As the lame man spoke, his eyes seemed to flash. His cheeks were no longer pale. The rough men before him frowned and gazed as if their anxiety had been roused. The women leaned forward with eager looks of sympathy. Even the children were spellbound. One hulking fellow, with a broken nose and a black eye, sat clutching both knees with his muscular hands, and gazed open-mouthed and motionless at the speaker, who went on to say that when things were at their worst, and death stared the perishing people in the face, a beautiful object seemed suddenly to rise out of the raging sea; its colour was a mixture of pure white and bright blue!
It was the lifeboat, which sheered alongside and took them on board one by one.
"Some there were," said the lame man impressively, "who hung back, and some who at first did not believe in the lifeboat, and _refused_ to leave the doomed ship. There was _no hope_ for those who refused--none whatever; but they gave in at last. G.o.d put it into their hearts to _trust_ the lifeboat, and so the whole were rescued and brought in safety to the land."
"Well done!" burst from the hulking man with the broken nose, and a deep sigh of relief escaped from many of the women; but there was instant silence again, for the speaker"s hand was up, his eyes were glittering, and his lips compressed. Every one knew that more was coming, and they bent forward.
Then, in a low soft voice, he began to tell of a dark but quiet night, and a slumbering city; of a little spark, which like sin in a child, was scarcely visible at first, but soon grew fierce and spread, until it burst out in all the fury of an unquenchable fire. He told of the alarm, the shouts of "_Fire_!" the rushing to the rescue, and the arrival of the engines and the fire-escape. Then he described the horror of a young woman in the burning house, who, awaking almost too late, found herself on the very edge of destruction, with the black smoke circling round and the impa.s.sable gulf of flame below. Just then the head of the fire-escape approached her, and a man with extended arms was seen a few feet below her, calling out, "Come!"
Like some of those in the shipwreck, she did not at first believe in the fire-escape. She could not _trust_. She _would not_ leap. While in that condition there was no hope for her, but G.o.d put it into her heart to trust. She leaped, and was saved!
The speaker stopped. Again there was a sigh of relief and a tendency to cheer on the part of the hulking man, but once more the sparkling eyes and compressed lips riveted the people and tied their tongues. In another moment the missionary had them on a battlefield, which he described with thrilling power, pa.s.sing rapidly from the first bugle call through all the fight, until the foe was finally put to flight amid the shouts of "Victory!"
"Men and women," he said in conclusion, "I am painting no fancy pictures. The things I have told to you did really happen, and four dear brothers of my own were chief actors in the scenes described. They helped to rescue the perishing from the sea and from the fire, and joined in the shout of Victory! on the battlefield. Now, friends, you are in a worse case than any I have yet described. The tempest of sin is roaring round and in you. This world is sinking beneath you, but Jesus Christ, our Lifeboat, is alongside. Will you come? The fire is burning under your very feet; there is no deliverance from the flames of G.o.d"s wrath, except by the Great Escape. Jesus is at hand to save.
Will you come? The battle is raging. Don"t you _know_ it? Do you forget that awful combat with the tempter when you fought your way past the gin-shop, but were beaten and turned back? Or that terrible a.s.sault, when pa.s.sion after a deadly struggle laid you helpless on your back? Oh! may G.o.d"s Holy Spirit open your eyes to see Jesus--the Captain of your Salvation--at your elbow this moment, waiting at the door of your heart and knocking till you will open and let Him in to lead you on to--Victory!"
Here the speaker dropped his voice again, and spoke tenderly of the love of Jesus to the chief of sinners, and as he spoke, tears were seen trickling down many a dirty face, and sobs broke the solemn stillness.
As the lame man was going home that night, a young girl ran after him and seized his arm. Her eyes were swollen with weeping.
"Oh, sir," she cried in a low voice that trembled with emotion, "can-- will--Jesus save the like of me?"
"a.s.suredly, my poor girl. He says `Come unto me," and `Whosoever _will_," let him come. If _you_ are willing, there is no doubt about _His_ willingness. The difficulty only lies with you, not with Him.
Where do you live?"
"I have no home," sobbed the girl; "I have run away from my home, and have no place to lay my head in here. But oh! sir, I want to be saved!"
The lame man looked with the deepest commiseration into the appealing eyes. "Come," he said, "walk with me. I will tell you of One who had no place where to lay His head."
She took his arm without a word, and the two hurried through the still crowded streets. Arrived at his own door, the lame man knocked. It was opened by a fair, soft, and exceedingly pretty little woman of about thirty years of age, whose fresh face was the very personification of goodness.
"Why, Jim!" she exclaimed, looking at the girl in surprise.
"Here we are, Molly," exclaimed the lame man, bustling into a snug room in which a fire was blazing, and cheering preparations for tea were going on, "and I"ve brought a friend to spend the night with us.
There"s plenty of room on your floor for a shake-down, eh? This is my sister," he added turning to the girl, "Mary Thorogood, but we always call her Molly. She has come to visit me this Christmas--much against her will, I believe, she"s so fond of the old folk at home. Come now, take her into your room, Molly; make her comfortable, and then we"ll have tea."
Molly took the girl into her room. Returning a moment later for something forgotten, she was touched on the shoulder by her brother, who whispered low in her ear:--
"A brand, Molly dear, plucked from the burning."
