sides of the grate have been filled up
with bricks, to diminish its size, and it is
but a very little fire on which Mrs. Drayton
boils her gruel. Careworn and pinched
her features look, too, John fancies, and
on the little table, between the old couple,
two basins are set out, with spoons and
salt, to receive the gruel ; this is to be their
supper, and it is not very generous
fare.
56 JOHN DRAYTON.
But Mrs. Drayton has heard the step
on the gravel without, and anxiously hastens
to the door. " Oh, John, John, have you
come at last ?" and John feels very humble
as the door is closed on him, and his
father rises feebly, and holds out his
hand.
" Thou's been long of coming, lad ; but
any way, thou's welcome now."
"And you'll be cold sit by the fire,
Johnnie," said the cottage mother. " I'll
put on a bit more coal, for its burned
low; and there, that's the pan with the
gruel never mind it; but I wish you
had sent me word, John, and I'd have
had a better dinner for to-morrow."
" Never mind the dinner, mother," said
John, humbly ; " I don't deserve you should
give me any."
" Husht, lad ; we're old folks, and don't
JOHN DRAYTON. 57
heed about much eating but you're young ;
any way, I'll run up now to the village,
and get you a glass of ale."
" No, indeed. I'll take what you're going
o take, mother," said John. " Never mind
me ; but you should have something better
for yourselves."
jj^Well; it's little matter for old folks
like us ; we've lost the taste of our mouths
now, John," said Mrs. Dray ton : " and if
we've just enough to do with, what does
matter. It's different with you that's
young. And then there's your father he
hasn't been working much, you know,-
Johnnie, for a while, and we'll have to
spare betimes ; and he likes a drop of
gruel, poor old man; for he's weakly now,
John, is your father."
And the father went off suddenly into
D 3
58 JOHN DRAYTON.
a prolonged asthmatic cough, demonstrating
that he was " weakly" beyond doubt.
" I'll get you a cup of tea, if you'd
like it, John," said Mrs. Drayton. " I've
got some, real good, that Rachel brought
me, in a present, when she came on
Monday to say good bye. Oh, John,
wasn't it foolish of them to go away ?
or I've got some buttermilk in the house,
or I'll run up in a minute, Johnnie, and
get you a glass of ale."
She had opened the door of the little
triangular cupboard, of dark stained wood,
which clung to the wall in the corner, and
was bringing out the loaf and cheese, and
butter a very little square bit of cheese,
and a morsel of butter on a small plate.
Not so was her homely table wont to be
supplied ; and John saw that very little
JOHN DRAYTON. 59
household store remained on those clean
shelves, which were once garnished so
well.
" Give me my gruel, Jane," said the old
man, feebly ; " and tell us the news, John.
I think I'd like to see a paper sometimes,
but your mother can't abide parting with
the money. "xt
igj&Husht," said the house-mother again,
" it's easier to make it than it is to spend
it ; and we'll have to spare. Your father 's
an old man, John, and can't work for very
long now ; and I haven't been at the
market for two Saturdays ; we need to be
careful."
Mrs. Drayton poured the gruel into the
basins, and added salt ; and, seating herself
at the table, their homely meal began very
disconsolately John took a crust of the loaf
60 JOHN DRAYTON.
and a morsel from the little bit of
cheese. He had seen poverty before
often enough ; but had never associated
the idea of want with his humble, plentiful
home.
" And now, mother, I'll read the chapter
as I used to do," said John, with a faltering
voice.
Mrs. Drayton took down, out of the
top shelf in the cupboard, the carefully kept
Bible, and smoothed the pillow at her
husband's back, and drew her own chair
opposite to him, at the other side of the
fire; but, first, all the dishes and plates
must be removed into the little scullery, and
the table made clean and white again, lest
the boards of the Bible should be spoiled;
and then the house-mother seated herself,
and smoothed down her check apron, and
JOHN DRAYTON. 61
crossed her hands in her lap, and was ready
to hear.
And John read, " Blessed are ye poor ;"
not always blessed ; but now, with tears
penitent and holy in his eyes, and his hum-
ble heart new-strung for better doings, in
his poverty and sorrow how much more
blessed now, than that time only a few
weeks ago, when the pride of manhood
seemed to him an armour invincible, and
his own strength and intellect was his
boast. Very sad, very dark, was the pros-
pect just now for John; but he hoped in
God, and new life was within him,
And now the old man, with the help
of his wife's arm, hobbles away to bed,
giving John first a brief abrupt shake of
his brown withered hand, and saying,
"Bless thee, lad, thou's to be a comfort
62 JOHN DRAYTON.
after all ;" and John draws his chair to
the little fire, and bends down over it,
looking at the bricks that crush in the
burning coals, and thinking they look like
tragic emblems of the chill force of penury,
as the ineffectual flame plays dully on them,
and whitens, but does not destroy.
In a little time Mrs. Drayton returned,
and pausing with the candle in her hand to
lift John's bundle, came forward with it
to the table.
" Your coat will get creased, Johnnie,"
said the mother. " I'll take it out, and
hang it up stairs in the attic. I've been
putting the bed right, if you're wearied."
" I'm not wearied; mother," said John,
" I'm just troubled, that's all ; and why
didn't you send me word about all
this ?"
".ob IUBO I isrlw bos .lydi'
JOHN DRAYTON. 63
"I didn't want to grieve you," said Mrs.
Drayton, " and we've wanted for nothing
yet, Johnnie. What we'll have to do before
all's done, I don't know the Lord knows
but I'm afraid we'll be badly off, John."
,m$ 'Never, mother, as long as I can do
a day's work," said John, earnestly.
" Well, I always knew you'd be a good
lad, and a comfort to us," said Mrs. Drayton,
sighing. " Many's the time I've told the
old man so, when he was low about
his rheumatics and his cough ; and sure
enough, Johnnie, you've stayed a long time
away ; but Rachel says you're a good lad,
and I never thought but you'd turn out a
good lad, and be a comfort to us all."
" Mother," said John, " I've been a fool
and a selfish wretch, and now I'm punished ;
don't speak about me, but tell me what
ails my father, and what I can do."
64 JOHN DRAYTON.
" It's three weeks now since he had to
give up work," said Mrs. Drayton. " It's
asthma, John, besides the rheumatics, and
the cough's hard upon him, for he's an
old man. It's not that I've got no money
for there's some in the Vicar's Provident
Society, you know ; but then, when I change
a sovereign, it goes so quick away, you
wouldn't believe ; and he gets weak in his
mind, poor old man, and wants good things
like a child, and sometimes I haven't the
heart to keep them from him. So I'm
obliged to save ; for what's four or five
pound to keep us, maybe months and
months afore he's able to work again ; or,
more likely, he'll never be able to work
again; and it'll soon wear out that will
so I'm obliged to count every penny,
John."
And John eagerly took out his chamois-
JOHN DRAYTON. 65
leather purse, and produced the glittering
sovereign he had brought to give his
mother.
" I'll never let it out of my mind again
another week so long as I live, mother,"
said John. "Whatever I do, or wherever
I go, I'll mind home regular ; and let the
old man get what he likes if it should
cost five shillings : for, mother, you'll see
if I ever forget again."
" But you'll not be able to do without,
yourself, Johnnie," said Mrs. Drayton ; " and
Rachel said something about the foundry ;
is it going to stop work ?"
" Never mind : I'll get work somewhere,"
said John. " I'm not afraid. You take
the money, mother, and just see if you
can't trust me, for I've got something to
work for now."
66 JOHN DfcAYTON.
" 1 knew it would come true some
time," said Mrs. Drayton, wiping her eyes ;
" for I always said you'd be a good lad, and
a comfort to us all."
/I
ijw Jnow nrfol i^eb
ids ioii guv/ num bio oHT .ffoiuda oi
Jnernhcqie Y^^I^ ^liitf srlt oa f v/6n og
nv/mb lijsdo-^jss -sift { iabio luiooqe otoi ii;q
'ioto(J baojslq sfdct sliill srfi ^>iflt sift o*
isiii noqu iiaqo bin! aEcfiS^' 14fing $A$ bos-
JiiOlg On 8J3Y/ t)I
.fl9f{J bnn won daisv B iuo ifoqp. ail
JOHN DRAYTON. 67
' 9flioo hlfiov/ )r '7oml I 5>
qiv >:I .eiM .rni*
bni? JjL-f {jocrg i> 9d h'iioy br -oV 1
".[IB gjj oJ i r
CHAPTER IV.
THE next day John went with his mother
to church. The old man was not able to
go now, so the littlfe family apartment was
put into special order, the easy-chair drawn
to the fire, the little table placed before it,
and the great Bible laid open upon the
table.
Old John Drayton was no great scholar,
but he spelt out a verse now and then, and
68 JOHN DRAYTON.
leaning back in his chair, let its influence
fall upon his mind ; hazily fall upon the un-
awakened torpid mind, which never had been
roused by any exertion and yet groping
among its dim musings, you came upon
thoughts of heaven ; strange, cloudy, inar-
ticulate thoughts, with little grace of imagi-
nation to enlighten them, yet strung upon
the old man's simple unspeculative faith, as
on a golden thread, rusted and dull indeed,
but no less gold.
The monthly rose, on the cottage
porch, has some pale flowers on it half
blown.
" I gave Rachel one the day she was
here, and she said she'd keep it till she
came back again," said Mrs. Drayton; and
John takes the rosebud she pulls for him,
with a glow at his heart. .
JOHN DRAYTON. 69
t: U ili'x,';' '" '','. ,,"JU(- '
She thinks, the good mother, that it is
a very grand great-coat, that great-coat of
John's, and while she smooths his hat
round with her hand, and he stands there
in the porch, with the rose in his breast,
and the November wind lifting the hair
on his temples, that he himself looks
noqy ^nirijR &>> t >:-.6dj noltr
" quite a gentleman ;" and more than ever
v
.
sure becomes Mrs. Dray ton that he wil
Jmfaai Hub b f :& bsjsin <u&
be a good lad, and a comfort to them
,DiO;
all.
And so together they go up the village
d ir r-o o%v/oa rnoa >wi :
street to the old church.
The placid vicar is still there, preaching
3W y(. "^fiL 3/t
his little quiet sermon as placidly as ever;
nothing knows he, the good man, of
mental fevers, volcanoes, hurricanes ; nothing
of painful doubt and yearning after the
hidden truth.
70 JOHN DRAYTON.
Over his own inland river nothing but
soft breezes have ever curled, and he will
look aghast if you tell him that here has
been one long drifting over tempestuous
seas, who only now has got the rudder in a
Christian hand, and sees the track, leading
right over a boisterous ocean still, which
shall carry him home; but placidly the
gentle vicar preaches, unwitting of any
harder trials than those meek sorrows which
himself has known ;'aiid' } %ain ;; ()ver John
Dray ton's head floats the peaceful homily
a thing of words and' quiet feelings, which
have grown formal in their calm re-
//fjrf II' I
When they return, they find old John
quietly dozing, happy in the soft warm
atmosphere, and in the ease which neither
speech nor thoughts disturb ; and they talk
JOHN DRAYTON. 71
. /\\ji I A/f U ri rn. J b
to him, and read the verses he has spelt
out before, and peacefully the Sabbath glides
mrrf Ik* ao\'H iai>.!:
It is dark on Monday morning four
o'clock and John is up; for there is a
boat from Woodside at six, and he must
gniDiici. ^losTf tmf 8988 DTTn^Drr
cross, and be at the work in time. Mrs.
Drayton is up too, and has the fire lighted,
and coffee boiling for John, and he takes
his breakfast by the light of the little
wasting candle more cheerfully than he supped
on Saturda ywb& , jq tft ^ ,
doL^^nM^inp^njt ^^ y ourself >
mother," said John, " it doesn't take much
to keep me, and I'll be careful. I'll have to
look out for work after this week, but
maybe they'll take me on at some of the
other foundries ; I'll surely get work some-
where and I can't think our foundry's shut
72 JOHN DRAYTON.
up for good. Some one else will open it
again if Mr. Power doesn't, and then we'll
be all right. So mind you don't stint
yourself, mother."
" Your father is sure to be better now,"
said Mrs. Dray ton ; " anyway he's sure to be
more cheerful now when you've been home ;
and I'll get to the market on Saturday.
You'll come over on Saturday again,
Johnnie ?"
" Certain, mother, if I'm living," said
John.
" And see you don't want things yourself
to get them for us," said Mrs. Drayton, " for
I won't have that. I'd be miserable, if I
thought that; and don't go and work too
hard. We'll do, no fear of us ; special now,
when we know you : re thinking sometimes of
the old folks at home."
JOHN DRAYTON. 73
"Don't, mother," said John. "I never
gave over thinking indeed I didn't ; only I
havn't got anything to say for myself not a
word ; but don't say that I ever gave over
thinking of home."
And now, his rose, which has been in
water all night, placed in his breast again,
and his bundle in his hand, John Drayton
shakes hands with his mother, and goes away
out into the dark road with the stars shining
over him; and she wipes her eyes happily,
poor woman, and sits down at the fireside to
console herself with the very little cup of
coffee remaining in the coffee-pot. And
now, carefully out of the grate, the thrifty
mother lifts the unconsumed coals, and lays
them on the hearth, to save them for future
fires; and now the coffee-pot is put away,
and the candle extinguished, and she goes to
VOL. II. E
74 JOHN DIIAYTON.
KHOl
lie down again to lie down until the faint
bncJ)n . - piifia^Jtrrw
cold dawn begins to glimmer in the east, and
pirn- ' '^ 9fu 9 *j" jgQVBW^
the stars fade back into the clouds,
no irnyfii ^'f9iinifn 91
Always there is something fresh, in-
O/f^ ^j ii'.CJ 'r>JJ>J3 fi -QO DflB
spiriting, hopeful, in the coming of the
<ol ,9Trn Km; ,eoo;g
morning; before the dawn breaks even, the
t boibnid <90fii aluq fi 8i
downy darkness has a softer feel, and never
' 70 37C7/ dlmw
fatigues the eye like night. Yonder, far
away, where the sky looks lighter, is the sea,
'
and John pauses on the hill to look wistfully
; : v/ 'it!
at the pale horizon streak, and the stars that
hang over it like so many friendly lights.
itofi9i(l am 8J3 ,ta:)d
He thinks that out yonder, on the far un-
known waters, steadily and brightly, those
3fH : . ; ilfv""
sentinel lamps will track the vessel's course
:>
over the sea; and he thinks of the steady
/
steersman at the wheel, and the long white
wake behind, and the silvery gleam upon the
pm. . . . , . .. ..
waves before; and smoothly she is gliding
KHQl
JOHN DRAYTON. 75
Q/ii liJfju fl'wpb oil pj tim^u nwob 9JI
on, with white sails swelling to the wind, and
ifTR t>p-i 'tffi ni T''fnr.
glossy waves, like the soft hands of the spirits
in the mariner's rhyme, propelling her on
and on. At a stately pace and swift she
goes, and there, looking up from her deck,
is a pale face, kindred to the stars, watching,
while wave bv wave, out of the silver path-
ij}| t i9bno7 " . -r/lil .-
way before, glides into the whitened track
behind. He can hear the swaying music of
the sail, the ripple of the water on the strong
IIJllJ '''iji"' "Hi! j')I'> t /l.b'JiTfi ll'-
ship's side ; and, lower and sweeter, the young
..<-;:m;oiJ ([bir.ini yneu
heart beat, as the breath of the morning
-HI/ IB\ odl no <ioi ir.ni *,
comes out of the hooded east, and the out-
ogorfi ^lirigna bat
ward-bound voyager thinks of coming home
liiTIfUO ^ '{. Bf'.rJ'J '< '.' ' i((f!H;l
coming home ! and so John turns his face
ybfi3<Ji ouJ 't i ' biii , .*
towards the lights of the distant town, and
goes on his way stoutly, and, like a man, to
the manful labour which is his appointed
lot.
E 2
MQTYASQ VTFI
76 JOHN DRAYTON.
9fTO Of ?h*TO\)y (T^"Vi OTfi ^/f i i/f t":J ciF"t"f rf r\ f
"Every man for himself!" put it aside
thankfully, this instrument which has done
jlw>l> jahf .TA .ojtaf .
its office. Now, every man for his dearest
. oi. tfjj-
ones for his home for his fellow-man
i.t'roTl flwob 3BUOD Jifjiifci bus oJxJidL'j ^
and still the great heavens ahove us, and God
>H;tef vlionii tefionwob arfj
for us all !
ayjjru vm JB Jib* T , ,
But. the week ends, and so ends Johns
on tod j bfmd. eVpnhlufa i .. .fv^at
permanent occupation. Very disconsolate
300 bop : vife j/fi earnoo
they all look, these engineers, as they get
'.'irons sift ^gi/o-rah'
their money that last Saturday ; from the
foreman who has three pounds to the little
!|J I 358 vaSiV
labouring boys who have only three shillings
Jido gai|}J7/niJ buof bae 83vr// moixnB
a week. Mr. Power self-possessed and
bfljjocr wsi B b?vj52 oven 108
grave as he always is, looks depressed too,
and glances over them all, impatient glances,
)OT p^fi^JX] V
as if his strong spirit chafed and fretted
ion .nom vtfrafa .
to have the will without the ability of
helping them. And Mr. Shafton goes bash-
.
fully up and down, blushing, hesitating,
JOHN DRAYTON. 7?
saying little kindly broken words to one
after another of the now discharged men ;
EHW Ji' f| ?t[\$ ~
and David Bruce sits pale at his desk
looking up to the bright heaven far away,
as if visible aid might come down from it,
for the downcast family fathers who go
slowly out at the gates not knowing how
to win their children's bread ; but no help
comes out of the sky : and one bv one,
J'JtJ J
or in dejected groups, the engineers disperse
J 5 1" 8 {j
and go home.
f inn 9ni (-1
Very sad at heart some of them, to
anxious wives and loud unwitting children.
Some who have saved a few pounds to
consultations about emigration, and careful
laborious calculations of passage money.
Some few for there are thrifty men, not
rare, among these mechanics, whose money
paid in monthly or quarterly to the Building
En
78 JOHN DRAYTON.
Society, makes them landlords in a small
way, and who in less righteous but more
remunerative societies, as usurers and rapa-
cious ones, add cent per cent to their capital
by granting loans to the needy, who must
have a supply however ruinous is its price
go home comfortably to the little high
narrow brick house which is their own,
and can afford to lie on their oars awhile,
and wait till " something turns up." Some
young men, adventurous and hopeful, to go
out on long expeditions in search of work
like the wandering journeymen of German
trades, " going on the tramp," as they called
it. Some who have no money but many
children, and who know by dire experience
what it is to be unemployed, to make
interest for some permanent post ; porter
or even policeman, a considerable descent
T - TT/A
JOHN DRAYTON. 79
in their social scale, but still securing bread ;
and a floating residuum, who have 'infi
settled plan, but will idle a week or two,
and hang about other foundry-yards, and
borrow from the loan society ; and finally,
in great straits 'with this debt and its
extravagant charges hanging over them,
stray down to the docks to pick up a
day's work when they can, among the cotton
porters there.
