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"But how," said Hester on the way, "can the Frankses have got into the place?" "There is a back door to it, of course!" answered Sarah. "The first load of coals came in that way, but master wouldn't have it used: he didn't like a door to his house he never set eyes on, he said." "But how could it have been open to let them in?" said Hester.
He who can walk without falling, will learn to walk the better that his road is not always of the smoothest; and, as Sir Philip Sidney says, "The journey of high honor lies not in plain ways." Such were the respective conditions of Amy Amber and the Frankses, when the Raymounts left London. The shades were gathering around the family; the girl had passed from the shadow into the shine.
I have read somewhere in Jean Paul of a curiously contrived stair, on which while you thought you were going down you were really ascending: I think it was so with the Frankses and the stair they were upon. But to many the world is but a treadmill, on which while they seem to be going up and up, they are only serving to keep things going round and round.
For a time, then, the Frankses went on, with food to eat and money to pay their way, but going slowly down the hill, and finding it harder and harder to keep their footing. By and by the baby grew worse, pining visibly. They sought help at the hospital, but saw no Mr. Christopher, and the baby did not improve. Still they kept on, and every day the husband brought home a little money.
"You can do more than the doctor, as I told you! When he comes, he always wakes her up; you make her sleep true!" In the meantime yet worse trouble had come upon the poor Frankses.
She then moved the Frankses into the room they had left, making it over to them, subject to her father's pleasure, for a time at least. With their own entrance through the cellar, they were to live there after their own fashion, and follow their own calling, only they were to let Hester know if they found themselves in any difficulty.
I suspect, for instance, that imagination, fancy, perception, insight into character, the faculty of fitting means to ends, the sense of adventure, and many other powers and feelings are more likely to be active in the children of the poor, to the greater joy of their existence, than in others. These Frankses, too, had a strict rule over them, and that increases much the capacity for enjoyment.
Through the door so long mysterious Hester stepped on a narrow, steep stair. Christopher turned downward, and trod softly. At the bottom he passed through a door admitting them to a small cellar, a mere recess. Thence they issued into that so lately occupied by the Frankses. Christopher went to the door Hester had locked, and said, "This is where I came in.
The moment she had dispatched her letter, she set out to visit her poor friends. On her way she went into Mrs. Baldwin's shop and had a little talk with her, in the course of which she asked if she had ever heard anything more of the Frankses. Mrs. Baldwin replied that she had once or twice heard of their being seen in the way of their profession; but feared they were not getting on.
"The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me;" but "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine that need no repentance." The great joy is the first rush of love in the new-opened channel for its issue and entrance. The Frankses were on the down-going side of the hill Difficulty, and down they must go, unable to help themselves.