winter, the cotton-crop had failed, and master
had to turn off many hands. I thought I was
sure of being kept on, for I had earned a
steady character, and did my work well;
but once again it was permitted that Dick
Jackson should do me wrong. He induced
his father to dismiss me among the first in
my branch of the business; and there was I,
just before winter set in, with a wife and
new-born child, and a small enough store of
money to keep body and soul together, till I
could get to work again. All my savings had
gone by Christmas Eve, and we sat in the
house, foodless for the morrow's festival.
Nelly looked pinched and worn; the baby
cried for a larger supply of milk than its poor
starving mother could give it. My right
hand had not forgot its cunning; and I went
out once more to my poaching. I knew
where the gang met; and I knew what a
welcome back I should have, a far warmer
and more hearty welcome than good men had
given me when I tried to enter their ranks.
On the road to the meeting-place I fell in
with an old man, one who had been a
companion to my father in his early days.
" What, lad! " said he, " art thou turning
back to the old trade? It's the better business
now, that cotton has failed."
" Ay," said I, " cotton is starving us outright.
A man may bear a deal himself, but
he 'll do aught bad and sinful to save his wife
and child."
" Nay, lad," said he, " poaching is not sinful;
it goes against man's laws, but not against
God's."
I was too weak to argue or talk much. I
had not tasted food for two days. But I
murmured, " At any rate, I trusted to have been
clear of it for the rest of my days. It led my
father wrong at first. I have tried and I
have striven. Now I give all up. Right or
wrong shall be the same to me. Some are
fore-doomed; and so am I." And as I spoke,
some notion of the futurity that would separate
Nelly, the pure and holy, from me, the
reckless and desperate one, came over me
with an irrepressible burst of anguish. Just
then the bells of Bolton-in-Bolland struck up
a glad peal, which came over the woods, in
the solemn midnight air, like the sons of the
morning shouting for joy, they seemed so
clear and jubilant. It was Christmas Day;
and I felt like an outcast from the gladness
and the salvation. Old Jonah spoke out:
" Yon's the Christmas bells. I say, Johnny,
my lad, I 've no notion of taking such a spiritless
chap as thou into the thick of it, with
thy rights and thy wrongs. We don't trouble
ourselves with such fine lawyer's stuff, and
we bring down the ' varmint ' all the better.
Now, I'll not have thee in our gang, for thou
art not up to the fun, and thou 'd hang fire
when the time came to be doing. But I 've a
shrewd guess that plaguy wife and child of
thine are at the bottom of thy half-and-half
joining. Now, I was thy father's friend afore
he took to them helter-skelter ways; and
I 've five shillings and a neck of mutton at thy
service. I 'll not list a fasting man; but if
thou 'It come to us with a full stomach, and
say, ' I like your life, my lads, and I 'll make
one of you with pleasure, the first shiny
night,' why, we 'll give you a welcome and a
half; but, to-night, make no more ado but
turn back with me for the mutton and the
money."

I was not proud; nay, I was most thankful.
I took the meat, and boiled some broth for
my poor Nelly. She was in a sleep, or a
faint, I know not which; but I roused her,
and held her up in bed, and fed her with a
teaspoon, and the light came back to her
eyes, and the faint moonlight smile to her
lips; and when she had ended, she said her
innocent grace, and fell asleep with her baby
on her breast. I sat over the fire, and
listened to the bells, as they swept past my
cottage on the gusts of the wind. I longed
and yearned for the second coming of Christ,
of which Nelly had told me. The world
seemed cruel, and hard, and strong—too
strong for me; and I prayed to cling to the
hem of His garment, and be borne over the
rough places when I fainted and bled, and
found no man to pity or help me, but poor
old Jonah, the publican and sinner. All this
time my own woes and my own self were
uppermost in my mind, as they are in the
minds of most who have been hardly used.
As I thought of my wrongs and my sufferings,
my heart burned against Dick Jackson;
and as the bells rose and fell, so my hopes
waxed and waned, that in those mysterious
days, of which they were both the remembrance
and the prophecy, he would be purged
from off the earth. I took Nelly's Bible, and
turned, not to the gracious story of the
Saviour's birth, but to the records of the
former days, when the Jews took such wild
revenge upon all their opponents. I was a
Jew, a leader among the people. Dick
Jackson was as Pharaoh, as the King Agag,
who walked delicately, thinking the bitterness
of death was past,—in short, he was the
conquered enemy, over whom I gloated, with
my Bible in my hand—that Bible which
contained our Saviour's words on the Cross.
As yet, those words seemed faint and
meaningless to me, like a tract of country seen in
the starlight haze; while the histories of the
Old Testament were grand and distinct in
the blood-red colour of sun-set. By and by
that night passed into day; and little piping
voices came round, carol-singing. They
wakened Nelly. I went to her as soon as
I heard her stirring.

"Nelly," said I, " there's money and food
in the house; I will be off to Padiham seeking
work, while thou hast something to go upon."

"Not to-day," said she; " stay to-day with
me. If thou wouldst only go to church with
me this once "—for you see I had never been
inside a church but when we were married,