John has 'uAtf'any settled plan either,
and all the way, as he crosses the river, and
walks through the long dark country road,
his head is filled with schemes. He is
a good workman he knows, but married
men with families have a better chance of
employment than he has, though now he
has a family too and many good workmen
besides himself are idle. John has not
80 JOHN DRAYTON.
11-..
saved anything it is not very long indeed
since his apprenticeship was over ; and now
he does not know what to do.
And on Monday it is no better; for to
foundry after foundry poor John travels, and
finding everywhere that no new men are
wanted, comes home despondent and weary
to his little dull room at night. It looks
very blank, that small dull room, and is in
a noisier and dirtier street than was the
pleasant house of Mrs. Wyld ; and Rachel's
canary does not stir in its cage as he enters,
and John, who did not hear it to-day singing
at its loudest with the children out of doors,
and pecking in a fever of ecstasy at the
vegetable food with which he has draped its
cage, thinks that it too is drooping and will
die. So everything is against him he thinks,
and he lies down at night anxious to sleep
JOHN DRAYTON. 81
HOI.
and forget his cares, and yet so full of care
i
that he cannot sleep.
won mui ,:
The next day he buys the Mercury to look
at the advertisements. Some of them are
for porters, and John painfully writes a letter
of application for one place, and calls on a
m on iwn aiw
"gentleman" to ask about another. But
the " gentleman " has been already harassed
.
by applicants, and speaks to John as " gen-
tlemen " in new counting-houses beginning
business are apt to do, as if it was a crime
i
and high misdemeanour to be out of work ;
and John comes away with tingling cheeks,
JT> ci bib on*// e iinpL DJIJG
and a heavy heart.
it itoiw- iaabuoj a>
And so day by day the week passes he
01 sniifooQ bn
begins to envy the bricklayer's labourers car-
rying the hod up those dizzy ladders he
almost envies the poor Irishmen digging the
foundations of that new church ; and when
E 3
82 JOHN DRAYTON.
Saturday comes and through all those weary
days he has never lifted his strong arm to
work, John feels utterly cast down and hope-
less ; it seems to him a positive guilt to be
thus idle.
And now it is, lounging about the busy
streets, that the hundred follies which hide
themselves under the name of Chartism,
begin to wake and flutter in the minds of
the idle workmen. They stray about the
crowded docks, and there great ships are
loading, and here discharging, wealthy
cargoes, enough to make one man's fortune.
Day by day they come and go, and goods
choke up those lofty warehouses, and gold
flows into hands which are already full ; and
from the docks, pacing up the echoing street,
loaded waggons loud and cumbrous, carry
great bales of snowy cotton, and iron clank-
JOHN DRAYTON. 83
ing in lithe lengths, past them at every step ;
and further on, rich silks and i glittering gold
and silver gleam out of plate-glass windows,
and carriages draw up, and visions of rich
ladies cross the pavement, and odours breathe
over the dark face of the working man, and
stir bitter fancies in his heart. 1 ; Not one of
all those silken women, with 1 the delicate
purse in the gloved hand, ; sweeping into those
luxurious shops to throw about costly toys,
and buy things they have no need of not
one of those quick merchant-men going about
the street, engrossed and self-absorbed, as
if there could be no possible thing to think
of, except the present speculatioh, or profit,
or brokerage, immediately before the 'mind
of each never one of them thinks or cares,
the idle mechanic fancies, looking at them
from under his bent brows, " whether my
84 JOHN DRAYTON.
children live or die grow up into strug-
gling, toiling men, or starve as helpless
boys." Not one ; and he clenches his hand,
and listens to the whisper in his ear, which
speaks of revolution and change, and the
chance of equal wealth for aU fK t bH<xt
Poor dream ! But when the kitchen is so
dark at home, and the wife so pale as she
sits by the little fire, counting up on her
fingers the items of that dreaded account
accumulating at the provision dealer's shop ;
and when the children have to be taken
from school, and the little shoes wear out,
and the little appetites begin to look unnatu-
rally great, and the poor mother measures
out the bread to the hungry boy, and grudges
him for his little sister's sake, and all idle
and unhappy are together, crowding the little
house ; what wonder that follies should grow
JOHN DRAYTON. 85
of the bitterness then, and envy should
clutch at any means which promises to make
her equal with the rich, who seem to her so
happy ?
But just then the snakte of revolution
was scotched, and showed no signs of life ;
only black stagnant discontent, and want,
unhappy, and thinking itself oppressed, were
among the idle workmen:'
'-iJt is Tuesday again, and John stands at
the corner of the square where the Liverpool
merchants congregate. It is a paved quad-
rangle, and has heavy buildings and cloisters
round it ; and in the centre is a mystic
statue called to Nelson, surrounded by dis-
consolate chained figures of ' bronze, ' ' who
weep, no one can tell you why. Within
the cloisters, through doors carelessly swung
open, and at great dusty windows, you see
86 JOHN DRAYTON.
long vistas of men and newspapers, for
yonder are the Exchange reading-rooms ;
and out in the square they are thronging
thick as bees, and as you pass you hear
them talk of cotton, and commissions, and
per centages ; and great and small the old
man who is a millionaire, and the young
man who pants and wrestles to become one
are bound to each other like the mystic
slaves around their Nelson's monument, with
stony chains of profit and interest ; and the
thoughts of every soul turn on a golden
pivot, and to make money, there, is the chief
end of man.
At the corner, where this dingy street,
crowded with heavy waggons, leads past the
Town-hall to the crowded dock below, John
Drayton stands, looking humiliated and cast
down. Other men in groups are hanging
JOHN DRAYTON. 87
about, some of them with short pipes in
their mouths, and morsels of cotton adhering
to their jackets. They speak slowly, most of
them, and are exchanging experiences as to
the warehousemen in " Quit's," and " Smith
Brown's," and " Chapman Brothers ;" how
this one drinks, and is sure to get turned off
some day and how that one is a Metho-
dist local preacher, and has just his own
set whom he gives work to, and men
hav'nt a fair chance. Yonder one man is
telling another about his " Missis," and how
she has a little shop and sells chips and
potatoes, and has just bought a side of
bacon prime ; while he himself, happy man,
if the bacon sells well, and the little shop
thrives, as it promises to do, will not need to
come down wearily every morning to seek a
VM. rtoncyrc fli
88 JOHN DRAYTON.
day's work; and his neighbour whose
" Missis" has just had a new arrival, another
baby in addition to their former stock of half
a dozen sighs and envies him ; for here,
too, in the small compass of this group, are
all the conflicting elements of the drama of
life.
Disconsolately there stands John Drayton
among the cotton porters, waiting till some
omnipotent warehouseman cast a kind eye
upon him ; for John has descended a step in
the social scale, and feels the descent as
keenly as ever did great ruine'd merchant, or
high-born poor gentleman. Skilled labourer
intelligent mechanic no longer, he stands
among the unskilled, and has not the heart
to speak to any. His back is at the wall,
figuratively as well as literally, poor fellow ;
JOHN DRAYTON. 89
^V " T' rK ' ''s^n ff'f J# )n - il"'ow -
and if it were not for the old people at home
he would be nearly starving before he came
to this but he thinks of them, and is com-
forted.
IB .(juoig eirit \o aet.qmw Hf ivg <j nl ,*id
o fiffiBTf) jj|j t
nrlol z
161-JodfU
90 JOHN DRAYTON.
i lives oiw
: qsad oJ gldigaoq
,'/ c r mhrg B no
! ,[>^(n[qm'
i boc 4 Io<xp')7iJ. ni jtn
jtftib Y 9V
I lo ooncrfo on ei oiorfl
CHAPTER ! V: lfi
w ^908 o* "..qaisit Qfii rto " ,(WB
HE has only one day's work that week,
only one day's wages, three shillings and
sixpence to receive at the end of it; and
with dreary thoughts of the future, uohn
eats his crust in his little room, and has
a certain pleasure in mortifying and keep-
ing down his strong man's appetite, as
he remembers the old people at home ; the
poor old people, again drawing timidly
JOHN DRAYTON. 91
upon their little savings in the Vicar's
Provident Fund.
It is impossible to keep at this, he feels
impossible on a guinea a week, even if he
were constantly employed, to keep himself
here, in Liverpool, and his father and
mother at home very difficult, at least
and there is no chance of being constantly
employed. So John, too,,: resolves to go
away, " on the tramp," to seek work.
t ,j",John, I hear you're a good lad, and
go to chapel," said little Joseph Davies,
when John went up to return him some
books; "and never you fear something
will turn up ; but what are you doing
now ?"
" I've been portering at the docks a
day or two," said John, with a blush of
shame, -gtuw&ib
92 JOHN DRAYTON.
" That's a good lad," said Joseph;
" don't never be ashamed of working like
an honest man, whatever it's at; and
what do you make at the docks,
John?" -.ttha'tf
" Only three and sixpence all last week,"
said John in a burst, half of pride, half of
shame.
" A bad job a bad job," said the
Welshman ; " but never you fear, John
only be a good lad ; something will turn
up."
" But it's a weary job waiting for it,"
said John ; " it's easier to work than to
wait any day, and I'm thinking of going
away somewhere to look for work. I'll
go southward, by Birmingham and London,
and try whether I can't get a job some-
where/'
rViTl *' ':.
JOHN DRAYTON. 93
" Owen Rhys, get me a bit of paper,"
said Joseph ; " I just wanted to send a
parcel to Birmingham, John Dray ton, and
you'll take it, and you'll be introduced to
a good man there. It's dear, sending things
by the railway, and this is a Welshman,
and a good man, I can tell you, and if
he can put you in the way of work, he
will, particular as you go to chapel, and
are' 'a good lad. William David, you let
John Draytbn see your sums, whilst I write
a bit of a letter to Elias Williams, in Bir-
mingham^
AST-IT T^ 'J iPiei.Uf)- B^i 3 ' IfW^' ...
William David has his "sums written
pait'U 'I'V.ii -i i -u : jJ>f i^k'i i i
into a little book, but John looks over
.,, i ^ d- , , , , . ,
them with a somewhat vacant eye, which
does not please Joseph's much-extolled
scholar; so he returns proudly to drill the
reluctant Morgan John into the painful mys-
teries of the spelling-book.
LQ HOt
94 JOHN DRAYTON.
They are in the kitchen. It is a little
apartment, with oil-cloth of a deep red
colour, which has been washed off in
several places by excessive cleanliness, co-
vering the middle of the floor, and bright
culinary utensils hanging on the wall.
Mrs. Davies sits by the fireside, in a low
rocking-chair, knitting a blue woollen stock-
ing of small dimensions, and now and then
giving an indignant tug to her ball of
worsted, which has fallen on the floor, and
is being played with by the kitten to the
great delight of Morgan John, who cor-
dially detests the spelling-book, and has
proved bis love of the little unhappy cat
by so many violent demonstrations of
affection, that the gray fur on her back
i -, j
is scrubby, and scanty, in consequence.
Mrs. Davies does not speak English so
JOHN DRAYTON. 95
well as her husband, and when the
thoughts come rapidly upon her, has to
pause between every half dozen words, to
translate the Welsh ideas into the Saxon
speefch ; and she, too, has a little ruddy
face, like a winter apple, and black merry
.lliiV? O.uJ f!O <JUJIDnml
eyeS '/; ni ^faisyrft od* (d *&> wr/cd .nM
"Are you going to ,tfie room to see
Mr. Bruce, John Trayton?" asked Mrs.
nofij unit won imc f 8rKn<5fK)fflir}
" I'd like to bid him good bye," said John,
ifi ,ioon on) no iTolIi.r ' it rUtn^i
ndiU 3 dl ^m fo^Iq 'jniad
" He's got some one young lad with
with gritty hair," said Mrs. Davies, " with
?.r>(i Irnt] ,>lo< >(i-'i>iii' . ' ^.j^'.njiy ^iD
him now."
"Gritty hair?"
" My mother means sandy hair," said
William David, who began to be ashamed
of the Welshisms perpetrated so often in his
< ]f Jfiff 89OI> 23I7JBU
presence.
96 JOHN DRAYTON.
" Ay, sure ! hair like grit it's all one,"
said Mrs. Davies ; " they's fery goot friends :
do you know him, John Trayton ?"
" Is it Mr. Shafton ?" said John.
" Yes, sure, his name's like that ; but it's
not easy keeping thought of them names,"
said Mrs. Davies ; "all the peoples have
different names in this country."
"Does Mr. Shafton often come to see
Mr. Bruce ?" said John.
" He was here just last Tuesday, and now
he's come again ; they's fery good friends
well for them," said Mrs. Davies.
" Why ?"
" T'other one have got money ; this one
have got what-you-may-call-them," said
Mrs. Davies, tapping on her forehead with a
comical little smile.
" Brains," suggested John.
" Yes, sure ; but he haven't got money,
JOHN DRAYTON. 97
poor lad and he's a good lad, too, and so is
his mother. You, Morgan John ! I go whip
you if you pull my stocking."
" Has Mr. Bruce got anything to do ?"
said John.
" No, indeed, poor lad ! and it's hard,
you may depend; but if he haven't got
nothing to do, his mother have," said
Mrs. Davies.
" Does Mrs. Bruce work at anything ?"
said John, wonderingly ; for he thought he
never had seen any one look so thoroughly
a lady as the mother of the poor young
poet-clerk.
"They isn't all for Tavid," said Mrs.
Davies, solemnly ; " you believe me, they
isn't I know better. They've been staying
here lei me see a year past on Owen
Rhys's pirthday, and she's been working
VOL. II.
98 JOHN DRAYTON.
constant all the time. Tavid haven't got
more than half-a-dozen; and it's very well,
that is, for a young single lad. No, don't
you tell me ; I know better ; they isn't all
for Tavid -" ^icM alWil ai ii i
" I'll have, the parcel got ready, John,"
said Joseph, looking up from his writing ;
"William David shall bring it down when
T jjiu *J rou j lit/*
he goes to school; and I'd best put the
letter on the top for it'll take me long
writing it, there's so much news about the
chapell for fear it might get dirtied. I've
told Elias Williams that if he knows of
work he's to tell you ; and he'll recommend
you to some decent house to live in. He's
a builder to his trade, is Elias ; most all us
Welshmen is builders ; pity, John, you wasn't
a builder, too ! but see you be a good lad,
and there's no fear."
JOHN DRAYTON. 99
A J T l_ L iCflLj J U L
And now John has said good bye to
good little Welsh family, and knocks with
some shyness at David Bruce's door. !<ir n B
opened to him, but at first he sees no one,
for David thinks it is little Morgan John, on
some errand from the kitchen, and John
hears Mr. Shafton's voice.
IL T >L ' ii fin ; i '! 'Ij. L il >
" I won t come into it it was my mother s
money, Mrs. Bruce for a year and a half,
when my sister comes of age ; but when I
do, nobody's against me joining Mr. Power,
and we're sure to make money at least
Mr. Hardman did. Now why shouldn't
David take this from me ? He's not made
for a clerk at a foundry anybody can see
that; and didn't Southey take an annuity
from somebody ? and Wordsworth I forget
the name of the man no one would ever
have heard his name, but that he died and
F 2
100 JOHN DRAYTON.
left something to Wordsworth; and why
shouldn't David take it from me ?"
" Shafton," said a voice behind the door,
and the door itself swayed to and fro,
as if some one leaned upon it, "I be-
lieve you're the best fellow in the
world."
" Not a bit," was the rapid answer; "only
you're sure to be famous some time, David.
Just take this, and go to college, to oblige
me. I do confess, Mrs. Bruce, I'd like to
have a share, when David's a great
man."
John knocked again more loudly, and now
David looked out. His face was flushed
considerably, and shining with hope and
pleasure.
" Is it you, John ? Come in."
John hesitated.
JOHN DRAYTON. 101
" I only want to bid you good bye. I
won't come in now, Mr. Bruce," said
John.
But David extended his hand, and grasp-
ing the shoulder of the great passive form
before him which all his strength could not
have moved, had the giant chosen to resist
dragged him triumphantly in.
" You're a very good fellow, too,
John," said David, smilingly, as he
drew a chair to the table for him. " Sit
down."
And John somewhat awkwardly obeyed.
" I am not a Southey, or a Wordsworth,
Shafton," said David. " Such men as these
might be justified in suffering other men to
do for them the drudgery of common life ;
but not I. If I should ever be famous," and
the poet's eyes glowed under their raised
102 JOHN DEAYTON.
lashes, and the colour rose on his cheek, like
a girl's, " it will be in a lesser sort ; and I
must work while it comes. The birds, you
kow, bave their nests to build, as well as
their singing to accomplish ; and I will never
be greater in my kind, Shafton, than the
mavis or the throstle at home. So, like
them, I will build my nest, and sing as I
build it; and my mother will make embroi-
deries of the straw and the feathers I bring
to her, and we will think it better
than a cargo of gold ; is it not so,
mother ?"
" It must be, Davie, my man," said Mrs.
Bruce, as busily she hemmed at her present
shirt. " But mind to let Mr. Shafton know
that it's no because you think little of his
offer, so generous and kind as it is, like
himself; but you must do your day's darg
JOHN DRAYTON. 103
with your own hands, Davie ; there can be
no doubt about that."
" Shafton, you're the best fellow in the
world," said David, smiling^ w$o know
you is a better thing than a hundred a year.
Not that a hundred a year is not very com-
fortable ; and I won't hesitate the least to
ask your help in finding some work, whereby
make even perhaps as much as
" It's not fair, Bruce," said Mr. Shafton,
disconsolately ; " I'm quite sure, if I had
been a genius, I'd have done as much for
vou."
" And John, what are you about, my
man ?" said Mrs. Bruce, as she paused, to
thread her needle.
" I've been working at the docks," said
John, with some hesitation ; " and now I'm
104 JOHN DRAYTON.
thinking to go away, and look out for work
in my own trade, somewhere, for I can't do
so well any way, there isn't work at the
portering ; and my father's very frail at
home/'
l ' -" And where will you go to, John?" said
Mrs. Bruce.
" I'm thinking of going by Birmingham
and Wolverhampton, and that way, to Lon-
don, Ma'arn," said John ; " for work's as
slack in Manchester, as it is here, they say ;
and such lots of the men have gone to Glas-
gow, that it's no use going there. And
maybe, I'll go by the coast to Southampton,
where the boats sail from. It's very hard
being idle."
" So it is," said David ; but David did not
know, and only threw in the assent to keep
up the conversation ; for idle he never
JOHN DRAYTON. 105
was, thanks to the alchemy, which
brought gems and fairy gold out of his
dreaming.
" And, I say, John," said Mr. Shafton,
" you just keep afloat for a year and a half
if we're all living then and then you're all
right. Mind, just a year and a half and
tell me if I can do anything for you
o i j
\ *j O O
now."
" I wouldn't mind so much for myself,"
said John ; " but it's the old folks at
home. The old man can't work now ;
but I'll do the best I can for them.
There isn't anything I've got to ask,
Mr. Shafton, for I'm just going off on
the tramp ; only if the foundry does begin,
Sir, I'd be particular obliged if you'd mind
me, for it's so near home."
" Don't be afraid ; I'll be sure to mind
F 3
106 JOHN DBAYTON.
you, John," said Mr. Shafton, and John rose
to take his leave.
Mr. Shafton followed him out into the
street, and tried hard to put something into
his hand.
" No, Sir ; if you please, no," said John,
half ashamed, half gratified ; " I'd rather you
didn't. There's lots of them, Sir, that have
got wives and children, that would be glad of
it ; but I've no need. No, if you please,
Mr. Shafton, I'd rather not. The trade
gives us a penny a mile when we're on the
tramp, and that does for expenses. I'll
surely get work somewhere, and I've got
a few shillings of my own. No, Mr. Shaf-
ton, no."
" Well, John, good bye," said Mr. Shafton ;
" and the first time I'm over in Cheshire,
I'll go and see your mother."
JOHN DRAYTON. 107
It was Mr. Shafton's way. He liked
society very well, and especially admired Mr.
Power's drawing-room, where reigned the
pretty Mary, whom he was to come into
possession of, at the same time as he came
into possession of his mother's fortune ; but
in spite of his relish for all pleasant company
in his own degree, the young man was
constantly wandering by a natural instinct
about the houses of the poor. He did not
speak about " the poor " either, nor was
much connected with benevolent societies ;
but, by some special gift in his nature, had
actual friends everywhere, in great houses,
and in humble ones, and was in his own
simple beneficent spirit, a link between them,
better than philosophies, or theories of
political equality. Mary Power had been a
little puzzled at first, to understand how
108 JOHN DRAYTON.
familiarly acquainted he was with the intri-
cate geography of that poor, crowded district,
and to hear him quote respectfully the
opinion of Mrs. Brown, the engineer's wife,
and Peter Don, the boiler-maker both
great friends of his, often spoken of, and
never spoken of condescendingly ; but Mary,
having once comprehended, was very proud
of it now, and had a decided affection for
Peter Don and Mrs. Brown. Moreover,
Mary was greatly in danger of elevating this
simple Edward Shafton into a positive hero,
as he told her of his humble friends ; and the
good unconscious Edward, who no more
knew that there was anything rare or praise-
worthy in his own doings, than if he had
been merely making money, could not fancy
why.
Another Sabbath-day John spent at
JOHN DRAYTON. 109
home; and in the intervening week, made
some few other shillings by " portering" at
the docks shillings which were carefully
hoarded to bear his expenses until he should
get work. He had carried Rachel's bird
home, to be kept there till he should return,
and at last early on a chill, drizzling morn-
ing, he went away.
It is still dark and very cold ; and people
wander about the platform of the great
railway station, waiting for the hour of
starting. John has his great-coat on over
his white fustian dress, and his linen, and
his Sunday change of raiment, are packed
up in that bundle, for all his superfluous pos-
sessions are left in his chest at home, till
he ascertains how he will succeed in the
unknown places to which he travels. He
has laid his bundle on his seat, in one of
110 JOHN DRAYTON.
the third-class carnages, and now stands at
the door of it watching the other passengers
as they select their places. Here is a young
mechanic like himself carrying away a little
pretty wife, whose mother cries sadly as she
walks up and down in front of the carriage
holding her daughter's arm tightly in her
own ; and the little wife cries, too, and the
young husband looks on half-sympathetic, half
complacent. And here is a student bound for
University College, whose trunk is so heavy
with books, that the two porters who try to
lift it, stagger under their unexpected load.
He has countless other bundles, too, this stu-
dent, and disposes them about the seat in a
miraculous way, and with the hand of an
artist ; and remarkably attentive are the
porters, though he is but a third-class pas-
senger attention, the motive of which is
JOHN DRAYTON. Ill
made plain even to the blunt capacity of
John, as the student's practised hand glides
into the ready palm of the porter, the inter-
dicted sixpence; and now the bell rings,
and the little wife is hurried in, and the
last sight John sees is the mother's face
streaming with tears, as she gazes after
the carriages gliding away. Up into the
blank echoing darkness of the tunnel, where
the rumbling of the carriage wheels does
not quite drown that farewell sob which,
the mechanic's young wife thinks, will be
hidden with her tears by the darkness and
now they have emerged on the other side.
Feverish and dissipated look the lamps
burning there at Edgehill, against the cold
blue dawn, which begins to break faintly
in the east; and now over the dim, misty
country, with lights in cottage windows
JOHN DRAYTON.
faintly shining, and smoke from cottage
roofs half-awakened, rising into the chill air.
John Drayton travels out into the un-
known.
rd bra?! orfj ban t brw[ STB soijf? ^
JOHN DRAYTON. 113
CHAPTER VI.
THE skies are lurid, and the land burned
up by those roaring furnaces : everywhere
the air seems choked by fiery dust, and
flames point their forked tongues upward,
blazing like some supernatural, self-existent
forces, which swart, toiling demons may curb,
perhaps, but which men cannot feed. You
think so as you look at them, fiercely flaring
in the cold daylight of the winter afternoon,
114 JOHN DRAYTON.
and fancy how the night-passenger, as he
sees those fiery fingers moving to and fro in
the darkness, might think himself, like Chris-
tian in the parable, passing by the mouth of
the infernal world.
Workers in iron ! the original craft. And
you can fancy something primeval in the
fierce Titanic force of that wild element, as
it flames forth into the oppressed and murky
air, as strong and untamed as when Tubal,
Cain caught it out of chaos, and harnessed
it in yon ancient forge of his beside the
Armenian hills.
But the sky becomes less fiery, and the
eye, well-pleased, rests upon fields, and the
pleasant, softened boundaries of the great
town, which yonder hangs out its cloudy
banner. These lingering lines of villas, each
lagging behind its neighbour, forms the
JOHN DRAYTON. 115
transition link between the country and the
town; and villages far away hang on their
skirts, tending all towards the noisy loud-
beating heart ; and John Drayton has entered
Birmingham.
It is a chill afternoon, and he is benumbed
*'
with cold; cold look those blue passengers,
leaping out to thrust their bands into the
grates in the waiting-rooms very cold the
unknown desert streets, into which the
stranger looks through the wide doors of
the station ; and a drizzling rain falls dis-
mally, and a little, spiteful, ill-conditioned
breeze blows it into the faces of the way-
farers in whatever direction they turn. John
lifts his bundle in his hand, and turns up
the collar of his great-coat about his ears,
and sallies forth sadly, thinking that there
still remains daylight enough to seek out
116 JOHN DRAYTON.
Elias Williams, before he looks for a lodging
for the night.
He has a long walk before he can find
the building-yard of Elias Williams, and
when he does reach it, he finds the Welsh-
man sitting in a little brick-built office in
a corner of the yard, where great stacks of
timber testify how Elias has prospered in
the national trade. But Elias is a shrewish-
looking little man, by no means so pleasant
or kindly as his friend, Joseph Davies, and
tells John, peremptorily, that he does not
know of any work, nor is it likely he will.
" But there's good lodgings at John Jones's,
down the next street at the corner, and I
daresay they'll put you up, if they're not
full."
The lamps are being lit in the dim street
as John again issues forth, and the rain
JOHN DRAYTON. 117
comes down in a white blast, blinding him
at the street-corners. Poor fellow ! John
is very "low." Since his breakfast at six
o'clock he has only had the bread and cheese
he brought with him not a very great
supply and has never warmed his hands
except for a moment by Elias Williams's
office-fire. The rain is trickling down within
the collar of his great-coat, and his Sunday-
hat will be quite spoiled he fears : so he
hurries on to try the hospitalities of John
Jones.
It is a little humble house where they sell
ale, and the sand on the kitchen floor grows
into a kind of lime under the wet feet of
John ; but he warms himself, and has tea, and
looks at the clean little bed-room which he is
to sleep in, and already the sky brightens
prospectively, though the rain comes down
without in clouds.
118 JOHN DRAYTON.
But the next day, and next day, and
the day after, John wanders vainly abput,
seeking work back to Wolverhampton,
and round about to all the engineer works
he can hear of but work there is none
to be had anywhere. His shillings melt
away sadly, and a horror of want comes
upon him; for there are idle workmen,
an abundant supply of them, in Bir-
mingham, as well as in Liverpool, and
it is useless for him to waste the days
here.
So despondently John packs his bundle
and proceeds to London.
To London ! whither flows all the world
like all adventurers, he feels his heart
rise, and thinks he will surely succeed
there.
It is dark when he gets within the Great
City, and those first streets he sees, do not
JOHN DRAYTON. 119
awe him as he anticipated they would.
With his bundle in his hand, he wanders
on, looking wonderingly for the splendour
and magnificence which he had expected to
see ; but now it strikes him that to these
little streets, multiplying in families, so mar-
vellously like each other, there seems no
end that he is growing weary without
seeming to have made any progress, and
that already he has crossed two or three
great leading thoroughfares, while yet, so
far as he can see, the mass only grows
darker and darker, fermenting into some
unseen centre, deep within those wall-
environments of humanity ; and John grows
dizzy as he looks, and feels that he is
in London.
Next day, though he wanders about till
he is foot-sore and very weary, he discovers
-ion ob ,8938 6ii ateaite teifl aaoito brus ,viiO
120 JOHN DRAYTON.
that it is a sadly difficult business to find
out the London foundries ; and now as he
strays about the streets looking for them,
he finds himself in the great city's heart,
and under the dark dome of St. Paul's;
and greatly grudging his two-pence, he goes
in to see the sight.
It is very still under that great dome,
and air, profoundly silent, rises up to its
lofty summit, and pigmy figures here, steal
like insects about the floor; but without,
there is a dull, sullen roar, like the sound
of waves on a stormy night, surging
up on some great vessel's side, far out
at sea continuous, unbroken, gathering
strength as it comes, and booming away
in the distance, till you can fancy how
the angry wave breaks, white foaming,
upon the unseen rocks that vex it ; but
JOHN DRAYTON. 121
strange things are spoken by those sullen
rolling waters, for this is the sea of life.
And so concludes John Drayton's first day
in London.
The' next day he goes to the black,
crowded river which looks just like another
close unwholesome street, he fancies, as
he proudly compares the blue, broad Mersey
to the glutinous, weltering Thames and
embarking in a little river steamboat, is
carried down to a strange locality with a
strange name, where he hears there are
engineer-works the Isle of Dogs.
And there, with a flush of joy, in which
he forgets all his hardships and troubles,
John Drayton hears that he can be em-
ployed.
The days are very cold, and the Thames
lies within his black coal-heaving banks,
VOL. II. G
122 JOHN DRAYTON.
like a gutta percha river ; black are his
oozy glutinous waves, cleaving like molten
india-rubber to the sides of the barges
which lie moored at those crazy shabby
stairs black the leaden sky that overhangs
him ; and you could not fancy as he
threads his : way between old ruinous
wharves and ship-yards, that he was any-
thing but a blind moiling earth worm, fit
tenant of that muddy course of his, or
that he could ever sweep past palaces, and
,be called the silver Thames.
And John Drayton thinks of the bright
Mersey, and laughs at his metropolitan pre-
tentions with proud scorn; but John never-
theless is very glad to have a little room
looking out upon the river, where he deposits
his Sunday hat and great-coat, and once more
in his blue cap and fustian jacket, goes out
to his daily work.
JOHN DRAYTON. 123
It is very much such a community as
was the engineer world in the north end of
Liverpool. Some Liverpool men were
among them, and the usual proportion of
Scotch, and conflicting characters, and con-
flicting opinions, as there are everywhere;
but John is a steady man, and works on, and
makes friends. Proudly he goes once a
fortnight to the nearest post-office to get the
money order for his sovereign, and send it
to his mother, and happily himself eats
his own spare dinner, thinking of the
comfortable fare which the old people have
at home.
The work is over, and he is lounging
on a Saturday night, a good way down the
river, on the banks. Gay little steamers
come and go past him, upon their highway,
and there are bands of music in some, and
G 2
124 JOHN DRAYTON.
crowds of passengers. John looks at them
with dreamy eyes, and thinks of the ship
which long ago must have reached its
destination; but the promised letter has
never come to him from Rachel Wyld.
"John Drayton, will you speak a word
td 'tfty' wife ?" said one of his fellow- work-
men behind him ; and turning round, John
saw a good-looking, middle-aged woman by
the speaker's side, with a baby in her arms.
She had a cotton gown on, a warm woollen
shawl, a straw bonnet above her thick muslin
cap ; and a sturdy little boy of three or four
years old clung to her apron, while a big
fellow of ten was running races with a little
terrier, in advance. The work ceased
early on the Saturdays, and the little
family had come out altogether for a
walk.
JOHN DRAYTON. 125
" My man tells me you've come last
from Liverpool," said Mrs. Reid, rather
abruptly, as John turned round.
" It's the place where I was bred and
served my time," said John^ri '
" Maybe ye may have heard tell, then,
of a brother of mine," said the engineer's
wife. " I've lost sight of him for long,
since afore that laddie was born ; but
bluid's bluid, even though one of a family
be a reprobate. They ca' him James
Robison. Did ever ye hear tell of
him ?"
" I know him very well," said
John.
" Isna that strange, noo ? I kent ye
bid to ken him. It's three or four years
noo, as I was saying, since I either saw or
heard tell of him, for me and his wife
126 JOHN DRAYTON.
didna gree that weel. I think she might
have done for him better than she
did; and how's he doing noo, poor
man?"
" Not very well," said John, hesi-
tating.
"No, I believe that he's unco' easy
led away, puir chield," said his sister ; " and
sic a guid religious weel-leeving man as
he was ance in his day, and bred in as
decent a house as ever lad came out o'.
It should be a warning to the like of you,
young men. When he was married first,
he used to have the Books regular every
nicht of his life, and as steady as a man
could be. I aye think if his wife had
made the best o't when he did gang a
wee thought ajee at first, he never would
have been so ill noo."
JOHN DRAYTON. 127
It was a satisfaction to the sceptic's
sister to find this excuse for him; so
John did not say how untrue it was. ;|>ib
" But is he keeping in regular work,
puir Jamie ! and is there ony word of
him mending his ways ?" asked Mrs.
Reid.
" He had fallen out with his master,
the last time I heard ;" said John, who
did not wish to disclose the full disgrace
of his old oracle ; " and I think they
had gone to Glasgow, when I left to come
here."
^There's Mr. Smith," said Mrs. Reid'3
husband. " Ay I saw he was going
to the room there'll be a meeting, and
he's a grand speaker. Wife, you can
gang hame your lane. I'll no be late ;
but it's a treat to hear Mr. Smith."
128 JOHN DRAYTON.
Mr. Smith ! There he is, with a roll
of paper in his hand, threading his way
across the muddy street to the room where
he is to hold his meeting. He has a
short black coat on, and a thick cable
chain, which John thinks must be gold,
adorns his white waistcoat, and on his
ungloved hand glitters a great ring ; and
he switches his boots with his cane as
he swaggers along, looking laboriously
easy, and like a gentleman. Mr. Smith
Charlie !
Some claqueurs, a sort of body-guard,
have gone in with him, and Reid is im-
patiently listening to the remonstrances of
his wife.
" The last time ye gaed there, it was
twelve at nicht, Robbie, before ye came
hame ; and what kind of a state will ye
JOHN DRAYTON. 129
be in for the kirk the morn's morning ?
Man, is your ain fireside, and the bits of
bairns for company, no' a better place for
ye than the like of that ?"
" Ou ay, Aggie, the bairns are very
weel, and so are you," said Reid ; " but
I tell ye, I'll no stay aboon an hour so
gang your ways hame, and never fash your
head about me."
" I know him he's a rascal," said John,
with some anger. " I'll go to his meeting,
too."
John was very fallible ; and though his
personal cause of offence at Charlie Smith
had faded into forgetfulness yet his ring
and his chain, and his "gentleman" air
albeit the last was very equivocal raised
a little ferment in the breast of John. Mr.
Smith ! John remembered, angrily, how
G 3
130 JOHN DRAYTON.
Charlie had left him in the lurch, and
entered the room by no means with an
affectionate feeling to the lecturer, and very
unlikely to be convinced by anything he
could say.
There was a reforming lecturer once
he is extant, and speaking still, the clever
man whom to hear once was to think a
genius. But when you heard him again,
or read the report of his next speech
and discovered in it, carefully embalmed,
the very points with which he had for-
merly delighted his audience, he gradually
came down. By and bye you became ac-
customed to his periods, and knew when
and in what succession they came ; and
as your knowledge enlarged, the speaker
dwindled. Once you thought him a great
new-discovered star then he faded into the
JOHN DRAYTON. 131
milky way and now far out of sight, you
lose him altogether, and discover that it
was no celestial light after all, but only a
blazing tar-barrel on the fictitious elevation
of some earthen mound, which deluded you
with its momentary flame.
To get one clever speech repeated was very
bad to get speeches repeated by Charlie
Smith, which from Wyld's vehement lips
sounded very grand to the young audience
who surrounded him, was worse and sadder
still.
Why should one set of men be rich,
and another poor ? why ? when all men
were born equal; but by and bye the lec-
turer began to stammer, and paused to take
a long draught of the water which stood
before him on the table. There he stands,
at his green table, repeating Wyld's words,
a sham gentleman ; while, here sits John
132 JOHN DRAYTON.
Drayton, a true man, looking him full in
the face, with glowing indignant eyes.
In a very short time, the lecture is
over ; and " Mr. Smith is indisposed," the
chairman says, as the meeting votes him
thanks.
jf
Mr. Smith is indisposed very decidedly
indisposed to meet John Drayton; but
John has no idea of letting him go.
" You've come on since the last time
I saw you, Charlie," said John revenge-
fully.
" Ah, John, my good fellow, is that
you," said Mr. Smith languidly, playing
with his chain.
" Yes, it's me," responded John. " You'll
make a better job of this, I daresay,
Charlie, than you made of the moulding at
the foundry ?"
" You don't seem to have made a
JOHN DRAYTON. 133
very good thing of it," said the angry
lecturer.
" I'm making honest wages, and helping
them that need help," said John, " Charlie,
what's become of your mother ?"
" Stand back, Sir ; what have you to do
with my family affairs," said the indignant
Mr. Smith.
" She's working very hard, Charlie ; I
know she is, down yonder in the old place,
since ever your father died harder than you
ever worked. Why don't you help her, now
when you're a gentleman ?"
" My good lad, you don't know how many
claims gentlemen have upon them," said
Charlie complacently.
" You hav'nt got another mother, have
you? I suppose gentlemen are just like
common men, there;" said John, "and
134 JOHN DRAYTON.
there's Wyld, Charlie; you ought to send
Wyld something for borrowing his
speech."