Molly turned her eyes upon her brother with a glad smile as she re-entered her little room, and shut the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
Twelve months pa.s.sed away, and Christmas came again, with its frost and snow and sunshine--its blazing fires, its good cheer, and its merry greetings.
Many a Christmastide had now pa.s.sed over the head of our blacksmith, John Thorogood, and his excellent wife Mary, but Time had touched them lightly in its flight. They both looked young and hale, and full of vigour. The only difference in them was a wrinkle or two at the corners of the eyes, and a few grey hairs mingling with the brown. Perhaps John was a little more corpulent than when he was a youth; but he could wield the fore-hammer as easily and powerfully as ever.
A cloud, however, had been gathering over their happy home during the past year. Molly--the sweet active girl who had never known a day"s illness from her childhood--had fallen into bad health. Her step had lost its spring, but her cheerful spirit was unsubdued.
"You"re better to-day, Molly darling?" asked the smith, in a tone which showed he was not sure of the answer.
"Yes, father, much better." Molly did not use endearing terms, but the sweetness of her looks and voice rendered such needless.
She was pale and thin, and could not check the touch of sadness in her tones.
"Fred is sure to come, darling," said Mrs Thorogood, stopping in her preparations for supper to smooth her daughter"s fair head.
"Oh yes, mother, I know that Fred is sure to come," returned Molly, with a laugh and a little blush. "No fear of _him_. I was not thinking of him, but of Jim. It is the first Christmas we shall have spent without him. Dear Jim! I wonder what company he will have to spend it with him in the backwoods."
"Whatever company it may be," returned the mother, "they"ll only have his body and mind--his spirit will be here."
"Well said, old Moll; we shall have the best part of him to-night in spite of the Atlantic Ocean," cried the blacksmith, who was seated on a stool making fun with the terrier, the cat, and the kitten--not the original animals, of course, but the lineal descendants of those which were introduced at the beginning of our tale.
"I hope they won"t be late," remarked Mrs Thorogood, looking with some anxiety into a big pot which rested on the roaring fire.
"The boys are never late, Moll," remarked the smith, giving the cat a sly poke on the nose, which it resented with a fuff, causing the terrier to turn its head on one side inquiringly.
As he spoke the front door opened, and feet were heard in the pa.s.sage stamping off the snow.
"There they are!" exclaimed old Moll, slipping the lid on the big pot, and wiping her hands hastily.
"No, it is too soon for them yet; they"re always sharp to time. It is Fred," said Molly with a quiet smile.
She was right. Fred Harper, a fine strapping young fellow--a carpenter--had met Molly in London, and got engaged to her. She offered to let him off when she became ill and delicate, but he would not be let off. "Molly," this enthusiast had said, "if you were to become so thin that all your flesh were to disappear, I"d be proud to marry your skeleton!"
Fred sat down by her side, but had scarcely begun to make earnest inquiries after her health, when the outer door again opened, and another stamping of feet was heard in the pa.s.sage. It was a tremendous stamping, and accompanied with strong, loud, manly voices.
"No mistake now!" said the smith, rising and opening the door, when in walked four such men as any father and mother might be proud of. It was not that they were big--plenty of blockheads are big: nor was it that they were handsome--plenty of nincomp.o.o.ps are well-favoured; but, besides being tall, and strong, and handsome, they were free, and hearty, and sensible, and wise--even in their joviality--and so thorough-going in word, sentiment, and act, that it was quite a pleasure merely to sit still and watch them, and listen.
"I told "ee they"d come in their togs, old woman," said the smith, as his son Tom appeared, dusting the snow from his Coastguard uniform, on the breast of which was displayed the gold medal of the Royal National Lifeboat Inst.i.tution.
"You might be sure of that, mother, seeing that we had promised," said d.i.c.k, the blithe and hearty man-of-war"s man, as he printed a kiss on his mother"s cheek that might have been heard, as he truly said, "from the main truck to the keelson." At the same time bushy-browed Harry, with the blue coat and bra.s.s epaulettes of the fire-brigade, was paying a similar tribute of affection to his sister, while fiery Bob,--the old uniform on his back and the Victoria Cross on his breast,--seized his father"s hand in both of his with a grip that quite satisfied that son of Vulcan, despite the absence of two of the fingers.
They were all deep-chested, strong-voiced men in the prime of life; and what a noise they did make, to be sure!
"You"re not too soon, boys," said the smith; "old Moll has been quite anxious about a mysterious _something_ in the big pot there."
"Let me help you to take it off the fire, mother," said the gallant tar, stepping forward.
"Nay, that"s my duty," cried Harry, leaping to the front, and seizing the pot, which he dragged from the flames with professional ability.
When the _something_ was displayed, it was found to be a gorgeous meat-pudding of the most tempting character--round and heavy like a cannon-ball. Of course it did not flourish alone. Old Moll had been mysteriously engaged the greater part of that day over the fire, and the result was a feast worthy, as her husband said, "of the King of the Cannibal Islands."
"Talking of Cannibal Islands," said d.i.c.k, the sailor, during a pause in the feast, "you"ve no idea what a glorious place that Pacific Ocean is, with its coral islands, palm-groves, and sunshine. It would be just the place to make you well again, Molly. You"d grow fat in a month."