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in God, who seemed to be giving her thus to eat of the fruit of her own way; while what had in reality been only an error in judgment, in yielding to a most artfullyconcerted plan of deceit, assumed the aspect of wilful, presumptuous sin.

The evening wore away; the beloved Bible was once more opened, and again their voices rose together in prayer and praise; but though the words of their hymn were joyful, the tones breathed forth were sad, and tremulous from emotion, for even Mary was overcome by the recollection of past happy hours: as she stood leaning on her brother's shoulder, the better feelings of her nature resumed their sway, and the events that had occurred since their last parting seemed an uneasy dream that she longed to forget.

With a heavy heart Richard bestowed and received the reluctant "Good night," and soon found himself seated in the little close room that South called his parlour, where a bed had been made up for him, while a pot of porter, some bread and cheese, with two plates, and two tobacco pipes bespoke the design of his host to have some conversation with him before he retired to rest.

"Ay, they have indeed. Did you hear what passed after you ran out?" "No."

"It's just like them, bearing it without a complaint: but nothing could equal the villany practised. You heard the strong evidence of the little Irish girl, and the still clearer proof given by Helen; also the vile attempt to brow-beat them both, which succeeded so ill that we thought the case was established; however the other party brought up a swarm of rascally slaves to swear away the characters of your two girls, and to declare that no undue severity had been used to Mary. This, with the absence of two or three who had promised to give evidence for her, but who were kept away by easy methods, turned the balance; and the case was dismissed, with some remarks on the bad spirit of those who could get it up. I was glad you left; for your feelings would have been greatly wounded, especially with regard to that good girl Helen, who was grossly misrepresented. However, I hope you are come to rescue some at least of them from the mills ?"

Richard shook his head.

"Never mind, you may do so by-andApologies having been made for poor by; and let me tell you, the very lowest accommodation, and warm thanks re-employment you could find for them in turned for the kindness shown, they soon the country would be better, even in point entered upon the topic of the morning's of respectability, than the best they can meeting. Richard never smoked, and get here." South, in compliment to him, refrained.

"Well, now, Mr. Green, it was strange enough that you should chance to place yourself in the court just beside one who could explain so much of what was going on. I saw you were a stranger, but never suspected you to be of that family till you got so warm about your sister. Then, to be sure, I saw the likeness, and began to .fancy you must be the brother they were always talking about.”

"Indeed, Mr. South, I should have been sore puzzled by some of the things I heard, only for you."

"How came they-how came Helen to provoke so much ill-will?" asked Richard.

"Through the envious spite of a girl whom I could say a good deal of, only that she's your cousin. Phoebe Wright hated her for being so different from herself, and began this persecution. She is lately gone off with a regiment of soldiers, and a happy riddance we have of her!"

"But that proves her to be herself a very bad person, and it ought at least to do away with the effect her ill-word might have before she was found out."

South looked at him compassionately.

"And what, may I ask, do you think of "You know little of the wickedness of the business ?"

"I think they have perverted judgment and wronged the fatherless, and robbed the poor, and oppressed the stranger;" replied Richard, making a strong effort to restrain his feelings.

such places if you think a bad person has not more partizans here than a good one. If the worst they ever said of Helen had been true, she would have suffered no illwill, much less persecution for it: but because her whole conduct gives the lie to

"She is not," said Richard, sternly. "Well, I know that; and so do they." Here there was a pause. South presently resumed.

her slanderers, and moreover sets them | what it is to come out in the state I have an example just the contrary to what they described, and moreover melted with heat, like to follow, she is hunted down for a as you will see they are if you look into hypocrite and false pretender." one of the mills, into the chilling frost of a winter evening, without a rag of additional clothing, and probably knowing there is but a small share of a very poor fire, if any, for them at home; and little enough of bedding to cover their shivering limbs. Don't you see, the gin-shop is a temptation hardly to be resisted even by the careful father of a family, much less by the poor silly child that never troubles its head for a moment about consequences ?"

"It is an ungracious part to act; but you see I have taken an interest in your family ever since they came here; and as you may do something towards mending the condition of one, at least, I can't help telling you things unpleasant to hear. That little one-Willy-is in bad hands, for all what Mrs. Green thinks, and I wish you'd see to him." He then proceeded to tell him that Parkins, to whose care the boy was confided, took no concern in him; and that he feared he was not doing well. Richard frankly told him he had reason to fear so too; and mentioned the discovery that he had made, adding, "only that I can't persuade myself it is possible." "It is not only too possible, but a common thing among the poor children. Consider what a faint, exhausted state they must be in when coming out of those hot crowded rooms, where they have been confined so many hours, working away at the most fatiguing labour, that strains every muscle of the body without giving wholesome exercise to any: their stomachs qualmish with hunger, or with unwholesome food, made so by the filthy dust and woolly particles, that they cannot help sucking down with every breath: their minds made sickly by conversation as dirty as the place they inhabit; longing for refreshment, but too tired and lazy to seek it in the play natural to their years. I say, Green, consider all this, and then fancy the effect of a dram, warming, and righting, as it were, their uncomfortable stomachs, putting new life, not a real life, I grant you, into their whole bodies, and raising up their spirits into a frolicksome mood that they love to feel them in. Can you wonder that the halfpenny is hoarded, begged, ay, stolen, to get the smallest sup of such a luxury ?"

Richard's blood mounted at the word "stolen," but he said nothing, and South proceeded.

"I am speaking of the present time, while 'tis yet summer; but now suppose

"Nothing but the grace of God can restrain a body in such a case," observed Richard; "and that grace is as free to my poor little Willy as to the wisest of men, if he would but seek it."

This remark was out of South's line. He cut a piece of cheese, and then resumed, "Your speaking reminds me of what I was first saying. The person your grandmother trusts Willy to is a man reckoned very religious; so she thinks all must needs be right. I don't understand exactly what his notions are, but he seems to say that if a man is not kept from doing wrong by a miracle, nothing else will keep him from it. However, I advise you to see Parkins, and find what sort of a lookout he keeps over your little brother."

Richard willingly promised to do this; and South volunteered some farther information.

"I must say the conduct of your aunt Wright's family has been very unnatural; but how can you expect pcople to feel for their more distant relations who care nothing for their very nearest flesh and blood? I dare say you heard of Sarah?"

"Yes; they wrote me that she was much afflicted, and that God seemed to be opening her heart to receive the gospel; but lately they have not mentioned her."

"No; 'tis a wonder she still lives if such a state can be called living. Poor thing! her only comfort was in hearing about religion from Helen and the rest; but you may be sure such things could not be pleasant in a place where Miss Phœbe ruled, so they made the very falsehoods they themselves invented of your girls an excuse for not keeping up the ac

quaintance; and to gratify a wicked envi- | wouldn't wish me to think my fellowous spite, they deprived the poor dying creatures devils?" creature of the only thing that could lighten her sufferings. I am not a religious man myself, but I can respect it in others; and I should be sorry not to look forward to the consolations of religion on my deathoed. In these places the poor live like beasts of burden, and so they must be content to die."

Richard was inclined to ask him what death-bed consolations a man could expect from religion who took no thought about it during his years of life; but South gave him no time to speak. He entered upon the character of Charles Wright, describing him as the most culpable of all, because he had it in his power fully to contradict the gross untruths of his sister, and to check others younger than himself; "but here," he continued, "is the great evil: they grow up in the mills from childhood to manhood—that is, the very few among them who live to be men and women—and all the change of character they undergo is from bad to worse; from being learners of wickedness to being teachers of it. In other situations you may say of a foolish child, "He will know better when he's older," for children, as they grow up, look about them and see that good conduct brings credit and profit, while the contrary leads to disgrace and ruin; whereas, in these mills, the child sees nothing of the sort; those about him are all of one class, and they may lie, they may steal, they may drink, they may make themselves no better than the beasts of the earth, so long as they work out their hours of labour, keeping time with the machinery, and don't openly wrong their employer. Indeed, where there is so much wickedness its more for their comfort to be like the rest: any one trying to withstand bad example, and to set a good one, like yon poor girl Helen, must expect that if she don't choose to blacken her mind they'll blacken her name. Such a rookery of crows can't bear a white dove among them."

"But surely, Mr. South," said Richard, who began to feel irritated, "surely there must be some people, out of the thousands you are talking about, not deserving the horrid character you give them. You

"Not I; its only the mill-people I speak of; and if you think me uncharitable, just ask yourself what you would most likely now be if you had been taken out of your bed every day at early morn, and shut up in a close, hot, dirty, unwholesome building, where you'd never have heard a syllable of good advice, but cursing and swearing, and filthy talk from morning to night: then to go home, so tired you had no thought for any thing but to get to sleep as fast as could be, and up again for the same purpose. This to go on from Monday morning to Saturday night, and Sunday the only play-day you had-the only day when you might, by taking a stroll, satisfy yourself that the world is not made entirely of brick and stone-the only-”

"Oh, say no more!" exclaimed Richard, burying his face in his hands. This appeal had reached his heart, and too well convinced him of what he dreaded to believe. The conviction flashed upon him of how much the scenes in which he had lived and acted had contributed to form his character. Take away the sunny landscape, the broad fields, carpeted with smiling flowers, the shady banks, the towering trees, the high open canopy of heaven, and the sea-the glorious sea, which with thundering lullaby had hushed him to rest, and whose majestic roar had blended with the skylark's morning salutation-take these away, and Richard could only regard the world as a dreary, joyless spot, compared with what he had found it. He also felt how infinitely more efficacious to his soul had been the pious precepts carefully instilled, because of their practical exemplification in the daily walk of his teachers; and with anguish unspeakable his thoughts reverted to Willy and Mary, as being actually, perhaps irrecoverably entangled in the snare so vividly depicted. South observed the conflict that flushed the youth's forehead, and oppressed his breathing; and sought a little to qualify what he had said.

"Mind, I don't deny that a well-instructed, virtuous child may even stand against all this, with the help of such a watchful friend at home as your young ones have;

Green," he added with a vehemence that surprised his hearer, "there are those among us that went such lengths as we ought not, to frighten the government into giving us a Reform Bill, because those that were to get into Parliament by it promised the redress of our heavy grievances; and we got it; and these men took took their places in the House accordingly: but now, mind me, young one, while I say-ay, and I'll swear it on all the books that ever were printed-there never was a body of men brought together that thought so little of their pledges, or cared so little for the poor, or trifled so with the liberties that they had always in their mouths, as this reformed House of Com

but I wanted to prove to you that the wickedness of the factories is not to be charged on the poor labourers, so much as on the vile system that makes slaves, not servants, of them. Certainly things have been worse; but with every improvement they are still what I represent, as the scene I saw this morning may prove to you. There the inspector did all that the law allows; he searched out for cases of injustice, brought them to as fair a trial as he could obtain, and as it was impossible he should stop to superintend it, he placed the matter in most respectable, honourable hands, and gave every help in his power; yet you see the result; and I need not remind you how they baffled him, by intimidating one set of witnesses, brow-mons A boroughmongering Parliament beating another, influencing a third, slandering a fourth, perplexing the silly children, quibbling about words, shifting the responsibility from party to party, as in the case of the surgeons' and magistrates' certificates, and finally making sure of a partial decision by putting a near relation on the bench. Self-interest, Green, is a strong feeling in man; and the laws are to be blamed that leave the mill-owners at liberty to go such lengths where it leads them. Many an honourable, kind-hearted man is drawn away insensibly to do, for his own interest, what he would never think of doing if the fact of its being allowed by the laws, and being done by his neighbours, did not make him look on it as a sort of thing of course-a necessary evil-an act of injustice done by so many that his refraining from it would only ruin himself, without taking any thing worth mentioning from the amount of public harm."

passed old Sir Robert Peel's bill, which is
the only real boon ever bestowed on the
poor factory labourers; and a reformed
Parliament, a reforming government, un-
did all the best clauses in that bill."
"I know no more of politics than the
babe unborn," said Richard.

"Very likely; but the time is coming, when every man, woman, and child must know something of politics. They have given us cheap knowledge, because it is as cheap to them as to us; and because they thought if we saw a little farther we should be more willing to put our shoulder to their wheel, and help them forward; but we are looking beyond the point they marked out, and may show them yet that we are not to be bamboozled with fine names, when we want the things themselves that those names signify."

Richard was perplexed. A degree of excitement had taken place of South's quiet "Now that's the way I like to put it, manner, generally dull and heavy, but alMr. South," said Richard. "I can't bear ways dissatisfied. He seemed to have to throw the blame so heavily on my fel-thrown aside his reserve, and exhibited the low-creatures; and I would rather it rested on the laws that are so bad."

"Yes, but the laws don't make themselves, you know; and we send up members to Parliament on purpose to make good laws for us, or to alter what are bad. This carries the blame beyond the millowners. They have, altogether, submitted very well to some alterations that bore hard upon them; and we can't expect them to throw away what they have always been in the habit of getting, unless obliged by law to do so. I'll tell you what, VOL. II. 18

restless impatience of a man who has something to divulge that he is not quite sure he may speak. He looked earnestly at the youth, and asked, "How long do you stay here?"

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all owing to the way and the place you | misty, miserable street, in quest of those were brought up in.” whom he had just been looking on through the medium of an exciting dream.

"I am not good, Mr. South. God knows how evil and rebellious a creature I am; and if I have been kept from some of the open sins that others run into, it is owing to his blessing on the good teaching I have had. Do you suppose there is no wickedness in the country, or that some who are carefully reared don't turn out badly at last? We must give the glory to God, and not to man."

66 Well, I don't doubt your being right," said South, who had resumed his cautious manner, "but on your own principle you are bound to look after that little brother of yours, who is likely to lose what he has got."

Richard assured him that such was his intention; and resolving to investigate the matter on the following day, he went to his bed, weary and dejected, to ponder over the occurrences of the day. The sounds that reached him were far, oh! how far, unlike those to which his ear was accustomed; carriages rattling over the stones, the song of the drunkard as he reeled along, and the shout of the brawler as he provoked a fray, church bells chiming the hour, and drowsy watchmen proclaiming it, these and other unwonted notes kept him starting from the dreamy mood that after a while stole over his senses, until they too seemed to be lost in the confused murmur of distant billows; and gradually the scenes of his childhood reappeared in visionary beauty, with the forms he so fondly loved engaged in their accustomed rural occupations. Helen and Mary carried their milk-pail along the cliffs; but the sky darkened, the sea rolled in liquid mountains, and threatened to swallow up the coast. Richard must fly to snatch them from danger; and, then followed all the wildly confused imagery of a feverish dream, from which he was awakened by the ringing of a bell, and jumped up to see the rain running down the panes of his window. A great stir was audible, and Richard concluded the factory labourers were summoned by that bell. He was dressed in a moment, and all his accustomed morning devotions being condensed as it were, in one passionate ejaculation for mercy and help, he rushed into the wet

CHAPTER XVII.

MORE MISERIES.

RICHARD happened to take the right path, and in turning the corner of a street he suddenly met Helen with Mary hastening on. The contrast between those dark, miry, smoky, and now doubly comfortless thoroughfares and the bright cliffs of L--did not to his mind appear so striking or so sad as that between the figures before him and the images so long enshrined in his heart. They were scantily clad, and though the air of neatness that had ever distinguished them was still discernible, particularly in Helen, poverty had set a mark on them that could not be mistaken. The paleness of their cheeks and general emaciation were more visible than on the preceding day; perhaps still farther aggravated by the visions that had haunted Richard's pillow, where they came in the full freshness of their most prosperous days. He had time to observe their wan, dejected looks before the discovery of his approach brightened them into animation: and with a heart too full to speak, he drew a hand of each through his arm, and turned back with them. Looking down he was compelled to see how badly their feet were defended from the liquid mire of those filthy streets; and he felt as if the respectability of his own substantial clothing was a reproach to them.

"Well, Richard," said Mary, "this is not quite so pleasant as the road to old Buckle's cow-house."

"The weather would make any walk rather unpleasant just now," remarked Helen; "but the path of duty has a sunshine of its own that the clouds cannot darken."

"So you say; you always try to make out that black is white, and will think it a great virtue to cheat Richard into the notion that we are living in great plenty and

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