Furiously the gentleman looked on the
clown ; but John was not withered. " I'll
get a policeman, you low rascal," mut-
tered Charlie.
" I'm a working man," said John, boldly
springing upou the platform, at the foot of
which this dialogue had taken place ; " and
a year or two since so was he ; but he
says I'm a low fellow, because I bid him help
his mother. Is that equality?
"And he says one man's as good as
another all the world over, and that there's
no class anywhere like the working men ;
but for all that, look at him, how he's
taking hold of other people's skirts to
pull himself up into another class, and to
JOHN DRAYTON. 135
call himself a gentleman is that like as if
he thought all men equal '?
" Once he got me into a scrape for we
served our time in the same foundry and
left me when he knew me innocent, maybe
to lie in jail long enough, for what was
his fault and not mine. A gentleman got
me out a real gentleman one of the
masters he wants to put you against ; but
Charlie this fellow was content to let me
suffer instead of himself, that deserved it
was that like a brother, or a true man ?
" And I'll tell you what it is, you men
there you're letting yourselves be gulled
and made fools of. If he thinks in his
heart a working man's as good as any other
man, why doesn't he go and make his bread
honestly, with his own hands, instead of
living upon you ? I know he hasn't got
136 JOHN DRAYTON.
anything of his own, and I know he's
ashamed to have it told that he was bred a
working engineer ; but some of you pay him
to go and make speeches, and he's content
to take pay from you, and try to be a
gentleman on the money you've earned.
I tell you he doesn't believe in such a thing
as equality and no more do you !"
But here uprose a fearful clamour, and
cries of " Put him down !" and " Turn
him out !" rang through the hall ; but the
slow Saxon blood was warmed to the
boiling-point in the veins of John Drayton.
He grasped stoutly the back of one of the
platform-chairs, and made his voice echo
clear over all.
" I tell you, you don't, any more than
him ! I was out of work before I came
here, for our foundry was closed, and I've
JOHN DRAYTON. 137
got a father and mother at home, old people,
and couldn't afford to be idle. So I went
to work among the cotton porters ; and do
you think I didn't feel humbled! I'll tell
you just this ; when I was standing, waiting
for some warehouseman to give me work,
I used to slouch my cap over my face, for
fear of any one seeing me, that I knew;
because I didn't think all men were equal,
and because I'd rather be known for an
engineer than a cotton porter any day ; and
it's the same all over the world."
John's last words were lost in a cheer a
cheer diversified and enlivened by one intense
hiss from a porter near him.
" I'd like to speak like a gentleman, and
think like a gentleman, and read the books
gentlemen read," said John, " and a man
may do that if he likes to try ; but I've been
138 JOHN DRAYTON.
bred up a working man, and I'm content to
work, and to stand upright for all that, and
be a man wherever I am. People's not
going to judge us for what we wear, or for
what we work at ; neither does God say
we're all to be rich and idle, and what you
call gentlemen; but He does say we're to
be men, living pure before Him as He tells
us how. And when He came 4he Saviour
He did'nt come like a king, as He might
have done, if it had pleased Him, and only
not been good enough ; but He came like a
poor man maybe a labouring man and
He came among the poor ; and who'll dare
to say, after that, that to be poor, or to work
for his bread every day, is any shame to a
man that calls himself a Christian ?"
Touched with softening feelings, John
descended from the platform hurriedly, for-
JOHN DRAYTON. 139
getting the anger in which he had risen to
it, and feeling ashamed of the revenge which
he had wished to execute upon Charlie
Smith ; but Charlie had slunk out of sight.
After that, there were some resolutions
proposed, but they were received very coldly ;
John had spoken as only one of themselves
could speak, and the natural feelings of his
fellow-workmen agreed with all he said ; so
by and bye, very unsatisfactorily to its
managers, the meeting dispersed.
4.^i'l| tKTifiO OJL >0 H'Jo'i
jjuj, a . !;ili y aj : ~flj)ri< -iooq
Uofl-v btffi .iu
a oi
140 JOHN DRAYTON.
CHAPTER VII.
JOHN reached home considerably excited,
and rather inclined to think that he had
made a foolish appearance at the meeting.
The fear of having made one'sself ridiculous
is a very painful feeling, and John secretly
blushed when he sat down in his little room
by himself and recalled his speech.
It is dark in the little room, and he lets
his excitement and shame subside a little
JOHN DRAYTON. 141
before he gets his candle lighted. His
landlord is, like himself, an engineer, and
John boards with the family ; but there
are a good many children, and it is some-
what noisy in the kitchen, so, unless the
evenings are very cold, John prefers sitting
in his own bedroom, where he reads, and
puzzles over his algebra, and draws steam-
engines, and does a little sometimes at his
French Grammar all the old Mechanics'
Institution studies, which he must keep up
thus, for there is no Mechanics' Institution
within his reach now.
This evening is mild and spring-like, and
still little steamers glimmer past upon the
dim river, and pleasant sounds of passing
voices ascend to him at his solitary window,
and his tho'ughts wander far away across
the sea.
142 JOHN DRAYTON.
" Have you got your letter, John ?" asked
Mrs. Atkins, his landlady, opening the door
and looking in, with a light in her hand.
" What letter?" John asked.
"It's there. I put it on the table to be
out of the children's way. It came to-night
when you were out."
John has his candle lighted in a moment,
and eagerly looks at it. Outside it is
directed in the straggling hand of the
Upton schoolmaster, who writes his mother's
letters; but there is an enclosure inside.
" Ship letter, America," and John in another
instant has forgotten all about the meeting
in an excitement of quite a different kind.
Rachel writes very gravely, in a subdued
tone, which shows that she does not an-
ticipate much happiness in her new country,
but she says nothing in blame of her father.
JOHN DRAYTON. 143
The letter is very short, and when he has
finished it, John begins again, feeling as if
he had missed something, and a good deal
disappointed. He had thought of so many
things which she would say : had written
her letter for her, indeed, in imagination,
so often, and filled it with words kindly,
and like herself, as John thought ; but not
one of all these did Rachel, writing in her
own proper person, say.
Yet it was very kind kind and grave,
like the letter of a young recluse, to whom
there remained little but patience in this
lower world ; but patience was by no means
a virtue to which John attached the highest
value, and with his strong, restless man's
heart, and his consciousness of a certain
ability and free volition to make his own
fate, this resigned sad tone came over him
144 JOHN DRAYTON.
like a chill. He did not think of Rachel,
entering alone upon that long, hopeless
wrestle with a selfish, unteachable, uncon-
trollable spirit. He thought of himself,
and of the bright future which seemed
within his own power; he knew what it
was to do, but he did not know what it
was to endure.
So he put the letter into his pocket, after
he had read it over three or four times,
and felt greatly disappointed. He had re-
ceived few letters, and so John did not know
how often it happens that they disappoint
the yearning fancy. How the imagination
of the receiver is almost always more
eloquent, graceful, and tender, in dreams
of what it should be, than the pen of the
writer from whom it comes as it is that
always there is something lacking in the
JOHN DRAYTON.
warmth or the tone that some expression
jars upon the sensitive self to whom it
comes and that, indeed, only " fancy itself
is high fantastical," was not 'yet known to
John.
On Monday morning he got up innocently,
breakfasted, went to the foundry, and found
himself a famous man.
And never man grew famous to his
greater astonishment; he did not at all
understand it ; but the feeling was not in any
way disagreeable. To be quoted and referred
to, and treated as an authority, was quite the
reverse of an unpleasant position, and after
John had laughed a good deal, secretly in
his own room, at the notion of people seeing
anything in him, he came to take the honour
and glory very coolly, and, we confess, to
VOL. II. H
146 JOHN DRAYTON.
e it ; for John was a very fallible, imper-
fect man.
And Rachel's letter one becomes ac-
bfljs ^iinqa OHJ bni? ,oo33sq
customed to unsatisfactory letters, as to any
gnnaabv/ ont ^o gnraiow
accomplished and unchangeable thing which
speculations and mightbe's can reach no
jTubflOkl oi srnno an roflia ^TBC
longer. So John read himself into content
with the letter of Rachel, and sent a very
long, very eloquent one back in return, with
which she was not disappointed. He began
to grow a little complacent too, and in his
elevation as an authority to say good things
when he could, and make bon mots greatly
to the admiration of his constituency, but
not very much to the good health of himself,
John it was rather a dangerous position
for a young man conscious of some powers ;
the temptation was so strong to leave the
4 : ooJ
H
JOHN DRAYTON. 147
steady doing for the easier speaking which
j u i
gamed so much more applause.
The winter passed, and the spring, and
John was still working by the weltering
Thames. He had been very careful, and
lived very sparely since he came to London,
but his own maintenance and the fortnightly
sovereign which he sent home, swallowed up
all his wages it was impossible he could
save ; and now ominous whispers begin to
circulate among the engineers, and week by
week some men are dropped. The work is
getting slack again, and by and bye, it is
said, the master will have to part with all
but a band of steady men who have re-
mained with him for years. Very soon John
Drayton, a comparative new comer, must be
paid off among the rest ; and where is he
to go?
H 2
MOTYAfld MHO I
148 JOHN DRAYTON.
The fall is very great and sudden, but it
i O
J8J8 JB91$ OflT <)2?i,Gq Ofia &B t flOIJOfn
recalls John to himself and now again he
'>T}fTT bus i wens nc ojiiT (isbnov oupifid
is at his wit's end, and reflects and ponders
gravely on his future. What is he to do ?
m <n$d bos .TOflMjate puca plttd B <(d ^aoLi
And at last he makes up his mind, that he
3ffioo qoola gnjflgjrl ^edj 10 liG8 bai JiDia
can, do nothingr better than return, and try
,MiJsPT .ni/8 or brrfi j;oy noay/.tud ,mvt j; -;>lif
Liverpool again, though Mr. Shafton's stipu-
Too>f orit Sb -r ? )bn.. ( -( 6 riw.-*) ^-. F
lated time is still far off, and the men say
K gwold oiloma^ ^irI T A odJ .OTJ/l.t bos
that trade is slack in Liverpool still.
31/ojogfioo vrfoabom ,IiBrn n-fiuriscaAadJ zttaio'j
It is a May day, when John again with
no KRxnlwa oil! ob^m n,
his bundle in his hand enters the steamer on
LUn DUB ^nnobflow DILBJB olqooi .bi;
the Mersey to cross the ferry. Right over
v T9n lo gnrafioqe g-iDiq ailt n
there,, between him and the pretty tower of
,lP38TJfl orfg aamoo i
mbe Church, how the sails glide like
b
(ourtly passengers coming and going on a
royal road. No jostling here ; for look how
that little schooner flashes out like a grey-
hound slipped from the leash, her tri-
umphant sails wet with the dashing spray,
JOHN DRAYTON. 149
iTAfld HHOl
and something of wild glee in her bounding
motion, as she passes the great stately
barque yonder, like an arrow; and there
a leash of dull barges are scornfully dragged
along by a little saucy steamer, and here the
great red sail of that fishing sloop comes
like a fan, between you and the sun. Hark,
guns ! booming down yonder at the Rock ;
and there, as the white smoke blows away,
comes the American mail, modestly conscious
of having made the swiftest passage on
record. People stand wondering and full
of admiration on the piers speaking of her ;
10 lOWO-.t. . ' (THfl nOOVfJ'Jff 919fLf
but quietly up the river comes she herself,
rf*vf r rrf ^ iff m nooQ/*^
in all the self-possession of genius. They
have only discovered now what she can do ;
she knew it all, thrilling through every
timber of her, the first day she left the
bni/oii -
, ,
Clyde.
? iftiw ^9w alrag
150 JOHN DRAYTON.
And John looks at her wistfully, with
wonder and reverence ; and suddenly it
occurs to him, alive as all his faculties are
to that momentous question what to do
that engineers, and second and third engi-
neers, are in that gifted ship, and the blood
comes to his face in a sudden glow, for she
sails to Halifax !
All the way home the idea possesses him ;
in every respect it seems as bright as a
Utopian dream. Good wages, regular short
voyages, home at the one port, and Rachel at
the other it dazzles the eyes of John.
Very frail now is the old John Drayton ;
but his wife, cheerful and anxious, waits at
the door for the coming of the stranger, and
blesses him, as he bounds in to her through
the garden, as the best son in the world.
" For I always knew," said Mrs. Drayton,
JOHN DRAYTON. 151
lifting her unfailing check apron to her eyes,
" that you'd be a good lad, Johnnie, and a
comfort to us all."
" Come in by the fire, lad, and tell us
about London," said the old man ; and John,
like a good son, obeyed.
There are two pillows in the old easy chair
now, and a footstool before it for his slipshod
feet ; and he is wrapped in a sort of gown
for those poor rheumatic arms of his, and his
cough is longer and more painful than it
used to be.
" I have to take my cough mixture regu-
lar every night, John," said the old man
with some importance, like a child, " and the
doctor comes in once a week to see me
special to see me; but it's very bad, the
cough is very bad and now I'll take the
mixture, Jane."
152 JOHN DRAYTON.
" He'll never get better, Johnnie," said
Mrs. Drayton, when she had assisted him to
bed, and returned to her seat by the fireside,
and tete-a-tete with her son, " poor old man,
he'll never get well ; but he only has to be
well looked to, and get what he likes, to last
may-be years in this way, the doctor says : so
we'll have to be good to him, John. The
garden's going to turn out particular well
this year, and I've got some of your money
laid bye, we've not needed it all; so mind
you don't stint yourself, nor be troubled
about us, for we'll do."
" I've got a notion, mother," said John.
And Mrs. Drayton looked anxiously in his
face to see what it was.
" They've got engineers in the American
steamers," said John.
" Oh, Johnnie !" exclaimed his mother.
JOHN DRAYTON. 153
" It's good wages and I would'nt be so
long away as I've been at London, and
they're capital boats, as sate as land if I
could only get in, motheitfifiw 9&t~6-3&ll bns
" But to go so far away over the sea, oh,
Johnnie, my lad !" exclaimed Mrs. Drayton.
" There's never been any accidents ; they're
capital boats," said John ; " and what more
danger is there on the sea than on the land ?
A man might be killed at home there's
many a man been killed in the foundry."
" Oh, Johnnie, don't you go and break my
heart," sobbed his mothefo. [Taw io\ t zu Juode
" But it's quite safe ; for both ashore and
at sea there's one Hand to take care of us,"
said John gravely. " You would'nt object,
would you, mother, if I could get in ?"
But she did object, timid in her great
tenderness ; and a great deal had to be said
H 3
154 JOHN DRAYTON.
before a reluctant consent could be extorted
from her : but he succeeded at last.
It is again the Monday evening, and John
climbs the hill at Everton, where Mrs. Wyld
lived. At the door of that old, pleasant
house of hers, children are romping merrily,
and it is all changed ; but John pauses again
to lean over the little green-painted railing,
and look to the west, where the sun is going
down into the sea.
Everything is changed but that ; far away,
beyond this veil of brightness, Rachel sits
labouring wearily, with a downcast heart, which
sometimes scarcely can be patient, in the new
western world ; here, strangers are in the
house where once her happier labours were ;
and greatest change of all, himself, leaning
there as he leaned only eight brief months
ago ; how changed is he ? For the sun is
JOHN DRAYTON. 155
rising, full and broad in the soul of John,
strangely revealing that undiscovered country
to the possessor of it, and piercing into
corner after corner, of whose existence he
never knew. Hopeful is the morning, man-
like and Christian-like, and the light will
soon be near its noon, tw^nurio llf. et Ji bat>
" But you didn't get work in Birmingham,
John ?" said Joseph Davies, who was out in
the little grass plot before his door, sowing
some seeds of annuals in the border when
John came up. " Never mind ; you've been
a good lad, and you've not been deserted.
Didn't I tell you, long ago, what a deal better
it was to go to chapell, and mind your duty
regular, than just to follow your own
pleasure, Sunday and Saturday, like ma
pagan ?"
" Yes, you did," said John, " and it was
156 JOHN DRAYTON.
very good and right of you ; but now is
Mr. Bruce in, for I want to speak to
him."
" He's a good lad," said Joseph ; " he's
got a situation in Mr. Gardiner's office,
and sixty pounds a year. You go in, and
knock at the parlour door ; he'll be glad to
see you, John."
Mrs. Bruce is at the window, still stitch-
ing a collar ; but her hands are idle just now,
and she is looking over her spectacles at
something on the table. David, too, hangs
over this something on the table with affec-
tionate solicitude what is itfiB'iJt
It is a heap of paper, which Joseph Davies,
who has seen it through the half-open
Venetian blind, thinks is " ever so many
sermons." And David looks at it with side-
long looks of love, as he puts that sheet of
JOHN DRAYTON. 157
brown paper tenderly round it, and his
mother seems interested and anxious ; what
can it be ?
Look at the address, as David writJefe it
carefully in his best hand, and you will
guess. He is going to take it to the railway
now, to send it off with joyous, fearful,
fluttering hopes to the great Loiidon^puW
lisher. But even now, as he prepares to
send it off, David has not formed any
opinion of his book. He is its father, and
greatly liking his child, could not come to a
cool critical judgment, but is in a little flutter
to know if strangers will likmJS^Iimfcb invests
all manner of critics at once with a dignified
superiority to himself. For David, : though
the poet's vague consciousness of power is
about him, and though he has dreamed all
his life of producing " he knows not what
158 JOHN DRAYTON.
excelling thing," has still an entire want of
perception that there is anything remarkable
in himself. He fancies, some way, that
other people have not had their thoughts
turned in the same channel ; or that they
have lacked the impulse to express their
thoughts ; or finally, that these people in
Liverpool, surrounding him, are the dullest
people in the world, and that genius
and heroic virtues abound everywhere, but
only here^U^imiJnn
Nevertheless there is not the least doubt
of success in his present thoughts. Suc-
cess he speaks of it sometimes, but he
does not at all know or realise what it is ;
and it is of this, his child itself, and of how
it will be liked and spoken of in the great
glorious world, which he sees full of ideal
men and women, noble and pure as his
JOHN DRAYTON. 159
own fancies, that the dreamer thinks, in
his little flutter of hope and anticipated joy.
It is put aside when the visitor enters,
and stands there on that little shelf in the
recess quietly, and looks quite harmless
and unimportant ; prosaic John Drayton
sees it as he comes in, and calls it a
brown paper parcel !
A brown paper parcel ! so it is always ;
and one man sees grand visions and clus-
tering hopes and solaces continually, in that
which is but a brown paper parcel to
another.
" I've been thinking, Mr. Bruce," said
John, " if 1 could only get into one of
the American steamers I'd do."
" But the engineers in the American
steamers are experienced men, John," said
David.
160 JOHN DRAYTON.
biff I don't mean first engineer, Sir. He's
a gentleman, and has a great income. I
mean one of the engineer's crew; and Mr.
Shafton, I think, could get me in if he
wouM^' .8iM bif
" If that's all, there's no fear of you,
John," said David. "What Mr. Shafton
can do that's good and generous, he is
pretty sure to will ; but why do you want
to go to sea?"
" There's no work at least I can't hear
of any anywhere," said John ; " and I've
got some people people over yonder in
Halifax, I'd like to see again."
And John looked down into the cap he
was twirling in his hands, and blushed
and looked sheepish and David understood
him.
" Come along we'll go up to Shafton,
JOHN DRAYTON. 161
John, and try what we can do," said
David, taking his hat.
" But, Davie, my man, Mr. Shafton and
the railway are in different airts, and how
will you do with it ?" said Mrs. Bruce,
looking at the mysterious parcel.
Wistfully, lovingly, David looked at it,
and hesitated.
"That's only our own concern," said
David. " I'll take it in the morning when
I go to the office, mother ; for we're sure
to find Shafton at home to-night, and
John can't afford to lose his time."
Mrs. Bruce adjusted her spectacles, and
drew the linen over her finger for her ever-
lasting stitching.
" You're not an ill laddie, Davie," said
his mother ; "go your ways. I wish you
good success, John, for they tefl me you're
162 JOHN DRAYTON.
a good son ; and the two lads you have to
do with are not ill ones, so I think there's
little fear."
And so they went away over the leafy
suburban road, and through the fields to-
wards Walton. A pleasant road it was,
leading round the brow of the hill, and
overlooking the whole great town for one
stretch, and then the sea. Groups of
evening walkers met them at every corner ;
and yonder on that upper field, the lads
are playing cricket, and here, below, where
the grass slopes pleasantly down to the
high road, the children cover it so thickly
that far away you might take their little
heads for daisies ; and sweetly sounds the
childish laughter and the childish voices,
and dogs are barking far away into the
gloom of the town, and the tumultous
JOHN DRAYTON. 163
streets send up a softened and not unhappy
sound ; and beyond all is the river and
the sea, and the sun going down into its
waves.
" Don't you think they could be persuaded
to come home, those people in Halifax ?"
said David Bruce.
" I tried all I could before they went
away," said John, " but it wouldn't
do."
" And do you intend to settle out yonder,
yourself John ?" asked David.
" I'd like to be an Englishman all my
life, Sir. I'd like to be a decent man,
and have some say among the rest here
at home, if I could for they want working-
men who know about all that stuff the
Chartist lectures, and all the rest of it
164 JOHN DRAYTON.
to be among them and take care of them ;"
said John, " but suppose a man likes two
things very well ; if he can't get them
both, he'll maybe have to give up one to
j or
get the other ; and I wouldn't wonder if
that was my case, Mr. Bruce ; for you
J >fm eF/n in ?j ../mm) ^f f
see there's a whole family out yonder,
and they'd all go wrong if it wasn't for
her."
woflif I terft w
" A very good reason for your preadven-
J 5 : -^ \\ tedf bnff
ture, John:" said David, " but I thought
dm/fl 1 fiid ( i^B8um m E &
you had been a Chartist yourself."
J h--flem-;aniaiowaH3 Yot no/rr
" I wouldn't be against the Charter,"
DF>f[ BVBWlfi 9V 1 J OB ^nOl Dlf Ij8fl1
said John, " it's not it itself ; but they've
roi nsra ^isva. ' Jon:;
got all sorts of rubbish that they tack to
it, fraternity and equality and that stuff.
There's nothing bad in the Charter that
I can see ; but it's not votes they want,
TOT ' flOflfiffg 1M blli J
JOHN DRAYTON. 165
Mr. Bruce; they want to be made men-
and the Charter wont make them
men." ^
" No, very true-but men must make
themselves," ( saiH 1 'Davi^ " antf r '{ha^ J God
helping them, is in the reach of all."
" I'll tell you, Mr. Bruce," said John,
li'-i, A/3flv/ ii If jailor// 02 JIc b'yodJ ,bn
" I m not the sort of man to speak about
Gospels, now that I know what's the one
Gospel, and that it's as fresh and strong
td^yodJ I.fcfd" 1' ^ "'iii'
to-day as it was in Jerusalem, but I think
that's the sermon for the working-man that,
that you said long ago ; I've always had
av'vofu .tud 'II fliioJL bi&L
it in my mind. ' Every man for himself
and God for us all.' '
" They would think you very cold-hearted
if they heard you say that, John," said
ifiiiW Y9f{j <sMi(. T<
David. " So would Mr. Shafton ; for Shafton
166 JOHN DRAYTON.
does not know that he has a self, but thinks
first of all the world."
1 ! T <i; a-Jf
" Mr. Shafton's not like common men,
Sir, he's by himself ; but for our class
my class," said John, " if I was prime
minister, Mr. Bruce, I'll tell you what I'd
jifto'diofftoid s
" Well ?" David listened curiously and
with a smile.
" I'd have education first, and the Gospel
not any new-fashioned thing, about the
Saviour being a wonderful genius or a hero,
or anything like that ; for what do men
care to hear about heroes who died eighteen
hundred years ago ? But the old true Gospel
that Paul preached when he made tents.
I'd have that everywhere. It's a whole
nation of men that's to be saved, and what
ffctonal te hived foiea "^floinfiihst 10
JOHN DRAYTON. 167
does it matter who preaches it, as long as
they have hold of Him, and cling to Him
like men ? I'd have schools and books ;
the old grand books everywhere, and I'd
make men who went about to teach and
lecture, teach not the common stuff they
call equality but what's true brotherhood.
That it's as noble to be a good woijjdng-
man as a good Duke, and sometimes harder ;
and that it's in every man if he , tries and
labours to be equal with the best, and
that God's over all the Head of all
God and the Lord and so I'd make them
men." b'-ub oilv/ ^ooisri iuodu -.
ijx/There was a pause, for John felt it all
deeply, and his voice grew hoarse at the
end.
" Yes, . .but it would not go into an act
of parliament," said David at length after
168 JOHN DRAYTON.
a long interval of silence, " and the times
must ripen long before the prime minister
will think of that ; but come home and live
it John, and let vour brethren see."
-sfasf c r.
JOHN DRAYTON. 169
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. SHAFTON sits in a large room dark-
ened with books ; but yet, when you look
within the glazed cases, you see that this is
not the den of a bookworm ; for they are all
very gay, gilt, and lettered too gay, John
fancies, to be intimate familiars and every-day
friends ; and John is partly right.
Of modern literature, it is a capital library ;
and Mr. Shafton likes his books likes to
VOL. II. I
1JO JOHN DRAYTON.
look at them to read a title, now and then,
as he walks round his stately book-cases, and
admire them all ; and when David Bruce
reads aloud to him, he could listen for ever.
4-i^ery lovely sound of one that playeth well
upon an .instrument, it is to Mr. Shafton.
He acknowledges rapturously the beauty of
the music, but much of it is an unknown
tongue to him, and he does not comprehend
tfre word$ r; f or
So, with all the wealth of those rich
shelves encircling him, he sits in a luxurious
reclining chair, with a little homely practical
religious treatise in his hand ; very humble,
very unpretentious is the book, in its dark
cloth boards ; and it professes to be the
lucubrations of an old man, who writes peri-
odically in a little religious magazine. It is
all " very good advice," as the people say .
JOHN DRAYTON. 1?1
and very charitable, and prudent, and pious,
you can fancy, the old man is who writes it ;
and kind little hints are there, which Mr.
Shafton fancies he needs, and likes to have
administered to him; though, in reality,
there is no one in the world who needs them
so little as Mr. Shafton.
They have a long conversation, and Mr.
Shafton is very much interested in John, and
promises all his influence to help him ; and
much talk follows. They are both quite
simple, quite unconscious of anything note
worthy about themselves, those two young
men, as John sits looking at them the one
in his luxurious library chair, with the Tract
Society's little volume under his elbow, and
his very youthful-looking, ingenuous face,
turned in a glow of admiration towards
David ; and the other, in a coat which has
I 2
ST. I fAHCI WHO I
172 JOHN DRAYTON.
had the gloss worn off it by long contact
with the desk, leaning his arms upon the
Ilirt
table, and looking out, with that strange
shifting radiance playing about his face, from
between the hands which support his high,
//jfQ j}f{ , ojj fly/oi fit '1
pale T)row. And David speaks, and Shafton
listens ; and now David listens, and Shafton
ssifft jjjo <ji ;
speaks. Both would reform the world, and
both speak of it with enthusiasm, as becomes
young men ; but the poet thinks of the great
universal human nature, which is the mate-
rial in which he must work, appointed by
God : and the other's thoughts are of clean
D &
houses, and men who go to church, and
children trooping into the Sabbath- school ;
and John feels that he could not choose
between them, for both are best.
'tdffj >};
A week passes, and again John is looking
out vainly for work. Mr. Shafton is to let
JOHN DRAYTON. 173
rHOTYAffQ > <?7f
him know when he hears anything ; but he
cannot expect to hear anything decisive for a
fiill fortnight. To save the expense of lodg-
ings, John every night goes home, and sleeps
ftlOTI f iijji'f jmf
in his old attic room; and every morning,
T.jJ
early, is over in town again, that he may lose
<-I bnA .v/o'ia alfiq
no chance of work.
. . biv/jd won bns :auojI
The fortnight is out three weeks and
~ If I + CT
\
still John is idle; and now his money is
'.Mil- ><)
exhausted, and he has no resource but
v ? ' fi .
that one which he felt as a humiliation
before. So again John takes his place
'' JdJJffi
among the cotton porters again waits,
'" .'iff Jo ')ij'.
standing by the wall, there in the sun-
flom brie ^.'i<uod
shine in that street where every one is so
busy, until some all-powerful warehouseman
n u- i
will give him work.
And very little work there is at that.
He gets a day now and then, and carries
174 JOHN DRAYTON.
his three and sixpence sadly home on
Friday; for what will three and sixpence
do, to maintain the little household for a
week even with the good help of the
JSKMJ floftfsilg --I/ vr/' iii~.>n;-ti;- f.riA
garden.
The cottage wall and porch are flushed
with roses. It is the evening, and John
with his jacket off* is busily working in
the garden, delving the little piece of
vacant ground, where once were the very
early potatoes, which his mother happily
sold the last of on Saturday, and weeding
for there has been rain, and the ungracious
herbage grows apace.
" You won't be long at this work,
T U "' iiJ i,'JC-'4> 17 - ' u -J u-
John, said a voice beside mm, and
John's spade fell from his hand in sudden
~M Jbica
anxiety, as he looked up and saw Mr.
Shafton.
JOHN DRAYTON. 175
" You're to go over to the office, to-
morrow, John," said Mr. Shafton with
his happy smile ; " it'll be all right ; I
think you'll find it all right" .
And straightway Mr. Shafton began to
admire the peas, and to speak of the
delicate bean-blossom then just beginning
to scent the air, so hurriedly, that all
John's thanks were drowned. Mr. Shafton
was not naturally a talkative man, but he
had a strange gift of rapid speaking, when
he w r anted to escape being thanked, and
that happened so often that he had grown
expert, and knew capitally how to talk a
grateful man down.
^ "Mrs. Dray ton, may I have some roses?
not full this, see, and this just half-blown ;
they're for Miss Power, John," said Mr.
Shafton, sinking his voice, and looking con-
176 JOHN DRAYTON.
sciously, with that happy blush and smile
of his, at the sympathetic John. Mrs.
Dray ton went briskly about with her garden
knife to cut them ; but Mrs. Drayton had
no remembered Rachel to inspire her in
behalf of the Mary, and was cutting buds
like cabbages, on the same principle as
she cut them for her market nosegays to
look big and fill up room ; so John, the
sympathetic, took the knife from her hand,
and himself selected delicate rosebuds,
worthy of their destination, with a plea-
sant tremor in his frame ; for it was a
rose from this very tree which Rachel
was to keep till she came home.
Home! but it might be made for them
in another country, that magical resting-
place. He thought of it, and tears came
into his eyes. Through the little latticed
JOHN DRAYTON. 177
window beside him, with the geraniums on
its ledge, and the rose-branches waving
round it, he has a glimpse of the old man
dozing near the fire in the easy chair ;
and there Mrs. Dray ton in a cornier of
the garden covers up her rhubarb that it
may not get too strong and coarse ; and
everything is happy, and peaceful, and
kindred to them from the low oak yonder,
bending over the garden hedge, and the
ash with its high white stem, waving its
thin foliage over the roof, to the square
gray church tower in the distance, and the
low bleak hill striking against the sky ;
very blank and dead, John feels, all this
would grow if himself, the young life, went
away to build in another country an alien
dwelling-place; and the tears are under his
eyelids.
i 3
JOHN DRAYTON.
They would fade into the grave, those old
lonely people who once nourished him so
tenderly bustling strangers would jostle
them away off the full stage of life; and
moss would gather on their humble tomb-
stone, and their humble honest name would
be extinguished, and sadly they would pass
away, childless in the land. It must not
be, whatever the pang is ; he may never have
the home he dreams of, he thinks, as he
draws his hand across his eyes, but his home
must be in England.
Mr. Shafton is looking at his roses he
does not know the mental struggle which
marks in John's secret history the time of their
gathering and he points out on the soft
leaves, lingering raindrops from the last
shower, " They look like tears John," said
Mr. Shafton ; and John feels as if there
JOHN DRAYTON. 179
were a delicate sympathy in nature, which
is moved by his trials, and weeps for him
when he dare not be seen to weep.^ ^ i
Very soon it is all arranged. He is to
have six pounds a month very great
wages and Mrs. Drayton is dazzled and
almost reconciled to the voyage which is to
bring in so much money. He is to join
the ship immediately, and has only ten
days to make ready, so there are great
preparations begun in the cottage without
y* ni od vtauni
Only two letters has John received from
Rachel, and the second one like the first,
was very short and very grave, and written
in a sad despondent tone, which, at the
time depressed him greatly. He has written
several times, but it does not occur to him
to send any word now when he will see her
180 JOHN DRAYTON.
so soon and all the despondency, both
his own and her's, vanishes when he thinks
of this meeting in which there can be
nothing but sunshine and joy.
The time draws on ; they are very short,
Mrs. Drayton thinks, these bright days of
June, and Sarah Jane, widow Hornby's
daughter, whom she has in helping to make
John's outfit, dawdles sadly over his shirts,
and is by no means a good seamstress. Mrs.
Drayton is cumbered with many cares so
many that she almost forgets the cause of
them all the great trial that awaits her,
and cannot realize that John is going to
&&l>: (li'lU'V ^IfXWW
But it comes ; and she remembers when
she packs his great sea-chest, and weeps over
the new shirts as she lays them in. He
is going away not a hundred but many
JOHN DRAYTON. 181
thousand miles what used to be a sad
life's journey when she was young ; and Mrs.
Drayton will not believe that people go in a
fortnight now, and that the ships come in
almost as punctually as the omnibuses ido,
over in Liverpool. She thinks of long
tempests, lasting through weary weeks, and
contrary winds- those rough wild winds
which sweep over the hill of the telegraph
so furiously, and blight and break the trees,
so that between the village and the sea
the oaks are little higher than men, and
knotted and gnarled like fierce dwarfs by
constant resistance, resist still, although their
scanty leafage seems scarcely worth such
desperate wrestling for. Never is there a
carnival of the winds but that corner of
Cheshire wots of it ; and Mrs. Drayton
thinks of them, and weeps and trembles.
182 JOHN DRAYTON.
The morning rises. Never more brightly
rose a morning in leafy June, and the good
mother is up almost before the wakeful birds.
Softly she steals about, looking if there is
anything forgotten anything more to put
into the chest, which stands mournfully on
the kitchen floor, with the key in its lock,
ready to be carried away ; but nothing has
been forgotten j and now she goes out to
the garden to pull some stalks of fragrant
lavender, and add them to John's more
substantial stores. Not a breeze lifts the
long rose-branches glistening in the dew,
and the clouds up on the far blue sky lie
still, like ships becalmed, and the very breath
of the mighty earth seems to come softly,
as though great love had hushed it, as
the universal mother dreamed of her sons
at sea.
JOHN DRAYTON. 183
But the breakfast hour hurries on that
dull, silent breakfast, saddest of all meals,
when a parting is to follow. And now the
cart is at the end of the lane, waiting for
John's chest, and John himself must set
out at once, to be on board in good
time.
" Fare-thee-well, lad ! I'll maybe never
see thee again," said the old man, with a
few feeble sobs ; " but if I be gone afore
you come back, you'll be kind to your
mother all the same. Fare-thee-well."
And now they are out in the lane, walking
slowly after the cart. Poor Mrs. Drayton
has her best bonnet on, but the tears
fall on the ribbons, and she heeds them
not.
" It's nothing, mother ; I'll be there on
Saturday week," says John, as she leans
184 JOHN DRAYTON.
heavily upon his arm ; hut she only weeps,
and shakes her head.
She knows better, she thinks for people
do not sail three thousand miles in ten short
cffuorr Jjan jifljjB? u Y"JBI
summer days. f v ^ j T3fi 10V
She is glad that the way is so long, and
glad that they have to walk so slowly after
that rumbling, heavy cart. She is almost
d /
glad, too, the poor mother, that so many
01 J
new roads are making for this magnificent
skeleton town of Birkenhead, and that they
can scarcely find one far enough advanced to
travel on : but in spite of all obstacles
-.:..:>*.,;!! ,nTF
sadly too soon the bright river flashes
into sight, and they have reached the
jWO'i S 8"w0n3 t XOu-fm).I)]o(| aJIT Uf7
ferry.
Yonder, up within that placid bay above
Tranmere, lies the great steamer. Puffs of
white steam blow off now and then notes
JOHN DRAYTON.
of preparation and a little steam-boat
ceaselessly runs errands for her to the shore,
conveying goods and passengers house-
hold treasures from many a saddened home
to cover her great decks with them ; and
ruthlessly she lies there receiving all.
But now the ferry-boat glides filler ifiSr
calm river, and on the great landing stage
then a new wonder Mrs. Drayton stands
with her son to say farewell. Already his
chest is in the " Satellite ;" and rushing from
the " Satellite's" safety valve comes the white
violent steam, and the passengers crowd in,
and the man is at the wheel, and the
Captain, on the paddle-box, shouts, " Now,
then !" to hasten John, as he lingers on the
gangway ; and in a moment after the waves
are churning under the great wheels, and
her son is away.
186 JOHN DRAYTON.
She sees him through her tears waving
his cap to her still, as the little vessel fumes
across the river; and as it hurries further
and further off, he conies to the stern, and
stands high up, that she may not lose sight
of him to the last. The young rose in his
breast ; his cap in his hand ; and so she takes
her last look of John.
