Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
"Say no more," replied Johnson; "if the Lord spares me, they shall hear a gradely tale from me." It was soon noised abroad in Langhurst that Thomas Johnson was to give an account of himself as a reformed man and a total abstainer, at a meeting to be held in the village in the following month of November. His old companions were half mad with rage and vexation. What could be done?
He'd taken to me and our Betty, and used often to call and have a cup of tea with us. He knowed how I wished to get away from Langhurst; and one night he says to me, `I've a nephew, John Walters, down at Fairmow, in Shropshire. He's one of the right sort. I heard from him a while since as his squire wants a steady man to overlook a small colliery as he's got on his estate.
"Have you seen anything of our Sammul?" These words were addressed in a very excited voice to a tall rough-looking collier, who, with Davy-lamp in hand, was dressed ready for the night-shift in the Bank Pit of the Langhurst Colliery. Langhurst was a populous village in the south of Lancashire.
She was therefore at her wits' end how to get the drink, for the drink she would have. Johnson, with his characteristic decision, had gone round to the different publicans in Langhurst and the neighbourhood, taking Ned Brierley with him as witness, and had plainly given them to understand that he would pay for no more drink on his wife's account.
But, alas! she broke out again soon after reaching home, and died at last a miserable death in a workhouse. But I see you look rather fagged, Mr Oldfield. Shall we take a turn in the garden before it gets dark, and then perhaps you'll like a little music?" And now we must leave Abraham Oliphant and Australia for a while, and return to Langhurst, and some of the earlier characters of our story.
They were specially dear to one another; and in one thing had ever been in the strictest agreement, they would never taste that drink which had made their own home so miserable and desolate. About a fortnight before our story opens, Langhurst had been placarded with bills announcing that an able and well-known total abstinence advocate would give an address in the parish schoolroom.
She longed to flee away and be at rest; but she could not escape into forgetfulness, and she would not fly from duty. So a dark cloud hung over that home, and it was soon to be darker still. Ned Brierley was appointed manager of a colliery in Wales, at a place a hundred miles or more from Langhurst, and a few months after Alice Johnson's death he removed to his new situation, with all his family.
It was a night of darkness and terror, yet even on that sad night there was glorious light which man's eye could not see, for there was joy in the presence of the angels of God over at least one penitent sinner in Langhurst. But how full of gloom to most! Many had been cut off in the midst of their sins, and those who mourned their loss sorrowed as those who have no hope.
Well, I were right glad to go with the captain, more particularly arterwards, as I seed Will Jones a- coming out on a public, and I thought if he'd a seen me, he might talk on it at Langhurst. When captain axed me if I'd go with him, he wanted to know my name. Eh, I were never so taken aback in all my life.
"I began to see then," he continued, "as I'd not done the thing as was right. I talked it over with the minister; and I made up my mind as I'd come home again and find you out." Then he told them of his voyage back to England, and of his landing with his master at Liverpool. "Well, then," he proceeded, "as soon as I could be spared I went over to Langhurst.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking