by thrift he might save enough money either to venture on small contracts for himself, or start some kind of business in one of the growing midland towns. But Thomas did not consider th

t fields of his own to till, at least he might hope to again help to til

a market gardener; but he soon found that there was no chance for him in that direction. He might get work from the farmers around, but no landlord would rent him the few necessary acres. A broken man when he left Ashbrook to become a navvy; his absence had not improved his position. On the contrary, the parish magnates rather looked upon him as a greater black sheep than ever. The old ideas about the rights of landowners to the labour of the hind, as well as to the lion's share of the products of that labour, had by no means died out, and it was still a moral crime in the eyes of the landlord for a labourer to have enough daring and independence of spirit, to enable him to seek work in another part of the country. In some respects Wanless was therefore a greater pariah when he came home than when he went away, and the summit of offence was reached when the report got abroad that he had actually made some money, and wanted to rent a lit

and again a local railway afforded him a refuge. He became a "ganger" on the Stratford line at 14s. a-week, and for more than four years made his daily journey backwards and forwards on his "beat," winter and summer, in cold and heat, well or ill. In one sense, this work was not so hard as a farm labourer's or a navvy's is, but it told on the health as much. Exposure, thin clothing, and poor food did their work rapidly enough, and Thomas's limbs began to stiffen, and his back to grow bent before his time. Like his fellows, he promised to become an old man at 50, but he would have stuck to his work had not a sharp attack of pleurisy laid him up in the wint

illness had enfeebled his father. He had gone as an assisted emigrant, but the old man had given him ￡10 of old Hawthorn's ￡20 to begin the New World upon. The parting had cost the family much, and the father most of all; but they

eeded the Pembertons when they went to the dogs with drink and horse-dealing. This hard-fisted, ferret-eyed agriculturist worked his men and boys as they had never been worked before, but he did not make the hours of labour so long, and he paid them a trifle better than his neighbours, whose jealousy and dislike he thereby increased. Probably he rather liked to be contemned by his fellows. It increased the self-sufficiency of his righteousness, and made him the more proud of being a s

ed. Was not his neighbour Hewens, the under gardener at the Grange, worse off than he, with a younger family of seven, one of whom was an object, and a weekly income averaging about 9s. a week all the year round. Tho

s, Brown, Satchwell, and Robins, who agreed in thinking it "mighty fine," and in wishing that they could mount and go along. "A vain wish, friends," Brown would say, "vain so far as I am concerned, for I cannot herd sheep or hold a plough, and they want neither parish clerks nor schoolmasters in the bush." Robins felt that he was too old and too poor to think of the change, and Satchwell sighed often as he thought on what a sea voyage might yet do for his wife. But as for Thomas, of course he could go when his son sent him the money, they said; and he, remembering that he had still a few pounds

o work. In the summer season she helped her mother to tend the garden, and to carry flowers, vegetables, and fruit to Leamington for sale. Under her mother's eye she at other times learned something of laundry work. But her schooling; what could she do with that? Did it not tend to give her vain thoughts above her lot; for her lot was fixed more even than that of her brothers. The peasant maid could never hope to advance to aught beyond some kind of upper service in a rich man's family; a service often increasingly degrading in proportion as it is nominally high. She might become a ladies' maid, perhaps, and marry a butler in time, or she might fill her head w

? Idle, careless, and brisk as a lark, the lad followed where others led; drank for the sake of good companionship more than his unaccustomed head could carry; and when in a wild, devil-may-care mood was picked up by a recruiting sergeant, who soon joked and argued him into taking the shilling. A neighbour saw the boy, half-tipsy, following the sergeant and his party through the fair with recruit's ribbons fluttering round his head, and rushed home to tell Thomas as fast as his legs could carry him. The old man was horror-struck; and the boy's mother broke into bitter wailing. Thomas, however,

ion to what would be required to buy off Jacob, so he had no help for it but to go home. This he did with a heart heavy enough. Well did he know that ere he could reach Birmingham to-morrow he would be too late. Recruiting sergeants do not linger at their work, especially after the army had been reduced by war and disease as it then had been in the Crimea. Before ten o'

n for her son-bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh-whom she had nursed and tended from the womb only for this. Like a good housewife, she mourned also the loss of Jacob's wages, which not only helped to keep the wolf f

were a mockery of the Almighty, and that the nations which fostered them would sooner or later sink to perdition beneath the blows of divine vengeance. Armies led to wars, and wars were the curse of the world, he averred, and when contradicted was ready to prove to his antagonist that all the wars in which England had been engaged since the revolution of 1688, were dictated by the worst passions of mankind. Either, he said, they were undertaken to consolidate the power of a rapacious faction over the lives, liberties, and means of the people at large, or they were actuated by mere bestial greed, by inordinate vanity and love

had been caught up by the agent of the State and spirited away from his labour. How it was done he knew but too well; and when afterwards Jacob himself told the story, it only confirmed what he had all along felt to be true. The boy had never intended to enlist; but the drink, imprudently taken, had gone to his head. The sergeant first cajoled him, and then, when he had taken the fatal shilling, terrif

thought he should have laid down his burden altogether. Happily, duty called him to work for others, if not for himself; and work brought its usua

tudes, he came back to the old place. A changed place it proved to be, but, on the whole, the change was for the better. The work was hard, bu

seemingly purposeless life of a barrack became at times almost more than the young man could endure. Had he fallen into the loose ways of many among his comrades, it is probable that he would have capped the folly of enlisting by the military crime of desertion. Fortunately he kept his soul clean, and managed to utilise some portion of his time in improving his mind. The mental wants of the soldier were not cared for i

nd himself changed, and looks back upon a former self with wonder and astonishment, with thankfulness, it may be, for the drastic cleansing he has endured, or with that flash of horror at the sudden vision of the pit into which he has all the time been slowly sinking. In these years, while a father labours for his children's bread, and thanks God that the bread comes to him for his labour, his children grow up, develop characters, assume attitudes in the world he never suspects, b

in of Jacob's disgrace, and in time the boy's own cheerfulness and manifest improvement made his father begin to think good might be brought forth out of evil in this case also. His daughter Jane continued to do well, and was looking towards promotion in her sphere-such promotion as consists in being one among many fellows, instead of the

ictoria, where he had settled, and might in time be a rich man, though

or Thomas or his family; and yet a cloud was gathering on the horizon; a li

illage, and without being exactly giddy, she was thoughtless and merry-hearted; too easily led away; too guilelessly trustful of others. How could he let this tender, unprotected maiden go out into the world, and fight her life-battle alone among strangers? Many a prayer had he prayed in secret that this sacrifice might be spared; but in this also the heavens were as brass. The time had come when

we may all be able to go to A

elp us to go there," was the ans

, which can only measure men's worth by the length of their purses, should pass him by. It was thus a poor place, especially for one like Sally, who had been better educated than probably any one else of her cl

hat place over a year when her father met with an accident which laid him up for many weeks. It seems that in building a rick he had somehow been knocked off by a sheaf flung up at him thoughtlessly before he had adjusted the previous one. He raised his one hand mechanically to catch it

d hoard was still left, but doctors' bills and necessary dainties soon made a hole in that. In nursing her husband, too, Mrs. Wanless was prevented from earning anything herself. There was no one to go to market with the little garden produce that might be to spare. Neig

s down from Warwick, the girl suddenly asked why she could not go to a better place where her wag

ake them all away to the new country? But Sally was positive, according to her impulsive nature. She was now nearly 18, she said, and was sure she could earn more. "Besides, mother," she added, "I want to better myself. I

eyes, and none tangible to her parents. The result,