Poor Mrs. Drayton ! those quick ferry-
boats skim past her like phantoms, and she
sees them not; but with a great boom the
clock strikes twelve and the bell rings;
and now she remembers she must be on
the hill at two, when the steamer sails,
to see her pass away into the unknown
seas, f ft jfljfj
Wearily now, plodding back again, she
goes over those solitary roads. The men
who were working at them have all gone
B pi OKJJ ! ni;-g odj ebfu/oa ii won
JOHN DRAYTON. 187
home to dinner, except one here and there,
who sits in a grassy corner, or on a great
stone, with a basin between his knees and
a pitcher beside him, taking the dinner
which that little girl, or the wife yonder,
with the baby in her shawl, has carried
from the distant home. But Mrs. Drayton,
with her dim eyes, sees no one, and thinks
the road never was so lonely before.
And now she has reached the hill
very still, yonder lies the sea, with solemn
sails gliding over it, in silence under the
sun. Mrs. Drayton sits down on a shelving
rock, to cry awhile undisturbed, where no
one is near to vex her with comfort ; and
again she thinks she sees him through
her tears her good son with his manly
head bare under the sky, and the half-blown
rose in his breast.
But now it sounds the gun ! and in a
188 JOHN DRAYTON.
moment her tears are all away, and she
rises with eyes keen as the watchman's on
the top of the telegraph tower, to see the
ship go out. The moments pass very
slowly; she thinks it takes a long time
to go down the river; but now it passes
out from the shadow of the rock, and is there
before her on the sea. o/fj
Away like a flying spirit! and further
off, and further, the black plume waves
from among its masts, and the great hull
sinks in the smooth line on the horizon's
edge. Another long cry she has when it
it is gone and then she wipes her eyes
and arranges her bonnet, and goes away
refreshed and strengthened for it does fly
like a bird, that great, strong, vigorous
steamer to comfort her old man at
home.
And John is out on the blue, bright
JOHN DRAYTON. 189
waves, travelling away again into that
unknown which has so great a charm ;
or rather John is in to the hot engine-room,
amidships, and is becoming acquainted with
the other smutted spirits, who tend and
curb, and keep in order the strange, mys-
terious, plunging steed which carries the
vessel on. And the clean steel and bur-
nished brass of those pipes and pistons,
which curious passengers look in to see,
and the constant see-saw clang they make,
as the giant in his seven-leagued boots
strides on over the clear sea-water, have
harmony in them to John's accustomed
senses. No one is sick not even the
ladies under the parasols on the quarter-
deck; and the sun sets, and the moon
comes up, with a serene family of stars
about her, and out in the clear blue, which
190 JOHN DRAYTON.
may be either sea or sky, both are so
calm, holds up her silver lamp, and bears
the ship company like a silent friend. Hope-
ful thoughts, under that meek eye of hers,
steal into many hearts which said farewell
to-day heavily: and as he lingers on deck,
after his watch is over, pleasant visions
of the home which is to be, charm John's
thoughts again, and all his doubts and
misgivings, like the clouds of yesterday,
have melted in a few soft tears, into the
sea.
ad bus ,9fio ;taj32B9fc[ e zew cqp'
bus t qids sift ni jsmod is doimi v
t #mod,ei ali ot .y.m
.oiode Hfion .jiafl
ar TJ?O e
la a^aifaooid ori) IIA ,oaot ; dot
19TO WOI { 30H9fol)J
JOHN DRAYTON. 191
oa 9ia fUod ,pfe to cagf isdJia ad
nsod bus qoLfj lanrlia i9ii qu eblod ,
-oqoll .bnoiii iaslia* e^il ^n^qmoa qkla srL
,3i9fl 'io 9 T (9 aio9fa ifidJ isfanu .gJrlguoiiJ li/t
Uawoiiilt husa xioHw eJiewl ^flsm oiiii Icate
.ioob no gTJ^iil d as fans -.^^8x
arroJar/ iflca^Iq f iawo ar doJjsw aiif
apodal raisrfo * t od oJ si rioidv/^ smod adi lo
CHAPTER IX.
STORMS passed over the skies some-
times through those ten days, but John's
first voyage was a pleasant one, and he
was very much at home in the ship, and
accustomed to its labours, before they
neared the American shore. Day by day,
as they hurried over the bright waters,
John's heart rose. All the broodings of
the unhappy time of indolence, now over-
192 JOHN DRAYTON.
past, have left him like so many mists.
The good wholesome work is his mind's
best physic ; and now as they sail into
the west, and the home twilight ceases
to interpose its meditative hour between
the night and day, and suddenly the
darkness falls upon the light like the
closing of an eyelid, John leans over the
ship's side, as she cuts her way through
the rippling water, and happily dreams
dreams more happily than he ever did
before.
Prosaic people think him listless and
idle, as, his worktime over, he leans upon
the bulwark, looking hazily down upon the
sea. " Would he not be far better em-
ployed, reading and improving his mind ?"
says the grave gentleman there, who lends
about little shilling books among the
JOHN DRAYTON. 193
sailors, and is very anxious to be " useful,"
so long as he remains in the ship. No,
good gentleman. The shilling books are very
well better are the dreams, the youth's
inheritance, which glorify the future for
him with bright forms and sunshine. Not
a fool's paradise does he dream of. He
dreams of a grand being harmoniously
walking on this earth, which is God's,
following in the footsteps of a holy and
great One who goes before. He dreams
of a man, fulfilling all the noble functions
of humanity a man who has been re-
deemed ; and about his path sweet human
charities cluster like flowers, and in his
arms he lifts up little children up, to look
at the heavens the infinite broad heavens
which smile upon him, and bend over
VOL. II. K
194 JOHN DRAYTON.
him, embracing him in their arms of
ye
fi bfn/o-tf e
And this man oh, joy to dream it !
this man is to be himself himself eating
bread in the sweat of his brow, labouring
with hard hands for his beloved himself
is to be this man ! A man for whom
the great world will concert harmonies
for whom the stars will sing in their
courses grand music to time his marching
to ! for whom yonder glorious Wayfarer,
in the path before him, underwent his
mighty travail and the human heart
swells solemnly to follow on on after the
Lord - JI .bad
" Whoso hath this hope in him, puri-
fieth himself even as he is pure." It is
the secret of the new manhood high and
holy; and joyously the happinesses of
JOHN DRAYTON. 195
common life blend and mingle and twine
themselves around it, and scenes rise up
serene and beautiful of the charmed days
that are to come.
Lay down your little books, good gentle-
man, and stand aside ; let the young soul
look forth upon this ideal path, which it
must tread for itself, and not another.
While those blue soft waters glide away
under the flying keel, his heart grows
strong, and expands, rising, with a heroic
swell, to meet the perils and troubles which
do but make the future's shining highway
nobler. Stand aside, and let him dream.
And now comes the land. It is night
when the great boyish exuberant Continent
of the West rises before the traveller deep,
silent night, an hour or two before day-
break and the ships are slumbering in
K 2
196 JOHN DRAYTON.
the silvery harbour, and white listless
sails flap drowsily over the little boats, that
rock themselves softly, like children half
asleep upon the silken water. White
in the moonlight glimmer, the sleeping
town, its woes and its blessedness, all
lulled and silent within that soft mantle
of rest ; and John steals eagerly up high
up to the yards to look out, with a
beating heart, upon the gleaming roofs,
quivering with light from that great, lus-
trous, melancholy moon.
In those days the steamer remained
nearly a whole day in Halifax; it was to
sail again in the evening, and John anxiously
asked and obtained leave to spend the day
ashore.
He had the address which Rachel had
sent to him. It was in an obscure street
JOHN DRAYTON. 197
in the outskirts of the town, and one of his
precious hours was lost before he could find it.
When he did find it, the Wylds were gone ;
no one could tell him where, nor give him
any clew by which to find them. One
neighbour believed they had all had the
fever ; another had heard that Wyld himself
was dead ; but where they were to be found,
or what had really become of them, no one
knew.
One sympathetic woman compassionating
John's distress, volunteered to make in-
quiries, and he eagerly accepted her offered
assistance. She would find them out if it
were possible to find them, she promised,
before the ship returned to Halifax, and
with that small consolation John was com-
pelled to be content.
But he continued to wander, miserably,
198 JOHN DRAYTON.
about the streets, all the time his leave
extended, looking into the faces he met
with painful anxious looks: but all were
strange. It was a sultry July day, warmer
than he had ever felt a day in England, and
hot and oppressive were those unknown
streets. He had come so expectant and
joyously, that when he climbed the ship's
side again in the afternoon, his great disap-
pointment exaggerated itself almost into
despair. ;ef | ^[QJ 91! t xfi'in i^mutoi
They were to sail immediately, and when
they returned would be only a few hours in
Halifax ; and he thought of returning to
England again with his aim unaccomplished,
although, perhaps, he had passed the very
street the very house where Rachel lived.
Poor John ! he could scarcely drag himself
away from the deck, where he could still
JOHN DRAYTON. 199
look wistfully at the roofs, some one of
which hid his friends from him, to the
close hot engine-room, where his labour
lay-
-1 -Antf ; ' again : the great wheels began to
churn the quiet water, and they had re-
sumed their journey.
A little time, and ev&i : ! hearts sick will
resume their elasticity. John begged already,
before they reached Boston, that when they
returned to Halifax, he might have their
time there to himself to prosecute his search ;
and with some difficulty his request was
granted.' Again he began to hope if man
could do it, this time he would find them
out
Slowly the days passed ; his mind was $6
much preoccupied, that he had little curiosity
even for the New World. He was sick of
200 JOHN DRAYTON.
Boston, sick o the long sunshine glaring
down its streets, and flashing in the
dazzled sea, and only eager and im-
patient for the day when they should sail
again.
When they did sail again it was into a
storm, which occupied all minds fully, from
the anxious captain's on the gangway, to the
disappointed engineer in the engine-room.
Plunging and struggling like a restive horse,
the vessel needed all the care bestowed upon
her to keep her in her course, and there
was no time for private anxieties ; so many
a sick anticipation the tempest saved to
John.
And now on a soft, dim rainy morn-
ing they have anchored again before
Halifax. .
The streets are wet, and prudent people,
JOHN -DRAYTON.
with red and blue umbrellas, step daintily
over the muddy pavement, but unwitting of
mud or rain, John splashes on to the house
of his sympathetic friend. But the woman,
still sympathetic and full of pity for his
sickened heart and blank face, has no news
to give him. She has made many inquiries,
and has thought herself several times just
on the eve of finding them, but has not
succeeded. ^ginta bflfi S nr 3 nuW
So John turns away, and hopelessly
looking under umbrellas and into bonnets,
and getting himself a bad character for
impertinence, walks mile after mile about
those disconsolate streets.
But look yonder, before him ! some one
a woman with a black riband on her bonnet,
and a thin shawl clinging to her very thin
figure, walks feebly, close by the wall. He
K 3
202 JOHN DRAYTON.
does not know her and yet his pulse beats
high, and he hears his heart sounding against
his side. Heavy drops fall upon her from
the eaves, and her slow, languid steps look
very feeble. He does not know her but he
presses on.
And now she stops at a street corner to
rest for a moment, and turns round to him a
white, invalid face. The dark eyes are
enlarged and sunken, and wet is the lock
of light brown hair which, escaped from
under her bonnet, clings to the old thin
shawl. He catches, in one glance, the
particulars of the .change, as a wild leap
brings him to her side.
" Rachel !"
" Rachel !" She thinks the voice is in
the air, and that her mind is wandering,
and closing her eyes because they are blind,
JOHN DRAYTON. 203
and she cannot see anything out of them,
she leans on the wall, and prays silently,
with pale, moving lips, that her reason may
not fail her now. Strength and health,
both of them, are gone ; but her mind her
mind the last stay that it may not sink
yet, while they are helpless and among
strangers here.
But some one supports her strongly
eagerly.
" Who is it ?" says Rachel, in a dream,
as the warm tears begin to run over her
cheek, and a voice is saying something in her
ear something she cannot tell what it is
but she knows the voice.
She thinks she will fall, she is so feeble ;
but she does not fall she only leans upon
the other, who is strong, and cries silently,
and cannot speak. He speaks, but it is a
204 JOHN DRAYTON.
long time before she can distinguish the
words ; she is content with the voice,
which she knows so well the old, familiar
music.
And now the sight comes back to her
eyes, and the sickness goes away. She
remembers that they are standing in the
street, and that the passers-by look wonder-
ingly at them from under the red and blue
umbrellas. A slight, delicate blush steals
over her white cheek, and she lays her
hand on John's arm such an arm ! she
never knew before how strong it was and
says : " Let us go home."
And they go away together, as if they
had never parted. But Rachel is very
weak ; she cannot keep down those tears
that come stealing to her eyes, and her
voice is little louder than a whisper, and
JOHN DRAYTON. 205
she has to lean almost her whole weight
upon him, and to walk very slowly through
the rain. And John has her little basket
in his hand, and now, after her excitement
and sickness of sudden joy, she feels cold
and trembles ; and wonderingly and pitifuDy
the strong man he looks such a Hercules
beside her looks down into her pale
face.
a* John," said Rachel, " my father is
dead."
His face grows grave not sorrowful
perhaps but grave and awed to hear
of it.
" He died in the fever, two months ago,
and we've all had it we've both had it,"
said Rachel.
" And, Rachel, your mother ?" said John.
" My mother is better we are both better
206 JOHN DRAYTON.
now, John," and the blood came again
to the wan face. "What are you doing
here? You haven't come for good? not
to stay?"
"I'm in the steamer," said John, and
his voice saddened ; " it's to sail to-night ;
I'll have to leave you again to-night,
Rachel."
The tears would have burst forth again,
she was so weak; but the womanly pride
restrained them. She glanced up for a
moment wistfully to his face.
" I got a place in the steamer on purpose,"
said John ; " and when we came here, before
we went on to Boston, I was all the time
looking for you, and like to break my heart
when I had to go away; now, I've only a
few hours but Rachel, you're not going to
stay here now ?"
JOHN DRAYTON. 207
" I don't know," said Rachel, in her low
sad voice; for she was shy and downcast,
and uncertain how to answer.
:
" But / know," said the bold John. " I've
got a right to speak now. You were obliged
to come out, but you're not obliged to stay ;
and the next time our ship comes out, you'll
be ready to go home mind. I'll have my
own way now."
obftWe could'nt go in the steamer, it's dear,
John," said Rachel submissively.
It had not occurred to him, " I'd give
your mother and you my berth, and stay on
deck myself, as glad as could be," said John ;
but that would not do.
Jv#'If we're to go at all, we must go by a
sailing ship again," said Rachel ; " and John,
it was awful coming out."
" Never mind, it's different, it's going
208 JOHN DRAYTON.
home now," said John; "and besides it's
summer. It was a disgrace to take you out
in November, Rachel. Where's George ?"
" He sailed three months ago," said
Rachel. " You know, John, how he said to
my mother he'd get to sail constant out of
Halifax; but he did'nt, for just after we
came his ship was sold, and he was idle ever
so long, and at last had to go with a ship
from Liverpool a long trading voyage out
to China, and I don't know where besides
and he's to be two years away, and to come
j j> . - , v
into Liverpool after all."
u All the better," said John ; " and now
I'll forgive him for taking you away ; do you
mind how he laughed yon time on the pier,
Rachel, when your mother spoke to him
about the wind ?"
Rachel remembered it very well very
JOHN DRAYTON. 209
well it rung so strangely through her
grief.
" There's ships going every fortnight,"
said John, " and when you can't go in
the steamer, Rachel, why shouldn't you
start at once ? You've got nothing to keep
i
you here.
" There's some things to sell," said
Rachel, " maybe as many as will get money
to take us home ; but I'd like to be stronger
first to take care of my mother ; and you'll
have to speak to her John."
" I wish you could have gone in the
steamer, it's so much shorter," said John,
" and I'd have been there myself to see
that you were comfortable ; but it can't
be helped, you know, Rachel I've got a
good place, and it was hard to get it ; so
I must keep it awhile in particular now."
" And must you always go to sea, John ?"
210 JOHN DRAYTON.
said Rachel disconsolately, " couldn't you
get a place at home."
" Mr. Shafton's going to start a new
foundry, at least he's going to join Mr.
Power ;" said John, " it wont be for seven
or eight months yet, but I'm sure of a
place then ; and we'll get the old house,
Rachel no fear of us, if you'll only come
home, and get well."
And very willing Rachel is to come home
and get well ; and just now, as she looks
up to her strong supporter with a smile
upon her face, and does not feel the rain
that falls softly on it, she forgets all about
her distress and sickness, and they speak
of the home which John has been dream-
ing about, and forget that they are in
the strange streets of Halifax, and are very
happy.
But now they have reached the house
JOHN DRAYTON. 211
where the mother and the daughter, in
grief and sicknes^ have lived for these
three memorable months They have only
one room, and it is small and scantily
furnished, and gaps here and there, show
that the household things they had
accumulated before, have been gradually
diminishing during this illness. Mrs. Wyld
like her daughter is very weak ; but on
the table lies some work, at which, in
spite of her weakness, Rachel has been
labouring ; for they have nothing and are
among strangers.
" The old man at home is very weakly,"
said John, " and we'll have to consider
how we'll do, to be for the best, when
we're all together. You'll maybe have hard
work getting ends to meet Rachel, by
and bye : but I must mind the old folks,
212 JOHN DRAYTON.
at home, as you bade me long ago. I
think Mrs. Wyld, if you'd just go there,
as long as I'm at sea, it wouldn't matter
having another house, and the country air
would do you good, and when the foundry
opened we could have the old house again ;
will that do ?"
" But I'll be a burden on you all," said
Mrs. Wyld crying feebly, " Oh, maybe
Rachel was right, John maybe I shouldn't
have come, and then we'd have missed all
this trouble : but if he had died by himself,
and nobody to say a word to him, I'd have
broken my heart !"
" It's been for the best, mother," said
Rachel, " I was against it, but I wouldn't
have been, if I had known what was to
happen I'm thankful now we came."
" And I'd just like to hear any one
JOHN DRAYTON. 213
else say a word about a burden," said
John, "if it was Rachel herself: but now
I'd like you to make up your minds and
fix what ship you'll go by, before I go
>ei
J km* jo
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lit- b
214 JOHN DRAYTON.
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.001^5:1 coo - 9di cj aidfiil aiom s
u *' CHAPTER X. ' sA urfoi
: 300 YBOI ail isrii
THEY have gathered round their homely
tea-table, as they used to do in the little
bright Everton room. Rachel has been away
changing her wet dress, and has her b"est one
on now, till the other is sufficiently dry to be
worn ; and over this best black gown, which
would be easily spoiled, and which Rachel
cannot afford to put in peril, she has tied a
great white apron. Mrs. Wyld, too, has a
JOHN DRAYTON. 215
black gown, and a widow's cap ; and very
hard Rachel laboured, and very sparingly
lived, before they took the fever, to enable
them to pay those outward tokens of respect
to the dead ; but these were very costly
" mournings," for the labour they entailed
weakened the workers, and rendered them
the more liable to the contagion.
