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"I reckon you're not so far wrong," was the answer. "Ah, well; so it is for sure," broke out Betty. "Why, you're the teetottal chap as came a-lecturing when me and our poor Sammul signed the pledge." "Sit ye down, sit ye down," cried her father; "you're welcome to our house, though it is but a sorrowful one." "I think, my friend," said the stranger, "that you are one of us now."
It were bad enough to be without meat, without shoes, without clothes, without almost everything; but it's worse nor all put together to be without our Sammul." She turned away, and, with a heavy sigh, took her way home again. The moon was now shedding her calm light full on the path the poor girl was treading, leaving in dark shadow a high wooded bank on her left hand.
"Fayther'll do no good; if Sammul sees him coming, he'll just step out of the road, or crouch him down behind summat till he's gone by. I must go myself; he'll not be afraid of me. Oh, sure he'll ne'er go right away without one `Good-bye' to his own sister! Maybe he'll wait about till he sees me; and, please the Lord, if I can only light on him, I may bring him back again.
"No letter yet from our Sammul," cried Betty, wearily and sadly, as she came from the mill on a dreary night in the November after her brother's sudden departure. "I thought as how he'd have been sure to write to me. Well, I suppose we must make ourselves content till he's got over the sea. But oh, it'll be weary work till we've heard summat from him."
"Mother," said Betty, mournfully, "can you really talk in that fashion to fayther, when you know how the drink's been the cause of all the misery in our house, till it's driven our poor Sammul away to crouch him down on other folk's hearth-stones in foreign parts? I should have thought we might all have learnt a lesson by this time."
But go on, Sammul Jacob, I mean." Samuel then proceeded to describe his voyage, his attachment to Frank Oldfield, his landing in Australia, and subsequent separation from his master till he joined him again at Tanindie. He then went on to tell about his life at the diggings, and his conversion under the preaching of the faithful missionary.
The man as is there now's taken to drinking, so the squire's parting with him in December. Would you like me to mention yourself to my nephew? You may be sure, Sammul, I were very thankful for the chance. But it wasn't chance the word slipped out of my mouth; but I've done with chance long since it were the Lord's doing.
"Oh, Sammul, I am so glad to see you you can't wonder, for you're all the brothers I have, and I'm all the sisters you have; you can't wonder at it, John." "I'm not wondering at anything but the Lord's goodness," said her husband, in a husky voice, and wiping his eyes. "Here, Sammul," exclaimed Betty to her eldest child, "get on your Uncle Sammul's knee, and hug him with all your might. Eh!
"Fayther," said Betty, greatly relieved, spite of her sorrow, for Johnson's words and manner assured her at once that he and her brother had not met. "Fayther, we must hope the best. There's a God above all, who knows where our Sammul is; he can take care of him, and maybe he'll bring him back to us again." No more was said that night.
I black-guarded him last night about yon teetottal chap as come a-lecturing and got our Sammul and Betty to sign the pledge, so just about an hour since he slips out in his Sunday hat and shoes, when Alice were down the yard, and when she comes back she finds a bit of papper on the table with a five-shilling piece and a bit of his hair lapped up in it, and there was writ on it, `From Sammul, for dear mother. Oh, Jenny, I'm afraid for my life he's gone off to Americay; or, worse still, he may have drowned or hanged himself."
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