John has laid his silver watch" on the
table, that he may not stay too long. He
got it long ago, and Mrs. Wyld has seen it
before, but she takes it up again to admire
it. They have his watch still, but will need
7jBW 1390 i
to sell it, with the other things, to enable
them to get home ; and far better do that,
Mrs. Wyld thinks, than take the money
John presses on her. It is not very much
he has, poor fellow, and their fare home will
not be great ; though it is a great sum to
them.
216 JOHN DRAYTON.
" If George had only been in, poor lad,"
said Mrs. Wyld, " he'd give the last penny
he had to make us comfortable ; and when
he does come in, John, he'll do something
for his mother no fear of my George ; but
I think we'll do, with the things we
have to sell ; we'll very near do, at any
rate."
The contents of John's purse it was but
light at first, and is quite empty now were
added to the little store ; and it was ar-
ranged that in a fortnight after, they should
sail.
" 111 be at sea when you get in," said
John, " but I won't be long after you ; our
boat comes in as regular as a coach ; and I'll
leave word with my mother to be meeting
you on the Pier. But if you should miss
her she doesn't know very well about such
things you'll just go over home at once ;
JOHN DRAYTON. 217
she's sure to be ready for you. Now, you'll
promise me, Mrs. Wyld ?"
" But your mother won't care to have me.
I'm a quiet body, John ; I'd give very little
trouble ; but your mother's been used to
have the house to herself, and she'll think
me a bother, John."
" She's not the one," said John, proudly.
" She's got as kind a heart as ever was, and
she'll try to make you comfortable, I know.
Wasn't you good to her that time when I
was in trouble ? and weren't you always good
to me ? it's our turn now ; besides, there's
my father he's very weakly and my mother
can't always get to the market, for waiting on
him. You'll be a famous help, Mrs. Wyld ;
and for Rachel Rachel knows my mother
I can fancy how bright the old house
will grow to have Rachel in it again."
VOL. II. L
218 JOHN DRAYTON.
Very bright grew Rachel's face.
" I'll be very busy, John," she said, with a
smile.
" I'll leave word with my mother she's
not to let you," said John ; " you get well
and strong, that's plenty for you to do
till I come back ; isn't it, Mrs. Wyld ?"
Mrs. Wyld shook her head, but smiled
with them ; for the fresh English cottage,
" at home," and the native skies and air,
were pleasant, very pleasant to anticipate :
and she could fancy already the delight of
seeing the sunshine come back to the pale
face of Rachel, and happy labour, enough
and not too much, filling the wholesome
days again.
" And now I'll have to go away," said
John, looking again at his great silver
watch ; " are you able to walk a bit with
JOHN DRAYTON. 219
me, Rachel, or must I part with you
here ?"
It was still drizzling, and RacheHooked
dubiously at her best gown ; but the other
one was fortunately dry, and she ran away
to put it on again.
" Mind you've promised just to go home
at once, Mrs. Wyld," repeated John, as
he shook hands with her , " and I'll not be
long till I see you again. Good bye."
Good bye; and Mrs. Wyld looks after
them from the window, and feels proud
that the neighbours see them walking to-
gether along the stranger street.
And Rachel is stronger now, and the
streets no longer swim in her dim eyes,
as she leans upon that strong manful arm
of his ; and they have much to speak of
on the way much which belongs only to
L 2
220 JOHN DRAYTON.
their own individual selves which might
not sound like very good sense to a third
party who listened, but which is better
than sense, and exceedingly agreeable to
them.
And so he is gone Rachel stands
looking after him, till her head begins to
grow dizzy again; and then, through the
rain, she turns happily back, to prepare
for the journey the pleasant journey
home.
They are still preparing for it, and the
day is very close at hand when they must
00W J'fl Tlf T\ 1
sail, when Mrs. Drayton, in her cottage,
hears a gun echoing over the plain from
the sea. The little pan with the gruel
falls from her hand, and she holds her
breast, within which the heart is leaping
like a bird.
JOHN DRAYTON. 221
"Jane, thou's not shot," said the old
man, looking up with some anxiety ;
" but sure enough thou's spilt all the
gruel."
"Don't you hear, old man?" cried the
good mother ; " there, it is the other one !
and he's come he's come back, my
Johnnie ! my good lad !"
"But Jane, what telled thee?" said old
John, looking round with a little super-
stitious tremor, for he was growing deaf,
and dim of sight j "thou doesn't see no-
thing, Jane?"
" It's the guns ! the guns don't you
hear? I'll sit up all night for fear he
comes home ; oh, my Johnnie ! It's the
ship come back it's the guns !"
But the morning had risen brightly, and
the good mother, starting at every sound,
222 JOHN DRAYTON.
had put on a clean gown, and a clean cap,
and a spotless white apron, and in this
festal guise had wandered out down the
lane to look for him, before John came
home.
" Oh, Johnnie ! oh, my lad !" exclaimed
Mrs. Drayton ; " I knew you'd come back,
and oh, I'm thankful ! but I thought you
never come, Johnnie ; and I've been looking
for you all night."
" I couldn't get sooner, mother," said
John. "I've half run, all the way from
the ferry how's my father ?''
" Oh, he's well, Johnnie ; I mean he's
getting very frail, poor old man ; but
weren't you wearied of the sea and how
did you like the boat and did you see
Rachel Wyld and what sort of a place
is America, John?"
JOHN DRAYTON. 223
"I've seen Rachel Wyld, mother; her
father's dead, and she's coming home,"
said John ; " they've been very ill, both
Mrs. Wyld and Rachel ; and, mother, they're
coming home to you."
" But what will I do with them,
Johnnie ?"
"Don't you know, mother?" said John,
blushing, as he looked into his mother's
face.
"Ay bless thee, I know: did you think
you could keep it from me ?" said Mrs.
Dray ton brightening. " I can put one
thing to another as well as most people;
and she's a good lass. I wish she'd been
here, when your new shirts were made,
John, instead of that Sarah Jane, taking
a shilling a day for making fun over them :
but did you say they were to come to the
cottage, John?"
224 JOHN DRAYTON.
"There's the attic, mother," said John,
" and there's the little closet at the back
when I'm at home; there's lots of room
and I don't see any use for taking another
house as long as I'm at sea."
" No, sure, there's plenty room," said his
mother, " and you'll live at home the time
the ship's in every day as well as Sunday
won't you, John ? and I'll be as good to
them as ever I can be."
" I knew you would, mother," said John,
gratefully. " Mrs. Wyld thought she'd
be a bother, poor body, but I told her
you had the kindest heart in the world."
"Well, I try to do my best," said the
gratified mother, "and once they were
kind to you, Johnnie ; and they're fond of
you don't you think I found that out
long ago? maybe, before you did your-
self."
JOHN DRAYTON. 225
And John blushed, and was gratified
too ; and Mrs. Drayton proudly took his
arm, and they went slowly down the lane
to the cottage, where old John had wakened
already, and was lying staring round the
walls, and calling out for Jane.
" When are they to come, and when is
it to be, John ?" asked Mrs. Drayton. " Is
it so hot in America, that you've got
all brown ? but you needn't get all red
too, when it's only your mother you're
speaking to."
" They'll be sailing, about now, mother,"
said John, smiling very joyfully over his
blush. " I suppose, in about a month at
furthest, they'll get in; and it's to be, I
suppose, next time I come home, after that,
if Rachel doesn't say no, mother."
Mrs. Drayton looked at him; he was
L 3
226 JOHN DRAYTON.
smiling to himself all over his brown,
blushing, happy face, and the mother
laughed aloud for who could say no to
John.
" And it'll be in Upton church, John ?"
said Mrs. Dray ton. " I shouldn't wonder
if the vicar gave you a Bible I've known
him do that to a young couple before
now and he won't see many young couples
like you and Rachel."
" I don't believe there's above three or
four in the world as good as Rachel,
mother," said John, solemnly.
And Mrs. Drayton looked at him again.
She was quite willing that Rachel should
stand on an eminence among three or four,
because her John her good lad was, alone ;
the best son in the world.
"Jane! Jane!"
JOHN DRAYTON. 227
The old man's voice startled them, ringing
out querulous and feeble ; and now his son
is by his bed-side.
"I'm very frail, lad very frail but
I'm thankful to see thee back again. I
didn't think I'd last as long," said old
John. " It's a terrible hard thing to get
shut of an old man it's a long job, is
this ; and may be I'll see your children yet,
John."
" Ay, no fear of you," said his wife.
" Now, old man, get up, and let the lad
have some breakfast ; he's come far to get
it all the way from America and I won't
have him hungered now."
But as she boils eggs and makes coffee
for this elaborate breakfast, every five
minutes her labours are suspended to look
at him, as he stands in the porch between
228 JOHN DRAYTON.
her and the sunshine. He has again a
rose in the breast of the short coat which
now he wears every day, and the hair is
blowing lightly about his temples, and a
smile hovers on his face, as he plays with
the long branches of the rose-tree Rachel's
rose; and now he turns round to talk to
her of Rachel of the sea and of the new
world he has seen since he left home ; and
Mrs. Drayton, as she lays a snow-white
cloth upon the table, and puts down the
cups, thinks proudly that Rachel Wyld has
a fate in store for her, higher than princesses
or queens ; for where is there another in the
world like John ?
But two bright weeks pass, and he must
go away again. A great many charges he
has given his mother about the Wylds, and,
with a great many promises she has answered
JOHN DRAYTON. 229
him. Mrs. Wyld is to help her in her
ceaseless attendance upon the old man, and
John has unbounded faith in Rachel
Rachel will make sunshine, and find work
for herself anywhere ; he has no fear for
her.
" And, mother, don't let her go and
work too much, and hurt herself," urges
John. " She isn't strong ; make her go
about the garden, and get roses on her cheeks
by I come back."
" I'll think on, Johnnie," said Mrs. Dray-
ton, " never you fear."
" I've told Tom Wood, at the docks, to
bring you word when the ship's telegraphed,
mother," said John ; " and go and meet
them, will you? Let Tom have some
gooseberries for the children he won't
ask anything and he'll take you to the
230 JOHN DRAYTON.
ship when she comes in. Now do will you,
mother ?"
" I'd do it if 1 had to walk ten miles,
Johnnie," said Mrs. Drayton ; and so he
went away on his second voyage.
Swiftly over those great seas came the
sailing ship swiftly though with no super-
natural steed to carry her on. Sometimes
contrary winds, sometimes dead calms, kept
her back a day or two ; but within a month
from their time of sailing, the eager passen-
gers crowded to her deck to see the light at
the Rock slowly turning on its friendly pivot,
and tinging the water with its rays.
Far away yonder, that dim, sandy line
marks the coast, with its range of dull
bathing-places, on which the docks are
gradually encroaching, chasing the bathers
and the villas down to the wider sea. Here,
JOHN DRAYTON. 231
with scattered lights, lie the village towns
of Cheshire, linked together by straggling
houses. Over yonder, perturbed and dim,
with one long line of light tracing its
miles of docks, Liverpool sends up its smoke
into the sky. Little steamers flash across
the river hourly for it is midnight and
far off you see their red and green lights,
and hear a distant rustle as of some luminous
insect flying on strong wings. The sky is
pale and luminous too, and as the light,
revolving, throws its illumination on the
river, you see the ships moored in-shore,
resting like quiet dwelling-places upon the
unmoved water ; and now and then a
pilot-boat goes quickly down the river,
manned by rough voyagers, who almost
despise the night, for its beauty and its
calm.
232 JOHN DRAYTON.
Look out, Rachel! yonder hangs a star
over the round tower on the hill, and under
it, down there in the hidden valley, the
mother dreams of meeting you, and of the
coming home. Lie down now, and for
the last time, sleep with the water rippling
by your ear rippling softly, hushed, and
quiet, under the stars while this great
sea-cradle, gently moving, rocks you to
your slumber like a child. Far out on the
bright seas, one wakes to think of your
home-going, and sees you safe under the
cottage- roof, saying prayers for him. Pray,
and look to the west, Rachel, whence you
have come whither he travels and now,
with your heart quiet within you, lie down
like a child, and sleep.
The attic in the cottage is very bright,
and its window in the roof stands open to
JOHN DRAYTON. 233
let the sweet air enter. There is a white
cover on the bed, and curtains under that
low shelving roof would have been oppres-
sive it is better without them, Mrs.
Drayton thinks. Three strips of carpet are
on the floor one of them red one of them
blue for Mrs. Drayton likes the primary
colours, and arranges them as Mr. Owen
Jones himself would have arranged them had
he been there to see though the third
is a secondary green which somewhat breaks
the contrast. A white cover too is on the
table, and roses and honeysuckle, a prodigal
supply, fill the little basin and make the
room rich with odours. You must stand on
that low chair to look from the window, but
the view is worth climbing for. Yonder lies
the sea ; and from this window, when the
guns boom over the land again, Rachel will
234 JOHN DRAYTON.
watch the steamer come in the precious
vessel which brings John home.
Last night Tom Wood was here, bringing
word that the ship was telegraphed, and Mrs.
Drayton gathers a great basket full of goose-
berries before she sets out this morning, as
a reward for him when he meets her on the
landing stage. Old John, with a newspaper
and his spectacles, has been made comfortable
in the easy chair, and Mrs. Drayton leaves the
house in holiday order, and the kettle boiling
by the fire, to be ready, even at midday, to
refresh her guests with the universal cordial
the home cup of tea.
In a little boat, to the same stairs from
which they set out, Rachel and her mother
happily return; and as they look round,
Rachel recalls their departing, and can smile
now as she remembers George's laugh ; but
JOHN DRAYTON. 235
there is Mrs. Drayton pressing forward to
meet them, and Tom Wood behind with his
gooseberries, and all faces look on the greet-
ing smilingly, and the travellers feel that they
have come home, and that all the bystanders
are friends.
And at night, Rachel stands upon the
chair, leaning out of the window upon the
cottage thatch, and looking to the sea. Not
so bright as in the western sky rises the quiet
moon; but everywhere shine the friendly
lights, from those still unextinguished in the
village street, and in the high windows of
the Grange, to those of the town far away,
where they watch through all the night, and
cheer the stranger like a voice. Some faint
stir is in the ash over the roof there, with
that star like a silver blossom, crowning its
topmost bough, and the oak below mur-
236 JOHN DRAYTON.
murs softly like a running water, a sound of
the land, not of the sea. Her mother is
sleeping while Rachel looks out and dreams ;
and now softly she has descended, and leaves
the window a little open, that even when her
head is on the pillow she may see the sky ;
and so they sleep and are at rest.
JOHN DRAYTON. 237
CHAPTER XI.
THE cottage-door stands open; the gera-
niums from the window-ledge have been
placed upon the step without the porch,
to have the benefit of the gentle shower
which is just over, and the air comes in,
with the breath of the fresh-moistened earth
upon it, as well as the odour of the flowers.
The easy chair has been drawn to the
window, and there, leaning back upon his
238 JOHN DRAYTON.
pillows, old John, with a little animation
in his face, sits watching the work which
goes on before him. At the door, upon
a stool, is Rachel, with again her lilac gown,
and her white linen collar, and her hair
smoothly braided on the round, soft
cheek. Her mother sits sewing at the
table in the window behind the old man,
and on the table lies the skirt of a dress,
a large old-fashioned print, rich with primary
colours, which Mrs, Wyld is just finishing.
It is the " body" of the same dress which
Rachel is working at with those white,
nimble fingers of hers, while the old man
looks on with a placid smile, and talks to
her now and then caressingly. Mrs. Drayton
has the little table lifted near the door,
just behind Rachel, and now is finishing
with much care, some very elaborate orna-
JOHN DRAYTON. 239
mental work on the cover of that great
pie. She looks now and then with some
pride at the gown, and the three old people
are constantly saying witty things, which
make poor Rachel blush as she bends over
her work ; for this is the eve of a great
and eventful day.
And now a shadow falls across the floor,
and there is John. The rain has wetted
him a little, and stands in shining drops
on his hair and on his blue cap and
short coat; and the coat is buttoned over
a parcel he carries, to keep it dry. Very
interesting this parcel seems. Mrs. Drayton
hastily pushes away the table she has been
working at, and washes her hands to open
it ; and Mrs. Wyld puts down her work, and
old John fumbles for his spectacles. Only
Rachel steadfastly bends her head, and plies
her needle, and remains unmoved, though
240 JOHN DRAYTON.
John stands before her, holding out his
parcel, and tempting her with its hidden
treasures.
And now slowly it is unfolded a shawl
a white shawl, fit for a bride, with such
a rich border as Mrs. Drayton never saw
before. Loud admiring exclamations a
chorus of them burst from the beholders,
and Mrs. Wyld and Mrs. Drayton holding
it between them, admire its texture, and
old John touches it, and smiles and says
it is a beauty. One glance, sidelong, Rachel
herself throws at this wonder, and she smiles
to herself, though she pretends to be so grave
and dignified and unconscious ; and John
is being questioned about his purchase.
Thirty shillings ! he has given thirty shillings
for it a whole week's wages ! no wonder
that it is a beautiful shawl.
And now they make Rachel rise, and
JOHN DRAYTON. 241
put it on to see how it looks ; and again
old John says it is a beauty, and the mothers
lift up the corners to show each other
how fine it is; and now John spreads it
on his own broad shoulders, that Rachel
may see, and very gigantic and ungainly
he looks in the feminine drapery. But the
coy Rachel looks at it now, and she too
admires, and Mrs. Drayton says it is the
beautifullest shawl that ever was seen.
Up stairs in the attic lies a muslin gown
not white, for Rachel feels herself a very
grave person, and thinks white would be
too gay for her ; so this dress is lilac,
like the one she has on, but delicate and
thin, as becomes a best gown. Beside it,
lies a little close straw-bonnet, with white
ribbons and now has come this shawl,
VOL. n. M
242 JOHN DRAYTON.
the crowning grandeur, and they are all
to be worn to-morrow.
To-morrow, too, that great pie shall de-
part and be forgotten, as is the fate of
pies. To-morrow, old John shall have his
best coat on, with a rose in the breast,
like his son's, and shall be supported to
church. To-morrow, the young people and
Mrs. Drayton shall have a jaunt to Chester,
leaving Mrs. Wyld happy at home, taking
care of the old man ; for to-morrow John
and Rachel are to be married.
And now it is finished, the new blue
and yellow gown which Mrs. Drayton is
to wear to-morrow; and she puts it on,
that Rachel may see how it fits, and draws
herself up, and goes round the room, that
everybody may look at her, as if she were
the bride. And now Rachel begins to
JOHN DRAYTON. 243
sigh and look pale, as the soft evening
shadows gather over the sky ; and gentle
sadness, the refinement of pleasure, steals
over them all.
Everything has prospered greatly in the
cottage since the widow and her daughter
found an asylum there. The garden
never has been so productive as this
year, and now the apple-trees are bowed
down with ripe fruit, ready to be plucked
or drop away. It is September, and
John has made several voyages since the
Wylds came home, and Rachel has laboured
busily at her profession, and* thanks to
the pleasant air and genial home, has re-
gained her firm elastic health, though the
roses blush but very faintly yet upon her
cheek; and thrifty Mrs. Drayton has
saved a great deal of John's money, and
M 2
244 JOHN DRAYTON.
feels herself in very comfortable circum-
stances and now there remains no possible
impediment, and everything is ready.
With the new year, the foundry will
re- open, and a grand marriage there is to
be during the intervening time, in Mr.
Power's splendid house: but Mary Power's
India shawl is not half so valuable as that
white one which Rachel, " with a smile on
her lip, and a tear in her eye," folds up
in her attic, and lays on the little drawers
till to-morrow. To-morrow ! she says the
w r ord with such thoughts as the children
had, when they watched her going away
to sail over the great sea. Into the
infinite, the travellers went, to the eyes
of the little ones ; and with Rachel the
whole future crowds into that to-morrow.
To begin the new grave life, to close one
JOHN DRAYTON. 245
definite period, the youth with its troubles
and its joys ; and seriously to enter the
maturer time. Grave grows your pale
face, Rachel almost sad graver than it
was when, with some beatings of the
heart, you looked for the to-morrow,
which should bring you to this home ; and
they have let you be alone, kindly, to think
and pray. Again, there is moonlight, out
yonder upon the distant water, but to-night
your heart is not at sea. It is within itself,
musing, trembling, looking out into the
time to come. Kneel down again, Rachel
nothing else remains to do kneel down in
your tremor, and be comforted.
246 JOHN DRAYTON.
CHAPTER XII.
IT is winter, and they are very busy at
the foundry of Messrs. Power and Shafton.
As you stand and look towards the gate,
while the early night falls, crowds of men
pour into that muddy lane ; for trade is very
brisk now, and the men who dispersed
themselves in all directions, a few years ago,
in search of work, have gathered again by
scores into the streets and courts in the
JOHN DRAYTON. 247
neighbourhood. It is not a very delightful
neighbourhood. A little way up, nearer the
town, is a canal with coal-yards on its banks,
and black coal-barges lazily floating down
its sluggish tide. Here, almost close above
your head, as you stand looking at the
foundry-gate, a railway train, whistling
shrilly, passes at a desperate rate, so that
you fancy it will lose its feet, and its balance,
by-and-bye ; and under those ponderous brick
arches, which support it, you can see narrow
streets, with such multitudes of children
playing in them still, by the light of lamps
and shop-windows, as might of themselves
populate a town. Towards the north
jagged half-built streets, leave a broken
outline upon brick-fields, and great pieces
of waste land, like some irregular coast,
marking with bays and promontories the
248 JOHN DRAYTON.
unfeatured sea ; and to the south, all is
tumult and mist a light gleaming here and
there now and then a distinct articulate
sound, making itself heard above the uni-
versal murmur, as the town stretches far
away into the darkness, like a great
battle.
Out of the foundry gate pours the full
stream of workmen. By the light of that
flickering lamp you cannot very well dis-
tinguish them, but they have moleskin
dresses, considerably blackened, for the most
part (for this is Saturday night) and look
strong, and healthy, and comfortable, like men
who make good wages and are not in the
habit of denying themselves. Here and
there in the darkness is a glowing spark of
red, casting dusky light upon a face of grave
enjoyment, and on two careful hands, of
JOHN DRAYTON. 249
which one holds the pipe firm, while the
great thumb of the other presses down the
fuming tobacco. By the window of that
little shop, which, with its faint light, dimly
reveals the figures passing by it, that old
man, whose red hair is grizzled as with hoar-
frost, and who solemnly taps the lid of his
snuff-box before he opens it, and now with
grim satisfaction takes a pinch himself, and
offers it to his neighbours, is Peter Don, of
Aberdeenshire, who made the speech long
ago when the rioters threatened to attack
the foundry, and who is a special friend and
counsellor still, of Mr. Shafton, the " young
master." Yonder is another red-haired man,
truculent, downlooking, with heavy over-
hanging brows ; but he drags himself along
by the wall like a man disgraced, and few
care to be seen in his company. He is sadly
M 3
250 JOHN DRAYTON.
broken down now, the poor authoritative,
would-be intellectual sceptic, and sometimes
after a long drinking fit, begins to drivel,
and cries over himself over what he was
for now his name is gone, and he has no
resource but this miserable one of dissipa-
tion, not even the diabolic consolation of
making others as bad as himself. In the
moulders' workshop, where he labours, he
has little voice now, for the new foreman who
already is an authority with the men, speaks
of Robison with a strange pity which takes
from him all his power the foreman does
not condemn him, or speak of him with
enmity or pious horror ; but with sad com-
passion, as of a man who has chosen misery
for his lot ; and the youths do not listen to
Robison for the man who is pitied, ceases
to be an oracle, and Robison himself feels
JOHN DRAYTON. 251
the strange frozen restraint, and somehow
cannot speak before the foreman.
Look at this foreman : he is standing
at the corner talking to some young men ;
they have got books in their hands, from
Mr. Shafton's new foundry library, books
which Mr. Shafton himself does not much
care for, except on the score, that David
Bruce, who begins to grow like a star
now, dimly bright, and far away, selected
them; and the foreman is pointing out to
the lads, under the lamp where they can
see, the best bits, or at least the bits
which he thinks best. He is somewhere
above thirty, getting mature-like, and a
full-grown man, and speaks with a hearty
liking to the books which humanizes them,
and makes the youths think of them, as
of friends. You would fancy there could
252 JOHN DRAYTON.
not be very much refinement in the speaker,
as you look at the rough blue great-coat
in which he is arrayed, and the cap
which just now he eased off the broad
capacious brow, which has still something
of boyish fearlessness in its gravity : but
listen there is no vulgarity in the voice ;
a great power of expression there is in
this same human instrument the voice,
altogether independent of what it says :
sometimes you fall upon a vulgar voice in
high places, issuing from lips that would
curl in utter scorn, if you mentioned vul-
garity; but the foreman's voice is not
vulgar.
" What do you mean by bidding us speak
like gentlemen ? We've got to work hard,
there isn't much chance of us ever being
gentlemen, unless there's some change," said
JOHN DRAYTON. 253
one of the lads, as he received back his
book.
" I mean I'll tell you a gentleman's
not just a man who has got nothing to
do. A gentleman's like the moulds we
make in the shop they may be to cast
the grand bridge for Russia, or they may
be to cast a plain piston for an engine,
the one mould's just the same as the
other ; and so I don't care whether it's
an earl or an engineer the mould's made,
and if we'll not be like it, its our own
fault, and I'll tell you, lads, its our own
pride most of all ; for we think * oh we're
as good as them,' and stand upon it
haughtier than if we had been born what
the Chartists call aristocrats. Don't you be-
lieve any of that stuff. I'd have you all
to be aristocrats and gentlemen, too. Mind,
254 JOHN DRAYTON.
it's not any gentleman, a master, or a lord,
or a great man, that I mean for the mould.
It's the grand men in books, and most of
all in the Bible ; for it's what a man is,
and not what he has, that makes him a
gentleman; and what I mean is a God-
fearing, pure man, thinking as a man
should, talking as a man should, minding
other people as a man should a man that
has been redeemed."
This last proposition seems too grave for
the lads, and they go away considerably
subdued; having a little notion that to be
redeemed is to be austere and melancholy,
though Drayton, the foreman, certainly is
neither.
And he goes homeward, up the dark
road, and over the canal; that white,
gleaming building by the wayside, which
JOHN DRAYTON. 255
he passes, is Mr. Shafton's new church. A
goodly sprinkling of engineers, fairly attacked
and captured in their own houses by the
young, chivalrous Irish incumbent, will be
in the pews to-morrow ; and the school-
room will overflow with children, and
Mr. Shafton will lead in his little Mary
a very little Mary she is to come so far
and beside the other children in that
small-statured class, she will get her lesson
from papa.
Mr. Shafton is not an intellectual man ;
less so now, indeed, when David Bruce is
gone, than he used to be ; he does not say
to the young engineers that they should be
gentlemen, or speak very much about their
elevation as a class ; but he asks them to
come to church, as if it were a personal
favour, and calls upon every one to rejoice
256 JOHN DRAYTON.
with him when there is a good attendance,
and marks out every new-comer with a happy
eye for special gratulation.
All those men know how open his hand
is how kindly his heart and when, now
and then, he takes one of the youths, or
even one of the fathers, into a corner, and
lays his hand on his shoulder, and says
half a dozen simple words to him about
the grand, holy religion, which is the main-
spring of all his own blameless, beneficent
deeds, the hearts of the men so exhorted
are touched and melted, almost as they
would be by the unlooked-for appeal of a
child so loving and simple is Mr. Shafton's
faith. And new raids every week makes
the joyous young Irish minister, thinking it
by no means beneath his dignity to know
the names of the children, and to take
JOHN DRAYTON. 257
counsel with the mothers; and by and bye
the fathers go to hear the man who comes
to see them, and have a sermon preached
to them so very far from dull, that the
drowsy eyelids of the mind begin to be
nibbed, and waken up ; and gradually they
learn to get up early on the Sunday
mornings, and with that little band of
children round them, in those bright, best
dresses which there is now some inducement
to be careful of, to go all together through
the peaceful ringing of the bells, and fill a
whole pew in the new church, to the joy of
Mr. Shafton's heart.
Close up by the white church, the foreman
of the moulders passes on his way home.
It is still only five o'clock, though it is
quite dark and the lamps are lighted, for
the foundry closes early on Saturday night.
258 JOHN DRAYTON.
He is carrying home his wages, which he
thinks are very great wages, and receives
always with a silent thanksgiving fifty
shillings ten of which still, every week,
is carried over to the old home cottage,
where still the old man dozes on, very-
sensible of the little comforts which his
good son provides for him, and where old
Mrs. Drayton still actively puts her cabbage
and rhubarb into her great market basket
on Saturdays, and thanks Heaven that she
always knew he would be a good lad, and
a comfort to them all. He has been
foreman only a short time, and thinks this
ten shillings is a special gift from Providence
for " the old folks at home ;" for in the
foreman's own small bright house, the weekly
two pounds is a fortune.
Up, still up, and yonder is the square
JOHN DRAYTON. 259
tower of Everton Church, and the lights
twinkling along its terraced roads among
the leafless trees. The way is steep, climb-
ing up, and it is not the street Mrs. Wyld
used to live in, but one further north ;
for the town is striding out every year.
This street is just on the model of the
other, a row of blue-slated two-storied houses,
on this side reaching almost to the top of
the hill on that side stopping half way
so that at the door where John Drayton
concludes his journey, there is a full view
of the revolving light out on the Rock, of
the river and of the sea.
Go in before him, and see what kind of a
home it is which awaits the engineer.
There is a lamp opposite the window ; look
at the parlour first, but be careful that you
do not stumble over a foot-stool, or over-
260 JOHN DRAYTON.
turn a chair, lest they hear in the kitchen,
and think you a hidden robber, with evil
designs upon the books.
For there are books in that recess, though
not as many as Joseph Davies has ; and by
the lamp-light you may read some of the
titles, if you have quick eyes. Some proper
people shake their heads at John's library,
and Mr. Shafton himself looks puzzled, and
has slid in a good little Tract Society vo-
lume between Wordsworth, and that book
which contains the dream of Jean Paul.
There it remains, you see, a little doubtful
and uncomfortable, one can fancy, in its
odd position; but Wordsworth and Jean
Paul are very good and quiet in their cloth
boards, and lovingly embrace betwen them
the little trembling interloper from Pater-
"^noster Row.
JOHN DRAYTON. 261
And the master of the house, the full-
grown man, reads now with a strange
interest Jean Paul's terrific dream. It is as
a grand dim monument for him of the
times which are past.
But Joseph Da vies does not understand
this little collection of books. To him they
seem the strangest medley possible, and so
they are ; but one or two good books of
old divinity make Joseph tolerate the rest,
though the rest are not books about useful
knowledge.
The little room is very neat, has a sofa
and mahogany chairs, and a bright carpet ;
and on holidays and Sabbath-days they sit
in it, feeling rather dignified, and Mr.
Shafton thinks the sofa very comfortable
when he calls; and the young engineers,
who come sometimes to borrow a book, or
262 JOHN DRAYTON.
to tell a grievance to the foreman, receive
the pretty parlour into their dreams, and
fancy, with its proper ruler, the Mary, or the
"Lizzie, or the Anne Jane, what a paradise it
might be.
And so it is ; not a paradise, but a home
of high and noble feelings, a charmed place
with refinements and courtesies of its own,
not less fair to behold, and perhaps more
salutary and elevating, than the courtly
graces of higher homes.
Now let us close the parlour-door care-
fully, lest profane dust enter, and in two
steps arrive at the kitchen behind. With
its bright fireplace, and its red and black
floor, this little apartment is just a re-
production of the one in which Mrs. Wyld
held the household sceptre long ago ; and
in the window hangs Rachel's bird an old
JOHN DRAYTON. 263
bird now, too feeble for much singing, and
on the ledge are some geraniums, slips from
Mrs. Drayton's plants at home. By the
fireside in a tall American rocking-chair,
with a sturdy baby twelve months old on
her knee, sits the grandmother in her
widow's cap, humming tunes and talking
nonsense to him, as he stares into her
face with those great wide-open eyes of
his, and grasps in his clenched hand the
string of her cap. He is by no means
peaceably inclined, this baby, for the pre-
sent quiet, is only a suspension of hostili-
ties, and the grandmother talks nonsense
energetically, as Scheherazade told tales, to
keep the tyrant's attention occupied, and
prevent fatal results, to the head in one
case, to the cap in the other.
Opposite on a stool sits a little demure
264 JOHN DRAYTON.
girl, with brown curls upon her shoulders.
She is five years old, and is sewing, and
thinks herself a matronly person. Very
gravely she shakes her head at obstreperous
Johnnie on the grandmother's knee; but,
poor little fellow, he is very young, and
Jane thinks he will learn to be sensible
by and bye, when he is old, like herself.
She is hemming frills for his cap just now,
and is doing them elaborately, and feels
her dignity as eldest to its full extent,
only relaxing her industry for an occa-
sional moment, to shake her small grave
head at Johnnie, or to hold it up side-
ways to listen for her father, to whom it
is her privilege to open the door.
But little Rachel is not grave. She is
three, and does not promise to be like
her mother, but has blue eyes, and curls
JOHN DRAYTON.
which are waving in the air continually,
and seem to have a distinct life and motion
of their own. Poor Jane the eldest is greatly
tried with Rachel, who on no account will
be still, and behave herself and look like
a little woman, but on the contary encourages
rebellious open-eyed Johnnie, and pulls
without compunction that unhappy cap of
the grandmother's ; but the grandmother's
cap is already an institution to Jane.
And there is Rachel at the little table
cutting bread and butter for tea. Her
gown is brown merino now, and her hair
is smoothed under a pretty cap, and the
slight figure she used to have, has filled
up a little, and has a matronly look. She
too shakes her head at Johnnie, but not
so severely as Jane does, and goes on with
VOL. II. N
266 JOHN DRAYTON.
quiet self-possession, cutting down the loaf,
though he does tug 'at grandmother's cap;
hut very greatly shocked and indignant is
the elder sister, m bnc
The kettle sings on the side of the grate,
the teapot reposes before the fire. On the
table the cups and saucers shine, the great
plate is filled with bread and butter, and
now they only wait for the family father
the head of the house.
Listen, there is the father's knock and
Jane lays down her work, and runs to open
the door. When they enter the kitchen,
the grave child is in advance, her little
hand firmly grasping one of those great
fingers, and leading the strong man in.
11 Father's come," says little Jane, looking
round like a small senator upon the house-
JOHN DRAYTON. 267
hold, and " Father's come," echoes little
Rachel springing into the strong hands
which hold her up in nlid air like a toy ;
and Johnnie crows and mounts up leaning
on the grandmother's shoulder, and stretch-
ing out his plump arms to be noticed too,
and the mother smiles, and says John
spoils the children, as she places the teapot
on the tray, and sits down in her own
presiding place.
And now they have all gathered about
the table. Jane on a high chair by her
mother's side ; Rachel standing by her
father's knee, bending down her golden
curls in a momentary lull, and with both
her little hands buried in one of his ; while
the grandmother hushes the boy on her
knee, and the father lifts his other hand,
N 2
268 JOHN DRAYTON.
*
and asks a blessing on the daily bread given
them of God.
And it is very pleasant, very happy,
with its outbursts of childish mirth, its
admixture of sweet earnest childish gravity,
this evening meal of the working
man.
And by and bye, as the night draws on,
the little ones kneel down at their mother's
knee, and say sweet childish prayers
prayers wherein one feels it is good to be
remembered, by name as they remember
their friends; and then, so watched and
tended, that the mother's guardian presence
goes with them into their dreams among
the angels, they go to sleep fearlessly, with
their little arms folded, as if still for
prayer.
JOHN DRAYTON. 269
And the household is hushed that night
with psalms and thanksgivings; and the
parents remember their children before God
name by name, as the children remem-
bered them ; and looking up all of them
up to the heavens, the Father's coun-
try they lie down to such sleep as
He gives His beloved, unfearing and in
peace-.' 111 "&$& te jov/ob
Nothing has befallen them yet beyond the
common lot. A little higher, and only a
very little, is the position the working man
has reached ; and he is not likely all his
life-long to mount another step. All his days
he will be a working-man, labouring for
daily bread, under that primeval curse which
the Lord has made a blessing ; but, great
ambition is in the mind of John. To live
270 JOHN DRAYTON.
in his little household, the pure ideal Christian
life, following after the Divine Man yonder
on the highway, which He has made. To
live for his race, a manful brave example of
how true hearts can vanquish guile and for
his nation to bring up children in honour,
purity, faith.
Happy the nation that so has children
reared at her knees. Happy and the future
brightens over them. Men who shall pos-
sess and conquer adverse fate in the name
of God. Women who shall purify this
human air with the household words once
spoken on the hills of Galilee. Listen not
any more to the loud voices round thee
command that it be still, thou mother
nation, and in the stillness listen. Voices
of little children praying before God
JOHN DRAYTON. 27 1
voices of fathers, mothers, speaking
of the Lord; and in these be strong
and take courage for they are thy
hope.
rot bfl& - aliifg dtfiupnsv oso a'tesfl atrrt wo/f
juonod ni imifajjfb u nnd cJ ooi&sfl ai
zsd oe tedt noiisfi arii vq
v 1
i bajs '(qqi>H 899flil i9fi te
THE END.
arfl ni te^ saisvbfi isifpaoo bus SKSS
^huq (Iri8 orfw nomoW \boO lo
sono ebfow blofteayod 0ffj dlrw TUB nmuii
Jon aatekl .^aCJeO lo affiii di no
biii/ot gooioY. btfol sifi oJ oiorn
uo/ij Jlba l *i Jeill
LONDON:
Printed by Schalze and Co., 13, Poland Street.
A 000 056 799
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